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Edit: The poll wasn’t working. It should be fixed now.
It’s incredible how little about the bible that many (I include myself) Christians know. Prove me wrong:
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I’ve been listening to Ray Vander Lann’s Follow The Rabbi teachings. He is a scholar in the Jewish faith andÂ
culture and speaks fluent Hebrew. The guy is a genius. His teachings blow my mind. He does something that I’m starting to believe that every Christian should do: he approaches the bible as an Easterner would, not a Westerner. It makes sense, right? The bible was written by Jews who lived in a Jewish (Eastern) culture.
Let me give you an example. In Matt 5:13, Jesus teaches:
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
Typical Western intrepretation teaches that Christians are called to be salty: we preserve the gospel and we purify/fertilize the world, etc, right?
A Eastern/Hebraic translation would be much more interesting. Back in Jesus’ day, manure was burnt to heat ovens. Salt, when mixed with the manure, made the fire hotter, stronger, and longer-lasting. A Hebrew reads this scripture and understands Jesus’ teaching as this: I am calling out of your little believer bubble and telling you to go mix with the “manure” of the world (those who the world rejects).
Incredible, isn’t it? This isn’t even scratching the surface.
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I remembered Judas. Does that count for something?
Surely if you approach the bible as an Easterner would do then you’d be closer to a Muslim or a Jew than a Christian in your interpretation? I would say that this is a good thing. If nothing else it might give you some insight into how the People of the Book think.
Well there’s two ways to take this
a) Christians = Salt; non-Christians = Manure. I think your post could come off as quite insulting.
b) I’m the $h!t
I choose B
Ok here are my 2 cents.
Manure is a bit harsh. I agree Skep. But I think that Christ would describe those that dont believe, as people living in a world in which they give their lives to the crap of this world. Crap being drunkenness, casual sex, etc.. (there a bunch more) VS. the believers who no doubt are sinners also, but hold themselves accountable to Christ, in the way they live and what they live for.
That being said, being the salt. Ones who can live their lives as examples of Christ.
But how much better is it when salt and manure mix??!!
So I say…lets party people!
We hope our grain of salt will light a fire that will burn deeper and stronger with you on board.
Yet, if your on board then you become salt and our fire sucks.
Ok, I totally suck and giving weird examples!!
Ive probably messed my entire example of salt and crap being mixed. Now it just sounds worse! =)
Manure is good for my roses too. Not salt though.
I will note that there are a large number of Christians in the Middle East whose roots have always been there. See for example the Assyrian Church of the East or the Coptic Church which are neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Orthodox.
That’s cool you posted this. I actually just picked up a pretty hefty book on Ancient Jewish culture, “Understanding the old testament (4th edition)” - think it’s actually a textbook in another world, but pretty lively even in that light. The first 50 pages had some mind-blowing parts in there in terms of how I understand the OT. Even though I’m a complete history, spreadsheet, etc. geek, I wish most Christians or anyone who has a beef w/ Judeo/Christian beliefs would check this kind of work out.
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OK, I avoided replying to this, but it kept bugging me, so here goes…
There’s a problem with the poll… Which 12 do you want us to name?? Which names should we use? Do we use pure Biblical data or do we depend on “traditional apologetics”.
1. Simon/Peter: AKA Simon bar Jonah, Simon bar Jochanan (Aram.), Cephas (Aram.), and Simon Peter.
2. James, son of Zebedee: The brother of John.
3. John: The brother of James (”Sons of Thunder”)
4. Andrew: The brother of Simon/Peter
5. Philip
6. Bartholomew, son of Talemai *: (Formerly known as Jesus in Syriac tradition) (Not included in John)
7. Matthew / Levi, son of Alphaeus: The tax collector.
8. Thomas: Also known as Didymus, The Twin, “Doubting Thomas”, etc.
9. James, son of Alphaeus: “James the Less” ***.
10. Thaddeus**: In some manuscripts “Lebbaeus” (Not mentioned in Luke and John)
11. Simon the Zealot. (Simon the Canaanite)
12. Judas Iscariot (son of Simon)
13. * Nathanael, (John 1) since Bartholomew isn’t mentioned in John, and they are both “associated” with Philip in some way, Nathanael is often assumed to be Bartholomew. (In the 3 other Gospels, Bart. is always listed next to Philip, i.e. ‘Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew’. In John, Nathanael was brought to Jesus by Phil. Tenuous connection at best if you ask me, ‘just because their names are next to each other and he’s not mentioned by this other author, but Nate is.’.)
14. **Judas, brother/son of James depending on your version: “the other Judas”, “NOT Iscariot” (Luke 6:16, John 14:22) sometimes called “Jude Thaddeus” to reconcile with Matt & Mark’s inclusion of Thaddeus while leaving out NOTiscariot.
15. *** James the brother of Jesus: “James the Just”. Often associated with “James the Less”, so I’m including it here as an Apostle, but it always struck me as odd that James, brother of Jesus, wouldn’t be the “Son of Joseph”, when the Apostle Jameses are mentioned as sons of Zebedee and Alphaeus respectively.
16. Mathias: Judas (IScariot)’s replacement (Acts 1:18-26)
[And for the record, I remembered 14 of the above names without looking -- I always forget Thaddeus -- but I'm not Christian (anymore), so I didn't vote in the poll
I also know the sons of Jacob / tribes of Israel, but you didn't ask 
I'm currently working on the Avatars of Vishnu -- and to show I'm being fair, the Dasavatara are the 'ten' avatars, but they have 25 listed in the Bhagavata Purana and then it just gives up and says the "avatars of Vishnu are 'innumerable.'"]
… and after posting that big post — :-@ — I just have this to ask @hoverFrog about his first post :
Which one?
Shoot, I forgot the most ‘controversial’ one in his day:
17. Paul (formerly Saul): claimed to be an Apostle directly from Jesus’s authority. (Gal 1:1) (As opposed to #16 Matthias, who was appointed by a vote of the 120 disciples. Yes, I said 120 disciples, not the 12 apostles, that wasn’t a typo.)
(Don’t you hate it when someone leaves 3 comments in a row? Although I did wait 2 hours between the first two
Strange that I couldn’t edit the first one when I came back, but I can edit this one an hour later. Must be cookie related since I closed the browser between the earlier ones.)
The famous one, Tom, the “20 pieces of silver” one.