quote:

Originally posted by Nard Kordell:
...Jesus finally was able to tell the devil to leave.

So Yeshua told him where to go?

quote:

Originally posted by Nard Kordell:
So what do we have here? Is Christ just nutty? Or the writers of this Bible book you'd call an ancient Fantasy? Or a little of both?

Neither. What we have here (is failure to communicate, as the great Strother Martin said) is two things: the lack of understanding of midrash, and the handicap of trying to read these words in English.

You'd have to basically reject scripture in order to say there is no devil. Christ had too many encounters. In fact he said he came to Earth to defeat the works of Satan.

So His whole life is about defeating Satan. That, in turns, really means by these liberal guys on the board here that Christ is indeed nuts or a fabrication of a bunch of pre-science fiction writers.

Being Scandihoovian, I'm quite familiar with the smorgasbord.
Doug is just doing what people have done for centuries, i.e. pick and choose. It's so easy! Have a philosophy (or theosophy) that makes you comfortable (even an ill-defined one), and simply accept the scriptures that support it and reject those which do not. Losts of support out there for the latter.

The closest to Heaven that I ever got was when I took a lovely young lady on a trip up Angel's Flight in downtown Los Angeles. It was exactly one block long, a finicular railroad, built on a 45 degree slant to get one up Bunker Hill without the drudgery of having to walk. And the view of the Cuidad de Los Angeles was worth the wait to get on the car for the trip up the hill. While waiting there was the young lady's company, ah, that was truly Heavenly.

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:
Q: How do you answer questions about Jesus Christ returning to earth in a second coming?


A: I don't!

One who would ask the question this way has already revealed the fact that he or she is locked into a 1st century dualistic literalism. The gospels portray Jesus as referring to his second coming, which would occur, those texts say, before that generation had passed away. Obviously that did not happen. Remember the gospels are written 40-70 years after the death of Jesus and may reflect the early church more than Jesus himself.

The second coming is the flip side of the story of the Ascension. Both concepts assume a three-tiered universe and God living above the sky. Those concepts died with Copernicus in the 16th century.

I am simply not concerned with things about which I can know nothing. Predicting the end of the world and awaiting the second coming are the parlor games of literalistic minds.

I think that what the resurrection of Jesus means is that the human entered into God. I think that what the Pentecost story means is that God entered the human. That is the only second coming I care about.


- John Shelby Spong

Doug Spaulding~

Bishop Spong is not an astute student of the Bible. For instance, Jesus Christ 'predicted' the fall of Jerusalem (which occured in 70AD)...and said that the Jewish people would be scattered. It is further noted that when the Jewish people return as a peoples (gathered together)...it would be within that generation that Christ would return. Now Israel (the Jewish peoples gathered together) was birthed in 1948. Of course, ultra-Orthodox Jews do not believe this is the gathering spoken about in scripture. They believe that God has to do such an act, without human intervention of any sort. That leaves out the President of the U.S. for instance. However, let's say that modern Israel IS the gathering spoken of in scripture. And it is within THAT generation (from 1948) that will experience the return of Christ. But ask a Jew how long a generation is, and you get a bunch of different answers, but it appears never to be longer than about 100 years. So, that would be putting it no longer than 2048.

But as Christ said, the Son does not know the exact date of his own return ..but only His Father. But scripture does write that one can get a sense of it by knowing the signs and the times.

Now it more than seems Spong has missed all this!

quote:

Originally posted by Braling II:
Being Scandihoovian, I'm quite familiar with the smorgasbord.
Doug is just doing what people have done for centuries, i.e. pick and choose.

I recently ate at a smorgasboard. In Solvang, California.

You're right, of course - intelligent people have done this for centuries. They pick the truth and choose to leave the false! You cannot, after all, take everything from the buffet.

quote:

Originally posted by Nard Kordell:
Now it more than seems Spong has missed all this!

I could email him and ask his opinion on your opinion.

