Somome please help me,i have been asked a question and do not know how to asnwer!?

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godsent

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I have been asked:

who founded christianity,if jesus was a jew,so where does christianity come from?
why didn’t the disciples write the gospels while jesus was alive?and when was it written?
how many gospels were written at the first place,before choosen the ones you have now,and why?
waiting for your answers thanks.

Response quickly would be greatly appreciated!
 
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godsent:
I have been asked:

who founded christianity,if jesus was a jew,so where does christianity come from?
why didn’t the disciples write the gospels while jesus was alive?and when was it written?
how many gospels were written at the first place,before choosen the ones you have now,and why?
waiting for your answers thanks.

Response quickly would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Jesus founded Christianity.

Jesus only “hung out” with the disciples for 3 years. It is not that strange that they wouldn’t get a book done by that time. Why write a biography of someone before his life is complete?

Fragments from Matthew 26 date to 65-66 AD. If Mark was written before that, then Mark must be earlier. Since Paul was martyred in 63 AD and Acts finishes before his death, it was written before 63 AD. it is the sequel to the gospel of Luke, which is supposed to come after Mark, so that puts Mark at the latest around ~60 AD. The earliest fragment from John dates to about 105 AD.

Luke mentions that “many” wrote accounts of Jesus’ life, but the exact number is unknown. A number of apocryphal gospels were written in the 2nd century; e.g., the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, etc. They contain wildly absurd stories.
 
Jesus was Jew. Christianity came from him. When he came, not all of the Jews chose to follow Him. Because of this, Judaism was seperated into two camps; those who followed Christ and those who didn’t. To add to this, there were many Gentiles who were following Christ.

Therefore, Christianity came to be called Christianity for two reasons:
  1. to give a name to all of these Gentiles who followed Christ.
  2. to help differentiate between the Jews who followed Jesus and thosue who didn’t. Those who didn’t continued to be called Jews. Those who did began to be called Christians.
That’s a simple answer, but it works. If you need more, ask.

The gospels were all written between 50-70 AD, most likely in the 50s. There were some who tried to say the gospels were written after 150 or 200, but scholarship, even secular (not religious)scholarship has shown that these claims are completely false.

It is possible to date based on things like carbon dating, but also by other means, such as textual criticism, which is a field of research devoted to studying the writing methods of authors to determine when and where they came from.

For example, think about the word “gay.” If you read a letter that said, “I got money for my birthday, I am so gay,” you would know it came from the 50s or 60s, when gay meant happy. if you read a letter that said, “I am gay, I have finally decided to admit it to people,” you would know it came from the 70s and 80s, when gay meant homosexual. If you read a letter that said, “I hate the Yankees, they are so gay,” you would know it came from the 90s or 00s, when gay can be used to mean something that is stupid or bad. Bible scholars can do the same thing to figure out when the gospels were written.

The desciples didn’t write the gospels when Jesus was alive because it wasn’t until after he died and after He rose back to Heaven that they really understood what He was. It was only truly during those 40 days between the resurection and the ascension the they really learned and understood everything about Christ. Before that, he was just seen (mostly) as a guy giving good advice. After that, He clearly was seen as God! Also, the idea writing things down is a relatively new concept. Most people didn’t know how to read back then, only the most educated people did. Things were conveyed by word of mouth, not by writing things down. (All of the epistles were written to the educated heads of the Churches who then read them aloud to people.) Nowadays, when something happens we write newpaper articles and all sorts of records of them. People didn’t really do that back then. Eventually, a few people decided to do so for various reasons (like for sending to far away areas that they could not personally go to).

Many different gospels were written, but only a few were written early enough (50, 60, 70 AD) to be accepted as important or truthful. Some were written by people with incomplete information, or with rumors that weren’t true. The four true gospels were written by John and Matthew, two of the original desciples, and one by Mark, a man who followed Peter around everywhere and copied down what he preached to people, which is how he wrote his gospel. Luke is especially important. He was a VERY educated man. He was a physician, and a historian. He used legitimate research methods (just as a historian today would use) to investigate the stories of Jesus and write down a true gospel. He also followed Paul around, so he had him as a reference.

In the 300 or so years between the writing of the 4 gospels and the Bible being put together, a lot of people wrote different gospels to teach their own personal beliefs. In other words, they wrote down their own beliefs and claimed Jesus said them. It was much easier to do this back then then it is today, with all of the media we have (although as you know it does happen even today!) However, even as early as 150 (some would say 100) the 4 gospels had been accepted by the majority of Church clergy as true gospels. They were the ones used to teach early Christians by the various bishops and so forth. The council of Carthage in 397 read through many different gospels availible, and chose the ones that showed the teachings that had been passed down orally from the first century.
 
