Why are other civilizations ignored in the Bible?

[Godscreated]

Why was there only one Jesus? If Yahweh was trying to save the whole planet, why only send down one guy? Why did he only beget one son, thousands of years after Humans have been around, to teach in some backwater hole instead of the great schools of the more advanced civilizations?

Christianity spread through the Roman empire like a wild fire and was the dominate religion before the Roman empire fell, how's that for getting the message out.

GC

[Chad32]

Why was there only one Jesus? If Yahweh was trying to save the whole planet, why only send down one guy? Why did he only beget one son, thousands of years after Humans have been around, to teach in some backwater hole instead of the great schools of the more advanced civilizations?

Christianity spread through the Roman empire like a wild fire and was the dominate religion before the Roman empire fell, how's that for getting the message out.

GC

That was a good first step, but there was still the vast majority of the world, including those with older religions and mythologies.

[Godscreated]

Humanly, Jesus could only be descended through one bloodline. When the messiah arrived he was revealed to Jews first, then to the rest of the world. Why he chose the Jews? Who knows.

Ooh. Please!! Dont start with the bloodline shit.. stories of virgin birth. . And god as a man.. what a joke!!

I've come to notice something about you, you do not have enough brains to bring an argument so you rely on the childish novelty of insulting others.

GC

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Christianity spread through the Roman empire like a wild fire and was the dominate religion before the Roman empire fell, how's that for getting the message out.

GC

That was a good first step, but there was still the vast majority of the world, including those with older religions and mythologies.

Older as you see it, remember I believe in the creation and that includes the garden and this is where God started, with the first two people.

GC

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I didn't say the Jews accepted Jesus. In fact, all but a few rejected him as you pointed out. That doesn't mean they were correct. As for the eschatology, most Christains are waiting for the same things when Jeus returns for the final judgement. In the time since Jesus came until the final judgement we're in the time when the knowlege of God fills the earth. All the first Christians were Jews also.

They had good reasons. He didn't fit the qualifications to be the Messiah.

For a start, the Messiah was supposed to accomplish the following:

1. Build the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26-28).
2. Gather all Jews back to the Land of Israel (Isaiah 43:5-6).
3. Usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. As it says: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)
4. Spread universal knowledge of the God of Israel, which will unite humanity as one. As it says: "God will be King over all the world ― on that day, God will be One and His Name will be One" (Zechariah 14:9).

Even failing to accomplish one of these, disqualifies him as being the Messiah.

And please, don't give us the standard apologetic, "he's supposed to fulfill these in the 2nd coming". There is no concept of this in the OT. It's supposed to happen in the Messiah's lifetime.

There are quite a few more reasons why he doesn't qualify.

Oh please most knowledgeable one tell us. You want to win an argument by taking away part of the Bible, you really like fair play who taught you this your parents. The nation of Israel is back, exactly how did you miss this one. Th other two are end time prophecies just like a great deal of the Book of Daniel is. I bet now you wish you had included Daniel's book in your restrictions upon the Christian side of the argument.

GC

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I heard his name was supposed to be Emmanuel anyway. Apparently Mary thought Jesus was a better name than Emmanuel.

The angel told Joseph to name Him Jesus, it had nothing to do with Mary's desire. Emmanuel means God with us, it's a prophetic name for Jesus, you guys need to start using the brains you claim to have. I use the word claim with full intent, until you all show us different.

GC

[Ryantology]

Older as you see it, remember I believe in the creation and that includes the garden and this is where God started, with the first two people.

Older as you see it, remember, I live in my own fantasy land and your real world rules don't apply.

[catman]

Would you have accepted the Bible as the word of God if it had included historical information about every (or at least more than one) region/civilization? I ask this because your argument assumes that the word of God would focus on more than one specific region of the entire planet and since the Bible doesn't, it can't be the real word of God. Is this what you believe?

