Evidence for God from Science

Iggy wrote:but i'd say it went like this...

Yes, and some people believe they have been abducted by aliens.

Is there any scholarly basis for what you have written or is it all just wild opinion?

Blacknad.

wild opinion.

bluesman wrote:This all goes in hand with "Davinci Code" and host of other books.

First they try and say Jesus never existed, and since that doesn't work they
try to change the truth.

Now there is a movie coming and it will be hard to ignore.

As far as this Gospel goes .. ... Matthew was written at least before 70 AD and Mark maybe before Matthew. Not to mention that Matthew was written by either Matthew himself or from his notes.

I hope the leaders in the church will speak out loud against this trash, instead of ignoring it, in hopes it will go away.

Mike
Bluesman

It is the double standards of all this that really gets to me. When this gospel appeared the media were all over it with Headlines stating "The end of Christianity as we know it" yet we have four gospel which have been proven reliable and they just competely ignore that. Seems like anything against Christianity is good news these days - regardless of the reliability and evidence.

Hopefully this movie will prompt more discussion from people that in the past would not have been open to discussing it, and in the process will actually come to know the true Gospel.

Rom 8:28
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

God will use the evil of the world to bring about good.

Iggy wrote:wild opinion.

Hats off to ya Iggy

Regards,

Blacknad.

i think the "Gospel" of Judas is a total 100% rubbish...
reasons why i say tat...
1) this so-called Gospel is written in the 2nd Century (est AD 180)...
2) so it couldnt be written by Judas himself cos he died during Christ time (est AD 33)..
3) there is ONLY ONE manuscript...as compare to the other 4 gospels have thousands of similar manuscripts..
4) NO eyewitness to confirm whether the event actually happens unlike the othe 4 gospels where they have eyewitness

what about the fact that it does have some of the same verses as the othe gospels... all said to have been written years after jesus died and resurrected. theres' only a few verses that dont match up with the others. and there's also the fact that judas killed himself before jesus died, yet his "gospel" doesnt mention the crusifixion, it just stops... im not just gunna disreguard this because it's new and kinda goes against what ive been taught for 23 yrs, then again, im not accepting it either just yet.

it's called the Gospel ACCORDING to judas. SAY judas was as bad a guy as he's thought to be. say he did betray jesus like we currently know he did. say YOU were him. how would you clear your name through out history. he knew jesus was the real deal... so rather than go into history as the guy that screwed over JESUS CHRIST, (if i was him, being the guy HE was) i'd write down something, ANYTHING trying to clear my name...

OR

Say everything judas wrote down, really happened. maybe he misunderstood what jesus ment when he said "you'll be the one who betrays the man who cloths me" or whatever he says. say it was a misunderstanding... because when judas gives him the kiss, and jesus is like "u betray me with a kiss?!" judas ALL OF A SUDDEN has a reality check and freaks out.

again, this is just my idea's i have no evidence to prove what im saying. all i'm really saying is that we cant judge this without knowing the facts. is it possible that this is the true gospel or judsas? maybe. but it's also possible that it's a load of crap. i guess one day we'll find out for sure.

Iggy wrote:what about the fact that it does have some of the same verses as the othe gospels... all said to have been written years after jesus died and resurrected. theres' only a few verses that dont match up with the others. and there's also the fact that judas killed himself before jesus died, yet his "gospel" doesnt mention the crusifixion, it just stops... im not just gunna disreguard this because it's new and kinda goes against what ive been taught for 23 yrs, then again, im not accepting it either just yet.

it's called the Gospel ACCORDING to judas. SAY judas was as bad a guy as he's thought to be. say he did betray jesus like we currently know he did. say YOU were him. how would you clear your name through out history. he knew jesus was the real deal... so rather than go into history as the guy that screwed over JESUS CHRIST, (if i was him, being the guy HE was) i'd write down something, ANYTHING trying to clear my name...

OR

Say everything judas wrote down, really happened. maybe he misunderstood what jesus ment when he said "you'll be the one who betrays the man who cloths me" or whatever he says. say it was a misunderstanding... because when judas gives him the kiss, and jesus is like "u betray me with a kiss?!" judas ALL OF A SUDDEN has a reality check and freaks out.

again, this is just my idea's i have no evidence to prove what im saying. all i'm really saying is that we cant judge this without knowing the facts. is it possible that this is the true gospel or judsas? maybe. but it's also possible that it's a load of [poop]. i guess one day we'll find out for sure.

