thread: 2007-01-04 : Self-identification vs. Membership
On 2007-01-10, timfire wrote:
For what's it worth, most Christian and, I assume, Jewish theologians would argue that the Bible/Tanakh does not allow for monism.
The opening verse of the Torah says, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." The idea here is that creation was "created/made" & not "begotten". Parents... err, "begat" child, while an artist/craftsman "create/make" works/objects. In other words, the opening verse implies that creation holds a nature that is separate from God.
Christian theologians would also point out that Jesus, on the other hand, is said to be God's "begotten son". This implies that Jesus somehow shares God's nature.
And Ralph (& others), as someone who also studied Biblical scholarship, the God's-honest-truth is that there is no way to say who wrote the gospels and when. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to push an agenda. And that isn't some relativistic post-modern opinion or some deceptive technique to cover up a lack of evidence—-there simply isn't enough evidence to say it one way or another. There are very convincing arguments on both sides of the aisle.
