He didn’t keep anyone in the dark. Ignorance can’t be blamed on Him. And what was ignored? The rest of the NT after TheRev nullified it.
People who love ‘visions’ are John Smith bait and a dime a dozen.
RanRan,
Just curious, would you throw out the Gospel of John along with the book of Revelation? They were written by the same person.
How can you say that God didn’t keep us in the dark? All kinds of stuff had not been revealed until Christ came. I’ll grant you this. The really important stuff God built into most, but not all, of us. It’s called a conscience and an instinctive awareness that God exists and is our creator. My point was that a lot of the theological “details” have never been all that easy to figure out. I have to assume God wanted it that way for a good reason.
Amen, brotha!
RanRan - a little fast to jump to conclusions, mayhaps?
A lot of scholars would disagree with that, saying they are not identical at all and are apparently written in different languages. But let’s not take this thread off-track.
Good job misquoting me there, but I think everyone realizes it was Richard who said that…
He hasn’t been banned…and Sherman seems quite capable of taking care of himself. 
Sonia
I’m sure he is capable and doesn’t need to be coddled by the Thought Police. So where’s Aaron?
(and Stellor - sorry about the confusion)
Dunno…maybe he’s working on an 20 page reply to Jason’s post.
Sonia
No worries, Ran. Relax …I’m here, brother. 
God bless,
Aaron
There is no reason under heaven to reply to anything with a 20 page response. I’m reflecting whether or not to respond to Jason’s condescending 20 page post. I humbly realize I may be wrong on certain points I made about the book of life ( not because of anything Jason has said in his post)… my zeal may of caused me to put the cart before the horse… stay tuned… 
God bless,
Aaron
I enjoyed reading it. And Jason is an honest writer and doesn’t admit to any of his arguments being the last word - but food for thought. He usually tries to cover all the angles, which is why his explanations get looooong. Rather than dismiss him, the correct thing for you to do is engage with him - it is your topic after all!
“I’m born again and you’re going to hell.” Is just not cutting it for any of us.
It absolutley amazes me some of the things that come out of your mouth, Ran. That is not my slogan. You misrepresent not only me, but have misrepresented so many others with your thoughtless comments, 
How do you wish to spin it then? Do heretics go to heaven?
Actually, I think he’s been pretty generous. He hasn’t actually accused anyone here of being unsaved that I’ve seen, much to my surprise, since I see that happening quite often in some parts, with some types of people. Feel free to point out where I’m wrong, maybe there has been an exception or two, but I’ve felt blessed to be given the benefit of the doubt.
That’s where I’ve been challenged not to dismiss Aaron as just some blind hypocritical religious fool, or better yet just a troll, because beyond his narrowmindedness (from our viewpoint) and solicitous evangelistic tactics, he actually seems to have a heart. It’s kind of disarming and allows for the fact that fellow sheep aren’t always as we’d personally like them to be. But honestly I’d rather associate with him than a rabid universalist.
It also makes me feel a little bit more comfortable hearing him talk about being filled with the Spirit and so forth, because he’s not totally two-dimensional like I’d usually expect someone wielding those kinds of overly simplistic arguments to be.
I had my reservations (and ready reproofs) at first, but despite not being a very satisfying debate opponent, I don’t totally mind having him around. He’s kinda loveable. haha. (Whoa, did I actually say that? 
)
After having read yet another thread populated with his posts, I take back my overzealous compliment. He’s not all that and a bag of chips, there are a few groundless accusations flying from his direction too. I guess I should give it a little bit more time before I make such all-encompassing statements. 
Was doing pretty good in the Book of Life thread, though, from what I remember.
Aaron37,
I think everyone’s waiting for a response which does not endorse contradiction. When contradiction is accepted, then everyone is right.
The Greek style is substantially different, but that could easily be due to several factors which don’t affect common authorship.
