The Upper Room

jcolebrand

19:01

@Ali If this is supposed to be authoritative according to my suggestion, I'm going to have to contest the following things:

Do not put Bible in the title, ask maybe "What scriptural references are authoritative in the realm of this site for the life of Christ?" and then mention the Quran, Bible, Torah, etc in the question.

You have already conflated the intent of the question by changing the wording from what we originally talked about.

wax eagle

@jcolebrand he asked 2:

0

Q: Is the Quran authoritative when it references the life of Christ

There is a lot of debate on this question. Many historians believe Quran does give a picture to the life of christ

Alypius

Someone just delete the questions he asked and ask it properly. We don't have the time for this, really.

jcolebrand

@waxeagle ahhhh ... wouldn't one Q suffice?

wax eagle

@jcolebrand yes it definitely should

jcolebrand

@Alypius mods are on it, hang tight

wax eagle

19:04

one's a dupe anyways

5

Q: Should answers from the Qur'an be allowed?

Clearly and unmistakably, this site is about and for Christianity. However, recently, I saw an answer that was quoting (and solely related to) the Qur'an. Per this meta post, we seem to have a consensus that "self-declaration" is the definition of "Christian". However, what about religions a...

discussion

jcolebrand

Just remember that all policy discussions should happen in public, so even if we delete it we're going to announce why it gets deleted. This is SE policy for every site.

Alypius

The question should be about whether the Quran is authoritative as a Christian source. The historical validity of various things it says as a historical document are another matter.

wax eagle

@jcolebrand yes

jcolebrand

@waxeagle the question of is it an authority on the life of Christ isn't quite a duplicate of that

wax eagle

@jcolebrand good point. not quite.

jcolebrand

19:05

@Alypius do you see those two points as conflicting or dissimilar scope? "life of Christ" vs "Christian authority"?

@Ali please wait, and let us help you understand our position. Patience is a virtue in every religion

The more you "question question question question questionquestionquestion" the harder it is for people to help you with clarity.

Ali

@jcolebrand thanks for giving me a fair chance

jcolebrand

@Ali the moderators here are also trying to give you a fair chance, they feel (I gather) that you are going too fast and not listening quite enough. Let's have some slow down and listen time, ok?

Alypius

@jcolebrand We'll have to settle down on a version of the question first (it depends, a bit). I think someone else needs to ask it because Ali has a "record" of changing his questions to advance his views.

jcolebrand

@Alypius moderators may lock a question to prevent further edits

wax eagle

@Alypius I've closed the Bible one as a duplicate of the Quran one, and expanded the Quran to include a question related to whether the Bible is considered authoritative on the subject either. cc @ali, cc @jcolebrand eta ll

jcolebrand

19:12

11 messages deleted

Stack Exchange

19:24

-1

Q: Can the Quran be considered authoritative when it references the life of Christ?

There is a lot of debate on this question. Many historians believe Quran does give a picture to the life of Christ. Quran and Islam recognizes Christ as the mighty prophet and revere him in the six articles of faith of Islam. With this in mind, can the Quran be used as an authoritative source o...

discussion meta

0

Q: Is the Bible authoritative when it references the life of Christ

There are various scriptures which narrate the life of Christ like Quran, Bible , historical records etc . Are all of them authoritative here?

discussion

Ali

19:35

now the discussion is no more about belifs
I am not there to proselytize
but to claim my right over jesus
and all things related to him
how can the catholic church have the right to become authoritative on who jesus was?
or even protestant
The only solution can be is to allow both sides to use their scriptures to narrate "his" jesus

Alypius

19:49

@Ali I would guess that you are on the way to having your ability to post questions on this site revoked. You've asked 3 near-identical questions on meta now.

Krazer

The Scripture gives Christians an explanation of many moral issues, like adultery, murder, and stealing, being are wrong, caring for the lowly members of society and obeying God being essential, and God's love of all things. The Scriptures also helps us us clear understanding of God, who he is, his love for us, and his desire that we have abundant life, a future full of hope, etc.

