Ramanisblog

Tag: Sermon on the Mount

  • ‘Sermon On The Mount’ A Hoax

    I  believe that Legends and  Ancient Texts need investigation.

    They cannot be just brushed away as figment of imagination.

    This seems to be rational.

    Christian text Sermon on The Mount
    The Sermon On The Mount

    I have been checking legends,Puranas     of the Hindus.

    Nearly all reference points  turnout to be true!

    Lord Krishna‘s Dwaraka is being excavated.

    The exact location where Lord Krishna delivered the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna during the Mahabharata battle, has been identified.

    The date of birth and death of Lord Rama is validated thorough the references of the eclipses and the description of celestial events like eclipses and the configuration of Stars and  Planets.

    And there are many more.

    I was curious to know about the geographical location of the Mount from where Jesus Christ is recorded to have delivered the famous Sermon on The Mount.

    The Sermon on the mount epitomizes Christian Ethics.

    ‘

    The Sermon on the Mount (anglicized from the Matthean Vulgate Latin section title: Sermo in monte) is a collection of sayings and teachings of Jesus, which emphasizes his moral teaching found in the Gospel of Matthew (chapters 5, 6 and 7).[1] It is the first of the Five Discourses of Matthew and takes place relatively early in the Ministry of Jesus after he has been baptized by John the Baptist and preached in Galilee.

    The Sermon is the longest piece of teaching from Jesus in the New Testament, and has been one of the most widely quoted elements of theCanonical Gospels.[2] It includes some of the best known teachings of Jesus, such as the Beatitudes, and the widely recited Lord’s Prayer. To most believers in Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount contains the central tenets of Christian discipleship.[2]

    The last verse of chapter 5 is considered to be a focal point that summarizes the teaching of the sermon: “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”, advising his disciples and followers to seek the path towards perfection and the Kingdom of God‘-wiki”

    The reference to the Sermon on the Mount are found in the Bible and they are contradictory in terms of its Geographical location.

    “According to Luke, there was no mountain…
    “17And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases;”
    (Luke 6:17-49)
    Yet Matthew says it was a mountain:
    “1And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:”
    (Matt. 5:1)

    Funny, neither Mark nor John even mention the famous sermon at all — neither mountain nor plain.
    Paul also appears to not have any knowledge of any such sermon”

    We have two issues.

    1.Whether the Sermon on the Mount was delivered by Christ?

    “The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ is the first exposition of Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament. Many of its features suggest that it reflects the very beginnings of Jesus’ thought (?). It represents both the original kernel and the normative foundation of Christian morality. Despite many changes and adjustments Christianity has undergone since the time of its inception, Jesus’ sermon remains the lasting source of inspiration for all who profess to be the followers of Jesus. Meanwhile they had discovered that it was not easy to live strictly by the precepts of the original Christian morality.
    Note: The sermon does not necessarily reflect a single event from Jesus’ preaching tours; it could have been a later literary concatenation of sayings taken from several different speeches Jesus had delivered during his lifetime…

    The Gospel of Matthew (5:1- 7:29); The Gospel of Luke (6:17- 49). These two versions differ only slightly.
    Title: The traditional title seems to have originated with the commentary of St. Augustine: “Concerning the Lord’s Sermon in the Mountain” (394 AD).
    Time: The original sermon was composed probably by the end of the third decade of the 1st century AD. Both Matthew’s and Luke’s version of it were written down some time between 65 and 95 AD.
    Place: If Matthew is to be believed, the sermon was delivered on one of the hills near Capernaeum.
    Luke, however, intimates that the sermon was given in a “level place” (if so its proper title would be “The Sermon in the Plain”

    One must not forget that the Bible was compiled by Constantine in an assembly of Cardinals nearly three hundred years after the supposed death/Crucifixion of Jesus.

    The reference to the Sermon on The Mount appears in the New Testament.