Peoples is a good word.

quote:

Originally posted by Nard Kordell:

[1]Christ said he went to the mountains for over a month where he prayed and fasted and the devil came and visited his three times. Having to resist the temptations that Adam and Eve went thru with possibly with the same devil, Jesus finally was able to tell the devil to leave.

[2]Then there was the time that Christ had to force the devil to leave a man who lived in a cave and cut himself with stones. And when the devil left, in fact many devils, they went out and took over a bunch of animals and drove the animals off a cliff to their death, if I recall.

1. "Then saith Jesus to him, 'Go -- Adversary, for it hath been written, The Lord thy God thou shalt bow to, and Him only thou shalt serve."

Satan(s) was(were) under God's sovereignty.

2. "(for he [Jesus] said to him, 'Come forth, spirit unclean, out of the man,') and he was questioning him, 'What is thy name?' and he answered, saying, 'Legion is my name, because we are many;"

Legion wasn't the Devil, it was a group of evil spirits or "demons".

So instead of saying "Satan is an invention of the church in the dark ages" it would be more accurate to say "the common depiction of Satan is an invention of the church in the dark ages".

The only scripture that links Satan/accuser with Lucifer and the serpent in the garden of Eden is a single apocryphal text that isn't canon in the Catholic or most if not all Protestant bibles, if I'm not mistaken.

quote:

Originally posted by Nico:
So instead of saying "Satan is an invention of the church in the dark ages" it would be more accurate to say "the common depiction of Satan is an invention of the church in the dark ages".

Yeah - that's what I was implying. The term "satan" was a biblical term which translates as "adversary", meaning one who is put in a situation to test a person's faith, sort of like the modern "devil's advocate" of the legal system. This person was human.

Angels, likewise were humans, and literally translates as "messenger", and simply meant that they were bringing a message to that person from God.

Organized religion added all the supernatural parts much later.

That angels bit is a stretch.

My question is this: if angels are human, then what about cherubim? and why the phrase "of men or messengers"?

On another note, is the "angel of death" ever equated with Satans?

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:

quote:

Originally posted by Nard Kordell:
Now it more than seems Spong has missed all this!

I could email him and ask his opinion on your opinion.

Peoples is a good word.

Not my opinion! That's the general thinking in the Roman Catholic Church, Greek Orthodox, many Protestant churches, Evangelical, Baptist, etc. on the state of Israel in modern times against scripture.

Email Spong. See what he says. I am sure it will be opposite of all that is said for him to retain his self styled demeanor and persona.

Doug Spaulding~
Also note, per all the previous postings, that the early church fathers had the Nicene Creed written around the year 325AD or thereabouts, to dispel any notion of a created Jesus, or the unimportance of the Holy Spirit in terms of a triune God. Talk was going around that Jesus the Christ was not 100% human and 100% God. And the early church fathers had to set it in a statement (Nicene Creed) to make sure there was no question about where the church stood on these matters. (Also note: the word "begotten" in The Nicene Creed is often used by Jehovah Witnesses to mean something on the order of created. They believe in a created Jesus. Whereas the word begotten means, literally, "only one of its kind"

click for Nicene Creed:
http://www.creeds.net/ancient/nicene.htm

quote:

Originally posted by Nico:
My question is this: if angels are human, then what about cherubim? and why the phrase "of men or messengers"?

Midrash, friend Nico. Your questions are all answered by midrash. Learn it. Live it. Love it.

Midrash is a good word.

quote:

Originally posted by Nard Kordell:
Also note, per all the previous postings, that the early church fathers had the Nicene Creed written around the year 325AD or thereabouts, to dispel any notion of a created Jesus, or the unimportance of the Holy Spirit in terms of a triune God. Talk was going around that Jesus the Christ was not 100% human and 100% God. And the early church fathers had to set it in a statement (Nicene Creed) to make sure there was no question about where the church stood on these matters.

I know. I know all about the history of the creed and the council and etcetera. I think perhaps I mentioned before that I recently earned a bachelor's degree in theology (summa cum laude, thanks).

But don't get me started on the council and creeds, or I shall be typing entirely too long.

Oh Lord. (*sigh*)

Thanks to Joe Moe for this one.