OT God vs. NT Jesus

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Background
Per the New Testament, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and God is Jesus. It's the enigmatic Trilogy that is somewhat difficult to understand in human terms. But one thing that is easy to understand about the Trilogy is that they are united in Their purposes, goals, and knowledge. They share a common mind, or at least a common mindset. One part of the Trilogy could never transgress the will of another other part of the Trilogy. They are all three together in perfection of love and knowledge and justice.

OT God vs. NT Jesus
The trouble is that the Bible does not provide the Trilogy with a uniform front. Fundamental philosophical differences do exist. While the Holy Spirit is mostly silent, the Father and the Son appear to have some Family issues to work out. Below are a few examples of the Holy discord.

Jesus has something to say about murder and adultery in the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:21-22, the former: “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder'...But I tell you...” and in Matthew 5:27-28 the latter: “You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you...” In these passages, Jesus redefines, enhances, and expands the intents of these Commandments to more stringent requirements. At first glance, the views may seem to be in line with the Commandments and in tune with God. But this standpoint falls apart under closer scrutiny.

There are two sources of incongruency here. The first is the disowning of authorship of the Commandments. The second is the admission of the imperfection of God.

Consider the manner in which Jesus words these sentences. I'll paraphrase them together for simplicity: “The elder generations were told [this], but I tell you [that].” The trouble is that the source of these Commandments is not the elders or the prophets or some other detached being. The source of these Commandments is God (Exodus 20:13-14). So by substitution, that makes the expressions rephrased as “God told the elder generations [this], but I tell you [that].” This makes Jesus disagree with God. Now, because Jesus is God, another substitution could be made to “I told the elder generations [this], but I tell you [that]” or “God told the elder generations [this], but God tells you [that].” Take your pick; God disagrees with Jesus, Jesus disagrees with Himself, or God disagrees with Himself. Any way you slice it, there is discord in the Trinity. The word choice of these verses sets Jesus at some distance from the source of the original Commandments, but He does not actually have that distance because the original source was God.

Secondly, when we consider that Jesus is either raising the bar or clarifying the Law, it prompts the question of why. Why is it necessary? Why was God's original Commandment not perfect in and of itself? If it was imperfect, or maybe just incomplete, why didn't God set it right to begin with? If the original Commandments did fall short, then God made a mistake.

Am I reading too much into the literal meanings and not the intentional meanings? Is there really no conflict in your mind because Jesus is simply revealing God's intent with these laws? Well then, let's move on.

The third time is the charm, so to speak. Jesus does a similar disowning with divorcement in Matthew 5:31-32. Although in this case, He turns the permission given by the Law into a sin. This point is repeated in an ill-context-fitting one-liner in Luke 16:18, but with more greater detail and context in Mark 10:2-12 and Matthew 19:3-9 when the Pharisees ask Jesus if divorce is OK. In both of those detailed cases, Jesus included in His replies that Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of their hearts (Mark 10:5, Matthew 19:8), but that Jesus considers it a sin. That's a nice story, but it's not true to what God said in the Old Testament.

You see, Deuteronomy is where you will explicitly find the permission to divorce. Deuteronomy is mostly composed of information and laws passed to the Jews from God through Moses. Starting from Deuteronomy 1:6 and continuing to 26:15 (and beyond there too), Moses tells the Jews everything that God commanded him to say (Deuteronomy 1:3). Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is where a man is permitted to divorce his wife, even explaining that the man may not remarry his ex-wife, as that would be an abomination to God. It is very unlikely that Moses would insert his own feelings on what should be permitted into a list of laws given by God, especially because one of those laws is not to add to or take away from the Law (Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32), and because Moses repeatedly says that these laws are from God, like in Deuteronomy 8:11; “Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe His commands, His laws and His decrees that I am giving you this day.” NIV

For Jesus to explicitly disown Holy involvement and say that it was Moses that permitted the Jews to divorce, as opposed to God, is either a lie or a mistake. (Either that, or Moses is part of the Godhead and it's actually a Quartet!) We know God can't make a mistake, so it must be a lie. But we also know that God can't lie, so it must be a mistake. It's a bit of a conundrum; a conundrum repeated in two of the four Gospels.

(I find it particularly interesting that Luke records that Jesus disapproves of divorce in the previously mentioned ill-context-fitting one-liner in Luke 16:18. One theory of the creation of the synoptic Gospels is that they were iterations; starting with Mark, progressing to Matthew and Luke using Mark and another now-lost document as a source. If so, it may be that the writer of Luke realized that there was a little trouble with the way Jesus had said that Moses made the divorce law, so he deleted the preceding context for Jesus' declaration against divorce.)

God decreed divorce was acceptable in Deuteronomy. Jesus plainly says that divorce is not permissible (although, Matthew added it's OK in the case of a cheating spouse). Jesus disagrees with God's Law on marriage, and the two viewpoints are incongruent. But because of the nature of the Trilogy, this can't possibly occur.

