Matt 28 - Did Jesus say this or was it just made up?

[polonius]

The eleven* disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them.
17
* When they saw him, they worshiped, but they doubted.
18
* g Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
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h Go, therefore,* and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit,
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teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.* And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.�

PROBLEMS:

1. There are five explicit descriptions of baptisms following this in the New Testament. But none were in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All were in the name of Jesus alone.

2. This action took place in Galilee a three days journey from Jerusalem. Paul has the Ascension take place on the same day of Jesus resurrection and from Mt. Olivet outside of Jerusalem.

3. The Trinity doctrine developed much later, about the third century.

4. The original drafts of Matthew's gospel were lost. We only have third-century copies.

[JehovahsWitness]

PROBLEMS:

1. There are five explicit descriptions of baptisms following this in the New Testament. But none were in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All were in the name of Jesus alone.

So? Why is that a problem? Jesus can't teach his disciples to do something new?

PROBLEMS:

2. This action took place in Galilee a three days journey from Jerusalem. Paul has the Ascension take place on the same day of Jesus resurrection and from Mt. Olivet outside of Jerusalem.

He does? Proof please.

PROBLEMS:

1. There are five explicit descriptions of baptisms following this in the New Testament. But none were in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All were in the name of Jesus alone.3. The Trinity doctrine developed much later, about the third century.

I agree. Why is this problematic, this scripture doesn't mention the trinity at all.

PROBLEMS:

4. The original drafts of Matthew's gospel were lost. We only have third-century copies.

So we'll have to go on what we have, not on what we don't have.


JW

[polonius]

JW questioned:

PROBLEMS:

Polonius wrote:
1. There are five explicit descriptions of baptisms following this in the New Testament. But none were in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All were in the name of Jesus alone.

JW wrote:
So? Why is that a problem? Jesus can't teach his disciples to do something new?

Polonius wrote:
Matthew 28: 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…� But in these five cases of baptism after Jesus spoke, the baptisms were done in his name only. Not “in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.�


Polonius wrote:
2. This action took place in Galilee a three days journey from Jerusalem. Paul has the Ascension take place on the same day of Jesus resurrection and from Mt. Olivet outside of Jerusalem.


JW wrote:He does? Proof please.

Polonius wrote:
Oops. My mistake. It was Luke who contradicted Matthew.
Acts 1:9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.�12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. 13 When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying.

Verses: Matthew 28:16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.

polonius wrote:
1. There are five explicit descriptions of baptisms following this in the New Testament. But none were in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All were in the name of Jesus alone.3. The Trinity doctrine developed much later, about the third century.

JW wrote:
I agree. Why is this problematic, this scripture doesn't mention the trinity at all.

polonius wrote:
It clearly refers to what came to be called the Trinity:
Matthew 28 "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit


polonius wrote:
4. The original drafts of Matthew's gospel were lost. We only have third-century copies.

JW wrote:
So we'll have to go on what we have, not on what we don't have.

Polonius summarized:

Probably the strongest apparent claim about the addition of a passage to Matthew 28:19 is the view that Syriac documents did not contain it.

Luke-Acts description of the Ascension (unlike Matthew’s) contains no mention of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Again, there are five explicit descriptions of baptisms following the Ascension in the New Testament. But none were in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All were in the name of Jesus alone.

If the existence of the Father, the Son, and the holy Spirit existed
If belief in the Father, Son, and holy Spirit of God existed from the time of Christ, why was there a need for the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD?

JW wrote:

“So we'll have to go on what we have, not on what we don't have.�

Polonius asked:
Do you apply this kind of reasoning to, say, the existence of Santa Claus? After all, we have much written about him.

[JehovahsWitness]

JW wrote:

“So we'll have to go on what we have, not on what we don't have.�

Polonius asked:
Do you apply this kind of reasoning to, say, the existence of Santa Claus? After all, we have much written about him.

Yes of course. If I were to write a paper on or discuss Santa Claus I would use all available information rather than information that is not available.

[polonius]

JW wrote:

“So we'll have to go on what we have, not on what we don't have.�

Polonius asked:
Do you apply this kind of reasoning to, say, the existence of Santa Claus? After all, we have much written about him.

Yes of course. If I were to write a paper on or discuss Santa Claus I would use all available information rather than information that is not available.

RESPONSE:

But would you use commons sense and rational analysis in evaluating the "available information" and lack thereof?

