COMBINATION OF [1]  THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY AND [2]   How Satan Came To Be


[1]       SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY [VOL. 860A]

Yes, we should not be judging our brothers in the faith and Luke 6:37, [Aurhorized King James Bible; AV] , makes this clear, “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:’  Also, this is made clear by Romans 14:4, [AV] “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.”

We shall all know Almighty God (YHWH) as shown by Romans 14:11 – 12, [AV] “For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.  12  So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”  And, this war foretold long before the modern era at Isaiah 45:23, [AV] “I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.”

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Your Friend in Christ Iris89 

Francis David said it long ago, "Neither the sword of popes...nor the image of death will halt the march of truth. "Francis David, 1579, written on the wall of his prison cell." Read the book, "What Does The Bible Really Teach" and the Bible today, and go to WWW.JW.ORG!

[2]   How Satan Came To Be.

All of God’s works are perfect; he is not the author of unrighteousness; so he did not create anyone wicked, “ He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.”  (Deuteronomy 32:4 av), and “ For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.” (Psalms 5:4 AV).  The one who became Satan was originally a perfect spirit son of God.  When saying that the Devil, “ Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, (Jesus indicated that at one time that one was in the truth)  because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44 AV).  But, as is true of all of God’s intelligent creatures, this spirit son was endowed with free will, i.e., they were not robots.  He abused his freedom of choice, allowed feelings of self-importance to develop in his heart, began to crave worship that belonged only to God, and so enticed Adam and Eve to listen to him rather than obey God.  Thus by his course of action he made himself Satan, which means '‘adversary,’ “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.  15  Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” (James 1:14-15 AV).

Now why did not God destroy Satan promptly after he rebelled?  Serious issues were raised by Satan: (1) The righteousness and rightfulness of God’s sovereignty.  Was God withholding from mankind freedom that would contribute to their happiness?  Were mankind’s ability to govern their affairs successfully and their continued life truly dependent on their obediance to God?  Had God been dishonest in giving a law that stated that disobedience would lead to their death? “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: 17  But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17 AV), and  “But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.  4  And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5  For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:3-5 AV).  So, did God really have the right to rule?

(2) The integrity of intelligent creatures toward Jehovah God.  By the deflection of Adam and Eve the question was raised: Did God’s servants really obey him out of love or might all of them abandon God and follow the lead being given by Satan?  This latter issue was further developed by Satan in the days of Job, “And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?  9  Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought? 8  And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil. 10  Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.  11  But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.” (Job 1:8-11 AV), and “And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.  4  And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.  5  But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.” (Job 2:3-5 AV).  These issues could not be settled by merely executing the rebels.

Not that God needed to prove anything to himself.  But so that these issues would never again disrupt the peace and well-being of the universe, Jehovah God has allowed ample time for them to be settled beyond all doubt.  That Adam and Eve died following disobedience to God became evident in due time, “ And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.” (Genesis 5:5 AV).  But more was at issue.  So, God has permitted both Satan and humans to try every form of government of their own making.  None have brought lasting happiness.  God has let mankind go to the limit in pursuing ways of life that ignore His righteous standards.  The fruitage speaks for itself.  As the Bible truthfully says: “ O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” (Jeremiah 10:23 AV).  At the same time God has given his servants opportunity to prove their loyalty to him by their acts of loving obedience, and this in the face of enticements and persecution instigated by Satan.  God exhorts his servants, saying: “ My son, be wise, and make my heart glad, that I may answer him that reproacheth me.” (Proverbs 27:11 AV).  Those proving faithful reap great benefits now and have the prospect of eternal life in perfection.  They will use such life in doing the will of Jehovah God, whose personality and ways they truly love.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BIBLE AND RELIGION – BOTH TRUE AND FALSE – AT WWW.JW.ORG

COMBINATION OF [1]  THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY AND [2]  PART 2 OF EXPLANATION OF TERM HYPOSTATIC UNION [VOL 862A] OF 4 PARTS 


[1]       SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY [VOL. 862A]

In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.   Genesus 3:19,  [authorized King James Bible; AV]

Almighty God (YHWH) did indeed create mankind from the dust of the earth as highlighted at Genesis 2:7, [AV] “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”  As Job 34:15 testifies to, [AV] “All flesh shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto dust.” 

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Your Friend in Christ Iris89 

Francis David said it long ago, "Neither the sword of popes...nor the image of death will halt the march of truth. "Francis David, 1579, written on the wall of his prison cell." Read the book, "What Does The Bible Really Teach" and the Bible today, and go to WWW.JW.ORG!

[2]  PART 2 OF EXPLANATION OF TERM HYPOSTATIC UNION [VOL 862A] OF 4 PARTS

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

NOTE: THIS DISCUSSION OF THE FALSE TEACHING OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION IN FOUR PARTS IS ONLY FOR ADVANCED BIBLICAL STUDENTS THAT CAN APPRECIATE THE SHOWING OF HOW SOME SO CALLED RELIGIOUS LEADERS DUE TO THEIR FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE THE REAL TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE TWIST REALITY SO BADLY THAT IT NO LONGER REALLY PRESENTS BIBLICAL TRUTHS, BUT ONLY COMPLICATED AND TWISTED WRONG REASONING'S OF MEN.  TO GO EVEN DEEPER IN THIS SUBJECT, GO TO,

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/sinandcompositescriptures/learn-the-truth-on-the-trinity-doctorine-t1006.html   

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All of this activity gives the lie to the prevalent opinion that in 451 AD the Oriental Orthodox went quietly into exile and schism. Here we see that the Church was alive with those who opposed Chalcedon, and it was those who supported
[http://www.orthodoxunity.org/article02.html]

132. See below Book VI. c. xiv. For the twofold error of Pelagianism cf. a striking article on "Theodore of Mopsuestia and Modern Thought" in the Church Quarterly Review, vol. i. See esp. p. 135; where, speaking of Pelagianism, the writer says: "as the hypostatic union was denied, lest it should derogate from the ethical completeness of Christ, so the efficacious working of grace must be explained away lest it should derogate from the moral dignity of Christians. The divine and human elements must be kept as jealously apart in the moral life of the members as in the person of the Head of the Church. In the ultimate analysis it must be proved that the initial movement in every good action came from the human will itself, though when this was allowed, the grace of God might receive, by an exact process of assessment, its due share of credit for the result."
[From: A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series, Volume 11, New York, 1894 (http://www.ccel.org/fathers/NPNF2-11/jcassian/nestnote.html)]

