Christian "purpose" and "meaning" in life.

[Mystical]

The vatican authenticated a 1,500 year old bible. It said that Barnabas said paul was a liar, also said Jesus never claimed to be the son of god, nor did he ever die on a cross. So about that book again?

It wasn't a bible. It was called the "Gospel of Barnabas" and obviously was written by somebody who didn't agree with the gospel writers of the bible. The bible is a collection of 66 books which are accepted by orthodox christianity as being the inspired word of God.

It seems to me that there's quite a lot of disagreements within the Gospels.

RE: Why-do-the-gospels-seem-to-disagree?

Q. In reading the Bible, I'm surprised how much books disagree, especially the Gospels. They have different ancestors of Jesus and even different words for Jesus spoken at the Last Supper. How can this be if the Gospels are supposed to give us a true life of our Lord? (California)

A. I often receive questions similar to yours. Is it perhaps one aspect of the feeling many Catholics and other Christians have that religious matters should be black and white, without ambiguity? Any evidence that this is not always so is met with disbelief or, as in your case, confusion.

What did Jesus really say at the Last Supper? The quoted words of our Lord in the institution of the Eucharist are different in all three synoptic Gospels, and all differ as well from the eucharistic institution formula we use at Mass. John does not refer to the Eucharist at all in his narrative of the Last Supper, at least in this direct way. These differing readings probably reflected variations in the liturgy from one place to another in those days. Whatever the reasons, each Gospel writer added, changed or subtracted ideas he thought necessary to express what he wanted to say about Jesus. The 1964 Pontifical Biblical Commission Instruction on the biblical truth of the Gospels reflects the nearly universal position of major scholars today. From the many things handed down to them, said the commission, the Gospel writers "selected some things, reduced others to a synthesis" and explained yet others "as they kept in mind the (different) situation(s) of the churches. ... - See more at: http://www.catholiccourier.com/commentar...HWYQC.dpuf

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Lek, additionally: Virgin births aren't that rare in religious texts. Why is the Christian Virgin Mother taken any more seriously than any of the other, more older ones?

Virgin birth in Buddhism. In Buddhism the virgin birth concept occupies a central place and the suggestion of immaculate conception is also made. Buddha's future mother, Mahamaya, refrained form sexual activity and other worldly pleasures during the mid-summer festival and was taken off during a dream to the Himalayas. There she was purified by water to remove every human stain before being placed upon a divine couch. Nearby, the future Buddha had become a superb white elephant, and three times he walked round his mother's couch, with his right side towards it, and striking on her right side, he seemed to enter her womb. After the conception, no lustful thought sprang up in the mind of future Buddha's mother. Buddha was carried for ten months in Mahamaya's womb and was delivered as she stood in the sacred Lumbini Grove.13

Virgin birth in Hinduism. In Hinduism, the birth of Krishna is attributed as virgin birth. The myth of Krishna elaborates how the divine Vishnu himself descended into the womb of Devaki and was born as her son Krishna. In this, the deity is not only the effective agent in conception, but also the off-spring.15
In the Hindu epic 'Mahabharata,' Karna is miraculously conceived and born of the virgin Kunti. Karna's father is the sun god Surya, the light of the Universe, who restores Kunti's maidenhood after the act of conception. Karna is born wearing armour and ear- rings. Like so many other virgin mothers, Kunti hides her child from her family for fear of scandal. The child is placed, like Moses, in a basket in the river and subsequently he is rescued and reared by people of a lower station in life.

Virgin birth in Zoroastrianism. According to Zoroastrianism, the glory of Ahura Mazda (the supreme deity) united itself with Zoroaster's future mother at her birth and rendered her fit thereby to bear the prophet. At the same time a divinely protected stem of a haoma21 plant was infused with the fravashi22 of the coming prophet. At the proper time the parents of Zoroaster drank its juices mixed with a potent milk and it contained the material essence of the child about to be conceived. This leads up to his actual physical generation. But his virgin birth assertion is hardly supported by the accounts in the sacred books.23

The doctrine of the virgin birth was well known in Egypt in connection with the goddess Neith of Sais, centuries before the birth of Christ.25
It is of interest to note that in Egyptian birth stories, the agent of conception is God's breath. At its profound level, the virgin birth story is the story of re-creation in which the virgin as the centre of creation receives the divine breath or spirit of the divine in order that a new sacred creation in microcosm might take place

The legend of Perseus stated that his mother conceived him by Jupiter when he visited her in a golden shower. Stories of the generation of gods and goddesses by other gods and goddesses as in the case of the birth of Apollo by Zeus and Semele, legends of the birth of gods by generation of a god with a mortal woman as in the case of the birth of Hercules by the union of Zeus and Alomena, tales of the birth of the heroes through the union of a god with a mortal as in the birth of Ion by Apollo and Creusa, and stories of the birth of emperors as in the legend of Augustus' generation by a serpent- god and Atia, have been regarded as virgin birth by Greco-Roman and Hellenistic traditions.