(April 25, 2015 at 11:19 am)Aractus Wrote:(April 24, 2015 at 11:52 pm)nicanica123 Wrote: Ok sure, I can't read greek. But I have done research and found other non jw sources that come to the same conclusion. Again, because it was part of the parable as a place doesn't confirm he meant it to be a literal place. I go back to the fact that he didn't think a camel could actually walk through the eye of a needle or that you could have a rafter sticking out of your own eye.
As far as the first and last. I do find this interesting and I'm doing more research. Right of the bat, it is possible to me that such an appellation does not need to be uniquely for one being. As an example, the term "greatest of all time." You could say Muhammed Ali was the greatest of all time in boxing and Jack Nicklaus was the greatest of all time in golf. Exact same appellation and they could both be true. But that doesn't equate the two as being one. So, is this answer to this? I don't know... Is a better example, Muhammed Ali is the greatest of all time and Casious Clay (I think I spelled that wrong) is the greatest off all time. Same person, just different names from different eras. So I ask you, if god said, "this is my son..." or Jesus said, "i am not good, no one is good but the father in heaven" doesn't this seem to imply two separate beings? And wouldn't it make sense that there could be an alternate meaning to both being referred to as the first and last?
Your questions...
1. God making himself apparent in the past still doesn't demand that he owes it to humans today. I think you could further into this but that basically as simple as it gets.
2. I was actually not saying this as an argument for the existence of god. It is a circular argument. It is just something that I observe that makes me wonder. I know there is a natural explanation of how things could have come about but thats why I'm on this forum. I want clarity. I want to feel confident in whatever I believe.
1. Well here's the problem. God apparently spoke to Moses directly on Mt Sinai. Yet Finklestein and other archaeologists have shown that the Hebrews never set foot anywhere near Mt Sinai. In fact this is a problem acknowledged by scholars who refer to the mountain talked about in the Pentateuch as "Biblical Mt Sinai". However Finklestein points out that it's not just Mt Sinai that they didn't visit, there are several sites listed in the OT that the ancient Jews supposedly visited as they crossed the Sinai peninsula, yet not a trace of their 40-year journey has ever been found, and if they had crossed the land as is claimed in the Bible then some archaeological evidence would have been found. We have had archaeologists looking specificity for any evidence of the Exodus for 200 years now, and nothing has ever been found that corroborates it. In fact, the archaeological record tells a very different history to the one proposed by the Pentateuch.
The obvious conclusion from the evidence is that Moses was not a historical person, therefore any events that take place where God shows himself to Moses are invalid.
As for Jesus using the title of "First and Last" in the book of Revelation let me remind you that as a sceptic I would limit what I think Jesus said to the contents of the four Gospels. The book of Revelation is not a book of history, but rather a book of prophecy. The author believe he has had a vision, or at least he said he has had a vision. Do remember that hallucinogenic drugs were used in the first century so it's quite possible this is the result of consuming something wacky.
But Jesus says in that book, according to the author that had a prophetic vision, that "I am the first and the last". He is using God's title that isn't used anywhere else in the Bible other than for Jehovah, such as several times in Isaiah.
If you were to read the Bible as more indicative of history rather than believing every word is true, you may draw the conclusion that Jesus did not believe himself to be deity, but that his followers did.
That is quite a bit to digest. I am going to try and do research from a skeptical point of view. I have pondered the idea of there being no archaeological evidence of the Israelites. The best I could come up with is that they were wandering and god miraculously made their clothes not wear out and so on. I doubt that the writer could have the forethought of future archaeology but it could just be a coincidence.
I need to do more research into what Jesus disciples thought of him. That is a good point, Jesus had one view but his disciples had another. I feel like Paul, who most scholars recognize as a legitimate person, seems to differentiate the two. Like in Colossians where he calls jesus the master worker but the firstborn of all creation. And somewhere in the Corinthian letters he talks about Jesus handing the kingdom back over to his father.
But like I said, I am going to try and do research from the point of view as a skeptic rather than the assumption of divinity
