Banned from the Bible...

[flower_child]

Shouse, IGotTheCottons is very knowledgeable on the bible and everything pertaining to it. He's a great help in these threads.

Jesus did technically found the catholic church, though I want to say that Peter was the head. I need to check my facts. Either way, it started out as a good church, but it "blended" with paganism to make everyone in Rome happy, but instead of blending (which was bad enough), it was pretty much taken over by paganism. Hence the crusades, etc.

I may have misunderstood you though, anyway, because the rest of your post is excellent.

While I'm here, books that were "Banned" from the bible, were "Banned" (more like left out) for a reason. That reason is that they appear to have been edited many times, and their is no proof that the author is who (s)he says (s)he is. There is evidence, however, at least for a number of those books, that someone else wrote them.

I'm not sure how the OP didn't find Enoch interesting. I think it's a fascinating book. It recounts the flood from a different perspective, and gives a different account of the end of the world (that latter part may be a little misguided...it's been a while.) However fascinating it is, we can't accept it as inspired because we can't be sure that Enoch wrote it. We do know that Enoch was very favorable in God's eyes, and was taken up to heaven without experiancing death.

I do believe that the book of Enoch is included in some publishings of the Apocrypha.

I'm off to refresh my memory of these books. (internet willing).

[ENOCH4]

whos enoch ahah just messin yea the book of enoch also talks about the fallen angles .. its a good book and its pretty old written in sanskrit or cuneiform i forgot but its all pretty cool i wonder why they took it out...

[pavlakos]

this is an old thread but it caught my attention. sorry for the bump.

Jesus Christ did NOT in any way found the Catholic Church. Why does everyone seem to think Catholicism is the only form of Christianity. Orthodox Christians were first and hundreds of years later the Catholics broke away and spread to Western Europe for mostly political reasons, and instead of being under the Archbishop they established a new institution lead by the Pope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthodoxy

[HighGrowMan]

Good collection. You can find these on the internet at sacred-texts.com

The First Book of Adam and Eve
The Second Book of Adam and Eve
The Book of the Secrets of Enoch
The Psalms of Solomon
The Odes of Solomon
The Letter of Aristeas
Fourth Book of Maccabees
The Story of Ahikar
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Testament of Reuben
Testament of Simeon
Testament of Levi
The Testament of Judah
The Testament of Issachar
The Testament of Zebulun
The Testament of Dan
The Testament of Naphtali
The Testament Of Gad
The Testament of Asher
The Testament of Joseph
The Testament of Benjamin

I also believe that this should be read:

The Gospel of The Holy Twelve

Then there is the Nag Hammadi collection:

• The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles
• Allogenes
• The Apocalypse of Adam
• The (First) Apocalypse of James
• The (Second) Apocalypse of James
• The Apocalypse of Paul
• The Apocalypse of Peter
• The Apocryphon of James:
  • (Williams translation)
  • (Cameron translation)
• The Apocryphon of John
  • Wisse translation
  • Waldstein & Wisse - Short Version translation
  • Waldstein & Wisse - Long Version translation
  • Davies translation
  • (See the Aprocryphon of John Collection for more information on the text)
• Asclepius 21-29
• Authoritative Teaching
• The Book of Thomas the Contender
• The Concept of Our Great Power
• The Dialogue of the Savior
• The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth
• Eugnostos the Blessed*
• The Exegesis on the Soul
• The Gospel of the Egyptians*
• The Gospel of Philip
• The Gospel of Thomas:
  • (Patterson & Meyer translation)
  • (Lambdin translation)
  • (Patterson & Robinson Translation)
  • (Grondin interlinear translation)
  • (See the Gospel of Thomas Collection for more information on the text)
• The Gospel of Truth:*
  • (Grant translation)
  • (Attridge & MacRae translation)
• The Hypostasis of the Archons
• Hypsiphrone
• The Interpretation of Knowledge
• The Letter of Peter to Philip
• Marsanes
• Melchizedek
• On the Anointing
• On the Baptism A
• On the Baptism B
• On the Eucharist A
• On the Eucharist B
• On the Origin of the World*
• The Paraphrase of Shem
• Plato, Republic 588A-589B
• The Prayer of the Apostle Paul
• The Prayer of Thanksgiving
• The Second Treatise of the Great Seth
• The Sentences of Sextus
• The Sophia of Jesus Christ
• The Teachings of Silvanus
• The Testimony of Truth
• The Thought of Norea
• The Three Steles of Seth
• The Thunder, Perfect Mind
• The Treatise on the Resurrection
• Trimorphic Protennoia
• The Tripartite Tractate
• A Valentinian Exposition
• Zostrianos

