(March 1, 2015 at 12:33 pm)watchamadoodle Wrote:(March 1, 2015 at 12:02 pm)Drich Wrote: Who were the early christians you were taught to emulate?
That's a good question... Paul always turned me off, and I ignored his epistles. My favorite NT books were Matthew, 1 Peter, 1 John, and James. I'm not sure who actually wrote those books, but I liked them.
The characters I admired in the NT were doubting Thomas, Pilate, Judas, John, and of course Jesus (he was the bee's knees with those parables).
EDIT: Pilate and Judas probably seem weird, so let me explain. I admired Pilate, because he said "what is truth", and he generally seemed to be a decent person. I didn't admire Judas, but I felt sorry for him. He wasn't such a bad guy that he deserved to be hated so much by Christians IMO.
So your question is how do we know the gospels and the books you mentioned are reliable, and not made up?
Just on the surface, there are 25,000 different manuscripts of the bible dating back to the end of the second to the beginning of the third century. We have more copies of biblical manuscripts than we do of any other event in history of the time period combined. To question the validity of the bible is to question all that we know of that time period.
Why didn't you like Paul or what He taught?
Jesus didn't seem to have hate for judas, so for me I don't hate him either. To hate judas is to not understand basic christianity...
Judas filled a much needed role in the fulfillment of prophesy.
Piloet on the other hand was a fence sitter who did not want to upset the jews or Rome.
I use to think he wasn't a bad guy, but then I saw 'the passion'.. (Which illustrates a biblical truth I did not fully grasp.) after finding Jesus innocent, he had him scourged.
That is like going through a high profile murder trial, found innocent, then sentenced to being beaten to an inch of your life then nailed to a cross because 'the people' don't care about justice, they want your blood.
Piloet was a weak leader and a coward for not doing the right thing even by today's standards.