Gospel of John

[Athena]

To understand the relationship of the bible to democracy we must know something about the writing of the bible and how people come to believe what they believe. John is our link to democracy in the bible and he was a Hellenistic Greek. And what this gospel has to do with hating Jews surprised me. Those who take the gospel of John as God's truth would not support the defense of Israel. The following link is very informative, and I have posted here only the concluding statement.

Gospel of John If the author of the Gospel of John were an eyewitness, presumably the author ... The external evidence fixes the terminus ad quem for the Gospel of John. ...
www.earlychristianwritings.com/john.html - 49k - Jul 30, 2006 - Cached - Similar pages

Jesus is made to condemn the Jews as Satanic by John, while the Christians are now the Essenic ideals of the Children of Light with a special gnosis of revelation in understanding the Logos in its true form. John's nonhuman "superman" loses several qualities that we are familiar with from the Synoptic tradition. Notably, the birth narrative of Jesus is missing, we are told in the prologue only that "in the beginning" Jesus coexisted with God and that he is "full of grace and truth." John feels that to inform us of the particularly human trait of birth, even if virginal and thus not actuated by lust, would not be fitting of a God who is the Word. Human characteristics that Mark informs us of, such as the need for cleansing through baptism (1:9) or the Temptation (1:13), are conspicuously absent from John. To John's author, Jesus has no need for cleansing, he is already without sin. Likewise it would be foolish to narrate the temptation in the wilderness, for Satan is obviously no match against God and John's intended reader would be confused over such an idea. By the time John was first written at the end of the first century, the tales of Jesus grew to such an extent that Jesus was now fully transformed into a Hellenized god.

[PittsburghAfterDark]

No one takes the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John as God's truth.

They are the apostle's accounts of Jesus work, life, death and resurrection.Â*Â*They are not divinely written words.

The only words in the Bible written as/by God's own hands are the Ten Commandments.Â*Â*The rest of the Bible historical or in parable form, the rest of the messages in the Bible believed to be divinely inspired are framed in "The word of God as told to...".

That's the difference between the Bible and the Koran.Â*Â*The Koran is understood to be the actual word of God transcribed by Mohammed by Muslims.Â*Â*The Bible is understood to be the work of man inspired by God.

[AlonzoMourning23]

PAD, that's according to liberal theology. Conservative theology claims most, if not all, are directly from God, simply written through man. Many believe the bible is word for word true. Hence the whole young earth thing.Â*Â*

The form of christianity you describe is the type I was taught, but it is only one understanding.

[BoogyMan]

PAD, that's according to liberal theology. Conservative theology claims most, if not all, are directly from God, simply written through man. Many believe the bible is word for word true. Hence the whole young earth thing.Â*Â*

The form of christianity you describe is the type I was taught, but it is only one understanding.


What do you people think inspiration means?

[AlonzoMourning23]

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

No one takes the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke or John as God's truth....

The Koran is understood to be the actual word of God transcribed by Mohammed by Muslims.Â*Â*The Bible is understood to be the work of man inspired by God.

PAD seems to be suggesting that no Christians take the bible to be word for word true.

[BoogyMan]

II Tim 3:16-17 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

[AlonzoMourning23]

You just argued against what PAD seems to suggest is one of the main distinctions between the bible and the quran. Thank you for the support.

[BoogyMan]

You just argued against what PAD seems to suggest is one of the main distinctions between the bible and the quran. Thank you for the support.


Alonzo, no, I pointed out with scripture what its purpose is and anyone who disagrees is not disagreeing with me, but with God's word.

Nice attempt to twist the truth yet again, but no dice turbo.

[AlonzoMourning23]

Boogey, you do realize that scripture is irrelevent here, as the beliefs of christian denominations is the point. I don't care whether their point is accurate or not. I'm not arguing for or against the validity of anything in the bible.

[Athena]

Good greif fellows, my point was John brings Hellenism into the Christian belief system. Does any one want to argue this point? If you are to point to anything in the bible that supports democracy, it will be the gospel of John who was a Hellenized Greek. In the beginning was the word, is Athenian logos. This might be God inspired, but first it is Hellenistic.

