A simple---but serious---question

[Athetotheist]

There are numerous god-men who died and rose from death in stories predating the time of Jesus. Considering the notable differences between the gospel accounts, and particularly the differences between the accounts of Jesus's supposed resurrection, here's a question for gospel apologists to think seriously about:

There are four resurrection accounts about Jesus in the Christian gospels. If the exact same accounts, with the exact same differences, were written about Osiris, Tammuz, Attis or any such god-man other than Jesus, would Christian apologists find all of those accounts believable?

And if they wouldn't find all of them believable, would they find any of them believable?

[Difflugia]

Why think it's only one? Are you unaware of the snippets that have been copied (in the exact same Greek) from one Gospel to another? Look up the Synoptic Problem.

Are you also unaware of the many contradictions that have been pointed out and debated?

An easy example that shows both of these is the calling of Levi/Matthew between Mark 2:14 and Matthew 9:9. English translations tend to make this seem less copied than it is, so I've put both Greek and English in a table to show exactly what Matthew copied and what he changed:

Καὶ παράγων	εἶδεν Λευὶν τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου	καθήμενον ἐπὶ τὸ τελώνιον,		καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· ἀκολούθει μοι. καὶ ἀναστὰς ἠκολούθησεν αὐτῷ.
And passing by	he saw Levi the one of Alphaeus	sitting upon the tax booth,		and he said to him, "Follow me." And having arisen, he followed him.
Καὶ παράγων	ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐκεῖθεν εἶδεν ἄνθρωπον	καθήμενον ἐπὶ τὸ τελώνιον,	Μαθθαῖον λεγόμενον,	καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· ἀκολούθει μοι. καὶ ἀναστὰς ἠκολούθησεν αὐτῷ.
And passing by	Jesus from there, he saw a man	sitting upon the tax booth,	named Matthew,	and he said to him, "Follow me." And having arisen, he followed him.

[TRANSPONDER]

Why think it's only one? Are you unaware of the snippets that have been copied (in the exact same Greek) from one Gospel to another? Look up the Synoptic Problem.

Are you also unaware of the many contradictions that have been pointed out and debated?

An easy example that shows both of these is the calling of Levi/Matthew between Mark 2:14 and Matthew 9:9. English translations tend to make this seem less copied than it is, so I've put both Greek and English in a table to show exactly what Matthew copied and what he changed:

Καὶ παράγων	εἶδεν Λευὶν τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου	καθήμενον ἐπὶ τὸ τελώνιον,		καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· ἀκολούθει μοι. καὶ ἀναστὰς ἠκολούθησεν αὐτῷ.
And passing by	he saw Levi the one of Alphaeus	sitting upon the tax booth,		and he said to him, "Follow me." And having arisen, he followed him.
Καὶ παράγων	ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐκεῖθεν εἶδεν ἄνθρωπον	καθήμενον ἐπὶ τὸ τελώνιον,	Μαθθαῖον λεγόμενον,	καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ· ἀκολούθει μοι. καὶ ἀναστὰς ἠκολούθησεν αὐτῷ.
And passing by	Jesus from there, he saw a man	sitting upon the tax booth,	named Matthew,	and he said to him, "Follow me." And having arisen, he followed him.

Thank you. One day I would have to compile examples of the block -text (aside from reported speech) that betrays the common textural origins of the Synoptics. That is, that there was One Original synoptic Gospel and Matthew and Luke and indeed Mark, too, are all adaptations based on the common original, or some copied version of it.

Of course that still leaves open the question of whether the original Jesus story (never mind the Synoptic original) is true. But still, recognizing the invented additions clears away a lot of the additional clutter, much of which is solemnly preached as reliable events, even today, when really this should have been debunked by 1990.

[Difflugia]

One day I would have to compile examples of the block -text (aside from reported speech) that betrays the common textural origins of the Synoptics.

Why ignore reported speech? I recognize that an apologetic argument is that accurately recorded speech would be the same, but that fails to account for the fact that most of the speech in the Gospels would have been in Aramaic and then recounted in Greek. The "brood of vipers" monologue by John the Baptist, for example, differs by just a few words between the two accounts even though the translation uses Greek verb tenses that don't exist in Hebrew. There's no way that two independent translators would arrive at exactly the same set of words without some form of literary dependency. I discussed it once before here, but it was before the site upgrade, so the Greek is mangled. Here it is again, first in ESV English, then Greek. Matthew 3:7-10 and Luke 3:7-9, beginning with "You brood of vipers!". Where there is a difference between the texts, Matthew is in red and Luke is in blue:

You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit/fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not presume/begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. And even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

