When Jesus does return will Christians even recognize him?

[Cainkane1]

So many people in centuries past have either said they were Jesus or the Messiah it will have to be some sort of highly visible miraculous event such as hordes of ngels comming down first telling all of humanity Jesus is comming back.

Unfortunantly this has never happened and it never will happen.

 

[Butter!]

It's actually me.

There are hordes of angels pouring down right now to announce my divinity. It's just too bad none of you can see it through the computer screen. Guess you'll simply have to have faith!

 

[Ethnikos]

And here in lies one of the many problems with the Bible, the book absolutely lacks integrity.

In John 20:28 Thomas is claimed to have now understood and expressed Jesus as his Lord and his God. But then just a few verses later we are told that the purpose of what is being recorded is so that people "may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God".

There is a person, "God", and there is a Messiah who is designated as "son of God" as a way of saying that he is ruler by divine decree.
All of that is independent of if someone is "Your God", meaning to worship that person as a god.

We are also told in Mark 16:19 that Jesus after speaking to the disciples was "received up into heaven" and sat to the right side of God, or sat to the right side of himself if we accept the gospel of John (as gospel).

They are two different people, and the "right hand" part is a figure of speech.

Not only that but all four of the gospels do not provide complementary versions of the events which were said to have taken place after the period which Christians believe was Jesus' death, but actually provide in some cases drastically varying accounts. Not to mention the fact that [Mark 16:9-20] is now widely accepted "as a later addition (commonly called forgery) to the Gospel of Mark by most New Testament scholars in the past century.

John fixes all that by getting down to the important spiritual truths that are higher priority than historical details.

The main reason for doubting the authenticity of the ending is that it does not appear in some of the oldest existing witnesses, and it is reported to be absent from many others in ancient times by early writers of the Church.

They may have just run out of paper.
Despite what people think of as the Bible being basically a book, usually it was a few pieces of paper with favorite texts on it, and what we have today was reconstructed from a lot of those pieces of paper.

Moreover, the ending has some stylistic features which also suggest that it came from another hand."

Hmm. Really. I might have to look into that to see what this "stylistic" thing is.

Despite this being widely published knowledge they continue to print Bibles which contain said questionable verses within. Verses which help to spawn their own teachings, practices and doctrine, some of which could be either partly (or entirely) blamed for actual loss of life.

Sounds serious, you mean like drinking poison?

[Mark 16:17] And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
[Mark 16:18] They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

Some people don't get metaphor.

Imo, most Bible believing Christians are genuinely unaware of the fact that the gospels do not align on many aspects, not just in terms of the death of Christ, the redivivus, Jesus' last words, etc. They often only hear parts of the gospels at various times and commonly in intervals of time which can span many days or much longer. They are also told that the four gospels are complementary, although some parts are many parts clearly are not. The only way in which people would ever come to this conclusion is by taking the time to actually read the text, and not just read it but to compare it.

People should probably be aware of these things so they quote the right gospel, that has it to where it supports whatever point they are making in using one of the stories.

 

[tsig]

So many people in centuries past have either said they were Jesus or the Messiah it will have to be some sort of highly visible miraculous event such as hordes of ngels comming down first telling all of humanity Jesus is comming back.

Unfortunantly this has never happened and it never will happen.

It's actually me.

There are hordes of angels pouring down right now to announce my divinity. It's just too bad none of you can see it through the computer screen. Guess you'll simply have to have faith!

Sorry, you need a horde on ngels.

 

[abaddon]

And here in lies one of the many problems with the Bible, the book absolutely lacks integrity.

In John 20:28 Thomas is claimed to have now understood and expressed Jesus as his Lord and his God. But then just a few verses later we are told that the purpose of what is being recorded is so that people "may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God". We are also told in Mark 16:19 that Jesus after speaking to the disciples was "received up into heaven" and sat to the right side of God, or sat to the right side of himself if we accept the gospel of John (as gospel).

[qimg]http://s1.postimg.org/4dpqf02vf/Untitled.jpg[/qimg]

Not only that but all four of the gospels do not provide complementary versions of the events which were said to have taken place after the period which Christians believe was Jesus' death, but actually provide in some cases drastically varying accounts. Not to mention the fact that [Mark 16:9-20] is now widely accepted "as a later addition (commonly called forgery) to the Gospel of Mark by most New Testament scholars in the past century. The main reason for doubting the authenticity of the ending is that it does not appear in some of the oldest existing witnesses, and it is reported to be absent from many others in ancient times by early writers of the Church. Moreover, the ending has some stylistic features which also suggest that it came from another hand." Despite this being widely published knowledge they continue to print Bibles which contain said questionable verses within. Verses which help to spawn their own teachings, practices and doctrine, some of which could be either partly (or entirely) blamed for actual loss of life.

