New Revelations and the Future

[Exiled]

12 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Christ, as you say, was a popular figure.  Perhaps they were afraid of the possibility of an uprising or riot (or at least some sort of disturbance) if He was seen being arrested. 

As was mentioned by Calm, Christ's public appearances took place in locations which the authorities could control. 

Also, the crowds were looking for a deliverer from Roman rule.  After it became apparent that He wasn't going to do that, and he appeared weaker than His Roman captures, the crowd seems to have turned against Him.

I think I got it wrong in assuming that it was the Romans who arrested Jesus.  In Matt 26, Mark 14, Luke 22 and John 18 it was the Jews, under the orders of Caiaphas, that arrested Jesus.  Also, Jesus asks in Matt 26:55 In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, "Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me."  So, Jesus is asking why they came in the middle of the night when they knew where he was at all times during the day.  It seems the gospel authors want to show that the Jewish leaders may be the ones who didn't want the uprising.  Nevertheless, they already knew who Jesus was and didn't need Judas.  So, why pay Judas to do something that wasn't needed?

[ksfisher]

Just now, Exiled said:

I think I got it wrong in assuming that it was the Romans who arrested Jesus.  In Matt 26, Mark 14, Luke 22 and John 18 it was the Jews, under the orders of Caiaphas, that arrested Jesus.  Also, Jesus asks in Matt 26:55 In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, "Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me."  So, Jesus is asking why they came in the middle of the night when they knew where he was at all times during the day.  It seems the gospel authors want to show that the Jewish leaders may be the ones who didn't want the uprising.  Nevertheless, they already knew who Jesus was and didn't need Judas.  So, why pay Judas to do something that wasn't needed?

I didn't say who arrested Jesus, Roman or Jewish.  I was speaking about His public appearances after His arrest, at which time He was in Roman custody.

As an aside, did the Jews have authority to arrest people?  Civil authority was in the hands of the Romans.

I disagree that an arrest could be made at night by people who were not intimately acquainted with the Savior.  Yes, they knew who he was, but, as I stated earlier, it was dark and His face was in all likelihood partially obscured.  This greatly reduces the possibility of a quick, clean arrest.  And, as was pointed out by Rongo, Christ had alluded capture in the past.  The arresting officers needed a positive identification before they moved in so as to be sure of a capture.  I'm sure they assumed that Christ would try and escape as He had in the past and wanted to do everything possible to avoid that.

I also do not see any reason to doubt the veracity of the story as portrayed in the gospels without compelling evidence to the contrary.

[Avatar4321]

We had an interesting topic going here. It’s a shame it’s turning into just another thread to somehow accuse the church of a sexual assault covetup

[Exiled]

24 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

I didn't say who arrested Jesus, Roman or Jewish.  I was speaking about His public appearances after His arrest, at which time He was in Roman custody.

As an aside, did the Jews have authority to arrest people?  Civil authority was in the hands of the Romans.

I disagree that an arrest could be made at night by people who were not intimately acquainted with the Savior.  Yes, they knew who he was, but, as I stated earlier, it was dark and His face was in all likelihood partially obscured.  This greatly reduces the possibility of a quick, clean arrest.  And, as was pointed out by Rongo, Christ had alluded capture in the past.  The arresting officers needed a positive identification before they moved in so as to be sure of a capture.  I'm sure they assumed that Christ would try and escape as He had in the past and wanted to do everything possible to avoid that.

I also do not see any reason to doubt the veracity of the story as portrayed in the gospels without compelling evidence to the contrary.

How does "as far as it is translated correctly" come into play for you?

[ksfisher]

11 minutes ago, Exiled said:

How does "as far as it is translated correctly" come into play for you?

Do you believe that there are translations problems involved in the events surrounding Christ's betrayal?

If so what has led you to that belief and/or what evidence to you have of translations issues?

I'm not aware of any.

