El_Jibaro...

[r_so]

I was just wondering what type of Christian you are. (ie-Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Anglican...)

[El_Jibaro]

[i]We believe that JESUS still Baptizes Christians today into the HOLY SPIRIT, with Speaking in Other Tongues as the VISIBLE EVIDENCE of that event .

Perhaps you need to learn the DIFFERENCE between the THREE BAPTISMS that Christians in the New Testament had:

BAPTISM from the Greek word BAPTIZO, literally means SUBMERGED BATH.

******************* 1 *******************

BAPTISM INTO CHRIST - The HOLY SPIRIT takes a person who repents and believes wholeheartedly in JESUS and plucks him/her out of the camp of those doomed to destruction and COMPLETELY SUBMERGES that person into the BODY OF JESUS CHRIST. That person now belongs to JESUS. If that person dies at that instant, he/she goes instantly to Heaven to be with JESUS.

This EVENT is a spiritual event, seen only by God Himself and spiritual beings (angels and fallen angels).

******************* 2 *******************

WATER BAPTISM - Now, that person who has repented of his/her sins and believes that Jesus rose LITERALLY from death (that is, that he rose from death in REAL PHYSICAL FORM, not as a ghost or as a mirage) and who personally proclaims openly that Jesus is LORD in every way (including turning his/her life over in surrender totally to HIM), after meeting these requirements is taken to a pool, or river, or large body of water, and is COMPLETELY SUBMERGED into those waters by a Christian Leader in the NAME of the FATHER-SON-HOLYSPIRIT.

This EVENT is a physical event seen by human beings (Christians and Non-Christians), and it is done to proclaim to the world that this person is now a Christian, that he/she now belongs to Christ.

******************* 3 *******************

BAPTISM INTO the HOLY SPIRIT - Now JESUS takes that person who is a Christian and EMPOWERS him/her for service by COMPLETELY SUBMERGING him/her in the HOLY SPIRIT.

The rationale for this is that in this present spiritually dark world where Satan rules it is ESSENTIAL that the Christian has POWER to be a living witness of JESUS and HIS MESSAGE. That is why just before going to Heaven (flying off to Heaven right in front of 500 eyewitnesses ), JESUS told the Apostles to stay in Jerusalem until they were FILLED UP WITH POWER. Ten days later JESUS DROWNED THESE APOSTLES WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, and they began speaking in OTHER TONGUES. The people there when that happened and who had no place for JESUS in their hearts labeled the Apostles as "DRUNKS". But those persons, who had room in their hearts for JESUS to enter, heard the Apostles PRAISE God in their particular country language.

This EVENT is both a spiritual event as well as physical event seen by human beings (Christians and Non-Christians)[b], who can see the Christian PRAISING JESUS in a Heavenly Language. As a physical event, Non-Christians may be alarmed and think that the Christian is either DRUNK or going crazy (1 Corinthians 14:23), but other Christians will not. As a spiritual event, the Christian is now equipped to fight against the spiritual beings now ruling this present spiritually dark world (2 Corinthians 10:4).

[r_so]

That's not what I was asking.
I was wondering what type of Christian you were.
Thanks
And btw, I know about the three types of Baptism.

[El_Jibaro]

[b][i]PENTECOSTAL.

I couldn't be any clearer.

Perhaps you don't know the difference between a Presbyterian and a PENTECOSTAL...

[r_so]

Sorry, you are right, I didn't read it carefully.
What does "mijo" mean?

Are all version of the Bible the same?
If not, then why?
Do the different types of Christians use different versions of the Bible?

[El_Jibaro]

[i]version of "mi hijo", which means "my son". Basically I told you "sonny".

First of all, the Greek word BIBLIA means "BOOKS" in plural.

Are all versions of the Bible the same?

Basically YES , with the exception of the Jehovah Witnesses "bible", which was made in some dark closet in the middle of nowhere (or perhaps was made in the "Twilight Zone"); you can check this out by trying to find out the names of the "translators" for the JW "bible" - YOU WILL NOT FIND ANY NAMES...

There is a sizeable number of XENOPHOBIC religious zealots out there that swear that the King James Version is SACRED, even more so than the most ancient manuscripts of the Bible in their original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic scrolls. That is HOGWASH (particularly in view of that kind of outlandish claim making any other language outside Sheakspearean English unsacred... I LOVE ESPAÑOL ). The same was said of the VULGATA Bible in Latin back in the days of the Reformation, and that is almost forgotten history now .

