33 comments to About Me

• Brother James

  June 3rd, 2011 at 10:26 pm · Reply

  I only had a moment to read a few things and I am very excited about what I have read so far. I too am searching for the truth, growing and evolving as I believe God wants me to, in a way I do not fully comprehend yet! I have to continually read and re-read my writing as I learn and grow, making mistakes, jumping to erroneous conclusions, and re-editing my edited work! (I think you know what I mean). I have book-marked you and intend on spending as much time as possible reading your work in the next few days. Peace & F.I.G.

  Brother James

• Seeker77

  July 26th, 2011 at 6:44 pm · Reply

  Hello,
  I just found your site and I am looking forward to reading more. I, like you, have come to realize that there is a lot good in the bible, but also a lot wrong. In the past few years I have come to the conclusion that Paul is an Apostasy. I would like to have a conversation with you some time. I’m looking for like minded believers that would be willing to help me grow so that I can love others more. Let me know what you think. I am hungry for Truth and want to do what is right in the eyes of God.

  • Doug Brown

    July 28th, 2011 at 2:27 am · Reply

    Finally! Someone who agrees with me. I have been thinking about writing more on Paul. He was a liar, a deceiver, a false apostle and an apostate from the law of God. He concerted to Judaism and became a priest to because he wanted the high priest’s daughter. When she rejected him he turned on Judaism and joined the believers to get back at them. Out of spite he created his own religion, Christianity, which was based on mainly falsehoods and teachings that were contradictory to those of Jesus and his disciples. He was rejected by most of the believers and ex-communicated. He had to flee for his life under the protection of the Romans, since he himself was a Roman citizen. Following Paul’s banishment to Rome was horrible persecution against Christians and Jews alike. Pauline doctrine became the main religion of Rome and with Rome’s power overcame all of the other sects and destroyed and / or hid all other writings, which is why we have nothing but the roman church’s doctrines.

    Yes. I would like to have a conversation with you. Please come back and tell all your friends about this site. There is so much truth and light here to share with a world that is immersed in such gross darkness.

    Doug

    • Seeker77

      July 28th, 2011 at 5:24 pm · Reply

      Doug,

      Thank you for your reply. Believe me, if I thought my friends would listen to what is said here I would tell them. I have told many of my friends the truth about Paul and none of them have responded well. I live up in the chicago area. Where are you from? Where do you get most of your information from? I too have come to believe that the Bible is not the only source of truth in the world. Mainly because YHWH created all things, so why would his teachings be confined to one book. Although I do believe that the Jews are YHWH’s chosen people and instruments to lead us to Him. Although I do learn alot from YHWH’s creation as well. I appreciate your teachings and look forward to learning more. Just so you know I am a very critical thinker and will pray about what I read here. Do you have my personal e-mail? I would like to continue our conversation that way if you don’t mind.

      Regards,

      Travis

• Seeker77

  July 28th, 2011 at 5:27 pm · Reply

  Doug,

  Thank you for your reply. Believe me, if I thought my friends would listen to what is said here I would tell them. I have told many of my friends the truth about Paul and none of them have responded well. I live up in the chicago area. Where are you from? Where do you get most of your information from? I too have come to believe that the Bible is not the only source of truth in the world. Mainly because YHWH created all things, so why would his teachings be confined to one book. Although I do believe that the Jews are YHWH’s chosen people and instruments to lead us to Him. Although I do learn alot from YHWH’s creation as well. I appreciate your teachings and look forward to learning more. Just so you know I am a very critical thinker and will pray about what I read here. Do you have my personal e-mail? I would like to continue our conversation that way if you don’t mind. I’m trying to submit this thread but it is not letting me. I will try again.

  Regards,

  Travis

• Zenith

  August 4th, 2011 at 1:26 pm · Reply

  Hello.