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godsent:
I have been asked:

who founded christianity,if jesus was a jew,so where does christianity come from?
why didn’t the disciples write the gospels while jesus was alive?and when was it written?
how many gospels were written at the first place,before choosen the ones you have now,and why?
waiting for your answers thanks.

Response quickly would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
The Jewish tradition held that a Messiah was coming. Jesus and his disciples considered Jesus to be that Messiah. His claim and our belief that he is the “Promised One” makes no sense in the absence of the promise that comes from the Jewish faith. In a sense, all Christians are adoptived children of the Jewish faith.

I would say the Church, and Christianity, started when Jesus asked his disciples who He was and Peter said “You are the Messiah” and Jesus said in reply, “You are the rock on which I will build my Church.”

peace

-Jim
 
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challenger:
Jesus founded Christianity…Why write a biography of someone before his life is complete?
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In fact Jesus established, or founded the Catholic Church, not properly “Christianity”. The Gospels are not a “biography”, but some facts needed to reach salvation. Finally, Christ’s life is not “complete”, since He lives forever…
 
What people have said so far is very adequate… I’d just like to enourage you not to take these objections seriosuly (as if to test your own faith). These questions are rather pathetic.
 
I agree the questions posed to you are ridiculous.

Jesus was the “Christ”, or the messiah fortold, and initially, the early Christians continued to worship in the Temples as they wer considered to be a new faction of Judaism. Over time they of course realized that as they believed the Christ had come and their faction was not being accepted, they seperated completely and this became what is now known to be the Catholic faith. In the Bible it talks about how they would meet on the evening of the 1st day of the week to break bread (Communion), etc.

They became Christians because they followed Christ.

Also consider the Greed word ICTUS (fish): In Greek, the letters became code for: “Jesus Christ Son of God and Savior” (sorry, I have the Greek written here but I can’t reproduce it). Additionally, their symbol became the fish (the “Alpha”) symbol we still see in relation to Christianity. Jesus himself used “fishers of men” and the symbol of fish in general so we see that the connections are so easily made from Jesus to Christ to the fish symbol the early Christians used to symbolize they followed the teachings of the Messiah (Christ).

The word “Christ” actualy means “the annointed”.

To suggest that someone other than Christ founded Christianity is ridiculous and the idea does not come from someone who has actually read the Bible or had any experience whatsoever in the facts about Christianity.
 
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godsent:
who founded christianity,if jesus was a jew,so where does christianity come from?
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Christianity was not a new religion. Christianity, specifically the Catholic variety, is the religion that goes back to Adam. It is modern day (meaning post Jesus) Jews that technically started a new religion when they strayed from the Truth by rejecting the Messiah.
 
Lol, I’ve never heard it put that way before. Great point.

But we do have to be careful not to introduce people to this idea too early in any evangelization as it will hurt our credibility. I’d suggest holding off on it until we’ve got them seeing things the right way 🙂
 
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Lazerlike42:
Lol, I’ve never heard it put that way before. Great point.

But we do have to be careful not to introduce people to this idea too early in any evangelization as it will hurt our credibility. I’d suggest holding off on it until we’ve got them seeing things the right way 🙂
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Haha, maybe. I actually think it’s a great way to show the Truth found in the Catholic Church by showing how smoothly the OT flows into the NT as taught by the Church. Protestantism comes across as a big break from the old testament religion, but Catholicism is a fulfillment of the OT, not an abolishment.

The best place to see the continuity is to look to the sacrificial priesthood. Jews no longer have a priesthood offering sacrifice to God. So where is it? The Catholic Church of course!

See Malachi 1:10-11. Closing the temple and a pure sacrifice offered from sun up to sundown in every place? Hmmm…
 
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godsent:
I have been asked:

who founded christianity,if jesus was a jew,so where does christianity come from?
why didn’t the disciples write the gospels while jesus was alive?and when was it written?
how many gospels were written at the first place,before choosen the ones you have now,and why?
waiting for your answers thanks.

Response quickly would be greatly appreciated!
Click to expand...
Christianity is a form of Judaism – it is what Judaism was intended by God Himself to evolve into, all along. The mutation was intended all along, and foreshadowed for centuries.

There is a belief that the gospels were written only when it became clear, after Jesus’ death, that Jesus’ return might be a substantial time after His ascension.

Many gospels were written. So far, only the four in our Bibles seem to be the inspired ones.
 
Uh, Judaism looks for a solely human Messiah, who

will restore Israel and bring about the Kingdom of God.

