Our free will is whether to return to God or not - you choose not......your choice, your free will. when has the eden story been about spiritual form. > As I understand it, all religion is about spritual form. Religion is the science of the seeking of God. God is spritual, therefore all religion is about spiritual form. The bible teaches using metephor and parable. Being cast out of eden is the metaphor for being cast down to take material form (mankind has covered the entire face of this planet, hey, no eden here!!). The meaning of eating an apple that gave knowledge of good and evil is the expression of a desire to know good and evil. This knowledge can only be gained in seperation from God........ so here we are, we got what we asked for.....free will. I would say we are all slaves - to hunger, greed, sexual desire, tiredness, fear of illness and death and many more things. To be free of these things is to move back to an existence in spirit, in union with God.
JimmyM, That's about correct. but, another poster said; "Jesus was punished for violating Roman law". Well, Yes, that's true literally, but we are talking on a more metaphorical level. ON that level, the NT gospels try to shift the burden of responsibility for Jesus's death to the Judean jews. There are many books on the subject. A more liberal slant would be Burton Mack, Crossan, Robt Miller etc. For a more conservative view see Ben Witherington III. Note - None of these ralk from the literalist Christian perspective, all are scholarly presentations. "The wages of sin is death..." - Exactly !!! Id the wages of sin is death, then atonement can be attained by the substitutionary death of another. In the old temple system, that was the animals sacrificed. IN the new Christian, it was the messiah/saviour. All of the NT is based on the OT, to tell a metaphorical story. However, there are also elements of the story that suggest a historical figure behind the metaphor. For example, the opening post asks : " Did Jesus sin" ? Well, in Mark, he accepts a baptism from John for the "fogiveness of sin". Now, look at this story on Matthew , Luke, then John. It becomes softened, until in John Jesus is no longer accepting the baptism. The stages of development in this story show the development of the myth. But, there is an embarrassment here, for the laater theological position that Jesus was sinless. So, why put it in ?
from a buddhist perspective he certainly had sinned. otherwise he wouldnt have had to endure such incredible karma on the cross. in general, i think that i ( and other buddhist minded and still other non-christian tho very jesus attractred people) dont consider the whole born son of god thing and the resurrection to be a literal reality. in fact in reading scripture that was left out of the NT when rome compiled it it appears jesus may have dissagreed with many of the ideas that set upon him as to the meaning and purpose of his life some 300 years after he died. like: Jesus said, `I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become drunk from the bubbling stream which I have measured out ... He who will drink from my mouth will become as I am: I myself shall become he, and the things that are hidden will be revealed to him. seems like when he said i am the way and only thru me... he was saying so as if to say repeat after me. it is clear that he spoke much of the time from a perspective than encompassed all people.. as if he spoke for any person, as if any person had the right to say what he said. and things like: "If those who lead you say to you: ‘Look, the kingdom is in the sky!’ then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you: ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fishes will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside of you, and outside of you." When you come to know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will realize that you are the children of the living Father. But if you do not come to know yourselves, then you exist in poverty, and you are poverty." as if he meant to suggest that there is no heaven in the sky and god is but a total embracing of the living father( the host) thru individual self-realization. examples of marked contrasts to what is typically accepted about him and what he taught by way of christian indoctrination at a young age. if as a christian you confine your understanding of jesus to the NT only and especially if you accept what you were taught about it as a kid i think you really miss a lot of it. thats my veiw of it,
oh by the way welcome. you dont have a free will your mind and body belong to your god, you are correct when you say your choice, your free will. as I have nothing controlling my life, I am a free man. did he not make them of flesh and bone, thats not spiritual thats physical. but he made them of flesh and bone to do his gardening. adam and eve were coerced into eating the fruit, so god cast them out of eden because he wanted to, not because they had a choice as they did'nt. to bow, prostrate, cower, kneel, to someone or something for eternity is slavery.
I never read such arrant nonsense. Assuming Jesus to be what Christians believe him to be, he certainly sinned much less than most, if not was utterly sinless. At any rate, there is nothing in the Gospels to indicate that he was at all a bad man (other than occasional lapses into the sin of pride, perhaps - and being a revolutionary, of course). But you're saying that his agonising, prolonged death was presumably the result of his having committed some terrible wrong in the past. Or maybe it isn't nonsense? Maybe my understanding of Buddhist theology has been all wrong all these years? I've always hitherto respected Buddhism as an a-theistic, liberal, humanistic and holistic philosophy, with the concept of karma providing due (but hardly excessive) punishment for occasional lapses, generally from displays of selfishness. But it turns out that Glen Hoddle was right! Disabled people were bad in a past life. That much beloved grandmother who never did anything but work hard and raise a family all her life is now dying in atrocious agony of cancer because she was a naughty girl! I'm afraid this turns Buddhism into the most hateful religion I've ever heard of!