  I also consider myself a heretic. I am somewhat Arian, because I believe Jesus had been created and that He is lower than God (ie than His Father). I do believe however that He was the “son of God” since He was created (which I believe to have been, before He was born), as I see that the angels are called “sons of God” (sons of God, because God created them and because they remain obedient to God – so He needn’t be adopted). Anyway, recently I came to doubt the virgin birth – issue that was driven from the misinterpretation & twisting of the verse of Isaiah. Anyway, I came to a big confusion regarding my beliefs. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with you in everything. How do you chose which the Word of God is? How can one chose that? I certainly don’t trust that the early church fathers were saints and handled everything correctly and fairly. But comming to pick from the books of the New Testament which is the word of God and which isn’t and comming up with other early christian writings is also weird. I mean, how can you trust that the Gospel of the Hebrews is from God or that the Gospel of the Nazarenes is from God? I think I regard them with the same skepticism as the atheists regard all the books of the bible. If God can’t or doesn’t care about preserving His word, then why should we seek and chose which is from Him and which is not, to chose according to our own desire, or according to what makes us feel it’s the “truth”? If there are corrupted parts, then anything we have may have already been corrupted, so what good is it to try to keep the commandments or beliefs of a corrupted bible, of which you can’t know for sure what parts are from God and what parts are from man??

  If you have some answers for that I would be very happy.

  • Doug Brown

    August 5th, 2011 at 1:43 am · Reply

    You’re right. There is no evidence at all that Jesus was born of a virgin. In fact there is lots of things pointing to just the opposite. We have all the reason to believe that all that which makes Jesus a god-man was a pure invention.

    You’re right again as to what God’s word really is, if it even exists. However, I do believe that the Gospel of the Hebrews and the Gospel of the Nazarenes are probably much closer to the truth since there had to have been something written down by the original followers of Jesus. The very fact that Ebionites were branded as heretics by the ones who corrupted the bible and that they were among the early believers that followed James the brother of Jesus says something strong about them. The most important thing though is that all of their beliefs, which were considered heretical by the roman church are all contained in those two gospels. Tell me, is there some logic to this or not?

    There may have been some corruptions to the Gospel of the Nazarenes, but the basic truths that were cut out of our bibles is in there. It’s the basic truths that they contain that makes them important. I don’t believe that there is anything on this earth that man has touched that is inerrant. However, I believe there is some truth here.

    The truth is always able to pass the test of logic. If it’s not logical it’s probably not true. Why did God give us brains to think logically and we were made in the image of God? There is so much in the bible that is NOT logical and is so hard to believe that God would do such a thing and even teach some of the absurdities that exist!

    If God didn’t intend for you to use your brains to know the difference between what’s true and what’s not, then we might as well be back in the dark ages and let the church keep us in ignorance.

• Zenith

  August 5th, 2011 at 1:21 pm · Reply

  Doug,

  I’ll say more about what I believe regarding Jesus: even considering all the books of the Bible (except the deuterocanonical, for those who use them), I see Jesus Christ as not being a God, as trinitarians see Him. Jesus used this excuse when questioned about Him being a deity: all “unto whom the word of God came” are “gods”. Moreover, in more instances the Old Testament calls people “gods” or “God” (like David/Solomon in psalm 45). Moreover, in the New Testament we are told that Jesus has the power & authority from God, Jesus spoke what God told him, Jesus knows what has been taught by God. And because (and not only because) Jesus is God’s “son”, it clearly means that Jesus had been created by his Father. However, taken the definition of “god”/”God” from the Old Testament (which are many to tell, but don’t have the time right now, in few words: it’s more about role & position & responsibilties rather than something inherent) Jesus the Annointed is god/God. This is different than the Father, who is the only one whom in the true sense is God. If God created Jesus like Himself I cannot be sure – anyway, there cannot be two omnipotent beings in the universe, that’s for sure, so Jesus’ power must have been given by and can be got back by His Father. Anyway, I don’t know what God’s “nature”/”essence” should actually be, to be able to decide whether Jesus is of the same nature/essence as His Father.

  Regarding the bible’s ‘inerrancy’… you know, there is a problem with this. Namely, God CAN preserve His words if He wants to. But if He doesn’t want to preserve it, then logically it can mean one thing only: He doesn’t expect us to keep it, ie it is not (or, no longer) for us to care about it. Though I still can’t make a logic of why God gave us scriptures if we were inevitably going to corrupt them, while of that which we still have uncorrupted, hardly 1 of 1000 or 1 of 10000 understands things correctly. This is a strong indication that believing the “truth” is not a requirement for going to paradise after death. Moreover, if believing the “truth” is not a requirement for going to paradise, then having received scriptures from God also seem to make no sense (why did God do that anyway??). Yeah, one reason may be that He desired that we ceased sacrificing people on altars to who knows what false gods uselessly… but we kill one another in different ways and due to slight different reasons now, so I don’t know what to say.

