what this seems to boil down to is belief?
if there is only one God, one way, one book?
not may gods, many ways, many books. Which seems to be the case, does it not?
isn’t that truly the question? Who has God’s word and if they really have total control over God’s words to tell others what they mean?
Why do you think that God allowed this confusion to take place? (Jesus and the apostles actually foretold it) Could there be a reason why he did not identify Christ's true disciples as clearly as he identified his people Israel when occupying the Promised Land, from the nations around them who practiced the worship of false gods? He protected them from envious nations who wanted to take that prime piece of real estate away from them.
Jesus asked a question in answer to the apostles inquiry concerning his 'presence' and 'the end' of the current world system. (Matthew 24:2-14) He asked...
"Who really is the faithful and discreet slave whom his master appointed over his domestics, to give them their food at the proper time?" (Matthew 24:45) So there are those "appointed" by the Master to "feed" his household their "food at the proper time", but he did not identify them specifically.
In a world where he foretold "wheat" among "weeds", he did give his disciples the criteria for their identification. What the devil sowed was a counterfeit form of Christianity that was to grow along with the wheat until the time for "harvest".
What were we to look for if we were searching for them?
What are your thoughts?
when did Jesus run in scholarly circles?
How about the religious circles? When did Jesus hang with the Pharisees? Or the priests? How about the rulers? Jesus was real friendly with the rulers? And let’s not forget the ‘councils’...
Since this is an argument that I use myself, I couldn’t agree more.
But seeing as how Jesus was Jewish and he spoke their language, translation wasn’t an issue back then....misinterpretation was. I hope you can appreciate the difference.
Most of us today do not speak Hebrew or Koine Greek, so we need the language scholars to help us out with accuracy in translation. Jesus did not condemn education per se, but the religious institutions that educated the Pharisees were not teaching God’s truth...it was
“the commands of men” that they passed off as
“doctrines”.(Matthew 15:8-9)
“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth:
it shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I please,
and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”
Isaiah 55:11 KJV
Maybe you do have control over what God ‘really meant’?
I am having trouble finding any religious authorities that are in control of God’s word in the bible and where it says all have to know ‘the Greek?
No human has "control" over "what God meant".....we all have the same Bible but interpreted quite differently in many instances. So our choice of translation will contribute to either our understanding....or misunderstanding of God's word. This where the scholars can help us out by showing us which translations are the most accurate according to the original language. How is that not beneficial? It is only a problem if our chosen translation is telling us something different to what Jesus and the apostles actually said. That is logical, isn't it?
(are you familiar with Origen?)
“The greatest master of the Church after the Apostles.” With these words Jerome, translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible, thus praised the third-century theologian Origen. But not everyone held Origen in such high esteem. Some viewed him as an evil root from which heresies sprang. In the words of a 17th-century writer, Origen’s critics asserted: “His doctrine in general is absurd and pernicious, a Serpentine deadly poison, which he vomited into the world.” About three centuries after his death, in fact, Origen was formally declared a heretic.
Was he a heretic? Who declare Origen a heretic?
What would you like to discuss about him?
