Tribute Thread For the Recently Raptured Faith

Which verse or verses?

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Which verse or verses?

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Wherever it appears. You’re the one who specified chapter 7.

Then why not say why what I said is wrong instead of just rejecting it out of hand. Lewis did say that but also went on to say this.

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And unless later copyists were equally honest they would never have preserved the (apparently) mistaken prediction about this generation after the passage of time had shown the (apparent) mistake. This passage (Mark 13:30-32) and the cry Why hast thou forsaken me? (Mark 15:34) together make up the strongest proof that the New Testament is historically reliable. The evangelists have the first great characteristic of honest witnesses: they mention facts which are, at first sight, damaging to their main contention.

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Firstly Lewis as a Christian was primarily a Christian philosopher and not a theologian as he often pointed out. Yes I convinced that he got this wrong. Since 1960 when Lewis wrote that there has been considerable advancement in our ability to understand and translate the ancient languages. It has been particularly helpful to have the dead sea scrolls. Modern NT scholars such as N T Wright have understood it to be about the destruction of the Temple and the sacking of Jerusalem.It is also unclear as to when the Gospels were written and it is possible that they were written after 70AD but I doubt that Mark was that late. However I did give a verse by verse breakdown of how those passages were a political statement being made to the revolutionaries and the zealots of His day.

This is my quote from Daniel 7.

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13 In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

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I did quote this from Daniel 11:

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31 His (the very human king of the north) armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation.

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You said: Is the Daniel 11 quote what you were referring to?

I was referring to the text I quoted It would be rather easier if you kept track of the context instead of making me repeat myself. Or asking me what YOU meant.

So all the talk of abomination, desolation, everlasting dominion, of unequaled distress never to be equaled again, darkened Sun, stars falling from the sky, Angels gathering the elect from the ends of the Earth to the ends of the heavens, Earthquakes, famine....I could go on.All of that is simply referring to the siege of Jerusalem of 70AD according to you?

I told you why it's wrong, it's in the text...

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For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now-and never to be equaled again. Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. (Matthew 24)

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None of that happened either within the generation of those hearing his words or when the Temple fell. Either way, your wrong. But he's good enough to quote when it works for you. The gospels were written decades after the fact by unknown authors for unknown reasons and edited later by committees for political reasons. They are THE most unreliable source of events that you could imagine. There is no independent corroboration of any of the critical events as you would expect if they actually had happened. The entire story of resurrection is obviously a fabrication invented for political purposes.

It is a combination of two things. The first is a warning that the revolution will lead to destruction and despair and and in regards to that he uses typical hyperbole with the the darkened sun, stars falling etc, in reference to verses in Isaiah 13. He then is saying that with that happening then they will see the Son of Man coming to the Father, (the Ancient of Days) with the establishment of the Kingdom as talked about in Daniel 7.

No doubt that you,ringo, and PaulK have a good argument. I found myself challenged by two statements that you have said.1) While I cringed at the idea that you never respected scholarly apologists, I had no argument apart from the idea of correctly interpreting the book in context. I used to believe as Faith does--that believers are given insight and understanding that unbelievers will never see--but after honestly evaluating some of Faiths wilder beliefs concerning young earth creationism, I honestly could not buy that theory. GDR makes more sense to me as he adheres to belief in a living Christ and a living word...which rejects Biblical Idolatry. And yet he struggled to explain your second point that I could not really refute. And I would agree with GDR in that the authors were inspired. Otherwise it would be exactly as you say: And I have said before that I agree with GDR that there was nothing to be gained through being simply political and making it up (or embellishing the life of an actual Jesus) So I struggled with your second point, namely that Jesus was wrong about which "generation" would not ever pass. The Dispensationalists rationalize that one by claiming that Jesus was addressing the Little Flock and that when he spoke in Matthew 24 he was basically teaching and addressing them. Some would say, however, that among the Biblical Dispensationalists--all of whom were (and are)Protestant, that there was a hodgepodge of discord. They wrote many books predicting a Rapture and judgement, and were all quite wrong---though they did sell millions of books.
To her credit, Faith believes more in the wisdom and insight of the Theologians who signed the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy signed by over 200 evangelical leaders. The other guys--the booksellers such as Tim LaHaye, Hal Lindsey, Grant Jeffries, and others---were not in any sort of accord as were the Chicago group. As I was googling information for my response, I came upon a Catholic website that denounced the dispensationalists and the rapture theology which i found interesting: Five Myths About the Rapture and the Left Behind Industry. So what am I to conclude so far? In summation, I think it all boils down to belief since we have no solid objective evidence. As you say, we all make stuff up if we want to believe certain things apart from the plain text and in context. GDR presents us with a fairly believable Jesus. Faith insists upon a literal God with literal reasons why He judges.
My own personal jury is still out regarding the exact character of the God whom I believe in. I am quite sure that He exists.