To maintain that:
quote: Genesis315
It is modern day (meaning post Jesus) Jews that technically started a new religion when they strayed from the Truth by rejecting the Messiah.
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is incredible, to me.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One”

not three Persons in One…One.

Three “Persons” is considered blasphemy in Judaism.

Judaism pre-dates Christianity by 3500 years.

To say that Jesus is Messiah is an assertion of belief.

4500 years of: Sh’ma Yisroel Adonoy Eloheynu Adonoy Echod

has a certain…credibily…about it.

reen12
 
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reen12:
To say that Jesus is Messiah is an assertion of belief.

reen12
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Nah! It’s better than that, reen. Virtually everything in the Torah and Haftorah (the books after the Torah) point to Jesus Himself. It’s not mere belief. It’s trust in the foreshadowings in the Jewish writings, themselves.
 
🙂 Hi, BibleReader,

What’s a “foreshadowing” for one is a “misintrepretation”
for others.

I was taught, as a kid, that the OT “foreshadowed”
the New. I accepted that.

50 years later, out of curiosity, I checked Judaic
sites, and those sites had some very credible refutations of the foreshadowing assertions.

In addition, I noticed that several of the sayings of
Jesus, that I thought were unique, actually were
from earlier Sages in Judaism.
Hmmmmm…
I wasn’t necessarily surprised by that, since Jesus
was an Orthodox Jew…as were Joseph and Mary,
and Jesus undoubtedly had read or heard these
sagacious sayings, growing up.

The pivotal point is: Did Jesus rise from the dead?
As St. Paul said: If Christ has not risen, our faith
is in vain.
Billions of Christians later, the resurrection seems
quite probable.
But, then, there are billions of Buddhists and
followers of Hinduism as well.

The best argument I can think of, for Jesus being
Messiah, is that the Apostles were willing to suffer
death for their testimony that Jesus rose, as were
many of the early Christians, for…what?..300 years?

As to the claimed “foreshadowings”…I don’t think so.
I’ll have to rely on the resurrection.

Best,
reen12
 
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reen12:
Uh, Judaism looks for a solely human Messiah, who

will restore Israel and bring about the Kingdom of God.

To maintain that:

is incredible, to me.

“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One”

not three Persons in One…One.

Three “Persons” is considered blasphemy in Judaism.

Judaism pre-dates Christianity by 3500 years.

To say that Jesus is Messiah is an assertion of belief.

4500 years of: Sh’ma Yisroel Adonoy Eloheynu Adonoy Echod

has a certain…credibily…about it.

reen12
Click to expand...
Actually, asserting Jesus as the Messiah is an assertion of* fact.*

Modern Judaism is not exactly the same religion as that of the OT. Jesus is the Messiah of the OT saints. He’s not whatever modern day Jews say he is. This is nothign against Jews as a people, it’s just their religion has some serious errors.
 
reen12 said:
🙂 Hi, BibleReader,

What’s a “foreshadowing” for one is a “misintrepretation”
for others.

I was taught, as a kid, that the OT “foreshadowed”
the New. I accepted that.

50 years later, out of curiosity, I checked Judaic
sites, and those sites had some very credible refutations of the foreshadowing assertions.

In addition, I noticed that several of the sayings of
Jesus, that I thought were unique, actually were
from earlier Sages in Judaism.
Hmmmmm…
I wasn’t necessarily surprised by that, since Jesus
was an Orthodox Jew…as were Joseph and Mary,
and Jesus undoubtedly had read or heard these
sagacious sayings, growing up.

The pivotal point is: Did Jesus rise from the dead?
As St. Paul said: If Christ has not risen, our faith
is in vain.
Billions of Christians later, the resurrection seems
quite probable.
But, then, there are billions of Buddhists and
followers of Hinduism as well.

The best argument I can think of, for Jesus being
Messiah, is that the Apostles were willing to suffer
death for their testimony that Jesus rose, as were
many of the early Christians, for…what?..300 years?

As to the claimed “foreshadowings”…I don’t think so.
I’ll have to rely on the resurrection.

Best,
reen12
Click to expand...

I can tell by the way you are writing, reen, that you do not know what I am talking about.

The foreshadowings I am speaking of are so strong that Jews by and large find them shattering.
 
quote:BibleReader
The foreshadowings I am speaking of are so strong that Jews by and large find them shattering.
Click to expand...
Not “shattering”- rather*, “unconvincing.”*

As to the assertion of a “fact” - that is your belief, stated
as a “fact.” It may even be true. Still, it is a matter of
faith.
“Blessed are they who have not seen, yet believed.”