1.) The same author writes both documents at a protracted period of time from each other. (I tend to argue in favor of both docs having been originally composed in the forms we’re familiar with pre-70, so I wouldn’t go with this one. But it would still easily explain a lot of the variance, with GosJohn being more polished, if GJ was written 25-30 years later in a language he’s now far more familiar with.)
2.) The same author writes both documents in a different style purely for stylistic reasons. (The problem here is that the differences are ones of polish. However, both documents show evidence of being very tightly designed, so it’s unlikely RevJohn is being sloppy on purpose.)
3.) The same author wrote one in Greek and one in Aramaic (or both in Aramaic) and we’re looking at a later (but still very early) translation into Greek. (In this case I would incline toward RevJohn having the Aramaic original. But not in anything like wide circulation. Maybe something St. Paul was familiar with at the time he wrote the Thess Epistles.)
4.) The same author dictated both texts, but to different scribes with different styles and capabilities in Greek. (This goes a long way toward explaining huge stylistic differences in some of the Pauline epistles, for example, where we know from internal testimony that Paul was dictating to scribes except for his sign-off autographs for verification against forgery. It’s also just standard operating procedure.)
5.) The same author wrote RevJohn whose ministry is the core on which GosJohn was designed, but someone else wrote GosJohn fusing together several ministry sources in the process. (This is my preferred theory, btw. Not least because one of the two Gospel authors we know by internal testimony or early tradition who did this, was John Mark. Having him involved in one or both of the John texts, and/or the epistles, would go a long way toward explaining unsurety over authorship in subsequent tradition. There are several variants of this theory possible.)
RevJohn shares enough themes and ways of putting things, with GosJohn (and the epistles), even though the grammar is substantially different, for there to be a definite connection between the two. (Though admittedly one could be aping the other; if so, it would just about have to be RevJohn mimicking GosJohn.) They aren’t just night and day.
Edited to add: Ran is correct about not wanting to get the thread offtrack on an analysis of GosJohn vs. RevJohn characteristics. (That might be well worth doing in another thread; you can take the lead on that if you like, Ran! 
Maybe in the Bibliology category.) However, I wanted to affirm that he’s correct about there being substantial grammatic differences which could also be explained (and relatively easily so) by there being two completely different authors unconnected to each other. But there are other relatively easy and historically plausible (even mundanely normal) explanations for the difference, too.
I appreciate you putting it that way, Ran; although to be honest, I think in this case I did put the conclusions rather more strongly than being (only) food for thought.
(I’m putting pieces of data together narratively, linguistically and thematically, with connections across the Testaments elsewhere. It isn’t the final word on the subject by far–I can think of several legitimate challenges myself–but neither am I putting out a list of potentialities such as in the recent list of how the grammar and style can be explained between RevJohn and GosJohn even with one ‘auteur’ behind them both.)
I feel Aaron37 needs to address his non-determinist logic.
If a name cannot be added to the book of life than how is it that those who’s names were not written in the book have real offer from God to have their name in the book of life? If God did not write their name in the beginning and their names cannot be added, then is there a real legit offer from God to be saved?
I find this to be a semi-determinist position (near calvinism) man will do what God makes him do, because God knew man was going to do that anyways.
or
The books are fixed and yet they are open to being written (calminian).
Aug
Logic, period. He’s trying to square a circle and it can’t be done.
Scripture, normally, is symmetrical - the dots connect - of course, that’s assuming that scripture is being studied.
So let’s get out of TheRev and into clarity.
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
The Book of Life is Christ - the Word incarnate.
Aaron’s argument that it is OUR name that determines salvation. But The Book of Life contains but one name - Christ. Our being is found in Him as it was it Adam. So there is a single name under heaven by which I must be and will be saved from death. Not Aaron or any other name.
It’s interesting that the ‘sinless one’ (as self-proclaimed by Aaron) is pushing for his name written to save him. TheRev has been, and always will be, a book for the self-righteous. “I’m in Christ and you shall burn.” They haven’t got a clue.