Does Jesus Love You? Hate Your? Conditionally So?

Yeah Prodigal, and interestingly enough John which xover says "plainly" says Jesus' trial was before Passover also says in John 13 that Jesus and the apostles had a Passover meal before the trial.

So John's account itself lends itself to the Passover on different days idea. You could also make a good argument that the meal Jesus had before His trial was not technically a Passover meal. Point is, there are no contradictions.
 
It appears that some claim that I am misreading John. Or, worse, that I am intentionally twisting the words of John. That is simply not true. Let's examine the critical portions of the book of John. I refer to the King James version of the bible since that is the version many evangelical Christians believe is the one, true "holy" interpretation of the bible.The first key passage appears at John 13:1. I will include verse 2 for context:
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Every gospel says that Jesus died on the preparation day. So I don't know how you can claim a big conspiracy about John's account.

If nothing else, you can't claim that this issue is as plain and clear as you think. It takes careful reading, much thought, and it helps to understand the context of history and culture.

That in no way diminishes the fact that God superintended these writings. I don't have the same expectation as you that God had to make everything easy. The Bible says in Proverbs that we need to look for truth like we look for a treasure.

The truth about the timing of Jesus' trial can be understood but it takes more than a casual perusal of the Bible.

One thing to consider is in the 1st century, people didn't try to use language as exact as we do today. In the Hebrew language itself, there are things that can't be understood, like whether a sentence is a statement or a question, without the context.

The Passover is a week long celebration with meals each day. Regardless of your claims there is some variation with how people understood the beginning of a day and when Nisan 14 started vs. Nisan 15. And there is some variation with how the word Passover can be used. It can be used to mean the meal. It can mean the day of the meal. It can mean the week long festival.
 
Actually, Monahans, I don't see why it takes so much thought.

I've actually quoted the relevant verses out of John and Matthew. I've done the biblical research for you.

I'm guessing you don't like what the verses say, but they say what they say. And they are not confusing, each internally.

They are only confusing when they are compared together under the umbrella that the bible is somehow "perfect."
 
Let's not be too self-important. We all need to do the observation for ourselves. Nobody should ever accept another's biblical research for themselves. I think that is true for all areas of knowledge actually. At the same time no person can live in isolation and it is important to consider others' work. For that I thank you.

If you want to believe there are contradictions, then no more thought needs to be given. You can say, I have detected a contradiction and leave your analysis at that.

For anyone who really wants to know if these are really contradictions, more thought and consideration is necessary. This is true in any realm of knowledge.

When you look at the facts of Hebrew culture and language, one quickly sees that things are complex. Christians haven't created this complexity. It's just there. To make the issue more difficult, ancient people didn't use language in a precise way. They weren't trying to make sure that people 2000 years later would easily understand them. We come from a very different culture. We communicate differently and to understand ancient writing we have to do our best to understand how they communicated and thought about the world.

This is especially true in the realm of time reckoning. They weren't meticulous time keepers. They didn't use a standard count of years like we do now. Years were identified relative to the reigns of kings. Controversies and intrigue made that a difficult task at times, and neighboring countries often followed different rules. Same for accounting of days.

I can't say that any of the explanations given by Christian scholars are correct. If we look at it logically though, if any of them are possible and have a basis in lingual or cultural facts, then an assertion of contradiction can not be stated with any measure of confidence.

My last point I raised in my previous post is that each gospel describes the day of Jesus' death as the day of preparation. So you can't say that John somehow is changing his story to fit into some meta-narrative. There is variation in the accounts of course but the same picture is being painted.

From my reading, I think it is even possible that both Jesus and the Jews who arrested Him could have observed Passover within the timeframe set out in Leviticus. There are hours within which each group could have observed Passover and still followed the narrative we have.

I know you have said you have done all the research there is but I didn't see anything you wrote that explains that the Passover lasted a week with meals every day. Only one involved the lamb but feasts were observed for 7 days. There is also an issue with the way the Jews accounted for Sabbaths. Many scholars, secular included, believe that there were back to back Sabbaths during this time. So a lot is going on. Treating the events as totally straightforward isn't warranted whether or not you believe there to be contradictions.

Like I have said before. I don't require that God spells all this out for us. We have brains. We can observe and study and think through these chronologies. It is fully within God's character and to test us, and we see God doing that in several places in the Bible.

Anyway, Peace. Go Mavs.
 
I'm guessing you don't like what the verses say....

I think that pretty much says it all.

Even when confronted with the inconsistencies they refuse to acknowledge them.
 
I love what the verses say. But I am not satisfied to just spend just 15 minutes trying to understand it.
 
Agreed...there is nothing you can do to increase or decrease the love God has for you. He loves you incessantly and unconditionally.

Nonsense. This is so clearly an artificially created man-made statement that it bottles the mind. Is it because your religious indoctrination studies have so firmly pressed this notion into your mind that you accept it as fact?

Can you see why adherents of other religions hold similar, arbitrary views?
 
This is not about a religious belief, it is a spiritual experience.

"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous."
— Albert Einstein (The World As I See It)
 
no worries and not my job to make you see what I see... just my experience, not pontificating some theory.

Without faith, life is a series of meaningless succession of unrelated happenings, without rhyme or reason.
 
Without faith, life is a series of meaningless succession of unrelated happenings, without rhyme or reason.

While that may be true for you it is not necessarily true for others.
 
that everything we see around us today randomly came from nothing with the help of no one (God). that is even more hard to believe than the existence God.
 
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