Reading the Wikipedia entry on Leif, it does say that he converted to Christianity: "He also converted to Christianity and was given the mission of introducing the religion to Greenland." And it goes on to say: "After Leif's first trip to Vinland, he returned to the family estate of Brattahlíð in Greenland, and started preaching Christianity to the Greenlanders." This would be to the Norse Greenlanders, not the Eskimo inhabitants.cayenne wrote:larsenb wrote:I hope you're joking.cayenne wrote:go leif erickson!
Any record from Leif that he was influenced by the Holy Ghost to sail to Vinland?? 8-|
He was a Christian, he wanted to spread Christ, he was here before Columbus, etc…..The fact that Columbus enslaved and tortured many natives is not a very good sign he was a man of God….
It also says:
Regarding his contact with the natives (Skraylings), it says:Leif was not the first European to discover America, nor the first to make landfall there: he had heard the story of merchant Bjarni Herjólfsson who claimed to have sighted land to the west of Greenland after having been blown off course. Bjarni reportedly never made landfall there, however. Later, when traveling from Norway to Greenland, Leif was also blown off course, to a land that he did not expect to see, where he found "self-sown wheat fields and grapevines". He next rescued two men who were shipwrecked in this country and went back to Greenland (and Christianised the people there).[24] Consequently, if this is to be trusted, Bjarni Herjólfsson was the first European to see America beyond Greenland, and the two unnamed shipwrecked men were the first people known to Europeans to have made landfall theree.
So absolutely no evidence cited in this article, that he was moved upon by the Holy Ghost to find new lands to the west of Greenland, or that he made significant contact "even unto the seed of my brethren, who were in the promised land."The first apparent contact between the Norse and the indigenous people [in Vinland], who the Norse later referred to as skrælingjar, was made by his brother Thorvald, and resulted in hostilities and killing.[
And apparently the first contact with the indigenous inhabitants was made by his brother, which resulted in "hostilities and killing", and it wasn't until Columbus made his voyage about 500 years later that other Gentiles were move upon by the Spirit of God to claim the new land for their inheritance.
Here are quotes from Christopher Columbus' writings:
There are also many passages from his writings indicating Columbus was imbued with the idea that the Gospel had to be preached to all the world before Christ would return, and that his voyage to the New World would play an essential role in this process."With a hand that could be felt, the Lord opened my mind to the fact that it would be possible to sail and he opened my will to desire to accomplish the project . . . This was the fire that burned within me . . . Who can doubt that this fire was not merely mine, but also of the Holy Spirit . . . urging me to press forward".
Regarding this, Columbus devoted 6 paragraphs to discussing the importance of John 10:14 and 16, where it says: "I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me, etc. And other sheep I have that are not of this fold; them also I must bring. And they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold and one shepherd".
Finally, the charge that Columbus enslaved and tortured many natives has some truth to it, but one needs to read the circumstances that led to some of this to get a balanced view of what Columbus was up against. For instance, some of his co-leaders or those he appointed helped create bad situations by their predations against local populations, which seemed to call for extreme measures; measures very common among Europeans and their kingdoms. Clark B. Hinckley's book, Christopher Columbus, "A Man Among the Gentiles" gives a good overview of what was going on.