Seriously, McKain? You can pretend to treat that as a plausible question, but (as I said earlier about questioning whether the sun will rise tomorrow) you are truly incapable of doing more than to pretend. I’m no more interested in playing games of play-pretend than I am in winning arguments.
You’re quoting me there. And as I said earlier, Buddhists and Hindus et al nevertheless cannot avoid believing things about history, such as being confronted with the reasons for history turning at 0 CE. For example, it’s very popular for both Hindus and Buddhists to say that Jesus likely traveled to India between the ages of 12 and 30. Now that might sound like a very cool story, yet I still say, “I don’t care how theologically cool or intriguing that might sound; beliefs about history should be based on some sort of evidence.”
Beliefs about history can either be based on arbitrary opinions about what sounds good, or they can be based upon evidence. I can’t imagine why you think that an absurd thing to point out.
LOTS of Jews were totally and completely mistaken in their concepts of what a Messiah/Redeemer should be. Even John the Baptist, after saying as loudly and theologically clearly as he possibly could that Jesus was the Messiah, was later so confused that he sent his friends to ask Jesus if they should be looking for someone else instead. How did Jesus respond? “Go and educate John about the proper way to theologically interpret the Scriptures”? No! He said, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard.”
My point is so simple, but in my attempt to appeal to the Christmas season (the birth of Jesus being 0 CE) I managed to drown it somehow. When it comes to believing things about human history, we can either:
arbitrarily choose from hundreds of testimonies about mystical revelations from angels–including the ones Muhammad and Joseph Smith testified to. Again, I don’t need to question whether they saw angels. I believe they did. That doesn’t mean I believe what the angel(s) told them (especially when it contradicts thousands of years of eyewitness history!).
examine the testimonies of eyewitnesses–eyewitnesses who regularly made BIG mistakes in their interpretations of events both as the events were happening (such as in John the Baptist’s case) and also long after they happened (such as the disciples not realizing for about 6 years that the gospel was not just for the Jews but also for the whole world–as we talked about earlier).
presuppose that religious faith must be completely blind and so, therefore, reject any and all claims of divine revelation.
I think the 2nd option is the most objective. That’s all I’m saying. (And I kind of thought I’d be preaching to the choir.) It’s one of my favorite apologetics when questions about other religions come up.
irrelevant. The fact is there are plenty that do not believe any such things demonstrating that no historical beliefs are required for their religion – UNLIKE Christianity!
Well I think that it’s no coincidence that the turning point in world history just happens to be based on the worldview that says an intensely studied and idealistically objective (to the best of our abilities) view of history is foundational and fundamental to…everything else.
Hey, Merry Christmas, McKain. I thank God for you, brother. Keep fighting the good fight!
The gospels are subjective claims about the mystical revelations of Jesus. The Old Testament is filled with mystical revelations given to prophets. The Apostle Paul had a mystical revelation while on the road to Damascus.
Yes, the Bible has many mystical revelations via angels and visions. But they are always, only about the future, not the past. (Or if they address the past, it is only about how to interpret past eyewitness accounts—such as in Ezekiel 23, or as when in Acts 10 God gave Peter a vision to understand that the gospel was also for the gentiles.) When it came to the past , it was based on what people claimed to see and hear happen.
I don’t see what this has to do with anything. They are still mystical revelations, and Christianity asks that people believe through faith that they came from God.
As to 0 CE, you seem to have a very myopic view of history that is heavily biased towards western culture. There were many cultures with many calendars that didn’t change because of the events described in the gospels, nor were they really aware of them. The Chinese didn’t see any reason to adjust their calendars, and the Mayans seemed unaware. Why not start our calendars with Columbus landing in the West Indies? That was an objective event, and changed history.
No, that doesn’t affect the argument at all. That just means we were off a bit in calculating Jesus’ birth. But we were still making that the turning point in history.
Well when it comes to what happened and what God has done, Christianity—unlike many other religions—doesn’t lay claim to mystical revelations but but to eyewitness accounts. Furthermore, it specifically rebukes believing mystical revelations about what happened in the past. It says that God acts and speaks directly. He is God with us.
As to why this is the year 2019, why are you blaming me for it being the global standard? When I say it is not a coincidence, I’m just pointing out that the Judeo-Christian faith places a much higher view on studying eyewitness accounts of history than most if not all of the other major world views.
The gospels are full of mystical revelations given by Jesus. There is even a chapter in the New Testament called Revelations.
That’s called revelation.
I’m not. All I am saying is that it is arbitrary and a fluke of history. If the Arab world had gotten ahead of Europe at specific time points then we might be using their calendar, as one example. The month of July is named after Julius Caesar, as another example. We still have Thor’s Day and Woden’s day, as two more examples.
Revelations is about the future and revealed nothing new about the past. Nor did Jesus’ mystical revelation to Paul, nor the mystical vision given to Peter.