Information which should exist but does not is sometimes very telling. In the present case, the lack of any gospel account of baptism in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit is very significant.

[polonius]

JW wrote:

“So we'll have to go on what we have, not on what we don't have.�

RESPONSE: That’s hardly competent historically.

1. According to the NT, Jesus ascended into heaven from either Galilee or Mt. Olivet (Jerusalem).

2. In either case, his apostles witnessed his last teaching before he ascended into Heaven.

3. According to Matthew’s account, chapter 28, Jesus told his followers to baptize in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. (This seems to foresee the dogma of the Trinity from the second and third century).

Keep in mind the only scripture claiming this in that of Matthew. And we know that the Evangelist later named Matthew (135 AD) was not the Apostle Matthew and hence not an eye witness. This gospel was written 50 years after the event it describes presumably not by an eye-witness.

4. None of the other apostles or followers of Jesus report any such saying by Jesus.

5. There are five descriptions of post-Ascension in the New Testament. None involve the Father, So, and holy Spirit, but the name of Jesus alone. So if baptism was only in the name of Jesus, they ignored Jesus’ rather explicit teaching.

6. But it would be helpful to have such a writing when the Church was trying to develop the Trinity doctrine to support having two divine persons, God and Jesus, contrary to Jewish teachings.

Does JW’s claim that “we’ll have to go with what we have� seem credible here?

In the 1800’s a historian wrote the story about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. Does that prove that the story is historical?

Mason Lock Weems’ biography, The Life of Washington, was first published in 1800 and was an instant bestseller. However, the cherry tree myth did not appear until the book’s fifth edition was published in 1806.

So because it was the only written account, did that make it true?

Not hardly!

[JehovahsWitness]

3. According to Matthew’s account, chapter 28, Jesus told his followers to baptize in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. (This seems to foresee the dogma of the Trinity from the second and third century).

Well it might "seem" like that to you but it does not "seem" like that to me; and evidently, if it took a couple of centuries for the idea to gain a footing in the Christian community, it didn't "seem" that way to many early Christians either.

Indeed to me it seems Jesus simply mentioned His Father, himself and the holy spirit in the same sentence. No more, no less. This hardly seems a reasonable a basis imho, to conclude they are all the same; that YHWH and Jesus co-equal, co-eternal or indeed that God is truine in nature, especially as this would be to go against explicit statements Jesus made to the contrary.



JW

[polonius]

3. According to Matthew’s account, chapter 28, Jesus told his followers to baptize in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. (This seems to foresee the dogma of the Trinity from the second and third century).

Well it might "seem" like that to you but it does not "seem" like that to me; and evidently, if it took a couple of centuries for the idea to gain a footing in the Christian community, it didn't "seem" that way to many early Christians either.

RESPONSE: Perhaps that was because part of Chapter 28 was added to Matthew's gospel in the third century after the Trinity doctrine developed.

This would have been similar to the longer ending of Mark's gospel which we know was added to Mark in the second century.

Or the story of the woman taken in adultery in John 7-8 which was added sometime in the 4th century, which is absent from the codices of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus 325 and 375 AD.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 8 by polonius.advice]


Even if it were "added" last year, it still doesn't suggest anythig more than that the disciples preach about God, Jesus and the holy spirit and not that all three create some mystical truine God. Plus it the passage were indeed disputed, then that is further reason for me to conclude god is not truine in nature, since evidently there was nothing in the gospels in their original state to even suggest such a belief; so some kind of doctoring was necessary, no matter how ineffective to that end.

In any case, if I were in the least bit interested in any allegation of the scripture being unauthentic, I would personally take myself over to another subforum, say Christianity and Apologetics were I would more suitably thrash the question over there, rather than here in theology, doctrine and dogma where we tend to discuss the bible canon as generally accepted.

JW

[polonius]

PROBLEMS:

1. There are five explicit descriptions of baptisms following this in the New Testament. But none were in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All were in the name of Jesus alone.

So? Why is that a problem? Jesus can't teach his disciples to do something new?

RESPONSE: None of his disciples did it. That's the point. They continued to baptize in the name of Jesus alone.

So eitherJesus followers chose to disregard Jesus teaching, or, what is more likely, that teaching was added to Matt 28 later. Note too, that no other Gospel other than Matt 28 claims that baptism is to be in the name f the Father, Son, and holy Spirit.