The Purpose of this Blog
A word on nomenclature: As you've seen, the blog is titled "The Janus Project." At the risk of sounding hypocritical, I am a Christian, defending Christian principles (or just conservative principles), and using the Roman god of doors to name my blog. Why? Janus was the Roman god of doorways, but was often pictured with two heads - one looking forward and the other looking backward. In this way his other imagery came to bear - he was the god of the past and future. I'm making a nod toward that concept as I compose this blog.
A man who forgets his past will doubtless head for a bad future.
We as Christians (or even those who are just curious about how some Christians think) must be apprised of our past. For, as it has been said, if a man doesn't know where he came from, he will not know where he is. If he doesn't know where he is, he'll have no concept of where he is headed.
Today's world is monumental, to say the least. The actions and decisions made by out people and leaders today will drastically shape the future, moreso that probably any other time in history. Revolutions are ripping through the world, paganism is on the rise, "Christians" are abandoning the faith, while others compromise for the pleasures this world affords. None of these are new problems, yet there seems to be an uptick in how many issues are cropping up, all at once.
At the time of writing this introduction, a man is speaking against Victoria's Secret for planning to market lingerie to preteens; simultaneously, the CEO of Starbucks has told a shareholder "if you don't like our stand on gay marriage, we don't want your business." (Yes, I understand this was to a shareholder, but you know this is the attitude of the store toward its more-conservative customer - "take it or leave it, we're not going to change.") Meanwhile, this past summer, just because the head of Chick-fil-A said he thought marriage should be between a man an woman, protests and waves of support arose, spurring on the culture war that much further, and further entrenching the double-standard. Planned Parenthood, an organization started by a racist Margaret Sanger, who wanted to eradicate the minorities through abortions, is funded by the government, and when anyone speaks against them (particularly politicians), they are labeled as participants in the "war on women."
Gun rights are being trampled, morality is laughed at, actors whose only skill is pretending to be something they aren't are revered and heeded.
In a nutshell. We're in trouble. But how do we fix it?
We must fix truth firmly in the seat of honor, and listen to her words.
The truth I reference is the Bible. And before any naysayers tune me out and say "oh, not this again!" I ask you to consider what so many (even non-Christians) have recognized through the years. The Bible, at its very lowest, core values, is good for a culture. It's uplifting. It encourages morality. You may bring up all the mud and dirt you want to sling. You may bring up the nasty stories that the Bible presents. But you cannot deny the accomplishments the Bible has effected on cultures that truly practice it. It is an edifying book that changes culture for the better. It tells you not to steal, not to lie, not to commit adultery, not to divorce, to be true and faithful and just. It promotes putting others first. Why is it some demonized?
I'll tell you why - because the enemies of the Bible realize its power, and will do (and have done) all they can to make people ignorant of it.
I'm a teacher, and here in the Janus Project, I'm going to teach you about the Bible, how it has impacted the past, and how we can impact the future, together, with it.
Join me, won't you?
Mike
A man who forgets his past will doubtless head for a bad future.
We as Christians (or even those who are just curious about how some Christians think) must be apprised of our past. For, as it has been said, if a man doesn't know where he came from, he will not know where he is. If he doesn't know where he is, he'll have no concept of where he is headed.
Today's world is monumental, to say the least. The actions and decisions made by out people and leaders today will drastically shape the future, moreso that probably any other time in history. Revolutions are ripping through the world, paganism is on the rise, "Christians" are abandoning the faith, while others compromise for the pleasures this world affords. None of these are new problems, yet there seems to be an uptick in how many issues are cropping up, all at once.
At the time of writing this introduction, a man is speaking against Victoria's Secret for planning to market lingerie to preteens; simultaneously, the CEO of Starbucks has told a shareholder "if you don't like our stand on gay marriage, we don't want your business." (Yes, I understand this was to a shareholder, but you know this is the attitude of the store toward its more-conservative customer - "take it or leave it, we're not going to change.") Meanwhile, this past summer, just because the head of Chick-fil-A said he thought marriage should be between a man an woman, protests and waves of support arose, spurring on the culture war that much further, and further entrenching the double-standard. Planned Parenthood, an organization started by a racist Margaret Sanger, who wanted to eradicate the minorities through abortions, is funded by the government, and when anyone speaks against them (particularly politicians), they are labeled as participants in the "war on women."
Gun rights are being trampled, morality is laughed at, actors whose only skill is pretending to be something they aren't are revered and heeded.
In a nutshell. We're in trouble. But how do we fix it?
We must fix truth firmly in the seat of honor, and listen to her words.
The truth I reference is the Bible. And before any naysayers tune me out and say "oh, not this again!" I ask you to consider what so many (even non-Christians) have recognized through the years. The Bible, at its very lowest, core values, is good for a culture. It's uplifting. It encourages morality. You may bring up all the mud and dirt you want to sling. You may bring up the nasty stories that the Bible presents. But you cannot deny the accomplishments the Bible has effected on cultures that truly practice it. It is an edifying book that changes culture for the better. It tells you not to steal, not to lie, not to commit adultery, not to divorce, to be true and faithful and just. It promotes putting others first. Why is it some demonized?