[Athena]

Actually, PittsburghAfterDark, the Koran includes the thoughts of clerics, as the Torah includes the thoughts of those who contemplated Hebrew thoughts, and the bible includes a variety of people writing on the Hebrew, and then Christian theme.Â*Â*

Personally, I believe God has inspired people around the world and throughout time.Â*Â*We can find God's truth in all holy books, and the explanation of the Great Spirit that native Americans shared.Â*Â*God didn't give his truth to only race, the Hebrew tribes.Â*Â*It is silly to think the bible is the only book of God that speaks truth.Â*Â* In the past, as in the present, God speaks to everyone.Â*Â*It is our environments and cultures that cause us to hear him differently.Â*Â*

As Cicero put it, "We are all born to Justice, and that right is based, not upon men's opinions, but upon Nature." It is to Nature we must look for truth, not books written by men. Surely, we can learn from men, as the foundations of civilization are built upon the great thinkers of history, but the finally test of human thought is Nature herself.

[BoogyMan]

The bible is not a guidebook for Democracy, it is the will of God for man.

[Athena]

The bible is not a guidebook for Democracy, it is the will of God for man.




Here is God's will for man.

True law is right reason in agreement with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting; it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its prohibitions...

there will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and all times, and there will be one master and ruler, that is, God, over us all, for he is the author of this law....
Â*Â*
...the first common possession of man and God is reason.Â*Â*But those who have reason in common must also have right reason in common.Â*Â*And since right reason is Law, we must believe that men have Law also in common with the gods.Â*Â*Further, those who share Law must also share Justice; and those who share these are to be regarded as members of the same commonwealth.Â*Â*If indeed they obey the same authorities and powers, this is true in a far greater degree; but as a matter of fact they do obey this celestial system, the divine mind, and the God of transcendent power.Â*Â*Hence we must now conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.

Cicero is before Christianity, and the quote is from Cicero's The Rupublic and The Laws.Â*Â* Cicero's writings strongly influenced the church in the middle ages.Â*Â* I bring this up, because John and Cicero would have shared this pre Christian, Hellenistic understanding of God, and this understanding of God is important to democracy.Â*Â*Although Cicero was a Roman he studied in Athens and adopted Hellenistic thinking.Â*Â*This is the bases for John's understanding of God as well.Â*Â*Â*

[Athena]

I want to point out there is a relationship between Pythagoras and the gospel of John. The numbers 1 through 10 have sacred significance. Paul repeats the use of number 7, which is the virgin number.

The number seven occuoies a critical place within the Dekad, where it acts as both a link and a chasm. As a link between the first six and last three terms, 1x2x3x4x5x6x7 equals 7x8x9x10 (equals 5040). As a chasm, with even absent, 1x2x3x4x5x6 equals 8x9x10 Equals 720). Whether the value of seven is present or absent, its location serves as a pivot balancing the ten. No other number or position within the Dakad does this.

The ancients referred to seven as the "virgin" number. It is untouched by other numbes in the sense that no number less than seven divides or enters into it, as two divides four, six, eight, and ten, three divides six and nine, four divides eight, five divides ten. Seven was also condiered childless since it produces no other number (by multiplication) within the ten, as two produces four, six, and so forth.

To ancient philosophers, myths were like our scientific and mathematical forumlas. The gods and goddesses repreented princples with certain properties and attributes associating them with mathematical archtypes. The relationships between gods and goddesses corresponded to the relationships among numbers and shapes, arithmatic and grometry....

The seven-note scale is meant to model the hidden side of the macrocosmic design, the universe ruled by mathematical harmonies of music. A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe

This same musical scale relates to the electromagnetic spectum- that is light waves and colors.

The math used by the Aztecs is harmoic math, where numbers represent music and color as was understood by the ancients, but totally lost when the Christian bible replaced such knowledge. For whatever reasons the leaders of the church appear mathematically illiterate. They went off on a superstitious tangent and left us without ancient knowledge. However, John is not the part of the bible using sacred math. Arabic and Hebrew languages are associated with math, and there are many mathematical messages in the bible, not obvious to those who no longer have this ancient understanding of math.