Expert: Marilyn - 8/23/2007

Question
QUESTION: I just wanted to say that I thought your response to the individual who asked about the Anti-Christ being a Jew was excellent, if you have anymore information on this and Islam I would sure appreciate it.

ANSWER: Howdy Junior, I was kind of missing hearing from you.  Thanks for your kind comments!

My husband posted the comparison study I created contrasting Islam and Christianity on his blog.  We don't know how to get it to appear in an outline format, but the information is there.  Let me know if you need more.

http://religiouspolitican.blogspot.com/

Sincerely,

Marilyn

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hey Mariyln, How have you been?

My next question is about Thomas and his so called gospel, I was wondering if you could give me any information on thisd and as to why some people actually believe that this gospel is divine scripture. Also this Nag Hammadi Library, lol I seem to run into the most intresting people lately. But its good becasue they challenge my faith and I am able to have wonderful people such as yourself to lean on occasionally to help me defend it. Thanks

Answer
Dear Junior;

I'd like to add this link, hopefully it works:

http://www.everystudent.com/wires/radical.html?gclid=COr5ufrLuo8CFRO-hgod1l-0YA

It's a former Muslim's analysis of the differences between Christianity & Islam.

Marilyn

I would like to recommend an excellent, easy to read and informative book:  "Church History in Plain Language," by Bruce L. Shelley.  This book will explain many of the things we've discussed, Catholic vs. Protestant, how the church fits into history etc. etc. very clearly and succinctly

Hope you're doing great and pleas pray for me.

Marilyn

I want to clarify some things.

My sources are:  "What if Jesus Had Never Been Born?" by D. James Kennedy and "The Victory of Reason" by Rodney Stark.    

I've had some heated arguments on this topic, but I keep coming back to my thesis and I want to clarify it for you.

First, the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Egyptians, Aztecs, Etc. developed fabulous technology.  This technology allowed them to produce some of the greatest engineering feats accomplished in any age.  However, they did not develop science.

People often confuse science and technology.  Einstein put it best, "I want to know God's thoughts, the rest are just details."  That's science--the quest to understand.  

Technology has limited interest in understanding how something was formed or why something does what it does.  Technology is interested in "Which material will be the best for my bridge and how do I build it?"  Science is interested in, "How did that material form and what properties does it have that makes it function as it does?"

The pagan paradigm of the universe is "the gods are crazy, who can figure anything out."  The Christian paradigm of the universe is, "God is rational; He is not only a Law Giver, but He operates according to Laws and since God has commanded humanity to have dominion over the universe, we must understand it."  True mastery, or dominion, does not come until one understands.

Only Christianity, with the freedom purchased by Jesus' Blood, developed the concept of the scientific method and science.  Science feeds into technology and technology feeds into science, but technology reaches a peak beyond which it cannot go without science.

I've had heated debates on this topic and you will too, if you go there.  If you go there, arm yourself and be well informed and have your points well thought out.  It's real easy to confuse science and technology and many people do it. Just getting a person to understand the difference may be a feat all its own.

All the best,

Marilyn



The "infidel" link posted below is a dissenting voice in the discussion on the biblical canon--just wanted to point that out.  I'll continue looking for online sources on the canon.

To be fair to the Greeks and Romans...

Today, people tend to look at the Greek and Roman architecture and the like and forget Roman brutality.  The "Dark Ages" were supposed to have been a time when civilization fell into darkness--hence the name.  And Christian contribution to the world is discounted.  I catch myself going the other way and discounting the Greeks and Romans.  Their contributions to law, government, architecture, philosophy, mathematics and literature are very real.  Western civilization owes a debt of gratitude for the good that came out of the Greek and Roman cultures that helped form its foundation.  But I still hold to the point I was driving at in my article below.  For all their achievements, they reached a ceiling.  World view, how a person thinks of God or doesn't think of Him, etc. plays a huge role in what a civilization may accomplish, not just in terms of great architecture and invention.  But in terms of changing the world for the better, bringing the greatest number of persons into prosperity, Christian civilization, with its ideas and paradigms, has gone way beyond the Greek and Roman ceiling.  And that is just not pointed out much today.   

