₦airaland Forum

sonmvayina:
Gods laws is universal and divine. He gave it to all of humanity. The jews accepted it and wrote it down. And taught it to themselves. They called it the torah. The igbos also accepted it and called it the omenani....

So they became God chosen people..

Gods laws is the standard for measuring everything.

And are you saying the laws and teachings of Jesus in the new testament are not God's laws ? How come only jews and Igbos accepted it? what of the Sumerians, Egyptians, Yorubas, Buddhists.
Have you heard of the 8 laws that leads to enlightenment that came from the Buddha about 2500 years ago? What disqualified these 8 laws but qualifies Igbo and Jewish laws as God's laws?

budaatum:
By teaching you to be peaceful and to love one another.

There will be peace in the world when you have learnt what the messiah taught.

Exactly but the only other way would be to use the sword and it seems that is what some expect of Messaiah.

sonmvayina:
According to the story, he did not achieve anything...

So why is he relevant to us or to God?

How would the messaiah acheive peace in the world?

sonmvayina:
Has it happened? It is the messiah that will usher in the era of peace.

Jesus did not achieve it, because he was not Gods annointed messiah. He was not sent by God. He was executed just like God commanded them to execute false prophet who come to turn them away from God.(the story says so)..

So jesus cant be the messiah.

Lol, so tell me: How would the messaiah usher in the era of peace? would he also do this by the sword?

Also it was the Romans who executed Jesus and the charge against him was that "He claimed to be King of the Jews" which to the Romans was a challenge to Ceasar's authority. The Romans would hardly care if he broke jewish laws or not and would not waste their time killing him if that was the major charge against him.

sonmvayina:
The messiah as defined in judaism is a king or high preist tbat is annointed to lead the people. He is not coming to change Gods laws, any body who does that is immediately recognised as a false prophet.

That one messiah that the prophet spoke about is coming to usher in peace and end all wars and oppression. That has not happened.


We are all waiting..

But Jesus did not change Mosaic laws, he said:
Think not that I come to destroy the law and prophets but to fulfill. To fulfill means the law points to me, I have come to continue with the story of Isreal/God relationship.

Jesus came to usher in peace but it is a gradual process. He has laid the foundation by teaching his followers the ways to achieve this peace on a global scale. Eventually this would happen in line with the Isaiah prophecy, where men no longer use swords. Jesus said he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. The true kingdom of peace does not come from this world system, that is why my servants do not fight on my behalf, etc

He told us what to do, that is to love our enemies (strange idea but powerful), to do unto others what we want others to do to us, etc. He told the rich man to go sell all he has and give to the poor and await this kingdom of peace and harmony, etc.

sonmvayina:
The Torah is divine..it has the name of God in it...the new testament has none..

Lol

sonmvayina:
Thats as far as i can go...but when people start praying in jesus name...when we know it is all mythologies..? When clearly God commanded us "Do not have any other God before me".. He does not want any intermediary or mediator..so i dont see jesus as relevant to anything..he only makes people dusobey Gods commandments

Interesting! So how do you know the Torah is God's command and the New testament is not?

sonmvayina:
You have to understand the sybolism and numerology and iconography of the jews. ..a woman is a symbol of wisdom...the type of woman tells you the kind of wisdom..LovePeddler means a common wisdom or knowledge. .a virgin means divine wisdom. ..a man's penis is both for reproduction and pleasure....

So read the whole story and figure it out yourself..

what if I apply your logic to every religious book out there including seemingly awkward ones? Why don't you give the new testament thesame benefit of doubt or symbolical interpretation.

sonmvayina:
There are none..they are all mythologies...it is the jewish version of the igbo omenani.. Each community have their own customs and traditions. And mythologies...one is not more real than the others...it is the messages that is more important. The stories might varry..

The torah is still about Enki and Enlil..

So what is this important message in a woman's hand being cut off for shagging a man's thing?

sonmvayina:
Lol..do you want me to teach you..they are mythologies. Read the stories and learn the messages they contain..

The case of oran refusing to impregnante his brothers wife is just calling your attention to the dangers of pleasure without responsibility...


The letter killeth, the spirit gives life..

so what moral lessons have you learnt from these mythologies and how do you differentiate mythologies from the real stories in the Torah/Tanach?

sonmvayina:
This simply means you dont understand the Torah and what it means when it was talking about laws and leaving right.

Like i always say...it is God who created us like this. With the ability and capacity to make choices.