A Christian can provide the basis of his/her assertion,
as evidence of “fact”, but the hearer has to come to
see this evidence as true…which is* faith*, [accepting
an event and words spoken, 2000 years ago.]

If it were a fact, in the way that the circumference of the
equator is a “fact”, there’d be no need for faith.

In my experience, it is more credible to say:
“My belief is…” or “Our belief is…” and then live
in such a way, as to make those beliefs credible
to those around us.

The thing I am in sympathy with, in terms of Judaism,
is that it is* not* a prosyletizing faith. It draws people
to God by it’s way of life and it’s sense of the sacred.

Judaism will continue to say:
“Hear, O Israel…” whether I believe God to be a “fact”
or not. I think it is their disinterest in “convincing” me
of the “truth” of their faith, that makes that faith so
believable to me.

Christians, on the other hand, have been commanded to
“Go into the whole word, and preach the Good News.”

quote**:BibleReader**
I can tell by the way you are writing, reen, that you do not know what I am talking about.
Click to expand...
The difficulty is, I do know what you are talking about,
and I disagree with your position entirely.
Will you please provide me with your definition of the
word “assertion.”?

Many thanks,
reen12
 
For reen, a few of the Christ foreshadowings…

(1) Christ, beginning the Passion process to purchase with His suffering the grace needed to address sin and begin the sacrifice perpetuated in the Eucharistic sacrifice, retreats to the Garden of Gethsemane with the heads of this new Church He has “married,” and there He sweats blood:

When they heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Genesis 3:8. To the man he said: “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat,…By the sweat of your face shall you get bread to eat…” Genesis 3:17, 19.

(2) A crown of thorns is pressed down onto Jesus’ head:

To the man he said: “…Thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to you, as you eat of the plants of the field.” Genesis 3:17, 18.

(3) Jesus is made to carry His Own cross, His cross is planted in the dust at Skull Place, a feet feet below where His feet are nailed to the cross. Then, He is buried:

To the man he said: “Cursed be the ground because of you! In toil shall you eat its yield all the days of your life.” Genesis 3:17. Then the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, … I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” Genesis 3:14-15. “Until you return to the ground, from which you were taken; For you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return.” Genesis 3:19.
Mankind kills the Good Shepherd and buries him, with the ironic consequence that mankind is allowed to avoid “death” in Hell, and live forever.

Abel became a keeper of flocks, and Cain a tiller of the soil. Genesis 4:2. When they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Genesis 4:8. [T]he LORD said to him. “If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold.” So the LORD put a mark on Cain, lest anyone should kill him at sight. Genesis 4:15.
The Holy Spirit brings Christ the Incarnation to the Church at the time of the Annunciation.

Then he sent out a dove, to see if the waters had lessened on the earth. But the dove could find no place to alight and perch, and it returned to him in the ark, for there was water all over the earth. Putting out his hand, he caught the dove and drew it back to him inside the ark. Genesis 8:8-9 [where the dove holding Noah’s hand is coming into the boat is the Holy Spirit (“dove”) bringing Christ (“hand”) to the Church (“ark”)].

After forty days, Christ ascends to Heaven, not to come back until the end of time.

At the end of forty days Noah opened the hatch he had made in the ark, and he sent out a raven, to see if the waters had lessened on the earth. It flew back and forth until the waters dried off from the earth. Genesis 8:6-7.

The Holy Spirit, as the Paraclete, returns to the Church, bringing the grace of the cross to the Church.

He waited seven days more and again sent the dove out from the ark. In the evening the dove came back to him, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf! Genesis 8:10-11.

These “pictures” of Christ and of Christ’s salvation process go on and on and on and on.

When God has Abraham commence circumcisions, all Hebrew and Jewish males carry on their persons a symbol of Christ, the Stripped-and-Bloodied One! When the circumcision occurs, the penis is stripped and bloodied, just as Christ, at the time of His Passion, was stripped and bloodied! See Genesis 17.

When Abraham has Isaac carry the wood of Isaac’s own sacrifice, that is Christ carrying his cross. When Abraham has Isaac lay down upon the wood to be sacrificed, that is Christ laying upon the cross to be nailed to it. When Abraham substitutes-in a ram with its horns caught in a hedge, that is the sacrifice of the one crowned with thorns.
See Genesis 22.

When Jacob offers “choice kid meat” to his father, alone with bread and wine, while wearing “choice kid skin gloves,” to bribe his father into giving the blessing, that is a picture of Christ the blemishless lamb offering His Own sacrificed meat to His Father in return for salvation for mankind. Bread and wine are offered at the same time to tell us “A = B,” bread and wine = the “meat” being offered. See Genesis 27.
 
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