Edited April 12, 2018 by ksfisher

[Calm]

Gosepel of John varies somewhat from the others:

Quote

only in John do Roman soldiers help to carry out the arrest. Judas leads the arresting party to Jesus, but rather than Judas pointing out Jesus, John has Jesus himself, "knowing all that was to happen to him", ask them whom they are looking for; when they say "Jesus of Nazareth", he replies "I am he",^[7] at which point all members of the arrest party went backward and fell to the ground.^[5][6]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrest_of_Jesus

[Calm]

4 hours ago, Exiled said:

I think I got it wrong in assuming that it was the Romans who arrested Jesus.  In Matt 26, Mark 14, Luke 22 and John 18 it was the Jews, under the orders of Caiaphas, that arrested Jesus.  Also, Jesus asks in Matt 26:55 In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, "Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me."  So, Jesus is asking why they came in the middle of the night when they knew where he was at all times during the day.  It seems the gospel authors want to show that the Jewish leaders may be the ones who didn't want the uprising.  Nevertheless, they already knew who Jesus was and didn't need Judas.  So, why pay Judas to do something that wasn't needed?

Mark 12:12; Mark 14:1-2

Quote

Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest him because they knew he had spoken the parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd; so they left him and went away...Now the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread were only two days away, and the chief priests and the teachers of the law were scheming to arrest Jesus secretly and kill him. 2 “But not during the festival,” they said, “or the people may riot.”

This explains why at night, why outside the city...The garden at night during the Passover was likely to be very empty and thus why Jesus went there to pray after supper, most would be at home for the night already due to the Passover.

Maybe Judas was used to shift blame or downplay their role...'hey, look, it was his own follower that betrayed him, don't blame us!' kind of thing.  Most or less the same thing as Pilate washing his hands; it made it obvious it was Judas betraying Christ, he was not just watching while it happened.  It would therefore not accidentally get blamed on any temple officer or guard.  They only took over after the betrayal.

Or...

Maybe they assumed that Jesus' previous disappearances were based in trickery and Judas would be familiar with any tricks and therefore able to catch him where others might be confused.

 Maybe it was inspired in ordered to give Judas one last chance to repent before betrayal...looking Jesus in the face and betraying him would be different from telling the Temple Guards/Romans where he was and then taking off.

Maybe it was told that way originally in order to emphasize the evilness of what Judah did.

Edited April 13, 2018 by Calm

[Calm]

5 hours ago, rongo said:

Serious questions (I don't know the answers). I live in a town of 50,000, and am curious how the setting would compare to that.

What was the population of Jerusalem at that time?

What about greater Judea?

How much would the number of people in Jerusalem have swelled during Passover?

I'm wondering about assumptions that everyone would have known Jesus and known of his miracles. 

Apparently Jerusalem was 40,000 typically; butduring festivals up to 250,000

http://www.jcbs.org/!userfiles/JCBS/Jerusalem at the Time of Jesus Final.pdf

Great models of the city:

http://emp.byui.edu/satterfieldb/rel211/jerusalem.htm

This has a decent verbal description of the city, don't know if accurate.  Its number are normally 25,000 up to 125,000 during festivals.  The difference Maybe whether they include what is outside the walls or not.

Quote

The next period—the Herodian (or Early Roman) period—extending from about 50 B.C.E. to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., includes the time when Jesus is associated with the city. Again, this period is very well documented archaeologically, but estimates of the city’s population at the time of the Roman destruction vary widely. One scholar estimated the number at nearly a quarter million, another at more than a 100,000. Several put the number around 75,000. A number of others estimated between 25,000 and 75,000. Geva, always the population minimalist, estimates the number at 20,000.

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-sites-places/jerusalem/ancient-jerusalem/

My town about 10,000 people.  While I would likely know a lot more if .I went shopping daily at the market we all shared, I still find it unlikely I would know by sight even a quarter of that.

We have no clue about how Jesus looked, but there is a good chance he and the twelve had the same coloring, wore the same clothing, had the same haircut, etc.  Temple guards might have seen him, but not paid that close of attention.  No eyeglasses at the time, maybe many of the leaders and others had blurry vision.

Edited April 13, 2018 by Calm

[Calm]

taking it to the other thread

Edited April 13, 2018 by Calm

[mfbukowski]

17 hours ago, Stargazer said:

That is a helluva interesting question.

