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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bentway who wrote (505200)	12/7/2003 10:57:17 AM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

John: 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. 6 There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'" 16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. 19 Now this was John's testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, "I am not the Christ." 21 They asked him, "Then who are you? Are you Elijah?" He said, "I am not." "Are you the Prophet?" He answered, "No." 22 Finally they said, "Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?" 23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, "I am the voice of one calling in the desert, 'Make straight the way for the Lord.'" 24 Now some Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, "Why then do you baptize if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?" 26 "I baptize with water," John replied, "but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie." 28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. 29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one I meant when I said, 'A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.' 31 I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel." 32 Then John gave this testimony: "I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, 'The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.' 34 I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God." 35 The next day John was there again with two of his disciples. 36 When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, "Look, the Lamb of God!"

To: bentway who wrote (505200)	12/7/2003 9:52:04 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Well first of all, Dick Rubenstein (the author of the book to which you referred) as a Jew who by his own admission wrote his book because he was affected by the religious strife he saw as a child in his Jewish-Catholic neighborhood, is not exactly disinterested. He has a vested interest in discounting Christ’s deity. He is also no theologian, no Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic scholar and no church historian. He is merely a “Professor of Conflict Resolution,” hardly one with credentials sufficient to grant him status of “gospel writer.” Secondly, your claim that the Church made changes in its view of Christ around the year 1500 is pure leftist trash, hogwash, horse-hockey. You haven’t a clue, pal. The controversy of which Rubenstein wrote occurred in the 4th century, not in the 16th. The scriptural texts were very near to being canonized by that time, and so any change to them on this issue would have been assaulted most vigorously. Lastly, that most 4th century religious scholars rejected the deity of Christ is just plain false. Even Arius believed in Christ’s deity, but he argued that His divine status came to Him by adoption rather than by innate essence of character (as is the case with God the Father). Most scholars did not believe this prior to Arius, but it was increasingly debated in the eastern scholarly centers during the 4th century. The western church held to the teaching that the earliest Christians had believed from the beginning, that Christ is God, that He was with God from the very beginning and that He was God, as the scriptures declare (John 1:1). The Eastern church introduced the “scholarly” notion that Christ was inferior to the Father and the struggle became essentially one of western thought against the East. Due to its scholarly force, Eastern thought almost prevailed but for the Church father Athanasius, who was a most vigorous champion for scriptural truth. The times were heady. Athanasius fell in and out of favor some five times before he finally vanquished Arius at Nicea. The Nicene creed said nothing new, nothing that could not be found in John 1:1, in Paul’s epistles, in Revelation. It merely codified what the Church had always believed, that Christ never became God, but that He was God from the very beginning (John 1:1).