ReligionDiscuss General Theology, Religions and Denominations, God's Attributes, Predestination and Free Will, Dispensationalism, Eschatology, Philosophy, Origins, Archaeology, Science, World History and other such topics.
That's a pagan myth that has invaded modern religions as to make people wish to live again. Only in a way it is good because it helps people to behave in a way that will enhance their hope to live forever. But eternal life is an attribute that belongs with God only. The rest of us will all die because of the fact that we have been born. We are matter, and matter is under the law of genesis and destruction. I mean, birth and death.
How do we know that the attribute of eternal life is not within the reach of man? The answer is found in the allegory of the Tree of Life. According to Genesis 3:22,23 Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden for precisely that reason. They could not eat from the tree of life and live forever. That was the way to say that the attribute of eternal life had not been granted to man.
But then again, according to Genesis 2:9, the Lord God had caused to grow from the ground all kinds of trees good for food. But the tree of life He planted in the middle of the Garden just beside the tree of knowledge, which He had forbidden Adam to eat from or even approach to. Adam did as he had been told and besides the tree of knowledge, the tree of life had not been touched upon. But since Intellect, which is the attribute of knowledge, was granted to man, why was it forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge?
The prohibition to eat from the tree of knowledge, then, was a catch-22; apparently an illogical rule to enhance man's curiosity. But Adam had taken God's command seriously. Typical of the religious Jewish man. Then, according to Gennesis 2:22, God created the woman, who would take man to the tree of knowledge. And before they ate from the tree of life, they were cast out of the Garden of Eden. They had acquired the attribute of knowledge and denied the attribute of eternal life.
Now, since no man is supposed to die for another, but every one for his own iniquities, according to Jeremiah 31:30, the attribute of eternal life could by no other means be granted. Nevertheless, the myth continues to be preached up to this day under the pretense of Christian redemption, which is possible only by blind faith.
Ben
Jeremiah 31:30 is not saying something that the NT doesn’t say for “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). We all pay that debt because we all sin (Rom. 5:12). Adam & Eve lost access to the Tree of Life. All of their descendants, too, would not have access to the Tree of Life because of what they lost. If one of their descendants had not sinned, would he have continued to live eternally even without the Tree of Life? And even if he did live eternally because he was without sin, how would he restore the Tree of Life to all his descendants after him?
The LORD through the prophet Daniel says there will be a resurrection to everlasting life. “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). “But as for you [Daniel], go your way to the end; then you will enter into rest and rise again for your allotted portion at the end of the age” (Dan. 12:13).
No, He didn't. God is not like a man to change His mind.
Ben
“if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it” (Jer. 18:8).
“If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I will relent concerning the calamity that I have inflicted on you” (Jer. 42:10).
"Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth '? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people” (Ex. 32:12). “So, the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people” (Ex. 32:14).
“Did he not fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the LORD, and the LORD changed His mind about the misfortune which He had pronounced against them?” (Jer. 26:19).
“The LORD changed His mind about this. ‘It shall not be,’ said the LORD” (Amos 7:3, 6).
Obviously there were several errors in your post but rather than go through all, I'll just begin with this more obvious one.
Jeremiah 31:30 is not forbidding substitutionary sacrifice (a theme found throughout the Bible -- including guilt and trespass offerings) but only forbidding the fatalistic view that any bad thing that happened to an innocent man might be the result of the sin of his father. (As if God on His own might decide to judge a man based on the sins of that man's father.)
It is to this that God says that He doesn't impart wickness or righteousness down family lines.
Of course eternal life and substitutionary sacrifices are found buried throughout the old testament (especially with Abraham and Isaac) but they only become glaringly obvious when you see them revealed by Christ and Paul and other New Testament speakers. Without them only the sect of the Pharisees believed in eternal life, and the topic was hotly debated.
They still died eventually. So their sacrifice wasn't "instead" of them. What was it?
...The expression, "returns to God Who gave it," means only that something is gone; it is over; it is just no more. It means that at death, when the breath of life is separated from the body, the soul ceases to exist. We are allowed to name the breath of life spirit, which only makes of the soul a temporary emanation. Then, spirit could name almost any kind of emanation.
So, no more fear of souls, or the thought that soul survives the body, or is collected somewhere to be loaned, so to speak, to a body who is being born, or that it will enjoy or suffer any kind of afterlife. We are all living souls and, once dead, the soul is gone as if it did not exist, or ever had any life of its own.
Ben
Then how did Samuel come back from the dead (1 Sam. 28:15-16)?
...My loyalty to God is not conditioned by the hope of anything either in this life or of an afterlife.
Ben
"The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil" (Eccl. 12:14).
This doesn't mean that God will judge during this lifetime because Solomon also says,
"There is futility which is done on the earth, that is, there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked. On the other hand, there are evil men to whom it happens according to the deeds of the of the righteous" (Eccl. 8:14).
"I have seen everything during my lifetime of futility; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his wickedness" (Eccl. 7:15).
