re: This isn’t a great look for the pentagon. They appear to claim Mormons aren’t Christians

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Pope Foo and the Pope of Rome are both saying the exact same thing about their interpretations of Scripture. EXACT same thing.

That's why you are Pope Foo.

Rome doesn't require implicit faith in any man, Pope Foo. You are wrong about that OR is this another example of your opinion being Infallible?

Pope Leo and Pope Foo have a lot in common actually. They say the exact same things about Holy Scripture, how to interpret Scripture, how their interpretations are guided by the Holy Spirit, so that the Pope may rest assured that his interpretation of Holy Scripture is Infallible, because the Holy Spirit is Infallible.

Pope Foo, you say that your interpretation of Scripture is guided and secured from error by the Holy Spirit? If so, then your implicit meaning is that it is Infallible. If NOT secured from error by the Holy Spirit then why do you bother to preach something that is probably erroneous?

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Champagne

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This is a political board. Doesn't belong here. Make up your mind!

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It isn’t anywhere in the bible, and if it was, you’d have quoted it.

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It’s everywhere, but why would I waste my time trying to defend it with you? You think that the Bible teaches that Jesus was created from the physical sperm of David and Abraham, so you aren’t exactly a serious person to discuss theology with.

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It’s everywhere

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It’s nowhere, and it’s why they had to create the doctrine in the 4th and 5th centuries and it’s why the Johannine Comma was inserted in the 4th century by a sneaky monk. If it was legitimately in the Bible, you’d have pointed it out, but you can’t.

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why would I waste my time trying to defend it with you?

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To many, silence actually seems to demonstrate an inability to respond.


Hey I like the pejorative nickname “FooLaneCraig” over “Pope Foo”, but I was also thinking “HypocriFoo” might work well too. What do you think?

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You think that the Bible teaches

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The Bible doesn’t teach shite Foo- we’ve been through this before. You teach from your doctrines derived from your dogmas which you attempt to support by trying to convince yourself that can be and is supported by the contradictory contents of “the Bible”.

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Jesus was created from the physical sperm of David and Abraham

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It is a fact that some early christians believed God crafted Jesus’ fleshly body from the sperm of David, as demonstrated by the Ascension of Isaiah - an early Christian writing dating to the first century BC or AD which was found in the Nag Hammadi library (unearthed Christian scripture in Roman-occupied Egypt). The apostle Paul seems to share this belief.

Romans 1:3

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the gospel concerning his Son, who was made (also could be interpreted as “come into being” and “manufactured”) from the sperm of David according to the flesh

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Paul uses the term for “born” (out of a vagina) many times like in Romans 9:11 but never once uses this verb for describing Jesus, who he always writes as made / manufactured / came into being.

By mocking Paul and the other earliest Christians you are mocking yourself.

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It's everywhere

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It’s not, and your silence on this speaks of this fact. Your doctrine is unsupported, and you can’t support nor demonstrate.

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And when Athanasius was defending the doctrine against the Arians, he didn't even use the Johannine Comma in his writings. The doctrine doesn't stand or fall on that verse because it doesn't need to.

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Because when he was defending his doctrine, the Johannine Comma didn’t exist yet.

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From Genesis chapter 1 to Revelation chapter 22, the doctrine is all over the Bible.

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I don’t give a shite if you think you are the infallible Calvinist Pope, your inaction shows you are full of shite and you know it deep down. Logic dictates that it if we’re all over the Bible. It wouldn’t have taken them 5 centuries of councils and excommunications and exiles and violence to get there.

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You aren't a serious person, but a troll.

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You can’t simply admit that some early Christians held the belief that Jesus’ body was crafted from the sperm of David. It’s an inconvenient for you but it is true.

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"Infallible Calvinist Pope" you are a troll

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I am mocking you, not trolling.

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Inaction? You're the one refusing to do your own research. Is it because it's not a topic that interests you, like biblical figures' sperm?

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Your mind can’t fathom how someone could research a topic and come to a different conclusion than the one you hold dear.

Jesus’ body being crafted from 1000 year old jizz is pretty interesting. It’s what Paul believed. That’s your people, not mine.