  “The most important thing though is that all of their beliefs, which were considered heretical by the roman church are all contained in those two gospels. Tell me, is there some logic to this or not?”
  Sincerely, I haven’t read those books (I only took a look). Anyway, my heresy is not defined by “anything that the Roman Catholic church does not agree with”. Instead, my heresy is defined by “whatever I see to be correct and the Truth, no matter who other says it, or if anybody else than myself says it”. Also, given the fact that I didn’t read those two books, I can’t say now if I consider them heretical or not. I read, for instance, the Gospel of Thomas (I think I got it name correctly, that one in which Jesus was philosophisizing a lot and got crucified on a tree, but it was actually his body that got crucified, because His other self, ie Himself the spiritual being was standing near, laughing of the people) and that sounded both erroneous, stupid imagination, insanity, philosophy as of those who struggle to invent new philosophies and make philosophy of everything, etc. Besides of the fact that it’s gnostic, and I see religious scriptures that follow the modern/current fashion and currents with VERY great skepticism (eg after you read about the Pentecostalism on wikipedia, and you see how the fashion started and spread, you start to see Pentecostalism and anything related to its teachings with VERY great skepticism). But I’m not sure I can prove that the Gospel of Thomas is wrong to someone who strongly believes it… you know, to him it may sound perfectly plausible and logical and correct.

  ok, do you know a good site where I can read the Gospel of the Nazarenes and the Gospel of the Hebrews? that would be help me to have a stronger opinion (in whichever way) of them. I found something called the Gospel of the Hebrews, but it contained both the genealogy and the virgin birth, and from what I’ve read about that gospel, it shouldn’t have.

  You said “The truth is always able to pass the test of logic”. ok, then… whose logic?? You see, my heresy is mostly on the interpretation of the current bible books (ie I have heretical views regarding its interpretation, ie different views than many people). That means that what I see as logical regarding the verses I read, most people see as erroneous, while what they see as correct and logical, I see illogical and incorrect. Moreover, I experienced myself understanding things wrongly, doubting that that piece of text was originally there, or thinking that perhaps the whole book was a forgery from the beginning, but afterwards found out that I understood wrongly what it was written there. So by “logic”, God’s Word is whatever one wants it to be – this is an old issue of mine, which spreads from which books are to be trusted as of God, to corruptions of the scriptures, and to the different manuscripts that exist. And the funny thing is that EVERYBODY that translates a bible plays with the manuscripts and the translation, twisting it to make it be as he desires (well, for now there is still a general agreement on which books should be put in the bible).

  By the way, I agree with most writings that are attributed to Paul. One of the trickyest issue (or, the only one?) is regarding the keeping of the Old Testament law. It appears that in the NT we are told both that the OT law is not necessary to be kept any longer, AND that it must be kept (or, kept only by the jewish people?).

  A few more words about my heretical views: I don’t believe that whoever does not believe in Jesus the Annointed will go to hell (there are mistranslations and traditional misinterpretations that make it appear that whoever does not believe in Jesus the Annointed goes to hell). I do believe in a hell (I know that the word “hell” was invented later, but I use it to mean the bad place where people can go) but I believe that whatever is said about it in the Bible is symbolical (too many reasons and too many things to show that now), so one can’t know how exactly is there… unless he goes there ). I also believe in a Sheol and a Paradise, while the modern word “heaven” does not correspond in meaning at all with the bible’s “heaven(s)”. The Purgatory was obviously a Catholic invention (the Orthodox Christians don’t believe it either, so it has been set by a Catholic Pope in the Catholic countries after 1054 AD).

  P.S. If God didn’t intend for me to use my brains to know the difference between what’s from Him and what’s not, then it means that perhaps I should be an atheist or an agnostic (in the true sense) instead. I mean, why bother anyway to find things to believe in? What will I gain?

  • Doug Brown

    August 6th, 2011 at 12:06 am · Reply

    Sorry I won’t be able to discuss all the topics you put forth. That’s quite a long one.

    About Jesus. I don’t think I know much more about him than you do. About the only thing we can do is theorize and that’s not necessarily truth — just speculation. But one thing for certain, Jesus is not nor ever was God. Jesus is a creation of God, probably one of the first according to what the bible says. He became a son, metaphorically speaking, when he was about 30 years old. I do not believe God has literal sons and daughters, just his creations (metaphorically speaking).