So if the Arabs set the calendar then it may we’ll have been the Islamic calendar. (I gave the year for that at the very beginning.) The mystical revelations given to Muhammad dramatically edited the eyewitness accounts of history going back 2000 years. Believing them is a textbook example of blind faith: Muslims say they are true because Muhammad said the angel said so. I’m just pointing out the difference: the Bible explicitly says to reject mystical revelations about history. I’m not passing any judgments—just pointing out that Christianity, unlike any other, places a high view on recording (including genealogies) and studying eyewitness accounts of history.
It seems here that you may be referring to the book of Revelation, and if so, I believe you mistake @T_aquaticus’s meaning. There is/are revelations to be found more generally in scripture than only in the book so explicitly titled. And even so, as apocalyptic literature, Revelation is not exclusively about future things. While I don’t have enough specialized knowledge in it to confidently give specific examples, I have heard those more knowledgeable than I refer to some events in that book as being about the Roman empire, and so quite definitely in the past. Modern and Christian scholarship is fairly conclusive on some of this if I’m not mistaken. Prophecy is not always exclusively about future events. Often it is a pointed interpretation of a very well-known past.
The book of Revelation is a book that tries to make sense of the no-show of the late return/Parousia delay of Jesus Christ (mainly what happened around 70 AD which many would have though Jesus would return when the 2nd temple was being destroyed). It tells faithful Christians to be loyal to Jesus Christ alone and not submit to the Emperor who stands in enmity with Jesus as both individuals declarer themselves Lord and Savior. John the Seer is given several vision from the Christ and it goes into how despite all the evil in the world God will have the final victory.
Revelation isn’t a future time table as many have made it to be but its a book that shows a spiritual drama about good vs evil and how good will always win no matter how strong evil seems to be. It would make no sense for God to give 1st century Christians visions of events bound 2000 years or more into the future that don’t effect to receiving audience. That is unless the original audience believed that the events of Revelation was meant to happen in their life time.
There are also dual fulfillments to some prophesies. For instance, there are multiple references to “the day of the Lord” in the Old Testament prophetic books, and a particular one (some kind of obviously, I think) could be referring to more than one day. I also think there is a distinct possibility that Daniel 2:43 refers to the disunited U.S.A. as well as the traditionally understood Rome.
I find it hard to belive that Daniel 2:43 would make a radicle jump from Rome to the USA, which may I mind you wouldn’t concern the original audience at all (though I’m sure Rome was a far off issue that Daniel wondered why he was given such a detailed vision, that if is Daniel knew what any of the powers he saw were those nations) I understand that all prophecy that was given was set to its local cultural-historical context in the way that the people would have understood it. While the prophecy would have been esoteric and mystical; I don’t think it would need mental gymnastics to solve the issue as many modern dispensationalist/futurist and historicist seem to treat it as.
I share in your skepticism, Quinn, of the enthusiasms that are finding modern day political entities (whether soviet union, or U.S., or modern Israel, etc.) and reading those back into books like Daniel or Revelation.
On the other hand, not to give a defense of the above practice, but to acknowledge perhaps a seeming similarity: isn’t it fair game - even encouraged, to seek to apply prophetic messages to ourselves and our present situations? I still make a clear distinction, though. It is one thing to listen to Amos or Hosea pound the Israelites for their greed and injustice - and rightly apply that message to ourselves as well, and quite another to become obsessed with things like Daniel’s mysterious references to nations and days, and spend our energies (like Isaac Newton) trying to “decode” such things. To my mind, the former is a legitimate contemporary application of ancient prophecy, and the latter not so much.
While there can be a spiritual application to things in the Bible, I agree with you on that. While I’m okay with spiritually applying certain passages to our time in a comparable sense, what I detest is the whole idea that certain Bible prophecies from thousands of years ago some how apply to modern 21st century nations and people (i.e. Israel, Russia, USA, etc…)
Actually partial-preterist. A large majority of Bible prophecy has been fulfilled between 30-70 AD. The only thing to wait for is the Parousia Return of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the dead and the final judgement. Though a lot of the NT writers assumed that Christ would return within their life time, showing that even they were not without a bit of human error when it comes to the Parousia Return of Jesus Christ which would have been on high since many saw the fall of Jerusalem and the desolation of the 2nd temple and knew this was connected to what Jesus spoke of in prophecy. On the prophecies of Jesus told in the Gospels I understand them as related to events between 30-70 AD. Though some the apocalyptical imagery can be understood to relate with Christian persecutions to the present day, its original context was the events pertaining to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the 2nd temple in 70 AD. While I do belive that Jesus did speak of His Parousia Return in several passages in the Gospels, He mainly spoke of the fall of Jerusalem which would have been a type of judgement but not the Parousia judgement.