Thanks for the ratings!

Marilyn

Hello Junior;

I’m doing well, thank you.  Sorry this answer comes so late.  This article contains three parts, the Gospel of Thomas part being the last.

First, regarding my previous answer I was in error, I said Mark was an Apostle of Jesus and this is not correct, he was a disciple of Paul.  Two Gospels were written by Apostles:  Matthew and John; Mark and Luke were not.  

Regarding “The Gospels Portraits of Christ” by Wayne G. Rollins:

Rollins’ assertion on page 12, “In view of the fact that illiteracy prevailed among the masses in the first-century world...” is false.  Many Romans and Greeks could read, but among the Jews, literacy was almost universal.  Every synagogue in every little community had a school attached to it.  In that school children learned to read Torah and Tenauch.  The Torah are the first five books written by Moses and the Tenuach are the remainder of the Old Testament.  

Not only did girls and boys learn to read, but they memorized large quantities of Scripture because normally the community could only afford one copy of the Scriptures.  The girls quit school around 13 to marry and some of the boys would quit at that time to pursue the family business.  The remainder who stayed in school would continue on for another few years.  From these the Rabbi would glean those who were on fire for God to train as disciples.  (For a very illuminating and edifying discussion of the times of Jesus obtain any Ray Vander Laan productions you can.)

So, every person in every Jewish village not only could read, but every male was required to read from the Scripture when it was his turn.  Recall the passage in Luke when Jesus reads the prophetic portion and announces, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your presence,” that was His portion to read on that day, an event His Father no doubt had planned well in advance.  (The Scriptures were written on scrolls, and a section was read each Sabbath until the entire scroll had been read, then it was positioned at the beginning and re-read once again--one section at a time, no jumping ahead or looking back, similar to how some churches today read the lectionary.)

On page 13 Rollins says, “...a narrative with a moral tacked to the end, such as Mark 2:27 – 28, “The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath; so the Son of man is lord even of the sabbath”) were advantageously employed in controversy, in this particular instance to defend a Sunday versus a Saturday sabbath.”  First, my spell-checker doesn’t like failure to capitalize Sabbath and neither do I; second, but more importantly, where did this notion of a “Sunday versus a Saturday sabbath” being the point of this passage come from?  It’s not an issue in the story at all!  Mark didn’t include this story to settle a score about which day to worship!  The story begins in verse 23.  Jesus’ disciples were picking heads of grain as they walked through a field.  The Pharisees objected.  Jesus pointed out that David, on the run from Saul, ate the consecrated bread.  And then Jesus says the remark about the Sabbath.  And the whole thing is a very Jewish debate about holiness and God’s rest, not about which day of the week one should worship.  

Once again on page 13; Rollins presses on with possible motivations for writing the Gospels.  Rollins says, “Collections of “miracle stories” and “legends” such as the birth stories were used as window dressing to attract new members as well as to express the faith of the old.”  (Quotation marks within this quote indicate italics.)  What, now the story of Jesus’ virgin birth is “window dressing?”

Rollins says, “One of the uses of the “genealogical” collections (Luke, ch. 3, and Matt., ch.1) was to provide Jesus with a pedigree that would silence those who contested his Messianic lineage from David,” (quotations within this quote appear in italics in the text).  To my mind, Rollins words this as if Jesus’ genealogy were not true or critically important, but fabricated to give the appearance of truth, what do you think?    

On page 14 the author says, “In all probability this took place under the sponsorship of an earlier version of the Ford or the Rockefeller Foundation.  The Gospel authors were not just free-lance writers; they were hired or appointed by communities--Mark in Rome, Luke somewhere in Greece, Matthew in Antioch (?), John in Ephesus (?)--...”  

There were no such organizations during the first century.  These kinds of organizations such as the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation sprang from the development of capitalism during the so-called Dark Ages.  

