77s - Ping Pong over the Abyss - Renaissance Man

[909830]

God is beyond the understanding of your puny brains. Don't try to understand the how only the why.

[gdg1963]

I think this song sounds alot like David Bowie.

[MrFrostyone1234]

I saw these guys live at Cornerstone 1983. They were awesome then and they are awesome still.

[fujiclub1]

man looks for answers in creation and creation points to a Loving,caring,all powerful God that sent Jesus to die for the payment of sin and was raised from the dead by God on the 3rd day that we humans can have eternal life through the death, burial ,and resseruction of Jesus if we recieve Him as Lord

[gilbilly88]

Classic! Thanks for posting, lost my cassette decades ago

[909830]

9383823joruu3ru3rh sdsfds kf[oiyrc9[8c yr[crf fi;uwpry[923cyr wvocr yx;ma ynvc29p;man vwhyv859 cqtn. Figure that out!

[jblanken11]

I remember that it was all good and heading in the right direction until Jimmy Swaggart did his weeklong hit piece " exposing" CCM as the "devil' work " . After the blow up sales plummeted and CCM was mainstreamed which meant that the good stuff was marginalized big time.

[freakngroovn]

this is just awesome. there's a lot of stuff on youtube i wouldn't give a nickel for. it's saving grace is that it's a storehouse of early good contemporary Christian music that i can't seem to find anywhere else! like ledtkey said a looong time ago, i was SO thankful that altar boys, undercover, DA, 441, daniel band, rez band, sheila walsh, et al gave us an alternative to the sandy patties and amy grants.

[909830]

Science had it's chance. Science is Dead. Spirituality will usher in the Golden Age of Man.

[lc77k]

you are definitely wrong on dead sea scrolls most of the 4 gospels are all part of the DSS...

[Scotter1971]

I have a great great cover of this song by the band "Ocean Blue" off of a promo only tour LP... never heard the original until tonight... excellent... sadly never heard of this band before... people in my church were too square I suppose... I would have been all over this stuff!!!

[jimnmw]

Brings back great memories! Rock music for thinkers. I still have this album and All Fall Down.

[ResendizArchundia]

Somebody could load up one of my all time's favorite song: 77's Time slipping away?

[cindy7771]

I had this album on 45. cool what happened to it? I want it back! LOL.. wow

memories I love it

[azgrunge]

One of the best songs from one of the best Christian albums of all time.

Btw, to the poster who didn't think we had Daniel Band down here. We did, the music at least. I never got to see them in concert, though the 77s I have seen a couple of times

[thomasbryn1]

I agree ...This is a great album. even though i am now an atheist it is great to find this on youtube and it still sounds as good as it did then......what was the other album they had ?

[azgrunge]

Thomas,

The album after this one was all fall down. But they had plenty after it.

By the way, listen to the lyrics in the song, they are directed to atheists. Roe has some great lyrics. God has better ones, in His book - the Bible.

[thomasbryn1]

thanks for the info and the thought..i am afraid i have studied the bible and it was the study of it that led to my leaving the faith..but thanks for the thought anyway...

[slimnotskinnytexan]

sorry to butt in, but did i read it correct when you said that you studying the Bible led you AWAY from the faith?

if you have the time, i'd like to know more about that, if you don't mind. i've simply never heard that before and i'm intrigued.

thanks

[thomasbryn1]

Are you aware of MARCIO and have you heard of the Q document . Also are you aware of the origins of the TEN COMMANDEMENTS( i.e the egyptian book of the dead) Also the verses in MARK AND MATHEW that are word word the same , the inconsistenccis and the additions from COPYISTS ..Where do you want me to start? How about the GREEK TEXTS that ERASAMUS used for the TEXTUS RECEPTUS. Look into that and see if you still trust their words.

[slimnotskinnytexan]

hey tom. yes, i am familiar with the works you cited. you also could've included the babylonian account of creation as well.

it's true there are very similar stories shared between the ancient cultures. however, the idea to keep in mind is the Bible is not historical canon, it is Spiritual canon. there is historical information in it but the underlying theme is the Creator came down to serve the created. that makes Christianity not just different from other "religions"- it's opposite.

