Jesus' eyewitnesses never becoming Christians

[mlinssen]

1. tree of knowledge, good and evil
2. lamb
3. four rivers of paradise
4. flowing from the top of a mountain (= mount Gerizim)

That's one way to look at it...

Tree of life is the more obvious choice I'd say.
Lamb - what function does that have? And is it not a sheep? Male even?
Four rivers perhaps, or four alien worms trying to devour the ovis.
If they are rivers, they need an elevation. If they're worms, there would need to be some 3D to it. But a mountain, just like that? And Gerizim on top of it all?

[davidmartin]

to davidmartin,

so Bernard thinks Peter was the original just like Acts yet the gospels say it was Mary if you go back far enough and had that original conviction the messiah had arrived

So where do you see Mary M being the original missionary (like Peter in Acts) in the gospels?

Cordially, Bernard

I see it as being obscured in the gospels but clearly there
So the woman at the well in John - is a thinly disguised Mary M. She goes off preaching then we are told in the story that the townspeople say unfairly 'we don't need to listen to you any more' because Jesus turns up. Why have this episode? Why say that to her? Just as Thomas is lessened in John so here is Mary. I think there's much early church politics going on here in these accounts.
Next note Mary's role in John as deliverer of a message giving her the title 'apostle of apostles'. Yet, magically it's not preaching she is doing, it's like that saying 'damning with faint praise'. It recognizes her but at the same time states she didn't become the first missionary
There's other echo's to be found. The 'lady' referenced in 1 John. The personified church in the Shephard of Hermas. The gospel of Mary actually says it explicitly i don't think that's of no value here. Also the strange female prophet that pops up in the Clementine Homilies
Why I think it matters is now there's three branches not just Paul and the Nazarenes.. maybe Mary was a Nazarene herself? we only have later accounts of who Nazarene's even were but that a Peter branch existed seems there as well

[davidmartin]

Okay, but, if it never actually happened, then such a person would not exist, right? Nobody was claiming to be there because nobody knew there was a "there" to claim to be at until the story was written; and the story was written too late for anyone to credibly claim to have taken part. I guess I may not be understanding what you are saying or asking here.

I think it is important to keep clear what exactly each text is claiming Mary to be a witness to. Mark claims no more than that she witnessed the empty tomb and an angel. All fine and dandy, but this is no appearance of the living Lord, and she is not thereby competing with any apostle on that score. Matthew gives her and her companions a true appearance. So does John. What do you think this variety means?

True, if it there's no historical basis there (the mythologist view) any digging into these texts would only be of value to the myth making process and identifying external sources of inspiration (scriptural, pagan, whatever).
but the early writings of the NT sure sound like they are responding to an ongoing process of historical events, one doesn't need to be a biblical apologist to think so. the line between myth and accounts of historical events is blurry as hell
It doesn't have to be a direct witness, a generation or two later would still work

I agree with you on Mark. Tries to play down Mary 'seven demons', yeah who would listen to her preaching is the implication, why mention it?
The variety in John I see as the result of the Johannine community having an account that gave her more prominence
I think Matthew was originally itself a gospel harmony by intention, and latest to come off the press. I think it probably copied the Johannine account in some ways although i haven't even looked at possible dependence of Matthew on John it's just a hunch
I think they were all just duking it out in the name of different apostles for a while

[mlinssen]

True, if it there's no historical basis there (the mythologist view) any digging into these texts would only be of value to the myth making process and identifying external sources of inspiration (scriptural, pagan, whatever).
but the early writings of the NT sure sound like they are responding to an ongoing process of historical events, one doesn't need to be a biblical apologist to think so. the line between myth and accounts of historical events is blurry as hell
It doesn't have to be a direct witness, a generation or two later would still work

[emphasis mine]
That's not how the mind works; that's not how humans work - that's not how the world works. Myth can be as true as reality, and vice versa

We don't need reality, or Reality - all we need is to blieve that something is true, or True.
Remember Santa? It was real as long as you believed in it.
Remember the first crush you had on your first girl (or boy)? That Love was real, Real, REAL! You thought, perhaps even knew, that you would die if it would go unanswered for very long (or something)

I could go on for many pages, but all we need to presuppose about the whole Jesus-thang is that people believed (parts of) it to be true (enough).