And I'm not sure I can provide a decent answer off the top of my head.  

Dang it, I'm trying to write software, and now your question has thrown me off topic.  I shouldn't have been monitoring this board while working.

Let me get back to you on this.  

Here's how it might work, IF god were a machine capable of being approached as a computer might be:

private Answer GetInspiration(Question sentence)
{
    Answer inspiration = System.Spirit.HolyGhost.Revelation.AskInFaith(sentence);

    return inspiration;
}

But that's clearly not what's going on.

My apologies if you're not knowledgeable about the C programming language.

That's okay I'll just post in German next time

Sorry if you don't understand German.

[MormonMason]

It's interesting talking about events as they are recorded in the Gospels.  There are all sorts of questions that can arise, especially when looking at the manuscripts.  For instance, in Matthew Jesus cries out a second time just before he dies.  (See Matt. 27:50.)  John records what he said.  Matthew doesn't.  But the oldest extant reading of Matt. 27 also has the soldier stab Christ with the spear while he's still alive, resulting in that second cry and his subsequent death.  It's a different order of events in the oldest reading. There's no way of knowing for sure whether Matthew wrote it that way or not, unless yet older manuscripts are found that lack the reading.  But it could raise other questions about other portions of the texts in the meantime.

[ALarson]

2 hours ago, MormonMason said:

It's interesting talking about events as they are recorded in the Gospels.  There are all sorts of questions that can arise, especially when looking at the manuscripts.  For instance, in Matthew Jesus cries out a second time just before he dies.  (See Matt. 27:50.)  John records what he said.  Matthew doesn't.  But the oldest extant reading of Matt. 27 also has the soldier stab Christ with the spear while he's still alive, resulting in that second cry and his subsequent death.  It's a different order of events in the oldest reading. There's no way of knowing for sure whether Matthew wrote it that way or not, unless yet older manuscripts are found that lack the reading.  But it could raise other questions about other portions of the texts in the meantime.

Do you believe it was actually Matthew who wrote the texts?  I know that there are different opinions on that.

Here's part of a blog post by Bart Ehrman regarding this (you have to log in to read the rest of it...):

Quote

Was the Author of Matthew Matthew?

In my previous post I showed that the claim that Matthew, the tax-collector, was the author of the Gospel of Matthew (as we continue to call it) cannot be traced earlier than about 180 CE.  It is not found in Justin, who lived in Rome in 150 CE and who quotes the Gospel – along with Mark and Luke – without indicating who wrote them.  And the evidence of Papias (120-140 CE) is more than just ambiguous: he actually does not appear to be referring to *our* Gospel of Matthew when he says that  the disciple Matthew collected the sayings of Jesus in the Hebrew language.

In this post I want to give two reasons for thinking that the Gospel was not in fact written by Jesus’ disciple Matthew (and at every point it needs to be remembered that the Gospel does not *claim* to be written by Matthew; quite the contrary, not only is it anonymous: it speaks of Matthew as one of the characters in the story in the third person).

FIRST point.   According to the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 9), Matthew the tax-collector was a Palestinian Jew.   As such, his native language was Aramaic.    That makes it highly unlikely that he could have written this book.

To begin with, apart from the books written by the extremely highly literarily elite Josephus, we don’t have any literary books composed in written Greek by any Palestinian Jews of the first century.  Zero.   And as I will be showing in a moment, this book was certainly composed in Greek.

Relatedly, as I have stressed before on this blog, the vast majority of Palestinian Jews in this period were illiterate – probably around 97%.   The exceptions were urban elites.  There is nothing to suggest that Matthew, the tax collector, was an urban elite who was highly educated.

https://ehrmanblog.org/was-the-author-of-matthew-matthew-for-members/

Here's from Wikipedia:

Quote

Matthew

Matthew was most likely written at Antioch, then part of Roman Syria[83] or in Northern Palestine.[84] Most scholars hold that Matthew drew heavily on Mark and added teaching from the Q document.[85] While Matthew arranged this material into compilations, such as the Sermon on the Mount, much of the material goes back to the historical Jesus.[86] According to E. P. Sanders, the infancy narrative is an invention.[87] Matthew presents Jesus' ministry as limited to the Jews, though the resurrected Jesus later commissions the disciples to preach to all the world. Geza Vermes judges that the ministry of Jesus was exclusively for Jews and that the order to proclaim the gospel to all nations was an early Christian development.[88]