[thomasbryn1]

If christianity is so unique why does it share so many attributes with other religions.Virgin births, baptizing, circumcision( judean but none the less in the bible) Also if is not meant to be anything other than spiritual what makes anyone believe the accounts in there in any way as being true, perhaps we just learn a message from it and then die , and there still is no evidnce for a GOD existing. Where is the evidnce that God exists if the WORDS OF GOD are actually MAN's WORDS

[slimnotskinnytexan]

keep in mind i stated that there are similarities between religions. there are also similarities between fish and dolphin (the cetacea). what makes Christianity unique is it is based on God reaching down to His creation. All others focus on the idea,"how can i make myself better in order to earn my place in heaven?"- man reaching up to God. Humans have a problem believing someone who holds that much power has done all the work for us to be with Him. That, my friend is where "faith" comes in.

[thomasbryn1]

Faith simply means believe in something DESPITE there being NO EVIDNCE for it. I will not do that again. The diea that Christianity is GOD reaching fior man is not coherent for thoe that believe that JESUS was aman and his teachings were a messianic extension of thre JUDEAN prophecies and that he was a jewish man that reached up for GOD. It was incidentally that which most of the gospel writers believed , certinly PETER . \Only ST Paul introduced the idea that he was god and reaching for us.

[slimnotskinnytexan]

faith is the evidence of things unseen, not the lack of evidence. God had a close relationship with creation. we chose to walk away. in an effort to restore the relationship, He sent messengers- they were killed. God said, "i'll take the words that i put in the mouths of the prophets and come down there myself" God became a 3-D embodiment of what He was trying to say to us- THAT is God reaching down to man. Jesus didn't reach up to God- He was God and He said so Himself.

[thomasbryn1]

i think I have asked you to define that forme before.FAITH IS THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS UNSEEN. What do you mean by that? What is unseen in your eyes about the GOD idea? Surely the BIBLE is the wriytten word of GOD allegedly( through man) and that is seen. What exactly is the things unseen referring to? The Universe is full of things seen and we seem to be understanding more and more. Since the microscope now allows us to see even more, since 1600s. Unseen what? Can you be specific?

[azgrunge]

I would disagree with your definition of faith. For example, if you enter a movie theater and sit down, do you first examine in detail whether that chair will hold you? No, you have sat in chairs before, and even in other movie chairs. This looks very similar so you have faith it will hold you up. However, have you ever made that mistake, sat down and had the chair collapse (many people have). So, you are exerting faith when you sit down. You have plenty of evidence as to why you have it.

[slimnotskinnytexan]

after getting more information about you, i think you and i have lots in common. you and i both know where the tripping point is and that is the faith issue. i'm by education and position an engineer & i also don't come from a family of "church goers"-i'm unique in my entire family.

you and i are guided and operate off of empirical evidence. we measure, weigh and dissect everything we're confronted with. But answer this, "Can you use a yardstick to weigh a chicken?"

[thomasbryn1]

I suppose the yardstick comment is mwant to mean somehting? Are you claiming there is another gauge for gauging the TRUTH? What is it ? FAITH? That is simply BELIEF WITHOUT PROOF. Truth is truth ..it needs m,as you rightly say empirical testing and observation of laws and events. Name some for me that oprove JESUS IS STILL ALIVE and that I have a soul that will survive the death of my brain. Please do . I'd love to believe it , but will not wish think it, unless given proof, not faith.

[slimnotskinnytexan]

the yardstick comment is to explain that one can't use a legitimate tool or arguement (like yours) to explain an idea it wasn't designed to. a yardstick, like science or engineering, is a tool used to explain an idea (in this case length) but it cannot be used to explain an idea such as weight. i don't wish to sound cliche, but how do you know the wind exists? you feel it, you see its effect on other things, right? remember, it is through "faith" we are justified- not through our knowledge.

