Is "A mighty fortress is our God" anti-Catholic? So there's a hymn called A mighty fortress is our God (Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott), written by Martin Luther; there's also a famous version by J. S. Bach. It is a call to arms against the devil, and is particularly associated with the Reformation.

The lyrics are full of references to Satan (der alte böse Feind, der Fürst dieser Welt, der Teufel); the Bach cantata has a few more (zum Kriege wider Satans Heer, treib Welt und Satan aus). That's all fine. What I was wondering about was the extent to which these should be read as references to the Catholic Church and the Papacy. After all, Luther wasn't shy about that in his prose works - calling the Pope an Antichrist, Devil, Satan, Satanissimus, etc., and speaking in martial terms about the conflict between them, where Rome is presented as being part of the devil's captured territory.

Were the devil-references in the hymn originally intended to be about Luther's Catholic opponents?
Does the hymn come across today as anti-Catholic? (And therefore, to be avoided.)

For context, in my congregation we are perpetually anxious about martial metaphors and sectarian divisiveness. We did do Onward Christian soldiers last year, but only after an explanation/rationale from the pulpit. We'd be happy to sing about the devil being our enemy, but not at all happy to sing against our brothers and sisters in Christ.

2nd Verse

“And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us;
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.”

The estimated date of Luther composing this hymn is between 1527-1528.  In the summer of 1528 the city Luther lived in fell to the bubonic plague. Instead of evacuating Luther chose to risk disease and stay ministering.

  Some scholars have argued that during these weeks of the plague, in which also the tenth “anniversary” of the posting of The Ninety-five Theses fell, Luther composed his A Mighty Fortress is Our God (Luther's Works 49.175)

I searched Luther's works and their is no direct links of his identification of the Pope with the antichrist, or other anti-catholic implications to this hymn.

The copy I have is entitled 'Our God is a castle strong'. The only place where it is likely that Luther may have personally thought of the papacy was here:

  If they take our life,
  Wealth, name, child and wife—.
  Let everything go:
  They have no profit so;
  The kingdom ours remaineth.

However even under fears that the Pope would have Luther murdered for his faith, the plague may have been more forefront in his mind.


UMC dividing over gay marriage? A gay pride rainbow flag flies along with the U.S. flag in front of the Asbury United Methodist Church in Prairie Village, Kan., on April 19, 2019. United Methodist Church leaders are proposing the creation of a separate division that would let more traditional denominations break away because of the disagreement with churches over the UMC’s official stance on gay marriage.
  AP FILE.
  Story here

What arguments do traditional UMC leaders make for separating themselves from the church over its  stance on gay marriage?

The reason why traditional UMC leaders want to separate themselves from the church over its stance on gay marriage is based on the traditional and historic position of the church which views the practice of homosexuality as incompatible with Christian teaching.  Here are extracts from a couple of articles on the subject:

As stated in the Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, the United Methodist Church holds that "homosexual persons no less than heterosexual persons are individuals of sacred worth."  In other words, all individuals are of worth to God.  Nevertheless, in keeping with historic Church teaching, it considers the "practice of homosexuality [to be] incompatible with Christian teaching,"
The third plan, called the Traditional Plan, would reinforce the existing language in the Book of Discipline prohibiting homosexuality, gay marriage ceremonies on church campuses, and allow for stricter enforcement of violations of existing church law. On February 26, 2019, during a special session of the General Conference, delegates from around the world voted to pass the Traditional Plan...  In January 2020, a 16-person committee of bishops and other official submitted to the General Conference a schism proposal for the creation of a new separated "traditional Methodist" denomination, a text that still needs to be approved by the conference in May. By default, any parish will be set as a member of the United Methodist Church (UMC) and would have to conduct votes in order to enter in the new-born communion of the more conservative Methodists.  Source: United Methodist Church (Wikipedia)

EDIT: Here is an extract from an official UMC article based on the 2008 Book of Resolutions asking:  What is the denomination's position on homosexuality?   Regarding clergy:

¶ 304.3  While persons set apart by the Church for ordained ministry are subject to all the frailties of the human condition and the pressures of society, they are required to maintain the highest standards of holy living in the world. The practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. Therefore self-avowed practicing homosexuals are not to be certified as candidates, ordained as ministers, or appointed to serve in The United Methodist Church.
¶ 341.6  Ceremonies that celebrate homosexual unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in our churches.  Source:
https://archive.is/20121209051506/http://archives.umc.org/interior.asp?mid=1324

The latest update on the situation suggests that a new “traditional Methodist” denomination is to be formed:

January 3, 2020 (Life Site News) – The United Methodist Church (UMC) announced Friday it will be dealing with ongoing divisions over homosexuality by formally splitting, with the formation of a new denomination for Methodists who hold to a Biblical understanding of sex and marriage.  The church has been divided over the issues of same-sex “marriage” and homosexual clergy, with its General Conference voting in February against compromising its opposition. Tensions have continued since, however, and on Friday the church announced the formation of a new “traditional Methodist” denomination for more conservative Methodists, the New York Times reports.  Source: BREAKING: United Methodist Church officially splits over gay ‘marriage,’ clergy


In what sense is the bible is "clear"/perspicuous? What do protestants mean when they say that the bible is "clear"? I would assume that it would mean that people reading the Bible or any part of it generally come up with more or less the same idea of what it says, but that doesn't seem likely to be what protestants mean, because the different protestant cults regularly and consistently dream up radically different interpretations of the Bible as a whole and even different members of the same denomination rarely agree on the meaning of various passages.

I've heard people say that the bible is clear enough that anyone can read it and immediately understand the "Core doctrines", but this is demonstrably false: Protestants don't agree on core doctrines because they don't even agree on what the core doctrines are in the first place. Some people read it and conclude that baptismal regeneration and infant baptism is the go, some people read it and come up with transubstantiation, some people read it and come away denying the trinity, some people read it and think that all you need to do is believe in Jesus to be saved, while other people read it and reckon that you need to do works as well. Protestants say that the Core Doctrines are "salvation issues", but they can't even come to an agreement of what those salvation issues are.

I've heard people respond to this by saying something along the lines of "Scripture is clear, but we are sinful humans and our sin gets in the way of us understanding it", but to me that seems to just come across as a flat contradiction: If scripture is clear, then it should be so clear that our sin doesn't get in the way of us understanding it. However if sin still has the power to cloud our understanding of the bible, then the bible is not clear enough to cut through our sin, and is therefore for all intents and purposes not clear at all.

Taking all this into consideration, what does it mean for Scripture to be "Clear" and "Sufficient"?

This is probably a "no win" situation attempting to answer such a question and this will, in no way, be considered a comprehensive answer for such a simple question that has been so complicated by so many people with so many varying agendas.
Many years ago, one of my Bible professors stated that the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible.  In the nearly 40 years past since then, I have found this to be, "a faithful saying".
That being said, I would like to address this question initially with what God has to say about it:

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." (Rom. 1:18-20)

Now this passage is referring to 'natural revelation' and not particularly to Scripture but can certainly be construed as establishing a pattern.  If His eternal power and divine nature which can be "clearly seen" through  His creation, is it such a leap to consider that it is equally clear through His word, His divine revelation? The questioner is questioning the how "clear" the Bible actually is.  Peter asserts, " We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it..." (2 Peter 1:19).  He also asserts, " Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." (2 Peter 1:20).

Let's take a moment to consider the "Romans Road to Salvation" (the first part of which has already been noted), as an example, to gauge a level of clarity:

"For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God." (Rom. 3:23), "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Rom. 6:23), "But God demonstrates His love toward us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Rom. 5:8) and "That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Rom. 10:9,10).

Now one may dispute this, but these verses are pretty clear in their message.  There are certainly passages which are somewhat more ambiguous.  Here is one that has puzzled me for many years, "There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." (Gen. 6:4).  In this case the ambiguity is not so much in the text but in the questions it raises.

Now, in light of my initial statement, consider this:  " For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen."

Based on this information and years of experience, I feel comfortable making the following statements as to the clarity of the Bible.

The message of the Bible is clear.
Many verses in the Bible are not so clear.
God Himself has stated that there are those who purposely exchange "the truth about God for a lie...)
When someone says, "The Bible is clear on this topic.", the legitimacy of that statement would depend greatly on the topic.
Though the Bible is clear in its message, the continual efforts of those who would 'put a lie in its place' or interpret it to their own benefit have confused many.
I would not want to be one of the culprits referred to in verse 5.