    It is also the view of Scholars that the Sermon on The Mount does not relate to a single Sermon but a collection of Jesus’s Teachings over a period of Time.

    So The Sermon on the Mount does not seem to have been delivered by Jesus as such.

    2.Where is the Geographical location of the Mount?

    As pointed out earlier in this post there seems to be contradiction about the Sermon having been delivered on the Mount,plain or has not been delivered at all.

    It seems to reason to believe that The Sermon on The Mount was not delivered by Jesus as is reported nor is there any geographical reference to it.

    At best it is a collection of Ethical Principles.

    References;

    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090225121311AAm0sI4

     

    For a discussion on the subject http://www.uri.edu/personal/szunjic/philos/sermon.htm

    *Definition of Hoax.

    ”

    An act intended to deceive or trick.
    2. Something that has been established or accepted by fraudulent means.
    tr.v. hoaxed, hoax·ing, hoax·es’
    -Online English Dictionary
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  • In Times Of Crisis’ God is Here With US.

    I came across a blog which i am quoting below.

    Hinduism does not blame God for our pain.

    One reaps as he sows.

    Then why pray?

    He gives us the Strength to bounce back.

    This can not be logically explained.

    One can only feel it.

    As one who has gone through pain in my Life, I can affirm this.

    I lost eight relatives who were close to me, including my parents,close friend, wife( at my age  of 28) in a span of 3 years.

    I had financial and emotional difficulties as well.

    It is a surprise I am alive to-day.

    More to the point I am Happy.

    God has given me wonderful children.

    That’s proof enough of God for me.

    ‘So is there an all-loving all-seeing God or is it a convenient invention to salve the soul?

    I have had major reason to consider that question over the past few weeks as my 12-year-old nephew, Rory Staunton, cruelly lost his life to a toxic infection in a New York hospital.

    In the intensive care unit I met two pastors, both doing their best to console a frightened and exhausted family desperately concerned for their little boy.

    With one I ended up discussing the philosophy of Spinoza, the Dutch philosopher, who believed that if there was a God he was abstract and uncaring.

    When you see all the war, the killing, the famine, and suffering it is easy for many to agree with Spinoza.

    We discussed the Sermon on the Mount, and the eight beatitudes, which are the most relevant part of the Christian theology in my experience.

    Those are profound statements that truly do preach humility and compassion and revive faith in the New Testament.

    Yet how has that love and mercy expressed itself?

    There were two church services for Rory, one in Ireland, one in America where God’s mercy and grace were front and center.

    I was assured by many that Rory had gone to a better place and that God had a plan for him.

    At his funeral mass there were repeated references to a merciful God but it was hard to see the mercy in depriving my grieving sister and her husband of their beautiful son.

    I acknowledge now more than ever, the importance of the ritual of the religion, especially in the wake of Rory’s death when I see the incredible comfort that the ceremonies brought to his parents.

    I saw God in the incredible caring of Father Tom, from Mayo, in the hospital room in New York in the way he told my little niece that her brother was gone, a truly saintly man.

    ——————-
    Read More:
    An Irish wake for Rory Staunton back home in Meath — The families and friends gather for the timeless Irish ritual

    Rory Staunton, a beautiful boy, leaves this earth. The hardest column I will ever have to write
    ——————-

    But that is not the same as believing in God.

    Despite the overwhelming desire to believe the answer is positive the question must remain unanswerable.

    There is no evidence either way that is definitive or conclusive for me.

    My awful encounter with death has if anything, increased my sense of how unknown the great questions of our existence remain.

    I am comfortable with that. Great certainties held by people unnerve me anyway. All punishing, all powerful, all merciful deities of whatever religion make it too easy to avoid the really difficult question which is: Who are we? Why are we here?

     http://www.irishcentral.com/story/news/periscope/god-in-a-time-of-personal-crisis-how-does-he-measure-up-what-i-learnt-from-a-dark-night-of-the-soul-amid-pain-and-suffering-146956085.html