/lit/ - Literature

>>19433555
>>19433712
Glad to help. On the topic of icons, the classic source for that is St. John of Damascus’ work ‘On Holy Images’ (excerpts from it in the link below):
http://medieval.ucdavis.edu/20A/Icons.html
This is the classic account that distinguishes between veneration and worship.

There is even a bit of evidence that Jewish synagogues were very artistic and highly decorated in the past. The classic examples of these are the Dura-Europos synagogue which while being a post-Christian synagogue, provided evidence of beautiful iconography that adorned the walls of this building. Even looking at the Wikipedia page will demonstrate this. The synagogue of Huqoq is very similar, and iconography of Samson, Noah’s ark, Jonah and many other Biblical events are found depicted within. Again, this synagogue is ‘only’ 1,600 years old and thus post-Christian, but it shows that this was by no means foreign to the cultural context that Christianity emerged from. These are best viewed in reference to what St. John of Damascus says though, of course, because just because post-Christian Jews do it doesn’t make it Christian, but it’s an interesting piece of supporting evidence, since so many people think that the prohibition of idols implies no art at all, no depictions of human beings, etc., as many Muslims tend to think today.

Regarding relics of saints, we have early accounts regarding the martrydom of St. Polycarp (who died in ~155 A.D.), disciple of St. John the Apostle which are interesting:
>The centurion then, seeing the strife excited by the Jews, placed the body in the midst of the fire, and consumed it. Accordingly, we afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most exquisite jewels, and more purified than gold, and deposited them in a fitting place, whither, being gathered together, as opportunity is allowed us, with joy and rejoicing, the Lord shall grant us to celebrate the anniversary of his martyrdom, both in memory of those who have already finished their course, and for the exercising and preparation of those yet to walk in their steps.
https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0102.htm

Regarding the asking the saints for intercession, I have always viewed it as no different than asking a living person to pray for me.

>>19429973
/thread

>>19389552
FPBP

>>19383755
>Daniel saying it will be destroyed again is not prophecy it's probability.
You fail to realize that this prophecy gives us a time-table for these events and that the events came true according to the time-table. This is the significance of the prophecy of Daniel 9.24-27, along with the statement that the Messiah will indeed be killed.

>Moreover I would already have to believe in your God to believe in prophecies that prove Jesus is that God.
If the Bible has prophecies that we know were written centuries earlier that have come true in history—history we know apart from the Bible in significant aspects—one may want to stop and think how this is possible and how Daniel knew these things.

A question for the Orthodox anons on this board — do you know any good books that introduce one to the Divine Liturgy? This morning I attended my first Divine Liturgy as a inquirer and found it to be very beautiful and different from anything I was familiar with, but at times I think the greater significance or order of things was lost on me. Luckily it was all in English though. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

General Orthodoxy thread too

Daily reminder to any ath*ests in this thread:
>creation happened in six literal days
>evolution is a Masonic ideology used to justify capitalism and progressive ideologies (all of which are Satanic at core)
>the Earth is not older than 6,000 or so years
>there was no death before the fall
>God flooded the entire Earth and only Noah and his family survived
>the Israelites were slaves in Egypt
>Samson literally killed 1,000 Philistines with a jawbone
>Christ is king
>Hell is eternal

>>19259050
You have already been told all of this stuff over and over.

Daniel 7.9-14 shows the Ancient of Days giving one like a Son of Man everlasting dominion over all nations, peoples and languages. Jesus referred to himself the Son of Man. Mere creations are not given everlasting dominion.

Daniel 9.24-27 predicts that the Messiah will be here by a certain date, calculated to be ~30 A.D., which is the time of the baptism of Jesus, and then that the Messiah will die, and the Temple will be destroyed, and that foreign armies will destroy Jerusalem. This happened in 70 A.D.

Isaiah 9:6-7 says that to us a child will be born, a son, “and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” A son called Mighty God? Gee, who could it be?

Amos 4:12-13, chiefly in the non-corrupted Septuagint texts:
>Therefore thus will I do to thee, O Israel: nay because I will do thus to thee, prepare to call on thy God, O Israel.
>For, behold, I am he that strengthens the thunder, and creates the wind, and proclaims to men his Christ, forming the morning and the darkness, and mounting on the high places of the earth, The Lord God Almighty is his name.