All of the Reformers were Roman Catholics, and unhappy Roman Catholics at that. They were also influenced by the philosophies of their day (such as nominalism, and rationalism), and by the Renaissance. In short, they brought with them (in their revolt against the Church) those Catholic doctrines which they still agreed with, and which they believed could be proved from Scripture, and they jettisoned those which seemed too mystical or irrational (e.g., prayer to the Saints, purgatory, the Real Presence, etc), as well as those seemingly based only upon Tradition. In other words, they developed a hybrid of Roman Catholicism and Rationalism (e.g., they believed in the trinity and the hypostatic union, but denied baptismal regeneration and the Real Presence). The precursors to the modern liberals of the 19th and 20th centuries were the Reformers themselves. The modern liberal critic is simply following the Reformation to its logical conclusion (e.g., he doesn’t believe in any doctrine which is irrational to him, and so jettisons the trinity and hypostatic union as well).
[http://www.cathinsight.com/apologetics/authority.htm]

To combat this error, the Council of Nicaea adopted the phrase, "in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father." This last phrase, "being of one substance with the Father," gave rise to the orthodox teaching of "homoousios, a Greek word meaning "same substance." Those more comfortable with the teachings of Arius rallied for homoiousios, which translates, "like substance."
The Council of Constantinople (381), the second ecumenical council, had to reconcile Biblical teaching with this latter concept of homoiousios. The adherents to this view have been called "Semi-Arians" because their view is a compromise between the two positions debated at Nicaea. The Semi-Arians taught that Christ was like God but not of the same essence. The Council decided against their position and developed the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which "happens to be the creed that is read in churches today under the title the Nicene Creed" (Blaising, 269). The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed added to the Nicene Creed the phrase "and the Son" to its description of the origin of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father "and the Son."
The third ecumenical council was held in Ephesus in 431. Central to the meeting at Ephesus were the teachings of Nestorius. Prior to this Council, Nestorius had already become suspect by many orthodox theologians for rejecting the hypostatic union. At the time of the third council in Ephesus, Nestorius was claiming that Mary could not have given birth to God. The creature--by his reasoning--could not give birth to the one who creates all things. Ultimately, Nestorius' Christology led to a dividing of the person of Christ, and, as a result, Nestorius was condemned at Ephesus. In his defense, however, it should be noted that items pertaining to Christology exceed human understanding apart from Scripture. Scripture, to state it once again, must be the authority for Christological study.
The fourth ecumenical council, the Council of Chalcedon, was also formed to determine matters of Christology. Once again, the council determined to reconcile the tension between the two natures of Christ. The Council "dealt with the unity of the two natures and concluded that the deity and humanity of Christ exist 'without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.' Thus, the two natures coalesced in one person and one substance (houpostasis)." Once and for all, it seemed, the church was united in its Christology.
[http://www.christiandiscipleshop.com/introduction_to_holy_spirit_and_christ.htm]

In part, the question can be answered by looking at the rise of the Monophysite movement among the Empire's Christians in the centuries preceding the Muslim invasion. In the middle of the fifth century, the church was deeply locked in Christological debates that arose out of the ecumenical councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, and at a time when church and state were integrally mixed, strains within the church necessarily meant strains within the Empire. The debates focused on the hypostatic union -- the fusion of the divine and the human natures within the person of Jesus Christ. On the one side were the 'orthodox' who insisted that Christ had two sperate natures -- human and divine. On the other side were the Monophysites who argued that Christ had but a single nature -- composed of the human and the divine, but tending to emphasize the former. The theological issues were somewhat blurred, however, by social and political issues that tended to reflect regional interests and traditions.
[http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/2961/mono1.htm]

Shirley MacLaine reads the Bible and sees a Jesus "very much like metaphysical seekers in the New Age today."2 Popular Christian novelist Madeleine L'Engle breaks the unity of Chalcedon: "Jesus of Nazareth lived for a brief life span, but Christ always was, is and will be."3 New look Christology ditches the delicate unity of the divine with the human for a pagan notion of divinized humanity. Pagan witch Mary Daly affirms that "the idea of a unique divine incarnation in a male, the God man of the `hypostatic union' [the Chalcedonian formula] is inherently sexist and oppressive. Christology is idolatry."4 This is not simply word-shuffling. The implications are momentous for the future of the Christian faith. So we ask first, who is Christ according to the new spirituality, and then, who is Jesus?
[http://www.spirit-wars.com/html/Cosmic%20Christ.html]

Even more remarkable is the contrast between Mark and Paul when we turn to the title "Son of Man." For Mark this is the self-designation used by Jesus himself, and used only by Jesus, not by others. It occurs fourteen times in the Gospel, and is unquestionably understood by Mark to refer to Jesus’ heavenly office or nature -- "a supernatural being who ranks between God and the angels." (P. 42.) Mark assumes that his readers will recognize the reference to Jesus, and will find its meaning in "the scriptures."(Mark 9:12; 14:21) But back of Mark is certainly a process of exegesis, which combined sayings in the Old Testament that could be understood to refer to the coming of the Son of Man with other sayings that could be interpreted to prophesy the sufferings, death, and resurrection of someone -- presumably now also the Messiah or the Son of Man. What is distinctive and most striking about this exegesis -- "the one unheard-of novelty" -- is the conception of the Son of Man living upon earth prior to his coming in glory: he not only will come, sometime in the future, on the clouds of heaven; he has already come, has suffered, has died, has risen again! Even the passages (Mark 2:10, 28) which used to be interpreted of "Christ’s human nature" or "man in general" are now recognized to belong with the others referring to "the Son of Man upon earth" prior to his death and glorification.
Now one might expect that this pattern of interpretation would have been retained by Paul, if historical -- that is, if set forth by Jesus himself or found in the earliest tradition of his sayings or expounded in the early church -- or one might even think it possible that Mark derived from Paul some hint of this system of exegesis of the Old Testament and of interpretation of the career of Jesus as a heavenly being appearing upon earth prior to his exaltation and his dying (as a heavenly being) upon the cross, though unrecognized in his true nature until the Resurrection. But the astonishing fact is that Paul never uses the term "Son of Man"! As against Johannes Weiss’s exegesis of I Corinthians 15:45-47, Werner insists that Paul’s "man who is from heaven" is simply exegesis of the first two chapters of Genesis, and has nothing to do with Daniel 7; the very order is reversed -- the earthly man comes first, the heavenly is the second. (This cannot possibly refer to the two stages in Christ’s existence: Christ is not ; and the two "men" are contrasted, Adam and Christ.) What Paul is controverting is the idea that there were two steps in the creation of man, first the Primal Man, the heavenly, spiritual Urmensch, then the mortal copy of this immortal being, the first representative of the human species -- a widespread Hellenistic conception which had left traces of its influence even upon Judaism. On the other hand, Mark’s use of the term "Son of Man" owes nothing to Paul -- since Paul does not use it -- but is centered in the early Christian interpretation of the Son of Man vision of Daniel 7. That both Mark and Paul think of Christ as a supernatural being does not argue the dependence of one upon the other -- the whole development of Gentile Christianity, Pauline and non-Pauline, took that for granted.
It is the title "Son of God," as Werner maintains, that most clearly expresses Mark’s Christology. It occurs in the title of the Gospel, and again at the end of the passion narrative.(Mark 15:39: "Truly this man was the Son of God" -- so Werner translates.) From 8:38 it is evident that the Son of God and the Son of Man are identical: "When he [the Son of Man] comes in the glory of his Father." When Jesus became Son of God, Mark does not say; but the moment of his baptism, when the Spirit came upon him -- or to him, literally "into" -- was probably the moment when he was so chosen and dedicated. At once follow the words of divine approval, "Thou art my beloved Son: in thee I am well pleased" -- here Jesus is first "set forth as Son of God," though not yet "with power"; (Rom. 1:4) that came later, at the Resurrection. It is not at all probable that Mark thought of Christ as pre-existent; the title "Son of God" is only one more messianic title, and does not connote a metaphysical, hypostatic union with the Father -- 13:32 and 10:18 rule out that idea.

