Um, no, you're confusing the gospels that are in the Bible with the wanna-be gospels that are not in the Bible. The gospels of Matthew and John that are in the Bible were written by the Apostles Matthew and John. The so-called gospels of Peter and Thomas that are not in the Bible were not written by the Apostles Peter and Thomas. Mark and Luke probably did not travel with Jesus. They were not among the 12 disciples. They were not themselves called Apostles. They were companions of Apostles after the resurrection of Jesus, during the early years when the Apostles were spreading out.
what do you mean "did not allow these sorts of corruption". the ones who had the ORIGINAL stuff simply could have simply copied them corrupting them and adding/removing what they wish for the motives explained before, and eventually they destroy the real exact stuff. what COULD POSSIBLY have stopped them from doing this and HOW? And can you tell that NT is REALLY protected(somehow) from corruption? And also, how can you be SO sure that the stuff the historians had was the same stuff as the ones in the 300 years after the bible?
how can you tell exactly wether or not the peter and thomas gospels were written by them? Since the bible was edited, as i said, things were added and things were removed(---> esspecially intellegent things were removed, lest sombody notices something) so we've no way to Easly tell gems from the clutter. the only way is to examine the logic in them. i'm not sure, but the gospel of thomas could be the least edited(if at all) gospel. in it thomas asked the most logical and relevant questions one would ask after being provided with the serious spiritual information by jesus. also read this In Dec 1945, two "fellahin" digging for natural fertilizer in the Nile valley discovered a sealed storage jar. The jar contained a collection of some 52 ancient manuscripts. Among them were The Book of Thomas and The Gospel of Thomas, that seem to be ignored/removed by leaders of christianity - for reasons that become obvious on close examination of these texts. Inisist on the translation of Dr Meyer, a scholar long familiar with the Nag Hamadi texts, who seems to minimize religious and fanatical interpretations. ISBN number is in the references of the Freedom of Choice text. From Dr Meyer translation, among many things, you can learn that: - Thomas was not referred as a "disciple" but as a "beloved brother" - Thomas and Jesus looked as if they were twins - Thomas was the ONLY one who asked truly intelligent questions and wanted to KNOW. It is not surprising that he also got the most interesting and comprehensive answers.
One or two of the old MAP posts I linked to earlier explained how the NT got started. The original writers, be it John or Mark or whoever, distributed not one original, but several originals. This is explicit in Revelation, where seven recipients are mentioned by by name, but it was done for other writings as well. Each of these several originals is itself copied. Each of those copies is copied. Each of those copied copies of copies is copied. Keep going. Keep going. Fast forward a hundred years, or 300 years, or 600 years. Gather up all these copies if you can. YOU CAN'T! You cannot possibly gather up all of them. There are too many. They are spread all around many different cities in many different countries. They've been translated into many different languages. They are all over the place. Some copies will not even be found for another hundred years or another 500 years yet. More copies are being made with every passing year. Compare the copies that you do have that come from different lines. Compare the 10th copy of the 5th copy of the 3rd copy of the 7th copy of the 2nd original, to the 8th copy of the 4th copy of the 5th copy of the 2nd copy of the 3rd original. And so on and so on and so on. Lay them side-by-side and note the differences, if there are any differences. Compare copies from different countries. Compare translations in different languages. Compare them across all the different centuries. The writings were sent all around that part of the world, you know. They show up in many different countries. They were translated into many different languages. Lay them side-by-side and see what differences you can find in the words. If copies from different countries and different languages and different points in time are all the same -- if they are all the same -- then we know that we have the original Bible. This is the built-in protection that I was talking about. The very act of copying copies and sending them to different countries to be copied again and again, shields the writings from corruption. Any corruption in the text becomes immediately apparent the very moment new manuscripts are brought back together for side-by-side comparrison. No person, and no organization, could ever collect all of the manuscripts at any given point in time. Never. It cannot be done. There will always be extra copies somewhere. Therefore, we will always have an older template against which to compare today's version of the Bible. This is a marvelous protection against corruption. All of the thousands of manuscripts found so far are all the same in every meaningful way. The differences that exist are irrelevant, and are noted in the footnotes of every so-called "study Bible" sold in stores today. If you buy a "study Bible" tomorrow you will get all of the alternative readings, and you'll see for yourself how irrelevant the differences are.
(underlined part) With that attitude, you cannot learn anything new. You have to either "empty your cup," or admit that you are not pursuing truth. Well then, why are you ignoring the logic in Romans and Hebrews (two New Testament books) ? Indeed, and that reason is that (1) the books were not written by the Apostle Thomas, and (2) they contradict what the several Apostles did write and teach about Jesus. You want logic? There it is -- two very logical reasons for excluding these writings.
you forget that they are being copied by human hands(and thus able to modify) however 300 years later, the imposters i mentioned showed up, they claimed to have been assigned by god/jesus to represent them, and thus started distributing LOTS of bibles, claiming that they were originals(and these bibles were their own, edited versions, of course). as they were many, and they AIMED TO SPREAD their bibles(and also as such "monks" were much more familiar to writing than the peasntry), they could have produced much more of their bibles and more quickly than the peasntry would be able to copy from generation to generation. and to prevent comparation with the previous original bible copies, they told the peasntry not to trust(and actually to dump) the old copies they had, since the ones who copied the old copies could have changed what jesus said in the bible, while they(priests), the "ones who were assigned by god/jesus" wouldn't do so, and that the bibles of the churches("houses of god") are certain. and if people asked them why have they only appeared just then(after 300 years, not before), the priests probably replied "because god was aware that jesus' words were being deliberatly modified, and we have the "mission" of delivering the people the true message of christ"
You just explained the "gospels of Thomas and Peter." Good job. They are indeed fakes by people who wanted to corrupt the true message of Jesus to suit their own selfish gains. Good job. And for a larger point: My mom could have birthed me a sister, but she didn't. And I could have grown up in Jamaica, but I didn't. And you could have grown up in Jamaica too, but you didn't, right? And an elephant could be born with pink skin, but we're still waiting for that to happen. And and and and and -- and a lot of things could have happened, but didn't. Dreams are fun, but when pursuing truth we must pay attention to what actually did happen.