But unfortunately, it does not cover many of the modern moral issues we face today. To tackle this problem, we look at the issues that are mentioned in Scripture, and we look at who God is, and what he desires for mankind.

When we do this, we try to find a clear, consistent vision of life emerges that points us in the right direction towards the answers to questions not yet asked when Scripture was written. This process is know to some as the beginning of the Sacred Tradition.

Stack Exchange

-1

Q: Which scriptures are valid?

Quran contains a lot of references to Christ , so does the Gospel , Apocrypha, and various other historical documents. Which scriptures are valid to discuss about the life of Jesus?

discussion

0

Q: Can anyone claim to be having the correct interpretation of life of Jesus?

Should we allow all to claim the correct interpretation of the Life of Christ?

discussion

Krazer

But who articulates the Sacred Tradition? What gives these theologians and bishops the authority to tell us what to do? Catholics believe that Jesus gave the apostles authority to interpret the Sacred Scriptures and traditions and guide believers in our life with Christ. But who gives them the right Ultimately, it's up to the believers who give their faith and accepts that the Church was established by Jesus Christ, when he gave the apostle Peter the keys to the kingdom.

wax eagle

@Krazer you should come hang out here more often :)

fredsbend

@ali you need to slow down, organize your thoughts and ask one thing at a time. Then wait for answers, adjust your opinion if necessary, then ask another question if there is one. I don't want to see the mods remove you.

Krazer

20:02

I'm just here to help you guys out

St. Peter was given the key of power (clavis potentioe), and to St. Paul the key of knowledge (clavis scientioe)

Al Ummat مجاهد

@Krazer Jesus gave it to them?

Krazer

@AlUmmatمجاهد this is all according to a sermon given by St. Maximus

Jon Ericson

@Ali Whether or not you intend to proselytize, you are clearly representing a Muslim viewpoint on a site full of Christians. So far, you have been a very poor witness to us. I'm trying to give you a fair shake, but what you've done in the last few hours makes it hard to sympathize with you or your position.

Al Ummat مجاهد

@Krazer ok, I see

Jon Ericson

@Krazer Arg! I'm learning something! ;)

Krazer

20:09

In Matthew 16:18-19 it says "And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it. / I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

odd it might not like the url

wax eagle

@Krazer multiline breaks markdown

Krazer

there we go

Alypius

20:42

@Krazer there's a slight... issue of clarity with that. The Church doesn't exactly "create tradition", where the tradition is something new. Instead it preserves the Tradition that was passed down even from before the time of Christ. Part of this tradition was, at a point in time, written down. This is the Bible.

Dan O'Day

@Alypius it includes the Bible :P

Krazer

@Alypius I did not mean to imply that :P

Alypius

@Krazer Yeah. Just trying to clarify... I'm not even sure how to explain it. Usually people rush to the conclusion that the Church or the pope is "adjusting" things to the times or something like that. This is false.

@DanO'Day Yeah, in a sense. The Bible has a special status, of course. Then you get people who discard the Bible because they worry that there's extreme ambiguity in interpretation, and maybe the meaning is now corrupt, or whatever - my thought is, hey, come on over to Catholicism, we've got that particular worry covered with over 2000 years of peer review.

Jon Ericson

@Alypius Well, some might argue half the peers stopped reviewing 1000 years ago. ;)

2

Alypius

20:59

@JonEricson Was it really half? In any case, that only means that there are now two such "well-grounded" traditions, Catholic and Orthodox. And many of the beliefs strongly overlap, and there is some level of communion between the churches. It's a... brotherly spat. Hopefully we reconcile soon.

Dan O'Day

@Alypius or Eastern Orthodoxy, we have the same, without declaring any one person as an infallible interpreter of the scriptures :P

@Alypius indeed hopefully we do reconcile

Jon Ericson

@Alypius I don't know about the numbers, but 500 years ago (or so) some peer review was rejected with insufficient justification. (In my opinion.)

