I’m no bible expert, so any questions I raise about the bible are always from an outsider, non-expert viewpoint. Having said that, maybe someone can clear something up for me. In the bible, it suggests that the devil tried to tempt Jesus with things like food, power and, important for this article, invincibility. Jesus, obviously, turned him down. Or did he? Later on in the bible Jesus, after being crucified (and killed) comes back to life. Does this mean that Jesus did a deal with the Devil? Was it the Devil, and not God, who allowed Jesus to come back to life?
I’d be interested in what you think about this. It seems as if the Devil made the offer to Jesus and at a later point Jesus exhibited one of the attributes the Devil offered to furnish him with. Like I said, I’m no bible scholar (nor would I want to be) but it seems this is at least a possibility. Just putting it out there.
Not being an expert on the bible myself, I can’t give you chapter and verse on this but it was prophetized that the Massiah (sp.?) would be risen again by God in the old testament. THe devil did indeed tempt Jesus in the desert but Jesus told him to flip off, he had a better offer from dad. I do like your logic but with the prophecy and Jesus’s own prediction I think in this story, God won.
In reality; someone moved the damn body
I think that’s where my reasonable doubt comes from. There were clearly two offers on the table, no one really knows whether he took up the one from Daddy, or the one from the fun uncle.
All I know is, this represents just one of the 100s of questions Christians should be asking themselves before jumping into this whole “believing the bible” thing.
this whole devil – dealing thing is for just one purpose, that is for the redemption of mankind.
Remember that Satan is the “prince of the world,” according to the Bible, and does have certain cababilities- however these aren’t really comparable to God’s, i.e. Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit’s. Recall also that God’s the one who gave Satan power in the first place. No, Satan did not raise Jesus. He was trying to get Jesus to sin, and took advantage of the time Jesus was weakest. At this time he had been fasting 40 days in the desert, and the Bible says “he was hungry.” (-yeah no kidding.) If Satan had a chance to make God fall, it was when he was in human form, and direly weakened. Well, Jesus passed the test. If he hadn’t, there wouldn’t have been any reason for him to have wanted Jesus dead. I don’t think it was in his plans for Jesus to rise again. He wanted Jesus conquered, and remember his ultimate goal is to become God. (That is, be in God’s place.) Also, it was always Jesus who raised the dead by will of his father. He said “I cannot do anything except that which I have been told by my father.” -And according to the Bible, he didn’t. In addition, there are prophesies all over the old testament predicting that Jesus would rise again. It was certainly God who raised him! It might have been an amusing thought, but it simply doesn’t hold when you look at the whole story.
christ will come again soon. All you people who hate Christ,he will come again to rule the world with his people.All the wicked people who are with the devil,shall perish and have no eternal life.The bible states the wicked have no part with Jesus.Donot follow the devil because he is leading you under a trap to hell.Do what is right to God because he created you and not satan.
Christ, the true one will come again for his people and the saints will have eternal life.
if you really belive in christ or any god then you wouldnt have so many worldly possesions until no one needed
alyia – I think you misunderstand atheists. We don’t hate something we do not think exists, in much the same way we don’t hate the tooth fairy. What we do hate are the acts being performed in the name of deities (and their siblings) that cause suffering and discomfort around the world.
And how do you know you are not following the devil, if you believe in such a creature? How do you know the Bible wasn’t written by the devil to send you down the wrong path?
Here’s the deal… if you’re a christian and say you only believe in the God in the christian bible, you’re discounting all the other “deities” out there from other religions… guess what, to them that makes you an athiest.
Secondly, you’re saying you believe in a God that can and will/does send people to an eternal punishment. If you were in Gods place for just one measly day… is there any single person (young or old) that you could look squarely in the face and say, “my dear son/daughter, though I love you, you didn’t do this right or that right, so I must send you to a place of indescribable torment, forever! Could *you* do that to anyone at all? Doubt it. But if you say you would, how much more evil would that make YOU? If you were truly a loving and compassionate God, would it not have been better to create no one, considering the supposed consequences for the *majority* of all men, women and children that have *ever* lived?
Also, why on earth would God need to pay a ranson for our sins? Isn’t god “all-powerful”? If so, why the need to cut deals with a devil? And if sin was required for whatever reason, why the need to cut deals, again… it makes no sense.
Last point… your great, great, great grandfather broke a law when he was young… today you get a knock on your door… it’s the cops… they’re there to hold YOU accountable for your G-G-G grandfather’s mistake… sound fair to you? Yeah and neither does “original sin”… it’s all fear-based crap that makes people judge others and come to believe they are better than x, y or z. And all of this written by *anonymous* people who at that time believed the world was flat.
Get your head out of the stone-age. I did, after 25 YEARS of reluctantly believing this b.s.
To me, there must be some sort of higher power, but I don’t see him/her/it as what’s portrayed in any religion that needs to use FEAR to get converts. After all, if you have children, would you prefer they love you because they choose to or out of fear of what will happen if they don’t?
Lets say you have a baby, and it seems he loves milk, because you only give him milk, to test this you put on the side water, now if the baby takes the water this is how you prove he doesnt love milk; God created us to love Him, Matt. 22:37, and He loves us so much that he wants to have a relationship with us, not religion, and he loves us so much that if you dont listen to Him, you dont get to know Him, and you dont want anything to do with Him, well he wont force you to spend eternity with Him in heaven, you will get what you wanted, an eternity in a place where God doesnt exist, hell. You should put more that eyes to the bible, but i bet you havent read it even once.