SEE PART 3 OF EXPLANATION OF TERM HYPOSTATIC UNION AT VOL 862A

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BIBLE AND RELIGION – BOTH TRUE AND FALSE – AT WWW.JW.ORG

COMBINATION OF [1]  THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY AND [2]   PART 4 OF EXPLANATION OF TERM HYPOSTATIC UNION  [VOL 864A] OF 4 PARTS


[1]       SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY [VOL. 864A]

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.   James 4:8,  [authorized King James Bible; AV]

Almighty God (YHWH) desires all to humble themselves and not be haughty, and this is testified to at James 4:6 – 7, [AV] “But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. 7  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”  As the Bible makes clear at James 4:11 – 12, [AV] “Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. 12  There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?” 

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To enjoy an online Bible study called “Follow the Christ” go to,http://www.network54.com/Forum/403209/thread/1417398076/last-1417398076/Digital+Book+On+18+Part+Follow+Christ+Bible+Study 

Your Friend in Christ Iris89 

Francis David said it long ago, "Neither the sword of popes...nor the image of death will halt the march of truth. "Francis David, 1579, written on the wall of his prison cell." Read the book, "What Does The Bible Really Teach" and the Bible today, and go to WWW.JW.ORG!

[2]   PART 4 OF EXPLANATION OF TERM HYPOSTATIC UNION  [VOL 864A] OF 4 PARTS

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

NOTE: THIS DISCUSSION OF THE FALSE TEACHING OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION IN FOUR PARTS IS ONLY FOR ADVANCED BIBLICAL STUDENTS THAT CAN APPRECIATE THE SHOWING OF HOW SOME SO CALLED RELIGIOUS LEADERS DUE TO THEIR FAILURE TO RECOGNIZE THE REAL TEACHINGS OF THE BIBLE TWIST REALITY SO BADLY THAT IT NO LONGER REALLY PRESENTS BIBLICAL TRUTHS, BUT ONLY COMPLICATED AND TWISTED WRONG REASONING'S OF MEN.  TO GO EVEN DEEPER IN THIS SUBJECT, GO TO,

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/sinandcompositescriptures/learn-the-truth-on-the-trinity-doctorine-t1006.html   

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

taken and disseminated by Augustine? Augustine is often portrayed as the most important fashioner of a self-certifying human rational self established face to face with God so as finally to exchange places with him. Is this Augustine taking up one possibility within the Neoplatonic turning of philosophy from substance to subjectivity? Is Neoplatonism, this vast syncretistic synthesis of antique philosophy, theology and religion, or better, are the Neoplatonisms as much at the origins of the modern self as they also contain alternatives to it? To begin answering some of these questions we must return to Hadot’s work.
The interpretation of the Parmenides of Plato had long been recognised as the very center of Neoplatonism. In common Neoplatonists made the first hypotheses within the dialogue’s dialectic of unity, being and plurality the primary hypostases, i.e. subsistences, of the spiritual, i.e. the substantial, world. However, the differences between the great teachers in this school resulted from how they related these primary realities. In general, starting with Plotinus, the Neoplatonists sharply differentiated the One non-being (as hypostasis, the One, the absolutely simple) from the One-being (as hypostasis, NOUS, mind). Putting it most directly, the commentary Hadot maintained to be by Porphyry unites them by finding a form of being which may belong to the highest, namely what he designates by the infinitive EINAI, in Latin, ESSE which Aquinas will call the highest and proper name of God. This "to be" which is without subject or predicate is distinguished from particular being. The "to be" is in the connection between the One-non being and the One-being. This connection requires also two states of intelligence and a movement between them. At stake here is what Plotinus himself declares to be the greatest of mysteries, how the One is productive, how thinking which is dual because it has being as its object comes forth from the absolutely simple. How does NOUS, the first emanation of the One, come forth from what has no object of its apprehension, not even itself?
Porphyry’s solution may be regarded as illuminating Plotinus or betraying him. Equally Porphyry may be regarded as making a form of Neoplatonism into a step in the systematic totalizing of ontology or as the founder of a tradition of the negative theology of being which stands against that. Certainly, his EINAI exists in the dynamic between negative and positive and the intellection for which it exists is not a conceptual grasp of a particular form. The character of Augustine’s treatment of being and subjectivity rouses the same questions.
Porphyrian Questions about Augustine and the Answer of Trouillard
Augustine’s interpretation of Exodus 3.14, "I am that I am", as meaning that God is IPSUM ESSE, is decisive for Latin theology and philosophy. It is equally decisive that this ESSE is the first moment in the circumcession of the triad, being, knowing and loving or, or to make it character as subjectivity more apparent, the triad of remembering, knowing and loving which is the essence of both God and the human. But the import and fate of these bindings is the pressing question. Has Augustine bound being to knowing so that it is no more than its object and is thus the subject of manipulating will? Or, alternatively, are both being and knowledge pulled away from any such reduction by being carried over to love? Or is our history the complementarity, confluence and conflict of these opposed alternatives?
Which ever may be the case about Augustine lui-même, Trouillard was conscious of the reductive possibilities within the Augustinian tradition. With his priestly colleagues Trouillard turned toward the post-Porphyrian Neoplatonism to which the criticism of Porphyry was determinative. His giving of being to the First was strongly opposed as indeed was his intellectualism. For Trouillard and the later Neoplatonists the reduction to ontology must be countered by a henology, a strongly negative theology and a restoration of what in religion raises us beyond what we can understand. In an important article, "How to avoid speaking: Denials," (in Languages of the Unsayable: The Play of Negativity in Literature and Literary Theory, eds. S. Budick and W. Iser [New York: Columbia University Press, 1989]) Derrida locates the "Platonic or Neoplatonic tradition", Augustine, Heidegger, Wittgenstein and the pseudo-Dionysius within this negative theology and non-philosophical religion and considers to what extent it attains its aims. Here and elsewhere, he and Jean-Luc Marion, the current head of Philosophy at the Sorbonne, who has embraced Denys to counter ontology, dispute this question.
[http://www.dal.ca/~claswww/Carleton.htm]

