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Apocrypha,dead Sea Scrolls, Gnostic Texts, and others
I was wondering if(who) has read these books(along with the Bloodline of the Holy grail, templar story, the lost years of christ,etc) and what your thoughts were on them.
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I have read some of the "Lost Books of the Bible". Some of it can be very shocking to Christians who were raised sheltered in believing that God is nothing but love, and that he has no vengence. I enjoyed reading about the life of Mary, and about the first 12 years of Christ, before he showed up at the temple. I think that some of them put into perspective, what kind of God we're truly dealing with.
As far as the Apocrypha...being a fairly new Catholic, I've been reading some of those books as well, because they're in the Catholic bible. There's a lot of wisdom in those and well worth checking out.
I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into words at the moment, since I just woke up. I have the books around here somewhere...haven't seen them since the move though.
I have read parts of those Urian, They put new perspective on Christianity for me.
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"the Lost Years of Jesus" is indeed good reading and shows that he used a lot of eastern philosophy in his teachings .
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Agreed Shadow. And the others provide(to me) a more complete look at christ, his teachings, his followers, mary magdelene and so many other things that are left out of the nonconnocal(so?) texts
is good set of readings together and translated ...decently. I would also recommend if people are interested in the "true" words of Jesus the nazarean, try to get a copy of the Q document.
This is a good resource, because the q document was researched by christian and non-christian thoelogans, and by the research thay can say with a good degree of certainty that a person referred to as Jesus possibly from Nazareth more than likely did say this, "..."
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You will not go hungry until I starve, you shall not go thirsty as I have drink, you shall have my bed and be warm, you shall sit on my right as we feast in the great halls of our ancestors, and for when we die, and go to the great battle of valhalla....we shall stand together and fight ....at the end we shall look upon each other strewn with the blood of OUR enemies, and then....I shall call you FRIEND
sorry for taking so long, I have been in the woods for a few days.
The q document is a theological document. Some time ago (I don't know the date) there was the popular question of, "What did Jesus really say." Mind you this is before the dead sea scrolls, the finding of the gospel of thomas, and some hollywood movies. Philisophically and theologically based the vatican organized a group of theologins. Of these theologins there were equal numbers of catholics, "seperatists" (protestants), jews, and "worldly theologins" (those who did not identify with a faith). They were given every resource available at the time and each group were asked the simple question, "What did Jesus really say." and in this meeting (not a council, ie Nicene, Vatican) theologins poured iver the texts provided and came to the synopsis that jesus said this...., or Jesus may have said but paraphrased....., or there is no proof that Jesus said....
The existence of Q follows from the argument that Matthew and Luke show independence in the double tradition (the material that Matthew and Luke shared that does not appear in Mark). Accordingly, the literary connection in the double tradition is explained by an indirect relationship, namely, through use of a common source or sources.
Arguments for Luke's and Matthew's independence include:
Matthew and Luke have different contexts for the double tradition material. It is argued that it is easier to explain Luke's "artistically inferior" arrangement of the double tradition into more primitive contexts within his Gospel as due to not knowing Matthew. The form of the material sometimes appears more primitive in Matthew but at other times more primitive in Luke. Independence is likely in light of the non-use of the other's non-Markan tradition, especially in the infancy, genealogical, and resurrection accounts. Doublets. Sometimes it appears that doublets in Matthew and Luke have one half that comes from Mark and the other half from some common source, i.e. Q. Even if Matthew and Luke are independent, the Q hypothesis states that they used a common document. Arguments for Q being a written document include:
Exactness in wording. Sometimes the exactness in wording is striking. For example: Matt. 6:24 = Luke 16:13 (27/28 Greek words). Matt. 7:7-8 = Luke 11:9-10 (24/24 Greek words). There is commonality in order between the two Sermons on/at the Mount The Sermon on the Mount was, according to the Bible (Matt. 5-7), a sermon given by Jesus around A.D. 30, after he had spent a night in solemn meditation and prayer. It is thought by some contemporary Christian figures to have taken place on a mountain on the North end of the Sea of Galilee, near Capernaum. Today, many scholars think that the sermon was not actually delivered all at once, but was composed by Matthew from various sayings of Jesus which he had found in his sources.
The presence of doublets, where Matthew and Luke sometimes present two versions of a similar saying, but in different contexts. Doublets often serve as a sign of two written sources. Certain themes, such as the Deuteronomistic Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Hebrew Bible, also the fifth book of the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is Devarim דברים ("words"), which comes from the opening phrase "Eleh ha-devarim" ("These are the words...").
Origin of name The English name, "Deuteronomy", comes from the name which the book bears in the Septuagint
In "The Da Vinci Code", Brown claims that you can learn a lot about Jesus from the Dead Sea Scrolls. All that "bad stuff" the church hides, supposedly. Well, that would be fine, but the Dead Sea Scrolls contain text only from the Old Testament and not the New.
The "Q" document, and there are theories of many others, is the supposed origin of two gospels, since they are so similar. I also vaguely remember an "M" document. Then you have the Gospel of John-- completely different from the rest.
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