Apparently you don't understand the duck test. On the internet, if it quacks like a duck it can be treated like a duck. If a handshake evinces knowledge of community tropes in username and first comment, it's clear it's somebody regular who is abusing an alt. If not actually an alt, he could complain via modmail and be apprised of the situation and perhaps even be given a provisional credit of some kind. But judgment about platform manipulation does take situational factors into account. The fact of several repetitions of the same behavior kinda confirms the first judgment.

Y'know, maybe I shouldn't feed a disruptor, but I wrote it so there it is.

Freedman wasn't a historian.

Variants of "Jew" begin in the 10th century, elision from Latin "Judaeus".

The Khazar hypothesis states Khazars joined Judahites already in Eastern Europe, not that they had no genetic connection to Judahites.

If some but not all have Khazar heritage, by what right do we say the Jews don't get to decide who are Jews if we want to prevent them from saying Americans don't get to decide who are Americans?

The link has nothing actionable. Freedman's theory is that two peoples can be distinguished and kept separate throughout history, but this doesn't agree with the facts. There was a Judahite people in diaspora and a Khazarian people in Khazaria, and they agreed to merge in that Khazarians were given citizenship and intermarriage rights with Judahites. In the 10th century the word "Ju" and homonyms was first noticed in French as a short form of Latin "Judaeus"; they were used synonymously. At the end of the 10th century the Khazars were conquered and didn't retain their identity as a people, even though those who had escaped continued to be accepted as Judahites.

Peoples have the rights to accept mergers and to decide for themselves what name they use. For Freedman's theory to work there would have to be no intermarriage and no unity of polity, but it's long recognized that Ashkenazi (largely descended from Khazarians) and Sephardi (largely descended from earlier Judahites) have different genes but equal citizenship, marriage rights, and unity of polity.

Separately, Bible passages were brought forward as if they applied to all Jews. Textually they don't at all, but it's also neglected that according to Acts 3-4, the crowd that called for Jesus's death also constituted hundreds of the first 5,000 catholic Christians. So that did a lot of work on reversing the curse. In the end it will be totally reversed, Romans 11.

For us to say the Jews are not Jews is tantamount to giving them permission to say the Americans are not Americans.

All the verses I quoted for pisteuo are active verbs. John 14:1 and Acts 19:4 are both imperative. The only difference is plural versus singular, and Paul uses the aorist which refers to a state of being rather than an immediate action, i.e., "be believing". But it's rare that one needs tense to interpret accurately what a text says.

On my own, I looked at all the classic discrepancies alleged in the Bible, and found that 100% of them rely upon assuming one knows better rather than looking into the culture to see if the person could have had a consistent meaning. The same is true of other holy books like the Quran; if you give the source credit you can resolve every charge of contradiction. The same is not true of any major narrative franchise or cinematic universe proposed nowadays: they all have admitted irreconcilable narrative gaps that are spotted by fans; some of them are retconned by special pleading, and some just ignored. Watson told Holmes he was shot in the arm, then later he was shot in the leg, with no evidence he was shot in both places, and the fans all know that and accept it. But the tensions in long-accepted texts are accepted by fans because they do have reconciliations, not because they are judged irreconcilable; that comes from a contrary spirit. This is why I'm so open to apocrypha and pseudepigrapha: because most of the time they really are reconcilable (and on occasion, when the fans themselves did point out a true impossibility, that remains known and accepted as a reason for the text to have lesser status than others). All the 19th-century skepticism against the Bible rejected the text as culturally transmitted and stood against it to fight it; in prior eras nobody could mass together to do that.

Kabbalah means "received" and should have meant any formal teaching. I pointed out that the same word, in Greek, was used for the confession of the resurrection in the 30s, as evidenced later. It was used by proto-orthodox, by gnostics, by rabbinicals, and by Essenes for their formal creeds and symbols. Only the rabbinical strand retained it as the word "kabbalah", so nowadays it means a narrative containing ten core attributes, the withdrawal of light and the divine spark, and the return of human superpowers, very much like gnosticism with its aeons. Its only problem is if it denies the nature of God while getting sidetracked with its human advancement.

Like I said before Jesus came to teach a message of love and forgiveness and spiritual transformation. There's nothing to prove here.

If it's not proven to someone that love is the way, the message doesn't click. Love requires both the spirit and the mind; if I fail by losing focus on either, I apologize.

