In Reply to: Re: looking for validation? posted by Questioning everything on January 11, 2007 at 07:22:11:
Alright, thanks for the feedback & my apologies for having not more patience with the opposers (sometimes pretty vicious) of Christianity & I know sometimes people just have doubts & questions like I have/had myself...however I am lightyears from a jihad apart...that is hitting back with weapons, which would be a betrayel of the message, at least for the time before any events describes in revelations....because that seems very much like a jihad to me, isn't it??!!
I don't know if I have today the time, when I first read your response, already to go into much detail but let's start somewhere:
Let us assume, like I and many do, that really the
OT underwent no critical, heavy, significant changes, not as far as the messianic prophecies are concerned.Now if you take that for granted, then one has to look into the prophecies itself.
Like I tried to demonstrate for this one very important prophecy about his death...Daniel 9:25...now it does say in verse 26, that the temple will be destroyed by some foreign power,people & leader...at the time of Daniel the first tempel got/was destroyed (I believe like others, Daniel lived in exile in Babylon), so the second tempel got inaugurated in 515 B.C., later Herod expanded the tempelbuildings, enlarged the whole complex. So if you take all that serious, which I do, then we would have to find some messiah around the time of Jesus.
But whom else would you like to suggest, do you have "to offer"?To me there is no one else...unless people want to take it further and say, well the OT writings are no prophecies at all ,but some rantings of some "people with wild imaginations".Well, then you'd have to look into predictions, which have even significance today & in the course of history in general & there are enough, that one could get full confidence also about the messianic ones.
Fact is, that the Romans destroyed the temple in 70 A.C. which is for me a very significant date...along with A.T Robinson I find it rather plausible, that the gospes were all written before that date...because Luke & Matthew would have definetely reported the destruction, but they quote Jesus, who's convinced, that the temple will be destroyed (future)
Now if for some or many the quotations of churchelders & leaders of that time is suspect, then we have to look into "heathen writings" of that time to see if a person named Jesus appeared:
Flavius Josephus quote in Antiquitates (written around 93 A.C.) chapter XVIII;3,3 (§ 63-64) is taken by most very serious, except many sustain the line "He was the Christ" is a Christian insertion, correction...if one wants to follow that, then still the majority of researchers believe, the quote is not a forgery.
You have further @ 70 A.C. a quote of Mara bar Serapion, a Syrian writing his son....a quote of Plinius the younger (62-114 A.C.), one of P.C.Tacitus (55-120 A.C.) & a minor one of C.S.Tranquillus...
All forgery?See, you have no full proof neither way...even eyewitnesses have sometime difficulties to relate some details in a courtcase...in the end people have to try themselves...personally trust the message of Christ & address HIM in prayer...I found, that is the best proof on a very personal level & that matters the most.
In the end I want to stress the illogical part of the forgery line:
We argue now looking back from an advanced point in history.So how would have this little crew of fishermen & handycrafts-people had the power and foresight, to influence so much in history??
They "knew" it was "just a plot" of them, some forgery, some secret agreement...similar to some operations of lodges or the then Mithras-cult & they knew it would all be very successful, they would not reap the benefits, no but someday some other generation of "Christians"...they would now(then) reap laughter & persecution, being burned alive like torches & suffering other gruesome ways of death, but "it'd all be worth it some day"...all for power & riches for some later generations, since the Christ-story is a fairy-tale...the OT-predictions are right, but the fulfillments are wrong!Would you believe that???
And if the OT is right, did God forget to send someone or was no one available???
All for now