“Hebrews 10 says if we (believers) continue sinning there’s no longer a sacrifice for us.”
Paul also says where sin abounds grace abounds more so. You have to note that Paul is talking to israelites there hence its called “hebrews”.
This is one of the reasons im a dispensationalist and rightly divide the word between what is to israelites and what is meant to the gentiles. It clears up a lot, but not all, seeming contradictions in scripture.
What’s Done is Done. Right.
What is not yet Done is not yet Done. Right.
What is not yet Done is each human being saved from the power of sin. Or the consequences of sin.
If I have to give up the plain evidence of history and of my own eyes and the report of the vast majority of mankind, (as far as I can tell) , in order to agree with a private interpretation of doctrine, then that doctrine is not true.
It is as simple as that.
Davo, I hear you now to affirm that believers could break free of LAW-righteousness without AD70! I apologize for misunderstanding you as seeing AD70 as vital in that. Again, I sensed that you see AD70 as consummating a greater Parousia than I see as fulfilled according to texts I cited, but am glad we agree here.
I also agree, we are to bring the goodness of God’s kingdom on earth! Indeed, as one who finds Wright convincing that the continuing vision in the Bible’s framework is a “new earth and heavens” where there is victory over evil, suffering, violence and corruption, I told Qaz, I see it less as your going to “the other side of eternity” or ‘going to heaven.’ And I see expectations of a full and future Parousia as correlated with the eventual completion of this earth-centered hope.
Indeed, as I said, I think those closest to NT predictions and language understandably continued in years following AD70 to read these texts as pointing to a still future hope.
To me the important thing is truthfulness rather then perfection. You can have minor errors because the authors were humans but was the story true in it’s important points. So re 1-A -D , i don’t see any contradictions in the sense that two different descriptions can be true. They find the tomb empty because the stone was rolled away so that they could go in. There was a “young man” who most likely was an Angel. The earthquake doesn’t contradict the stone being rolled away or an empty tomb, it’s just additional information. There may have been one prominent angel and one angel standing off to the side so mentioning one angel does not preclude a second angel off to the side.
Contradictory testimony can be discrediting and I’m challenging pollsters to contrive a sequence that avoids such a deal breaker. Your proposal fails this test for 2 reasons:
(1) You assume that 1 or 2 angels greeted the women at the tomb. What you overlook is the women’s distraught inference that people had removed Jesus’ corpse and Mary Magdalene’s rush to inform Peter and the Beloved Disciple of this sad fact (John 20:1-2). An angelic encounter would surely have prevented this inference; indeed Luke’ account has the women rush to inform the disciples that Jesus is live on the basis of the angelic testimony. And John 20:1-`10 implies that Peter is not convinced by the empty tomb. Why not, if angelic testimony had confirmed the resurrection.
(2) You apparently have no answer for the other inconsistencies pointed out in my OP. Intellectual integrity requires an assessment of the total picture.,
I agree, but it does depend on the arena you’re stepping into. I heard Francis Schaeffer (sp?) answer a question, which was ‘why can’t you just make the Gospel simpler to understand?’
He answered to the effect that you make the Gospel understandable to the audience you are addressing. There are shallows and depths to every subject and, for an educated person, it’s easy to talk ‘over’ someone who may be just as intelligent, but just not conversant with the subject.
Dave,
Keep in mind my stated agenda for both my resurrection sequence thread and my ADC/NDE thread. In the big picture of online Christian sites, this one attracts and promotes the most thoughtful and logical responses. So my challenges are motivated by respect, not disdain. I’m hoping site members can learn to appreciate the gravity of the issues that divide most of the scholarly world of biblical scholarship from garden variety Christian apologists. I transferred from Fuller to Princeton with the thought that I’d specialize in Philosophy of Religion and use that as a springboard to become an evangelical apologist. But I soon realized that the most effective attacks to evangelicalism was levelled by mainstream Bible scholars, and so, I shifted my specialization to New Testament, Intertestamental Judaism, and Greco-Roman backgrounds. My standard is this: the Christian apologist must strive to state the skeptical perspective more honestly and cogently than the skeptics themselves before offering a pro-faith counter-view. In this regard, the best of ADCs and NDEs are extremely relevant and helpful and I am appalled by the typical (but expected) evangelical trivialization of this essential evidence. In my experience, the NDE and ADC evidence often impresses skeptics far more than evangelical apologetic defenses of Christ’s resurrection and, at the same time, reopens closed minds to Gospel resurrection traditions.
My ultimate plan here is to play Devil’s Advocate and offer 2 conflicting models for interpreting the sequence of post-Easter events: (1) first, a rationale for skepticism towards Gospel testimony as a grounds for faith, a rationale that reflects a fairly standard mainstream scholarly perspective; (2) then my own defense of Jesus’ resurrection that takes all these objections seriously, but uses modern critical methodology for understanding the texts and their relevance.
I’m looking forward to it!!
Thanks for expressing your plan with such clarity.
Well I think Peter simply didn’t believe the women which is understandable in that culture and interesting as to why the bible authors would make women as the first witnesses if it were fabricated. I will get to your other verses and comments soon, it’s not a matter of anything related to integrity it’s a matter of time availability.
But, Steve, what Mary shares is that someone took the body, not that an angel said Jesus is alive, and that is the best explanation of Peter’s unbelief at that time.
I just read this again and I don’t see anything about whether Peter believed or not , only that he and John immediately ran to the tomb to see for themselves. That seems like a reaction one would have no matter what.
“John?” Another false assumption that is now rejected by the scholarly consensus.
I know that some people think the disciple whom Jesus loved (other disciple)is Lazarus , but only John and Lazarus and God really know for sure, not you or I.
BTW I will make another assumption, hopefully not a false one! In John 20.1 I think Mary was with the other women and only Mary upon seeing the stone moved from the tomb entrance panicked and ran back to the disciples. I think the other women proceeded into the tomb.
Steve,
I have about a 100 page outline of a proposed book demonstrating that the Beloved Disciple [especially including the exact phrase used, “The disciple whom Jesus loved”) is not John the son of Zebedee, but Jesus’ brother James. Every Johannine context mentioned this anonymous disciple has evidence that suggests my identification. If enough posters here seem interested and open-minded enough, I may well start a new thread in which I lay out my evidence, as I have before other academics with little challenge.
The “we” reference in John 20:1-2 implies the presence of other women at the tomb. Though I disagree with what you say about them, you are the first poster to address the possibilities that open the way to resolving the apparent inconsistencies, namely what did Mary Magdalene and the other women do “offstage” while the Gospel narrative is unfolding. More on that later.
In Matt 28 the woman were told to tell the DISCIPLES to go to Galilee which was probably what Paul referenced as the 500 who saw Jesus in 1st Cor 15. In Luke 24 the emphasis is on the Apostles to go to Jerusalem where they receive the Holy Spirit and personally see and touch Christ. These are simply two different events so there is no contradiction.
As to why some gospels mention only parts of the whole episode, i equate it with Jesus 7 statements from the cross whereas each gospel mentions some but not all of the 7 statements so to get the complete info we have to read all four gospels!
Well i certainly would like to look at it!
Me 2.
So does this mean you started a Me2 movement for men? I’m all in!
Apparently 1 Cor 15.6 where Christ was seen by the 500 on a mountainside in Galilee connects with Matt 28 and then 15.7 Christ apparently makes a private appearance to James which changed him from an unbeliever (John 7.5) to a believer and a leader of the Jerusalem church.