Jesus of Nazareth (162)

The following was taken from en.bibleinfo.com:

"The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Greek.

HISTORY OF TRANSLATIONS

The first translation of the English Bible was initiated by John Wycliffe and completed by John Purvey in 1388.

A few chapters of the books Ezra (ch. 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26) and Daniel (ch. 2:4 to 7:28), one verse in Jeremiah (ch. 10:11, and a word in Genesis (ch. 31:47) are written, not in ancient Hebrew, but in Aramaic. Aramaic is about as closely related to Hebrew as Spanish is to Portuguese. However, the differences between Aramaic and Hebrew are not those of dialect, and the two are regarded as two separate languages.

From which language was the KJV was translated. Here is how it came about: 54 college professors, preachers, deans and bishops ranging in ages from 27 to 73 were engaged in the project of translating the KJV. To work on their masterpiece, these men were divided into six panels: two at Oxford, two at Cambridge, two at Westminster. Each panel concentrated on one portion of the Bible, and each scholar in the panel was assigned portions to translate. As guides the scholars used a Hebrew Text of the Old Testament, a Greek text for the New. Some Aramaic was used in each. They consulted translations in Chaldean, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian and Dutch. And, of course, they used earlier English Bibles—at least six, including William Tyndale's New Testament, the first to be printed in English. So what language did they use? Everything that was available.

The first American edition of the Bible was probably published some time before 1752.

The Bible has been translated in part or in whole as of 1964 in over 1,200 different languages or dialects."

It is clear that great care and much time was taken in translating the text to the English version we know today. We can only surmise that scholars debated endlessly as to the true intent of each line and phrase settling upon one meaning to print however, it is still interpretation at best - a highly educated on to be sure - but still interpretation.

Even today, the Bible (mostly the Old Testament)is full of metaphors and obscure text that most of us need to read a few times to comprehend and even then our understanding may differ from our neighbours.

Having said this, it is easy to see how some may accept Jesus as "God" where others see him as an exceptional man. Either way, he was without question the father of Christianity. Should it really matter then which is truth so long as his teachings are followed and practiced by the faithful?

Ok i'll let the expert answer this one so i can have a chance to call bullsh&t too How did Mary the mother of Jesus get pregnant with Him?? No worries if you cant answer.

If Christians were following his teachings would Gandhi have said

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Now that statement, were it fact, would indeed be so true!

It is fact.

Which leads me to wondering about this ...

Is the only difference between a mortal Jesus of Nazareth and Gandhi the fact that organized religion was already in place when Gandhi was alive?

So, you meant to say this then?

"If Christians were following his teachings Gandhi would not have said"

Yes Bob, indeed. Thank you for saving me typing what we just discussed on MSN. I appreciate the correction

Many years ago i chose to be a "born again Christian,"as i was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition i found my original perception of Christianity a far more acceptable notion for how God should be. It did not take long before i realized that Christianity held all the same hypocrisies as the Roman Catholic Faith. Many followers of these religions share the same bi-polar mentality towards existence, both in thought and action, and rarely actually grasp the foundational meanings. They regurgitate meaningless words of love and forgiveness while their actions clearly show a different intent. To be clear, this is true of many organized religions as they tend to use ignorance in controlling the masses for their agendas. I agree 100% with Ghandi that if more of the followers of faith did actually follow the faith and not their agenda, than faith would be much more peaceful for all.