> After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10 ESV)

Alypius

@DanO'Day @JonEricson there we go. Two such traditions. As for the pope... the pope spends very little time speaking infallibly. And even then, he's constrained by scripture and tradition.

Jon Ericson

@Alypius By the way, did you know we have a blog? I wrote a post on the subject:

Eschewmenical - The Christianity Stack Exchange Blog: The Church struggle

Jon Ericson on May 21, 2012

Previously in this space, I noted four characteristics of the evangelical movement. George M. Marsden, a historian of American Evangelicalism, suggested a fifth: trans-denominationalism. In a nutshell, we don’t believe the Church instituted by Christ through His Apostles is confined to any human hierarchical structure, but is infused in all denominations in the form of individuals of faith. We are eager to cooperate with our like-minded Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant brothers and sisters because when God gathers together the Church in the end, there will be representatives from every Christian tradition. …

Alypius

@JonEricson Is the Rev quote connected with that? A hard-line Catholic might just point out that the Church is perhaps the only church that can claim to span "every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages". But that's a... heavy-handed response.

Just reading the first parts of the post, the RCC doesn't confine salvation to a "human hierarchical structure" either. The RCC isn't there to exclude, it's there to preserve and conserve, to say the Mass, and to administer with great reverence the Sacraments.

Jon Ericson

21:16

@Alypius I would say that such a response fundamentally misunderstands the prophesy. This isn't the best forum for making the case, but the point of Revelation is "you don't see the Church now, but it's being built in the hearts of God's people". Basically, if you think the visible Church is anything more than a shadow of the Church to come, your view of God is too small.

@Alypius Luther's bone of contention with the church was that it took the sacraments far too lightly, said the Mass in a language people didn't understand, and failed to preserve and conserve the core of the gospel. (I know things have changed since his time, however.)

Alypius

@JonEricson That's not the Catholic view though. The point I'm making is that if you want to direct yourself as a Christian towards helping God build that Church (in whatever insignificant way we can), you start actually gathering people from every nation and language into a united effort.

And if you don't like how something is being built, you don't go off to do things "your own way", you stick with it. Disputes pass, and as you say, the disputes that you mention did pass.

Jon Ericson

@Alypius Oh hey. I have a post about that too. ;-)

Eschewmenical - The Christianity Stack Exchange Blog: How tradition gave us our Bible.

Jon Ericson on August 20, 2012

When I first proposed this topic, I figured I’d take a Bible-thumping, fundamentalist position. But as I thought about it, I realized I can’t do it justice and will probably come off as a caricature. Besides, I really do “accept the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, as the word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct”. As John Piper put it, “Everybody to my left thinks I am [a fundamentalist]. And there are a lot of people to my left.” Where I diverge from fundamentalism is not in my confidence in the Bible, but rathe …

> At some point in the past, the Catholic Church made a few small mistakes in laying out their floor plan. It happens; we’re human. When you make a mistake, you need to fix it as quickly as possible to avoid problems down the line. But that gets tricky when the Pope speaks ex cathedra. It gets even more complex when other branches of the church claim other sources of authority. You don’t solve this sort of problem by ignoring it and continuing to build.

@Alypius Actually, I'm glad there are folks who stick with the Church. I think the RCC is doing a lot of the right things, especially in the US. I'm probably pressing too hard on this...

Alypius

21:48

@JonEricson Sure, but ultimately we're not talking about re-laying some tile. Things were complicated. If a problem is being ignored then, again, you persist. You don't go off to do things on your own. How does that help to re-lay the tile?

Jon Ericson

@Alypius How to put this delicately? Jesus Himself is the cornerstone. When Luther looked at the church, he noticed that the cornerstone wasn't being used. When he tried to stick it in place, the church hierarchy excommunicated him.

Alypius

Not even to mention the people who are pointing to the time when only the foundations were just being laid down, saying "that is how it was like then, let us return to that time". No doubt the foundations were solid (and no doubt they remain solid...)

Jon Ericson

@Alypius Yeah. That idea has lots of problems too. Christianity has been advancing and there's no reason to retreat. (To switch metaphors. ;)

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