Was the Bible ever a Mystery that was sealed til the End Times?
445837
The scripture of truth is sealed to the time of the end (Dan.12:4, Dan.12:9 below).\n\n\nDan.12:4  But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, [even] to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.\n\nDan.12:9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words [are] closed up and sealed till the time of the end (Dan.12:4 above).\n\n\nPat (ndbpsa)
843482
I mean this, too....where are the Arc of the Covenant and the Holy Grail?  Some say they are hidden in secretive places by the Jews, some say they're hidden beneath the Vatican.  Some say Atlantis sank into the sea near present day Greece and some say it sank off the coast of northern Africa.  Some say...some say...until these things are found or proved true they will remain just that....some say!
957882
How long have you got?\n\nNo books of the bible were written in christs lifetime.  Even the fundys know that.\n\nAnd why do ppl believe it?  A mystery to me.  Because their parents taught them to is my best guess
634387
Everybody loves a good mystery. That's just what the secret scrolls or the Dead Sea Scrolls are to many people: A good mystery. Think about it: Hidden documents, undiscovered for two thousand years, largely suppressed by scholars for another forty years. Documents dating at least back to the time of Jesus and the early church. What new insights are contained in these mysterious scrolls? What can they tell us about Judaism and the early church? Why were many of them suppressed by scholars for so many years? \n\nThe Christian Church have been challenged by people, mostly non-scholars, who allege that the Dead Sea Scrolls have been suppressed because they undermine Christian doctrine. The scrolls are said to contain shocking secrets about Jesus and his disciples. A few popular books and at least one television special have been dedicated to this theme. It has been so widely perpetuated that it may be worth our time to answer these critics.\n\n Once we have swept aside some popular and bizarre theories of the Dead Sea Scrolls, we can then turn our attention to the more important matter of seeing what light they really do shed on Jesus and the early church. We will see that there were numerous points of contact between the people who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls on the one hand, and Jesus and his disciples on the other. When we look into the teaching of the scrolls we will be able to perceive an ongoing dialogue between the writers of the scrolls and the writers of the New Testament. Listening to this dialogue will help to explain some otherwise obscure verses in the New Testament and will throw a flood of light on the world of early Christianity. The world of the first-century Jesus will come a little more to life and we will be better able to appreciate what he said and who he is.\n\n \n\nThe Sensational Scrolls\n\nBut for the moment let us turn our attention to sensationalists like Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. In their book The Dead Sea Scroll Deception, they argue that the Vatican suppressed the scrolls because they contain information harmful to the Church. At first blush some of their claims seem credible. On the western shore of the Dead Sea lies Khirbet Qumran, the site of an ancient community of people who have been described as Jewish monks. In 1947 an Arab shepherd accidentally discovered some scrolls in a cave not far from Qumran. Between 1952 and 1956 ten more caves were located. The scrolls of cave four, which contained over 500 texts, were for decades tightly controlled by an editorial team of mostly Catholic scholars. The team published only about 100 of them over the course of 40 years.\n\nTo whom were these Catholic editors accountable? To a Dominican-sponsored school in Jerusalem which had direct ties to the pope himself. From here Baigent and Leigh paint a sinister picture of a ruthless Church suppressing or destroying incriminating documents to protect Church doctrine.\n\nAn important strategy created by the editorial team to suppress the truth, the authors argue, was creating a rigid orthodoxy of interpretation of the scrolls. The linchpin of this interpretation was the dating. The team tried to put as much distance as possible between the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Christianity. Thus, the team claimed that the scrolls belonged to a period long before the Christian era. Anyone who might question the early dating or the team's interpretation, or who would fight for the publication of the secret scrolls, would be treated as a heretic.\n\nBaigent and Leigh's book has been effectively answered by an article by Hershel Shanks in the magazine Biblical Archaeology Review. Shanks points out that no such conspiracy could possibly have existed. Several Catholic scholars, like Father Joseph Fitzmyer, a distinguished emeritus professor at Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., were very vocal in criticizing the editorial team for not publishing their texts. Another Catholic, a Spanish Jesuit na
517590
That is an easy one!\n\nFind a Christian Bible.\nFind another book.\nCheck if that book is found in the Bible.\nIf it isn't there then obviously it was left out.\n\nHow hard was that?\n\nThe Egyptian Book of the Dead? Nope, not there.\nThe Tibetian Book of the Dead? Nope, not there.\nWar & Peace? Nope, not there.\n\nWhere did you get this silly idea that the Bible was supposed to contain every single book in the universe and that the mean ole' Council of Nicea left all those millions of books out?
1109775
Nobody really knows for sure. Not mentioned anywhere in the bible or in any historical records.
608730
No, Revelation chapter 18 speak of Mystery Babylon.\n\n\nPat (ndbpsa)
634439
The thing is, the Bible is almost completely anonymous; and how can we be sure when a particualar bit was changed over the course of two thousand years of Roman Catholic possession of all the remaining documents, after they did their darndest to eradicate every scrap of parchment that was antithetical to their conspiracy. \n\nAs I recall, the Jesus Seminar was an attempt to winnow out of the New Testament all of Jesus's speech that has the highest probability of being actually from his mouth. I also seem to recall that only a small percentage was deemed to be worthy of having been spoken by Jesus.