If the Bible included knowledge about unknown lands, stories about God reveling himself to peoples that were not yet know , then yes that would be miraculous. However, like all other religious texts it simply sticks to the geographical region and the peoples that the writers would have been aware of.

It is also quite the coincidence that the Jews picked Yahweh out of their pantheism as being the correct God to worship. The Arab pagans also were worshiping a God named Allah before Muhhamad verified that it was the correct deity.

[max-greece]

The angel told Joseph to name Him Jesus, it had nothing to do with Mary's desire.

In a dream! We're not even talking about an account of an actual Angel appearing to Joseph here, but it is true according to the story, that Mary's preference had nothing to do with it.

Emmanuel means God with us, it's a prophetic name for Jesus, you guys need to start using the brains you claim to have. I use the word claim with full intent, until you all show us different.

That is the meaning of Emmanuel but it isn't prophetic for Jesus any-more than any other Jewish name. All Jewish names have some meaning or other and most are related to God. As it happens my father's middle name is Emmanuel - its common enough and has been since well before Jesus.

On the broader issue of why Jews didn't accept Jesus:

He is an intermediary where none was allowed:

Christianity attempts to bypass this issue with the three in one thing but I've never met a Christian who can explain that one properly and the general ultimate response is "I don't understand it fully either."

Its a fudge.

His role isn't required:

Essentially Christianity has adopted the scape-goat idea to justify Jesus. The scape goat itself is generally considered by Jewish scholars to be aberrant behaviour that shouldn't be required either.

In order to pull off this trick Christianity had to disavow itself of the idea that there were sins on one side and good deeds on the other. There is no word in English for the antonym of sin, nor, as far as I am aware in any of the European Languages.

There is a word, however, in Hebrew - Mitzvah (literally commandment - as in Barmitzvah - son of the commandments) which came to mean good deed.

The basic idea of Judaism is that you are judged after death - with good deeds on one side and sins on the other. If the balance of good deeds outweighs bad then you are in. Depending on the imbalance determines how long you spend outside of Heaven (which is conceptually vague in Judaism, as is hell). There is no concept of eternal damnation in Judaism- again that is a uniquely Christian addition.

All of this had to be abandoned in Christianity to make room for Jesus who takes responsibility for your sins off you whilst you get away with it scot free as long as you believe in Jesus in the end.

Aside from the horrific basis for the idea and the licence it provides for behave appallingly throughout your life it has caused innumerable issues and problems.

For example the Catholic belief that an unbaptized child that dies goes to purgatory to wait there till the end of time - as if it wasn't bad enough for the poor grieving parents that a child had died.

This was doctrine until very recently (1960's?)

At the same time take the worst, most sadistic criminal you can imagine. On his deathbed he recants (genuinely), confesses his sins, is blessed by a priest and skips off into heaven to rub shoulders with the blessed and the meek.

Peachy!!

Of course there is also the flip side. A good man - someone who has done wonderful things for his fellow man though-out his life, someone who has held the highest moral standards but just happens not to believe in Jesus, what happens to him?

You don't need too many guesses to you? (Hnt - he will never be cold).

If asked about Judaism I generally tend not to give a particularly positive opinion of it. I think it is a revolting religion in many ways. Its only in comparison to Christianity that it can look almost palatable.

He just wasn't all that convincing:

The only people that met Jesus were the Jews - and they didn't buy it. A few Romans were also exposed to him of course - but they didn't convert either.

In fact there is a case to be put that the closer you were to Jesus, the less likely you were to follow him. There are references in the gospel to Jesus visiting his home-town where he was roundly rejected and left gutted and disappointed, if not mystified.

The only exceptions to this are his mother (but not, apparently his brothers and sisters, or father come to that) and the dumb-asses he chose amongst the fishermen and the like that would have been easy to hoodwink.

Failure by definition:

There is no provision in Judaism for the Messiah to come and fail to convince the people that he is the Messiah. This didn't happen with the prophets and it certainly wouldn't happen with God's chosen Messiah.