Huh? do i have to stop thinking about things and just to do what i'm told to do and believe what i'm told to believe or else i'm not seeking the truth? because they tell you things that are TOTALY unverified logically(example: heaven, hell, the devil). Can you proove the existance of such things? are they logical? No, they are ignored because they hold info that makes clear that religion is a way to enslave, and it explains why should man be free of such sects/religion and that he should seek knowledge within(and actually work for it) not expected to just so effortlessly come from religion or so. THIS is why it was ignored by the christian religious leaders, and in order for them not to be exposed through thomas' books, they claimed that they weren't authored by him. to make things more clear i will ask this again so please answer: HOW DO YOU KNOW WETHER OR NOT THEY WERE WRITTEN BY THOMAS????????
You Know very well that i mean that the bible was the book to be changed and edited, for the gains of the priests. Proof: The Catholic Churches are some of the richest establishments on earth, while Thomas is dead, and there IS no religion which gets money and power pretending to represent him. there never was, simply because he knew and PREACHED through his books that religions were means to attaing money and power through deciet. If there is ONE PERSONAL gain he aimed for through his books, it is that people be FREE of all the religion clutter, because he loved everyone, just like jesus taught him to. once again you missed a very important point i thought you already knew. there are percentages of things possibly happening. the chance of house building itself and an elephant growing pink skin FOR NO REASON is less than 0,1%. But since there ARE VERY OBVIOUS and CLEAR REASONS and MOTIVES for religions to decieve people(and there is a clearly demonstrated logical procedure that any person can do if he chose to for them to follow in order to decieve like they do), then the possibility is QUITE HIGHER than the things possibilites you stated(which have no reason, and happen ONLY accidently, if they do at all...)
If Jesus rose from the dead, then heaven and hell and so on, are real. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is sufficient proof. That is the cornerstone of everything that Paul and John and Peter and company wrote. "Empty your cup." You are discounting what the Bible writers said without even reading what the Bible writers said. Your argument here has no bearing upon the actual text of the New Testament. The person who wants it in the Bible has to authenticate it, you know. I haven't read too much about it because the basic consensus of what I have read is that the "gospel of Thomas" came from a gnostic community in Egypt long after the death of the 12 Apostles. Christianity did not start in Egypt, you know. It started in Jerusalem, Israel. Already we're off to a bad start. It wasn't found until, what, 1940? Something like that. It's quite odd that we had thousands upon thousands upon thousands of manuscripts of the rest of the NT, but zero copies of this manuscript, until 1940 (or whenever). The absence of this so-called gospel among all the other manuscripts weighs heavily against the assertion that it is the legitimate writing of a legitimate apostle. The gospel of Thomas is not consistent with the teachings in the established New Testament. That's not good. If you're so keen on logic, then you have to disfavor anything that contradicts the greater body of teachings. Already discussed. I gave you numerical facts. You, and the whole world too, may look them up yourself and verify whether my numbers are essentially accurate or not. Until such time as you disprove with your own numbers that which I presented, my argument stands rock-solid and your argument remains only a wishful fantasy. It is more reasonable to believe that there is no Church of Thomas because his so-called gospel was not the word of God. Tuh-duh, bing-bang, I win on logic. And anyway, what you are saying here about Thomas could just as well be said about the Apostle John. Have you read his gospel and his 3 epistles? He heavily preached love of people over love of money and material possessions. That was a major part of his writings. You should read it sometime.
The problem is that we may never really know the truth. The "gospel according to peter"? Its called the letters of St. Peter. I believe that he himself wrote them .. but u should always keep an open mind. Aikimac never hold anything to be an absolute truth because chances are that you yourself are wrong.
Are you absolutely sure about that? The problem with the denial that absolute exist, is that you cannot assert it. Whoa. That's something to think about. There's a great thread in the Philosophy forum on whether or not absolute truth exists.
Just because a statement is true does not mean that the converse is true. That's basic logic. The only statement that MUST be true if the original statement is true is the contropositive. In this case, that would be "If he could not read, then he could probably not walk on water".
AZeitung I can't really follow your point here are your saying that if you believe Jesus could write then you must also believe he can perform miracles? or are you saying the two have nothing to do with each other?
What he's saying is that: If you can run then you can walk doesn't mean If you can walk then you can run. So if Jesus was blessed with the powers of working miracles then I'm sure it's not so far fetched that he could've been able to read, without an education. I think it was a reply to someone who said that carpenters from the day wouldn't have been able to read, so AZ said something like "If God could give him the powers of healing and walking on water then giving him the power to read couldn't have been so difficult...". Make more sense?
Basically what Strafio said, but let me expound a little bit further: In a response to one of you're posts, I made a statement "If A then B". TekkenGod tried to say that the statment was illogical by showing that the converse "If B then A" is illogical. However, whether or not the converse is true has no bearing on the original statement. There *only* circumstances when the converse is true are if the statement is "Iff A then B" (that's iff with two f's, meaning if and only if). The only statment that contains the information of the original statement, is the contropositive "If NOT B then NOT A".
