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Wired's 2004 Vaporware Awards
l3pYr writes "Based on user submissions, Wired Magazine has posted its 2004 Vaporware Awards. Duke Nukem Forever has garnered the 'Lifetime Achievement Award,' so it doesn't - officially - make the list. Some of the lucky winners this year are: Alienware, Valve, Microsoft, Apple and TiVo."
Taco did say they were working on wholesale changes, right? He's been musing about fixes and changes for years, yet this place looks EXACTLY the same as always.
At least get your damn pages complaint!
Later? The gospels are not the earliest texts in the NT. Paul wrote his epistels long before the gospels were written down. There is no proof that the gospels existed in the first century. (Paul btw. didn't even write anything about the earthly Jesus as a person. He was much more a pagan than a jew and for him, christ was some kind of cosmic vehicle for god to get in contact with men. But that's my interpretation here) Since christians of the first century didn't care about written narration and prefered oral tradition and personal spiritual inspiration, pre-gospel christians may really have not believed in an immediate rapture, but not for the reasons you cite. The whole idea of the rapture was probably not really popular back then. Revelation, the book of the NT which is the basis of all upstart end-time sects, is dated 96AD.
The view that early christians believed in an immediate coming of christ is certainly not based on two quotes, but on various historical writings about christianity. There was no homogenous group of early christians anyway. Some were basically jewish sects, some believed in duality, some even performed self-castration, just as Jesus actually demanded in in the gospels. Some believed in the trinity, others didn't. The list goes on.
The texts that actually reamined in the NT were selected by the catholic church, which succeded the power-struggle among christian churches. Of the couple of dozen gospels that were around the remaining four were not selected based on scientific grounds, but because of ideological reasons. This means that the NT was not the set of texts, let alone oral traditions, that early christians had. It was filtered by those who didn't believe in an immediate second coming by the end of the 4th century.
So you see, it is more complicated than picking a couple of quotes to rationalize a position. This also shows how your approach is futile. You hold a complex, apolegetic interpretation and you furthermore assume that this was the way early christians interpreted it. But you don't know that and you can't show that based just a couple of biblical quotes.
You furthermore assume that biblical texts must present a consistent whole. This assumption is unfounded and therefore not allowed within a historic assessment about the beliefs of early christians.
Whoever wrote Mark 9:1 and Matthew 24:34 believed exactly what these quotes say, namely that Jesus will come back really really soon. Earlier texts saying something else doesn't usually bother religionists at all. Christians don't care about what the OT really says either. The Jesus of the gospels doesn't resemble a jewish messiah for example.