He gave us Mitvahs to help us make good choices so that we can live in peace amobgst our selves..

Find a rabbii to teach you the Torah..it is the most beautiful things i have ever come accross.


Match forward...God will path the sea for you...

By Torah being perfect and beautiful, what do you mean? there are a lot of strange stories and events in those books and some laws are strange like the cutting off of a woman's hand for grabbing a man's thing or the instant death of a man who refused to impregnate his dead brothers' wife, etc.

sonmvayina:
I think i have finally proven beyond every reasonable doubt that jesus is just a roman invention and has got nothing to do with God or man. He was created as an insult against God. And to deceive those with feable minds..

Jesus as a character is in line with the Tanach and Torah. Go and study the old testament, you would see jesus all over it. Even Isaac and Joseph are characters created as images of jesus. Open the eyes of your spiritual understanding so you can see.

sonmvayina:
You know you are not making sense.....

What is final death?

In my opinion I think it means not taking part in resurrection into the promised land or being exempted from it completely in wailing and gnashing of teeth. The bible seem to describe this death in both ways.

sonmvayina:
Read it again..the spirit is Gods spirit....

What is the wisdom in God destroying his spirit?..

The passage says God who can kill both body and soul in hell. According to your beloved Jewish book, God killed people a lot at some point in history. If that is true, then it is possible that God refuses to raise them to life again.
Jesus like most first century jews strongly believed in the resurrection of the dead, where God puts back the spirit of man into a new body. If you don't partake in this resurrection, then that is the final death and a worse death.

sonmvayina:
Dtruthspeaker asked me to create a thread where we can actually discuss the nature of Man with respect to God. So i decided to resind my earlier resolve not to open another thread.

I have always maintained that man is a spiritual being having a human experience and not the otber way round. This is born out of the different myths on the creation of man. The myths entails dust from the earth + spirit of God. Whether it is igbo, yoruba, akwa ibom, Tiv, uhrobo or Egyptian, asian or american. Since we are familiar with the jewish one i will be quoting from the book of genesis., Ecclesiatics and psalm.

"Then God said let us (God +earth) make man in OUR OWN IMAGE AFTER OUR LIKENESS, Let them have dominion over the ........and God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed through his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul( or being) or conciouse being. Gen 1:26, 2:7.
We also find in Genesis 6:3 and God saying " My spirit shall not dwell with man forever, for he is also FLESH. His days shall be 120 years..Here God is saying man is both spirit and flesh, but his spirit will not dwell forever with man(man forfeited immotality, when he ate the fruit). It means after the 120 years at most, God spirit returns to him and body returns to dust. (We igbos bury 6 feet, after a little ceremony, because the body used to be a vessel carrying Gods spirit.)
The wise preacher also reinterated this fact in Ecclesiatics 12:7 when he said "the body returns to the earth where it was taken and the spirit back to God who gave it.

Wise king solomon also says in psalm 104:29-31

Psalm 104:29-31
New International Version
29 When you hide your face,(A)
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.(B)
30 When you send YOUR SPIRIT (C)
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.

31 May the glory of the Lord(D) endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works(E)—

So man is made up of God spirit + dust of the earth. = a living soul.

When the prophets spoke of salvation, it is always from physical danger, not spirit, as the spirit is Gods spirit and it is pure..and does not need saving from anything..

So i invite all christian here to come and explain what jesus came to save..? The body that will return to dust or the spirit that will return to God.?

Jesus says: Do not fear those who can kill the body but not the soul but fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.
In my simple understanding, destroying both body and soul in hell means leaving the person dead forever without the hope of resurrection.
Jesus came to save us from this particular type of death which is actually caused by sin.

Amujale:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3157167

Here's an extract of the journal authored by Alfred Williams Anthony titled "Criticism of the Epistle to the Galatians" published by The University of Chicago Feb., 1891 pp. 90-96:

So only one person went against Galatians as an historical document of the first century, and even according to this source you quoted, he had no historical grounds for his opinion.
Even the source you are quoting contradicts your stance.

Amujale:
My advice is for you to actually take the time to study Roman history, especially those of the first century. i.e the Flavians (Vespasian, Titus, Domitian of the Flavian dynasty), Constantine(I) e.t.c

Constantine in first century?
Titus was an enemy of the early christian Church.
Vespasian and Titus were emperors.
What made you think I have not studied Roman history?
You are the one bringing up conspiracy theories and assertions here. If Romans want to create a religion to dominate the world, it wouldn't be such a contradictory religon like christianity. Also if the Romans created christianity, why did the Romans persecute them so much up until Constantine in the 4th century.

