Re: not one stone upon another

[Athetotheist]

Here's another piece I posted in Random Ramblings and thought I would bring over into a debate forum to see if any issue can be taken with it:


In Matthew 24:2 Jesus prophesies that the temple will be thrown down with "not one stone left here upon another". Apologists regard the Romans' demolition of the temple in the year 70 as a remarkably accurate fulfillment of Jesus's words.

This doesn't seem to be the case since the famous Western Wall, dating to the 1st or 2nd century BCE, is still standing stone upon stone.

Apologists may argue that Jesus was referring only to the temple buildings themselves in the Matthew passage, but in Luke 19:41-44 he makes the same prophecy for the entire city, which included the temple complex where the Western Wall stands. Between prophesying every stone at the temple thrown down and prophesying every stone in the whole city thrown down, Jesus didn't have much room to let the Western Wall slip by.

So for a question: Is there any way out of this dilemma?

[TRANSPONDER]

The issue is not the existence of multiple angels but with the inconsistency of their reported involvement in the resurrection scenario.

What do you mean by "inconsistency of their reported involvement" ? To be consistent means to be regular. None of the gospel accounts report angelic appearances as a regular occurance; nor can one find any biblical pattern as to their movements and actions. Indeed, the only consistent thing would be such appearances and involvments are intrinsicly inconsistent!

Upon what basis is this above problematic ?

The inconsistency is that the accounts are inconsistent with each other. That can be seen in the reactions of the women. Luke has the women encounter angels inside the tomb after totally missing Matthew's angel outside the tomb, then puts Mary Magdalene first on his list of women who recount an angelic encounter which Mary doesn't have at all according to John. Mary is still grief-stricken when she first sees Jesus in John after running in fear and "great joy" and first sees him in Matthew. Mary has an angelic encounter before the disciples go to the tomb in Luke, but doesn't see an angel until after they leave the tomb in John.....

That's what's inconsistent.

So? So WHAT?! Why is that "inconsistency" problematic? One reports an angel does one thing, another reports it (or they) do another. As long as they can be harmonized (ie one can come up with a plausible explanation) , what's the problem?


I'm surprised that you're even asking this by this time. Simply that inconsistency in the supposed events being recorded and passed down to us would not stand up as testimony in a court of law, and are in fact unsafe testimony. The angels themselves are almost as problematic as the rest of the resurrection, because John has no angels - at all - until Mary goes back with the disciples. In the light of the even more problematic accounts in other parts of the resurrection - stories, and with the touchstone example of fabrication in the Nativity - accounts, the excuses such as 'John didn't bother to mention the angelic message' and the varying accounts of what the angels did and indeed what Mary did and the disciples did and Jesus did, there is very good reason to conclude that the resurrection accounts are fabricated.

Your pointing to basic elements in all stories is somewhat like the same claim raised about the nativities, and have the same rebuttal - the basics are the claim, not the evidence that supports it. Now, no doubt you can revert to saying that you don't agree. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that you have no case left to persuade anyone (who isn't already persuaded) that the resurrection -accounts are very much more than conflicting invented stories made up to put flesh on the very thin bare bones of a biblical faith - claim.