BOAZ,

While you are contemplating my above post, I have fond the following on the suicide issue:

"No man taketh it [life, added] from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." - John 10:18

Of course, the above is removed in time and space and religious entity from Jesus. There are decades and dozens of Jesus assemles between Jesus [if he existed] and the gospels. [I suspect, he did exist in a very different way that the spin.]

Hello BOAZ,

- I re-put the question, “Would Jesus approve of Christianity”?

Still plenty of loose ends above.

O

Dear Oliver... now I know why I give the impression of 'ignoring' your questions. They are so many :)

Try to limit it to one major question per post, and only one post per day please.. I do have a life :)

Q:Would Jesus approve of Christianity?
A: Yes, to the extent that it faithfully represented his Word. "He who hears my words and does them, is like a man who built his house on the rock"

Q: "Did Jesus committ Suicide" ?
A: No, he knew what was to befall him, and freely gave his life to that fate. He did not end his life himself.

Your Points about the embryonic Church are valid, and their role in the preservation of the teachings and signs of Jesus. You must remember though, that the Eye witnesses were present as 'consultants' so to speak for many years after our Lord ascended. There was false teaching from the word go, as Galatians especially shows. Paul wrote to correc this, and others I'm sure were active in the same role, though records have not been kept apart from the NT itself.

Ultimately, I don't believe that only a study of the history of the NT will bring a man or woman to faith. The best it can do is raise the individuals level of confidence on the foundation. It is the Gospel which saves, 'Repent..and Believe'.... enter the kingdom of God, in Christ, and share with the Body of believers that glorious peace which passes understanding.
amen.

Boaz, you started this thread, so you ought at least do others the courtesy of a straight answer.

>>Q:Would Jesus approve of Christianity?
A: Yes, to the extent that it faithfully represented his Word<<

As someone who frequently castigates the various established churches for their inability to follow this "Word", you owe it to Oliver to be a little more honest with your answer.

To what extent do those people who call themselves christian - and you claim that they are something in the order of seventy percent of the Australian population - represent Christianity?

The reason that this question is important is as folows.

You have often portrayed yourself as a "real" christian, as opposed to a member of the church. This actually puts you, I suspect, in a substantial minority - certainly outside the definition of a Roman Catholic, for example.

You also, in your over-frequent "whack-a-mozzie" diatribes, attribute the vile motives of a small number of fanatical Islamists to the Muslim community as a whole.

Given your own position, as a tiny minority who believes himself to be a "true follower of the Word" castigating a small minority who believe themselves to be "true followers of a different Word", isn't your position just a tiny bit hypocritical?

So, how about a proper answer to Oliver's question: would Jesus approve of Christianity?

Pericles,

Thanks... that is an apt answer for a Christian church position, as if you were a typical Christian.

I feel it possible to draw many threads relating my question and your answer, where two posits are:

- Politically and militarily the Christians and the Muslims have similar undesirable histories.

- Jesus was not a Christian ideologically. He taught about the Kingdom of Heaven/God and against the [Jewish] Law. His goal was to make the Law obsolete. Any capital sacrifice, if made, was endured in that context: More a contra-Pharisee than a global redeemer, a humanist with an agenda to make perhaps by sacrifice Jewish rites obsolete and a wish to create a Kingdom of God outside/challenging the family unit. Beyond, that we have borrowings, accretions, and politics.

I do not see the Christian church any closer to Jesus than Zues.

BOAZ,

My vision of Jesus requires ditching Church creed and doctrine, accepting a mere fraction of the Gospels as Gospel and demoting the OT against Jesus’ mission. Suggest Jesus was spun to become significant in history, yet, I would see Abraham as more significant, as he is the source of the three major monotheist religions.

Not fluent in Galatians, I' afraid. Will need to look.

Is suicide by Cop, suicide?

"Eye witnesses were present as 'consultants' so to speak for many years after our Lord ascended. Eye witnesses were present as 'consultants' so to speak for many years after our Lord ascended." - BOAZ

One should also appreciate Jesus traditions were regionalised, separated by distance, as well as time, from Jesus. There were localised versions accounts. Kerygma [&#954;&#951;&#961;&#973;&#947;&#956;&#945;], as the notion of preaching the reason, rather than the posited/claimed reason itself, would have taken shape around 50 CE to influence the writers of Paul[Asia Minor] and Mark [Southern Syria]. There is plenty of latitude of Chinese whispers and distortions between the Cross and different times and places. Else put, stamps of various interpretations were placed oral tradition. Suspect that any eye witness account would have muddied.

Note, my earlier account of the Kingdom of God/Heaven