    Begetting is a function that is limited to this physical world and has the specific purpose of procreation in this realm. It would be ridiculous to think that God had/has a wife and they had sex and begat sons and daughters. The Father/Son relationship is more of a metaphorical expression for our own benefit to help us understand what God is like to us. How God creates is beyond me. Since he is the power in all that exists, all he had to do was speak it and it existed — or even think it perhaps.

    Another thing is God is a spirit according to the bible. We also have spirits which are created by God and return to God when the physical body releases them. Then the physical body returns to the dust of the earth from whence it came.

    More later, Doug

• Zenith

  August 5th, 2011 at 1:24 pm · Reply

  oh my,
  I didn’t know this box automatically inserts smileys. I wanted to write “: ) )” but it wrote “:) )”. So know that that smile above is a mistake.

  by the way, I see that I had provided an email address. Do you see it? If yes, perhaps we should continue our discussions on email. What do you say?

  • Doug Brown

    August 5th, 2011 at 11:51 pm · Reply

    If the email address you supplied with your comment is the one, then yes I do have it. I would like to have discussions, but please keep them short. I would like to be able to comment, or try to comment on everything. I’m working 2 jobs at the moment so I have little time, but I do try to answer.

    Doug

• Zenith

  August 7th, 2011 at 6:37 pm · Reply

  ok, I’ll try to be short. You can reply to me to my email address if you wish (it’s the one I have supplied with my comment, yes).

  What I have seen from the bible is that God calls His creation “sons” (only the persons, and apparently only those who obey Him – ie the devil is not called a “son of God” or something). In this way, Adam was the son of God, the people of Israel were the sons of God, etc. But the sonship has nothing to do with biological begeting. Likewise, if Jesus had existed before birth (as an angel or a creature superior to angels, submitted to God) then He needn’t be ‘adopted’ (because He had become a son when He had been created by God). Likewise, if Jesus had been a man like any other, but had been perfectly keeping the laws since birth, then He should have rather been a “son” of God since He had been born.

  Regarding Matthews’ “only begotten son”, know that this is a mistranslation of the greek word. The greek word used there is “monogenes” which means something like “unique in his own kind”, something like that. That’s why in other translations we have “His only Son” rather than “His only begotten son”. I know what begetting is, but it’s not there in greek. Anyway, we also have the saying in NT about people that are “begotten/born of God” which means that “born again” people talk about. So yeah, “begetting” is rather metaphorical.

  Zenith

  • Doug Brown

    August 7th, 2011 at 10:25 pm · Reply

    Zenith.

    I have already replied part of your last post.

    According to the doctrine of adoptionism Jesus was a creation of God and had already existed before. And God declared him a son at his baptism. In fact, it was not merely a mis-transliteration but it was an alteration from the original. The original said, “You are My first begotten Son that prevails forever”. Of course they had to change that since if he was the first then naturally there would be a second, third… etc.

    To be a god-man he would have to be the only one and not merely begotten metaphorically speaking but literally. (if you can somehow wrap your head around that one) But how on earth does God literally “have” a son in the way that we do? It would be ridiculous to think that God had a wife and they had sex one time which resulted in a son… That’s actually blasphemous, but that’s the only way that it could be if the church’s dogma were true.

    Doug

• Zenith

  August 10th, 2011 at 11:13 pm · Reply

  Regarding ““You are My first begotten Son that prevails forever””, where did you get that from??
  I’m not sure if we understand each other very well. What I’ve said was that “only begotten” is not there in greek. In other words, there is nothing related to begetting in John 1.18. John 1.18 actually says about Jesus that he is “the unique of his kind son” or “the only son of this kind”.
  If you have time for this, you can read more about the “only begotten” here:
  http://www.bible-researcher.com/only-begotten.html
  I don’t remember what that guy wanted to prove there, but explanations on where the greek word is found and other sutff are useful.

  • Doug Brown

    August 11th, 2011 at 2:15 am · Reply

    Zenith,
    That was translated directly from Aramaic to Greek by Origen from “the Gospel of the Hebrews” written by Matthew. We only have a few passages of it from some of the church fathers’ writings (unfortunately). The roman church burned or hide the original manuscripts so that we wouldn’t be able to compare with their writings and find out just how badly they had corrupted God’s word.