Iggy,

Have you read the Gospel of Judas?

There's far more than just a few verses that don't line up.

Read this and then let me know where you think the parallels are.

http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lost ... fJudas.pdf

I have some background in this field so I can give you some direct answers.

Bart

ok, dont know where ya got that, but this is what i am goin off of:

http://www.graveworm.com/occult/texts/judas1.html

Iggy wrote:ok, dont know where ya got that, but this is what i am goin off of:

http://www.graveworm.com/occult/texts/judas1.html

Well, if you're talking about the Gospel of Judas that has recently been in the world news, then to begin with, you are reading the wrong text.

My link is to the National Geographic site where the translated text is directly placed up.

What you are looking at is the Gospel of Thomas, which has been around since it was originally discovered at the Nag Hammadi library in the 1950's. I actually did my Senior Paper for a degree in Biblical Literature on the Gospel Of Thomas.

In the Gospel of Thomas, what you have is 114 sayings of Christ with no narrative explaining the context in which Christ said them, other than perhaps some brief dialogue or a question.

It came from a gnostic library and was found with many other documents that are very gnostic in character and origin.

There are 3 categories of sayings:

1. Those sayings that are identical to sayings of Christ that are found in the synoptic Gospels (Matt, Mark and Luke) and John.

2. Those sayings that are similar to sayings of Christ but differ in some major way from their counterparts in the Christian Bible.

3. Those sayings that are completely new and not like any we had before.

Gnostics believed in a very elaborate spiritual aeon in which there were many different spiritual entities such as angles and different gods. They believed that only that which was spiritual was good and therefore anything material was evil and eventually would be destroyed.

They believe that the way to raise through these levels was by means of "secret knowledge" or wisdom sayings that had to be understood properly and when they were they enabled the person to navigate through these levels of spirituality.

Jesus was adopted by them in their teaching primarily in the second century. Because they saw the physical body of Christ as "evil" they could not accept the resurrection. They saw the teaching of Christ as a good opportunity to incorporate it into their teachings.

So when you think about it, since they saw Jesus' body as evil, who would they see great value in for having "helped" Jesus separate from that evil element? That's right! Judas! Judas in fact became a primary character for them for this reason as well as others.

Of all the disciples, who died first? Judas.

Since he died first, which disciple would it be the easiest to put words and teaching in to his mouth to promote their own system and not have to deal with eyewitnesses who could say otherwise? Judas.

It the case of the Gospel of Thomas, the Gnostics pretty much pick and chose what they wanted like a buffet.

I can go into more detail if you like, but I hope that helps.

There is plenty of material outside of the Gospels that existed in the century following Christ's death. These are called pseudopigraphal (false writings.) They claim authorship of apostles and key players known to Christ in order to promote their claims.

They were know in early Christian times and rejected by the Christians of their day.

They are now being held up by many who have their own agendas in wanting to discredit historical Christianity.

It is nothing new.

now see, this is what makes me mad... cant trust the internet for nothin!!! they got me reading the wrong thing! oh well...

Iggy wrote:now see, this is what makes me mad... cant trust the internet for nothin!!! they got me reading the wrong thing! oh well...

hmm.. maybe u read some other Gnostics... cause there are other Gnostics gospels like gospel of thomas, mary, philip, gospel of the Egyptians, Gospel of Truth....

hmmm... if u wan, u can throw out some of yr doubts, i might be able to answer...clear yr doubts

What about the Davinci Code, The Book of Thomas, and the Book of Judas?



With all of the attacks on Christian beliefs and even the Christian foundation itself, one would have to be pretty strong not to be set back by the initial blows of the recent threats such as The Davinci Code and the Book of Judas. What about them? Are they true? Are they false? Here is a small response to the two.



The Davinci Code: I would recommend watching the special "Myth-Busters" that the Discovery Channel put out a few months back. It tears the Davinci Code apart easily step by step. It goes over each point that the Davinci Code tries to make in order to tear apart the Biblical Jesus and the Gospels. The story mentions the Book of Thomas which is a Gnostic Gospel. In the book of Thomas, there is a group of people together. Throughout the meeting of the group, there are Holy kisses exchanged with Jesus and His disciples. When Jesus gets to Mary, the text says' "And Jesus kissed her on the…….." and then the rest of the text is missing. People assume it said "on the mouth" and then the Davinci Code takes it from there. The story is simply based on an assumption that IF the Gospel of Thomas did say "the mouth" then it must have been sexual and they had a child from the union. There is no other text in the world that supports the Davinci Code theory of Mary and Jesus being married and having a child together. Furthermore, while maintaining the text of the story, it is easy to see that the kiss (wherever it would or could have been) would not appear to have been a sexual one.