This takes me back to the council of Nicaea in 325 AD, where Emperor Constantine and the bishops chose which gospels would be canonized and which would be hidden or destroyed. The alternative gospels, Gospel of Thomas a collection of sayings of Jesus given secretly to the apostles, those that gave Mary Magdalene her true power, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Truth, The Gospel of the Egyptians and many more were rejected, their teachings suppressed for centuries. These gospels were branded heresy. Their wisdom was forbidden. And the memory blurred until only fragments remained.

Didn't happen, fren. There's no Nicene action about the Scriptural canon. I find that Jerome mentioned that Nicea used Judith in its deliberations, but canonization happened later. There was no suppression of any document there except the writings of Arius, there was no branding any of these as heresy, there was no forbidding their reading. The Gospel of Thomas found was dated 340; its use was noted by Cyril in the 4th century and continued by Manichaeans in the 5th. The Gospel of Mary didn't circulate enough to get much notice from the church, it appears to be 2nd-century origin from its framing, and only has a couple Coptic and Greek manuscripts. The Gospel of Philip also circulated into later in the 4th century, though its origin may be 3rd-century in Syriac thought. The Gospel of Truth which we have may have been one rejected by Irenaeus, or may have been written in the 4th century, but it had enough literary merit that it circulated quite awhile and was knowably related to (but distinct from) Valentinian gnosticism. The Gospel of the Egyptians (Coptic), with five ogdoads, Sakla creating archons, is also late in Nag Hammadi but I don't see its immediate provenance (it sounds quite late with its developments).

So, trying to make the best reconciliation of your statement, what I find is: (1) Constantine did make up a list, exact contents unknown, of books to be included in 50 Bibles he ordered for printing for Constantinople; this is not likely equal to the dual canon that arose later. (2) There are no acts through the 4th century calling for destruction of old texts circulating among Christians besides those of Arius. (3) Nag Hammadi did take it on itself to protect (and lose track of) a number of the alternative books, which very few others were able to do; yet this was not active suppression or rejection. (4) There were individuals who deprecated individual books in exactly the same way any opinion was raised against any book, including some of the canonical books like Hebrews, 1-3 John, and Revelation. (5) The boundary between heresy and orthodoxy was pretty straightforward at this time, with the only blurry one being that Valentinus was condemned 200 years later (I can't prove that his works were burned) and some of the circulating works echo Valentinianism.

To paint a narrative in which a coordinated power actively suppressed and rejected apocrypha and pseudepigrapha would go against the fact that when there was active suppression and rejection we have clear marks of it. Now we could try the conspiracy theory that the powers subtly coached Christians toward accepting some and forgetting about others, without overt action, which is indeed a general trend that happens over centuries, but that potential framing doesn't agree with yours. What actually happens is that leaders either condemn books on their own initiative as voices in a continuum, or groups give formal condemnation in the cases of clearly defined heresies like that of Arius, or certain books are promoted to the neglect of other books. But for the most part Christian leaders allowed ideas to circulate so that they could be proven right or wrong, and only judged heresies after long periods of circulation. The idea that Christian emperors secretly judged writings to be detrimental to their retaining power is belied by their not taking formal action against them; I wouldn't have a problem with counting these emperors as engaging an informal war of attrition against them when noticed, but the manuscripts were too weakly supported already to be worthy of formal imperial attention.

But those fragments, those forbidden lines and half buried stories, refuse to die.

I'm all for going to all the sources, there's tremendous much in Egyptology for instance. They give alternatives of what was thought at the time. It rarely means that those at the time were all wrong and the hidden text was all correct; it usually only means that our current understanding has occasional neglected aspects. Considering all the uncovered stories we've now accessed, I don't see that much in the way of significant error. I'm pretty active about one such error, the loss of 7th-day Sabbath, but after 25 years of investigation I was finally able to reconcile church practice with the actual meaning of the 7th day, and I think such reconciliation is available for any gnostic tension.

When I say there's no evidence, it's an invitation for evidence (manuscripts and archaeology) to be produced. I greatly appreciate your producing narrative, which I judge on the likelihood of its fit to the known evidence.

Yes, Gnostics were subjected to censorship. However, it is known that efforts to destroy Gnostic texts were largely successful, resulting in the survival of very little writing by Gnostic thinkers and theologians. And yes, Gnostics were persecuted. Gnostic groups were often persecuted as a result of being declared a heresy. The response of orthodoxy to gnosticism significantly defined the evolution of Christian doctrine and church order. After gnostic and orthodox Christianity parted, Gnostic Christianity continued as a separate movement in some areas for centuries.