Every Angel of the Lord mention: >>19257316

Zechariah 12:10
>And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.

Proof is everywhere. The prophecies came true

Can I just walk into an Orthodox Church at any time and check it out and talk to priests or do I have to (or should I) email the priest first or call beforehand. I just learned that there is a small Orthodox church near me and since I’ve been reading through the OSB and learning a lot about Orthodox lately I would really like to inquire more.

>>19217334
>Then you're in luck. Eugene Rose was a drunk junkie and homosexual prostitute
The saving power of Christ is truly magnificent. Another prodigal son finds the truth!

>>19208851
*increasingly nervous laughter*
>>19208864
Christianity lives rent-free in the heads of Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews. They all want Jesus, but only on their terms, never the terms of the man himself and how and what he taught. Muslims want Jesus to be merely a man, a prophet. Buddhists and Hindus want to claim him as an enlightened sage, and Jews do nothing but spit venom against the man. The religions that attempt to co-opt him know that they need Jesus to attract Westerners and lead Christians away from the true religion. We don’t see this phenomenon with any other religion. But none of these religions accept him for who he is—the incarnate Logos, Son of God. In their heart of hearts they know though that Jesus is much different.

>>19205887
>Almost no "pagans" currently existing here actually believe in "the Gods", they're all just political reactions against Christianity
Basically what I have discovered myself in my attempts to argue against them from time to time. They have no concern for whether Christianity is true, they have a twisted picture of it, and they reject it because it doesn’t fit with their political agenda. Indeed, paganism is nothing more than an aesthetic they assume to give some extra depth (ultimately hollow) to their politics. Beneath all the rhetoric of ‘ancestors’ and ‘gods’ is just areligious nationalist politics combined with a burning hatred of Jesus Christ

>>19191987
Read the Old Testament. Adam and Eve, progenitors of all of humanity, are made in the image of God. Humanity falls into sin, they’re kicked out of the garden, and then multiply across the earth. Humanity becomes degenerate, and so God wipes everyone out in the flood except for Noah and his family. God makes a basically covenant with Noah. From Noah is all of humanity today descended. When the nations are divided up at Babel, God takes Abraham and his descendents as his portion (Deuteronomy 32:8-9). The purpose for this, of course is explicitly to bring Jesus Christ into the world and to forge a nation that worships the true God before spreading it to the rest of humanity. The first thing God tells Abraham is that “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3). This theme is repeated throughout the Bible. A day would come when ALL of humanity would come to the true God (Psalm 22:27-28, Psalm 86:8-10, Isaiah 56:6-8). God is aware from the beginning that the Israelites were ‘stiff-necked’ (Exodus 32:9) and ‘rebellious’ (Deuteronomy 31:27, 29). I imagine that the Israelites were chosen to show that God can bring out a greater good, i.e. Jesus, from the bad, i.e. the average stiff-necked Israelite.

The Bible has universal scope, even in the Old Testament. Let’s not forget the numerous non-Israelites who convert to follow God, such as Ruth the Moabite, or the Persians and other nationalities in Esther 8:17. I’m tired of people projecting Talmudism back into the primeval past.

>>19163045
>I believe it because Allah has revealed it in His Qur'an
And there’s zero reason to believe in the Qur’an. Your presupposition is that the Qur’an is true despite there being zero evidence for this claim. Islam is a Christian heresy, plain and simple. Jesus, Paul, Jude and John all warned people that stuff like this would happen with false prophets using the name of Jesus Christ, as well as ‘angels’ who transmitted Satanic deceptions to the unwitting. Who can believe that God deceived mankind for 600+ years and allowed them to deify a prophet almost immediately after his death? No historical evidence indicates that there was any sort of ‘Injeel’, all texts indicate that the divine Son of God was present from the very beginning and that all of this is consistent with Old Testament prophecies about the coming of the Messiah and certain passages which refer to God. The Qur’an even tells Christians in sura 5:47 to judge by the Gospel, and it is here that the Qur’an self-debunks. The entire Qur’anic narrative of corruption is ad hoc. It’s extremely telling that as well that Islam just so happens to deny every single aspect of Christianity up and including the crucifixion in its attempt to reduce Jesus to ‘just’ a man. The Qur’an throws out the old scriptures so that it can undermine the role of Jesus and lead people into hell.

>>19116764
It’s time to repent, anon.