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ptellini November 5th, 2017 12:35am

A question for Christians: what is your best evidence for the Bible being true?

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Maat wisdom listens
11/11/17 6:58 am

My personal experience with my stepdad dying. Personal experiences throughout my life.

shygal47 Florida east coast
11/09/17 1:35 pm

I have no evidence, but OTOH there is more evidence than one can name in every flower, the blue sky, everything that surrounds me. And yet, I have no evidence that a non-believer would or could accept.
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martyt02
11/05/17 9:39 pm

A. Inter dependence of nature indicates planning not chance: Every living thing on earth requires other living things to say alive.
B. The interdependence of nature is
So-o-o-o intricate and developed taking into account hundreds of thousands of species that it could only have been engineered and executed by an extra-supernatural being, or, in other words God.
The book of God’s word (Bible) is over a thousand pages long. It was copied by hand -chapter and verse- for over 1500 years (est) with very little change to the original.
Most of the events in the historical books of the Bible have been found to be historically possible (follow an accepted historical timeline)
Hundreds (or more) ofArcheological finds have substantiated Bible stories
Historians of the first century corroborate some biblical events
I believe in the Jesus of the Bible. If some of the stories in the Bible are “myths” and not to be believed as fact, then ANY story could be myth, including the Jesus story.

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/05/17 5:20 am

I think it’s interesting to see what Christians say. Everyone has a different appeal. Some have a historical view, consistency of content view, scientific view, etc.
All these give us at look at evidences of the Bible from a different aspect.

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lcamino Florida and Georgia
11/05/17 12:28 am

My personal relationship with God.

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sea California
11/04/17 11:45 pm

The historical assertions in the Bible have been corroborated by archaeology. Also, many of the writers of the New Testament books were persecuted for their beliefs. They did not have an incentive to make up a lie that would directly harm them.

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bower8899 ...
11/05/17 1:46 am

The first part isn't exactly true. Most of Genesis, Exodus, and the story of the Kingdom of Israel have been proven to be false. Everything after that mostly checks out though

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/05/17 4:59 am

Thank you for your unsolicited opinion.

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/05/17 1:30 pm

I am not sure why you have a bunch of question marks there. I think my response was pretty straight forward.

TheMadScientist the mad laboratory
11/04/17 8:05 pm

I believe this question is best addressed with allegory similar to what's in the Bible.

So, there was a body guard who was assigned some rich kid who would one day inherit his dad's cow farm. The security guy usually followed the kid around school, but he was in the bathroom when a fight broke out. The kid died. The dad cried a lot. The farm fell apart. The guard was fired. Without employment, his own family fell apart. Moral: You've got to protect your dairy heir.

Why am I saying this? Christians are not objective in their claims about the Bible. They have "skin" in the game. You've got to research your own scholars. Find who you trust. Learn the conversation at a more meaningful level.
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ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/05/17 4:59 am

Thank you for your unsolicited opinion.

TheMadScientist the mad laboratory
11/05/17 5:58 am

But you did solicit opinions.

TheMadScientist the mad laboratory
11/05/17 11:25 am

Enough to answer your question the way I did. Christ rejects many more of his would be followers than he'd have you believe.

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/05/17 11:29 am

You are either a Christian or you are not.
Jesus Christ has not rejected anybody. People have rejected Him.

TheMadScientist the mad laboratory
11/05/17 12:12 pm

You seem to agree with my meaning, but not my word choice. I'm okay with that if you are.

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/05/17 12:15 pm

I am not sure how you gather that I agree with anything you just said, but whatever.

political Georgia
11/04/17 6:09 pm

The Gospel itself

There is no way that a book that had multiple authors at different time period could be completely consistent if the Bible was big lie.

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 6:43 pm

Yes, and I would go even further and say the fact that dozens of authors wrote the Old Testament and New Testament books over thousands of years in three different languages, in different lands, and the prophecies of the Old Testament came true in the New Testament, thousands of years later would be major proof, not to mention the archaeological evidence that has proven a good bit of it to be true.

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Alcerus fascist
11/04/17 6:44 pm

I try not to use that to convince people though. If you look at it from their point of view, it's possible that all four books of the Gospel were written by the same guy one after another

Alcerus fascist
11/04/17 6:44 pm

I'm not saying they were, just that's what people could easily believe

political Georgia
11/04/17 6:46 pm

Romans 1 tells us that everyone knows Christ. Therefore, I don’t feel obligated to pretend that God doesn’t exist. It is necessary to explain the Gospel in an uncompromising yet sincere format so that the unregenerate man can see that God is using you as a tool to spread his most precious word.