I don't see it. I see that Irenaeus ridiculed Valentinus, and Hippolytus condemned Naassenes, which would obviously chill some gnostic speech locally, but that is not censorship. There was no hierarchical structure and Irenaeus worked by voluntaryism and bridge-building, not authoritarianism. I don't see efforts to destroy gnostic texts. I see that gnostic teachers had a bad habit of mostly not committing to writing texts. As I said, Manichaeanism was the chief surviving aspect of gnosticism because it contained reconcilable elements instead of being a personality cult. Tertullian rehabilitated it, and then Augustine claimed what could still be retained of its usefulness. I might grant you that Theodosian I created a "parting of ways" in 381 or 382 (not under the name gnosticism but Manichaeanism), but I see nothing about suppression of the gnostic system in those edicts, only about generic (loosely enforced) deprecation of teachings against trinitarianism. There was no formal schism event for gnosticism that I see, and I try to find all the schism events!

There's no denial the persecution of Gnostics took place, for example, during the Inquisition and the Albigensian Crusade.

I didn't think we were talking about medieval times because that isn't about the Roman empire's fears but about the HRE's fears, which is quite different.

Peter the fisherman has a career described in the gospels and the two letters attributed to him. Why would I doubt his place as a unique leader among the disciples? Maybe you're trying to ask if I think him supreme as opposed to primary?

I also have no problem with greater study on the role of every Mary and other woman in the NT. It is very traditional to regard the Virgin Mary as a mirror for the divine feminine, and there's evidence this also transfers to Mary Magdalene (though some gnostics transferred it to their own love interests, which was generally regarded as a warning sign because demonstrably abused much more than used). I don't think Magdalene was silenced. The oral tradition that went into the Gospel of Mary was not strong, but now we have it and it fits with the rest. But what's overlooked is that the diatesseron gospels, whose glorification and ennoblement of women is now banally familiar to us, were cutting-edge at the time in their promotion of the feminine and contradicted the suppression of women in most other contemporary Hebrew, Greek, or Latin texts. So Mary was not silenced, but she was given a nonpareil place as first witness of the resurrection and her influence was demonstrated in hundreds of cases of Christian promotion of femininity. The fact that the Gospel of Mary is within that trend, and has a few unique aspects not found elsewhere, is not a real loss of any doctrine of femininity.

Similarly, Christians made exceeding much of the character of Sophia as depicted in their sourcetexts like Proverbs 8. They overcame Greek abstractions by presenting a real power compatible with the many prior indications in Judaism, and this overlapped with their high view of the Virgin and others. This is why they didn't neatly accept a message that Sophia ever erred, or indeed that the Virgin Mary ever did. It seems to me that every case that can be made, saying that something about females is neglected, can be answered by demonstration from orthodox tradition that it was not neglected but promoted. The primary contribution of the Gospel of Mary is the mystic experience, which is echoed in later anchorite traditions of gnosis and theoria; that experience developed from the first century but was only hinted at it in small bits and has taken centuries for any movement to get well-established views about. So I don't see much there for a story of silencing. We could certainly theorize together that certain truths were omitted or sidelined, but if they are really truths they can be tested objectively!

Thanks so much! I'll just add three comments from handshakes that are of the same character and leave it there for tonight (I really appreciate the review):

• u/ErnestWorrell - Does anyone else see a white collar, tie and jacket in the above sigil? https://propercloth.com/images/collars_overview/english_spread/tie_thumb.jpg

• u/KarlSumeran - Maybe this made them do it: https://x.com/AdameMedia/status/2007248844585873632

• u/Xsaymoklash - 155. But for their violation of their covenant, and their denial of Allah’s revelations, and their killing of the prophets unjustly, and for their saying, “Our minds are closed.” In fact, Allah has se

Holy cow Sunday School is over, you failed, and I'm done with you. I have more important things to do with my time than have a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

Thanks for the projection. The one true god and I get along just fine in our unity and diversity. You're actually talking to one of the people most sympathetic to Arius that you'll ever find, but suit yourself.

Thank you for being so responsive! Some of these may have been in queue merely because the autofilter held them but without true rule-based reason. It'd probably be more efficient for me to just message you a proposed list when it's done. I appreciate your attentiveness.

u/Thisisnotanexit, deletion reason not evident from title and thumbnail. Thanks for your attention.

Thisisnotanexit removed post by StolenCBSContent1 - 9/11 Predictive Programming Video

u/Thisisnotanexit, deletion reason not evident from title and thumbnail. Thanks for your attention.

