So the story says there were witnesses, but it's not true? So much for the NT being God's Word.
I never said that the Bible is God's Word. It is the testimony of God through men, quite a different animal.
The "fact" that Baha'u'llah was the return of Christ? That's what we are debating. It is not a "fact".
No, it is not a fact, it is a belief.
You neglect the verses that say it is Jesus that is coming back.
1Thessalonians 4:14-16 "For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15According to the LORD's word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the LORD, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the LORD himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first."
Revelation 22 :12-13 “Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done.
13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End...
16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
You keep saying that nowhere does it say that Jesus is coming back. Unless you have a real good interpretation of these verses, you might be wrong about that.
None of those verses
are Jesus saying He is coming back again, but the verses below -- in plain English -- are Jesus saying he
is not coming back again:
John 17:4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
John 17:11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.
To say, "To glorify the flesh is against everything that Jesus taught." ignores the verse that the resurrected Jesus says he has flesh and bone and is not a ghost. So you ignore another verse that contradicts your beliefs.
The resurrected Jesus did not say anything, it was a story written about Jesus. How do you suppose that a man who never knew Jesus would know what Jesus said decades later, or do you even bother to employ logic?
But even if Jesus did say that he had flesh and bone how is that a glorification of flesh? No, you know as well as I do that Jesus did not glorify the flesh; Christians did that, and it is an abomination against Jesus, totally against everything Jesus ever taught. You do not care about truth do you? All you care about is getting after the Baha'is, but after 50 years aren't you getting a little tired of this game?
Hmmm? He is a prophet? Not to the Jews or Christians. But wait... he's not real. So you believe a fictional character in the Bible was a real prophet and named a cycle after him? Does that Adamic Cycle include Hinduism and Buddhism? Or, were they in a different cycle?
The story of Adam and Eve is fictional, but Adam was real. I believe that because Abdu'l-Baha wrote it. Yes, Hinduism and Buddhism are in the Adamic Cycle.
Where did I say that I believed in the resurrection. I question whether or not it is true. And, I also question the Baha'i explanation about the resurrection. All I say is that the NT teaches that Jesus came back to life. Fantasy? Probably. But why would Christians make up such a lie? Or, I'll call it what you like to call it... a "story". Why would the Christians make up such a fictional story?
Adrian started a thread on the resurrection a while back and it went on forever. The consensus is that there is no way to know why it was written in the NT that Jesus rose from the grave. I do not care if He did rise because it does not change my beliefs. Jesus is not coming back, and all I need is John 17:4 and John 17:11 to know that I do not even need to be a Baha'i to know that.
There are logical explanations as to why the story was written that way and here is one of them:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/resur_lt.htm
Resurrection views- Religious tolerance
There is a near consensus among liberal, and some mainline theologians, that:
- The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not written by Jesus' disciples but by person or persons whose names are unknown.
- Neither Paul nor any of the Gospel writers had been an eyewitness to Jesus' ministry, execution, or after-death appearances.
- The Gospels record the beliefs and memories of various Christian groups as they had evolved at the time they were written.
- God did not directly inspire the authors of the Bible. Instead, the writers composed text in support of their personal beliefs and those of their faith group. In particular, the Gospels contain various passages of religious myths which describe Christian traditions which were invented after Jesus' death.
- The Bible is not inerrant. Many passages in the Gospels and Epistles of the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) contain religious propaganda, beliefs unique to the author and his/her faith group, words created by the authors and attributed to Jesus, stories of events that never happened, material picked up from surrounding Pagan cultures, etc.
Liberals compare Bible passages in the light of contemporary Jewish, Pagan and non-canonical Christian writings. They also study the culture of the time and the beliefs of surrounding Pagan societies. Of particular interest are the evolving beliefs of the followers of Christ during the approximately seven decades between the crucifixion and the completion of the last Gospel, John. They have come to very different conclusions about the resurrection.
What many liberal theologians believe about Jesus' death:
Many liberal and some mainline Christian leaders believe that Jesus died during the crucifixion, did not resurrect himself, and was not bodily resurrected by God. At his death, his mind ceased to function and his body started the decomposition process. Returning to life a day and a half later would have been quite impossible. The story of having been wrapped in linen and anointed with myrrh seems to have been copied from the story of the death of Osiris -- the Egyptian God of the earth, vegetation and grain. The legend that he visited the underworld between his death and resurrection was simply copied from common
Pagan themes of surrounding cultures. One example again was Osiris. "
With his original association to agriculture, his death and resurrection were seen as symbolic of the annual death and re-growth of the crops and the yearly flooding of the Nile."
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They also believe that Paul regarded the resurrection to be an act of God in which Jesus was a passive recipient of God's power. Paul did not mention the empty tomb, the visit by a woman or women, the stone, the angel/angels/man/men at the tomb, and reunion of Jesus with his followers in his resuscitated body. Rather, he believed that Jesus was taken up into heaven in a spirit body. It was only later, from about 70 to 110 CE when the four canonic Gospels were written, that the Christians believed that Jesus rose from the grave in his original body, and by his own power.
Later, perhaps after Paul's death, there was great disappointment within the Christian communities because Jesus had not returned as expected. They diverted their focus of attention away from Jesus' second coming. They studied his life and death more intensely. Legends without a historical basis were created by the early church; these included the empty tomb and described Jesus returning in his original body to eat and talk with his followers.
In previous centuries, almost all Christians believed in miracles as described in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament). These included creation, the story of Adam and Eve, a talking serpent, the great flood of Noah, the drying up of the Red/Reed sea, a prophet riding on a talking ***, the sun stopping in the sky, etc. From the Christian Scriptures (New Testament), they believed in the virgin birth, the Christmas star, angels appearing to the shepherds, Jesus healing the sick, etc. Many, perhaps most, liberal Christians now believe that these stories are not to be interpreted literally as real events. Their faith has not been damaged by losing faith in the reality of these events. A growing number of liberals are now taking the final step by interpreting the stories of Jesus' resurrection and his appearances to his followers and to Paul as other than real events. Retired bishop John Shelby Spong commented:
"I do admit that for Christians to enter this subject honestly is to invite great anxiety. It is to walk the razor's edge, to run the risk of cutting the final cord still binding many to the faith of their mothers and fathers. But the price for refusing to enter this consideration is for me even higher. The inability to question reveals that one has no confidence that one's belief system will survive such an inquiry. That is a tacit recognition that on unconscious levels, one's faith has already died. If one seeks to protect God from truth or new insights, then God has surely already died."
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So why should I believe the words of men who wrote stories are literally true?