glintofpewter

George, I read one of his books. I don't remember which but it is the one with the Afterword in which Ehrman says he is now agnostic. Combative with a little arrogance is how I would describe his posture. If I remember correctly, "they" were hiding information that Bart would now reveal. I am a man of first impression judgments often never revisited. Dutch

Neon, You have defined your target rather narrowly for your purposes. Take care Dutch

Just a logic problem I think. Wouldn't it follow that a car is not good transportation because it cannot fly and I shouldn't let my doctor practice medicine on me. Neon, I don't disagree with you on Faith Healing that makes headlines but this amputated arm flying around is aimless. Dutch

This book is just out, I think. Bart is not my favorite author so I am looking for any knowledgeable comments before I am seduced into a "one-click" purchase. http://www.amazon.com/Did-Jesus-Exist-Historical-Argument/dp/0062204602 Dutch

Not my obsession this week but here is a link of interest Mark and the Triennial Lectionary

sometimes healing and miracles need community. I suspect the following is apocryphal: "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein Dutch

By your faith you are healed. Jesus said this often. This self-healing, I think, occurs occasionally with either permanent or temporary effect. I think some of the illnesses healed are psycomatic and some are not. We have that power in some unpredictable instances.

I celebrate with you.

"Jesus and God redeemed from this sad event the good that could be gotten. It would have been better iof everyone had responded by becoming like Jesus. But since everyone did not, God and Jesus creatively drew from the tragedy the best they could, working to prepare the way for God's continuing call to us all. So successful was this redemptive process that Christians have come to view the cross of Christ as God's greatest victory, and as the paradigm of how good can be redeemed from suffering." Mesle in Process Theology: A Basic Introduction A slight twist on what some of us have been saying. Dutch

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us - Joseph Campbell

Halcyon A most profound example. If Jesus is the Light of World then he showing us the way - not to himself because that was not his style -but the way to ourselves. Dutch

Jenell's right; that the need for substitutionary sacrifice is founded on original sin. If we tell the Garden of Eden story as a step up into maturity, of taking responsibility then it makes sense to see Jesus as a model and that we are his Twins. He is showing us the way: that it is only through death of our old selves and resurrection of the new thing that Jesus has begun in us that we will be able to experience heaven in the here and now. It is only in this moment, the Apocalyptic now, when heaven might come to earth. To be best prepared we must let our old selves be crucified, shattered so that we can be present in this moment. Perhaps all of us have those moments where everything we understood about the world stopped working. The shattered pieces lay on the floor. We are resurrected when we start a new thing. Jesus' death and resurrection point the way out of being the living dead. The theologian John Haught says that to move from a mundane life to a higher experience of life we must pass though chaos. From the living dead through the death of an ordered world, experiencing the fear of chaos and loss of control in order to reach a higher level of experience through Jesus' eyes. Dutch

Yvonne, Yes, more than enough. May you feel the embrace of the one who loves. Halcyon, We give thanks with you. Dutch

The cross was a common way of execution is Jesus' time. It had a reference but maybe this should be another topic. Dutch

Jenell I like it. There isn't room for everything in the footnotes so sometimes you get a brief account that makes you want to do more research. Many maps, timelines, and extensive articles about the assembling of the canon, Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Scripture, life under the Romans, etc verse 31: "Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering." and then in verse 34 "...take up their cross..." Remember it is a feminist interpretation that the footnote mentions. Dutch

like spending too much time here?

the New Interpreter's footnote to Mark 8:31-38 stressed that the idea of the necessity of suffering has been used to oppress women and others.

Hi, Halcyon, In addition to those mentioned in this thread I would add this one. It is progressive, including footnotes from a feminist theologian's perspective. The New Interpreter's Study Bible: New Revised Standard Version With the Apocrypha by Walter J. Harrelson (May 2003) This is comparable in price to the ESV Study. Could you tell us why you have started with the ESV? Our suggestions might be more helpful if we knew more. Dutch

dreamt last night that I was going to get a poor performance review because my "statement of faith" was weak or light. hmmm

I moved the "Can you prove a negative" discussion that seemed out of place here. Please respond only to psychsteph22's OP. Dutch

Paul, My references are Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama and The Life and Death of Democracy by John Keane. I believe Keane is Australian. Fukuyama says that three things are necessary for a stable modern liberal democracy. The state or ruler, a rule of law, and accountability of the government to the people. Religion, in our case Christianity, is almost always essential in the development of a agreed upon concept of law (not legislation). This understanding of what is right in society was particularly strong in Europe and was a modernizing force compared to the Brahmins and their varnas in India. This law - ideas about what is right, the idea that the ruler is accountable to the ruled, that the office holders do not possess the office but serve the office for limited time - was influenced by the disciplines that came out of the Holy Orders in the middle ages, The church helped provide the understanding that if ruler's do not rule well then there was a Divine right to overthrow them. John Locke, others and the Declaration of Independence say that good government is there to guarantee that the ruler is held accountable to the law, these ideas of what is right commonly held and derived from and facilitated by Christianity. Now, today, in America, the evolution of governments has brought us to the point that the constitution is our law. Legislation and executive action are both held up and judged by the constitution. But we couldn't be here without Christianity. Keane's book starts with an effort to find the beginnings of assembly democracy. The Athenians saw their gods as participants in their society. That Athens is seen as the birth place of democracy is incomplete, too simple, and fails to recognize all that came before, and fails to see that the experiment did not affect the future development of government as we are want to believe. Incomplete because it was more of a republic, incomplete because of limited franchise, incomplete because accountability was weak. Clearly not the first because the root word for democracy is not Greek but found in the Middle East much earlier. He tracks assembly democracy from the Middle East as it moved west until it was available as a possibility in the mind of the Greeks. He uses some precise ways of evaluating different governments and concludes there were no true democracies, with universal suffrage until the early 20th century. Provocatively Keane writes on page 207-8 "Without Jesus, there would no representative government, or representative democracy, if by that is meant what many of its Christian progenitors meant: a new way of handling political power based on a lengthy list of practical principles, such as the right to resist tyranny; the civil right to petition for good government; popular elections; limited terms of office; and the abolition of monarchy, if need be by public execution." I can provide more details if needed; I am taking lots of notes. Dutch .

Ritch, Since the democracy you live under depended on Christianity for its evolution I would say that it is meaningful. Dutch

Some commentators believe that this is not a reference to himself. Dutch

That's what he thought to begin with, but the Syro-Phoenician woman made him reconsider enlarging his target audience, at least for a moment. Dutch

I know a church that adapts rock, broadway, pop songs to theer purposes. I recommend needtobreathe, particularly their early albums in which the references to Biblical themes are more obvious. their songs are more often little sermons or confessions of faith than praise music Years ago our youth group rewrote the words to "stairway to heaven" and 1 or 2 classics and performed them in church. No it wasn't our usual kind of music. Dutch