Like a (not so) fun experiment?
Everyone who responds to me here takes me seriously - but what if I have played you all from the beginning, lied about everything, just debated along with you in order to keep you busy, at bay, fooled?

It would change everything, wouldn't it? But that would be awkward, as it couldn't change anything at all about reality, that which happened - all it changes is the perception in your mind about something that occurred as it occurred when it occurred, and now you're frantically trying to change your opinion on all of it.
Because we all live by Truth, and truth alone - reality never comes into play. So historicity of anything? It matters nowt (sic)

[Charles Wilson]

Like a (not so) fun experiment?
Everyone who responds to me here takes me seriously - but what if I have played you all from the beginning, lied about everything, just debated along with you in order to keep you busy, at bay, fooled?

It would change everything, wouldn't it? ...Because we all live by Truth, and truth alone - reality never comes into play. So historicity of anything? It matters nowt (sic)

What would we know?

1. We would know that you are halfway to Hegelianism. You cannot get to das Noumena which only leaves Phenomena. Contradictions are in things not sentences. Truth becomes Class Functional, undecidable, even when reduced to Use by a possible Class of One (Which would contradict Wittgenstein and his Private Language arguments). "When Truth is Class Functional, there is no Truth."

I hereby deny that Premise.

2. You have used the word "Churchianity", used only by Garner Ted Armstrong, AFAIK.

You ever listen to Garner Ted from the WCG? Truth Value: Undecided, pending further Information.

3...

Season to taste. There is always Assignment to an Inauthentic Class allowed by others who believe that they have Authentic Class Membership and you do not. This is the very meaning of Leftist Politics. Kant to Hegel to Marx is not an Infield Group for a Double Play in American Baseball. At it's end we find millions dead and a Stalin claiming he was "merely" giddy with power. BLM. Antifa. Look around you.

The Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution declares that "...No person shall be denied equal protection under the law..." You wanna destroy the Constitution? Demand that, in order to be a "Person" in this sense, you must be a member of some Group, some Class, whose Rights may be denied by another, more Authentic Group or Class. Constitution? GONE.

"Then go home,
and check yourself.
You think we're singing 'bout someone else..."

Zappa, Mothers of Invention, "Plastic People", from the album, "Absolutely Free".

When everyone is being "Played" all the time, it is not mapped onto an Objective Points System with the Scorecard given to the Officials at the end of the round. Giuseppe came close to getting the Prize with 10 new meaningless Threads everyday for some period of time. Far from being "Played" people simply moved on to other Topics that satisfied their Biblical Curiosities. People on this Site wanted him banned. That's Truth for ya'.

There is on this site a list of banned Posters and the list is long.

Don't fall into the Trap. That's Truth for ya'...

[Bernard Muller]

to Ben,
(all bolding mine)

But it appears in Jubilees in Greek as the place to which Enoch was whisked away:

Jubilees 4.23: 23 Ἐνὼχ εἰς τὸν παράδεισον ἡρπᾶσθαι. / 23 Enoch was snatched away into Paradise.

And in 1 Enoch 32.1-3 the seer visits far places on the Earth, one of them being the Paradise of Righteousness, in which is found the Tree of Wisdom. And in Testament of Levi 18.10 it is said that the eschatological priest will open the gates of Paradise.

I am very doubtful these documents would be studied, or even known, by gospel authors like "Luke".

It is probably because of Lk 16 and Lk 23:43 that the Thayer's Lexicon states:

III. the part of Hades which was thought by the later Jews to be the abode of the souls of pious until the resurrection: but some understand this to be a heavenly paradise

That entry makes me wonder what texts locate Paradise in Hades. How late were those "later Jews," as Thayer phrases it? We cannot rely on a lexicon to solve a problem regarding the development of a concept. We need to see the texts.

Sorry, the above quote was from Outline of Biblical Usage, https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/le ... 3857&t=RSV
The Thayer's Lexicon reads:

3. that part of Hades which was thought by the later Jews to be the abode of the souls of the pious until the resurrection: Luke 23:43, cf. 16:23f. But some (e. g. Dillmann (as below, p. 379)) understand that passage of the heavenly paradise.

Well, he is far away, at least:

Luke 16.23: 23 And in Hades he raised his eyes, being in torment, and sees Abraham far away and Lazarus in his arms.

Well, not so far away, because the rich man sees Abraham & Lazarus.