Before Christianity took hold in the earth, everything operated on slave labor.  Wealthy families used their slaves to produce food and products to support the families.  Greeks and Romans, had little interest in establishing “foundations” to support charitable efforts or fund “free-lance writers” of anything.  They might have individual slaves who functioned as secretaries taking dictation or researching things in order to advance the cause of the family or in the course of their hobbies and intellectual pursuits, but not “free-lance” writers.  So much of Roman energies were expended in increasing social and political rank and status of the individual or family.  Rome essentially, didn’t produce much in the sense we expect production now, such as what the Ford family has produced, that is inexpensive, mass produced automobiles for ordinary people.  Rome invaded other lands in order to extract from them their resources and labor to support Rome.  It was beneath the dignity of a proper Roman or Greek to do physical labor.  Making speeches, writing down histories or wandering around in one’s own mind (philosophy) and making war were the pursuits of the proper Roman and Greek.  Roman nobility wanted to get a governorship in a wealthy vassal state in order to extract funds needed to make a dash for political power and the like.  To be sure, Roman and Greek technology was impressive, but all of it existed on the backs of slaves.  Much of it produced to edify the conquering general, to glorify the emperor or to prove wealth and provide entertainment.

When Christianity took hold in Europe, its principles also took hold.  Keeping slaves gradually became disgusting (later, Crusaders once again learned slaving from the Muslims), the concept that labor was noble and godly took hold and suddenly the whole way of thinking about goods, labor, economy was transformed.  Even wealthy people began working; applying their minds.  Smart people started going to universities and studying things, trying to figure out how they worked.  Ordinary persons might advance in the trades by intelligence and hard work in a way that had never really existed before.  Until the Christian mind-set had taken hold, nobody tried to figure out how anything worked.  The pagan paradigm insists that it’s not possible to figure out how anything works, the gods are essentially crazier than humans, so how could a human being figure anything out?  It was the Judeo/Christian concept of a rational God who ordered things in an intelligent, well-designed manner, according to laws that gave birth to science, as we know it today.   

The so-called Dark Ages produced the first seeds of science, creativity in music (Greeks and Romans did not have harmony), invention (Romans for some reason never invented the horse collar that allowed a person to harness a horse’s power for labor, having slaves probably prevented that) of capitalism where the individual works hard to produce a product someone needs and makes a little money while doing it.  In order to have a “foundation” that can fund something, you first have to have someone with enough money, the ability to produce it daily, monthly, yearly (capitalism) AND the love to give it away!  Some early Christians might have been individually wealthy, but there were no such things as “foundations.”

It seems that, to Rollins, the idea that Matthew, Mark, Luke & John might want to write their Gospels by the power of the Holy Spirit because He asked them to do it just doesn’t enter his radar.  He has to lay the blame (or the credit) to some fictitious “early version of the Ford or the Rockefeller Foundation.”  To be sure, his statement that the early church woke up and realized that the Lord was not returning immediately as they’d expected so they’d better get busy and write stuff down, is true.  This indeed happened, but that awakening does not cancel the fact that the Gospels were written by anointed, obedient persons called by God!  Rollins attributes motivations similar to what evolutionists attribute to animals to reproduce themselves--any means that achieves that objective is suitable--and a mercenary mentality to the Gospel writers that just doesn’t jibe with the Christian Way.

Matthew’s Gospel is written particularly for the Jews, presenting Jesus as King.  His genealogy focuses on his step-father, Joseph’s line from David through Solomon, because it is through the father that a person inherits the throne.  This unique situation of Jesus being a step-Son is no accident.  At one point God was so infuriated with Solomon’s descendents that He announced that no blood-born son of his would ever sit on David’s throne.  This would seem to shut the door on His promise to David that an Eternal King would one day sit on his throne, but, if the son is adopted, well, that changes things a bit.

Rollins mentions that Mark’s Gospel is believed to reflect Peter’s view of events and there is agreement with him among my sources.  The Gospel of Mark presents Jesus as Servant, the other half of the Messianic picture found in Old Testament Scriptures.  Some say it was pitched to the Romans.

Luke presents Jesus as the Son of Man, His very human side.  In Luke’s genealogy, Mary’s line from David is revealed through David’s son Nathan all the way back to Adam and Eve.  So Jesus is a Son of David, just not of the line destined for the throne, but being adopted by Joseph makes it all work.