Well it's useful to have a living example in front of you that is as obviously totally wrong about pretty much everything - and the least said about the recent nutters' posts the better - but it should be obvious that there is absolutely no insight provided by the fact that there are 38,000 different Christian churches all with slightly, or radically, different beliefs about the belief. That is a major clue. GDR makes more sense to you because his views are nice and modern and (don't panic) liberal. They appeal to people who need their god to be nice; they don't like the nasty OT god, so they explain him away - or as GDR admits, can't explain it at all.You're simply doing what everybody does and picking what you want to be true, what you're most comfortable with. You have no alternative than to believe that. If you didn't, you'd be saying that the bible is purely man made and man inspired. If it wasn't embellished the entire movement would have died out just like all the others had done. If it wasn't embellished a Roman Emporor wouldn't have adopted it and made it into what is now. How much more political reasoning do you need? It's not not my point, it's Jesus's point in - allegedly - his own words. And not with words that there can be any doubt or subtlety about. Is he lying when he says he's telling the truth?

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I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

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You've just made my point - the believers are not inspired. And you'll find something that suits your personalty best. Or, more likely, argue, worry, debate and agonise about it forever, whils simultaneously ignoring the actual evidence and believing it all anyway.There's an aphorism used here a lot - absense of evidence is not evidence of absence - it's bunkum. An absence of evidence where you would expect to find it if something was true IS evidence of absence. IF all those things had actually happened we would have evidence of them from many sources.

So it's all just hyperbole? Unequalled distress never to be equalled again and all that end-of-times-like description (etc.) is just a fanciful way of talking about the 70AD siege of Jerusalem?I have to say that seems like an unbelievable cop out. Are other descriptions in the bible equally hyperbolic? At this rate of hyperbole a global flood might equate to a damp Monday in London.

Wrong. I don't need evidence "against" anything. If I am going to accept that something exists, I need evidence FOR it. No, it isn't beyond you. You understand it very well. I don't believe in your God for the same reason that you don't believe in Zeus.

I don't know what that has to do with it. I don't believe in an inerrantist reading either. I do believe in taking the words for what they say, not cherry-picking like you do the parts that you like. I didn't start from an atheistic position. I was driven there by nonsensical theology.

Based on that, there is no way that you ever could have been a "saved" Christian since you never had evidence. What makes people become believers is the ability to suspend evidence in an objective sense and allow the subjective feelings to dominte. Rarely if ever have I heard of anyone becoming a believer against their will and intention. I rarely give Zeus a second thought. Just another character in literature along with Long John Silver. Is that really how you see Jesus? And lack of evidence, of course.

Think. I was a believer when I didn't have a requirement for evidence. Other believers claimed that they had evidence but when I checked it out, I discovered that it was false. That's why I now have a requirement for real evidence.Why are you so desperate to believe I was never a believer? Nonsense. Anybody who suspends objective evidence in favour of subjective experience is an idiot. Exactly. You contradict yourself. You become a believer because you want to believe.Of course, you can lose your belief against your will. Why would I see Jesus any differently? Why are you surprised that people don't see Jesus differently?