There are names of groups that were spoken about in the Davinci code. A group of knights that did exist centuries after Jesus with no connection to a bloodline. They simply were guards for the then-known travelers. They would sometimes charge people to escort them to their destination



Another group was spoken of that was actually made up by three men in just a few decades ago. This too was exposed on the Discovery Channel's "Myth Busters" They actually interview and show photos of the men.



As for Davinci himself, and his paintings. He was a homosexual that loved to draw men as Androgynous. If one looks up his paintings, they will see that many of his paintings have men looking like women. In his painting of the Last Supper, the person beside Jesus (supposedly being John the disciple) is presented as really being "Mary Magdalene" in the Davinci Code. The story also points out that between Jesus and this person, there appears to be the letter "V" and behind that, the pillars of the building appear to be the letter "M" (the movie indicates this to represent Mary).



A museum director as this location points out that the person has always been recognized as being the disciple John, that if you look hard enough in the painting, you can find the "alphabet soup" and that Davinci in fact did paint pictures of young men as "androgynous."



As for the Holy Grail, there is a play on words. There is a word that is very similar that I believe means "bloodline" and yet that word was not the original word used. Also, the mystery and origin of the Holy Grail did not even come into being until the dark ages when the King Author stories were being written. The writer suddenly presented this mysterious grail but he died before getting to finish writing about it. So in the end, the "grail" was simply just a cup.



There is also a legend about Mary riding in a boat with another woman and a female child. This was told to be the daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdalene; however, the original story was quite different and the story was invented centuries after Jesus based on yet another legend.





I will present more specifics later, but wanted to point the above out since it will of course be a main topic of conversation in the near future with the movie coming out. It has convinced many people to leave Christianity to become skeptics. This of course is because the people simply believed the story (which at the beginning is presented as fiction). I would like to point out though that even though the books states that in the beginning, the author has since then stated he believes it to be true based on his "evidence." Of course when one studies the real evidence, it points against the Davinci Code. Also remember that Davinci was just an artist that lived thousands of years after Jesus so it does not really matter what he painted and attributed to the painting anyway. The alleged group he supposedly was part of in the Davinci Code was invented and did not actually exist when Davinci was alive anyway.





The Book of Judas



This one is simple. This book is also a Gnostic book. Paul spoke against the beliefs of the Gnostics. The copy of this book found was written close to 300 years after Jesus. It may have been a copy of the original, and it may not have been. If it was a copy of the original, it still does not present a problem. First, it is likely that Judas did not write this book. The Gnostics were known to elaborate writings and credit them to someone famous or on a Biblical character. The disciple John taught a man named Polycarp who then taught a man named Irenaeus early in the second century. Irenaeus mentioned the the Book of Judas as being heresy (see below reference).



excerpt: "The manuscript was first mentioned in a treatise around A.D. 180 by a bishop, Irenaeus of Lyon, in what is now France. The bishop denounced it as differing from mainstream Christianity and said it produced a fictitious and heretical story.
There were several gospels in circulation at the time in addition to the four in the Bible. When the heretical scriptures were denounced, those who held the manuscripts hid them away. Garcia said the newly authenticated manuscript was reportedly hidden for centuries inside a coffinlike box within an Egyptian cave.
Gnostic scriptures
The Gospel of Judas is linked to a group called the Gnostics, who believed that the way to salvation was through secret knowledge given by Jesus to his inner circle.
Gnostic texts include various manuscripts attributed to figures mentioned in the canonical gospels as well, such as Mary Magdalene and the apostle Thomas, as well as philosophical treatises with heavy Greek or Jewish influences. Scholars say the manuscripts were written by believers who gradually lost out as the early Christian church became institutionalized."

see: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11655998/

and http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12186080/


The point being that those who were closest and most aquainted with Jesus or his disciples, would have had more credentials of knowing which writings were the most authentic and true and which ones were not .