Oh and there is also some of the Dead Sea scrolls kicking around. If anybody knows where to find copies of them I'd love to read em.

I just haven't found much of anything from them.

[ThePhantom]

Originally Posted by ziggyshugenadz

i believe humanity should follow one rule

1. do not hurt your fellow man unless it is to stop him from hurting many others.

I completely agree. As for the Jesus thing, I am certainly not reading all of that, although I did read a fair bit. That thing about Jesus killing people as a kid, that was interesting...

[chiefMOJOrisin]

Its funny that there are sooo many people that live their life by this semi-fictional book.... and they don't even know that there is a lot of stuff taken out... by the people who belive the same thing. Thats dicked that the people who run the religion get to pick and choose what they feel is important.

Yes I did see that show. And others. One was about the lost books by Judas and Mary Magdaline.


Something interesting I heard on some show or article..... Eve wasn't the first woman on earth. There was another one, who eventually turned into a succubus. I forget the whole story or the names..... but those interested should look it up. Its facinating.

[MelT]

There's some good stuff there, but a lot were written long after the creation of the bible. In particular the ones about the early life of Jesus (bringing mud sparrows to life and withering a child's arm, etc) are known to be fictitious.

Others, like the Gospels of Thomas and Mary, have a lot of interesting references in them to the ancient Jewish Kaballah and talk about reality and spirits within our reality using Kabbalistic words. Other parts are very similar to Hindu texts that were around at the time. All interesting though...

MelT

[ryano85]

Originally Posted by IGotTheCottons

I just want to point out that Catholicism is technically a branch of Christianity... BUT is not truly Christian. The Catholics were those who burned people at the stake, the Catholics were the ones who lead the Crusades. This was all done by the CATHOLIC Church... NOT Christians. The Bible doesn't teach burning people at the stake, or murdering millions for not believing. You've studied the Bible, so you should know this.

im agnostic... but would like to point out, religon is what it is, people are what they are. catholicism did not torture and kill, those who followed and decided to take others lives did.. religon has proved to be a huge part of so many major conflict through out time, you cannot blame the teachings, but those who decided to kill in the name of there god/gods etc.


the qur'an says (Surah 6:54; Surah 27:59). The follower of Islam is to call to remembrance, "...the Favor of Allah bestowed upon you when you were enemies, and how He united your hearts, so that by His Favor you became brothers."

the bible says..Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons
God - Matthew 5:9

[Palmer Eldritch]

I've been reading A History of God by Karen Armstrong, (which I whole heartedly recommend to those interested in the historic progression of Yahweh as a concept, not as theological truth) and if theres one thing you can say is that the Church is built on revisionism. The attributes and exploits of the Babylonian and other pagan gods became attributed to the God of Moses as the circumstances and fortunes of the proto-Jews changed along with the increase influence of the Aristotelian and Platonic Unmoving Mover concept.

God's demeanor evolved from a very personal and tangible experience to something completely alien, and only observed through His glory. He Yahweh (as an unnamed "I am who I am" or rather "the God whose name is none of your goddamn business!") changed from being a part of the pantheon of deities (a war god), to condemning them for failing humanity to ignoring that they ever existed at all and assuming the other deity's roles in complete.