    The bible has a lot of things that were added in and it’s nearly impossible to know what was original and what was added in later. What’s more is that they say it was written in Greek in the beginning to middle of the 2nd century. The gospel of John was not written by the apostle (who was obviously dead by that time), but by a Greek who was very learned in Greek philosophy. The philosophy of the “Logos”, for example, was never a Jewish thing but it was from Greek philosophy long before Jesus. The first part of John 1 wasn’t written by Jesus or his disciples, it was added in later. Interpolations of the scriptures were very common at that time.

    Two things here: Jesus wasn’t literally begotten, but metaphorically, since he became the “begotten son” at his baptism at the age of 30. Secondly, he wasn’t the “only” son since he was the first. Therefore there was a second, a third etc. Furthermore, being a son of God does not make one God or even a god. The reason they made Jesus the “only” son was to make a god-man of him. If he weren’t the “only begotten” son then he wouldn’t be anything special — that is almighty God.

    Many men were called sons of God in the OT. Plus, we are sons of God also since we are brothers of Jesus. He said, “I go unto my God and your God, my Father and your Father.

    So it doesn’t really matter what it is actually translated in the Greek. That stuff in the bible isn’t all the original anyway.

    Don’t fall for the church’s false doctrines.

    Doug

• Zenith

  August 11th, 2011 at 1:15 pm · Reply

  I said about John, not Matthew. In the Matthew everybody has there is no “begotten” mentioned anywhere.
  Regarding the Gospel of the Hebrews, which should I consider original?
  “After the people were baptized, Jesus also came and was baptized by John. And as Jesus came up from the water, Heaven was opened, and He saw the Holy Spirit descend in the form of a dove and enter into Him. And a voice from Heaven said, ‘You are my beloved Son; with You I am well pleased.’ And again, ‘Today I have begotten You.’ “Immediately a great light shone around the place; and John, seeing it, said to Him, ‘Who are you, Lord? And again a voice from Heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’ Then John, falling down before Him, said, ‘I beseech You, Lord, baptize me!’ But He forbade him saying, ‘Let it be so; for thus it is fitting that all things be fulfilled.’”

  OR

  “When the Lord came up out of the water the whole fount of the Holy Spirit descended upon Him and rested on Him saying, ‘My Son, in all the prophets was I waiting for You that You should come and I might rest in You. For You are My rest. You are My first begotten Son that prevails forever.’”
  ??

  The greek matthew version seems to have been inspired from Isaiah 42.1 – it replaces God’s servant with God’s son. The quote just above seems to be inspired – but quite in an odd way – from Isaiah 11.2. Isaiah speaks of “resting” as of dwelling in that person, while that version of the gospel of the hebrews philosophizes the “resting” in an insanse manner (at least this is how I see it). Moreover, something else that makes me seriously doubt the gospel of the hebrews as being as inspired by God is the saying of Jesus “Even so did my mother, the Holy Spirit…”. It appears that “spirit” in hebrew is feminine in genre, so the jews understood God’s Spirit as His feminine side – and this is insane, God has feminine sides?? That makes me remember another insante thing I’ve heard from a pentecostal once on TV – he said that God is like a mother (What the HELL??? calling God a woman now??). Besides that, you can see NOWHERE in the Old Testament God’s Spirit to be called the “Mother of God” – it’s only a later jewish invention & philosophy. And from here I believe we’ve got today to our own version of “Mother of God” (and the “Mother of God” existed in gnositicism as well – her name was Sofia, if you’ve read about that).
  These are reasons that prevent me from taking seriously that gospel of the hebrews. By the way, the gospel of the hebrews might have also been corrupted until the centuries the Church Fathers quoted from it – we can’t tell. So how much trust can you have to quote from it as proof?

  • Doug Brown

    August 12th, 2011 at 12:26 am · Reply

    Unfortunately, since we don’t have the whole gospel, we don;’t know how it was originally put together. But it looks like the two phrases were close together, part of the same. One important thing to remember is that this gospel was entire at one point and we have it’s parts because they were referred to in the church fathers’ writings.