What should a Christian do when the state permits something the church does not? Some laws don't evolve or change, some laws are just objectively wrong
  to begin with. Laws and court rulings providing for abortion, same sex
  'marriage' and no fault divorce are laws that require immediate action
  and can never be followed by any Christian if it forces them to
  violate their conscience. We should prefer martyrdom. – Comment

I can understand the concept of civil disobedience to laws you disagree with (and such civil disobedience appeared to be the context of this discussion), but in what sense can that apply here? You can express your disapproval of marriage equality by the act of civil disobedience of ... not marrying someone of the same sex? I'm confused.

To make a serious question out of my genuine bemusement, I'll ask, What should a Christian do when the state permits something the church does not?

When the state prohibits something the church permits, the answer seems to be, Don't do it.

When the state prohibits something the church mandates (such as proselytism), there's probably a clear case for civil disobedience.

Ditto when the church prohibits something the state mandates (such as serving in the armed forces).

But when the church prohibits something the state permits, it's less obvious to me. My answer when I was religious would have been the same as above (though for different reasons): Don't do it. But others seem to recommend civil disobedience in this area. I'm not sure what form such civil disobedience is imagined to take. How can one civilly disobey being allowed to do something? By stopping other people doing it? By force?

Note: This question is similar to, but not the same as the question which triggered it. That question was assuming that all action would be within the democratic process (political campaigning, pressure groups, and, ultimately, voting at the ballot box). However, the comment which sparked this question arose within a context of civil disobedience, and I simply can't understand how civil disobedience is supposed to apply in this case.

I agree with your assessment.  You really answered your own question - don't do it.  That's as far as the civil disobedience can go in that case - not participating yourself.

Anything else (speaking out against the activity, protesting, etc) isn't civil disobedience, it's merely exercising your first amendment rights.

The only way that I can see such activity turning into civil disobedience is if the police show up and demand you stop protesting.  If you continue to speak out or protest at that point, you're exercising civil disobedience, not to the original law you're protesting, but to the attack on your first amendment rights.

That's not the same as exercising civil disobedience by refusing to partake in an unjust law, so it really doesn't apply to your question and we're back to just "don't partake" as the only possible act of civil disobedience, which isn't civil disobedience at all.

Example:  Drinking is legal in the U.S. as long as you're over 21 years old.  However, some Christians view drinking as sinful (or at least not profitable).  Not drinking isn't civil disobedience.

As I ramble on here, I can only come to the conclusion that the answer to this question isn't so much based on logic or Christianity, but on the proper use of the English language, and the definition of the term "disobedience".

Put simply, to refuse to partake in something isn't disobedience unless an authority is attempting to force you to partake.  Therefore, when the law allows something, but does not require it, then refusing to take part is not disobedience, civil or otherwise.


Under what conditions can one experience the power of the Holy Ghost? In the LDS Church, there is what is known as the power of the Holy Ghost, and the gift of the Holy Ghost (not to be confused with the gifts of the Holy Ghost).

The power of the Holy Ghost is when some truth or principle is taught or testified to you by the Holy Ghost, or, in other words, it is His authority to testify. For example, the Holy Ghost can testify that the Jesus is the Christ, or that the Bible is the word of God. It often comes when we ask God questions through earnest prayer.

The gift of the Holy Ghost is the right to have the Holy Ghost as your constant companion at all times and in all places, as you remain worthy. It is received by the laying on of hands.

Under what conditions can one experience the power of the Holy Ghost?

(Ref: https://www.mormon.org/beliefs/holy-spirit)

Generally speaking, the "power of the Holy Ghost" is simply the manner in which He accomplishes His mission.  Again, generally speaking, LDS members don't distinguish a difference between the "power of the Holy Ghost" or any other of His duties or blessings.  So, let's explore a moment.

1) You mentioned the "Gifts of the Spirit" such as tongues, healing, prophecy, etc.  Certainly these occur through the power of the Holy Ghost, but they are an inexclusive application of that power.  Indeed, though personal unrighteousness may bury the gift or gifts, we believe that everyone has at least one gift of the Spirit, no matter who they are or what they believe (D&C 46:11).  Since this affects everyone and is conditioned only on personal righteousness, we'll set this aside as insufficient to answer your question.

Condition(s): Personal Righteousness

2) You mentioned the Gift of the Holy Ghost.  This isn't a specific power, but the ability (assuming once again personal righteousness) to have the Holy Ghost as a constant companion.  Let's start with Acts 2:38:

  Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in
  the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall
  receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

and end with D&C 20:26:

  ...but all those from the beginning, even as many as were before he
  came, who believed in the words of the holy prophets, who spake as
  they were inspired by the gift of the Holy Ghost....

From the LDS perspective, before Baptism and giving the formal Gift of the Holy Ghost people can be inspired by Him (He primarily acting in His role as testator), but they are not going to receive more from Him.  No revelations, no prophecy, no second comforter, no spirit of promise.  The goal of the Holy Ghost before Baptism is to lead people (a) to do good and (b) to Baptism.  Now, this technically answers your question about the Power of the Holy Ghost, but let's delve a bit more.

Condition(s): personal righteousness, baptism by proper authority

(Authority is a discussion all its own.  In our belief, Baptism can only be authoritatively performed by an ordained priest of the Aaronic Priesthood in the LDS Church or any member of the Melchizedek Priesthood.  We don't recognize any other baptisms.)

3) The Holy Ghost has specific roles.  The scriptures I list below are by no means exhaustive.

(a) A teacher, bringing all things to rememberance.  (John
14:26)
(b) A witness or testator (Acts 5:32)
(c) A motivator (Ezek 36:27)
(d) A conscience (Matt 12:18)
(e) A provider of revelation or visions (John 16:13)
(f) A sealer, the Holy Spirit of Promise (D&C 76:53-54 (132:7))
(g) And, a Servant of God, doing as God requires (Moses 6:64)

All these things are done with the Power of the Holy Ghost, but most won't happen consistently unless given the Gift of the Holy Ghost.

(a-e) Conditions: personal righteousness & authorized baptism.

(f) and (g) are specific issues and rare.

(f) The Holy Spirit of Promise (i) seals a person's calling and election sure (2 Pet 1:10) and (ii) seals a temple marriage for time and all eternity.  Both are required for the Celestial Kingdom and for our own families to persist forever.

(f.i) Conditions: exceptional personal righteousness, baptism, temple endowment.

(f.ii) Conditions: exceptional personal righteousness,  exceptional personal relationship with your spouse, baptism, temple marriage.

(g) is, perhaps, entirely unique.  One example was Adam's baptism, referenced above.  There are a handful of unique baptisms like his in scripture (another being Alma the elder).  In this role, the Holy Ghost is a unique "go-to" person to make a specific thing happen.  This is not an "achievable" condition.  You must be the right person, in the right place, at the right time, foreordained for the event.

Everything I have discussed happens by the "Power of the Holy Ghost," but I suspect that (3.f) is the most specific example of His unique power.

Please let me know if this addressed your question.  Thanks for giving me the chance to answer!


What are the meanings of the abbreviations used in the Hatch/Redpath Concordance to the Septuagint? I bought the Hatch/Redpath concordance to the Septuagint set a little while ago. I have looked everywhere, and can't find a key to all the abbreviations and what they mean. The preface is of very little help too. Can anybody provide me with info?

One place to start would be with the first edition of the work, which is available on Wikimedia Commons (only the 2nd volume and supplement are on Google Books). From what I can tell, the second edition closely follows the first, so the list of abbreviations and symbols (found in the supplement) should be helpful:


Does Jesus do for Gentiles what the Torah does for Jews? In this review of the book Paul was Not a Christian by Pamela Eisenbaum, Jewish magazine author Judith Schulevitz writes:

  Paul Was Not a Christian is the title of a book published this fall; what he was—and never stopped being—according to New Testament scholar Pamela Eisenbaum and the revisionists she echoes was a law-abiding Jew.

And later:

  Paul is supposed to be the genius who overcame Jewish particularism and invented religious universalism, but the new Paul [of Paul was not a Christian] didn’t do that. He didn’t believe that the Jewish God stopped being Jewish. Nor did he think Jesus superseded God’s covenant with his chosen people. [Paul taught that] What Jesus mainly did was die for the goyim: “What Torah does for Jews, Jesus does for gentiles,” writes Eisenbaum.

Are there proponents of a Christian viewpoint that paraphrase or conclude from Paul's writing the same as Eisenbaum: "what the Torah does for Jews, Jesus does for Gentiles"?

Do any conclude from Paul's writings that Jesus has a role, position, ministry, office, or authority in the kosmos in addition to being the way for Gentiles to enter the Kingdom of God?

Any answers should include citations of Paul's writings and commentary on them.