9 There is nothing more offensive to postmodern theological Augustinianism than the centering of being, knowledge and presence which Menn attributes here to what he deems a Platonic tradition.(18) However, it is my judgment, which I hope to substantiate in the last part of this paper, that Augustine's de Trinitate shows that what Menn asserts of Plotinus is even more true of Augustine. Further, what makes Augustine worse than Plotinus, (so to speak), is his modification of the Plotinian hypostatic spiritual trinity. This modification, to which he is moved by Christian doctrine and by Porphyry's modification of Plotinus, allows him to draw together self-knowledge and a positive knowledge of God in a way Plotinus cannot do.(19)
[http://www.mun.ca/animus/1998vol3/hankey3.htm][ 18. For Menn, "Augustine and Descartes are Platonists" along with Plotinus, ibid., 397. ][ 19. On the intermediation of Porphyry and the result in Augustine, see Werner Beierwaltes, "Cusanus and Eriugena," Dionysius, 13 (1989), 134, n. 64; idem, "Unity and Trinity in East and West," Eriugena: East and West. Papers of the Eighth International Colloquium of the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies, Chicago and Notre Dame, 18-20 October 1991, edited B. McGinn and W. Otten, Notre Dame Conferences in Medieval Studies v (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), n. 10, pp. 212-214; 223-24; idem, "Unity and Trinity in Dionysius and Eriugena," Hermathena, 157 (1994), n. 10, pp. 7, 13-14; idem, Agostino e il neoplatonismo, (Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1995).][ A Review Article devoted to Stephen Menn. Descartes and Augustine.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998]

Gnosticism is thinly disguised Pantheism. In the beginning was the Depth; the Fulness of Being; the Not-Being God; the First Father, the Monad, the Man; the First Source, the unknown God (Bythos pleroma, ouk on theos, propator, monas, anthropos, proarche, hagnostos theos), or by whatever other name it might be called. This undefined infinite Something, thought it might be addressed by the title of the Good God, was not a personal Being, but, like Tad of Brahma of the Hindus, the "Great Unknown" of modern thought. The Unknown God, however, was in the beginning pure spirituality; matter as yet was not. This source of all being causes to emanate (proballei) from itself a number of pure spirit forces. In the different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common too all forms of Gnosticism. In the Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships (uiotetes), in Valentinianism they form antithetic pairs or "syzygies" (syzygoi); Depth and Silence produce Mind and Truth; these produce Reason and Life, these again Man and State (ekklesia). According to Marcus, they are numbers and sounds. These are the primary roots of the Æons. With bewildering fertility hierarchies of Æons are thus produced, sometimes to the number of thirty. These Æons belong to the purely ideal, noumenal, intelligible, or supersensible world; they are immaterial, they are hypostatic ideas. Together with the source from which they emanate they form the pleroma. The transition fromthe immaterial to the material, from the noumenal to the sensible, is brought about by a flaw, or a passion, or a sin, in one of the Æons. According to Basilides, it is a flaw in the last sonship; according to others it is the passion of the female Æon Sophia; according to others the sin ofthe Great Archon, or Æon-Creator, of the Universe. The ultimate end of all Gnosis is metanoia, or repentance, the undoing of the sin of material existence and the return to the Pleroma.
[http://www.surfsouth.com/~mdg_1219/first_cent.htm]

But much the most important, not least because they approached the debate from different standpoints, were Cyril of Alexandria and Pope Leo the Great. Cyril had been the first to denounce Nestorius, and in a whole series of letters and dogmatic treatises he drove home his critique and expounded his own positive theory of hypostatic (substantive, or essential) union. He secured the condemnation of Nestorius at the Council of Ephesus (431), and his own letters were canonically approved at Chalcedon. A convinced adherent of the Alexandrian Word-flesh Christology, he deepened his understanding of the problem as the debate progressed; but his preferred expression for the unity of the Redeemer remained "one incarnate nature of the Word," which he mistakenly believed to derive from Athanasius. Leo provided the necessary balance to this with his famous Dogmatic Letter, also endorsed at Chalcedon, which affirmed the coexistence of two complete natures, united without confusion, in the one Person of the Incarnate Word, or Christ.
[http://cyberspacei.com/jesusi/inlight/religion/christianity/christianity/3.htm]

http://www.acts2.com/thebibletruth/ARTICLES/Catholicism-General/Romanism%20_The_Cult.pdf
 

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COMBINATION OF [1]  THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY AND [2]     MEANING OF JESUS’ NAME (YESHUA)


[1]       SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY [VOL. 866A]

Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: 27  Neither give place to the devil.   Ephesians 4:26 – 27, [authorized King James Bible; AV]

Clearly we should put aside rage and anger as shown by Psalms 4:3 – 5, [AV] “But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him. 4  Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah. 5  Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the LORD.”  And this is also stated in Leviticus 19:17 - 18, [AV] “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt in any wise rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. 18  Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.”  These two scriptures clearly show we should NOT carry hate in our heart.” 

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Your Friend in Christ Iris89 

Francis David said it long ago, "Neither the sword of popes...nor the image of death will halt the march of truth. "Francis David, 1579, written on the wall of his prison cell." Read the book, "What Does The Bible Really Teach" and the Bible today, and go to WWW.JW.ORG!

[2]   MEANING OF JESUS’ NAME (YESHUA)

Son of God The special relationship of Jesus to God Mark 1:1 Son of Man The human identity of Jesus Matthew 8:20 Son of David
Jesus is descendant of King David Matthew 15:22 Word
Jesus revealed God John 1:1 Lamb of God
Jesus is the sacrifice for world’s sin John 1:29 Christ
The Greek for ‘Anointed One’ Matthew 16:16 Savior
The one who saves John 4:14 Rabbi/Teacher Jesus taught people about God John 1:38, Mark 5:35
Author of life One who gives life Acts 3:15 Alpha and Omega
The first and last letters of the Greek alphabets,
meaning that Jesus is the beginning and the end
Revelation 1:8
Lion of Judah A title of the Messiah Revelation 5:5 King of Kings/Lord of Lords
The ruler of all people Revelation 19:16 Bright Morning Star The one who gives light Revelation 22:16 Word of God Jesus is the voice of God Revelation 19:13 Holy and Righteous Attributes of Jesus Acts 3:14 Head of the Church The leader of all Christians Ephesians 5:23


Names found in the Old Testament

Title
Meaning/Significance of names
Bible reference



Immanuel
God with us
Isaiah 7:14
Prince of Peace
Jesus will bring everlasting peace
Isaiah 9:6
Wonderful Advisor
Jesus will always rule with honesty and justice
Isaiah 9:6
Mighty God
Jesus is supreme
Isaiah 9:6
Eternal Father
Jesus is eternal
Isaiah 9:6