If good happens to the wicked and bad happens to the righteous and if the wicked prolong their lives and the righteous die young, what does it mean that God will bring every act to judgment? In what way could He possibly bring every act to judgment when good fortune and a long life are so arbitrary? Why fear or even consider such a statement as, "God will bring every act to judgment"? Why "fear God and keep His commandments" at all? The righteous may receive the reward of the wicked in this life and experience an early death.
Throughout Ecclesiastes, Solomon proposes we should simply enjoy life because of how random good and bad are doled out and life so fleeting. Yet his concluding remarks are not like this at all. He concludes that every act really does matter. Why? Each act will be judged by God, whether good or evil.
Slogan/motto:
Deuteronomy 6:6 (KJV) And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
Reputation:
July 16th, 2011, 10:50 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by surrender
"The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil" (Eccl. 12:14).
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
Deuteronomy 10:12 (KJV) And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
Deuteronomy 10:13 (KJV) To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?
Jesus was a Torah observant Jew. He could never have spoken about
eternal life because he knew from Genesis 3:22 that eternal life was not among the attributes granted to man. Therefore, he would not contradict God's Word.
The books of the NT were written by Hellenistic Gentiles whose doctrine of eternal life was part of their agenda. Especially in the book of John! John did not write that book. According to Luke, John was an unlearned and ignorant man. (Acts 4:13) Illiterate people do not write books.
What Jesus could have said about the Kingdom of God, he meant esoterically. That is, the Kingdom of God is within ourselves, if
you read Luke 17:21.
it would seem clear by these basic statements the problem is not with the "hellenistic gentile" writers and what they wrote but with the interpretation of the writings, as you can see it can be interpreted literally or metaphorically, since those are not concepts in the Jewish culture of the time period we can safely assume it would not have been interpreted that way by the reader in the 1st century.
Also, people used scribes, so they dictated, the scribe wrote, in any event none of the Gospels to my knowledge are claimed to have been "written" by the Apostles, historically they were oral traditions for 20-30 years before being written down by whomever eventually inked them.
Slogan/motto:
"Love separates for the sake of union." - Rumi
Reputation:
July 17th, 2011, 10:12 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Masada
Kabbalah is not part of the Scriptures or Tanach. What we have is enough for our spiritual edification. If what you mean by "Judaism doesn't have much to offer" is in terms of an afterlife reward for being good in this life, you are right we don't. Christianity could be your best option.
Ben
I said that your brand of Judaism does not appear to offer today's Jews (not me) much in the way of spirituality.
"The concepts which now prove to be fundamental to our understanding of nature...seem to my mind to be structures of pure thought...the unvierse begins to look more like a great thought than a great machine." - Sir James Jeans
The Myth of Eternal Life -
July 21st, 2011, 02:12 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by surrender
Jeremiah 31:30 is not saying something that the NT doesn’t say for “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). We all pay that debt because we all sin (Rom. 5:12). Adam & Eve lost access to the Tree of Life. All of their descendants, too, would not have access to the Tree of Life because of what they lost. If one of their descendants had not sinned, would he have continued to live eternally even without the Tree of Life? And even if he did live eternally because he was without sin, how would he restore the Tree of Life to all his descendants after him?
The LORD through the prophet Daniel says there will be a resurrection to everlasting life. “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). “But as for you [Daniel], go your way to the end; then you will enter into rest and rise again for your allotted portion at the end of the age” (Dan. 12:13).
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Jesus was not without sin. It is a sin to break the Golden Rule and Jesus broke it a few times. The Golden Rule is about not to do unto others what we would not like they did unto us. Would you like to be called a hypocrite? I don't think so. According to the NT, Jesus name-called the Pharises hypocrites. Would you like to be called a dog? I don't think so. According to Matthew 15:26 when a mother came to Jesus to ask to cure her daughter, he said that it was not fit to take the food from the children and throw it unto the dogs. Would you like to have your business damaged and yourself whipped? I don't think so. According to the NT, that's exactly what Jesus did to the moneychangers at the Temple. So, Jesus could not restore eternal life, because he was not without sin himself.
Daniel 12:2 does not talk about resurrection to eternal life, but the end of exile in Babylon. According to Isaiah 53:8,9, when Jews are exiled into foreign lands, it is as if they are cut off from the Land of the Living and graves are assigned to them among the Gentiles. When the exile is over, many of those who are awaken or aware of it, and return to the Land of Israel, it means evelasting life for them. Those who choose to stay, it is for them shame and everlasting contempt, just like a slave whose freedom is given and decides to remain in slavery. That's what Daniel 12:2 means metaphorically. Just like Ezekiel 37:12. And "at the end of the age" means at the end of the exile.
The Myth of Eternal Life -
July 21st, 2011, 02:34 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by surrender
“if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it” (Jer. 18:8).
“If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I will relent concerning the calamity that I have inflicted on you” (Jer. 42:10).
"Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth '? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people” (Ex. 32:12). “So, the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people” (Ex. 32:14).
“Did he not fear the LORD and entreat the favor of the LORD, and the LORD changed His mind about the misfortune which He had pronounced against them?” (Jer. 26:19).