Anyway, thats just God himself. The redemption of Christ and its implications were talked about by many people and there wasn't one wrong way of believing and practicing Christianity until the Nicene council decided to define the Mysteries. The most interesting thing I learned was that most of the council didn't agree with the outcome, it was only enacted because the majority couldn't speak or read Greek. Also, there was very little scripture to backup their decision, philosophy was used to come to the creed The popular view (Arius) was that for Christ to have any worth and affect in redeeming humanity, he would have to be human himself and later became apotheosized after he led his perfect life. The other view that won (Athanasius) said that Jesus was in fact the Logos and was a power of God, just as Sophia was the Holy Spirit. God became the unified trinity of Hypostasis and humanity completely severed from divinity (unless for the Grace of God) by stating Jesus was the first and final Word rather than three separate manifestations of God and Jesus as an example of the possibility for all humans to achieve on their own merit. How can they place definitions on things that are supposed to be the Mysteries for theoria and then force compliance and still be authentic? It just makes no sense.

The point in all this? A working religion, is a revisionist religion. It can't survive the ages unless it reinterprets, appends or adds new meaning to relate with the current flock of worshipers. The Pagans had it right when they allowed their religious stories to be interpreted as a fluid mythology rather than rigid truths. Now, the commentaries of theologians are taken for truth instead of the event that inspired the dialog. None of whats written can be taken literally, especially if you want to attribute it to your specific concept of God/Jesus. Its more than likely borrowed from an earlier tradition.
Of course this interpretation comes from, Karen Armstrong, while of course not infallible, is associated with all three Abrahamic, either as a nun, teacher, council member, etc and highly regarded for her theological and academic research. Her work is very interesting....

[Pacaveli]

over the past 6 or so months ive been realizing the how much garbage the catholic bible/churches are about. they pretend they know the answers to everything and when they dont have an answer they always make some excuse. it kind of pisses me off right now because i am a senior in a catholic school(18 years old) and its all crap. i remember my freshman year they brainwashed into believing all that shit id always come home and say something about God now I realize how dumb i was. the whole religion is bullshit why would someone writing the bible talk about hwen he was born and a few things in his childhood, then BAM hes like 30 years old out of nowhere. there obviously trying to hide stuff. I think weed helped start to question more things since theres jnothing wrong with it and we are lied to everyday about it by people. basically im just mad at all this shit right now

EDIT: also another thing i thought to myself one time is that the church claims the Adam and Eve story is real. Okay... besides the point that 2 people would not be able to start a whole population for many reasons (diseases, bone marrow, 9 months of pregnancy, etc.) isnt that a sin? think about it, sey adam and eve had 2 kids, a boy and a girl. whats the only way to repopulate? the siblings to have sex which im sure the church isn't too fond of. just a little something to think about...

[pavlakos]

Bump.

[HoldSteady]

stuff like this is why i don't believe the bible
man made the bible not god
man can put or not put whatever he wants in it

[morphyx]

While the Roman Catholic Church certainly derives it's origins from Jesus and the Apostles, it's formation is rooted squarely on the shoulders of Constantine. It took several centuries, well into the dark and middle ages for it to form completely. What emerged resembles nothing to that which existed before and bore no resemblance to the church of the Apostolic period or Ante-Nicene.

While Protestantism is mostly attributed to Luther, Calvin (16th C), and followed later by Wesley, the facts remain that in early church writings many were breaking away from the control of Rome's version of Christianity as early as the late 2nd century.

[mrblonde77]

Originally Posted by morphyx

While the Roman Catholic Church certainly derives it's origins from Jesus and the Apostles, it's formation is rooted squarely on the shoulders of Constantine.

False. It's rooted on the shoulders of Peter. Then that douchebag Paul went around and touted it to his area of the world. Then Constantine made it popular using force and mass murder. YEY RELIGION. Oh yeah, and then they decided Mary, instead of dying, just magically ascended into heaven. I don't see how people believe that (well I do - lack of education) considering it wasn't decided this event occured until literally 300 years after the event. I hope in 300 years people decide I magically disappeared into the sky too, that's badass.

[flyhalf87]

constantine wasnt a christian, just a brilliant leader, he realized that having 1 religion instead of many would cut out a lot of problems for him as a ruler, so it was mandated that you had to be "christian" because it served his purposes best