Names found in the New Testament

Title
Meaning/Significance of names
Bible reference



Son of God
The special relationship of Jesus to God
Mark 1:1
Son of Man
The human identity of Jesus
Matthew 8:20
Son of David
Jesus is descendant of King David
Matthew 15:22
Word
Jesus revealed God
John 1:1
Lamb of God
Jesus is the sacrifice for world’s sin
John 1:29
Christ
The Greek for ‘Anointed One’
Matthew 16:16
Savior
The one who saves
John 4:14
Rabbi/Teacher
Jesus taught people about God
John 1:38, Mark 5:35
Author of life
One who gives life
Acts 3:15
Alpha and Omega
The first and last letters of the Greek alphabets,
meaning that Jesus is the beginning and the end
Revelation 1:8
Lion of Judah
A title of the Messiah
Revelation 5:5
King of Kings/Lord of Lords
The ruler of all people
Revelation 19:16
Bright Morning Star
The one who gives light
Revelation 22:16
Word of God
Jesus is the voice of God
Revelation 19:13
Holy and Righteous
Attributes of Jesus
Acts 3:14
Head of the Church
The leader of all Christians
Ephesians 5:23

http://www.jesusanswers.com/bible/names.htm

Jesus  = God With Us


http://www.homesteaddesigns.com/nresult.asp?iname=Jesus&isex=male

Jesus  = Savior; deliverer

http://www.searchgodsword.org/dic/hbn/view.cgi?number=T1376 

Jesus  =  help of Jehovah or savior

http://www.searchgodsword.org/dic/sbd/view.cgi?number=T2395 Smith's Bible Dictionary

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE BIBLE AND RELIGION – BOTH TRUE AND FALSE – AT WWW.JW.ORG

COMBINATION OF [1]  THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY AND [2]   THE HISTORIC JESUS (YESHUA) CHRIST: (PART 1 OF 2)


[1]       SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY [VOL. 868A]

John 8:42 Jesus (Yeshua) said to them, " Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me." (Authorized King James Bible; AV).

Jesus (Yeshua) said he comes from God. The flesh cannot be speaking for the flesh was created. So Jesus (Yeshua)'s spiritual being came from God. Jesus (Yeshua) did not send himself, he did not come on his own, but before he was on earth, God sent him. Jesus (Yeshua) was sent by God into the world, so Jesus (Yeshua) is before the world with God.  He is referred to a Proverbs. 8:22-31, “The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.  23  I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.  24  When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.  25  Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:  26  While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.  27  When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:  28  When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:  29  When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:  30  Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;  31  Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. 

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Your Friend in Christ Iris89 

Francis David said it long ago, "Neither the sword of popes...nor the image of death will halt the march of truth. "Francis David, 1579, written on the wall of his prison cell." Read the book, "What Does The Bible Really Teach" and the Bible today, and go to WWW.JW.ORG!

[2]   THE HISTORIC JESUS (YESHUA) CHRIST:



INTRODUCTION:



Worldly critics do not want to accept the Inspired Word of Almighty God (YHWH), the Bible, and are always trying to find fault with it and failing to apply the constraints given in it when applying logic and reasoning. In fact, they sometimes even label events whose understanding is simple if you apply the constraints therein given by calling them contradictions which they are not.



In addition, they often claim, without proof of course, that accounts about him by contemporary historians have been "doctored". Why, because they want to justify their none belief in their Creator, Almighty God (YHWH).

<<<"Interestingly, the first type of records comes from what are known commonly as "hostile" sources-writers who mentioned Jesus in a negative light or derogatory fashion. Such penmen certainly were not predisposed to further the cause of Christ or otherwise to add credence to His existence. In fact, quite the opposite is true. They rejected His teachings and often reviled Him as well. Thus, one can appeal to them without the charge of built-in bias. " [source - Apologetics Press :: Reason & Revelation, The Historical Christ-Fact or Fiction? by Kyle Butt, M.A., sub-part HOSTILE TESTIMONY]>>>.



Interestingly, as noted by E.P. Sanders in his book, "The Historical Figure of Jesus," at page 49, he noted that most of the First Century literature that survives unto today that mentions Jesus (Yeshua) was written by a small elite class of Romans that detested him and considered his as "merely a troublesome rabble-rouser and magician."[source - The Historical Figure of Jesus, by E.P. Sanders 1933, at page 49].



With respect C. Tacitus, It is well known that he hated Jesus (Yeshua) and regarded him as a troublesome rabble-rouser and had nothing positive to say about what he referred to as a "deadly superstition," but readily admitted that this individual that he hated had existed as we have seen previously. <<<" His testimony establishes beyond any reasonable doubt that the Christian religion not only was relevant historically, but that Christ, as its originator, was a verifiable historical figure of such prominence that He even attracted the attention of the Roman emperor himself!" [source - Apologetics Press :: Reason & Revelation, The Historical Christ-Fact or Fiction? by Kyle Butt, M.A., sub-part HOSTILE TESTIMONY]>>>.



Therefore the only conclusion is that Jesus (Yeshua) was a real person, and that more has been written about him than any other person in human history. <<<" Critics do not like having to admit it, but they cannot successfully deny the fact that Jesus had a greater impact on the world than any single life before or after. Nor can they deny the fact that Jesus died at the hands of Pontius Pilate." !" [source - Apologetics Press :: Reason & Revelation, The Historical Christ-Fact or Fiction? by Kyle Butt, M.A., sub-part HOSTILE TESTIMONY]>>>.



Michael Grant stated (in 1977) that the view is derived from a lack of application of historical methods: <<<"...if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned. ... To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has 'again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars.' In recent years, 'no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus' or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary." [source - M. Grant, Jesus: An Historian's Review, pp. 199-200 , as provided by Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus on 03/19/2008]>>>.



And the New Testament is full of eyewitness accounts by the Apostles and Disciples of Jesus (Yeshua) that associated with him during his life and no such account exist for any other personage of antiquity.



THE REALITY:



WITH RESPECT FLAVIUS JOSEPHUS:



Worldly critics make the false claim which on the surface sound valid, but on closer examination are not. Let's look at one of these:



<<<" The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, writing during the second half of the first century CE, produced two major works: History of the Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews. Two apparent references to Jesus occur in the second of these works. The longer, and more famous passage, occurs in Book 18 of Antiquities and reads as follows (taken from the standard accepted Greek text of Antiquities 18:63-64 by L. H. Feldman in the Loeb Classical Library):



About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and as a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing amongst us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.