Thisisnotanexit removed post by LastEvidence - Satanic leftists are trying to create an ICE storm in Minneapolis

The word used here πιστεύω (pisteúō) means to obey.

Don't know where you're getting that, pisteuo is the verb and pistis is the noun of the same thing, and the cluster of concepts is faith, belief, trust. Obedience is allied to these, and theologically manifests alongside them, but it's not the same thing. The actual Greek for hearken or obey is hypakouo G5219, which Jesus doesn't use about our relation to him. But Paul uses the same pisteuo G4100 as Jesus uses in the same way, Acts 16:31, 19:4, Gal. 2:16, Phil. 1:29, 1 Tim. 1:16. So even if there were distinction between pisteuo and pistis, Paul and Jesus are saying the same thing with pisteuo.

Ehrman is credentialed but not the guy you want for history as he has an axe to grind. However, if you choose to take his view against those who count Luke the most exact and accurate historian of the era, the message of Jesus can be proven without Luke, Acts, Paul, or Hebrews, if you like.

The Gnostics called it the divine spark.

So did the kabbalists, who informed Talmudism. But unless there's evidence they were more inspired than Matthew, Mark, and John, I stick with the direct testimony of what Jesus said, and he said "image" to reflect the language of Genesis. It's not that relevant what it's called, as long as we are clear on what it is.

But without the window, the light does not enter the room. All you have to do is create a space within your mind. That's what Buddhists do, just pay attention. In that gap lives your freedom. In that gap the spark becomes perceptible. The Gnostic teachers called this gap the bridal chamber.

I.e., the union of Christ and his bride. This doesn't happen without the will of both Christ and the bride. Thomas similarly describes the union of Self and Other (though this is partial). The kingdom manifests both within and without at the same time. (And, all of that seems the same in Jesus and in Paul.)

You are simply noticing what was always there.

Yes, always there but inactive until awoken.

It existed before this body and will exist after.

The divine nature preexisted; the image or "spark" is newly manifested at conception but its preexistence is in the divine plan, which is a little different but compatible.

Not as audible voices, not as visions, as knowing.

That's a fair way of saying it's internal. When guidance comes externally, it must be tested as it may be divine or it may be creaturely and brought to you as a test.

Igniting the divine spark means reclaiming your true identity.

I'll affirm that because it reminds me Jesus and Paul did use lots of fire language. One that comes to mind, often ignored, is 2 Tim. 1:6, "Stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands"; that's definitely a fire reference.

You don't need faith, all you need is recognition, that is recognize the divine spark in you.

What is your meaning for "faith" here? When I recognize something, I believe it. Perhaps you mean no further propositions are needed for "belief" than a core recognition of the divine? Oh, but that's Heb. 11:6, which interestingly doesn't mention Jesus.

Lucifer did not create your divine spark. He created the cage that surrounds it. And he appointed the archons to guard that cage and keep you from remembering what you truly are.

I don't attribute any creation or appointment to him. I don't count the physical as any prison; 1 Peter 3:19 said that death (separation) was the prison. The whole idea of the physical being a mistake comes from that cosmology, informed by Egypt and Greece, that attempts to get the Monad off the hook for evil existing but just complicates the narrative, as I've said. If John the Baptist can begin to testify from the womb, it seems that the fictive prison threats and guards are not able to convince everyone they are real. What good does it do to your system to give them any credit instead of just to say that all their pretense at control is just part of their deception? Why should we make lucifer out to be more powerful than Jesus says he is?

Jesus's message is about compassion of forgiveness. Not about Moses or Caesar.

I quoted you how he applied it to Moses and Caesar. He said to submit to both of them what is their due. The spiritual message you cite, poverty of spirit, doesn't contradict that.

To me that's just another way of defining censorship.

Censorship is active, official suppression. There's no evidence church leaders suppressed all the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha; they relied heavily on Maccabees, Odes of Solomon, Didache, and quoted and circulated many others, including uncountable patristics. It's just that known apostolic books got quoted and circulated much more. I'm trying to think of a way where a lower level of attention (by leaders who were regularly persecuted) somehow connotes active, official animus, and I don't see it. I do see that Constantine personally censored Arius in 325 as a civil matter, requiring his works to be burned up on pain of death, but Arius was no gnostic and this has nothing to do with texts that circulated with public approval.