4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:37 pm

People that might believe that have probably never read all 4 gospels, as they come at the story from totally different viewpoints and bring out different messages (within the basic message of Jesus) to different groups of people.

No other book of the NT records Jesus’ teaching in quite the way Matthew does. Built around 5 major addresses that Jesus gave to His followers, Matthew records the essence of Christ’s message, the core commands that He not only wanted His people to live by, but to spread to “all the nations.”

Thus, Matthew contains marching orders for Christ’s followers today. He sends us into the world to have impact—not the impact of coercion or force, but the irresistible influence of lives that reflect His ways, His love, and His values.

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:38 pm

2) All of the books that follow are God’s Word, but Matthew sets the pace. It highlights the agenda of our Lord: “All things I have commanded you.” The topic of Matthew is “Marching Orders: Christ sends us into the world to have impact.”

Matthew’s gospel answers the question as to whether Jesus was really Israel’s Messiah with a resounding yes! He fills his account with OT prophecies that point to Jesus as God’s Chosen One. He wanted his fellow Jews to study their Scriptures and find Jesus to be the Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, and the Son of God.

However, Matthew is not so much a Jewish Gospel as a global Gospel with a Jewish accent. In Jesus, all of us can find hope, no matter what our ethnic background. We don’t have to be Jewish to be eligible for God’s blessing & salvation.

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:38 pm

3) Early church tradition identified Matthew the disciple of Jesus as the author of the gospel that bears his name.

Mark is an ideal book for “entry-level” readers. Like a TV drama, mark’s Gospel portrays the life of Jesus in simple, straightforward, action-packed vignettes. In fact, ACTION is the hallmark of the book: Jesus reveals Himself here more by what He DOES than by what He SAYS. If you like stories, you’ll love reading Mark. Mark heaps up scene after scene of an action-oriented Jesus, going places and doing things. The overall message is that Jesus is the Son fo God who came not to be served but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. So the theme of Mark is “The Action-Oriented Christ: Jesus is the Son of God who came to serve.”

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:39 pm

4) But about A.D. 125, Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor stated that Mark created this gospel by writing down Peter’s recollections of Jesus’ life. Subsequent traditions agrees with Papias in ascribing the book to Mark.

So possibly what we have here are the memoirs of Peter. Ministering to Christians in Rome, he may have recalled his memories of Jesus in order to create a Gospel for Christians under persecution by Nero, emperor of Rome. If so, it’s no wonder that the narrative reads so easily: as a fisherman, Peter was probably quite skilled in holding an audience with a good story.

Fortunately, Mark wrote it all down. Mark was a native of Jerusalem, and the church often met fro prayer at his mother’s house. Thanks to his cousin Barnabas, he was mentored in the faith and became a valued associate of Paul and Peter. Mark probably traveled with Peter to Rome, where tradition hold that he composed his Gospel in the early 60’s.

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:39 pm

5) Who was Jesus of Nazareth and what difference does it make? That’s the question Luke answers in this carefully researched account that reads like a newspaper serial of the life of Christ.

Luke tells a story that has universal appeal. The Jesus that he portrays reaches to to people of every class and background—Jews, Samaritans, Gentiles, Roman soldiers, the poor, women, children, the powerful, the powerless, the sick, the fearful, the devout, the irreligious. He has something to offer everyone. Perhaps that’s why some of today’s most popular selections of Scripture come from this book—the Christmas story, the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son.

Jesus of Nazareth was a carpenter from an obscure town in an insignificant Roman province. Nevertheless, Luke will help you discover Him to be the international Christ whose words and works have global implications. The theme of the Book of Luke is, “The Global Gospel: The Jesus that reaches out to people of every class & background.”

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:40 pm

6) To the best of our knowledge, the entire Bible, OT and NT, was composed by Hebrew writers, with the exception of one man—the “beloved physician,” Luke! A Greek from Antioch of Syria, he was well educated and thoroughly acquainted with the Roman world. His writings, the Gospel of Luke & Acts, show a far more cultured form of Greek than the rest of the NT.

How did Luke come to write nearly 1/4 of the NT? He probably began by traveling with Paul on parts of his 2nd, 3rd, and final missionary journeys. At three places in Acts, the narrative changes to the first person (we). That probably indicates that Luke was personally present during those episodes.