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Here's a quick search for you. I'm not going to spend 20 minutes writing out a defense of the Trinity only for you to ignore it and talk about how people are created from the sperm of people who died hundreds and thousands of years earlier.

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We all know, Foo, that it is indefensible.

This is from your lazy link:

Eusebius quotes Matthew 28:19 many times in his writing. Facts: Every time Eusebius quoted this verse before the council of Nicaea, it was “…baptizing them in my name.” After the council of Nicaea, it was “…baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Ooh John 10:30. If that is evidence that Jesus and the Father are one in substance, then logically you’d have to conclude from John 17 that all believers are of the same substance of God and part of the Trinity too.

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I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

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In 2 Cor 13, just as in 1 Cor 8, Paul writes as if there is one God (the Father) and one Lord Jesus. Maybe I missed the part where Paul says Jesus is co-equal and co-eternal and of one substance (homoousios).


You should probably brush up on those verses that talk about Jesus being the firstborn of creation, and of about Jesus not trying to be equal with God but lowering himself further to take the form of a slave, and about God exalting Jesus, and about the Father being greater than Jesus, and the one about no one knows the day or the hour except the Father (not the son), and the one about the son being subservient and subjected to the Father.

John 17:3

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1When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

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Sounds to me that even “Jesus” knew that Jesus was not the one true God.

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And it didn't take 5 centuries to come up with the Trinity. You don't even know how councils work. The doctrine was already in the Bible, but in order to clarify the teaching of the Bible against those who abused and twisted it (like you), councils were convened to do that important work.

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The most dominant form of Christianity in the second century was Marcionism, who believed the Jewish god was an evil deity.

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I'll throw you a bone and continue this as a pretended serious discussion. Why don't you quote for me the passage (in context) where the Ascension of Isaiah says that Jesus was created from the sperm of David. I believe it's chapter 11

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Chapter 11 is the pocket gospel that was a later Christian interpolation.

Hey I may have made a mistake. You got me. The legit AoI doesn’t say God made Jesus a body from the sperm of David. That’s what Paul wrote, and the writer of Hebrews (ch 10) wrote that God crafted a body for Jesus. In the AoI, Jesus becomes less glorious and more human-like as he travels from the 7th heaven to the firmament, which is the inverse of Enoch and Paul traveling past the firmament and up through the layers of heaven while their bodies became angelic and more glorious as they went higher.

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Go for it, and make your case as to why you believe early Christians thought Jesus came from the literal, physical sperm of David.

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It’s because Paul wrote that it happened, and Paul was an authority and apostle. Not all Christians, but definitely some. #facts

Congrats on actually pointing out a mistake I made. If only you were honest enough to admit a mistake.

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I am mocking you, not trolling.

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No, you're a troll. I'll explain below.

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Your mind can’t fathom how someone could research a topic and come to a different conclusion than the one you hold dear.

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There's a big difference between saying the Trinity isn't a doctrine found in the Bible and saying you just aren't persuaded by the evidence from the Bible. You can interpret it differently, but you can't say it's not there at all, since Christians take the doctrine directly from those dozens of verses.

And no, I'm not going to debate the Trinity with you. It's a basic doctrine that is foundational for Christianity that has been supported time and time again, and as I showed from the link, there are dozens of texts that provide a basis for the doctrine. I'm not going to convince you of something your hard head and hard heart won't accept no matter what, especially given this new and incredible evidence that you had no idea what you were talking about in regards to the "sperm hypothesis" (I'm calling it that now).

I'd rather spend the time to simply discredit you and show others that you are a poser and a fool (in a biblical sense).

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Hey I may have made a mistake. You got me. The legit AoI doesn’t say God made Jesus a body from the sperm of David.

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And now we get to the point where it's obvious you are a troll. Your entire schtick here has been that you are an honest critic of Christianity, rejecting it due to your extensive research as a neutral scholar. Your entire premise for continually teaching that Paul believed in this ancient sperm hypothesis was that it's what the early church taught, supported entirely by the AoI as evidence. Now you are admitting that critical piece of evidence doesn't say what you've said it has said over and over again for months, if not years, and all I had to do was ask you to read it again and cite it for everyone to read for ourselves.