The book the question refers to does not seem to have a correct understanding of the gospel. There is only one gospel which is for both Jews and Gentiles, and Paul clearly taught that.
The beginning of Romans (1:18-3:20) shows that everyone, both Jews and Gentiles, are condemned by their sin. At the very end Paul says what he thought the purpose of the law was:

Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are. (Romans 3:19-20, NLT)

So "What Torah does for Jews" is condemn them!
What Jesus did, through dying on the cross and coming back to life again, is provide a way for us to receive God's righteousness. This is what the following verses say:

But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God freely and graciously declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time. God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he declares sinners to be right in his sight when they believe in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26, NLT)

Several times Paul says very explicitly that the gospel is for both the Jews and Gentiles:

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. (Romans 1:16, NLT)
There will be trouble and calamity for everyone who keeps on doing what is evil—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. But there will be glory and honor and peace from God for all who do good—for the Jew first and also for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism. (Romans 2:9-11, NLT)


Who were the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices? The passage from the Gospel of Luke 13 has a very curious beginning. We hear about an episode involving Pontius Pilate that is not recounted in any of the other Gospels. It says Pontius Pilate had mingled the blood of some Galileans with their sacrifices. (Luke 13:1-5).

  Luke 13:1-5

  New International Version (NIV)

  13 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the
  Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus
  answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than
  all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you,
  no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those
  eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think
  they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I
  tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.
  ’”

Who were the galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices?

There's some historical/tradition information? Any clue?

There is no  Scripture which I can find which sheds any light on this. However, there are several commentaries which do give an explanation. However, we have no way of knowing where they found their information. I have quoted them here for your consideration:

Barnes:

  Whose blood Pilate had mingled ... — That is, while they were sacrificing at Jerusalem, Pilate came suddenly upon them and killed them, and “their” blood was mingled with the blood of the animals that they were slaying for sacrifice.

Clark

  Whose blood Pilate had mingled — This piece of history is not recorded (as far as I can find) by Josephus: however, he states that the Galileans were the most seditious people in the land: they belonged properly to Herod’s jurisdiction; but, as they kept the great feasts at Jerusalem, they probably, by their tumultuous behavior at some one of them, gave Pilate, who was a mortal enemy to Herod, a pretext to fall upon and slay many of them; and thus, perhaps, sacrifice the people to the resentment he had against the prince. Archelaus is represented by Josephus as sending his soldiers into the temple, and slaying 3000 men while they were employed in offering sacrifices.

Guzik

  The Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices: We don’t have a record in secular history about the specific incident mentioned here. But there is a similar incident before the ministry of Jesus, Pilate wanted to build an aqueduct from the Pools of Solomon to the city of Jerusalem. To pay for it, he demanded money from the temple treasury, money that had been dedicated to God — and this outraged the people. When the Jews sent a delegation to beg for their money back, Pilate sent into the crowd soldiers dressed as common people, and at a certain signal they took out daggers and attacked the people  asking for the money.

  This doesn’t seem to be the same incident mentioned here, but it shows how completely consistent it was with the character of Pilate to slaughter some Galilean Jews on their way to sacrifice to the Lord in Jerusalem.


According to the morality of the Catholic Church are there any organs that are not permitted to be offered in organ transplants? According to the morality of the Catholic Church are there any organs that are not permitted to be offered in organ transplants?
Wikipedia has a very large list of organs that are commonly used in organ transplants.

Chest
Heart (deceased-donor only)
Lung (deceased-donor and living-related lung transplantation)
Heart/Lung (deceased-donor and domino transplant)
Abdomen
Kidney (deceased-donor and living-donor)
Liver (deceased-donor and living-donor)
Intestine (deceased-donor and living-donor)
Stomach (deceased-donor only)
Testis (deceased-donor and living-donor)
Tissues, cells and fluids
Hand (deceased-donor only), see the first recipient Clint Hallam
Cornea (deceased-donor only) see the ophthalmologist Eduard Zirm
Skin, including face replant (autograft) and face transplant (extremely rare)
Islets of Langerhans (pancreas islet cells) (deceased-donor and living-donor)
Bone marrow/Adult stem cell (living-donor and autograft)
Blood transfusion/Blood Parts Transfusion (living-donor and autograft)
Blood Vessels (autograft and deceased-donor)
Heart Valve (deceased-donor, living-donor and xenograft [porcine/bovine])
Bone (deceased-donor and living-donor)

Has the Catholic Church ever pronounced anything on the subject as to what organs are or are not permitted to be used in human organ transplants?

Yes, the brain and the gonads are not permitted even if the donor is dead.

The general principle regarding the donation of organs is articulated in section 2296 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

  Organ transplants are in conformity with the moral law if the physical and psychological dangers and risks incurred by the donor are proportionate to the good sought for the recipient. Donation of organs after death is a noble and meritorious act and is to be encouraged as a manifestation of generous solidarity. It is not morally acceptable if the donor or those who legitimately speak for him have not given their explicit consent.
   It is furthermore morally inadmissible directly to bring about the disabling mutilation or death of a human being, even in order to delay the death of other persons.

Distinction is made between

transplants from a dead body
transplants from a living body which would cause the disabling mutilation or death of the donor
transplants from a living body which would not cause the disabling mutilation or death of the donor.

The donation of body parts from a  dead body is approved, and encouraged, but the donation must be explicit, whether by the deceased, prior to death, or by his representative afterwards.

The donation of parts from a living body which would cause the disabling mutilation or death of the donor is not permitted. A heart transplant would, of course, have such an effect.

Transplants which do not result in disabling mutilation are subject to a test of proportionality. This requires balancing the dangers and risks  to the donor against the benefits to the recipient.  Because the human body contains two kidneys, but can function with one, a kidney transplant would ordinarily come into this category.

The Catholic Medical Association(UK) has stated there is no objection, in principle,  to transplants from animals to humans.

Pope Francis has described organ donation as a testimony of love for our neighbour.

In the case of reproductive function section 2376 of the Catechism of the Catholic church reads:

  Techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are gravely immoral. These techniques (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe the child's right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage. They betray the spouses' "right to become a father and a mother only through each other."

The Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance and Healthcare Workers , in 1995, listed the brain and the gonads as forbidden from transplantation:

  The brain and the gonads may not be transplanted because they ensure personal and procreative
  identity respectively. These are organs which embody the characteristic uniqueness of the person
  which medicine is bound to protect.” PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR PASTORAL ASSISTANCE AND HEALTH
  CARE WORKERS, Charter for Health Care Workers (1995) 88.

Transplanting a brain is prohibited because personal identity is held to reside in the brain.

A gonad is either a testis in the case of a gentleman, or an ovary in the case of a lady. The prohibition here is about procreative identity. Children, it is intended,  should be the genetic descendants of the married couple to whom they are born. If Mr A were to receive a transplanted testis from Mr B and then impregnate Mrs A, the resulting child, Master or Miss A,  would not be the genetic child of Mr and Mrs A, but of Mr B and Mrs A. Similarly if Mrs A received an ovary from Ms C, and was impregnated by Mr A, the child would be the genetic child of Mr A and Ms C. This is the issue.

In the case of a prepubescent boy facing chemotherapy, his testis was removed and later transplanted back. This would not be a problem to the Church as it was not a transplant from another person.


In Catholicism, what are “all things visible & invisible”? The Nicene Creed begins with the following:

  I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

What does the phrase "all things visible and invisible" mean exactly? This may seem like a basic question, but I guess I don't know the full list of things that this is saying that God made.

Everything that is that is not God. The physical universe. Humans. Spiritual beings (angels and demons etc).

CCC 325: The Apostles' Creed professes that God is "creator of heaven and earth". the Nicene Creed makes it explicit that this profession includes "all that is, seen and unseen".
CCC 326: The Scriptural expression "heaven and earth" means all that exists, creation in its entirety. It also indicates the bond, deep within creation, that both unites heaven and earth and distinguishes the one from the other: "the earth" is the world of men, while "heaven" or "the heavens" can designate both the firmament and God's own "place" - "our Father in heaven" and consequently the "heaven" too which is eschatological glory. Finally, "heaven" refers to the saints and the "place" of the spiritual creatures, the angels, who surround God.
CCC 338: Nothing exists that does not owe its existence to God the Creator. the world began when God's word drew it out of nothingness; all existent beings, all of nature, and all human history are rooted in this primordial event, the very genesis by which the world was constituted and time begun.

In this all the branches of Trinitarian Christianity are agreed.


Why were Aaron and his son only ones eligible for being a Priest? In ancient times, the only people who were offered a chance to become the priest were Aaron and his sons.