There are TWO TECHNICAL issues on translations that you may want to be aware of:

ISSUE NUMBER 1

There is a DIFFERENCE between Catholic-Orthodox-Protestant Bibles in that a few books in the OLD TESTAMENT are deemed sacred by Catholics and Orthodox churches, while most Protestant churches do not agree. The "split" was there even before there were any Protestants, since St. Jerome himself, the guy who made the Latin VULGATA Bible, discovered that there were some books in the Old Testament that JEWS considered not sacred. (By the way, it was St. Paul who said that the OLD TESTAMENT was the Patrimony of the JEWS, thus at least JUDAISM has determined CORRECTLY which books in the OLD TESTAMENT are really sacred.) Thus, St. Jerome placed these "sacred books" of doubtful or UNKNOWN inspiration between the OLD TESTAMENT and the NEW TESTAMENT. All the sacred writings of KNOWN inspiration (that is, there was no doubt that they were INSPIRED BY GOD), were called CANNONICAL, that is they are REGULATION stuff. All the "other books" were not declared "sacred" until Protestants came into history, done by the Catholic clergy to SPITE the fellow SEPARATED Christians, and they were labeled DEUTEROCANNONICAL, that is of the "Second Cannon", or Second Rule. Happily, the portions in "dispute" only number about 9 EXTRA scrolls out of the entire OLD TESTAMENT for the Catholic Cannon, and a couple more added to those Extra 9 for the Orthodox Cannon.

Thus, a Catholic Bible has ALL THE BOOKS a Protestant Bible has, plus 9 more in the OLD TESTAMENT. However, ALL CHRISTIAN CHURCHES HAVE THE SAME 27 BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.

None of the EXTRA books have any particular teachings that contradict CHRISTIAN teachings, except for a tiny passage in 2 Maccabees where idolatrous Jews who die in war receive prayers AFTER THEY DIE for the forgiveness of their idolatries..., but that is not supported in the rest of the Bible by neither the OLD or NEW Testaments.

ISSUE NUMBER 2

I hope you know that the New Testament was entirely written in Greek, otherwise the rest of this part is going to impossible for you to understand.

For the first 1500 years, the New Testament was copied by hand (for first 3000 years the Old Testament was copied by hand). This is a Historical FACT. Not until the invention of the Printing Press do things change.

So, in all those hand copies errors may have crept in. How do we determine the copying errors? Well, we take all the available hand copies of the New Testament and compare them. There are around 24,000 ancient hand copies still in existence. Wonderfully, after all the comparison is made, only 2% of the text varies; and this is REMARKABLE, since those were many centuries of manual labor, of men toiling at hand copying from the Roman Sewers in the earlier years to dark Medieval castle rooms with only scant light. NONE OF THOSE variations deny any and all of the CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS !

Now, the matter on ISSUE 2 is that several translations in the last 500 years have relied on the least reliable of the old Greek manuscripts. This happens to be the case in the King James Version, where the Sheakespearean translators relied on the "Textus Receptus" Greek New Testament manuscripts, a manuscript "made up" by Erasmus of Rotterdam. Erasmus tried his best to get into his hands the oldest Greek New Testament Manuscript available in his times, but at least ofr the last chapters of the New Testament, he had to literally make them up from the Latin VULGATA Bible.

However, that "Textus Receptus" is not a problem for many new translations like the "NIV", the "New Living Translation", the "Good News" Bible, etc., etc. You can check these translations out at the link: http://bible.gospelcom.net/ . All these Bibles rely on a "CRITICAL TEXT" of the New Testament. In other words, scholars have done their best to reconstruct the New Testament to its original wording and they have called this Greek New Testament the "CRITICAL TEXT". History may yet prove out that the new "CRITICAL TEXT" is as close to the Original books written by the Apostles as the "Textus Receptus", but it is the best thing out there yet.

Some modern scholars are debating that the most reliable Greek New Testament Manuscript is what the Greek Orthodox Church uses: the BYZANTINE TEXT. But this is a recent development in Greek New Testament scholarship. However, this BYZANTINE TEXT resembles alot to the "Textus Receptus". No modern Bible translation in the last 500 years has been made based on the BYZANTINE TEXT.

BOTTOM LINE:

Buy yourself a "Good News" Bible (of which they have an edition for Catholics), or better yet a "New Living Translation" or an "NIV" (which means New International Version)[b]. You can get whatever Bible version you want, and it will not be any more different, the only reason why I am recommending you these is that they are easier to understand in modern English.

BUT STAY AWAY FROM THE "bible" MADE BY "UN-NAMED" TRANSLATORS..., that kind of crap is not read by any SERIOUS Bible student, only by fanatics with blinders on.

Well, have a good and blessed weekend !

[r_so]

I have the two different versions of the Bible that you mentioned. I'm Roman Catholic but I've never heard of Maccabees. In what version of the Bible is that in? I've been reading the New Living Translation version.

Also, I was wondering what you think about capital punishment. Do you think it is wrong?

Hope to hear from you soon! Take care!

Rachel