What is the aftermath of such a finding? It seems that verses repeated in multiple Gospels are flawed. Even though there is concordance between the Gospels that would seem to indicate reliability (if they were truly produced by independent sources), they fundamentally do not agree with Scripture. In Jesus' own words, “the Scripture cannot be broken.” So I guess we'll have to remove these passages from Scripture to keep Scripture true. What do you think?

...John is but a Dream

I'll start the critiques off with just a minor, little glitch. Just a small chink in the breastplate of righteousness. Larger battle scars are on the way.

Background
The four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are the only books of the Bible where you can find the words which reportedly Jesus said, with the exception of a sparse few words at the beginning of Acts. Of the four Gospels, three are considered Synoptic Gospels because of their similar storyline; Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The Gospel of John stands conspicuously alone in the tale it tells, and also has the honor of being the only Gospel to record the dogma of being born again, as well as containing some of the most quoted verses, like John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Verily, verily, verily, verily, John is but a dream.
One of Jesus' colloquialisms is that He would often start a sentence with “verily” to emphasize a point of God's philosophy or plan. All four of the Gospels record this. In fact, of the 136 times the term “verily” is used in the entire King James Version of the Bible, 101 of those occurrences are in the Gospels. Of those 101 times, John snags up more than its fair share with 46 instances!

Why? Because John records Jesus saying “verily, verily” every single time He says it. Meanwhile, the Synoptic Gospels never record Jesus saying verily twice in a row. (NOTE: If you have a newer Bible translation, you may not see this as the editors have often decided to “correct” the duplications which do actually exist in the source Greek text.)

So what? Remember that the legend goes that the Gospels were written by the Apostles of Jesus. These were guys that spent day and night with Jesus. They would have heard Him first hand. They would have learned the way that Jesus said things because they would have heard them over and over again as Jesus traveled to different places. Jesus was in the habit of saying verily either once or twice. In a three to one vote, John is wrong.

Well, perhaps John was just trying to emphasize the truth and authority with which Jesus spoke? (With satirical tone: Yes, because even though it was Jesus, the Son of God, speaking, John thought to himself that Jesus still didn't enough panache in His words!)

At the very least, this reveals a man made alteration of reality made for aesthetic reasons. One can only wonder if any of Jesus' words were further touched up by John in a less obvious manner. One can only speculate that John left the essential essence of Jesus' messages unmolested. And therefore, in the interest of intellectual honesty, one should be at least a little leery of revelations contained only within John.



About the Pictures
This bas-relief adorns an adjoining building to the Saint Francisco Cathedral in Salta, Argentina. What I find particularly interesting is that only the books of the Synoptic Gospel are included. John is left out. Hmmm....

The Invitation

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So you think you have faith? Faith in what? I challenge you to figure out exactly what you believe. Stop glossing over the pillars of your faith. Start exploring the foundation. Stop relying on the filtered views of preachers and religious pundits. Start exploring God's Word yourself. God wants you to (Deuteronomy 11:18-19).

You may think that it would be boring to read the Bible yourself. While there are certainly sections that are real tests of endurance, there are equally sections that will shock your heart, rock your understanding of the nature of God, and suck you into reading more.

As I progress along myself, I'll even provide you with summarized books of the Bible to help you get right to the juicy meat of the text. Tomorrow, I will post the summarized book of Genesis to get you started.

I will present what I have discerned in studying the Bible in a manner specifically designed to get you thinking about what the real Truth is. I encourage you to prove me wrong if you can. So please, comment as much as you'd like to the posts.

Are you up for the challenge? I hope so! Please join me. Prove your faith. :-)

Predestined Beginning

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I was a bit hesitant to start up a blog that scrutinized the veracity of the Bible. I mean, I don't believe in God, but I've been wrong before. If I am wrong, I would hate to have led someone astray. There are even words from the mouth of Jesus suggesting that it might not be profitable to do so:

Luke 17:1-2 Jesus said to his disciples: "Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin." NIV

Matthew 18:6-7 "But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!" NIV

Lucky for me, or maybe unlucky for me, God has His Elect. The Elect are the people guaranteed a good spot in the immortal afterlife. God predestined the Elect before they were even born. There will be much more on the Elect on a later posting, but for now we'll touch on just one more characteristic: If you are Elect, you can't be lost. This is touched on briefly in Mark 13:22 and Matthew 24:24 "...to deceive even the elect—if that were possible." But the best explanation is in John.

John 10:25-30 “...The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one.” NIV

You see, His Elect cannot be deceived, cannot be removed from His Hand, because they are predestined by God. There is nothing I can do to thwart the will of God. So if I somehow manage to convince you that Christianity is flawed; just relax. You were destined for Hell anyway. :-)