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No, the Nicene Creed is from three hundred years after Jesus's death. Three hundred years. That's a long time, especially when we're talking about word of mouth. Have you ever played the game "telephone"? Then it must be equally true that the Trinity is irrelevant. The words "trinity" and...

Thomas, this is simply historically inaccurate. The formulation "one nature [greek ousia] three persons [greek hypostases]" only came in the fourth century. In fact, the original Nicene creed laid a curse on anyone who used the word "hypostasis" with respect to God: "But those ... who assert...

That's terrific, Thomas. It helps me understand something that's been puzzling me. Paul talks about "psychic" (or "soulful") believers versus "spiritual" believers - and "soulful" is bad! But it makes sense in your translation: "psychic" refers to the material or bodily soul, and "spiritual"...

I agree that the roots of Israelite religion are a fascinating study. 1 - Yes, in some places it is translated "God" and in other places "angels". Another word used for God in the OT is "El". El is known from Canaanite and Ugaritic documents as a Canaanite deity who was a lusty old man and...

juantoo3, you've asked a very interesting question. One place to start in looking for the answer is the sayings gospel Q. Scholars have reconstructed this lost gospel from Matthew's and Luke's gospels. It was probably written around the same time as Paul's letters. Some interesting things about...

1. I agree with dauer, out of all the spiritual traditions in the world, how likely is it that the one I happened to be born into is the single true tradition? 2. There are many internal contradictions in the Bible. These range from the trivial (did Judas hang himself (Mt 27:5) or fall...

Amica, I agree with the other posters. I think you'll find that most of these "parallels" are greatly exaggerated, if not outright false. For instance, the story of Osiris says he got chopped up into tiny pieces that were spread around the world. Then his wife Isis (and son Horus? I don't...

Re: God and Satan gluadys, good summary. Faithfulservant, you obviously haven't read your Bible very carefully, much less any scholarship on it. As gluadys said, it is only in the first century AD that Jews and Christians started identifying all the various "bad guys" in the earlier writings...

The brief mention of Nephilim in Genesis was elaborated on in later Jewish writings from around the time of Jesus, for instance in the Book of Enoch (the "giants", see Chapter 15) http://www.johnpratt.com/items/docs/enoch.html and Jubilees (the "Watchers", see Chapter 4)...

The Pantera story has a long history. Celsus, in his attack on Christianity (written around 180 AD), knows about it. It doesn't show up in the Mishnah (c. 200 AD), but there are some references to the legend in the Talmud (c. 400-600 AD, IIRC). The Toledoth Yeshu is a later elaboration of the...

The authors of that site apparently haven't bothered to read the Bible. For instance: They don't seem to have noticed that Genesis 2:5-7 says God doesn't create the plants and animals until two verses later! Just saying "there is no contradiction" doesn't mean there's no contradiction.

I think there might be some truth to this. If you look at the Gospels closely you see that Mark, the first Gospel written, doesn't have any story about Jesus's birth. Matt and Luke both include such stories, but they are in total disagreement with each other except for a few main points (Mary...

I think the answer to many of your questions, IQ, boils down to the fact that what we call "The Bible" was in fact many different books, written by many different people, in many different times and places. Therefore, they reflect very different ideas about what God is like and how he works in...

That's very interesting. I'm familiar with the evangelical-Protestant version of this debate, for which "willy-nilly" is a very apt description. Of course, your people have been at it for much longer.... ;) As far as mathematical contradictions, it's not too hard to find cases where...

I guess I wasn't clear enough in my previous post. I meant that any contradictory statements at all (not just in the Bible) can be resolved by those same methods. I was asking for non-Scriptural "contradictions" that are truly contradictory. I'm betting there aren't any.

Hmm, lots more cheese than good arguments in this thread. I propose that any contradiction can be "resolved" using the methods that Bible scholars use to resolve the (non)contradictions in the Bible. Example: "Black is white." Resolution: "Black is the absence of color, hence black is...

Actually, the RC church isn't opposed to scholarly research as much as many Protestant churches are. The Protestants tend to be invested in "the Bible is THE way to find God", while the RC's balance scripture and tradition. I know very little about the Vatican, but I tend to doubt that there's a...

Haven't read Smith's book but I've come across many references to it in my reading. I'm no Greek scholar, but I have a hard time accepting Secret Mark as the "original" Mark. According to Clement (assuming the letter is genuine - it's also hard to believe that such a document could remain...

Thanks for the correction. Melchi-zedek/resha translate to "King of Righteousness/Evil" as you said, according to this site , which also says that they are probably the same figures as the Prince of Light (or Truth) and Prince of Darkness that appear elsewhere in the DSS. I must have gotten the...

"Prince of Light" is the translation I've seen most often. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is also mention of Melchi-resha: "Prince of Darkness". This may be an indication of Persian/Zoroastrian influence. They had a dualistic system of Light=good, Dark= evil that was probably one of the...