Controversial

[Faithfulservant]

You're right it does say that. Be a good question when I meet him. Thanks for correcting me. I found this article on it. This has given me something to study.


http://goodnewslady.com/dev.asp?ID=185


In Luke it said it was just gorgeous. Interesting how different people can perceive different things. I dont believe that any of them wrong in the color that they used to describe the robe I think that the color could have been seen as scarlet or purple. Regardless it was representing different things to different people.

[Sacredstar]

Dear Faithfulservant

For me it is not not about who is right or wrong but the importance of us sharing truth so that we may indeed see the bones of the matter and through the woods for the trees.

This is an interesting link about contradictions in the bible.

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.co...a/by_book.html

Love beyond measure

Sacredstar

[Faithfulservant]

lol many of those I know the answers and can show them in the bible...


http://www.carm.org/bible_difficulties.htm
This is one of many apologist websites that are out there to show what ppl consider "contradictions"

[Sacredstar]

Perhaps you would like to share these on another thread? Or maybe it is appropriate for here?

Love beyond measure faithfulservant

Kim xx

[FriendRob]

Originally Posted by Postmaster

I've seen many controversial documentaries on SKY regarding Jesus Christ. I will point them out of discussion purposes only and I hope not to offend anyone. I will also point out that I’m a practicing Christian.

One documentary was how Alexander the great had great influence on Jesus Christ...

I think there might be some truth to this. If you look at the Gospels closely you see that Mark, the first Gospel written, doesn't have any story about Jesus's birth. Matt and Luke both include such stories, but they are in total disagreement with each other except for a few main points (Mary was a virgin, etc.) It makes sense to think that the birth story grew up among Christians at a later time, and many of the details were "hollywoodized", as you say.

Lots of "great men", besides Alexander, had legends about their miraculous births. But if you look at the details, none of the details in Jesus's birth story match very well with these other stories. Look at Matt, for instance. The business about Herod wanting to kill all the male children (which isn't mentioned by ancient historians, by the way) was borrowed from the Exodus story about Moses's birth, not from any Greek pr Roman legends.

So the story of Alexander might have been an influence, in a general sense, on the growth of the Jesus legend, but it wasn't a case of direct borrowing.

There was also a documentary claming that John the Baptist was the original idealist of Jesus's work and even reading the bible you can see how that is played down with your own eyes.

This is certainly true, as one thing that everyone agrees on is that Jesus was baptized by John. (Well, everyone except a few radicals who think that there never was a Jesus.) That means that to the onlookers it would have looked like Jesus was becoming a follower of John. Also the fact that Christians continued to baptize people indicates that the Christian movement borrowed some of its ideas from John.
[quote
An other controversial documentary states that the 3 wise men were actually Buddhists ... [/quote]
This one seems pretty silly. Luke doesn't mention the wise men, so they were probably invented by Matt to emphasize Jesus's royal nature. If anything, the Greek word "magi" that Matt uses might refer to Persian priests (Zoroastrian or Zurvanite). But it could also just mean "wise men".

Anyone agree to any of this, I personally believe there might be some truth but because Jesus never wrote his teaching and it was done after his death they "Hollywoodised" it. But for it to have gone this far he must have certainly been a lot of truth.

I think "Hollywoodised" is exactly the correct word. The mistake many people make is to think that the Gospels are history books, in our modern sense. Actually, they're more like the Hollywood version. If you go to see a movie about Churchill, for instance, you don't expect every word he says to be something that was documented and historically accurate. Rather, you expect

1. Some important historical events
2. Some famous quotes
3. To be entertained

I think the Gospels are like that, except that we have to add "To inspire people to greater devotion and faith."

[FriendRob]

Originally Posted by Faithfulservant

lol many of those I know the answers and can show them in the bible...


http://www.carm.org/bible_difficulties.htm
This is one of many apologist websites that are out there to show what ppl consider "contradictions"

The authors of that site apparently haven't bothered to read the Bible. For instance:

There is no contradiction between Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 is a detailed explanation of the six days of creation, day by day. Genesis two is a recap and a more detailed explanation of the sixth day, the day that Adam and Eve were made. The recap is stated in Gen. 2:4, "This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven." Then, Moses goes on to detail the creation of Adam and Eve as is seen in verses 7 thru 24 of Gen. 2. Proof that it is not a creative account is found in the fact that animals aren't even mentioned until after the creation of Adam. Why? Probably because their purpose was designated by Adam. They didn't need to be mentioned until after Adam was created.

They don't seem to have noticed that Genesis 2:5-7 says

Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the LORD God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.... Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

God doesn't create the plants and animals until two verses later!

Just saying "there is no contradiction" doesn't mean there's no contradiction.