The parable of Lazarus and Dives, if anything, at any rate, suggests that Abraham's Bosom is not in Hades. It says that the rich man goes to Hades and that the poor man goes to Abraham's Bosom; it says that there is a rift between the two men.

Can part of the underground earth, the sky above it, then the firmament be considered a rift?
I don't think so. Furthermore so much distance would prevent the rich man and Abraham to be heard by the other. And according to Lk 16:26 "And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us."
these words put in the mouth of Abraham would look ridiculous is relating to the distance between underground earth and the heavens.

Yes, I know that technically the place "far away" could be in another part of Hades, but the flow of the story does not in any way suggest that, and it seems far more natural to read Abraham's Bosom and Hades as two separate places, no matter where Abraham's Bosom is supposed to be.

So what is the flow of the story? How did you determine it?
Two different places? yes, one in hell, the other in paradise, both located in Hades, side by side.

I agree that the placement of Paradise underground is not according to its prevailing location. But, in the 1st century, Jesus preaching in the domain of the dead is suggested in 1 Peter 3:19-20:
"By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water."

Cordially, Bernard

[Secret Alias]

I'd accept tree of life.

[Ben C. Smith]

Locating Paradise, essentially a glorified Garden of Eden, underground (without any kind of marker) just does not work for me, sorry. There has to be a better interpretation of Luke 23.43.

[Secret Alias]

How could the Greek text equate Eden with the anatole? https://books.google.com/books?id=-cy8D ... lo&f=false

[mlinssen]

Like a (not so) fun experiment?
Everyone who responds to me here takes me seriously - but what if I have played you all from the beginning, lied about everything, just debated along with you in order to keep you busy, at bay, fooled?

It would change everything, wouldn't it? ...Because we all live by Truth, and truth alone - reality never comes into play. So historicity of anything? It matters nowt (sic)

What would we know?

1. We would know that you are halfway to Hegelianism. You cannot get to das Noumena which only leaves Phenomena. Contradictions are in things not sentences. Truth becomes Class Functional, undecidable, even when reduced to Use by a possible Class of One (Which would contradict Wittgenstein and his Private Language arguments). "When Truth is Class Functional, there is no Truth."

I hereby deny that Premise.

2. You have used the word "Churchianity", used only by Garner Ted Armstrong, AFAIK.

You ever listen to Garner Ted from the WCG? Truth Value: Undecided, pending further Information.

3...

Season to taste. There is always Assignment to an Inauthentic Class allowed by others who believe that they have Authentic Class Membership and you do not. This is the very meaning of Leftist Politics. Kant to Hegel to Marx is not an Infield Group for a Double Play in American Baseball. At it's end we find millions dead and a Stalin claiming he was "merely" giddy with power. BLM. Antifa. Look around you.

The Fourteenth Amendment to our Constitution declares that "...No person shall be denied equal protection under the law..." You wanna destroy the Constitution? Demand that, in order to be a "Person" in this sense, you must be a member of some Group, some Class, whose Rights may be denied by another, more Authentic Group or Class. Constitution? GONE.

"Then go home,
and check yourself.
You think we're singing 'bout someone else..."

Zappa, Mothers of Invention, "Plastic People", from the album, "Absolutely Free".

When everyone is being "Played" all the time, it is not mapped onto an Objective Points System with the Scorecard given to the Officials at the end of the round. Giuseppe came close to getting the Prize with 10 new meaningless Threads everyday for some period of time. Far from being "Played" people simply moved on to other Topics that satisfied their Biblical Curiosities. People on this Site wanted him banned. That's Truth for ya'.

There is on this site a list of banned Posters and the list is long.

Don't fall into the Trap. That's Truth for ya'...

I'm beyond puzzled Charles, sorry. I was merely trying to point out that we all live in our own heads, and we continuously rehearse everything that has gone on there as well, trying to do better next time (and hush the Voice in our Head, and try to feel less guilty).
My example wouldn't change reality, it would only change Truth - opinions, feelings, convictions. Which we obviously value much higher than reality

"You have used the word "Churchianity", used only by Garner Ted Armstrong" - a coincident then, I have never engaged with anyone that you name in your answer

I read the thread about people wishing to ban Giuseppe a day after I joined - interesting

Thanks for the heads up by the way!

Martijn