    You have to remember that the Greek languages (like English) did not have feminine and masculine words. So when it was translated into the Greek they had to use the feminine — which is really strange. But you have to remember that it’s the words that have the gender not the person. I am familiar with this problem since I speak Portuguese which is a derivative of Latin. There are lots of words that are masculine and feminine — this seems strange to English speakers but perfectly normal to others. Just for an example, the word, “person” (pessoa) in Portuguese is feminine, it could actually refer to a man but you have to conjugate the word in the feminine. But it doesn’t make the man any less masculine.

    In the case of the spirit that has no gender at all, but the actual word is feminine, creates a problem for the translators. How do they translate this??? I, being a translator myself, can understand the difficulties they must have faced. But God, nor the holy spirit have genders. It is actually a problem with the languages. It would have been better for them to just have left out the genders. However, on the other hand, God isn’t masculine either. So how so you deal with that? But he/she is a parent and parents have genders.

    I have seen it translated as “My Parent” instead of “My Father” — just to be fair. But the Greeks as well as the Hebrews were very “machistic”, so the image that they always gave God since they were forced to give him a title was “father”. It doesn’t really matter any way, God doesn’t have a gender nor does he have sex. This idea of sex is only in our world where sex is necessary for reproduction.

    The “Mother of God” is actually an invention of the church, falsely referring to the “virgin” Mary who, since Jesus was supposedly God, she was his mother. This is a strange doctrine that was invented by the catholic church after the bible was already put together. It wasn’t even the roman church, but the weird dogmas invented much later by the catholic church.

    You have to take those translation errors with a grain of salt. These are more like honest errors, than some of the purposely wrongly translated verses of the bible.

    • Zenith

      August 13th, 2011 at 12:41 am · Reply

      Unfortunately, since we don’t have the whole gospel, we don;’t know how it was originally put together. But it looks like the two phrases were close together, part of the same
      From here and from my logic it appears to be two contradictory, separate versions, rather than two complementary things that belonged in the same text.

      You have to remember that the Greek languages (like English) did not have feminine and masculine words. So when it was translated into the Greek they had to use the feminine — which is really strange
      I don’t understand what you’re talking about. The problem was in hebrew: in hebrew every word is either masculine or feminine – and you don’t have an “it” pronoun, so every object or person is either a “he” or a “she”. And the hebrew word for “spirit” is “ruach”, which is feminine. Now the jews used to (and still do) make philosophies and theories out of anything. This is where I’ve read about that thing:

      Within Judaism, the Shekinah (or “visible” cloud of the Presence) is a feminine word, thought to be Yahvah’s [i.e. God's] feminine aspect; therefore, they called the Spirit the “mother”. You will note, likewise, that the Renewed City of Jerusalem that “descends from heaven” is also referred to as female, as the “mother” of us all.

      P.S. 1. My native language is not english – in my language “sun” is masculine and “water” is feminine and “chair” is neuter, for instance. So it’s no confusion, really – people did indeed make philosophies out of that.
      2. In hebrew there is either masculine, or feminine. So “God” is masculine. In greek, as I know, there are 3 genres: masculine, feminine, and neuter (my native language also has 3 genres).

      “Mother of God” has actually a long history. It’s been used in the gospel of the hebrews (Jesus’ Mother) and in the gospel of the nazareens (e.g. “And the angel came in unto her and said, Hail, Mary, thou that art highly favoured, for the Mother of God is with thee“) for the “Spirit of God”. It was also used by gnostics – Sofia was there the mother of “God the Father”, ie the mother of the Abrahamic God. In gnosticism, Sofia was the goddess of the spiritual while the Abrahamic God was the god of the material world – he created the material God and believed that He was the only God, being ignorant to His mother, whom created Him. “Mother of God” later became introduced into the Catholic Church as being the “Virgin Mary”.

      P.S. In the Gospel of the Hebrews, Jesus had a pre-existence:

      When Christ wished to come upon the earth to men, the good Father summoned a mighty power in Heaven, which was called Michael, and entrusted Christ to the care thereof. And the power came into the world and it was called Mary, and Christ was in her womb seven months.

      • Doug Brown

        August 13th, 2011 at 9:56 pm · Reply

        Right. What I’m saying is the translation from Aramaic (not Hebrew) to Greek. The Greek translators had a problem with the masculine and feminine words in Aramaic. English has the same problem as Greek in that it has no words with genders hence: my “Mother the holy spirit”.