I see that as a major piece of evidence that you are not a serious scholar at all, because this critical argument for the early church's view of Jesus was based primarily on one text that you haven't even studied. I'm curious if you ever even read it before now

So here we have it: you have been trying to convince everyone that you are a serious, neutral, and unbiased scholar simply going where the evidence points you, while holding to the fringe view that Jesus wasn't even a historical person, and adamantly clinging to this weird notion that the early Christians believed that Jesus didn't have an earthly ministry, but that He was created from the literal sperm of David in Heaven, based on a text that it seems you never even read before.

Whatever you think Paul has taught now is absolutely out the window, as you have completely discredited yourself on that topic. You interpreted Paul in light of the AoI, and interpreted the AoI in light of Paul (yes, it's circular), but now you admit that the AoI didn't say anything about the literal sperm of David, but was speaking to David's family lineage, which is the typical way the word "seed" is used in Greek, especially in the Bible (as Paul uses it).

Thanks for finally admitting what I already knew: you are an unserious person who is only concerned with destroying the faith of Christians, and you'll use any tactic and argument you can to make it happen, even if you haven't studied it, yourself.

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The Trinity is not found in the Bible.

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Like I said, 2,000 years of church history and a Reformation that emphasized supporting all doctrine with Scripture disagree with you. I’m not debating what is already settled, and I’ve done more than intended in response to your goading.

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I’ve read it, and got the material mixed up with Paul, Enoch, and Hebrews, who write of God crafting bodies for the righteous. Paul specifically writes God made Jesus a body crafted from the sperm of David.

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That’s quite the mixup after months and months of your repeated assertions to the contrary, based on the “evidence”.

The AoI is a critical piece of the argument you are making about David’s literal sperm being used to make Jesus. The natural reading of Paul’s writings suggests that he was talking about the biological lineage of Abraham and David, not magic sperm, and the context shows just that.

No reasonable person would take your position if not for some outside source that pointed to such a view, because that view is foreign to the rest of the Bible and to church history. That’s why you were clearly putting all your eggs in the AoI basket, because you thought it was an extra-biblical source that supported that weird view. Well, now that’s gone. All you have is a nonsensical interpretation of Paul that contradicts his other statements, and doesn’t fit his use of the word “seed”.

I hope you finally see how twisted you are. You will believe anything so long as it could possibly disprove the Bible. You should examine yourself to discover why that might be.

ETA: Imagine if the only difference in the story is that Cpt. Ahab DIDNT BELIEVE THAT THE WHALE EXISTED.

That’s you, Harald.

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I should reply to Champagne to show him how you prioritize the traditions developed over 5 centuries post-Jesus of the Catholic Church rather than the Bible itself. You don’t see how hypocritical you are being because your brain doesn’t process logic correctly.

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I didn't prioritize history over the Bible. I mentioned history as a supporting factor on this topic precisely because it is a universally-held doctrine. Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and so on have the Trinity as a defining doctrine that is fundamental to the faith. It's also a marker for orthodoxy that excludes Mormonism and other cults that claim to be Christian but have a false view of God.

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All you do is “debate” what you believe is settled.

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Not necessarily. I recognize there are valid and understandable differences in beliefs even within Christianity, though I believe I adhere to the right one (I also admit I could be wrong, and I'm open to reform from the Scriptures).

The Trinity is another matter. That's not really a Christian debate outside of maybe Oneness Pentecostals, but it's a widely-settled doctrine throughout broader Christianity.

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I disagree. Paul never uses the word for “born” for Jesus. To him (and the author of Hebrews) Jesus was a created being that was given a body of flesh made by God.

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He didn't have to. The context defines the use of the word translated as "born". When he writes that Jesus was "born/made of a woman" (Gal. 4:4), the context is adoption as sons and heirs. Paul is writing that just as we are sons, Jesus is a son, and was even born of a woman as we are. He needed to be one of us to redeem us. Paul also says that Jesus was "sent" to do this, which doesn't make a lot of sense to the reader if Paul was saying that Jesus merely went from one heaven to another, without explanation as to why.