According to the majority viewpoint, this gospel is unlikely to have been written by an eyewitness.[85] While Papias reported that Matthew had written the "Logia," this can hardly be a reference to the Gospel of Matthew.[85] The author was probably a Jewish Christian writing for other Jewish Christians.[89]

Biblical scholars generally hold that Matthew was composed between the years c. 70 and 100.[90][91][92][93] Based upon internal evidence Harrington claims parts of the Gospel of Matthew may have first been written in Aramaic.[94] The birth stories and the resurrection experiences on the other hand were composed in koine Greek. The Ebionim seem to have worked from a version of Matthew in Aramaic, that excluded birth and post resurrection stories.[95]

 

Edited April 13, 2018 by ALarson

[MormonMason]

37 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Do you believe it was actually Matthew who wrote the texts?  I know that there are different opinions on that.

Here's part of a blog post by Bart Ehrman regarding this (you have to log in to read the rest of it...):

Here's from Wikipedia:

Sure, there are different opinions. I understand that.   In its final form? No. Probably not. I typically don't disagree with Bart Ehrman on a lot of things but on Matthew being illiterate? Yeah, I disagree.  Tax collectors needed to be able to communicate with, and read notices from, government officials. That would have required at least a working knowledge of at least two languages, Greek being one of them.

And Wikipedia is not a source I would rely upon.  Before I retired from the college educational system over a decade back, students would get F grades on papers for using it as a source without further sources to back Wikipedia.  They have not become that much more accurate since then.  Many inaccuracies remain and will remain until better controls against bias are put into place.

[MiserereNobis]

Who was the last prophet who gave a prophecy?

[ALarson]

20 minutes ago, MormonMason said:

And Wikipedia is not a source I would rely upon.

Oh, I agree.  But I added it because there are a lot of sources on that page that are good. 

It's an interesting topic and I don't feel we can know that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the Gospels named after them.  There's more evidence that they were not the actual authors, IMO.

[MormonMason]

Just now, ALarson said:

Oh, I agree.  But I added it because there are a lot of sources on that page that are good. 

It's an interesting topic and I don't feel we can know that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the Gospels named after them.  There's more evidence that they were not the actual authors, IMO.

As to John, there were at least two other authors involved, all of whom knew John personally.  I believe two persons wrote most of it, John and someone else who helped him.  At least two witnessed that John was involved in the work with an attestation, though none gave forth their names. I also believe that both Mark and Luke were written by the people whose names they bear.  There is no real reason for me to believe otherwise.

[MormonMason]

23 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

Who was the last prophet who gave a prophecy?

There is no way to know without seeing their personal papers. I've collected some from Joseph Smith to Joseph F. Smith.  And not all prophets have to give forth prophecies to be prophets.  Even in the New Testament there were teaching prophets.  John the Baptist also left no written prophecies.  He still was a prophet indeed.

[Exiled]

16 hours ago, Calm said:

Mark 12:12; Mark 14:1-2

This explains why at night, why outside the city...The garden at night during the Passover was likely to be very empty and thus why Jesus went there to pray after supper, most would be at home for the night already due to the Passover.

Maybe Judas was used to shift blame or downplay their role...'hey, look, it was his own follower that betrayed him, don't blame us!' kind of thing.  Most or less the same thing as Pilate washing his hands; it made it obvious it was Judas betraying Christ, he was not just watching while it happened.  It would therefore not accidentally get blamed on any temple officer or guard.  They only took over after the betrayal.

Or...

Maybe they assumed that Jesus' previous disappearances were based in trickery and Judas would be familiar with any tricks and therefore able to catch him where others might be confused.

 Maybe it was inspired in ordered to give Judas one last chance to repent before betrayal...looking Jesus in the face and betraying him would be different from telling the Temple Guards/Romans where he was and then taking off.

