there's the dumming down system with our schools and a million other things!

Ahem! 'dumming' down?

does any one live in or close around Beverton, Oregon?

Uh, that's 'Beaverton'. Maybe you should spend less time playing at the computer and spend more time studying. Or are you going to blame the school system for your poor spelling and terrible grammar?

I mean, you can't even spell 'dumbing down' properly.

Actually I think you COULD have a productive conversation with him. You just don't want to hear what he is saying.
Even Jewish archaeologists are starting to believe that much of the Old Testament, the sojourn in Egypt, the Exodus, Joshua's conquest, never happened at all.

Not to mention such nonsense as the Great Flood and the Tower of Babel!

The Bible contains a lot of mythology and self-serving history. No fundamentalist will ever agree to that, but it is something that every objective student of the Bible eventually comes to terms with.

I think the banning of the Matrix sequel is evidence that parts of it offend Islamic sensibilities, in that the Creator is portrayed. I don't think this is evidence of "hostility towards Christ & His followers ".

Of course all Christians are going to say that Christianity is the only true religion. But, if any of the people saying this had been born in a different place, or maybe in a different time, they would be saying something similar about the Shinto Gods, or Allah, or Krishna, or the Great Manitou.

So maybe all religions are true in the way that they help people to try and make some sense of things. Then again maybe none of them are true.

Well you are relentless, Ambassador4Christ, I'll give you that. Are you going to copy and paste from that website all through this thread? I'll save you the trouble & just post a link so it can be read all at once:

http://www.bereanworkman.com/books/rom_phile/order.htm

[other scriptures]

GarColga,
I don't know what scholars you are refering to but let me refer you to the scholar Peter:
2Pe 3:15  And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
2Pe 3:16  As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

Peter, by implication, says Pauls epistles are scripture equal to the other scriptures.

asaph

LOL! Well, 2 Peter is also widely believed, even by some Evangelical scholars, to be the work of an anonymous writer in the 2nd century! Even Bruce Metzger, a very conservative Bible scholar, has said:

"Although the author of this letter calls himself "Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ" (1:1), and makes reference to his being present at the transfiguration of Jesus Christ (1:18), several features of its style and contents have led nearly all modern scholars to regard it as the work of an unknown author of the early second century who wrote in Peter's name....In light of such internal and external evidence one must conclude that 2 Peter was drawn up sometime after A.D. 100 by an admirer of Peter who wrote under the name of the great apostle in order to give his letter greater authority".

Now come on. There's a difference between being veiled and wearing a burqa. Different tribes have different ways, different headwear, etc. These things predate Islam. Get real. These are tribal people.

I deleted the post you are responding to because I had the feeling you just wouldn't get it. No offense was intended.

How about a space after punctuation marks? It would make your post easier to read.

If Gore had been elected, would we all be wearing burkas now? You men included!

No. What a weird question!

I've read that book, "Rescuing The Bible from Fundamentalism". Honestly, I though Spong put forth a halfway decent case, but anything to do with Paul is probably pure speculation, as almost all mainstream scholars have major problems with the integrity of Paul's 'corpus', thinking that he likely didn't write all that much of what is attributed to him.

author=Tibby

7. And this is the most important, the existence of Jesus Christ was recorded by Josephus, Suetonius, Thallus, Pliny the Younger, the Talmud, and Lucian.

Very very few serious people maintain that Jesus never existed.

The Jesus ref. in Josephus is almost universally believed to be a Christian interpolation, probably by Eusebius.

Suetonius makes a reference to "Chrestus", but it isn't clear that he meant "Christ" because "Chrestus" is the Latin form of an actual Greek name. He also implies that "Chrestus" was in Rome when the Jews were expelled in 49 AD or so.

Thallus' writings have been lost, so there is no way to determine if he actually wrote what Julianus Africanus said he did in the 3rd century.

Pliny's letter to the Emperor Trajan merely records the existence of Christians in Asia Minor, which I don't believe was ever disputed by anyone.

The Talmudic references to Jesus are actually anti-Christian and date from 200-500 AD. They are not contemporary and are a reaction to the spread of Christianity. The references claim that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier named Pantera or Pandira and that Jesus learned to work magic while in Egypt.

Lucian's sarcastic comment from the 2nd century is evidence only that he was aware of Christians and their beliefs.

Whatever.

Actually there a handful of them. I'll only post one because I find 'verse-trading' to be a dubious enterprise at best. Really, scripture can be found to support or refute just about anything.

Luke 3:6 "And all flesh shall see the salvation of God".

Ambassador4Christ, don't you have any shame? Just about every post that you've made on this thread has been lifted off other websites on the net.

You've stolen heavily from this copyrighted article:

http://www.bereanbiblechurch.com/studies/study12.html

By posting copyrighted material and trying to pass it off as your own, aren't you just plain sinning?

You must be "The Crusader" from before the hack. He did the same thing all the time.

Actually there are some passages in scripture that, while not exactly making a case for universal salvation, would seem to make the case for 'Christian Only' salvation a little less than air-tight. Most Christians aren't too interested in a line of inquiry like this because, obviously, universal salvation would tend to make Christianity largely irrelevant.