[thomasbryn1]

TRUTH IS TRUTH and is detectable in the real world we live in.Things are only here when they are detectable.GOD ISN'T and therefore is not real until proven. A yardstick is required to keep the REAL world away from the imagined and unreal one. I could imagine a flying spaghetti monster made the world and you could not DISPROVE it ..however it makes it no more true than any god man has made through the years..name the tangible evidence for your god and we will be listening

[slimnotskinnytexan]

the disciples spent lots of time hiding from the authorities while Jesus was alive.they feared for their lives constantly. but something happened a few days after He was in the grave that made them go from fearing for their lives to willingly giving them up. why?will a man die for something he KNOWS isn't true? i can't prove the wind is real because i can't point to it and say, "there it is". i can only point to its affect on other things. is the wind real? prove to me it is.

[thomasbryn1]

The wind is a word for the sensation we feel when the AIR pressure causes air to move from one area on the SPINNING planet to another.The key is we do not experience the spin as we have evolved with the environment we are in but we are spinning and travelling fast, plus the atmospheric pressure on us is tonnes, why don;'t we feel it, because the pressure of the air benath us equals it.There are experiments to show this and the wind is part of them, do you want to see them?really?

[thomasbryn1]

why do you think there may be a suggestion that the disciples were weary of the romans ? Is his ROYAL LINEAGE important to you...bearing in mind his royal lineage to DAVID was through his FATHER JOSEPH ( who of course is not his father )...erm perhaps ..what are your thoughts about that? IS jesus descended through joseph and a claimant to the throne ? which lineage do you like? Matthew 1:117 or Luke 3:2328. they are both different to each other

[slimnotskinnytexan]

the Romans were occupiers of land that was conquered. they were not the indiginous people and were similar to the germans in france during WWII.

Jesus' claim of royal lineage was heavenly, not earthly & i don't care nor is it important what earthly lineage he's from. His deity is what's at the heart of the discussion.

He was either who he says he was or he wasn't.

[thomasbryn1]

no sorry you are wrong..The romans were invading occupiers and JESUS was a descendant of the indigenous royal blood line..he was a claimant to the throne ..he was the KING OF THE JEWS..by bloodline..why do you think the romans killed him for SEDITION..and needed a CONSORT of roman soldiers to do it..he was an uprising..like the zealots before him( whom JOSEPHUS was a member of ) and he combined the zealots and the others factions to be his followers.

[slimnotskinnytexan]

i stated they were "occupiers" similar to the germans in france during WW2. i'm not wrong.Jesus was a decendent of David, yes, he was of royal, earthly lineage. He was not coronated as such so he never had an earthly throne. but the prophesy was a heavenly king, in the bloodline of David, was coming as the "messiah"- the Holy One of God. the Romans wanted nothing to do with Jesus, Pilate was pressured by influential Jews who threatened to go to the Rome and upset Pilate's control over the area.

[thomasbryn1]

when jesus took the wine and the bread form the jewish passover and said it was his blood are you aware of the messianic suggestions in doing that....the jews to this day keep the bread and wine untouched.....

[slimnotskinnytexan]

i don't understand your point here. please elaborate...

[thomasbryn1]

give me some evidnce for his DEITY as you call it ..pre st paul? or now...how are you sure he is adiety and still alive ..what emperical and testable things can you share?

[slimnotskinnytexan]

i personally cannot point to something and say, here is proof he is God. i said the question is "is he who he says he is, or is he not who he says he is?'

the entire topic of Christianity, in totality, is that one, simple question. I say He is is because of the supernatural change that occured to me 25 years ago.

[thomasbryn1]

Is there no other thing you may able to point to to simply show how the idea that JESUS is alive still and that he is GOD is in fact TRUE I mentioned his claim to the throne as a descendant of david,Is this important for GOD to have enbodied himself in a ROYAL BLOODLINE of the JEWS,i.e the messianic claim.That is the thing that ST paul added, JESUS was not simply the son of man ,and the king of the Jews ,he was GOD and he was available to GENTILES !!! This was not the case in the gospels.