This passage is called the Testimonium Flavianum, and is sometimes cited by propagandists as independent confirmation of Jesus' existence and resurrection. However, there is excellent reason to suppose that this passage was not written in its present form by Josephus, but was either inserted or amended by later Christians:



1. The early Christian writer Origen claims that Josephus did NOT recognize Jesus as the Messiah, in direct contradiction to the above passage, where Josephus says, "He was the Messiah." Thus, we may conclude that this particular phrase at least was a later insertion. (The version given above was, however, known to Jerome and in the time of Eusebius. Jerome's Latin version, however, renders "He was the Messiah" by "He was believed to be the Christ.") Furthermore, other early Christian writers fail to cite this passage, even though it would have suited their purposes to do so. There is thus firm evidence that this passage was tampered with at some point, even if parts of it do date back to Josephus.



2. The passage is highly pro-Christian. It is hard to imagine that Josephus, a Pharisaic Jew, would write such a laudatory passage about a man supposedly killed for blasphemy. Indeed, the passage seems to make Josephus himself out to be a Christian, which was certainly not the case.



Many Biblical scholars reject the entire Testimonium Flavianum as a later Christian insertion. However, some maintain that Josephus's work originally did refer to Jesus, but that Christian copyists later expanded and made the text more favorable to Jesus. These scholars cite such phrases as "tribe of Christians" and "wise man" as being atypical Christian usages, but plausible if coming from a first century Palestinian Jew. Of course, a suitably clever Christian wishing to "dress up" Josephus would not have much trouble imitating his style.



Philip Burns (pib@merle.acns.nwu.edu) has provided some of the following material on the following alternate versions or reconstructions of the Testimonium Flavianum.



One possible reconstruction of the Testimonium Flavianum, suggested by James Charlesworth, goes like this, with probably Christian interpolations enclosed in brackets: [source - not given by worldly critic posting same]>>>.



Now on close examination of this critics writings we see internal problems as follows to their false contentions regarding Jesus (Yeshua).



<<<" The early Christian writer Origen claims that Josephus did NOT recognize Jesus as the Messiah[[Thereby testifying to his real existence]][[Of course Josephus did not recognize him as the Messiah, but that is far different from that of recognizing his existence and is like saying an American did not recognize Adolph Hitler as his leader which in no way implies none recognition of his having existed.]][[As to calling him the Messiah, that would be like historian H.G. Wells calling Adolph Hitler the leader of the Axis Powers, and in no way implying his belief in him as his leader]], in direct contradiction to the above passage, where Josephus says, "He was the Messiah." Thus, we may conclude that this particular phrase at least was a later insertion. (The version given above was, however, known to Jerome and in the time of Eusebius[[Early scholars did not question whether Jesus (Yeshua) had existed, only later critics far removed in time from his day did]]. Jerome's Latin version, however, renders "He was the Messiah" by "He was believed to be the Christ.") Furthermore, other early Christian writers fail to cite this passage, even though it would have suited their purposes to do so. There is thus firm evidence that this passage was tampered with at some point, even if parts of it do date back to Josephus. ">>>.



Now let's look at another passage in Josephus' "Antiquities of the Jews" found on page 598 of "The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus,



<<<"Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned; but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king
[Agrippa], desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a Sanhedrim without his consent." [source - The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, translated by William Whiston, A.M. and Published by The John C. Winston Company, and containing the "Antiquities of the Jews" and the "Wars of the Jews" and other items, page 598]>>>.



Also, these critics willfully overlook what Josephus said with regard to John the Baptist as follows,



<<<"2. Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and as to come to baptism; for the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, bty sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it should be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him." ." [source - The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, translated by William Whiston, A.M. and Published by The John C. Winston Company, and containing the "Antiquities of the Jews" and the "Wars of the Jews" and other items, page 540.]>>>.



And now let's look at the passage in the Antiquities of the Jews that the critics like to claim was doctored in context, but goes right in the flow with everything else Josephus wrote,



<<<"...So he bid the Jews himself go away; but they bodily casting reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them such greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were tumultuous, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least; and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them slain by this means, and others of them ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this sedition.



3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was {the} Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him are not extinct at this day.



4. About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome. I will now first take notice of the wicked attempts about the temple of Isis, and will then give an account of the Jewish affairs. ..." [source - The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus, translated by William Whiston, A.M. and Published by The John C. Winston Company, and containing the "Antiquities of the Jews" and the "Wars of the Jews" and other items, page 535]>>>.



Now, Yes, Flavius Josephus was a Jew and almost certainly did not believe in Jesus (Yeshua) as the Christ, but he was employed by the Roman Army as a historian and dutifully recorded reality whether he agreed religiously with it or not, just as well-known Roman Chatholic historian Will Durant did, who wrote, "Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it ... pagan cultures contributed to the syncretist results. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity ... [Caesar and Christ, page 595) (Lamson, Newton & Durant)]. The problem is critics do NOT want to recognize the objectivity of good historians and compilers of facts, but wish to unjustly use their objectivity to claim their works have been doctored and/or are just plain wrong.



Some claim what Josephus wrote are forgeries, but an examination of his work quickly shows this can not be the case. Let's look at some of what he wrote in brief:



<<<"Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others [or, some of his companions]: and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, [source - "Antiquities of the Jews, from The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus as translated by William Whiston, A.M., published by the John C. Winston Co., of Philadelphia, page 598.]>>>.



And



<<<"2. Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from god, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the baptist; for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards god, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified before hand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it should be too late. [source - "Antiquities of the Jews, from The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus as translated by William Whiston, A.M., published by the John C. Winston Co., of Philadelphia, page 540.]>>>.



And,



<<<"3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher os such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned his to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. Ant the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. [source - "Antiquities of the Jews, from The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus as translated by William Whiston, A.M., published by the John C. Winston Co., of Philadelphia, page 535.]>>>.



And,



<<<"Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus recorded information pertaining to Jesus, thus removing the only supporting source for His existence as being in the New Testament. In 115 A.D., Tactius wrote about the great fire in Rome, "Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberious at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths, Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed."

It is believed by some scholars that Tactius gained his information about Christ from official records, perhaps actual reports written by Pilate. Tactius also wrote about the burning of the Jerusalem temple by the Romans in 70 A.D. The Christians
are mentioned as a group that were connected with these events. "All we can gather from this reference is that Tactius was also aware of the existence of Christians other than in the context of their presence in Rome," states Habermas. Gaius Suetonius Tranquillas, chief secretary of Emperor Hadrian, wrote, "Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from the City." Chrestus is a variant spelling of Christ. Suetonius refers to a wave of riots that broke out in a large Jewish community in Rome during the year 49 A.D. As a result, the Jews were banished from the city....