Would not this be unfair? There might have been people who were better suited for the position. It has been shown throughout the Bible that sons of people with the position of priest were not always good (Eli's sons, Samuel's sons, etc.).

What was the reason for this strictness regarding the position of being the priest?

What was the reason for this strictness regarding the position of
  being the priest?

I have come to believe that most of the commandments from God have a logical backing. And one simply has to image herself being present in the situation and position of God to understand it.

Suppose you were setting up a software company. How would you go about hiring good programmers? The first thing might be to put an advertisement for people with a computer science degree. Now why this strictness about having a college degree? Though it is possible to find good programmers who don't have one, these cases are rare and exceptional. A degree though just a piece of paper shows that the person has put substantial time, effort and money in systematic study of the field. And since -

  Practice makes a [wo]man perfect.

Hence our strictness.

The Levites were a tribe that had a special job. They were not supposed to take up other professions like agriculture, metalworking or trading etc. Their life was made up of these things -

Recite and memorize the scriptures.
Give sermons and practice oratory skills
Meticulously copy manuscripts by hand and double-triple check them for copy errors.
Clean up and maintain the temple.
Coordinate social ceremonies and religious celebrations.

This is not to say that others could not excel in these things but that the probability was very less. Much less than in modern times because of these reasons -

There were no schools, no books and no internet to gain information not relevant to your profession.
Life was much more busy. Cooking food on coal fire, cleaning up the barn and walking to the next village took entire day. This left little time for independent research for pursuing your ideal profession.

Now put yourself in the situation. You are setting up a temple. What would your advertisement read? Why your strictness?

  Matthew 22:14 For many are eligible but few are qualified. (Monika's
  Translation)


What is the basis for the idea of a seven year peace treaty with Israel in the end times? I have heard the concept that in the end times there will be a 7 year peace treaty signed with the nation of Israel, and that three and a half years into that treaty, it will be broken.

What is the biblical basis for this idea?

There are two seemingly conflicting descriptions of the end times for Israel, that many resolve by figuring there will be a peace treaty.  Since the tribulation is 7 years, they assume that to be the duration.

To wit, the references in question are:

Per Matthew 24:6, it will be a time of war

  You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

Per Ezekiel 38, it will be a time of "peace" (although, see #3)

  7 “Be ready and keep ready, you and all your hosts that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them. 8 After many days you will be mustered. In the latter years you will go against the land that is restored from war, the land whose people were gathered from many peoples upon the mountains of Israel, which had been a continual waste. Its people were brought out from the peoples and now dwell securely, all of them.

The simplest resolution comes from continuing to read Ezekiel 38:

  9 You will advance, coming on like a storm. You will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your hordes, and many peoples with you.

  10 “Thus says the Lord God: On that day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme 11 and say, ‘I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates,’ 12 to seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth

The idea is actually fairly simple - it is a treacherous time.  There is all sorts of war, and israel is duped into a bad alliance.  (Note: This is a recurring theme throughout the Prophets and Kings)  The peace treaty with an unscrupulous nation (the Anti-Christ) gives the appearance of peace, but is actually a setup for a very bad outcome.
This also reads well with Daniel 9

  And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

Traditionally, premillenial dispensationalists view the "70th week" of Daniel as the end times.  The first sixty-nine weeks are viewed as the time between Daniel and the Messiah, then the Church age puts the 'pause' button on the 70th week.  The tribulation is basically that last week.

This is the traditional pre-trib / dispensationalist reading, such as those popularized by Tim LaHaye in the Left Behind series. I am quite familiar with the reading, but remain unconvinced either way by it.  As such, this answer is not based on the merits of the claim, only that the combination of the two is typically the basis for the claim.


Lords Prayer. Asking for Forgiveness For those who beleive in the doctrine of Once Saved Always Saved (OSAS).  How does one reconcile our need to not only confess our sins, but to ask God for forgiveness for those sins?

  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us

Some might say that in Mathew 6 the word should be translated as "debts" which are not necessarily "sins." Yet the parallel passage in Luke 11 uses the word "ἁμαρτία" which clearly speaks of sin.

Question:

If we have received forgiveness in full, and it is completed as many would suggest, why would the Lord have us petition (Pray) for our forgiveness when it has already, according to the OSAS doctrine, been freely given and can never be taken away?

This question are for the Faith Practices that adhere to 'assurance of salvation' which includes most but not all the ecclesial bodies that broke and continue to break away from the Catholic Church.

The issue you raised is rooted in the concept of justification.

Through the fulfillment of the will of the Father in His Son, Jesus Christ, the Father declared us righteous in His sight. That is, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is our justification, the declaration of God that we are free of guilt and penalty of sin and acceptable to Him (Romans 4:25, NIV):

  He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

Our justification also marks the beginning of sanctification, a continual process of being made holy by the power of the Holy Spirit, a lifelong process that makes us more and more like Jesus Christ.

We can argue that the Lord’s Prayer is the foremost declaration of our faith in the fulfillment of the will of the Father in His Son. Therefore, it is a means to justify ourselves to the Father. Via the Lord’s Prayer, prayed daily, we are led by the Holy Spirit in our daily lives and become more like Jesus Christ – the precise outcome of sanctification!


When was the idea of all humans worth equal incorporated into Lutheran Christianity? Why am I here

In Swedish Lutheran church today (which I belong to), it seems to be "obvious" that All humans are worth equal. I'm not questioning the statement itself, I am just interested in the origins of it - when did the Church started to state this?

What does the UN say?

The United Nations universal declarations of human rights state:

  All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

This sounds like "all humans are worth equal" to me.

What does the bible say?

Genesis 1:27

  So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Nahum 1:14

  The Lord has given commandment about you: “No more shall your name be perpetuated; from the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are vile.”

I haven't been able to find any place in the bible where it says that All humans are worth equal. Being created in the image of God does not automatically lead to All humans being worth equal. The text from Nahum more seems to say the contrary (there are some other texts just like it).

Question

I have heard "All humans are worth equal" being spoken about as a Christian idea. I'm not interested in the origin itself of the concept of all Humans being worth equal, I want to know

When was this idea incorporated into Christianity?

At least one scholar would say, this was the inherent message of Christianity, from the very beginning.
In Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time, Sarah Ruden seeks to compare Paul's writings with that of the culture in which he lived. Over and over again, her project is to show how remarkably liberal Paul is when it comes to elevating the worth of those who were not considered fully human in Roman society. Whether it be the role of women (whom the culture would have seen as disposable sex objects) or slaves, Ruden advances the hypothesis that the modern notion of the fundamental worth of all individuals is the defining motivation of the Apostle Paul.
Her thesis is this:

Paul created the Western individual human being, unconditionally precious to God and therefore entitled to the consideration of other human beings. There is no sign that Paul intended all the social change that gradually (and sometimes traumatically) resulted, the development of the rights and freedoms that characterize the West. He laid down the law against only the worst abuses, such as pederasty, male promiscuity, and forced marriage. But broad social change did follow inevitably from the idea he spread: that God’s love was sublime and infinite, yet immediately knowable to everyone. No other intellect contributed as much to making us who we are.
Ruden, Sarah (2010-02-10). Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time (Kindle Locations 180-181). The Doubleday Religious Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Slavery
In her analysis of slavery in the Greco-Roman world, for example, Ruden points out how radically different Paul's letter to Philemon is than society at large. Whereas the culture viewed slaves as pets and runaways as moral lowlifes, Paul radically reaches out to the slave-owning Philemon, urging him to view Onesimus as a brother. Ruden writes:

The letter to Philemon may be the most explicit demonstration of how, more than anyone else, Paul created the Western individual human being, unconditionally precious to God and therefore entitled to the consideration of other human beings
... as I wrote above, Paul had a much more ambitious plan than making Onesimus legally free. He wanted to make him into a human being, and he had a paradigm. As God chose and loved and guided the Israelites, he had now chosen and loved and could guide everyone. The grace of God could make what was subhuman into what was more than human. It was just a question of knowing it and letting it happen. The way Paul makes the point in his letter to Philemon is beyond ingenious. He equates Onesimus with a son and a brother. He turns what Greco-Roman society saw as the fundamental, insurmountable differences between a slave and his master into an immense joke.

Women
When it comes to the role of women, Paul is equally radical. Many feminists like to point out how "backwards" Paul is in demanding that women cover their heads, for example. Ruden points out this was actually something that enhanced the status of women in his day.