Summary: I've been looking for support for your distinctives and not finding it, while I'm happy to agree with a number of statements you make that are found in more systems than your own and often in the Bible or in Thomas. If you want to deprecate Luke and Paul, they're gravy but we can learn the truth without them (of course, Peter says Paul is Scripture, but that's a point that need not be made tendentious). If you want to glorify lucifer and the archons, you're free to do that but I don't participate and I think in the long run it's unhelpful to you. About my only concern is that I'm seeing a trend of the way you see things not lining up with the texts or with the history as we have them. When that's the case, the texts and history might be wrong, but it takes a good preponderance of evidence to overcome them. And by evidence I mean that which manifests to the spirit (the image or "spark"), because one word of truth dispels a multitude of lies. To tell people that I perceive this to be true and I perceive a massive, intersupportive collection of evidence to be all false, I need to present extraordinary evidence. (I do this all the time when I defend young earth against evolutionists, or lightspeed decay against physicists, or conspiracy facts against journalists.) It's not enough for me to perceive it, because I must test my own perception too when it might be deceiving me. When I do this, I agree that there are unrepaired difficulties in the mainstream narrative of Christian development, but I disagree that they affect the core. There are unresolved concerns in gnostic texts, but they can be harmonized without need of rejecting tradition. So I think you are on a good track, while it's those unsupported assertions that seem unnecessary that appear to me to be dampers on the robustness of your message. And, I'll repeat for my own sake, it may well be that the "spiritual body" has the freedom both to use and to eschew the material, and that Origenist harmony seems like it might address a core concern of gnostics from the very start.

What in the World are They Spraying? by G. Edward Griffin.

Community Rules

I agree with discussion but it need not be a roundtable since it's already going. Maybe a little more formality or analysis structure there.

I imagine we'll have the specific answer to that in due time, when the war ends. The signals that he permitted were the unusual public statements, including the public webpage declaration that his and Pence's terms in the 45th administration ended early. I doubt that Trump had zero control over significant events of the 46th.

Indeed, while Trump is enforcing some laws he's still in the rookie numbers range after 1 year, on no track to undo everything he permitted to be done during term 46. It's noted that the new Epstein replacement(s) are already in place, for us to hunt, and SRA and trafficking haven't slacked. A grand catharsis of arrests won't undo this and will make people wrongly think the job is done. I'm concerned that at some point in or before 2029 there will be massive regime changes faster than those Trump-aligned ones we've seen, and the next beast will be revealed. Each one is a dry run for the final, and my guess is that there will be a 2029 beast and he will not be the final but will be the best attempt to date and an end-to-end run (trying the full 7-year cycle as Arafat 1993-1994, Bush 2001, Obama 2008, and Clinton 2015-2016 did).

It says "be respectful" and "respect other views and opinions", not just those of contributors. When I demonstrate a view, opinion, or behavior as wrong, I still must have the human decency to respect that there's a person behind it who must have a reason for it. Using a slur for some characteristic of birth or faith is judging the innocent along with the guilty. But this might be a good thing to discuss in a roundtable about who are the levels of the exousiai.

How can he be one and true and God all at the same time, since those are three names or attributes? Diversity and unity always appear together and one.

Jesus mission was not to bring a Law, but to demonstrate it.

Okay, to fulfill what was already brought, yes.

He came to end the need for religion by showing the direct path to divine consciousness.

James 1:26-27 promoted true religion. Jesus contrasted that with vain religion (vain worship), Matt. 15:9, Mark 7:7. The word itself is neutral. I think what Jesus ended is more rightly called legalism.

He didn't die for your sins.

When 1 Cor. 15:3 says "I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures", scholars are agreed that "received" means an oral creed "Christ died for our sins" was circulating formally among the apostles 2-5 years after the resurrection. 1 Peter 2:24 has it, "His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed." There are several theological theories on the meaning, but in addition to nullifying sin he certainly also removed sin from us, bearing the illusion away. These distinctions sound semantic.

He didn't perform miracles. He demonstrated natural laws that include consciousness as a creative force.

Yeah, mostly, because the meaning of miracle has changed. The Bible calls them miracles in the sense of "unexplained". When people know the natural laws he used, they become more "explained", more commonplace and less wondrous. So both he and we perform the unexplained in our eras.

Jesus said you must know what you are, not believe.

I showed you John 14:1 and I don't know your thoughts on it. When Jesus speaks of knowing yourself it's in more of a negative sense, Luke 9:55, but it doesn't contradict the much greater emphasis he places on knowing him, John 17:3 etc. Why would knowing yourself contradict Jesus's statement to believe in God and in himself?