On page 15 Rollins speaks of B. H. Streeter who wrote a book titled, “The Four Gospels” in which the “original source,” the “Q” Gospel, is cited.  (The “Q” Gospel is not real, it’s imaginary.)  This author cites Mark as having been written first and Matthew and Luke borrowing heavily from him.  According to my Scofield Bible, Matthew was first, around A.D. 50; Mark, A.D. 68; Luke, A.D. 60 and John A.D. 85-90.  The exact date for Mark is disputed, but it is my understanding that most scholars agree with Scofield.  

My Scofield says of the dispute in which Rollins plays a role as critic:  “An effort has been made by certain scholars to trace the forms or patterns into which the earliest traditions about Christ were put for oral repetition.  These forms are supposed to have provided material for the Gospels and are also thought to have been so thoroughly shaped by the needs of the early Church as to preclude a full historical basis for all the events recorded in the Gospels.  In its effort to explain the differences in the Gospels, this critical view raises a question concerning the historical accuracy of the whole record.  However, it fails to recognize evidence which supports the historicity of the Gospels.  It may also be observed that selectivity of material does not necessarily mean distortion of fact, nor is the use of reliable tradition incompatible with the inspiration of the Gospel records.

“The important thing to keep in mind is the established fact that these Gospels are inspired historical documents of genuine authenticity and full integrity.  Moreover, the believer in Christ knows in his own life the reality of the living Lord, who is so faithfully and yet so variously presented in the Synoptics and in John’s Gospel.”

The idea that Matthew and Luke might have some of the exact verses as Mark causing Bible speculators to think that they’re quoting it is amusing.  If you have an event and three different people are writing about it, wouldn’t you expect at least a good portion of the material to be virtually the same?  I don’t understand this upset over many verses being virtually identical.  I know that if it’s too close to identical, nobody will believe any of them.  There must be some differences otherwise, none of them are telling the truth.  And then to further compound the mess by insisting that there is yet another Gospel, a “lost” Gospel (the “Q” Gospel) from which all of these draw heavily, is just a comedy.  

It reminds me of people insisting that the Polynesians couldn’t have possibly gotten to the Hawaiian Islands by choosing to travel there, instead they must have been blown by a storm.  Finally, after years of explaining how primitive Polynesians weren’t smart enough to get to Hawaii without a catastrophic intervention by nature, these brilliant researchers went to the Polynesian Islands and interviewed the still-living mariners.  The mariners explained how they navigate by watching the stars, the sun, smelling the water, looking at the color of the water, observing the currents, smelling the wind...suddenly these idiots who were simply blown off course become geniuses of the primitive world navigating thousands of miles to an island they smelled on the wind.  So, Rollins and Streeter can’t conceive how the four Gospels could be what they are without some help--there must have been another source, “Q”.  

In short, it seems Rollins and his sources believe the Holy Spirit and the persons He leads are so feeble that not only would none of them write down the four Gospels for sheer love of God and by His guidance, they would have to be paid and commissioned by humans.  And further, they’re not smart enough to interview anybody (in the case of Luke and Mark) or remember anything by themselves (in the case of Matthew and John), they have to have a “Q”.

Once I got past Rollins digression into a discussion of Existentialism in the chapter dealing with the book of Mark, I liked what he had to say about Mark.  Some of his points are fascinating and though provoking.

Now, I’m in the chapter dealing with Matthew.  He calls Matthew an “ethical-apocalyptic” approach.  Mark, Rollins seemed to love, but he seems to have a lot less respect for Matthew.

Apocalyptic writings appear in the Judeo/Christian Bible during hard times.  I get the impression, that to Rollins’ mind apocalyptic writings are less valid, than for instance Mark’s “existential” Gospel.  I, for one, am not impressed with Rollins’ handling of Matthew.

On page 51, Rollins asserts that an unknown author wrote the Book of Daniel.  My Scofield insists Daniel wrote it.  Rollins says that Nebuchadnezzar’s statue represents:  the head of gold, Babylon; the breast and arms, Media; the belly and thighs, Persia; the legs of iron, the kingdom of Alexander the Great; and the feet of mixed iron and clay, the Hellenistic kingdoms of Ptolemy and Antiochus Epiphanes IV.  The striking stone he got right:  God and His might.