I think Paul’s rule aimed toward an outrageous equality. All Christian women were to cover their heads in church, without distinction of beauty, wealth, respectability—or of privilege so great as to allow toying with traditional appearances ... f the women complied—and later church tradition suggests they did—you could have looked at a congregation and not necessarily been able to tell who was an honored wife and mother and who had been forced, or maybe was still being forced, to service twenty or thirty men a day. This had never happened in any public gathering before. The new decree made independent women of uncertain status, or even slave women , honorary wives in this setting.

Or when it comes to divorce:

A marriage—or a divorce—for spiritual purposes was unheard of up until Christianity, and was entirely against Greco-Roman social norms. Paul’s vocabulary itself moves toward change. In verses 10 and 11 are the traditional terms, pointing to the spiritually poisonous traditional gap in power: the wife must not “separate” from her husband—or if she does, she must either stay unmarried or become reconciled to the same man—and the husband must not “divorce” his wife (literally “throw out,” the same word as for disowning a child). Under the laws of the Greeks and Romans, the wife could only remove herself, forfeiting her home and children; the husband, in a divorce, sent the wife back to her parents’ house with nothing but her dowry, and if she had neither parents nor a dowry, he could put her on the street. Nothing could entitle her to a share in his home or to a new one of her own

Sex
Ruden goes into great detail showing how coarse and abusive Roman society was. Divorce was a casual thing, Pedophilia and the rape of young boys was common place. Society encouraged virile men to objectify any beneath them. Ruden uses contemporary sources to show this, then remarks on how different Paul is.  She writes:

For the polytheists, the essence of porneia was treating another human being as a thing. If I had been one of Paul’s typical early readers, whatever else I understood from his use of the word, I would have picked up that treating another human being as a thing was no longer okay.

This theme is the theme of Ruden's work - that Paul's understanding of who Christ is is inherently the unintentional birth of the Western notion that all people are inherently eual in the sight of God.

C.S. Lewis, writing half a century before, also agrees that this notion of the eternal worth of the human being is inherent to the immortality promised by the Gospel. In Mere Christianity, he writes:

If individuals live only seventy years, then a state, or a nation, or a civilisation, which may last for a thousand years, is more important than an individual. But if Christianity is true, then the individual is
not only more important but incomparably more important, for he is everlasting and the life of a state or a civilisation, compared with his, is only a moment.

Glibbly, one can also point to Galatians 3:28, in which Paul writes:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

She is under no illusions that Paul would have forseen the present situation - but she definitely would argue that our society has taken the radical Christian method of eequality to its natural conculsion.


Besides Satan, was Jesus alone in the desert? If Jesus went to desert alone for forty days and forty nights, how could the apostles write about it?

It's not written in any of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) that Jesus was alone. Someone in a comment below prior to this edit referenced a hymn called "Jesus walked this lonesome valley" - this is an assumption by the composer. Aside from Satan's obvious presence, no further information is given about other witnesses of the event - we could theorize that someone, or even many someones, were present, Jesus was alone and told his disciples the events afterwards, or that he was alone and the Spirit provided the Gospel writers this info. All we have is what is written in the gospels, anything else is just supposition.


How does dispensationalism reconcile Romans 11? From my understanding of dispensationalism, at some point in the future, I believe either prior to or just after the rapture, the temple on Moriah will need to be rebuilt.

However, presumably, the reason for rebuilding the temple would be to resume the temple sacrifices that were going on there until the Romans destroyed it. This motivation seems even more likely (to me), given the imagery of the Millennial Temple in Ezekiel 40-48, where animal sacrifices are taking place.

But, if, as Paul seems to be saying below that all Israel will be saved, then what would the motivation be to rebuild a temple, given "sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary" (Hebrews 10:1-18) ?

Romans 11:25-26a

  I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and
  sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a
  hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in,
  and in this way all Israel will be saved.

How do adherents of dispensationalism explain this? Where is my confusion?

all Israel will be saved

The phrase above lends itself to several possibilities.

Every descendant of Jacob will eventually end up in heaven.
All those of Israel who were "blinded" will be saved.
Israel is a metaphor for all those of faith who are Abraham's children.
The Israel that will be saved is the faithful remnant that remains at the end of the tribulation.

I favor the remnant view in that I see the time element of the fulfillment of the new covenant.

Rom 11:26-27  And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:   For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.

Jerimiah 31:33  But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Daniel 9:27  And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Matthew 24:15-16  When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)   Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

Revelation 12:14  And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

Rom 9:27  Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:


Is there any denomination which teaches that God never commanded burnt offerings and sacrifice to Israel? Jeremiah 7:22

  A. New International Version For when I brought your ancestors out of
  Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt
  offerings and sacrifices

  B. English Standard Version For in the day that I brought them out of
  the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them
  concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

If all translations like A, there is no question. But there are quite many other translations (besides ESV) which like B where it leads to a conclusion that burnt offerings and sacrifices are traditions. Burnt offerings can be seen in Cain/Abel and Noah story.

Assuming that the correct translation is something like B, is there any denomination who interpret as it read in B ?

No, not really. The closest we get is the Marcionites, a Gnostic sect who rejected the Old Testament and believed the God of the Israelites was a different and inferior god to the god of the New Testament.

Nevertheless, this question would never rise or fall on the translation of Jeremiah 7:22 since there are tons of extended passages in the Old Testament where God does prescribe burnt offerings and sacrifices.

The ESV translation is getting at the fact that God is mainly angry that his voice has not been heeded, not that he hasn't had enough sacrifices. His evidence is that when the Israelites came out of Egypt, he didn't give them any instruction about sacrifices until they made it to Siani. His only requirement was that they would follow his voice and obey him.


Who are the 144,000? Who are the 144,000 mentioned in Revelation 7:4-8 (NIV)

  Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel. From the tribe of Judah 12,000 were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben 12,000, from the tribe of Gad 12,000, from the tribe of Asher 12,000, from the tribe of Naphtali 12,000, from the tribe of Manasseh 12,000, from the tribe of Simeon 12,000, from the tribe of Levi 12,000, from the tribe of Issachar 12,000, from the tribe of Zebulun 12,000, from the tribe of Joseph 12,000, from the tribe of Benjamin 12,000.

and Revelation 14:1-5 (NIV)

  Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among mankind and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.

I have trouble with Jehovah's Witnesses' explanation that the 144,000 are 'spiritual Israel,' and that they are the same as the 24 elders introduced to us at Revelation chapter 4, and referred to again at 7:11, and 14:3, and also throughout Revelation chapter 5. This is because logically, if the 144,000 were the same as the 24 elders, then they would be singing to themselves in Revelation 14:1-3 (NIV):

  Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth.

I believe there is an "Israel of God" as mentioned in Galatians 6:16 (NIV):

  Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule—to the Israel of God.

Although I have trouble believing that it means the same thing as what Jehovah's Witnesses call "spiritual Israel." My reasons for this are beyond the scope of this particular question. (It involves John 10, regarding sheep and a sheepfold.)

I have trouble believing that "every tribe of the sons of Israel" at Revelation 7:4 is symbolic due to the specific naming of them at Revelation 7:5-8. And I find it hard to believe Jehovah's Witnesses' explanation that Israel has been rejected, because of Romans chapter 11, verses 1 and 2. And also because of how the rest of Romans chapter 11 describes Israel's disobedience leading to God showing them mercy, after "the full number of people of the nations has come in."

Because I have trouble believing these things, it is incredibly difficult to believe that some of Jehovah's Witnesses are part of the 144,000, for the reasons they believe they are.

So this is why I ask, "Who are the 144,000?"

Here are some of the ways to interpret the 144,000.

Some of them are from the first century Christians and the remnants are from some  faithful members of Jehovah's Witnesses.
They are the chosen people at the last days who will proclaim the last Gospel to the world.
They are literally from the 12 tribes of Israel. (I endorse this view)

Let's take 144,000 literally that they are from the 12 tribes of Israel.

One important thing to know is that Jews today living in Israel are from one of the 12 tribes of Israel. They are the descendants of Judah, the fourth son of Jacob(Israel). Even during the time of Jesus, there were only Jews, not the whole Israelite. We don't know where are the other remaining tribes of Israel. Ten tribes of Israel are lost till today. If we take 144,000 literally, then it must be from the 12 tribes of Israel only. The Gospel was preached only to the Jews and then to Gentiles. I believe that God wants to save the whole 12 tribes of Israel. This may be the reason why Rev 7 list down the 12 tribes. Even though 10 tribes are lost, I believe that God still knows where they are and God has a complete list of all the descendants of Jacob. There are many theories and studies on who are the lost tribes of Israel but God knows it better.
The descendants of Jacob, especially the Jews will believe in Jesus at the last days through the two witnesses, the last prophets who will convince the nation of Israel that Jesus is the Christ. These two witnesses will preach in Jerusalem and ultimately will be killed by the Antichrist but God will raise them after 3 days(Rev 11).