[Mark 16:17] And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;
[Mark 16:18] They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.
*Snake handlers who believe the practice is Biblically based [1], [2], [3].

Imo, most Bible believing Christians are genuinely unaware of the fact that the gospels do not align on many aspects, not just in terms of the death of Christ, the redivivus, Jesus' last words, etc. They often only hear parts of the gospels at various times and commonly in intervals of time which can span many days or much longer. They are also told that the four gospels are complementary, although some parts are many parts clearly are not. The only way in which people would ever come to this conclusion is by taking the time to actually read the text, and not just read it but to compare it (as in read all four gospels across/next to one another).

References:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/endmark.html

Additional references:
Were the four gospels individually inspired accounts or copied from one another?
Structure of the four gospels
Who were the 12 Disciples of Jesus? + Discussion
Misquoting Jesus - A Scholars attempt to enlighten

Wait, wait, wait. Because the bumper book of fairy stories contradicts itself it must be false, therefore the bumper book of jinn stories must be true? Even though it also contradicts itself?

Wow.

 

[ynot]

I am Spartacus Jesus!

 

[Rincewind]

I am Spartacus Jesus!

Well I'm Brian - and so is my wife....

 

[Slowvehicle]

Well I'm Brian - and so is my wife....

So you name's not Bruce, then?

 

[tsig]

[qimg]http://s27.postimg.org/w0h8eqj73/Untitled23.jpg[/qimg]​

When Jesus finally does return most Christians will be expecting to an individual who fits the following description:

A blonde haired, blue eyed, white male, who goes by the name Jesus, who was born on December 25th, considers himself to be a Christian or the son of God, or God in the flesh, who is not circumcised, has no problem eating pork, someone who abstains from food and drink through fasting, does not pray by placing his forehead on the ground just as Muslims do, does not use the word "Elah" when referring to God, and someone whose mother did not dress in Hijab.

Many will no doubt have the expectation that they will lay eyes on literal son of God, or God in the flesh, or a man who is 100% and 100% God, despite the last one being a logically unsound concept (similar to a square circle, or insert any two things which hold both exclusive and contradictory properties) and not even something which can be explained by the Catholic Church or the Pope. The actual likelihood of this is quite low, considering the fact that there exist no verses in the Bible which show Jesus to have ever claimed any of these titles for himself.

How many "Sons" does God have?

Now ask yourself just how surprised/disappointed they will be when they find out the fictitious image which they have been feed for as long as they can remember was nothing more than just that, fiction. And the truth of this matter can be seen in any one of their own holy books the Bible, if only they had taken the time to open it up and actually read the contents therein.

Just like an episode of MTV’s Catfish, I believe many will be left surprised, shocked, confused, betrayed and even angered, just to name a few of the many emotions they may be dealing with come said time.

He'll be riding six white horses when he comes, this makes sense since the unresurrected Jesus could handle two equines at once the risen Jesus can handle six.

 

[Rincewind]

So you name's not Bruce, then?

Why?

D'you think it ought to be?

 

[Ethnikos]

<SNIP>
Moreover, the ending has some stylistic features which also suggest that it came from another hand." Despite this being widely published knowledge . . .
<SNIP>

In the Wikipedia article on this section of Mark,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_16#Internal_evidence
it says, "Critical questions concerning the authenticity of verses 9–20 (the "longer ending") often center on stylistic and linguistic issues."
But it doesn't really go on to describe exactly what that means or give an example.
A Google search with the term, "stylistic issues with longer ending of Mark" brought up a paper on the web site, academia.edu, by the title, Bringing Method to the Madness: Examining the Style of the Longer Ending of Mark
that says in its intro,
"One of the major reasons that interpreters have rejected the longer ending is stylistic variance. But in many cases, stylistic assessments have been based on surface-level examinations of the text without any methodological constraint."

 

[bruto]

In the Wikipedia article on this section of Mark,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_16#Internal_evidence
it says, "Critical questions concerning the authenticity of verses 9–20 (the "longer ending") often center on stylistic and linguistic issues."
But it doesn't really go on to describe exactly what that means or give an example.

I'm not advocating the final authority of Wikipedia by any means, but must note that the sentence you cite is the first sentence of a fairly extensive paragraph which looks, on surface, to contain some of the information said to be lacking, leading to several other paragraphs on the same subject, and some leads for anyone caring enough to follow the question up.

Is your copy of Wikipedia condensed?

 

[Ethnikos]

I'm not advocating the final authority of Wikipedia by any means, but must note that the sentence you cite is the first sentence of a fairly extensive paragraph which looks, on surface, to contain some of the information said to be lacking, leading to several other paragraphs on the same subject, and some leads for anyone caring enough to follow the question up.

Is your copy of Wikipedia condensed?

Notice how it says, "stylistic and linguistic".
As far as I could tell, the following was all the linguistic.
If you can decipher a "stylistic" argument, let me know.