Utter BS for yet another self-fulfilling prophecy. So if I dont believe in Him than I get to spend more time in a place that is void of Him? Great, awesome! Where do I sign-up for that sweet deal? And while we are at it can I ask all those who want to be with Him to just get out of this planet soon, and never come back please?
As for your illogical example, shrouded with your religious bigotry, the baby example proves only one thing. That give the baby the freedom to choose. Just because you think a drink is better for the baby does not mean that the baby approves of it. You might be wrong. Just let go.
The weirdest, perhaps scariest thing about christians is the sheer absense of empathy for relatives, friends and co-workers they believe are going to hell. What kind of person can live day to day believing this and yet walk around all smiley because they are “saved”. Psychopaths come to my mind. Considering my years in “the church” I met countless of those… yet the most down to earth, caring, NON-judgemental people I’ve ever met, didn’t believe in bible hocus pocus…
Christians love to praise God when something goes *right*… yet, when something doesn’t go *right*, who do they blame?
Your daughter was out with three friends… they get in an unfortunate wreck and all die, except for your daughter… would you say that God loved your daughter more than the others? Or would you say, naw, it was the other girls time to go? Either way, to pretend that God favors one over another is a direct contradiction to what’s taught in the bible… discounting jewish people of course… being God’s favorite people… the very ones that don’t believe in Jesus Christ.
I could go on and on… do your research… and while you’re at it, find one, just *one* amputee that God “healed” by reforming the missing limb (without medical intervention)… and I’ll have to re-think everything all over again. As Jesus said himself… “test everything”. Probably the BEST advice this man ever gave to anyone.
All in all… I think believing, having hope is the surest way to being a happy person. Though this requires a person to “do to unto others as…” also to be NON-judgemental, forgiving (truly, really forgiving…) makers of peace not hate… these are the qualities of a loving God, the one I choose to believe.
If you read the bible instead of mocky God, you would know the answer.
He does heal them, he gives them the strength to deal with the pain of loss, and helps them thru thier daily life.
Remember, God did not make them that way, MAN did.
Back to the initial question, “Did God or satan raise Jesus?”
Yes it says that satan tempted Jesus but what satan tempted Jesus to do was to save himself and make a spectacle of God. Satan did not offer magic invincibility powers to Jesus. He told to Jesus to jump off the temple because if Jesus was who He said He was,
“He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” (matthew 4:6)
It wasn’t satan’s powers that were going to save Jesus from the fall, it was God’s. So the idea that satan raised Jesus from the dead from that viewpoint isn’t biblical. And you have to look at it biblicaly if you are recognizing satan as being who satan is and the fact that he tempted Jesus.
Just thought I would set that straight as far as what the bible says.
To those of you who are seeking and trying to figure all this out, read what the bible actually says about God. It is very different from what most of us Christians make it out to be. Because we are sinful and live in a messed up world. But I believe the only hope to stop this sad way of life we idolize is by following Jesus and becoming more like Him.
Salvation doesn’t come through following a set of rules. It comes through knowing Christ.
Keep searching.
Atheist, as you say, you’re no Bible scholar – that much is clear. But you’re also not logical. If A offers B something, and later it is discovered that B has it, you can’t infer that A gave it, and if you want to argue that A did give it, you need to explain why, at least if that is the whole point of your argument. In this case, that would mean becoming a Bible scholar, which you clearly state you do not want to be…
Jonathan, neither can you rule out the possibility. The author simply asks a question, he doesn’t insist it is what happened.
Let’s use an example: Joe has a basket full of candy bars. He offers one to Sally. Sally tells Joe, “Oh, I really shouldn’t!” Later, we see Sally eating a candy bar. Did she get it from Joe, or from someone else? We cannot know for certain, and that was all the author was trying to point out.
This is pure nonsense and you and Atheist both know it. It makes no sense at all to suggest that Jesus endured all that suffering to redeem us (which was precisely the point of the temptation: to pretend to be able to offer this without having to endure the cross).
There is a philosophical saying: “Nemo dat quod non habet” – no one gives what he does not have. While the Devil has free will (just like you and I) and this can be a powerful weapon for a pure intellect (as all angels are), he is not infinite like God. He might well be able to tempt Jesus with an escape route from the suffering he is about to endure, but can not offer to raise him from the dead. The temptations of the devil are subtle and tantalising (as indeed are most of our temptations to sin) but ultimately they are deceptions. You don’t really get what they offer, but harm yourself instead.
All this is pretty basic theology for anyone who was sincerely interested in the topic…
Help I am inbetween if I tell atheist I HAVE touch the cloak of Jesus I get a silence if I tell my priest well his face I am vary careful what I say Jesus save my granddaughter life I believe Jesus is working and is around you all I ask Wye me I am a sinner I don’t tick any boxes. My granddaughter will never know she will not go to Church and yet I saw his feet I touch is robe.AMEN
I would say your assumption comes from the modern Christian understanding of the devil as a powerful ruler of Hell. This would not have been the understanding in antiquity among Jews (or for modern Jews who don’t believe in a physical Hell). Jewish scriptures and related works like the Talmud consider “the satan” to be a title, not a name, for the accuser or for an agent of God who challenges our faith. Look at Job chapters 1-2 and you will see that this agent is in court with god and other angels discussing how to test Job. I think when you view it in that light, you’ll see that this is a very typical role for the satan to play, an there is probably not anything else meant by the encounter. It would have been very familiar to Jews of the time. It’s not until later Christianity that we have the Devil, He’ll with eternal fire, original sin, etc.