γεννήματα ἐχιδνῶν, τίς ὑπέδειξεν ὑμῖν φυγεῖν ἀπὸ τῆς μελλούσης ὀργῆς; ποιήσατε οὖν καρπὸν ἄξιον/καρποὺς ἀξίους τῆς μετανοίας καὶ μὴ δόξητε/ἄρξησθε λέγειν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς· πατέρα ἔχομεν τὸν Ἀβραάμ. λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν ὅτι δύναται ὁ θεὸς ἐκ τῶν λίθων τούτων ἐγεῖραι τέκνα τῷ Ἀβραάμ. ἤδη δὲ καὶ ἡ ἀξίνη πρὸς τὴν ῥίζαν τῶν δένδρων κεῖται· πᾶν οὖν δένδρον μὴ ποιοῦν καρπὸν καλὸν ἐκκόπτεται καὶ εἰς πῦρ βάλλεται.

As I pointed out before, the difference between Matthew's "presume to" and Luke's "begin to" looks like this in Greek:

ΔΟΞΗΤΕ
ΑΡΞΗΣΘΕ

The mistake is because the letters have similar shapes, but are pronounced differently and aren't synonyms. Imagine a copy where the bottom half of the word is missing, smudged, or obscured. This is smoking-gun evidence of a written connection between the sources rather than an oral one.

[Wootah]

[Replying to benchwarmer in post #150]

Go on post your contradiction as a new post.

[benchwarmer]

[Replying to benchwarmer in post #150]

Go on post your contradiction as a new post.

Please see this thread where I posted 11 contradictions before I stopped:

On the Bible being inerrant.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38625

My first of many posts in that thread:
[Benchwarmer starts listing contradictions]

[Difflugia]

Go on post your contradiction as a new post.

Speaking of "whatever random punch," a set of vague rhetorical questions isn't really enough to establish a claim. Could you give us a quick summation of the claim that you're making and defending? It looks like it's that the Gospels are "repeated observations of an event" that aren't rendered invalid by a combination of copying and contradiction. Can you narrow that a bit? Are you arguing that there are no examples of literary copying? No examples of contradiction? That there are examples of one or both, but they're unimportant?

[Wootah]

Go on post your contradiction as a new post.

Speaking of "whatever random punch," a set of vague rhetorical questions isn't really enough to establish a claim. Could you give us a quick summation of the claim that you're making and defending? It looks like it's that the Gospels are "repeated observations of an event" that aren't rendered invalid by a combination of copying and contradiction. Can you narrow that a bit? Are you arguing that there are no examples of literary copying? No examples of contradiction? That there are examples of one or both, but they're unimportant?

This isn't my thread, I am not making a claim. Within this thread, I read the first post and thought, 'hmmm in any other area that would indicate something is going on'.

It's possible that you and I are not on the same page. I can discuss literary copying with you if you like and what it might mean. I can discuss contradictions with benchwarmer as well, but both topics are for new threads, not this one.

[Wootah]

[Replying to benchwarmer in post #150]

Go on post your contradiction as a new post.

Please see this thread where I posted 11 contradictions before I stopped:

On the Bible being inerrant.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=38625

My first of many posts in that thread:
[Benchwarmer starts listing contradictions]

In fairness to me I went there and have not found your post and I am on page 2/11, you did not link to your post. Just create a new thread and maybe you and I can look at them and see what we can work out?

[benchwarmer]

In fairness to me I went there and have not found your post and I am on page 2/11, you did not link to your post.

Hmm, that's odd, I did link to my post (the second link in my response) and it works for me when I click it. Maybe some browser weirdness going on. It's post number 16 in that thread, on page 2 of 13 for me, but I'm guessing our browsers are showing different number of pages.

I'll try again:
[Benchwarmer starts listing contradictions]viewtopic.php?p=1049930#p1049930

I'd really rather not start yet another thread on contradictions without you at least seeing what I've posted before. Hopefully you can find my previous post without too much hassle and then we can decide if it's really worth pursuing further. Some people already commented on some of the contradictions posted. On member linked to a PDF that supposedly deals with all the contradictions (spoiler alert, it really doesn't - at least not in any satisfactory/logical way).

Anyway, I'm not trying to weasel out of it, just wondering if we really need to rehash it. We can certainly do so if you really want.

[Miles]

Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. —2 Kings 24:8

Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem… —2 Chronicles 36:9

This was probably a scribal (copyist) error.

A possibility, but it still stands as a Biblical contradiction, which makes it a Biblical error.

Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death. —II Samuel 6:23

But the king took the two sons of Rizpah…and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul. —II Samuel 21:8

The first scripture is refering to Michal having not biological children.

The second to her having "adopted" sons.

Again, a possibility, but without evidence that's all it is and remains a Biblical contradiction. Unless, that is, you have evidence for your claim that Michal adopted five boys? Do you?


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