[slimnotskinnytexan]

since when has God cared about having to align himself with earthly kingdoms? want a shock? we don't follow the teaching of Jesus. as gentiles, we follow Paul's teachings who he said came from Jesus himself. Jesus was a jew. so where the rest of the followers. Paul is who we follow because of his calling to be the apostle to the gentiles. the gospel writers were jews, writing to jews. paul was writting to gentiles. Paul saw Jesus glorified and got his direction from the glorified Christ.

[thomasbryn1]

You seem to have just confirmed my point .That PAUL made the JEWISH jesus accessible to the gentile world without jesus' permission and approval and famously argued with ST PETER and the other gospels that were eventually adopted and changed through the abuse of the GREEK COPYSISTS and the letters to the various new churches of PAUL. You are a PAULIAN not a christian in scholarly terms.JESUS was a descendant of DAVID that had a claim to the throne that was occupied by the romans. He failed .

[dragonsrightwing]

Sorry - but your "facts" are lacking - existing documents can be dated to possibly within the lifetime of the Apostle John - no more than 20 yrs or so later. We have quotes in non-biblical documents sufficient to reconstruct the entire set of Gospels dating to less than 120 years after Christ's death. by 300 AD, we have an entire text of the New Testament - and it agrees to an astonishing degree with the Bible you can buy at Borders... The "changed text" theory fails without Apostolic agreement.

[thomasbryn1]

POSSIBLY or actually of the APostle. The original documents found are PAULS letters. Where is the documents for within JOHN;s lifetime. The letters to the churches were the first. surely. Which non Biblical documents ..presumably you refer to the GNOSTIC gospels such as THOMAS and MARY. Even the dead sea scrolls. These stiill do not make the TEXTUS RECEPTUS any more errorless. Look it up. It is heavily flawed

[dragonsrightwing]

Research the P52 fragment - it is a portion of the Gospel of John - at it may be as early as 90 CE/AD - John died in the 90's - so that fragment may actually be from within his lifetime. None of the existing early documents of the Pauline letters date from within his lifetime. There are quotes from all four canonical Gospels (in addition to quotes from Paul's letters) dating as early as 120 CE/AD. I agree that the TR is error-prone, however, few of its flaws affect doctrine significantly. tbc...

[dragonsrightwing]

I do not consider the Gnostic "Gospels" canonical, and only the Gospel of Thomas is dated in the mid-second-century: a few more are dated late second-century, but most are dated well into the third century. In addition, all contain significant doctrinal deviations from what was already widely recognized as the actual teachings of the Apostles.

[thomasbryn1]

Do you believe the JOHANNINE COMMA to be an addition or actual to the life of christ?

[dragonsrightwing]

While there is a possibility that the COMMA (1 John 5:7,8) is original, it is not well supported - I am dubious about is as original. There is also little evidence for the PERICOPE ADULTERAE (John 7:53 - 8:11). I prefer the modern method of relegating them both to footnotes, since neither has good support in any document prior to the 5th century - and more like the fifteenth for the COMMA!

[thomasbryn1]

There are number of mraginal additons such as the COMMA mentioned that seem to support the VIRGIN BIRTH and the HOLY trinity conveniently at a time when the early church was fighting over such differences..look at MARCIO of ROME and the adoptionists leading to changes in the BAPTISM in JORDAN and a re defining of the deity of JESUS. ABove and beyond all this we have to conclude that the NEW TESTEMENT is more to do with the competing factions of the early church than the JESUS refered to within

[thomasbryn1]

he was the son o f david HOSANNAH as they claimed on palm sunday ..but what ST paul claimed him to be is not the same as what JESUS claimed...

[slimnotskinnytexan]

"hosannah" is a hebrew term meaning "save, we pray"- it is not a title or a name. Paul was an EXPERT in old testement scripture and was at the top of his game. he had materially everything to lose in joining the members of "The Way" as christians were called before Anitoch. there's nothing paul said that contridicted anything Jesus said. Paul's life was changed while on his way to kill christians. it was miraculous and like i said before, "a man won't die for something he knows is a lie".