Amujale:
According to history, the Christian bible was manufactured by first century Romans and their intention was solely to use it as a tool to further their conquest.

That is to say, these foreign extremist ideologically based narratives are tools of conquerors manufactured specifically for those reasons.

Now it is your turn to give me proof of this assertion. What history? Who were those first century Romans? In what way were the books used to further their conquests?
Also was there a Christian Bible in the first century? Give me proof that there was any such thing called christian bible in the first century.

Amujale:
Point taken

I suppose the correct description would be a bible scholar.

However, the mere fact that he refers to himself as a Christian bible scholar and not simply a scholar as the rest of the serious minded ones, puts a huge asterisks on his point if view.

Having the name Christian Bible Scholar doesn't mean you are a Christian. It means you study the new testament literature, you study the manuscripts and you apply historical criteria to them. You are a scholar of these texts, and you can read Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, which means you read all the old manuscripts in their original form and compare them, etc. There are people who studied these stuffs in Universities and not all are Christians.

Amujale:
Firstly, I started my reasoning at the start and again here.

Here it is again, given that there's no records, genuine written text that can pass as being academic or any genuine commentary that passed as being authentic, no third party recollection regarding these characters anywhere in history, it stands to reason that they simply never existed to start with and that those characters was simply fabricated, invented, made up.

Furthermore, since we already know what time period that the authors placed their fictional characters, it's quite simple to examine the facts and contrast with the narratives being peddled.

Using your own analogy, since the book has been found to being one of fiction and someone insist in claiming that Okonkwo was a real character, then the onus is on such a person to provide the evidence to substantiate such a claim.

Historians and those who study the matter have a lot of criteria they use in dissecting a fictional text, for instance:

a) The intent of the author
b) The law of embarrassment
c) The likelihood of an event
d) The confirmation from outside sources mentioning thesame thing.
e) Contradictions both internally and externally
f) Archeology

You are only fixated on (d).

If we use only (d) as a criteria then we would have to throw away many history books and we would not teach much of history because not all or even many historical sources have external backing.

Amujale:
Firstly, I started my reasoning at the start and again here.

Here it is again, given that there's no records, genuine written text that can pass as being academic or any genuine commentary that passed as being authentic, no third party recollection regarding these characters anywhere in history, it stands to reason that they simply never existed to start with and that those characters was simply fabricated, invented, made up.

Furthermore, since we already know what time period that the authors placed their fictional characters, it's quite simple to examine the facts and contrast with the narratives being peddled.

Using your own analogy, since the book has been found to being one of fiction and someone insist in claiming that Okonkwo was a real character, then the onus is on such a person to provide the evidence to substantiate such a claim.

How do you know the Galatian text is not genuine? what is your proof for this? How can you just look at a letter and say it is not genuine? what would be the intent of the author who wrote Galatians to write complete fiction?
Let us take it step by step, answer to these points first then we know we are heading somewhere.

Amujale:
You aren't making any sense.

One cannot proof the existence of a character that never existed in the first instance, the onus is on you to provide us with the proof of your fictional characters and false narratives.

It's you who's claiming that the narratives in the Christian bible is meant to be real, hence the onus is on you to provide us with the evidence.

If I give you a book like "Things fall apart" to read, and I tell you that Okonkwo was real and you say no, Okonkwo never existed. It is your duty to tell me why you think so especially if the book doesn't state that it should be fiction and all of my village members see Okonkwo as a hero.

In that case, it would be better for you to present your arguement why you think Okonkwo was fiction. It would be foolish to ask my village clan to prove the existence of okonkwo.

In thesame way, I believe Buddha was real, I don't need to prove this, but if I doubt the existence of Buddha, I should be able to explain how I came about my skepticism to Buddhists and not ask the Buddhists to prove that a 3000 years old character whom all their ancestors worshipped was not real.
You have your logic in the reverse order.

Amujale:
The Christian bible is a book that is solely based on fakery and falsehood.

That is to say, there's no character or story line that exist within the text that can lay claim to being original.

The authors of these foreign extremist ideologies invented characters and presented them as authors within that same book.

As in, neither Mark, John, Peter, Thomas or Paul wrote a single text (how could they when they are
all fictionall characters), it's authors that made those assertions.

