I thank you for giving me a chance to quote the post below. I do really respect you or anyone who is able to finish reading all the books, page by page, word by word, in the NT, including Revelation. Here is a book I am currently scanning/reading. " The Moral Ecology of Markets Assessing Claims about Markets and Justice Daniel Finn Saint John's University, Minnesota " http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521677998
1. you are preaching Jesus seminar nonsense here the jesus seminar was a relatively small bunch of theologians pretending to apply the evidence code to the bible as if they were lawyers. And they did a bad job of it. There is absolutely no objective way to conclude jesus only said one-fifth of things recounted in the bible. its psudeo intellectual bunk mainly promoted from an attention seeking former priest. 2. you should have read the link a poster presented to you before you made this quote. if Narcissism is actually a person who acts superior to prevent being vulnerable... it makes zero sense for a person who willing died on a cross for all of us to be labeled a narcissist. Jesus was the ultimate in vulnerable. he knew judas was selling him out. he went to the Garden he stopped his men from fighting he put an ear back on the roman he took a vicious beating he did not defend himself at trial or lie only saying "I am". he died on a cross and forgave those who did it to him. 3. What challenge did you present to me? I will address it.
A very well written book, with concise contents/examples and tables/figures, should be placed on many world leaders' desk for daily reference! Just found below:
A conspiracy theory here. The book of Revelation was not meant to study it literally. It was strategically placed at the end of the Bible to remind people of an implicit purpose below: LOL
This is something Oddtrader brought to the discussion. I am myself skeptical of this claim, as I must be, since I regard the existence of the Jesus Christ described in the New Testament as highly skeptical in the first place. I don't know how I can say this any more clearly than I have already. In this thread, I am not making a judgement as to the authenticity, veracity, and accuracy of the Christian Bible's New Testament. -- I don't need to. You already know my views on that subject. In this thread, I am merely pointing out some possibilities, and bringing to your attention that the description of Christ in the New Testament is that of a horrible narcissist. And that this, by comparison with another horrible narcissist, who incidentally is our U.S. President, could go a long way toward explaining the New Testament and the many supernatural events therein described, if it were true that the narcissistic Christ of the Bible was a genuine historic figure. Agreed. Consequently, Either the Biblical description of Christ as a horrible narcissist or the claim that he willingly died on the cross is wrong. What quote? It is not a challenge. I simply stated that I am waiting for someone, you'll do nicely, to offer a rational argument why the description of Christ in the Bible is not that of a person afflicted with extreme Narcissism. You already mentioned that Christ could not be a narcissist and willingly die to cleanse others of their sins (all in the Biblical sense of course). And I agreed. But this is no argument against Christ's extreme narcissism on prominent display nearly everywhere else in the New Testament. You've merely pointed out an obvious inconsistency, one that makes us question the accuracy of the Bible. And it is only one inconsistency against the very many consistent and obvious examples of Christ's narcissism. Either nearly all of the New Testament is wrong, or Christ suddenly stopped behaving like an asshole, or the account of Christ's willing sacrifice is wrong. Take your pick.
afaik, Jesus Seminar are for liberal Christians. I think they must be good in Ancient Greeks, that can be subject to different interpretations according to contemporary contexts of Jesus' era VS translating contents into today's equivalent situations/contexts. It's hard to say which is right or wrong - Fundamental/Conservative or Liberal/Progressive interpretations. Very much depending on merely personal preference. Perhaps. Someone just likes logic and rationality. Another much prefers conventions/traditions (such as the whole world was created in 6 days) and easy-to-follow rules/words. Freewill! LOL https://elitetrader.com/et/threads/...say-abolish-it-all.296634/page-5#post-4223519 https://elitetrader.com/et/threads/...st-lived-and-died.308633/page-16#post-4486255
1. I think the survey last time by Jesus Seminar should have been outdated because the 5 Gospels while including the Thomas one however did not include the Mary one. That means the % result would be even far less than 18%, if the contents in the Mary one is reliable. 2. For the John Trapp's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments, 1647: "This is to be taken with a grain of salt.", we might should apply this same principle to other Gospels in the Bible. As if the book of Revelation was strategically placed at the end of the Bible to remind people of an implicit purpose above, by the scholars and theologians who were surely part of the highly intelligent elites in the society of their era, they as well allow something like "drinking poison would/will not die for believers" at the end of a Gospel, again to remind readers the same implicit alert - a grain of salt. 3. The biblical Jesus therefore represented only a very small % of the real historical Jesus. imo Most contents of the biblical Jesus would be likely designed/written for the canonised Jesus when/after Paul's letters are taken into consideration. How can/could Paul write so much stuff/theory about the real historical Jesus if he never hear or learn anything directly from Jesus? The mood, tone, spirit, reason, logic, logos, face expression, body language, etc. by Jesus should be true representation. Paul could only guess by imagination! Paul's brain should have been filled by his old school theology, that might be why he wanted only a person without sin (my paraphrase) before participating Holy Communion. That is very unreasonable and illogical, imo. We can only guess what was his hidden agenda and why! It appears both the Thomas and Mary Gospels have had nearly apparent miracles/ superstitions. http://gnosis.org/library/marygosp.htm http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html lol
I agree that Bible Christ is certainly an outright narcissist but don't see how you can say that could go a long way toward explaining the New Testament if narcissistic Christ were a genuine historic figure. Had Bible Christ existed in real life and was a self-absorbed narcissistic asshole like the current president is, surely that would have been far more likely to have caused many contemporary scribes to have recorded the fact. The situation is indeed quite the opposite. There are no records at all of the Christ character existing historically , charismatic and psychosis ridden or not, save for a couple of items which do little but attract the status of forgery. I suggest it far more likely that the author Paul would have been the narcissist along with numerous other acolytes before and after who sharing various and similar disorders, openly display and extend their religious fantasies and primal emotions as the consequence of being irresistibly attracted to any promise of attention that writing stories might bring. So as a novelist who, symptomatic of his elevated level of self importance, Paul would naturally write the Christ character in the first and third person having an excessive need for love and attention, a grandiose sense of self-importance to Make the World Great Again, while at the same time maintaining the role of a lying psychotic malignant narcissist nurturing his own paranoiac persecution complex. The New Testament written much like Trump could have done had he been around at that time. Pity he wasn't. Sure there would still be the New Testament, possibly called the Trumpament, but he would now at least be in a good way like Paul. Not president.
So much has been updated on the web page below for St Pail since last time I visited. Here are some I can pick up from this so much long (so many many times longer) and so much detail version. That's great! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_the_Apostle#cite_note-180