Greetings Seekers!

[carolineislands]

Hello Everybody! My welcome message said to introduce myself.

I am an anthropologist and I manage a small grassroots humanitarian project in Haiti. I am very happily married and consider myself a follower of the message of Jesus of Nazareth. I have investigated and studies other religions, especially indigenous religions of Africa and the Caribbean. I most recently researched Islam and almost converted but in my investigation found several elements of that religion I could not accept. I've made a post about that in the other religions section.

I am not a typical Christian as I believe the New Testament to have been altered, probably a great deal, and I don't have a lot of confidence in dear Apostle Paul (not that he was an apostle). I don't believe in the trinity so I guess you could call me a unitarian if you just had to pigeon-hole. I attend a Church of God in Christ in the inner city where I play organ and sang (I was a professional musician in my younger days... sang jazz and blues).

I am also very concerned with social justice and do as much research about international relations/world affairs/US foreign policy etc as I have time for and I try to speak out against injustice whenever I get the chance.

I'm happy to be here and hoping this is an active forum.

caroline

[McCulloch]

Welcome

It is always good to see an independent thinker in the crowd.

[Pazuzu bin Hanbi]

Hello there, Caroline of the undisclosed gender , thanks for your introduction! I should make one for myself, instead of hijacking other peoples’ threads. Possibly a remnant of my muslim past .

I’d like to ask you something. You don’t seem to accept rather large portions of the New Testament (rightly, in my opinion), so how can you decipher the ‘correct’ and ‘true’ message of Yeshua‘?

[Goat]

Greetings. It looks like you will have a nice interesting perspective to add.

One of these threads, you will have to describe what you think think is the message of Jesus.

[carolineislands]

Hello there, Caroline of the undisclosed gender , thanks for your introduction! I should make one for myself, instead of hijacking other peoples’ threads. Possibly a remnant of my muslim past .

I’d like to ask you something. You don’t seem to accept rather large portions of the New Testament (rightly, in my opinion), so how can you decipher the ‘correct’ and ‘true’ message of Yeshua‘?

I am reading a book right now called "Misquoting Jesus, the story behind who changed the Bible and Why" by Bart D. Ehrman (one of the world's most renowned theologians. He discusses this very issue. His book talks about the fact that we don't actually have the originals of the scriptures, nor do we even have copies of the real originals. What we have are versions that scribes (highly unreliable) wrote down that were taken from these writings. He also talks from one of the world's most knowledgeable perspectives of how one can carve out the evidence you need to put together a reasonable idea of what Jesus really taught.

I believe the message is pretty well outlined on the Sermon on the Mount. But I will keep you all updated on my progress in this book. I also am reading a book called "Lost Christianities" which explores the early Christians writings that did NOT survive the Council of Nicea.

Thanks for the welcome! I'm looking forward to good conversation.

Respect

[Pazuzu bin Hanbi]

I’ll have to check that book out. I would recommend works such as The Authentic Gospel of Jesus and The Changing Faces of Jesus by Geza Vermes for more in that sort of vein.

[carolineislands]

Oooo... sounds interesting!

Off to amazon.com!

thanks