[azgrunge]

Most scholars believe the Matthew lineage was his step father's and the Luke one his mother's. It is known that they were cousins (whether first/second/third, etc.)

[azgrunge]

@azgrunge - Actually, I should have said, some suspect they were cousins....

[azgrunge]

If you have read the gospels and know that there is current archeological evidence proving (at least portions of) Matthew and Mark existed prior to 68 AD (google Jesus papyrus), and that both of those books assert Jesus died and rose from the dead in a time period when witnesses were still alive and that there is no credible denial of such assertions from those still alive. That is not total proof, but it sure makes you wonder why the disciples would proclaim this even to their vicious deaths.

[MenloMarseilles]

@azgrunge [1/2]: Admittedly, proof that any of the Synoptic gospels date to pre-70AD would be an incredible find (since they have passages predicting the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred in that year). However, according to the Wikipedia entry on the Jesus Papyrus/Magdalen Papyrus, "Thiede's re-dating has generally been viewed with skepticism by established Biblical scholars." That is, the evidence is far from conclusive.

[lc77k]

@MenloMarseilles SORRY DON'T YOU KNOW THAT WIKIPEDIA IS MEARLY AN OPINION....it is not an encyclopidia.... you could write a wikepedia article... all of the books or the Gospels were in the Dead Sea Scrools which were around 10 to 100 AD...

[MenloMarseilles]

@lc77k: I'll admit that you definitely can't take Wikipedia at face value, especially with claims that haven't been cited from somewhere more reliable. But this particular article *did* cite some pretty reliable sources: Philip Comfort and David Barret (notable biblical scholars who place the Magdalen Papyrus at more like 150AD) and then Nestle-Aland (the preeminent Greek source experts, who put the Papyrus at about 200AD).

And the Dead Sea Scrolls only have Old Testament stuff (no Gospels). :\

[MenloMarseilles]

@azgrunge [2/2]: Personally I get the feeling that there's a pertinent reason for God to keep his existence from being provable beyond reasonable doubt. But the discussions of possible ways to add legitimacy to the Biblical narrative (e.g. this kind of manuscript-chasing, or astronomical study of the time around Jesus's life) are still useful, if only to confirm *for Christians* that the gospel accounts are trustworthy.

[azgrunge]

I believe you will find that Christ talks about baptism so I agree that it was something that was known at the time, but He gives special reference to it. I do not know of any other prior (2000 + year old) religions which talk about baptism and virgin births. If there are some, please compare the number of instances of mention vs the number of existing transcripts of the Bible. With regard to circumcision, the God I believe in chose the Jews first, thus it is Judean.

[000777gt]

I saw these guys back in the 80's and they were the best with bands like UNDERCOVER,FIRST STRIKE,STRYPER,ALTAR BOYS AND DANIAL BAND. There are many more but the 77's new how to play, with lead singer MIKE ROE WRITING GOOD MUSIC.

[SaintCog]

I'm surprized,...I didn't think Daniel Band made much of a splash in the States. I still have a few Altar Boy cassettes somewhere.

[kayAbee]

My wife and I were married in the church where this band came from. Mark Toutle played the piano for us.

[vanapple1]

Thanks for this! Would love to hear more from Ping Pong.

[jagdzpanzer]

This was the first tune I heard by Undercover back in '85. Man I'm old...but what a great song.

[ledtkey]

how many of you remember the bubble gum "contemporary" christian music that bands like the 77s, altar boys, undercover, daniel amos, etc. saved us from?

[MervynCruddy]

Sorry, but I disagree. I love the 77s, Daniel Amos and Steve Taylor; but I love CCM artists like the Imperials as well.

[2degucitas]

@ledtkey yup remember well....

[pireb777]

What a great tune. Bring 'em back to the source, JESUS, THE KING!

[Austinian2]

I love this song. I definately can say it has a very unique sound.