5 more questions

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fineca

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Hi, some questions again:
  1. The name of God. So does YHWH mean simply “I am”? or does it mean “he who is” or “I am who I am” or what? Anyways how can we not know how it was pronounced (even if the vowels weren’t marked back then), people knowing Hebrew should be able to know how to pronounce the most used verb form ever; don’t we know it from Jewish tradition or the Hebrew language?
    AND - if YHWH was forbidden to say out loud, and when Jesus did, people tried to stone him as commanded in the Torah, then how could people say the most basic sentences (anything with I am) without being stoned to death?
  2. “No one has seen God” - what does this passage mean? haven’t the people in heaven seen God? By the time John wrote this Christians had already died. Jesus has certainly seen God. Even Jacob beheld God face to face (did Moses too?), at least he thought so. And if Jesus was God and we beheld his glory, as John writes, then how come nobody has seen God?
  3. Nobody knows when the moment will come, not even the Son, but only the Father, say Jesus. Ok, Jesus not knowing doesn’t necessarily imply he wasn’t divine because he might’ve been speaking as a human here, but what about the Holy Spirit? If the HS is omniscient then he knows. Either he’s not or Jesus lied. How to solve this?
  4. In one Gospel Jesus says “this is my blood”, in another “this is the new covenant in my blood”. If the absolute historicity of the Bible is to be believed, there’s a contradiction. Can we say that one of the Gospel writers simply remembered it wrong? If the latter version was true, then the real presence is challenged, becase if “this is my body” is to be taken literally, then “this is the new covenant” should be also, but the covenant is an abstract concept so the cup he was holding couldn’t literally be the covenant.
  5. Similar to 4.: in 2 Gospels the centurion who says
    “I am not worthy to receive you” meets Jesus himself, but in one Gospel he sends a person to Jesus. The details in the stories are so similar that they must be referring to the same event. So we must accept that one (or two) of the Gospels isn’t historically accurate. Or?
Thanks! Emil
 
I’ll go for what’s behind door number 3, Emil. 😉

Jesus did have the information since, as God, He possesses all
things. Jesus, in the humility of His humanity, though, chose (an act of human will) not to “look”, and this was because the time of His Second Coming was not to be part of the Revelation of the Incarnate Jesus to the Church. That’s all His statement about the “Father alone knows” means: that the time of the Second Coming is withheld from the revelation of the New Covenant (which comes to us through the Incarnate Christ).

Remember that Christ is not only in the Nature of God, but of Man, and so in His human nature He is able to (and does) grow in the knowledge and wisdom that pertains to being a Man. So when addressed about “the End” we see Him limiting His answer to what He knows as Man, because this is information that is not for mankind to know, only to be prepared for. As St. Augustine said, "It was no part of His teaching duty to make it [the day of the General Judgment] known to us.
 
The apparant contradictions you mention in the Gospel accounts arise not from any error committed by the authors but because each author simply selected different elements from the many things Jesus said and did. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says:
“The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected certain of the many elements which had been handed on, either orally or already in written form; others they synthesized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the honest truth about Jesus.” (CCC, 126)
 
For Question one see, forum.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=91695

On Question 2, that refers to I John 4:12

verse 12 reads, No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

If you read on to vers 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

But, there are plenty of theophonies in scripture, where people saw God.

From the context of I John 4, I understand the text as saying normaly, people do not see God. But, God’s love is made manifest through you. A person who does not love his brothern can not love God either, whom he has not seen.

question 3, Phil 2, tells us that Christ emptied himself, set aside the actions of his deity. The verses about Jesus not knowing something, and other verses used by arians to prove that Jesus is not God are verses that prove that Jesus was fully human and that while on earth he sat aside the actions of his divine nature.

question 4, were you at the last supper? neither was I, so, it is possible Jesus said both things as I often have the habit of repetting myself in different words or the difference can be explained simply my tricks of the human memory, mind.

question 5, again we were not there ourselves. A representive in that day was equal to the person themselves speaking to you. It is also possible that a messenger was sent to ask Jesus the question and then the person himself came to Jesus to discuss the question on a deeper level.

Questions 4 & 5, lend historicity to the gospels because they were written a few years after the events, memory does play tricks, and it shows that they did not conspire to write a comphensive story of Jesus.
 
Thanks. Essential parts of my questions were still left unanswered. in the 1st one I wanted to know how people could say “I am” or “He is” about anyone without being stoned to death.

In the second one I actually referred to John’s Gospel and the prologue, not 1.John…so still not sure what it means and how to solve it.

Third, I was asking why Jesus didn’t mention the Holy Spirit/didn’t the Holy SPirit know, the question was not about Jesus. So did Jesus as a human not know that the Holy Spirit knows, because the Father hadn’t revealed it yet?

Thanks again!
E
 
there is a theme in John about Jesus making the Father known and John 1:18 is part of that theme.

John 14
8Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9Jesus answered: "Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

John 6:46 one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.

John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

Jacob said “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved.” (Genesis 32:30)

Ask the Jehovah’s Witness “Who did Jacob see?

I think that God in John 1:18 refers to the Father, but the God who the Old Testament saints saw was Jesus Christ.

This is because, as the verse says, “He [Jesus] has declared Him. [the Father]” Jesus, not the Father, appeared to the saints of old as Jehovah God!
 
John 8:54-58
Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” “You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, "I am who I am . This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ "

Isaiah 43:10-14
10Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
11I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.
12I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God.
13Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it?

Two points come to mind, Jesus existed before Abraham, and it is possible Jesus pronouced the divine name in hebrew from Isaiah 43:13 or from Exodus 3:14. Both of these texts would have been well known to his listeners.
 
On the third follow up, those whom Jesus was speaking did not know about the Holy Spirit and bringing up the Holy Spirit would sidetrack his discussion.

Jesus as a good teacher deals with people where they are and speaks the truths that they have a chance to understand first.
 
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