Jesus clearly saw himself as the Jewish Messiah (and only that till the dubious resurrection). Time and again in both Mark and Matthew he makes it as clear as day that he is here for the "Children of Israel" and not anyone else. How Christians ignore this is beyond me.

So Jesus thought he was the Jewish Messiah. He failed to convince the people. Therefore, definitionally, he wasn't. There's no getting out of that for an Omnipotent God who had never failed to get his way before.

This is supposedly the same God that appointed Abram/Abraham/Israel, Jacob, Joseph, Saul, David, Solomon etc. etc. (to name just a few). None of them failed in their primary mission, yet Jesus did?

Oh screw it - I'm boring myself with this shit. Suffice to say it goes on and on for pages if you want it to.

[Sword of Christ]

If the Bible is the word of God then why is it only focused on one specific region of the entire planet?

The idea was to get the chosen people into shape so the Messiah would then emerge from them and lead the entire Gentile world to God. This is prophesied to happen in the Old Testament, even the enemies of the Jewish people and their former oppressors in Egypt

Was there nothing going on outside of the Middle East worth mentioning? The Han Dynasty maybe?

The Middle East, Babylon and Egypt was essentially their civilized world they won't have know much about what was beyond it. Ethiopia seems to get a mentioned quite a lot in the Bible though.

http://www.openbible.info/topics/ethiopia

[Esquilax]

The idea was to get the chosen people into shape so the Messiah would then emerge from them and lead the entire Gentile world to God. This is prophesied to happen in the Old Testament, even the enemies of the Jewish people and their former oppressors in Egypt.

That doesn't really answer the question, it just explains the problem further; the question is why was it only that one group of people that were given this treatment? Surely god would be capable of performing the same feat across every demographic group, with multiple messiahs that could spread the message much more effectively and uniformly? Why did he then opt for a much less effective method for attaining his stated goal?

Older as you see it, remember I believe in the creation and that includes the garden and this is where God started, with the first two people.

Bad luck for you then, because the world as you see it is demonstrably, factually incorrect. You are simply in error, here.

[Sword of Christ]

That doesn't really answer the question, it just explains the problem further; the question is why was it only that one group of people that were given this treatment?

The story goes God heard their cry when they were being oppressed as slaves in Egypt and decided to free them from bondage, form a covenant with them and give them their promised land in Israel. God likes to get his message across from the poor and humble portion of humanity much like how Jesus was a low status carpenter from Galilee.

Surely god would be capable of performing the same feat across every demographic group, with multiple messiahs that could spread the message much more effectively and uniformly?

I'm sure God spoke to people from other cultures as well and this had some influence in the formation of other world faiths.

Why did he then opt for a much less effective method for attaining his stated goal?

50% of the entire world now follow the God of Abraham so it turns out it was an efficient way of doing it.

"He took him outside and said, "Look up at the sky and count the stars--if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Genesis 15:5

He's not referring to biological offspring but the people who will follow his God in the future.

[Esquilax]

The story goes God heard their cry when they were being oppressed as slaves in Egypt and decided to free them from bondage, form a covenant with them and give them their promised land in Israel. God likes to get his message across from the poor and humble portion of humanity much like how Jesus was a low status carpenter from Galilee.

Poor and humble people are everywhere, just saying. God could have had a Jesus in every country, and cut out all this confusion and the deaths he knew would result from ideological conflicts over this right then and there. He just didn't.

I'm sure God spoke to people from other cultures as well and this had some influence in the formation of other world faiths.

So why no Chinese Jesus?

50% of the entire world now follow the God of Abraham so it turns out it was an efficient way of doing it.

Yuuup, and according to your doctrine most of them are going to hell for not believing in Jesus, and the rest might be going to hell for various things they don't consider sins but your denomination does. Don't try this generic god equivocation, it's intensely dishonest.