His message clearly says: you are a divine spark temporarily housed in a material body.

Calling it a "spark" isn't clear at all; he obviously taught on the "image" of God in man, Matt. 22:20 ff. He constantly affirmed the covenant reliance on the resurrection of the body and on the difference between this age and the coming age, and those two traditions balanced the temporal and the everlasting. Yes, 2 Peter 1:13-14 speaks of putting off this tabernacle without speaking of what is to come, but I acknowledged the mystery by pointing out that there may not be a conflict between the Christian tradition of general resurrection and the power to manifest as spiritual instead of material-pragmatic. So framing the message this way doesn't seem the "clearest" form.

You are not your fears. You are not your failures. You are not the story the world has told you about yourself. You carry the light of the Monad. You do not ask. You do not beg. You do not request. You speak as what you are. As a declaration of what is already true at the deepest level of existence. This is the revolution that Jesus started. This is the truth that has been hidden. This is the power that has always been ours.

Okay.

On the other hand Paul's teachings are on belief: Faith in Jesus, Predestination (he argues that faith is a gift from God, not something self-generated), Conversion and Belief in the Resurrection.

Jesus taught faith (believing) in himself. The apostles taught predestination, Acts 4:28, in accord with the tradition saying all is foreknown and determined and yet free will is given. Now, you make a distinction between faith being a gift (not the literal language of Eph. 2 though) and faith being something one does, but those are two sides of the same coin. You can't have faith without believing, and you can't have faith without the gift of God being involved (none come unless the Father draws them, John 6:44). So the two always manifest together, implying they are the same thing. Jesus taught conversion, Matt. 18:3, and he taught that he was the resurrection, John 11:25. So I see that if you think that believing and being given faith are contradictory, you'd have a problem, but why would they be contradictory? Whatever man does, God is doing the work of ensuring man does it.

He radically changed the meaning of faith and religion itself.

Still looking.

Before Paul, faith meant lived experience. Faith meant your relationship with the divine that you cultivated through practice, through study, through ethical living. Faith was something you experienced directly.

Faith is tied to that but isn't precisely synonymous. Lately this might be called "faith walk" or "working faith". James 2:18 says we show faith by what we do, so they are different. Yet he emphasizes faith always accompanies this relationship and experience.

But Paul introduced a new concept. Faith became belief. Faith became accepting certain propositional claims. Jesus is the son of God. Jesus died for your sins. Jesus was resurrected. If you believe these things, you're saved. If you don't believe them, you're damned. This is radically different. This makes debate about theological positions not about lived spiritual experience.

"Pistis" is translated both faith and belief. Now, I agree with the criticism that faith is more than propositional trust but involves personal trust in the individual; James 2:19-20 agrees too. And I agree with the idea that it shouldn't be oversimplified, although 1 John gives several simple tests distinguishing saved from damned that are very propositional. But these tests work because they rightly reflect whether the person has the whole relationship or not. What we've corrupted that into is the idea that saying the words is a free ticket and lifestyle is irrelevant, but in the culture your words would be proven by your lifestyle. And Paul didn't change that, it came much later. Debate about theological position isn't very effective (unless it distinguishes the god one believes in from another); experience in Christ's body is indeed everything. But that's why I'm working with you experientially (even as I present texts to you as I experience them).

So on this point, I agree there is a difference between propositional faith and the personal faith Jesus taught, but taking everything Paul said he is not teaching mere propositional faith in Eph. 2 and should not be taken as if he is.

Paul also introduced a concept of miracles as explanatory devices. If something doesn't make logical sense, it's a miracle. How was Jesus born of a virgin? Miracle. How did Jesus walk on water? Miracle. How was Jesus resurrected? Miracle. The function of miracles in Paul's theology is to explain away contradictions and inconsistencies. Don't question the logical problems. Don't try to understand it rationally. Just accept it as miraculous.

Well, the disciples accepted "miracles" in the sense "unexplained", throughout the gospels and indeed as a mark of Jesus's character in secular sources. Obviously some things happen that we don't have explanation for, and even good scientists admit that despite the fullness of the known laws of physics. It would be silly to say Jesus did nothing unexplained because we've found all the explanations, or worse to say it's because Jesus couldn't possibly have used deeper laws we haven't explained yet. It's unclear what you're going for. If you're saying any account of Jesus doing something inexplicable is spurious, that would mean we should talk about whether we understand all the laws of the world or whether there are still unknowns. But if Jesus did rise from the dead bodily, then there's no problem in saying so and calling it a miracle, and raising people from the dead bodily ourselves.