WITH RESPECT P. CORNELIUS TACTIUS (AD 56 - C. 120):



(Cornelius Tacitus), c.A.D. 55-c.A.D. 117, Roman historian. Little is known for certain of his life. He was a friend of Pliny the Younger and married the daughter of Cnaeus Julius Agricola. In A.D. 97 he was appointed substitute consul under Nerva, and later he was proconsul of Asia. The first of his works was the Dialogus [dialogue], a discussion of oratory in the style of Cicero, demonstrating to some degree why Tacitus was celebrated as an eloquent speaker; this work was long disputed, but his authorship is now generally accepted. Tacitus then wrote a biography of Agricola, expressing his admiration for his father-in-law as a good and able man. His small treatise De origine et situ Germanorum [concerning the origin and location of the Germans], commonly called the Germania or Germany, supplies (along with the earlier account of Julius Caesar) the principal written material on the Germanic tribes. Archaeology bears out the accuracy of Tacitus, but the work is not objective; it is a picture of the simple Germans glorified by comparison with the corruption and luxurious immorality of the Romans. This moral purpose and severe criticism of contemporary Rome, fallen from the virtuous vigor of the old republic, also underlies his two long works, commonly called in English the Histories (of which four books and part of a fifth survive) and the Annals (of which twelve books-Books I-VI, XI-XVI-survive). The extant books of the Histories cover only the reign of Galba (A.D. 68-69) and the beginning (to A.D. 70) of the reign of Vespasian but give a thorough view of Roman life-persons, places, and events. The surviving books of the Annals tell of the reign of Tiberius, of the last years of Claudius, and of the first years of Nero. The account contains incisive character sketches, ironic passages, and eloquent moral conclusions. The declamatory writing of the Dialogus is replaced in the historical works by a polished and highly individual style, a wide range of vocabulary, and an intricate and startling syntax.[source - The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07].



And another encyclopedia said, <<<" Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (ca. 56 - ca. 117) was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works-the Annals and the Histories-examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those that reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors. These two works span the history of the Roman Empire from the death of Augustus in 14 AD to (presumably) the death of emperor Domitian in 96 AD. There are significant lacunae in the surviving texts.



Other works by Tacitus discuss oratory (in dialogue format, see Dialogus de oratoribus), Germania (in De origine et situ Germanorum), and biographical notes about his father-in-law Agricola, primarily during his campaign in Britannia (see De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae).



Tacitus' historiographical style in his major works is annalistic. An author writing in the latter part of the Silver Age of Latin literature, his work is distinguished by a boldness and sharpness of wit, and a compact and sometimes unconventional use of Latin."[source - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]>>>.



Now let's look at what this none Christian worshipper of the Unconquered Sun had to say about Jesus (Yeshua). <<<" The Roman historian Tacitus, writing in his Annals (c. 116) about the Great Fire of Rome (64), included an account of how the emperor Nero blamed the Christians in Rome for the disaster and initiated the first known persecution of early Christians by the Romans. This has become one of the best known and most discussed passages of Tacitus' works.[1] Although partly aimed at showing the inhumanity of the emperor, Tacitus' remarks have been studied more by modern scholars for information about his own religious attitudes and about the early history of Christianity.



Tacitus describes the support for the homeless provided by Nero and the rebuilding of the city, then refers to religious rituals carried out based on a consultation of the Sibylline Books.[2] However, none of this did away with the suspicion that the fire had been started on Nero's orders:



Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.



Tacitus then returns to the topic of Nero's reputation and the effect on it of these events: "Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed."[3]



References:



1. ^ Syme 533 n. 5 ("This famous chapter has provoked an enormous literature...").



2. ^ Tacitus, Annals 15.39-43.



3. ^ a b Tacitus, Annals 15.44, translated by Church and Brodribb.



[source - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]>>>



The Catholic Encyclopedia said the following on C. Tactius,



<<<" We possess at least the testimony of Tacitus (A.D. 54-119) for the statements that the Founder of the Christian religion, a deadly superstition in the eyes of the Romans, had been put to death by the procurator Pontius Pilate under the reign of Tiberius; that His religion, though suppressed for a time, broke forth again not only throughout Judea where it had originated, but even in Rome, the conflux of all the streams of wickness and shamelessness; furthermore, that Nero had diverted from himself the suspicion of the burning of Rome by charging the Christians with the crime; that these latter were not guilty of arson, though they deserved their fate on account of their universal misanthropy. Tacitus, moreover, describes some of the horrible torments to which Nero subjected the Christians (Ann., XV, xliv). The Roman writer confounds the Christians with the Jews, considering them as a especially abject Jewish sect; how little he investigated the historical truth of even the Jewish records may be inferred from the credulity with which he accepted the absurd legends and calumnies about the origin of he Hebrew people (Hist., V, iii, iv)..



AND, Those who regard the passage as spurious,



First, there are those who consider the whole passage as spurious. The principal reasons for this view appear to be the following:



* Josephus could not represent Jesus Christ as a simple moralist, and on the other hand he could not emphasize the Messianic prophecies and expectations without offending the Roman susceptibilities;



* the above cited passage from Josephus is said to be unknown to Origen and the earlier patristic writers;



* its very place in the Josephan text is uncertain, since Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, vi) must have found it before the notices concerning Pilate, while it now stands after them.



But the spuriousness of the disputed Josephan passage does not imply the historian's ignorance of the facts connected with Jesus Christ. Josephus's report of his own juvenile precocity before the Jewish teachers (Vit., 2) reminds one of the story of Christ's stay in the Temple at the age of twelve; the description of his shipwreck on his journey to Rome (Vit., 3) recalls St. Paul's shipwreck as told in the Acts; finally his arbitrary introduction of a deceit practised by the priests of Isis on a Roman lady, after the chapter containing his supposed allusion to Jesus, shows a disposition to explain away the virgin birth of Jesus and to prepare the falsehoods embodied in the later Jewish writings.".[source - The Catholic Encyclopedia]>>>.



OTHER EARLY PAGAN WRITERS ON CHRIST:



Here is what some other early pagan writers who lived in the First Century had to say about Christ,



<<<"B. Suetonius, Another Roman writer who shows his acquaintance with Christ and the Christians is Suetonius (A.D. 75-160). It has been noted that Suetonius considered Christ (Chrestus) as a Roman insurgent who stirred up seditions under the reign of Claudius (A.D. 41-54): "Judaeos, impulsore Chresto, assidue tumultuantes (Claudius) Roma expulit" (Clau., xxv). In his life of Nero he regards that emperor as a public benefactor
on account of his severe treatment of the Christians: "Multa sub eo et animadversa severe, et coercita, nec minus instituta . . . . afflicti Christiani, genus hominum superstitious novae et maleficae" (Nero, xvi). The Roman writer does not understand that the Jewish troubles arose from the Jewish antagonism to the Messianic character of Jesus Christ and to the rights of the Christian Church.



