I will not respond long to this... Youngprer already thinks of me as close-minded, because I believe in raising the dead by the power of God (go figure). We won't get into that. But, on the original topic of this post, I offer one word:
Conscience
I do believe that some things are black and white sin...You cannot discuss those away. Many other things are a matter of Conscience. The Apostle Paul discusses many of these things in I Corinthians 5 and 6.
If you are a Christian, and photoreading causes a crisis of conscience...by all means, send it back. It isn't worth what it costs to your soul. For those that are Christian and find no problem with photoreading, then photoread. Just take care not to assimilate anything that is against the knowledge of God. That doesn't go just for photoreading (by the way, I do, and I enjoy it greatly), it goes for anything. Sometimes things that are apparently Christian do even exalt themselves against the knowledge of God.
God is not a God of ignorance, but of understanding (Hebrew Word Biyn-means perception and intelligence). He wants us to get intelligence, to get perception, to get understanding:
Proverbs 4:7-Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
Many times the traditions we were raised in as Christians are a far cry from the truth of Scripture. Tradition tells you to forsake anything that isn't in the tenets of "our" faith. I had to overcome alot of that in my journey of life. The Bible is the final authority on what a believer should, in fact, believe. If you are holding to a tradition, rather than the Word, then get into the Word and let the Word guide you.
Brian, I can tell you are an educated man. You obviously have ALOT to say about these things. Education is wonderful, isn't it? A little education, well, it is dangerous. You, my friend, have become a set thinker, that horribly close-minded thing that Win Wenger talks about in His Einstein Factor series. You, by all your "education", have established in your mind that Y'Shua could not have been who he said he was (bTW Jesus is merely the Greek form of the name Joshua, Mark didn't rename him, he just wrote in the Greek language.)
You are right about one thing, however. Mark is the earliest written account of the life of Christ. I won't get into the morass of biblical dating with you, but most reliable scholarship places the date of the gospel of Mark at A.D. 55, Matthew and Luke at around A.D. 65 and John at around A.D. 85-90. That would place the earliest written account merely 20 years after Christ's Ascension. Matthew and John were Christ's own disciples and saw those events firsthand. Luke and Mark were both close associates of Paul, the most authoritative Christian teacher of the 1st century. Paul was close associates with most of the original twelve disciples that walked with Jesus. The Gospels were eye-witness accounts, not oral traditions as you claim. Oral Tradition was the method of Old testament Jewish practice, and they were so meticulous with the details that they were put to death if they were found to place anything inaccurate in their tradition. You have spent alot of time studying liberal theological points of view that have within their agenda the removal of anything supernatural from the Bible.