Another major innovation was elevating tradition above scripture. Paul's church, which eventually became the Catholic Church, taught that tradition, the teachings passed down through church authority is more important than the Bible itself.

The Bible was still open canon then. Peter and Jude followed the same rules by which their Hebrew Bible was approved, saying that new Scriptures might arise that were equal to the old; only John was able to discern when the canon closed. Thus if it was passed down from authority (as the OT was) and accepted by many generations of believers, it became a Scriptural teaching; if it didn't, like the Didache (which is very good teaching), it was treated as secondary and often forgotten. Paul rejects mere human tradition, Col. 2:8, like Mark 7:13, but I see he also affirms received tradition, 2 Thess. 2:15, 3:6. But this word, which means "received" or "delivered", also refers to what Jesus received from the Father to share with us, Matt. 11:27, 25:14. I don't see anything about tradition transcending the Bible. After creeds were formed, an impression could be taken that they were regarded as more important than Biblical texts, but good churches affirm they are merely summaries of the inspired Bible. So this sounds like a criticism of medieval Christianity, not of Paul.

In fact, for most of Christian history, ordinary people were not allowed to read the Bible. The Bible was kept in Latin, which most people didn't understand. Only priests could read it and interpret it because the church taught that if ordinary people read the Bible, they might misinterpret it. They don't have the spiritual authority to understand it correctly.

That was a major medieval error, but hardly "most of Christian history" because the disuse of Latin only crept in maybe about the 8th or 9th century, and vernacular Bibles were published from maybe the 12th century on. That really has little to do with Paul.

So religious truth comes not from direct study of sacred text but from submission to church authority. The church tells you what to believe and you believe it. That's faith.

Do you submit to what direct study of sacred text reveals? I've cited much sacred text. We all have personal duty to interpret rightly. But, as with math, the same text gives the same core answers to everyone. If you doubt the view of the majority, you stand on your conscience while also seeking whether a miscommunication or semantic difference might solve the disharmony. Again, the Reformation happened because the medieval church abused the personal duty to interpret (i.e. prohibiting personal interpretation), but the other direction of abuse (i.e. wrong interpretation) is also a problem.

But, all his innovations serve institutional power. So there 's no issue for Rome. They make religion about control, about hierarchy, about obedience to authority rather than about direct spiritual experience.

Reformers have always agreed that institutional power and hierarchy are easily corrupted and need regular auditing.

Because at this time, there were many people, especially Jewish Christians, who hated Paul. They believed Paul had corrupted the teachings of Jesus. They believe Paul was a traitor who had sold out to Rome.

Yes, and those who did believed the same of the other apostles, and treated them the same.

Jesus taught the exact opposite of submission to any authority.

Why did he say to honor everything that comes from Moses's seat, and everything belonging to Caesar?

Paul takes Jesus’s message of spiritual autonomy from the Monad and reconstructs it as a message of spiritual submission.

Autonomy means law unto oneself. Jesus and Paul taught we are judged by a law external to oneself. We have managerial (limited) autonomy in the sense of responsibility, and, when we take the law into our own hands rather than uphold the external we've received, that's where our responsibility and limited autonomy fails as a result of the total autonomy of the Monad. Once again you're getting this word "autonomy" that isn't in the text, and I don't know why you speak as if your words not in the text are better summaries than the text itself.

Jesus says “listen to my words”, Paul says “believe me of who Jesus is”.

Paul appeals to Jesus's words just as other apostles do. They all experienced Jesus's words and invite others to experience them, initially mediated by them as teachers until we are mature enough to experience them immediately for ourselves. Paul said, "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1), meaning that when he fails to follow Christ we are not to follow him (Gal. 1:8). Paul never says "believe me" (though he might affirm that Isaiah 52 says "believe me"). Why do you say this?

Later the Roman Empire's adoption of Christianity under Constantine wasn't the triumph of spiritual truth over paganism that Church teaches today. It was the hijacking of a liberation movement and its transformation into a control system. Constantine needed a version of Christianity that would support imperial authority, not undermine it.

Okay.

The Gnostic teachings with their emphasis on individual direct experience and their rejection of external religious authority were completely incompatible with maintaining an empire built on hierarchy and control. The Council of Nicaea in 325 CE wasn't really about establishing the correct doctrine. It was about eliminating any version of Christianity that could make people spiritually independent.