I'll tell you why - because the enemies of the Bible realize its power, and will do (and have done) all they can to make people ignorant of it.
I'm a teacher, and here in the Janus Project, I'm going to teach you about the Bible, how it has impacted the past, and how we can impact the future, together, with it.
Join me, won't you?
Mike
ReplyDelete#1: Bible is a Book of Books. Out of MANY, only "4" Gospels were selected by Church to be a part of the Bible in the NT.
#2: None of the Gospels were written by the direct eye-witness
#3: The 1st written Gospel was by what the Church thinks as Mark because they found the name Mark on the manuscript BUT this manuscript is NOT from the 1st Century. The EARLIEST manuscript is several later. The original is either lost/destroyed.
#4: The Gospel written by "beloved of Jesus", whom the Church thinks as "John" mentioned things that were NOT mentioned by other Gospels. He/They introduced new concepts.
#5: If the HS, was guiding the scribes, then why blunders in Bible.
#6: What did RSV Bible mention in the Preface? Do you know? Was the scholarship behind the RSV compilation bunch of ignorant folks? Why do they declare that the KJV has SERIOUS ERRORS as the manuscripts upon which KJV was based had verses ADDED TO IT. This was proven when manuscripts OLDER than these manuscripts were found
#7: What about the ALREADY CONFIRMED corruption in Bible about for example:
1 John 5:7-8 [Johannes Comma], Story of adulteress, Handling snakes and drinking poison, etc.
#8: Laymen Christians claim "WE HAVE ENTIRE NT MANUSCRIPTS” numbering in 6000. Unfortunately none of two manuscripts are similar. The copies have several issues in the writing (Not including the scribal human errors)
#9: Michael Servetus was a sixteenth century Spanish theologian whose interpretations of the Bible brought him into conflict with the Church. In 1531 CE, Servetus published the book “Errors of the Trinity”, in which he said those who believed in the Trinity were really Tritheists (believers in three gods). He was condemned as a heretic and burnt alive atop a pyre of his own books
#10: Christians should STOP the violation of the 1st commandment and accept Islaam since we are living in the times of Prophet Muhammad and there will no prophet to come till the Day of Judgment.
These are few points why Book of Books is corrupted. Not even including scientific error, the above few points are sufficient for a wise person to ponder.
If I respond, will you read?
ReplyDelete1) What, pray tell, were these other gospels? There weren't any. Council of Nicaea is often credited as the place where the test was made to pick which gospels were to be in the Bible - nothing like that happened. Not sure which gospels you think of, but the others are very gnostic and very dissimilar to the current spread.
2) We don't know that, but we know that there was a consistency of the stories that is either collaboration or common witnesses. John, the beloved disciple, is the author of John (and the epistles, and Revelation), and he talks about being there and seeing things.
3) "Earliest MSS" of Mark doesn't really matter, since we have clips of John going back to the first century, not to mention quotes, etc. from early church pastors
4) John introducing new concepts could simply be that he is writing well after the other gospels (closer to 70-80 AD rather than 40s) and is filling in gaps. He also mentions that the only purpose of his gospel was to share accounts that spoke to the divinity of Christ.
5) Where are there blunders? I've surveyed the site you shared and every one I've seen is a misunderstanding of context.
6) RSV, KJV, etc. are all translations, and the KJV has verses that were considered part of the original text and the translators of the RSV used a different philosophy to determine otherwise. Older mss don't necessarily mean better. KJV depended on basis that was more extant in the mss families, rather than older. Just a difference in opinions.
7) There are differences in opinion on these passages. Even if we go all the way to say they weren't in there (James White has extensive discussions on these passages), the worst case scenario is that the scribes kept everything in, just in case what they were copying was actual Biblical text. Looking back (again, playing Devils' Advocate), we can see through the various chains of transmission when and where certain texts errantly entered, and can remove them.
8) Well, then laymen are wrong. So what? There are 5000+ manuscripts (or parts thereof). Very few are complete, and the ones that are most complete date to about 300s, but we have fragments and pieces that go way before that. Several issues in writing besides Scribal Errors (typos); like what?
9) Servetus was in violation of the laws of his country, which was a "Christian State" under John Calvin. He was put to death for it. That doesn't mean he should have been, but that also doesn't mean he was right in his statements. Laws broken, punishments meted out. I think it was a bad way to exemplify Christianity, but I can't change that fact. He was wrong about it being Tritheist (see my new blogpost for that explanation).
10) ??? Not sure what you mean, but Islam directly references the Bible as its source of authority. So, if the Bible contradicts Islam, by Islam's own rulings, it collapses under its own weight. So if Muhammad said something in error, we use the BIble to refute it. THe Bible says there will be false prophets who will arise and call you to worship other gods, and that's a sign of their being false. Allah and JHVH are drastically different.