        I believe that Jesus had a pre-existence — just as all of us do. Jesus had a special relationship with God.
        Read:
        http://truthorheresy.com/who-is-jesus/nature-of-jesus
        http://truthorheresy.com/who-is-jesus/adoptionism
        http://truthorheresy.com/who-is-jesus/today-you-have-become-my-son

        • Zenith

          August 13th, 2011 at 10:29 pm

          “What I’m saying is the translation from Aramaic (not Hebrew) to Greek”
          a… aramaic is very similar to hebrew – they are almost like dialects one to the other (e.g. in hebrew “av” = father, while in aramaic “ava” = father). It is believed (or, is it indeed so?) that when people referred to “hebrew” ~2000 years ago (like, in the gospels) there was no clear distinction to know for sure whether it was indeed hebrew or aramaic (because, again, they are too much alike). Koine Greek (if not modern greek as well) has 3 genres, as I know, so there could have been no problem with the “translation” as you say. And no translator could have gotten by mistake to “my mother the holy spirit” (first off, “mother” is something else than “woman”, then “woman” refers to a female person). ie you need a hebrew/aramaic “my mother the holy spirit” to render it in greek as “my mother the holy spirit”.

          P.S. I don’t have the time, nor the disposition to check those three links, sorry.

• Zenith

  August 11th, 2011 at 1:21 pm · Reply

  PS
  I am curios about something. Which books of the Bible do you reject as being inspired?
  So far, I strongly reject 2 John, 3 John and Jude. I do believe that the book of Revelation was an invention of a jewish christian’s imagination, but I am not as opposed to it as I am to 2 John, 3 John and Jude. I also don’t consider Philimon as being an inspired scripture (after all, it doesn’t teach us anything… it seems to be a personal matter of Paul). I didn’t study too much about the other books (ie in the meaning of to see whether I should consider them inspired or pure invention of people) so I can’t say more.

  • Doug Brown

    August 12th, 2011 at 1:04 am · Reply

    How can you tell which are inspired? That’s impossible since all the books have been corrupted and the original writings are either not in our reach or not in existence. But there are parts that were taken from original manuscripts and piece-mealed together and modified to create the bible that we have today.

    Paul’s epistles are not only full of his own false doctrines, but the church altered them with their own interpolations in order to manipulate and control people. I don’t trust much of the others as actually being written by their namesakes, but I think that James was actually written by James since his doctrine is in accordance with what Jesus taught. Paul’s epistles were not.

    I think that a much of the gospels are good, but it is obvious there are lots of interpolations since the many parts contradict and are not consistent.

• Zenith

  August 13th, 2011 at 12:59 am · Reply

  “How can you tell which are inspired?”
  I can’t tell for sure which are inspired, but I can tell which are not. There are several reasons that make me believe that the book of Revelation had been invented out of a man’s imagination. Then, Jude quotes an apocryphal book (the book of Enoch) – and it’s as clear as possible that no Enoch’s book (if he ever wrote something – Enoch being the third after Adam!) could have survived until the first century AD! There is, if I remember, another apocryphal book or something like that quoted in Jude. Then, the author of 2 John and 3 John doesn’t even identify himself as being an apostle – he identifies himself as being a presbyter instead. And what he’s talking about seems to be about his local congregation/church or something like that. Philimon could have not be “inspired” by God because God isn’t telling anything to us, and doesn’t teach us in any way by what Paul says to Philimon.

  What I meant “inspired by God” is this: the prophets of the Old Testament are said to have been inspired by God to write what they wrote, and that God spoke to them directly and clearly and told them what to write. If they were simply teachings what some people believed to be good, then that can’t mean anything to us (i.e. it would be like me telling you what to do and believe – why would you listen to me??). The apostles should have been inspired from God (i.e. they should have stood as prophets) so that what they taught had been what God taught them, rather than something from their own imagination.

  P.S. What makes me still have trust in what I read in Paul’s epistles, it appears that he says that the sabbath, jewish celebrations, foods, the sacrifices and the rituals are not to be kept anymore, and that only the things regarding righteousness (doing good, not doing bad to others, etc.) are to be done.

  • Doug Brown

    August 13th, 2011 at 9:40 pm · Reply

    It’s impossible to tell. We don’t know who actually wrote most of the epistles and the church most likely forged a lot of things and added to them.

