344d
@pettytalk saidhttps://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/banter
"Banter is both a noun and a verb about talking. It comes from unknown origins, but even as a word, it seems to be playful and teasing. You can engage in banter with friends, siblings, parents, and even good-natured strangers. Banter usually ends with everyone feeling better for the talk and verbal play. Joking, joshing, and teasing are all related to banter.
Good friend ...[text shortened]... head of each other in witty responses. This type of banter is their special language of friendship."
It is generally regarded as good forum etiquette to cite your sources PettyTalk.
344d
@pettytalk saidTwo issues:
I began this thread to address the apparent contradictions between a love-oriented Jesus, the Messiah and Savior, and the "bloodthirsty" Old Testament God, the Lord Almighty.
I provided a few examples to illustrate the clear contrast in sentiments. For instance, Jesus taught us to love our enemies, yet the Old Testament God commanded the extermination of certain groups t ...[text shortened]... ur scholars here, expressing opinions that have likely been shaped by higher-level academic sources.
Christ & God are co-eternal. The Son and the Father have always existed, and Christ has always been immortal. Christ's death was about being the final sacrifice - the great atonement for all the sins of the earth, which purifies us and enables us to live lives that are ritually themselves clean and pure. He frees us from the bindings of sin, and gives us a path to walk toward immortality and moral living.
So, Christ's death does not represent a ltiteral transformation into death, though the physical, earthly body died, but it is about being the final sacrifice. Christ is the New Adam who reverses the fall - not in the sense that everything is immediately returned to paradise, but in the sense that we can now restore Eden on earth.
The command to love your enemies never changes. In Leviticus, it tells us to love your neighbor in Leviticus 19.
The wars with the various people were purely political and were matters of survival for the Hebrews, and those who were slain in these wars on both sides will be judged before God on the final day of judgment, at which point they will receive their just deserts, right? What about this would preclude God's timeless love for humanity?
@ghost-of-a-duke saidIt's purely symbolic.
Donkeys and goats get a rough hand in the Bible.
But it is also worth noting that there is a sacrifice for the Day of Atonement in which one goat is given to Yahweh, and another is given to Azazel (the demonic desert demon), and sacrifices to God are considered clean and fine. So it is actually the case that the goat here is not really considered some demonic entity...
The parable of the sheep and the goats does make that case, of course, but it is also the case that we hear about "the lion shall lay down with the lamb," and we do not think of lions as these terrible, destructive creatures for eating what is normally a symbol of God.
Also... Christ rides a donkey through Jerusalem....
But yeah I get it, lol, but it is just important to emphasize that no animals are actually wicked or evil or unclean anymore. It is symbolic.
@ghost-of-a-duke saidThat actually does not make sense as an assertion that it would just be carried out where he was living.
It is commonly asserted Jesus was born in Bethlehem due to Joseph having to go there for the census. (In reality of course there was no requirement for Joseph to return to his place of birth for the census, as this would have been carried out in the place he was living at the time, as it is today). The Bethlehem thing was contrived (poorly) to place Jesus in Bethlehem to fulfil an OT prophecy.
The decree was to return to their hometowns for the census for a very logical reason: identities could be confirmed and people could not be hidden; everyone would be accounted for by their families and peers. If they could just be counted wherever they were, the whole process could be less accurate with people in the cities hiding from the census to escape taxation, and even being potentially commanded by landlords or masters to temporarily relocate in order to avoid having their existence counted...
It's also the traditional ways of a Hebrew census - as we see in 2 Samuel 24, they go to each tribe to conduct a census,...
There is plenty of information on it here:
https://crossexamined.org/was-luke-wrong-about-the-census/
343d
@philokalia saidI can only say that your reply is more idiotic than the one mchill provided earlier. Do you truly believe that God will judge and punish those who killed others, despite following His instructions to do so?
Two issues:
Christ & God are co-eternal. The Son and the Father have always existed, and Christ has always been immortal. Christ's death was about being the final sacrifice - the great atonement for all the sins of the earth, which purifies us and enables us to live lives that are ritually themselves clean and pure. He frees us from the bindings of sin, and giv ...[text shortened]... receive their just deserts, right? What about this would preclude God's timeless love for humanity?
Do you have your own unique understanding of the term 'immortal'? Generally speaking, the public agrees that an immortal being is one that lives forever, never dying.
@pettytalk saidFor someone who claims to not have the proclivity to insult the intelligence of others, you seem to do it a lot.
I can only say that your reply is more idiotic than the one mchill provided earlier.
343d
@pettytalk saidHave you heard of Just War theory?
I can only say that your reply is more idiotic than the one mchill provided earlier. Do you truly believe that God will judge and punish those who killed others, despite following His instructions to do so?
Do you have your own unique understanding of the term 'immortal'? Generally speaking, the public agrees that an immortal being is one that lives forever, never dying.
@philokalia saidYour assertion is ostensibly incorrect.
Christ & God are co-eternal. The Son and the Father have always existed, and Christ has always been immortal.
There is no such thing as the “eternal son” and no mention of the phrase in the bible. Furthermore “Christ” was born of a human mother and his flesh, blood and bones did not exist before his conception.
As for Christ’s immortality, well he was executed and died on the cross, irrespective of his body being resurrected.
342d
@divegeester saidIt is possible to establish that the Son of God existed before with the Father, in heaven [or wherever], prior to being born of Mary as the Christ.
Your assertion is ostensibly incorrect.
There is no such thing as the “eternal son” and no mention of the phrase in the bible. Furthermore “Christ” was born of a human mother and his flesh, blood and bones did not exist before his conception.
As for Christ’s immortality, well he was executed and died on the cross, irrespective of his body being resurrected.
Jesus was the firstborn of creation. He was created by God at some point, long before coming as Jesus Christ, but he was not and never was any eternal son as you say.
@rajk999 said“Jesus” flesh wasn’t, and it was his flesh which held the temporary office/manifestation of “son”.
It is possible to establish that the Son of God existed before with the Father, in heaven [or wherever], prior to being born of Mary as the Christ.
Jesus was the firstborn of creation. He was created by God at some point, long before coming as Jesus Christ, but he was not and never was any eternal son as you say.
@rajk999 saidYou err in defining firtborn in this verse exactly how the JWs define it. You are as wrong as they are.
It is possible to establish that the Son of God existed before with the Father, in heaven [or wherever], prior to being born of Mary as the Christ.
Jesus was the firstborn of creation. He was created by God at some point, long before coming as Jesus Christ, but he was not and never was any eternal son as you say.
Firstborn, in this verse, is defined as preeminent.
You, like they, put emphasis on this verse: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:" (Colossians 1:15), without referencing the following three verses which further explain:
"For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence." (Colossians 1:16-18)
@divegeester said"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter." -- Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back
“Jesus” flesh wasn’t, and it was his flesh which held the temporary office/manifestation of “son”.