I’ve heard Hal Lindsey and my Scofield Bible agrees, the head is Babylon; the next section is Medo/Persia; the next is Rome and the last a reconstituted Roman empire (possibly the EU) which has yet to be revealed.  According to my Scofield Bible, Daniel was written in the 500’s B.C.  Rollins says it was written in 156 B.C.  If it was written in 156 B.C. that changes the prophetic nature of the book from telling the future (what happens after Medo/Persia) to retelling the past, a sort of consolation prize and pep talk for the Jews who’ve suffered through Gentile oppression.  I think Rollins is wrong about who wrote Daniel and when.

That is as far as I’ve gotten in the book to date.  If you care for more, let me know.  I will finish reading it.

Regarding the Gospel of Thomas:

The Gospel of Thomas is a gnostic “gospel.”

According to:  http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html

“The Nag Hammadi Library, a collection of thirteen ancient codices containing over fifty texts, was discovered in upper Egypt in 1945. This immensely important discovery includes a large number of primary Gnostic scriptures -- texts once thought to have been entirely destroyed during the early Christian struggle to define "orthodoxy" -- scriptures such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Truth.”

According to my “QPB Dictionary of Ideas,” Gnosticism is:  

“(an)...esoteric cult of divine knowledge (a synthesis of Christianity, Greek philosophy, Hinduism, Buddhism, and the mystery cults of the Mediterranean), which flourished during the 2nd and 3rd centuries and was a rival to, and influence on, early Christianity.  The medieval French Cathar heresy and the modern Mandaeans (in S. Iraq) descend from Gnosticism.

“Gnostic 4th-century codices discovered in Egypt in the 1940’s include the Gospel of St. Thomas (unconnected with the disciple) and the Gospel of Mary, probably originating in AD 135.  Gnosticism envisaged the world as a series of emanations from the highest of several gods.  The lowest emanation was an evil god (the demiurge) who created the material world as a prison for the divine sparks that dwell in human bodies.  The Gnostics identified this evil creator with the God of the Old Testament, and saw the Adam and Eve story and the ministry of Jesus as attempts to liberate humanity from his dominion, by imparting divine secret wisdom,” page 222 & 223.

In short, the Gospel of Thomas is bogus as it regards to Christianity and is not worthy of much effort unless you just really want to.  The Gnostics were losing ground to Christianity and their “Gospels” are an attempt to cut in on the Christians.

Further, scholars assert and it makes sense, the further a book is from the core, that is Jesus on earth and His Apostles, the less valid it is in terms of historical information and quotes uttered by Jesus.  The Gospel of Thomas was written over a hundred years after Jesus, hardly a first hand account.

A person can get into debates about the biblical canon and why certain books were included and why others were not.  People have debated this for ages, ever since the church fathers got together and decided on which books should be included.  God has allowed His people to debate what the Scriptures say ever since the first texts were ever written down.  Unlike Allah, who permits no debate whatsoever, Elohim encourages people to argue, He welcomes doubters and baits them to do their best to debunk Him and His Word.  Naturally, this leads people to think they have debunked Him or they’ve discovered something in some apocryphal text that refutes the “mainstream” Christian view.  In order to permit people to choose Him and His Truth, God must also permit them to choose other gods and whatever half-truths or lies they might concoct.  

The Apostle Paul admonishes the Corinthians, “Now, brothers I want to remind you of the Gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.  By this Gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I have preached to you.  Otherwise, you have believed in vain,” I Corinthians 15:1 & 2.

In Galatians 1 he says, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the One who called you by the Grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel--which is really no Gospel at all.  Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the Gospel of Christ.  But even if we or an angel from Heaven should preach a Gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!  As we have already said, so now I say again:  If anybody is preaching to you a Gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!”

Here’s some links to information on the canon and why it is what it is:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/NTcanon.html

http://www.bible-researcher.com/canon.html

Apparently this issue is going to keep coming up.

May the Lord bless you and increase your territory and give you the wisdom to hold it,

Marilyn