On top of that, the same verb is used elsewhere to convey the idea of birth. Genesis 21:5 and Job 1:2 in the Septuagint use the same word, and they are translated as "born" due to context. The semantic range is there, especially since in Galatians 4:4, Paul uses the preposition "of" or "from" (ek) a woman (gynaikos). Whatever Paul meant by "made" has the woman as the focal point of what that means. The natural rendering, therefore, is that he is talking about birth, because it would make sense to refer to a baby being "made of a woman" in speaking of birth, but it wouldn't make sense that Jesus was "made of a woman" in the same sense that He was "made of David's sperm", as you seem to think Paul is teaching, especially given the way Paul uses the "seed" language is consistent with genealogy rather some supernatural creation from sperm.

As I said in another thread a while ago, in Galatians 3:16, Paul says that Jesus is the "seed" of Abraham. For your interpretation of Paul to be correct regarding his usage of "seed" being literal sperm, you would have to conclude that Jesus was made of multiple parts: one part sperm of David, and one part sperm of Abraham, and even some part of "a woman", in heaven. You have to see how ridiculous this view is, and how it relies so heavily on a mythicist conclusion already existing, and then selecting interpreting the evidence in that light.

Also, Paul says here that Jesus was born/made "under the law". That phrase is talking about the Torah law, given to the children of Abraham through Moses. Given Paul's Jewish background, it makes more sense for him to be referring to Jesus being under the law given to Israel--which occurred during Jesus' life on earth, in Israel, as a Jew--rather than keeping this law in some heavenly place, away from the earthly Jewish nation.

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I’ll give you the win that the AoI doesn’t say God crafted a body for Jesus out of the sperm of David (that was straight up Paul alone plus the author of Hebrews who wrote God had prepared a body for Jesus but doesn’t mention the sperm of David). My bad bro! I think that’s about 6,000-1 win-loss ratio against you. Good for you getting a win.

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I don't think you quite grasp the significance of this "loss". This isn't about winning and losing a debate, but sticking up for the truth. You have been consistently antagonistic towards biblical Christianity on this site, and have sought to support your criticisms through presenting yourself as a neutral person studying the issues without bias and coming to a logical conclusion. One of your biggest criticisms of Christians has been that we have faith absent evidence, and even in spite of the evidence, as far as you're concerned. What this "loss" demonstrates isn't just that you were wrong, but that you were using as a critical evidence of your unbiased criticisms of historic, orthodox Christianity, something that you either didn't read (you did claim you read it, so I'll assume you did), that you didn't understand but used it anyway, or just went with someone else's opinions on the matter because doing so supported your already-made conclusion (showing bias). Clearly your conclusion wasn't based on the text of the AoI, itself.

On top of that, this "loss" removes all weight from your objection to the orthodox Christian view of Paul teaching about the earthly incarnation of Jesus, because now your argument lies entirely with the writings of Paul, himself, which Christians have interpreted against your conclusion for 2,000 years, and it hasn't even been a documented debate that there was confusion about what Paul meant.

Richard Carrier's position (since you've cited his site a few times, I assume you take his position) is that Jesus had to have been made from David's literal sperm (using the "seed" language Paul uses) because Jesus never made it to earth, and therefore Paul couldn't have meant David's genealogical bloodline through natural birth of a woman. Without the seed interpretation from the AoI, your (Carrier's) position amounts to assuming Jesus never had an earthly live/ministry first, and then interpreting His birth in light of that. Without the AoI, you just have Paul's words and a massive interpretative assumption.

Finally, you have to interpret Paul's words about "seed" and "according to the flesh" outside of how Paul uses it elsewhere. Multiple times, Paul uses "seed" to refer to natural, blood-relatives, and not one time does it refer to "sperm", but offspring based on a natural reading of the texts. Same for "according to the flesh". He says that phrase multiple times, referring to kinsmen, not natural and literal sperm.

Clearly you aren't a neutral and unbiased spectator, innocently studying data with fresh and untainted eyes. This isn't just a "loss", but an uncovering of who you really are and what you are doing here.

LINK
I watched it. I think it was pretty spot on for a few minutes, and then it went for shock value humor- which was funny. I think more Christians should watch things like that- to get a better understanding of the atheist position, and to guard themselves against this type of behavior. There are definitely Christians like that; and there are definitely atheists like that. But do you really think that you are like that atheist? And that I am like that Christian?