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(July 1, 2014 at 1:36 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: If you're going to bring up the consistency argument as one of the reasons you 'chose' Christianity over Mormonism or Islam, I'm going to have to bring up Judaism again. There are explciit contradictions between the Old and New Testament inside your supposedly internally consistent choice of faith. The Torah at least doesn't have all that extra messiah crap thrown on. If consistency is the reason you're stating for choosing your faith over others, why not 'choose' Judaism?
I've already answered this question in post #35. Do you have questions about what the text is teaching?
(July 1, 2014 at 2:38 pm)Jenny A Wrote: Well the Bible is external to you. No doubt about that. And it certainly says god exists. But given the fact that it also says the world was created in six days and that there is essentially no historical corroboration for anything in it except bits of Kings and Chronicles, I wouldn't count it as evidence. Is the Book of the Dead evidence of Ra?
You're changing the conversation here. I'm clarifying that I didn't "look inside" to determine the truth, but rather was acted upon by an outside force. Are you denying that the Bible is something external to myself?
(June 27, 2014 at 1:57 pm)Jenny A Wrote: For example, please explain when Jesus was actually born since Matthew claims that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great but Luke claims that Jesus was born during the census of Quirinius (6-7 CE) which is ten years after Herod died in 4 BCE. Was he born twice?
Has been addressed.
(June 27, 2014 at 1:57 pm)Jenny A Wrote: The genealogies for Jesus in Mathew and Luke are so different that they hardly contain a single name in common. Further both are through Joseph which makes no sense at all if Jesus were born of a virgin. --apologists suggest that one of those genealogies was Mary's but that's not what either gospel says.
Name one prophesy clearly stated in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. Give me the verses.
Quote:Daniel 9:25-26
Okay, let's look at what Daniel had to say and when he is supposed have said it:
Quote:In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian[b] kingdom— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.
Daniel 9:1-2
So this prophesy was made during the Babylonian captivity. After much prayer concerning the misfortunes of Israel and the times god had both rewarded and punished Daniel, Gabriel came to Daniel and said:
Quote: “Seventy ‘sevens’ are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish[d] transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place.
25 “Know and understand this: From the time the word goes out to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven ‘sevens,’ and sixty-two ‘sevens.’ It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. 26 After the sixty-two ‘sevens,’ the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. 27 He will confirm a covenant with many for one ‘seven.’ In the middle of the ‘seven’[i] he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And at the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him.”
I've italicized the part you say was fulfilled in the New Testament.
You better explain just what you think this means. I don't think it in anyway clearly describes Jesus' coming and I'd like to know why you think it does. Or maybe you think it's John the Baptist? But supposing just for argument the Jesus is the "Anointed One": 7 sevens is 49 and 62 sevens is 434 bringing us to a total of 496. If that's 496 years, the Anointed one showed up way too soon after the beginning of the restoration of Jerusalem. If sevens mean weeks than it's 69 weeks (a little more than a year), than the Annointed One was very late.
Then again maybe it's not time at all. Whatever it is it's not very clear.
Jesus was put to death. But I wouldn't say he had nothing afterwords. Would you? There's been war since, but not especially more than there was before the prophesy.
The point is that it's all about as clear as mud. Worse than a horoscope.
"...from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off..."
Nehemiah 2:1 states the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem occurred in the month of Nissan in the twentieth year of the reign of the Persian king, Artaxerxes. Encyclopedia Britannica says Artaxerxes Longimanus took the Persian throne in July of 465 BC. So his twentieth year began in July of 445 BC. The month of Nissan following that would have been in March of 444 BC, which was before the twenty-first anniversary of Artaxerxes' reign. The seven weeks, or 49 years, ran from Artaxerxes; decree to the year Jerusalem's wall and moat were finished in the period of Ezra and Nehemiah. From that time another 62 weeks went by until the Messiah was "cut off," a term meaning "put to death."
In the book "ON the Weeks and This Prophecy," in fragment 16 Julius Africanus shows how to make the calculation. He says that the "70 weeks" prophecy of Daniel 9 started when Artaxerxes gave the decree in his twentieth year. Years later, Sir Robert Anderson recreated the conversion process for our modern calendar as follows: There are 69 X 7 years until the Messiah's death (483 years)
We convert from the Jewish/prophetic calendar to the Gregorian/Roman calendar this way: We take the 483 years times 360 days per year (the sacred Jewish calendar) and that comes to 173,880. On the modern calender that comes out to 476 years and 21 days. March 14, 444 BC plus 476 years comes out to March 14, AD 31. We add one year because there was no "0" year, then add the 21 days. April 6, AD 32.
(June 27, 2014 at 1:57 pm)Jenny A Wrote: Islam says the Biblical god is the true god. But it specifically says Jesus is merely a prophet.
The Biblical God is Jesus. To call Jesus merely a prophet is to deny Jesus is God, and therefore to deny the Biblical God.
(June 27, 2014 at 1:57 pm)Jenny A Wrote: It simply says the Bible describes the real god but got some things wrong about him.
Which again denies the Biblical God.
The Biblical God cannot lie.
The Bible is the word(s) of God.
If the Biblical God cannot lie, then the words of the Biblical God are true.
To claim that some of the words of the Bible are not true, that the Bible gets some things wrong about God, is to deny the Biblical God.
(July 1, 2014 at 8:37 pm)Rhythm Wrote: That's not a logical inconsistency. Nowhere does the quran "deny god" - in fact - that would be the worst possible thing a muslim could do...precisely because the quran is all about the opposite, the affirmation of god. What you're talking about is a dispute between ideological claims. The "biblical god" says nothing. If you wanted to actually consider this you would have taken the time to express it accurately so that your conclusions might have value. Would you like me to correct that statement or can you handle it?
Addressed above. If there's something I'm missing in your counter argument please 'correct that statement' that I have made.
If it could be proven beyond doubt that God exists... and that He is the one spoken of in the Bible... would you repent of your sins and place your faith in Jesus Christ?