Why 144,000? There can be two possible views on this.

Total number of Israelites in Heaven: We don't know how many Jews believed the Gospel till today. We don't know whether the number 12,000 allotted for Jews is already completed or not. We also don't know how many from the lost tribes have already believed in Jesus.  But at the last day, all complete 12 tribes will believe Jesus Christ, whether they are lost or not and their will be exactly 144,000 people in Heaven from the descendants of Jacob.
The elected evangelist at the last days: God will chose 144,000 people from the descendants of Jacob in the last days and they will preach the Gospel to all the nations.


How did God come to be? I know this is an old question, but does anyone have any new ideas on it?

One argument is that God has always existed, but why should anything exist at all? How could this happen?

Another approach is that God (and possibly God's creator(s)) came into being at some point, before He then created the universe. But how could there to be a point at which something began to exist, where before there was nothing? Scientists argue that something can come out of nothing, and that this happened at Big Bang. Some of them say 'Nothing is an unstable state - it is not surprising that something has emerged'. However their 'nothing' is a particular condition of space-time, under various science laws that already exist; why should there even be physics laws?

I'd be interested if anyone had any thoughts? Thank you.

The Christian answer to this is simple and ancient. God is eternal and has always existed. He does not have a creator. He is the 'first cause', or 'uncaused cause'. Speculation about how that came to be (bearing in mind that 'came to be' is a phrase implying time and causation, which may not be appropriate) are just speculation on the part of individual Christians.

It should be said that a small minority of sects, notabley the Latter-Day Saints, don't agree with the above statement.


What is the Biblical basis for not making circumcision a requirement for Christians? I recently read an argument which was basically 'Paul against Jesus' type and was something like this:

Jesus said that He didn't come to abolish the Jewish laws but to fulfill them:

  Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them. (Matthew 5:17, NET)

And we have this verse in OT:

  Any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin will be cut off from his people – he has failed to carry out my requirement. (Genesis 17:14, NET)

It is argued that even though Jesus was circumcised, it is not a requirement now for Christians because Paul preached so.

What is the Biblical basis for not making circumcision a requirement for Christians?

Scripture (and that I mean here the law) clearly tells us that the circumcision is not to be of only physical nature.

  Jeremiah  4:4 Just as ritual circumcision cuts away the foreskin as an external symbol of dedicated covenant commitment, you must genuinely dedicate yourselves to the LORD.

In Jeremiah 9:25, scripture says that if we are not circumcised in our hearts than it is of no use. Here the argument of Paul verses Jesus is clearly defeated since Paul is basing his teaching on what was said in the law which Jesus was saying in Matt. 5:17 that He came to fulfill the law. Paul being a learned Jewish scholar knew all these prophecies which were being fulfilled in Jesus.

  Jeremiah 9:25 The LORD says, “Watch out! The time is soon coming when I will punish all those who are circumcised only in the flesh. 9:26 That is, I will punish the Egyptians, the Judeans, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, and all the desert people who cut their hair short at the temples. I will do so because none of the people of those nations are really circumcised in the LORD’s sight. Moreover, none of the people of Israel are circumcised when it comes to their hearts.”

So above verses and following verses from scripture (law) rather tells us that we need to be circumcised in heart also.

  Ezekiel 44:7 When you bring foreigners, those uncircumcised in heart and in flesh, into my sanctuary, you desecrate it – even my house – when you offer my food, the fat and the blood. You have broken my covenant by all your abominable practices.

  Ezekiel  44:9 This is what the sovereign LORD says: No foreigner, who is uncircumcised in heart and flesh among all the foreigners who are among the people of Israel, will enter into my sanctuary.

Now coming to the New Testament, we see in verse of Act:10.45 that even uncircumcised believers were filled with Holy spirit.

  Acts: 10:45 The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were greatly astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles,

And in Verse Act. 11:5 Peter’s vision tells us about to accept uncircumcised believers:

  Acts 11:5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, an object something like a large sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came to me. 11:6 As I stared I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild animals, reptiles, and wild birds. 11:7 I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; slaughter and eat!’ 11:8   But I said, ‘Certainly not, Lord, for nothing defiled or ritually unclean has ever entered my mouth!’ 11:9 But the voice replied a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not consider ritually unclean!’

Elsewhere also we see that there is a strong Biblical basis for not following the practice of circumcision in the following verses:

  Acts 15:7 After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that some time ago God chose me to preach to the Gentiles so they would hear the message of the gospel and believe. 15:8 And God, who knows the heart, has testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 15:9 and he made no distinction between them and us, cleansing their hearts by faith. 15:10 So now why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? 15:11 On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they are.”

  Romans: 2:25 For circumcision has its value if you practice the law, but if you break the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 2:26 Therefore if the uncircumcised man obeys the righteous requirements of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision? 2:27 And will not the physically uncircumcised man who keeps the law judge you who, despite the written code and circumcision, transgress the law? 2:28 For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something that is outward in the flesh, 2:29 but someone is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart by the Spirit and not by the written code. This person’s praise is not from people but from God.

  Romans 4:12, “And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.”

So it is not Paul who stopped the circumcision on his own but his preaching was firmly based on the various verses in the law which Jesus came to fulfill and those verses are to be fulfilled by not circumcising physically but spiritually.


How can we identify, sometimes, the angel of the Lord as God if the prophets also spoke as God? I am not saying the prophets are God. What I am saying is that the prophets have a tendency to speak like God in the first person. Which can make it difficult to use the OT when discussing the premises of the Trinity.
This was an argument used by Muslims.

The key to identifying the difference between the two lies in the appearance of the one making the statement. Prophets were ordinary men who were known members of the community. Their presence was not a one time or sudden event. Whereas with the Angel of the Lord appeared at the moment of the announcement, and most often only for a few minutes.

Since you mentioned the Book of Isaiah the Angel of the Lord only appears once in the book of Isaiah. That is in Chapter 37 verse 36, and that particular chapter is most indicative of the point I am making.

When King Hezekiah was about to acquiesce to the king of Assyria Isaiah sent a message to Hezekiah which you will notice begins with Thus saith the LORD God of Israel. While in verse 36 we find:

  Isaiah 37:36 KJV  Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

What we find in this verse is a quick and decisive action by the Angel of the Lord.

In all 63 instances of The Angel of the Lord appearing in the Old Testament you will find that the Angel appeared and only remained as long as necessary to accomplish the will of God.

Hope this helps.


Is there a reason why female Mormon missionaries wear such varied dresses but male Mormon missionaries wear uniforms? Is there a reason why female Mormon missionaries wear such varied dresses but male Mormon missionaries wear uniforms?

I see male missionaries often. They are easily recognizable, because they all wear uniform outfits - white t-shirt, black pants, and a clean tie to finish. When I go on the Mormon site, the dress code for men seems more varied than what I previously thought, and the dress code for women is not only more varied but also more colorful and vibrant.

My question is, is this true? Do Mormon missionary women get to wear more varied and colorful clothing than Mormon missionary men? And why do the men on the website wear more varied clothing with different-colored ties but the men on the street wear exactly the same style?

The missionary dress code has changed a lot over the years to stay compatible with current trends and styles (without compromising modesty, of course).
Until about 2010, sister missionaries were required to wear nylons and dark dresses/skirts that went down to at least mid-calf, as well as dark suit/jacket tops. In 2010, the dress code was updated, permitting:

Knee-length skirts instead of always down to mid-calf
Nylons not required
Bright, vivid colors

From this news report, an MTC employee said:

"Having recently served a mission, I knew how people reacted to the floor-length skirts and generic collared shirts," Porter said. "Sure, we looked professional, but not all that current and approachable. Being a part of the standards update ignited my excitement for missionary work. Now sisters could feel cute, comfortable and still modest. And that was the goal.
"Everyone working on the project had the same collective vision," she continued. "We wanted the sister missionaries to be more approachable, more up to date with fashion and as always, modest."

Basically, the change now allows sisters to look more natural, approachable and personable. It allows their personalities to shine through a little more, and that's something the LDS Church considers valuable when sharing the gospel.
Similarly, elders are now allowed to wear light-colored suits and slacks. Before 2011 or 2012, all their clothing (except the white shirts) were dark. To answer your last question about ties and suits, the lack of variation might just be because few men straight out of high school have good fashion sense. (I jest, but only a little.) Dark suits are still most common among elders, though, it seems.


