Great love for jesus led me to Islaam

My blind faith? ONE must not result in cheap insults, God does not find satisfaction in that. The bible states that there was 12 disciples, one we agree on. But let us now see now the roles of Mark and Luke.

When Jesus was placed under arrest Mark was there and witnessed this event and the Gospel according to Mathew states that Mark existed and this was why he wrote part of the Gospel. Because he was eye-witness. Luke also accompanied Paul on his missionaries when he converted into a Christian. Saul was blinded by the LORD'S light and thus was named again with the name Paul. As LUKE STATES at the beginning

Luke 1

Introduction

    ¹Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled^[a] among us, ²just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. ³Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning,

 

And a final note i stated that the four gospel writers ( synoptic) did witness the miracles of Christ. The above can only be written by those who had contact saw what the word of gOD achieved. It was you my dear freind who added the argument that only the 12 ate and drank and saw the miracles of Jesus thus removing the possibility that is was only these twelve who only did. A contrived way of thinking... the Bible teaches that many witnessed Jesus Resurrection and what about the famous feeding of the 5 THOUSAND.   When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. Then he took them with him and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, ¹¹but the crowds learned about it and followed him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.

    ¹²Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, "Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here."

    ¹³He replied, "You give them something to eat."

   They answered, "We have only five loaves of bread and two fish�unless we go and buy food for all this crowd." ¹⁴(About five thousand men were there.)

   But he said to his disciples, "Have them sit down in groups of about fifty each." ¹⁵The disciples did so, and everybody sat down. ¹⁶Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. ¹⁷They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

It is illogical to say that you need the name of all 5,000 to know how many people were with Jesus. This is the crux of this discussion.

   

Salaam

One of the problems I have heard is that since Turkey is trying to join the Europeans in all respects, the Christian Missionaries are taking advantage and are on the rampage in trying to convert people to Christianity...

So I guess this book might be good to translate into Turkish, perhaps when a new version comes out (The second version is already out)...

You have Muslim missionaries in England, im sure you can have in Turkey. But historically Turkey has been pre-dominantly Christian.

Before I begin analysing Cypriot Boy's reply, one thing uptill now is clear that he is not arguing about the point # 2, meaning thereby that he is either accepting this position or he has not enough knowledge about this subject. Whatever the case maybe, this point # 2 is therefore well settled and don't need further elaboration. I repeat this point again here just to keep the record clear.

 "2.   The Gospels were written in the Greek language while Jesus spoke Aramaic"

Now coming to point # 1, which is basically the authorship of these four gospels. Again, my brother Cypriot Boy, does seem to admit that Luke and Mark were not among the 12 disciples of the Jesus and only argues about they being the first hand witnesses among the masses who witnessed the miracles performed by Jesus. Kindly note the three references that he is presenting, one is specific occassion where he tend to allude the presence of Mark at the time of arrest of Jesus (quoted by Mathew) but then Cypriot Boy doesn't bother to provide the Biblical reference and two general references that Luke was also present around there when he was traveling with Paul and the second general reference is from multitude of people (around 5000) had witnessed the miracle performed by Jesus. Is this sufficient to assume that infact these two gentlemen actually authored the gospels which bears their name? Before we go into this claim, I even decline to admit the evidence brother Cypriot Boy has presented in the form of Luke 1 introduction. This passage clearly states that he is only verifying the account given to him by an eyewitness source. Thus he himself was not the eyewitness of this gospel. Here is what is written in this introduction and I am repeating it for ease of understanding "¹Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled^[a] among us, ²just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.  " In the second to 4 the passage of the same introduction it would be more clear about the time frame of the author of these passages. Here are the rest of them "

³Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, ⁴so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught. "

Someone who know little bit of Christian history would immediately realize the identity of "Theophilus" for which such an account was written by the author of these passages. However, those who don't know, can simply do a google search on his name and they would automatically know that this person was a Bishop of Antioch almost six generations after the time of Jesus (Death of Theophilus is estimated to be around 181 AD.) Here is reference for this info but it is not just one reference, many others can be obtained just by googling it down. http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/info/theophilus.html

So my brother Cypriot Boy, its rather encouraging that we can travel along this path to identify the truth. Let us come along and see what the present day Christian scholars talk about the authorship of these 4 synoptic gospels. As yet we are looking at just the two already admittedly known authors that they weren't among the 12 disciples. Now from the above evidence at least this author of "Gospel according to Luke" is out of our list of direct Witnesses. For the Mark, since you have not provided any specific reference from your Bible therefore I shall keep its burdon onto you till that time to comment anything about it.

However, I have already provided few links in other theards of this forum about the views the present Christian theologians have about the authorship of "gospel according to John" and I am just repeating the same cut and paste from that thread for the continuity of our discussion. But if you heavn't read it, let me know and I shall present the reference to this view as well over here.

"There are various opinions about the author of this Gospel.

1. John the apostle, brother to James and one of the sons of Zebedee.
2. The unnamed disciple (1:35-42; 18:15, 16; 20:3, 4, 8) referred to in the Gospel as the disciple whom Jesus loved (13:23; 19:26; 20:2).
3. John the elder, who identifies himself as the author of Revelation (Rev 1:1, 4, 9; 22:8). "

 

 

Cypriot Boy wrote: My blind faith? ONE must not result in cheap insults, God does not find satisfaction in that. The bible states that there was 12 disciples, one we agree on. But let us now see now the roles of Mark and Luke.

Hence you also conclude that they weren't amoung the 12 but just like us to see how could they be assumed to be the direct eye witness. First of all, if they weren't among the 12, I would not even consider any of testimony as they don't qualify to speak of anything about Jesus merely from a audeince standpoint of view. Can they claim to know everything about what Jesus taught and talked about? No, never ever. How can they be the eyewitnesses of all the details even the personal details about Jesus, if they were merely the bystanders of some of the occassions? Its not a blind faith then what do you call it? No sane person can accept their testimony, not atleast here in USA.

And a final note i stated that the four gospel writers ( synoptic) did witness the miracles of Christ. The above can only be written by those who had contact saw what the word of gOD achieved.

But your own quote from introduction to Luke refutes your assumption. His evidences are chain of transmission from the first eyewitness and not himself being the first witness. Kindly read the verse # 2 again and see what it tells us." ²just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word."

It was you my dear freind who added the argument that only the 12 ate and drank and saw the miracles of Jesus thus removing the possibility that is was only these twelve who only did.

Oh, so we are only looking at the possibliities here???. And what value we can be assigned to this possiblity. According to your estimates 2/5000 you said....Hmm. Do you think this is justified to consider this an authentic authorship. Don't you have any better than this number? I reasonably admitted the 12 disciples as they could, perhaps, may provide some more through and accurate testimony about Jesus, though the actual would have been direct account of Jesus himself. But now my brother is satisfied with the possiblities that too of 2/5000 or after going throught the account of introduction to gospel of Luke, it would be just 1/5000 or you may even argue that it should be 1/4999. Hmm...Need to travel a long distance. Nevertheless, I hope that this journey towards the truth shall enlighten us to find the ultimate truth.

......................It is illogical to say that you need the name of all 5,000 to know how many people were with Jesus. This is the crux of this discussion.

O my dear brother, where are you living? I am just asking for one name out of them who wrote the "Gospel according to Mark" (as author of Luke has been confirmed that he wasn't the eyewitness), based on solid evidence and not a flimsy possibility. Can you provide us this? I shall await till then. Take care.