Furthermore, Bart Hartman is a Christian historian, his commentary carries no academic validity.

Can you provide proof for all of these assertions? Furthermore Bart Ehrmann is not a Christian historian.

Amujale:
Says who?

All those false assertions don't work here.

You cannot prove the existence of any of the characters in the Christian bible and you cannot proof any of the narratives.

Why?

Due to the fact that it's all based on fakery and falsehood.

You are not discussing, you are just blabbing. In what way do you want me to prove the existence of these characters?

Amujale:
The Christian bible isn't a history textbook.

What is it that you don't you understand?

That book is based on fakery and falsehood.

Merely citing it as a source renders your evidence false and unreliable.

The christian bible is not one book but a collection of letters and then books. You keep treating it as one book and this is what I am educating you on. The person who wrote Galatians wrote it as a letter to a particular church trying to clarify some things. Historians ( even Agnostic Historians like Bart Herrmann ) for instance says the book of Galatians is historical. The burden of proof lies on you to tell us why Galatians is not historical.
So give me proof and not empty claims.

Amujale:
It's seems to me that you aren't aware of the meaning of proof.

All that you stated above is rhetoric.

You cannot prove the validity of the Christian bible using the false narratives from within that book, it doesn't work in that way.

What I'm asking of you is to provide us with the evidence of your fictional characters.

Merely citing that book renders your evidence false and unreliable.

lol, what other proof are you looking for, a statue or what? I gave you book of Galatians written just few years after as proof, and you call it the bible? the Bible is not a single book but 66 books, all different and some a bit contradictory to each other. You just can't deal with the arguement. Analyse my arguement and state why you don't consider Galatians as proof rather than the fallacious arguement you keep putting up here. It doesn't address my position and its' boring.

Amujale:
It's seems to me that you aren't aware of the meaning of proof.

All that you stated above is rhetoric.

You cannot prove the validity of the Christian bible using the false narratives from within that book, it doesn't work in that way.

What I'm asking of you is to provide us with the evidence of your fictional characters.

Merely citing that book renders your evidence false and unreliable.

lol, what other proof are you looking for, a statue or what? I gave you book of Galatians written just few years after as proof, and you call it the bible? the Bible is not a single book but 66 books, all different and some a bit contradictory to one another. You just can't deal with the arguement. Analyse my arguement and state why you don't consider Galatians as proof rather than the fallacious arguement you keep putting up here. It doesn't address my position and its' boring.

Amujale:
You can pass me with all that nonsensical rhetoric and provide us with the proof of your fictional character.

I have given you the evidence already.
You don't find people having multiple stories and building a new religon in just 20 years after the death of a non existent character. That's good evidence right there.
Paul existed and wrote about a dispute with peter in A.D 48, in his letter to the Galatians. He is bitter and tries to exonerate himself over events that happened shortly between him and the Jewish church in Jerusalem. This is just about 20 years after jesus. It speaks of a peter the disciple of Jesus(whom he had conflict with), and James the brother of Jesus. If there was no Jesus, Peter, James, John, this would make no sense because to the Galatians then, the letter would be nothing but gibberish.
This is a strong reason why it is more likely that Jesus existed. Can you argue with this? Give me facts pls, not just hand waving dismissal.
When you accuse the author of Galatians of writing fiction, then the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence why you think this letter is fiction.

sonmvayina:
Got this from a jewish lady of facebook...happy reading..


Jews do not recognize the god of the NT, and it seems that #for_some_Christians, #they_do_not_recognize_the_Elohm_of_the_Tanakh. And here’s why.
~ by Sara Finegan

The Tanach is, essentially, a record of the first years of a love affair between The Most High and the Jewish People. It contains love poetry (Song of Songs), poems of longing and passion (Psalms), advice and wisdom (Proverbs), allegory (Job, Garden of Eden, etc), history (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Exodus, Return to the Land, judges, Kings and Chronicles) and records of times when we were at odds with Elohm(Prophets). The structure of our relationship is set forth in the Torah, specifically Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but the love, the passion, the abiding and nurturing relationship itself is in the poetry and prose. When Jews read the Tanach, we hold it close, so close to our hearts, and savor the language, the messages of hope and longing by reading passages over and over again, digging ever-more deeply into the nuances and meanings. When we read the words of the Prophets, we don’t focus on the anger and the frustration of The Most High, but His eternal longing for us to return, His desire to remain close to us, His commitment to stay with us even when we stray.