C. Pliny the Younger



Of greater importance is the letter of Pliny the Younger to the Emperor Trajan (about A.D. 61-115), in which the Governor of Bithynia consults his imperial majesty as to how to deal with the Christians living within his jurisdiction. On the one hand, their lives were confessedly innocent; no crime could be proved against them excepting their Christian belief, which appeared to the Roman as an extravagant and perverse superstition. On the other hand, the Christians could not be shaken in their allegiance to Christ, Whom they celebrated as their God in their early morning meetings (Ep., X, 97, 98). Christianity here appears no longer as a religion of criminals, as it does in the texts of Tacitus and Suetonius; Pliny acknowledges the high moral principles of the Christians, admires their constancy in the Faith (pervicacia et inflexibilis obstinatio), which he appears to trace back to their worship of Christ (carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere).



D. Other pagan writers



The remaining pagan witnesses are of less importance: In the second century Lucian sneered at Christ and the Christians, as he scoffed at the pagan gods. He alludes to Christ's death on the Cross, to His miracles, to the mutual love prevailing among the Christians ("Philopseudes", nn. 13, 16; "De Morte Pereg"). There are also alleged allusions to Christ in Numenius (Origen, "Contra Cels", IV, 51), to His parables in Galerius, to the earthquake at the Crucifixion in Phlegon ( Origen, "Contra Cels.", II, 14). Before the end of the second century, the logos alethes of Celsus, as quoted by Origen (Contra Cels., passim), testifies that at that time the facts related in the Gospels were generally accepted as historically true. However scanty the pagan sources of the life of Christ may be, they bear at least testimony to His existence, to His miracles, His parables, His claim to Divine worship, His death on the Cross, and to the more striking characteristics of His religion." ).[source - The Catholic Encyclopedia]>>>.



JEWISH SOURCE OF THE FIRST CENTURY ON CHRIST:



<<<"Philo, who dies after A.D. 40, is mainly important for the light he throws on certain modes of thought and phraseology found again in some of the Apostles. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., II, iv) indeed preserves a legend that Philo had met St. Peter in Rome during his mission to the Emperor Caius; moreover, that in his work on the contemplative life he describes the life of the Christian Church in Alexandria founded by St. Mark, rather than that of the Essenes and Therapeutae. But it is hardly probable that Philo had heard enough of Christ and His followers to give an historical foundation to the foregoing legends." ).[source - The Catholic Encyclopedia]>>>.



And,



<<<"The historical character of Jesus Christ is also attested by the hostile Jewish literature of the subsequent centuries. His birth is ascribed to an illicit ("Acta Pilati" in Thilo, "Codex apocryph. N.T., I, 526; cf. Justin, "Apol.", I, 35), or even an adulterous, union of His parents (Origen, "Contra Cels.," I, 28, 32). The father's name is Panthera, a common soldier (Gemara "Sanhedrin", viii; "Schabbath", xii, cf. Eisenmenger, "Entdecktes Judenthum", I, 109; Schottgen, "Horae Hebraicae", II, 696; Buxtorf, "Lex. Chald.", Basle, 1639, 1459, Huldreich, "Sepher toledhoth yeshua hannaceri", Leyden, 1705). The last work in its final edition did not appear before the thirteenth century, so that it could give the Panthera myth in its most advanced form. Rosch is of opinion that the myth did not begin before the end of the first century.



The later Jewish writings show traces of acquaintance with the murder of the Holy Innocents (Wagenseil, "Confut. Libr.Toldoth", 15; Eisenmenger op. cit., I, 116; Schottgen, op. cit., II, 667), with the flight into Egypt (cf. Josephus, "Ant." XIII, xiii), with the stay of Jesus in the Temple at the age of twelve (Schottgen, op. cit., II, 696), with the call of the disciples ("Sanhedrin", 43a; Wagenseil, op. cit., 17; Schottgen, loc. cit., 713), with His miracles (Origen, "Contra Cels", II, 48; Wagenseil, op. cit., 150; Gemara "Sanhedrin" fol. 17); "Schabbath", fol. 104b; Wagenseil, op.cit., 6, 7, 17), with His claim to be God (Origen, "Contra Cels.", I, 28; cf. Eisenmenger, op. cit., I, 152; Schottgen, loc. cit., 699) with His betrayal by Judas and His death (Origen, "Contra cels.", II, 9, 45, 68, 70; Buxtorf, op. cit., 1458; Lightfoot, "Hor. Heb.", 458, 490, 498; Eisenmenger, loc. cit., 185; Schottgen, loc. cit.,699 700; cf. "Sanhedrin", vi, vii). Celsus (Origen, "Contra Cels.", II, 55) tries to throw doubt on the Resurrection, while Toldoth (cf. Wagenseil, 19) repeats the Jewish fiction that the body of Jesus had been stolen from the sepulchre. "[source - The Catholic Encyclopedia]>>>.



EARLY CHRISTIAN SOURCES INCLUDING THE BIBLE:



<<<"Among the Christian sources of the life of Jesus we need hardly mention the so called Agrapha and Apocrypha. For whether the Agrapha contain Logia of Jesus, or refer to incidents in His life, they are either highly uncertain or present only variations of the Gospel story. The chief value of the Apocrypha consists in their showing the infinite superiority of the Inspired Writings by contrasting the coarse and erroneous productions of the human mind with the simple and sublime truths written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost.



Among the Sacred Books of the New Testament, it is especially the four Gospels and the four great Epistles of St. Paul that are of the highest importance for the construction of the life of Jesus.



The four great Pauline Epistles (Romans, Galatians, and First and Second Corinthinas) can hardly be overestimated by the student of Christ's life; they have at times been called the "fifth gospel"; their authenticity has never been assailed by serious critics; their testimony is also earlier than that of the Gospels, at least most of the Gospels; it is the more valuable because it is incidental and undesigned; it is the testimony of a highly intellectual and cultured writer, who had been the greatest enemy of Jesus, who writes within twenty-five years of the events which he relates. At the same time, these four great Epistles bear witness to all the most important facts in the life of Christ: His Davidic dscent, His poverty, His Messiahship, His moral teaching, His preaching of the kingdom of God, His calling of the apostles, His miraculous power, His claims to be God, His betrayal, His institution of the Holy Eucharist, His passion, crucifixion, burial, resurrection, His repeated appearances (Romans 1:3-4; 5:11; 8:2-3; 8:32; 9:5; 15:8; Galatians 2:17; 3:13; 4:4; 5:21; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 13:4; etc.). However important the four great Epistles may be, the gospels are still more so. Not that any one of them offers a complete biography of Jesus, but they account for the origin of Christianity by the life of its Founder. Questions like the authenticity of the Gospels, the relation between the Synoptic Gospels, and the Fourth, the Synoptic problem, must be studied in the articles referring to these respective subjects." [source - The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIII. Published 1910. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil Obstat, October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York]>>>.



See Part 2  [ AT VOL 869A]



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