Why did the Jansenists practice such harsh penances? If the Jansenists did not deny the gratuity of grace, thinking grace cannot be earned or merited, why did they practice penances sometimes considered harsh?

Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., Three Ages of the Interior Life, pt. 2 "Purification of the Soul in Beginners", ch. 19 "Practical Naturalism: Of Action and of Inaction" (ref:35.21):

In the seventeenth century the Jansenists fell into a pessimism which is an alteration of the Christian doctrine of penance. Like the first Protestants, they exaggerated the results of original sin to the point of saying that man no longer has free will, the liberty of indifference, but only spontaneity, and that all the acts of infidels are sins.759 They taught that “all his life long, a man must do penance for original sin.”760 As a result, they retained souls during a whole lifetime in the purgative way, and kept them away from Holy Communion, saying that we are not worthy of such a union with our Lord. According to their doctrine, only those should be admitted to Holy Communion who have a pure, unalloyed love of God.761 They forgot that this very pure love of God is precisely the effect of Communion, when it is accompanied by a generous struggle against all that is inordinate in us. Jansenism never attained to deliverance and peace.762759. Cf. Denzinger, nos. 1094 [Cum occasione, May 31, 1658, condemned: "3. In order to merit or demerit in the state of fallen nature, freedom from necessity is not required in man, but freedom from external compulsion is sufficient."], 1291 [Condemned in a Decr. of the Holy Office, Dec. 7, 1690: "1. In the state of fallen nature, for mortal [Viva: formale] sin and for demerit that liberty is sufficient by which the mortal sin or demerit was voluntary and free in its cause, namely, in original sin and in the will of Adam sinning."], 1298 ["8. Of necessity, an infidel sins in every act."].760. Ibid., no. 1309: “Homo debet agere tota vita poenitentiam pro peccato originali.” ["Man ought to do penance during his whole life for original sin."]761. Ibid., no. 1313: “Arcendi sunt a sacra communione, quibus nondum illest amor Dei purissimus et omnis mixtionis expers.” ["23. Similarly, they must be prevented from Holy Communion, who have not yet a pure love of God, without any admixture."]762. It has been said of Pascal that throughout his life he thought of sanctity without ever attaining it, because he remained in his own presence instead of in the presence of God.

It seems the Jansenists placed all the blame on Adam, thinking his sin was the only truly voluntary sin?


What does it mean that "many parts which are plain have been taken away"? The question https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/35704/to-what-point-in-time-can-the-bible-be-proven-accurate made me wonder: Is the common interpretation of 1 Nephi 13:26-28 that something was physically omitted from scripture? I am aware of the Joseph Smith Translation, but is the point to bring back physically removed parts? In at least one instance I know of, the "translation" is just a commentary, with no changed text, that makes it clear what is meant. This makes me wonder whether the goal was a corrected understanding, not so much a corrected text.

An other interpretation I can come up with is that, without requiring much change to scripture, doctrines that are introduced (e.g. Trinity) became basis for further theology, scripture translation (translation is always also in part interpretation) and so on. That also "[take] away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious".

So, is the official position as of now that there were things physically omitted from scripture, or that the cause is rather false doctrines themselves that became the spiritual basis for later generations? Or is there no "official" interpretation?

+1 for the great question! To begin as Members of the LDS Church "We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God." (Article of Faith 8)

Throughout my response I will be referencing Plain and Precious Truths Restored, an article written in October of 2006.

There are multiple doctrines restored with The Book of Mormon. Just to list a few:

Premortal Existence
Adam’s Fall and Human Suffering
Agency
The Atonement
First Principles and Ordinances
Church Organization
Importance of Personal Revelation
Satan’s Identity and Methods

One example of a Joseph Smith Translation is Matthew 18:11

KJV: For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.
JST of KJV: For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost, and to call sinners to
     repentance; but these little ones have no need of repentance, and I will save them.

So in answer to your question, yes. We believe there have been doctrines which have been physically removed from The Bible either by an honest mistake in translation, or a deliberate omission.

-- I am out of time right now to go into more depth, but I would encourage you to read the article I referenced above.


What prominent Christian thinkers (if any) held to polygenism and if so how did these thinkers view original sin? Have any influential or well known (be it in scholastics or in media) Christian thinkers express views that the first 'couple' was 'couples' (polygenism) and if so, how did they reconcile this assertion with the doctrine of original sin?

Note, this question is not assuming nor asking for answers concerning the validity of Darwinism nor the validity of polygenism. It is only asking for examples of specifically influential Christian thinkers who held to polygenism and their consequential view of what was meant by the doctrine of original sin, which is traditionally reserved in cause to a monogenistic view (which asserts the first sin entered through a single 'couple of parents').

Yes. In his book, The Problem of Pain, popular Christian author C.S. Lewis discusses Adam's sin in the context of Scientific understanding of his time, which included Darwinism. He presents an understanding in which those creatures, guided by the hand of God, became man. Despite Lewis' prominence in twentieth century Christianity, this particular viewpoint of his  is not a widely celebrated one:

  ...The Fathers may sometimes say that
  we are punished for Adam's sin: but they much more often say that
  we sinned "in Adam". It may be impossible to find out what they
  meant by this, or we may decide that what they meant was
  erroneous. But I do not think we can dismiss their way of talking as
  a mere "idiom". Wisely, or foolishly, they believed that we were
  really and not simply by legal fiction - involved in Adam's action.
  The attempt to formulate this belief by saying that we were "inAdam in a physical sense - Adam being the first vehicle of the
  "immortal germ plasm" - may be unacceptable: but it is, of course, a
  further question whether the belief itself is merely a confusion or a
  real insight into spiritual realities beyond our normal grasp. At the
  moment, however, this question does not arise; for, as I have said I
  have no intention of arguing that the descent to modern man of
  inabilities contracted by his remote ancestors is a specimen of
  retributive justice. For me it is rather a specimen of those things
  necessarily involved in the creation of a stable world which we
  considered in Chapter II. It would, no doubt, have been possible for
  God to remove by miracle the results of the first sin ever committed
  by a human being; but this would not have been much good unless
  He was prepared to remove the results of the second sin, and of the
  third, and so on forever. If the miracles ceased, then sooner or later
  we might have reached our present lamentable situation: if they did
  not, then a world, thus continually underpropped and corrected by
  Divine interference, would have been a world in which nothing
  important ever depended on human choice, and in which choice
  itself would soon cease from the certainty that one of the apparent
  alternatives before you would lead to no results and was therefore
  not really an alternative. As we saw, the chess player's freedom to
  play chess depends on the rigidity of the squares and the moves.

Lewis refers to this as the "true import of the doctrine that man is fallen."

  ...Science, then, has nothing to say either for or against the
  doctrine of the Fall. A more philosophical difficulty has been raised
  by the modern theologian to whom all students of the subject are
  most indebted. This writer points out that the idea of sin
  presupposes a law to sin against: and since it would take centuries
  for the "herd-instinct" to crystallise into custom and for custom to
  harden into law, the first man - if there ever was a being who could
  be so described - could not commit the first sin. This argument
  assumes that virtue and the herd-instinct commonly coincide, and
  that the "first sin" was essentially a social sin. But the traditional
  doctrine points to a sin against God, an act of disobedience, not a
  sin against the neighbour. And certainly, if we are to hold the
  doctrine of the Fall in any real sense, we must look for the great sin
  on a deeper and more timeless level than that of social morality.

  ...For long centuries God perfected the animal form which was to
  become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. He gave it
  hands whose thumb could be applied to each. of the fingers, and
  jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulation, and a brain
  sufficiently complex to execute all the material motions whereby
  rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed for
  ages in this state before it became man: it may even have been
  clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would
  accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because
  all its physical and psychical processes were directed to purely
  material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God
  caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and
  physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say "I" and
  "me", which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God,
  which could make judgements of truth, beauty, and goodness, and
  which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past.
  This new consciousness ruled and illuminated the whole organism,
  flooding every part of it with light, and was not, like ours, limited to
  a selection of the movements going on in one part of the organism;
  namely the brain. Man was then all consciousness.

  ... We do not know how many of these creatures God made, nor
  how long they continued in the Paradisal state. But sooner or later
  they fell. Someone or something whispered that they could become
  as gods - that they could cease directing their lives to their Creator
  and taking all their delights as uncovenanted mercies, as
  "accidents" (in the logical sense) which arose in the course of a life
  directed not to those delights but to the adoration of God.