When Christians read the Tanach, they don’t have the same relationship with The Most High, and it’s not a book for and about them. So they read it differently. In their search for meaning, they look for proof: �proof about Jesus, about the replacement of the Jews with believers in Jesus, proof that The Most High has somehow abandoned the Jewish people�. Or, they look at the negative: the anger, the frustration, then threats. They don’t see that as part of a process, a cycle of forgiveness and redemption, but as a sign of Elohm's harsh punishment and that people are bad.

The New Testament is a set of texts: four gospel narratives, a fifth narrative that continues Luke, a bunch of letters from Christian leaders, and a mystical document. Christians read it as the word of Elohm. Their understanding of Word of Adon-i is that it’s all about His love for the world. It’s precious to them, and they read and reread it as love letters from their god. They don’t believe that there are contradictions or conflict between the letters, the gospels, etc. To them, it’s all The Most High's love.

When Jews read the New Testament, we see it as a very strange set of conflicting documents that barely hang together. The four gospels are radically different and even contradictory�. The Jesus that is portrayed in them is barely recognizeable as a Jew of his time. The generalizations about the larger Jewish community are laughable and simplistic. None of it feels realistic in any way. The epistles, mostly from Paul, are viewed as filled with antagonism and hostility toward Jews and Judaism�. The tone is so negative that we can barely stand to read them. The epistle of James, with its barely-disguised hatred of Paul, is more bearable and more recognizeable as coming from some Jewish thought. Revelation is incomprehensible and horrific. We do not recognize our The Most High, the Elohm of Israel, in the New Testament. Our Elohm could not, would not, has not behaved as the Elohm is represented in the NT. We do not have the same world view as the writers of the NT nor the same hopes.

It’s no wonder that there is conflict between Judaism and Christianity. The suprise is really that Christians so desperately want there to be peace and harmony between us, that they want to be connected to Judaism in any way. To Jews, after reading the NT, it seems absurd to think that Christians, with their world view and theology, would want to have anything to do with us. They de-Judaized Jesus, they promoted the writing of a traitor to Judaism, and their belief is that Judaism has been replaced in Elohm’s eyes. How are we supposed to react to them and to their religion?

We Jews keep our distance. As the prayer goes: “JC keep your followers far away from us!”. Christians keep trying to step closer. We won’t stop pulling away so long as they don’t stop trying to change us. They keep moving toward us because they want us to change. It’s a weird dance. And the melody is confusing.

This author got it backwards. Some of the problems Christians even have are related to the violence and problems in the old testament.

Tell me what is so loving about Elohim killing 70,000 Isrealites simply because David made a mistake by taking census?

Elisha was insulted by some young people and immediately they were devoured by wild animals from the bush.

The new testament through the gospels of jesus gives the light to view the old testament.
The new testament is not a replacement of the old testament, it is a continuation of God's relationship with Isreal, only this time it fulfills the promise to Abraham: In thy seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Amujale:
Firstly, Jesus is a fictitious character that never existed.

Assuming anyone has any proof to the contrary,kindly provide them here.

Furthermore, Jews don’t believe in the Jesus character.

All these foreign extremists ideologies arek the number causes of psychosis.

You are the one to prove that the jesus character never existed especially when more than 90% of historians on this matter assert that there was certainly an Original Jesus on whom the four gospels are based on.
Also there's evidence of a religion created in his name just 20 years after he was suppossed to have lived. There was a Paul writing just 20 years after his suppossed death or resurrection as well as contradictory stories all coming 40-60 years after that.

Amujale:
There was never a person who walked this Earth called Jesus Christ.

The story is solely based on fakery and falsehood.

It is to me impossible that christ never walked this earth. It is not possible to totally make up such a story, especially the Jesus of Mark's gospel.
Do you have facts to show that it was a completely made up story?

Jman24:
It's very clear that you are comfortable with teachings of funny fellows. Just study for yourself. Isaiah 53 is in no way referring to a person but a nation. That nation most at times is used in the singular.. he was this he was that.

It's all about the suffering servant "Israel". Isaiah mentioned it severally before chapter 53..

I don't understand where you manufactured this other conjecture from

Isaiah 53 is about suffering messaiah bearing the sin of the nation isreal. There were two types of servants used interchangeably in Isaiah, Israel and the Israel's messaiah representing Isreal. Isaiah 49v1-6 for example is about a person, so also Isaiah 53.