Maybe it was told that way originally in order to emphasize the evilness of what Judah did.

There are always many possibilities.  However, I think Judas might be a later insertion into the story for dramatic effect, perhaps to bolster the ties to the old testament. 

See Zechariah 11:12-13:

12 And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.

13 And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.

[MormonMason]

23 minutes ago, Exiled said:

There are always many possibilities.  However, I think Judas might be a later insertion into the story for dramatic effect, perhaps to bolster the ties to the old testament. 

See Zechariah 11:12-13:

12 And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.

13 And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.

I doubt it was a later insertion.  There is zero manuscript evidence of that and also all Gospels agree on the kernel of the betrayal.  All three of the Synoptics agree it was for money.  Only Matthew deliberately tried to match events with scriptures with as much detail as was attempted.

Ok.  I have to step away.  I may or may not be back shortly.

[Jeanne]

On the OP...revelation will always tend to sway as the wind blows...

[Tacenda]

4 hours ago, ALarson said:

Do you believe it was actually Matthew who wrote the texts?  I know that there are different opinions on that.

Here's part of a blog post by Bart Ehrman regarding this (you have to log in to read the rest of it...):

Here's from Wikipedia:

 

Mormon Stories did an interview with Bart recently that is up, just started listening. What he mentions so far is that there is plenty of evidence that Jesus existed!  I read his book years ago, so I'm excited to listen to this! https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast/dr-bart-ehrman/ This one is pretty short compared to other podcasts, for those that hate to listen to podcasts.

[MiserereNobis]

3 hours ago, MormonMason said:

There is no way to know without seeing their personal papers. I've collected some from Joseph Smith to Joseph F. Smith.  And not all prophets have to give forth prophecies to be prophets.  Even in the New Testament there were teaching prophets.  John the Baptist also left no written prophecies.  He still was a prophet indeed.

Ok, I'll reword it. Who was the last prophet to give a public prophecy?

John the Baptist didn't leave any prophecies that he wrote, but we definitely have a public written account of his prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah.

[RevTestament]

19 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

Ok, I'll reword it. Who was the last prophet to give a public prophecy?

John the Baptist didn't leave any prophecies that he wrote, but we definitely have a public written account of his prophecies concerning the coming of the Messiah.

I suppose according to the Catholic Church it was John.

Does the Catholic Church accept prophecies through anyone other than the Roman pontiff?

I am familiar with some like the list of pontiffs, but it seems they are not accepted as official - and I am speaking of prophecies and not other revelations.

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, Jeanne said:

On the OP...revelation will always tend to sway as the wind blows...

Or as Joseph put it:

• That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, "Thou shalt not kill;" at another time He said, "Thou shalt utterly destroy." This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted--by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.... 

[MiserereNobis]

21 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

I suppose according to the Catholic Church it was John.

This is a common misconception about the closed canon. The Catholic Church rests on three legs: the Bible, Sacred Tradition, and the Magesterium. There will be nothing added to the Bible; it is closed. However, there are truths that are not contained in the Bible. This is Sacred Tradition and is passed down from the Apostles. Some of these truths are formalized into dogmas while others are not. The Magesterium is the authority to interpret and protect the Bible and Tradition and is centered in the Pope and the Bishops in union with him.

 

25 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

Does the Catholic Church accept prophecies through anyone other than the Roman pontiff?

Yes. In fact, most prophecies, apparitions, etc., come through people other than the Pope. These prophecies and visitations are not dogma and salvation does not depend on believing them. However, the Church will investigate them and declare which ones are "worthy of belief." A good example is Our Lady of Fatima. The Blessed Virgin appeared multiple times to three children in Portugal and gave them three secrets, or prophecies, which they in time gave the world. Here's the wikipedia article on the visitations and on the secrets.

 

30 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

I am familiar with some like the list of pontiffs, but it seems they are not accepted as official - and I am speaking of prophecies and not other revelations.

Yes, the prophecy of the popes is not official and has not been declared worthy of belief. I personally believe it is all a fabrication and no one should pay any attention to it.