    Paul does teach a lot of good things. But he is lying when he says he got things by revelation. Read: http://truthorheresy.com/paul-the-false-apostle/pauls-new-religion
    http://truthorheresy.com/paul-the-false-apostle/heresies-of-paul

    I take Jesus’ teachings over Paul’s. Paul contradicted Jesus, disliked the apostles and spoke out against them and taught many false doctrines.

    Jesus’ definition of salvation and Paul’s were completely different. And this is the most important aspect of the bible.

    • Zenith

      August 13th, 2011 at 10:32 pm · Reply

      Do you want me to comment “paul’s new religion” and “heresies of paul”?

      • Doug Brown

        August 14th, 2011 at 1:53 am · Reply

        Sure if you want to…

• Zenith

  August 13th, 2011 at 10:38 pm · Reply

  P.S. do you believe Paul was of jewish blood?

  • Doug Brown

    August 14th, 2011 at 1:52 am · Reply

    Not really. No one really knows the truth about him, but personally I believe he was a Greek who converted to Judaism.

• Zenith

  August 15th, 2011 at 7:03 pm · Reply

  Regarding Paul:
  I asked that question because you stated somewhere above that he became priest. According to the New Testament, he was both greek and jewish (mother-father difference, as far as I can tell). The problem with the priesthood is that, according to the Jewish Law, Paul could have, by no means, become a priest, if he was not a descendant of Aaron, which implies a Levite, which also implies a Jewish man.

  Now, something that might interest you (if you had not read this before):
  the first ecumenical council that existed was the Nicene council of 325 AD. That means that until that date there was no recognized authority to tell who was right and who was wrong, which means that everybody believed whatever he wanted, and the only restrictions he had was that which was taught by his local church (i.e. the indoctrination he grew), or regions (though in regions, even the minorities that believed otherwise could have freely professed their beliefs).

  Then, the first time “heresy” was defined, and after which the ‘heretics’ began to be persecuted was after 380 AD: “The first known usage of the term in a civil legal context was in 380 AD by the “Edict of Thessalonica” of Theodosius I. Prior to the issuance of this edict, the Church had no state-sponsored support for any particular legal mechanism to counter what it perceived as “heresy”.” (from here). In 311 an edict was made to tolerate the Christians (“Galerius ended the Diocletianic Persecution when he issued an edict of toleration in 311.”). A more important edict for tolerance had been established by Constantine the Great in 313 AD, called the Edict of Milan which seems to have been a better, more important (and, decisive) one.

  What I want to say with these things: until christians had been tolerated, there could have been no great enmity among the christians, and the majorities of heresies belonged to certain regions (e.g. the arians were pretty many, and a majority in alexandria and syria-palestine, and as I remember some arians and semi-arians were even emperors, for instance; trinitarians were rather in the west). BUT, because they had a common enemy whom peresecuted both of them, and having no authority given, they could have not fought the other groups – all they could have done was to philosophies and tell reasons why themselves are right and others are wrong. Then, confrontations of religious views happened more since they had been tolerated, but there was no real authority to tell and impose who was right and who was wrong, so there were some who strongly believed one, others that strongly believed the other, and others whom did not know what to believe – that until the nicene creed of 325. In other words, there was no Catholic (i.e. universal) religion until 325. There had been an accepted ‘truth’ ONLY since 325, and from then on, and ONLY from then on, those who did not correspond with the accepted truth (given by that ecumenical council and the following ones) were called “heretics” and were being persecuted. All these have an importance on dealing with the corruption of the bible and the burning of ‘heretical scriptures’ and stuff like that (i.e. much less likely, perhaps even virtually impossible for such things to have happened before 325).

  P.S. I’ll reply to “paul’s new religion” and “heresies of paul” other day, when I have time.

  • Doug Brown

    August 16th, 2011 at 1:41 am · Reply

    Please write shorter comments. I don’t have much time to answer.

  • Doug Brown

    August 16th, 2011 at 1:49 am · Reply

    And please read the articles that I write. They might answer some of your questions.

• Doug Brown

  August 14th, 2011 at 1:58 am · Reply

  Actually, I think got my information from a Greek church father who actually was one of the ones who translated the gospel… if I’m not mistaken. I can’t remember who he was. Sorry, if my facts got bungled up in my head…

• Doug Brown

  January 3rd, 2012 at 6:59 pm · Reply

  
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  If you want to converse by email write to me at trut...@gmail.com

  Doug

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