622064
YES RIGHT! Quran has several fulfilled prophecies. its one of them. \n\nStory of pharaoh that his body will be made example for everyone. then his body found in 19th century. In the Qur’an we find that God promised to preserve the body of the Pharaoh as a sign for later generations (see Qur’an 10:90-92).True to the Qur’anic promise, the mummified body of the Pharaoh was discovered by Loret in 1898 at Thebes in the Kings’ Valley (see The Bible, the Qur’an and Science by Dr. Maurice Bucaille, p. 238). From there it was transported to Cairo. Elliot Smith removed its wrappings on July 8, 1907 and gave a detailed description in his book entitled the Royal Mummies (1912).\nFrom which source did the author of the Qur’an derive this information? How did the author of the Qur’an know that the Pharaoh’s body was preserved whereas the knowledge that the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead was not discovered until recently? And how could the author of the Quran predict that the body of the Pharaoh will be discovered later, unless the author was God Himself?\n\nAnother comparison will again demonstrate that the Qur’an was not copied from the Bible. In the Bible we are told that God drowned the Pharaoh and his army when they pursued Moses, on whom be peace, and his people (see Exodus 14:28). The clear indication in that description is that the body of the Pharaoh perished in the sea. However, the Qur’an dared to differ and prove true. In the Qur’an we find that God promised to preserve the body of the Pharaoh as a sign for later generations (see Quran 10:90-92).
1068341
Modern textual analysis of the Bible leaves little doubt that it is a human document produced by the work of many hands who have been editing, adding, and changing (and, plausibly, deleting) over the centuries.  The Book of Revelation was not intended to scare the crap out of people; it was written during a difficult time of persecution in the Roman Empire and was intended to bolster the faith of believers who, given the violence being done to Christians, were beginning to lose hope in the final victory of Christ's return.\n\nYour final question is the tough one.  It's tough because it requires one to know the mind of God in order to answer it correctly.  I, for one, don't presume to know the mind of God.  I DO believe, however, that God loves us; I also believe that faith in God saves us from the doom of which you speak.  So why the free will - why have we been given the power to reject God's love?  If I think about it from God's perspective, it makes sense - we all want to be loved because someone CHOSE to love us, not because that's the only way that person is programmed to think or to act.  Love is by definition an act of free will - we cannot truly love until we CHOOSE to love.  Choosing not to love God dooms us to an eternity without a relationship with God - perhaps not the fire-and-brimstone of popular myth, but an eternal emptiness, a void that can never be filled.  That is an eternity of our own choosing.  I hope this makes sense - I don't even know if it makes complete sense to me, because it is a tough subject.
929618
Good question.  The Bible has proven itself thru Bible Prophecy, which has been fulfilled with 100% accuracy. You can do a web search on Bible Prophecy and find some answers, note the dates it was prophesied and the dates it was fulfilled.  If you are interested I can e-mail you close to 40 prophecies that were fulfilled thru Christ...don't know of any other religion that can claim that about themselves.  Bible Prophecy does make for a good study.  History also proves the Bible as does Archeology.
607687
No, Yes and Yes.\n\nThe Bible itself tell us it is a mystery, and we know for a fact that not all of it is literal, but much of it is stories used to teach us lessons. \n\nI believe, and you wont find many like me, in a God seperate from the Bible. I believe there are things we don't know, and may never know. I believe the Bible gives us only a small acconut of history, and there is much that is left out. To me, God exists seprate from the Bible. I would still believe as I do, if there was none.
187270
Yes, but not in the traditional sense.  They were identified, more or less.  Ever heard of angels?  How about a chariot of fire that took Elijah to heaven?  And Enoch who was here one day and the next, he was taken from earth?  Then, of course, there is the book of Revelation.
988142
No. There has been too much lost in the numerous translations. And I would question your statement about the book being in existence for 'thousands' of years. The new testament and the gospels were not instantly assembled upon the death of Jesus of Nazareth. The old testament was passed on by word of mouth long before the books were written.  Compound these necessary flaws with the council of cardinals who decided which books were going to be part of the bible and which books were not, and the church's practice of censoring anything that did not agree with doctrine, and you have a less than perfect product.
366000
Of course there are secrets. After all, the bible was written by man, not by God, so it's how man interpreted whatever actually happened. Who's to say that the bible itself isn't a work of fiction? The chuch chose what into the bible, as well. Pieces were picked specifically for their impact, and not because they were written truthfully.\n\nIn the end, it all comes down to faith. Do you believe that the bible is figurative or literal? Do you believe that Jesus was the son of God? Do you even believe in God? It's all personal.
319476
aha ahaha!\nthe rain falls on the just and unjust alike.\nin other words, no... we are very evil, though.\nand yes, Revelation is a good book to read about the end times, though you may not want to go diving in before you understand the background of it (read the rest of the bible)
1033550
The entire bible?  No.  In fact, there is proof that parts of the bible are inaccurate (like Genesis), and there is proof that parts of the bible really happened (we know many hisotrical leaders and occurances actually happened).\n\n- We've found Herod's palace, and it implies he was as carefree as the bible portrays him as.  One point for bible\n\n- We've found egyptian records that range from acheivements to embarassments.  They were quite meticulous at their historical records...yet no mention of Moses, losing their slaves, losing their first borns, plagues, etc.  One point against.\n\n- We've found evidence of a mass flood, one point for\n\n- It would be impossible for all species alive today to fit on the boat, not to mention carry enough food, deal with waste, etc.  One point against.\n\nSo you see, the bible is much like Greek or Egyptian mythology.  It is what was thought to have been known at the time...some of it was correct, some based on false rumor.