“The LORD changed His mind about this. ‘It shall not be,’ said the LORD” (Amos 7:3, 6).
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According to the Rambam, the prophets would not bother explaining to the masses when God's Word was metaphorical or literal. They would report their visions as if literally God had done the act. Then, they were allowed such a pious freedom in order to make the masses
obey if the message was invested with the Divine sanction. Therefore,
as things in life turned from a way into another, the prophets would report as a change in God's will. The People would take literally, but in
the mind of the prophet, the message had been reported metaphorically. If it were not so, the prophets would be digging contradictions in the Word of God, because, according to Malachi 3:6,
we have: "For I am the Lord, I change not..."
The Myth of Eternal Life -
July 21st, 2011, 02:42 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by surrender
Then how did Samuel come back from the dead (1 Sam. 28:15-16)?
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He didn't. King Saul didn't see him. Only the witch, who probably was using ventriloquism, would speak as if Samuel was doing the speech.
If Houdini, the most famous magician in the History of the world was alive, he would have revealed the trick of the witch of Endor.
Jesus was not without sin. It is a sin to break the Golden Rule and Jesus broke it a few times.
That's just about the most illogical thing I've ever heard from you, there is no, "Golden Rule." It is the law of reciprocity. Whatever you do will come back on you. Jesus told the truth about everyone He spoke of and everyone who told lies about Him broke one of God's Commandments: "Thou shalt not swear falsely against thy neighbor." The law of reciprocity brings consequences to us for what we judge. If we judge with our flesh, we will receive same. Jesus is The Judge of The Universe and is Truth, in The Flesh. If He Judges, He does so rightly, because He is capable. We cannot look upon the thoughts and intents of the hearts of others, as He can.
"Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets." -- Amos 3:7
If you are a dog, it only hurts your ego and your feelings to be called one. Jesus never broke any of God's Commandments. The 'Golden Rule' you describe isn't one of them. He spoke the truth when He called men (whom He had made with His Own Hands) names; and never once lied, unlike yourself. He is The Judge of The Universe and may make His Judgment any time He pleases. He is The Righteous Judge. There is none righteous except Jesus.
"Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets." -- Amos 3:7
He didn't. King Saul didn't see him. Only the witch, who probably was using ventriloquism, would speak as if Samuel was doing the speech.
If Houdini, the most famous magician in the History of the world was alive, he would have revealed the trick of the witch of Endor.
Ben
My Bible says that Samuel spoke to Saul. I believe my Bible, not you. You only twist Scripture trying to justify your own false religion and hide from The One True God and His Son.
And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the LORD is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy? And the LORD hath done to him, as he spake by me: for the LORD hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David: because thou obeyedst not the voice of the LORD, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the LORD done this thing unto thee this day. Moreover the LORD will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the LORD also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines. Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel: and there was no strength in him; for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night.
"Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets." -- Amos 3:7
The Myth of Eternal Life -
July 22nd, 2011, 11:50 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimiel
My Bible says that Samuel spoke to Saul. I believe my Bible, not you. You only twist Scripture trying to justify your own false religion and hide from The One True God and His Son.
And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me, and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by prophets, nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto me what I shall do. Then said Samuel, Wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing the LORD is departed from thee, and is become thine enemy? And the LORD hath done to him, as he spake by me: for the LORD hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand, and given it to thy neighbour, even to David: because thou obeyedst not the voice of the LORD, nor executedst his fierce wrath upon Amalek, therefore hath the LORD done this thing unto thee this day. Moreover the LORD will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the LORD also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines. Then Saul fell straightway all along on the earth, and was sore afraid, because of the words of Samuel: and there was no strength in him; for he had eaten no bread all the day, nor all the night.
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You are right. Most definitely your bible is different from mine. Because, since there is no contradiction in the Tanach, Samuel could not have returned from death if God's Word says that from the shadow of death, no one is ever supposed to come back. Read Job 10:21. Besides, I think the Q'ohelet knew a little better than you and me when he said that the dead have no more any portion forever in anything that's done under the sun.
With regards to the false religion that hides from the One True God and His Son is definitely Christianity and not Judaism. The only Scripture that Jesus cosidered the Word of God was the Tanach and not the NT, which Jesus never even dreamed that it would ever rise 50+ years after Jesus had been gone. I can prove to you in the Word of God who is the Son of God and you can't prove it that he was Jesus. Read Exodus 4:22,23. The Lord Himself said, "Israel is My Son. So, let My Son go, that he may serve Me." Moreover, "When Israel was a child (in the craddle of his existence as a People), from Egypt I called My Son." Read Hosea 11:1. Can you show the same evidence with Jesus? Of course you can't! Therefore, obviously, you are the one hiding from the One True God.
Then, the conclusion is that Saul neither saw nor talked to Samuel. The whole operation was done by the witch, who was a prophetional in what she made a living with. I have been to a seance before, and I saw how the Medium is an expert in ventriloquism to make the naive ones think that their dead relative is speaking.
Ben
The Myth of Eternal Life -
July 21st, 2011, 02:12 PM
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