Gnosticism had essentially disappeared before then; it had migrated into Montanism, Ebionitism, and other more sustainable systems. These forms did persist after Nicea and were not persecuted over experience or conscientious disagreement with other authorities; the only deprecation was over teaching a different Jesus or different gospel, but disagreements between churches were routinely hammered out by focus on unity (until the bishop of Rome started the idea of demanding submission, which was some time after Nicea). Nicea didn't "eliminate" any version of Christianity except by deprecating Arianism, which survived for centuries in western Europe anyway. Yes, independence was lost over time, I agree with you in mourning that, but that's why we had a Reformation. It's not related to Paul.

The Gospel of Thomas was rejected because it taught the kingdom is within you.

They weren't rejected, they just never rose to become Scripture. The "kingdom within" was accepted as gospel.

the official narrative has significant problems

I agree. What it doesn't show is how to correct the narrative or how blaming Paul does any good. The whole true narrative can be shown without any reference to Paul, because people were already showing the whole true narrative before Paul came.

I'm asking questions about what is true and you're not answering. Do you want people to repent and turn to the one true God? But how can he be one and true and God all at the same time, since those are three names or attributes? Of course diversity and unity have a perfect reconciliation. If you want people to repent, you don't make it hard for them by avoiding simple questions.

So why do you attempt to summarize his position without reference to his actual words? And what is the right way to talk about it? And

Why do you say "To discover the name and the source from which it comes is to understand" if a name and a source are two? It's possible for a name and a source to be one, but two concepts are seen just like you have two eyes but are one person. How could there be a monism without any distinction in it? As soon as you conceive of it, you conceive that it is not what it isn't, and that means it is revealed as plurality at the same time as it is revealed in another aspect as monism.

Why do you say his position is "God as three" or "God having a human son as God" when those words are not in any Bible?

Why do you say "To discover the name and the source from which it comes is to understand" if a name and a source are two? It's possible for a name and a source to be one, but two concepts are seen just like you have two eyes but are one person. How could there be a monism without any distinction in it? As soon as you conceive of it, you conceive that it is not what it isn't, and that means it is revealed as plurality at the same time as it is revealed in another aspect as monism.

IANAL for all intents and purposes. However, I interpret the law as a sovereign human. But that's not legal advice. Pleased to meet you.

Predetermination, Freewill, and Souls

Absolutely! Have you considered that none of them contradict one another?

Looks like I'm on my way to voting every suggestion up.

No, I'm just a guy who came here after J6 representing SwampRangers.com, being a volunteer for Scott Lively. By God's grace I obtained a nice modship by being in the right place at the right time, and have had the same kind of contact with admins as anyone. What I said is my best guess based on everything I've seen revealed here. I appreciate your attributing me with being an admin alt, but they are just as mysterious with me as with anyone. Doggos reported that there are 4 owners with 24% and one with 4% to break ties, and I believe that, but I don't know who any of them are, and they were all well settled long before I approached this site to share the Swamp Rangers goals in 2021. What you've already posted is pretty well the extent of what I've seen, I couldn't add to what you've already seen.

Are you referring to the UN/Lancet report that extrapolated from reported deaths and used a multiplier to estimate how many Palestinians died from all causes attributable to war over two years? And calling all such deaths "killing"? Are you willing to wait until the UN court hears and answers South Africa's formal charges of genocide against Israel?

I gave you two dates before 3 BC (add: and before 3rd century BC), one was about Solomon's son; sounds like you're reading too quickly.

Yes, Moses, David, and Solomon are generally unattested as such in archaeology. But the Hyksos expulsion of the 1530s BC is well-attested in archaeology, and it involves hundreds of thousands of Semites leaving the realm of Aravis (Goshen) and returning to the Levant.

There are many more records. If you judge them the same way Egyptian and Sumerian history are judged, you obtain the evidence you seek. Every time I've tested this I've found it true.

However, I respect that you have a body of evidence and disagree, which is why I asked you questions that you don't seem to have answered. You make an extraordinary claim that the entire gamut of Biblical characters are not historical, but we have inscriptions and records about Caesar Augustus and Pontius Pilate, about Nebuchadnezzar and Artaxerxes. So your claim appears insufficiently stated. I'm interested in your theory of how the alleged deception could have happened historically, and what the historical proof is, and what you think humanity ought to do as a result. If you answer by batting away my questions, it might indicate to people that you have no argument and are just overreaching.