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:40 pm

7) While Paul was imprisoned at Caesarea for 2 years, Luke ay have used the time to visit Galilee and Judea, gathering firsthand accounts of Jesus’ life. He may have interviewed Mary, Jesus’ mother, as his account describes details of her pregnancy and motherhood that the other three Gospel writers leave out: for example, her song of praise, and her habit of reflection on the events of which she was a part. Who better to pay attention to the virgin birth from Mary’s point of view than a physician?

Luke 1:1 implies that the doctor may have also visited Matthew, Mark, or John, the other Gospel worriers, or perhaps others front he Twelve who remained in Palestine. Whoever his sources were, Luke’s detailed descriptions indicate that they were actual participants.

MORe

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:41 pm

8) There was no need to resort to legends and hearsay. Instead, writing as a disciplined, careful historian and inspired by the Holy Spirit, Luke compiled the material into a skillfully crafted document, a certifiable record of Jesus’ life.

If, as is probable, Luke was a Gentile, then it’s no surprise that his Gospel seems to highlight Gentiles and their response to Jesus. For example, Matthew traces Jesus genealogy back to Abraham, the father of the Jews, but Luke traces it back to Adam, the father of the human race. Furthermore, Luke’s narrative continues into Acts, where he shows the gospel moving beyond its Jewish origins to include peoples of every race.

John’s Gospel has the theme, “A Gospel for the Thinking Person: Christ is the divine Word of God, yet He became human.”

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:42 pm

9) The first century world was a swirl of ideas, values, and symbols, not unlike our own. John’s is a Gospel that is especially good for the thinking person. Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which present comprehensive and similar (Synoptic) overviews of the Lord’s life, John is a highly stylized arrangement of carefully selected events and words, all directed toward one major purpose: that readers might find life by believing in Jesus as the Christ. Johns’ goal is not belief for its own sake, but belie in order to have LIFE.

For that reason, this book is vitally important for modern-day Christians. We tend to apply our faith only to certain private & “religious” settings, but leave it behind when we go into the public arena. The message of John cuts through that way of thinking & living. Jesus is our bridge between that which is eternal, spiritual, & supernatural, & the everyday, human, natural world. He is the divine Word of God, yet He became human & lived our experience.

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:42 pm

10) How can our faith become relevant to the day-to-day circumstances we face? Isn’t he Gospel of John, Jesus shows us. He lived the message that He preached. And as we come to know Him and follow Him, we can experience the LIFE that He gives.

Early church tradition identified the writer as John, the apostle of Jesus and the book is similar in style and language to I John, which in turn ic connected to 2 & 3 John, and the three epistles are also believed to have been produced by the apostle John. This is consistent with the author’s claim that he was an eyewitness of the events recorded. The book of John uses both Jewish and Greek thought forms in its presentation of Christ, and appears to have been written for the widest possible readership. Whoever the intended audience was, the purpose of the book is clear: that through this document they would come have saving faith in Christ.

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4JC Christian Pastors Wife
11/04/17 8:42 pm

11) It is widely believed that the John who wrote this Gospel is also the one who, late in his life was exiled for a time on the island of Patmos, where he wrote the Book of Revelation. He was eventually allowed to return to Ephesus, where he died sometime after Trajan became emperors of Rome in A.D. 98. Thus the Gospel is believed to have been written in Ephesus sometime during the 90’s.



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bower8899 ...
11/05/17 1:48 am

I'm not going to get into most of this, but political: I am not pretending to not know god. Trust me, I want there to be a god. I just have never experienced something that I would consider to be a message from god.

Alcerus fascist
11/04/17 6:04 pm

A lot of large events in the Bible have been proven to be very likely. There is evidence of large sea creature bones and flooding in strange areas

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bower8899 ...
11/05/17 1:49 am

Which can be explained much better by evolution and tectonic plates.

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/05/17 5:01 am

Thank you for your unsolicited opinion.

Axl752 Ontario
11/05/17 5:59 pm

Any opinion that differs from ptellini's is "unsolicited" and met with hostility .... I know from experience.

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/05/17 6:02 pm

Axl752 you have proven to be a troll. That is why I respond to you the way I do.

Axl752 Ontario
11/05/17 6:06 pm

If I'm just a troll then why do I have 5 times the followers that you do.

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/05/17 6:12 pm

Who cares about the number of followers lol

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/05/17 6:53 pm

If you comment with some level of quality, I won’t call you a troll 😉

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/04/17 5:40 pm

Are you a Christian?

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/04/17 5:43 pm

Then this poll has nothing to do with you.

proudGA New Jersey
11/04/17 5:51 pm

Wouldn’t want to intrude on the bliss denial.

ptellini GET OVER HERE
11/04/17 5:55 pm

Whatever. Troll somewhere else.