Although this question has been answered, vis-a-vis the Infancy Gospels, I thought I'd like to clarify something here, somthing which I had erroneously thought was widely understood. Then I read a review of the Anchor Bible commentaries, which expressed considerable surprise that the Anchor Bible volume on the Apocrypha "didn't even include the Gospel of Thomas!" The Apocrypha, and "books which simply didn't end up in the Bible", are two different things. On a technical level, the Apocrypha are those books (or parts of books) initially discarded by the Jewish scholars at Jamnia in 90 CE or thereabouts and are therefore not to be found in the Hebrew scripture, which nonetheless were still in the Septuagint (LXX), the 2nd Century BCE Alexandrian Greek translation of the Jewish Scripture, upon which was based Jerome's Latin translation (the Vulgate) which in turn became the basis for all Catholic bibles. Books considered Apocryphal: The Book of Tobit The Book of Judith The First Book of Maccabees The Second Book of Maccabees 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras (in Catholic bibles, Ezra is called 1 Esdras and Nehemiah is called 2 Esdras, so 1 Esdras is called 3 Esdras and 2 Esdras is called 4 Esdras). Susanna (Chapter 13 of Daniel) Bel and the Dragon (Chapter 14 of Daniel) The Prayer of Manasses (not sure where this is, possibly the book of Jeremiah) The Book of Baruch (Baruch was Jeremiah's amanuensis, but the book was evidently written in the first century BCE or at least 400 years after Jeremiah's time). The Wisdom of Solomon (or The Book of Wisdom) Ecclesiasticus (not to be confused with Ecclesiastes) - also known as The Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, or simply Ben Sira Psalm 151. As far as I am aware there are no "apocryphal" books in the New Testament except an epistle (I think) called Clement which is only accepted (or really even known about) in the Orthodox Christian church. All of these books appear in various different versions of the Bible (though outside Catholic bibles they are quite hard to find, particularly in the King James translation. I myself managed to find only a single edition in my local bookshop which included Apocrypha, the New Jerusalem Bible; apparently a Catholic inspired translation which however retained the traditional Herbraic names for the OT books (Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah) and omits the Esdras books I mentioned). Books which simply didn't make the cut in the first place, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the various Infancy Gospels and, for the OT, the Book of Enoch, for instance, are not "the Apocrypha". They are simply old books which contain Biblical material or references but which have never been included in any standard Bible.
I would certainly agree that the doctrine of the orthodox christian church has confused much about Jesus and his original teachings. Although I certainly hold that Jesus is a son of God, I do not agree he is the only or exlusive son of God. Jesus taught he was not the only son of God, there are others like him and taught the divinity of all of us, not just himself. Examples are; JN 10:34 & PS82:6 You are Gods LK 2:23 adam the son of God MK10:27 It is impossible for human beings to enter Heaven, but possible for Gods. Heb 7:13 Melchizedek is like the son of God, a priest for ever. Rom 8:29 Who God set apart will become like the son, who is the eldest brother in a large family. I agree Jesus taught the kingdom of God (heaven) is inside us, which is reached by altering our state of being rather than going from one physical place to another. Examples are; Col 1:27 the secret is that christ is inside you. LK 17:20 the kindom of God does not come so as to be seen, but it is within. Cor 3:16 You are Gods temple and God lives in you. I believe Jesus also taught the Buddist doctrine of reincarnation and karma (bad karma in christian language is sin). The reincarnation of Jesus and all of us explains contratictions in christian teaching such as the instruction to "become perfect as our father in heaven is perfect" when we have only one lifetime to do this nand most of us are obviously far from perfect?? It also explains how Jesus could sin (in past lives) and be perfected in his life as Jesus of Nazereth. Examples of this teaching are; Col 2:14 cancelled record of unfavourable debts. Mat 17:11 Elijah has come again (reincarnated) as John the Baptist. John 9:2 "Jesus saw a man who had been born blind - his disciples asked him, whose sin caused him to be born blind, his or his parents sin. Jesus answered hisi sin has nothing to do with his or his parents". The interesting thing in this passage is that they are discussing a man born blind because he had sinned - when, in the womb! No they were talking openly about reincarnation and Jesus does nothing to refute this belief they all held that the man can sin before born into this life. We also have to consider that the major religions of the time in this part of the world were, Hinduism, Buddism, and Judaism. At least two of these religions subscribe to the belief in reincarnation. Nowhere in the bible is the instruction "do not believe in reincartion it is wrong", strange when the bible goes into rights and wrongs on almost every other issue in life. We can see a pattern here where Jesus and us can sin and still end up in a perfected (enlighted) state. Although I would disagree that Jesus's great suffering on the cross was for his own sins. He did this to pay for the sins (karmic debt) of others, hence 'saviour'. I believe his own sins were slight. I believe there is a basic oneness in the original teachings of all religions, although sometimes obscurred now through the threads of time. We have to be open minded when we look for the truth. THERE ARE MANY LAMPS BUT IT IS THE SAME LIGHT THAT SHINES IN ALL OF THEM.
"As far as I am aware there are no "apocryphal" books in the New Testament except an epistle (I think) called Clement which is only accepted (or really even known about) in the Orthodox Christian church." I do not think that NT excluded books are really classifid as "Apocryphal", but there are several texts that were found in early biblies that were later excluded, for example ; 1 Clement - which you mentioned 2 Clement - A second clement Didache Shepherd of Hermas Epistle of Barnabas - (not gospel of Barnabas) Apocalypse of Peter - almost made it into the canon, but apocalypse of John won out. And there are a very few others. As I said, criterion is that they were found in early NT collections, but removed later by decisions of the councils of bishops. However, there are many more "lost" gospels and stories of Jesus, some of which were found at Nag Hammandi, including the gospel of Thomas. Also, recently ,fragments of a previously unknown gospel have been found. See Peter Kirby's excellent site, earlychristianwritings.com for more.
"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vine-dresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the Word which I have spoken to you. --- If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin." - (John 15:1-22) Peace be with you, Paul
so youd rather see it as a potentially unjust and random universe where horriblle horrible shit happens to people for just no reason at all? not i. no one made any statement speculating a specific reason or reasons why jesus might have had to endure such excessive suffering, only that it was likely due in some way. in my opinion he was perfectly aware of this and that is exactly why he accepted his fate such as he did resigned such as he was, and this final purging of karmas is exactly what set him free to ascend enlighted such as he did. shrugs. hateful? buddhism didnt do anything to anyone nor has randomness or senseless cruelty.