Why was it necessary for some people to receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands and others just received it after believing? Some people never received the gift of the Holy Ghost until Paul gave it to them through the laying on of hands. Others it appears received it just by believing or at least it is not mentioned that they had hands laid upon them first. Is there a difference between the two types of receiving the Holy Ghost?

Acts 19:5 When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
6 And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied.
Acts 8:15 Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost:
16 (For as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.)
17 Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.
18 And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money,

The author states that "through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given". This gives us an answer as to how some people received the Holy Ghost. Why did others receive it in some other way? Is there a difference between the Holy Ghost as it was given by Paul (through the laying on of hands), and the spirit felt by the people in the other circumstances? Both came from God, but were received differently.

The first verses you cite (Acts 19:5-6) do not teach what we today call being "baptized into Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:3; Galatians 3:27) or being "baptized by one Spirit into one body" (1 Corinthians 12:13). We can safely conclude the Ephesian believers were already baptized into Christ Jesus, or were baptized by one Spirit into one body (i.e., the body of Christ, the church universal).

In other words, they were already indwelt by the Holy Spirit, as Jesus Himself promised in John 15, where He said the Holy Spirit would in Jesus' absence abide with His disciples and be in them (v.17). These new Ephesian believers, however, evidently needed confirmation of that reality through the gifts of speaking in tongues and prophesying.

Remember, during the events recorded in the book of Acts, God had not yet given the various truths and teachings about the Holy Spirit in all their fullness to the writers of the New Testament canon of Scripture. We might think of the book of Acts as a transitional book, linking Jesus' promise of the coming Holy Spirit (again, John 14) prior to His ascension into heaven, to the authoritative doctrinal teaching on both the Holy Spirit's indwelling of all new believers and His gifting of all believers with one or more spiritual gifts (see 1 Corinthians 12; Romans 12; Ephesians 4; and 1 Peter 4).

The second verses you cite (Acts 8:15-17) are more germane to your questions, because these verses seem to indicate the Samaritan believers actually received the Holy Spirit's indwelling when the apostles Peter and John prayed for and laid their hands on them. Verse 17 says,

  "and they [the Samaritan believers] were receiving the Holy Spirit."

In what sense, then, were they "receiving the Holy Spirit"? To answer that question, I again suggest what happens in Acts 8 is an outward demonstration of a truth which was not yet fully understood by the apostles, let alone the Samaritans! That truth is that the Holy Spirit indwells a Christian when he or she first believes, or is passed from death to life, or is born again, or is born from above. Remember, the book of Acts is a transitional book which bridges Christ's teaching on the Holy Spirit and the yet-future teaching of the apostles and writers of the New Testament epistles.

Did the Holy Spirit, then, indwell the Samaritan believers twice? No, but they perhaps needed this praying and laying on of hands by the apostles to grasp what had happened to them after they believed in Jesus Christ and were baptized, in water, in His name. Remember, water baptism marks a believer, but only the baptism of the Holy Spirit makes a believer. Another term for the baptism of the Holy Spirit is, for example, being "sealed [by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption" (Ephesians 4:30). Second Corinthians 1:22 KJV says,

  "[God] hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts."

And 2 Corinthians 5:5 KJV adds a similar thought:

  "Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing [i.e., what is mortal being swallowed up by life] is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit."

The "earnest" is like a down payment. Just as interested home buyers will give the home sellers a deposit, which is sometimes called "earnest money," as a token of their seriousness (or *earnest*ness) about buying the house, so also does God give us the Holy Spirit as a sort of down payment guaranteeing that He indeed wants us to be with Him in heaven one day. Only then will our salvation be complete in our glorification (see Romans 8:17 and 30; and 2 Thessalonians 1:10).


Why didn't the Jews understand "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani"? And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
Some of those who stood there, when they heard that, said, "This Man is calling for Elijah!" (Matthew 27:46-47, NKJV)

According to a number of sites, including Wikipedia, the saying "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani" (or in Mark's version "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani") was originally Aramaic:

אלהי אלהי למא שבקתני.
Courtesy of Wikipedia

However, according to some other sites it is Hebrew.
Regardless of which is right, I don't think it can be denied that the Jews mistook what he said. I used to take this to mean that he was speaking in a language they did not understand. However, as far as I know and have learned from our good friend Google, Jews at that time spoke both Hebrew and Aramaic (plus some Greek, and perhaps Latin).
How, then, did the Jews mistake his meaning?

There are two basic theories here. The first is that the crowd misheard Jesus.  The second is that they purposefully twisted his words to mock him.  Commentators are fairly evenly split on which option is more probable.
Misheard
In the first view, the crowd was at a significant enough distance that they could not hear Jesus clearly.  Additionally, those in the crowd may have been poorly educated and/or Hellenists and therefore did not have a strong command over the Hebrew/Aramaic.  Thus when Jesus said "Eloi" (Mark)/"Eli" (Matthew) their brains interpreted as "Elias" (=Elijah).   In support of how this would be an easy mistake to make, Ellicott's Commentary cites Matthew 16:14 and Matthew 17:10 which show that it was a common expectation during Jesus' time that Elijah would return at the coming of the Messiah (in reference to Malachi 4:5).

The dominant expectation of the coming of Elijah would predispose men to fasten on the similarity of sound, and the strange unearthly darkness would intensify the feeling that looked for a supernatural manifestation of His presence.

A couple previous answers mention the idea that those who misheard were Roman soldiers.  While it is probable there were Romans present, and some commentators have suggested the comment comes from Romans, that is not very likely.  While the soldiers may have had some basic understanding of Aramaic, it is not likely they would have knowledge of Elijah, much less automatically thought of him when they heard someone crying out in anguish.
Purposely distorted
The other option is that the crowd heard Jesus alright but seized on the opportunity to mock Jesus.  In this view, the crowd was referencing the same Messianic prophecy (Malachi 4:5), but were essentially saying "even Jesus realizes the prophecy was not fulfilled."  Barnes' Notes writes:

The taunt would be more cutting, because it was the universal belief of the Jews, as well as the doctrine of Christ, that "Elias" would come before the Messiah. They derided him now, as calling upon "Elias" when God would not help him; still keeping up the pretensions to being the Messiah, and invoking "Elijah" to come from the dead to aid him.

The entire mock trial-crucifixion episode has been about demeaning Jesus, so it is certainly possible that it ends on one last note of mocking.
Analysis
In my view, a simple misunderstanding is more likely.  In Matthew, the episode continues:

And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” (Matthew 27:47-49, ESV)

It seems that the man offering up the sponge probably heard Jesus correctly and understood He was suffering and tried to help.  The statement by the rest to "wait and see" could be read as further mocking, but to me more naturally suggests a initial misunderstanding, followed by doubt that Elijah would actually come without fully ruling out the possibility.
As the Pulpit Commentary points out, the fact that the insult theory relies on a Jewish audience purposefully distorting the name of God also creates a significant difficulty:

The time of ribaldry and abuse is now past; the supernatural darkness has had a calming and terrifying effect; and there is no spirit of mockery left in the awed bystanders. Besides this, it is not likely that Jews, who with all their errors and vices paid an outward respect to holy things, would have presumed to make a play on the sacred name of God.


What is the biblical basis for Christian denominations to believe in a visible appearance of Christ Jesus when he returns? This question is inspired by a question asked in 2013: 'Do all Christian traditions expect a second coming of Christ?' Do all Christian traditions expect a second coming of Christ?
Although it is my understanding that mainstream Christian denominations uphold the Athanasian Creed which declares that "Jesus will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead" there are some Christian denominations who deny that Christ Jesus will return visibly, when he comes with the heavenly hosts to judge the living and the dead. Jehovah's Witnesses are one example of a denomination who deny that Christ Jesus will return visibly.
Revelation 1:7 declares that "every eye will see him" when he comes with the clouds, but some denominations think this is a euphemism for "seeing" with spiritual eyes; of being spiritually enlightened, that the clouds will obscure any literal sight.
What is the biblical basis for Christians to believe that when Christ Jesus returns he will be seen - he will be visible to all the people on earth?

Here are a few references to Jesus return:

Heb 9:28, “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”
It will be glorious, visible and unmissable because of great events in the heavens and earth (Matt 24:27, 29-31, 16:27).
The Second coming will also be very loud and audible as described by the trumpet call of God (Matt 24:30, 1 Thess 4:16, 17).
Jesus will return personally and visibly just as He left (Acts 1:11).  Indeed, Rev 1:7 says that every eye will see Him.
There is nothing secret about the return of Jesus except the date, 2 Peter 3:10, 1 Thess 5:2, Matt 24:32-41, 42-51, Acts 1:7.  The actual event will be seen by all.