Potter's Field Contradiction

[JoeMama]

“Then Judas, who had betrayed Jesus, repented himself, and gave his thirty pieces of silver back to the chief priests and elders, who used the money to buy the potter's field. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet, saying, ‘And they took the thirty pieces of silver, and bought the potter's field.’” (Matthew 27:3-10)

But, what does the “prophet” really say about this?

In the passage below, an offended worker resents the low wages he was paid: ‘And the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter.” So, I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them to the potter." (Zechariah 11:13)

Zechariah says that the thirty pieces of silver was thrown to a potter, while Matthew says the priests used the returned silver to buy a potter’s field.

How do believers harmonize these two accounts?

[TRANSPONDER]

Ok...Luke (Acts) uses Chorion Haimatos for field of blood. Matthew uses Aigros Hamatos.

No luck with translation. That Aigros was with a capital made it look like a place name, whereas chorion look like a descriptor.

[Masterblaster]

Hello TRANSPONDER
I am dead to this discussion. It is unimportant except to those involved. I felt that 1213 was really stretching ,debate protocol. If he insists on the need for true understanding on this specific matter he should bring more to the table than , maybe. The Potters Field is a literal irrelevancey that carries all the usual scrapbook OT/NT flavour of posthumous propaganda, probably used in the early years of Christianity. Why award it significance, as a believer. Leave it to the scholars and the sceptics .What has it got to do with Jesus, in your opinion.

[TRANSPONDER]

Hello TRANSPONDER
I am dead to this discussion. It is unimportant except to those involved. I felt that 1213 was really stretching ,debate protocol. If he insists on the need for true understanding on this specific matter he should bring more to the table than , maybe. The Potters Field is a literal irrelevancey that carries all the usual scrapbook OT/NT flavour of posthumous propaganda, probably used in the early years of Christianity. Why award it significance, as a believer. Leave it to the scholars and the sceptics .What has it got to do with Jesus, in your opinion.

As you like. It is unsurprising that Believers like it kept nice and vague so Trust can be used rather than niggling doubts and questions. But it is often the smallest clue that will solve a crime - or unsolve it, while the broad brush bods would be 'saying "everybody known..."

You would no doubt be dead to the point that there was no time when Quirinus could be governor of Syria other than wellafter the death of Herod, or that the Exodus could not have diverted to Sinai to avoid the land of the Philistines, because Israel was already in Canaan before the Philistines were even there.

But we Darwinist Pondslime will continue to dig and deduce, whether you are in or out.

[Difflugia]

The OT quote is about throwing the 30 silver to the potter, was it?In the house of the Lord (which reminds me of the Temple treasure in fact) but the Gospels talk opf throwing the money back to the priests not the potter, either in the house of the Lord or the field when they'd inspected it for suitability and they are hardly likely to throw the money at him, but hand it over in a little bag or something.

The whole "Potter's Field" thing looks like Matthew trying to shoehorn in another prophecy and I suspect it has nothing to do with the original tradition, which is why I'm inclined to think that Luke's χωρίον is potentially original. In Zechariah's prophecy, the potter has nothing to do with a field. In the tradition that Matthew likely knew, there was nothing to do with a potter. Matthew had a field and some silver that he wanted to match to a prophecy. Zecharaiah has a prophecy with a potter and thirty pieces of silver. The synthesis is Matthew 27:3-10.

It's worth noting that the tradition that Papias knew is similar to the tradition in Acts. The death of Judas that Papias knew involved Judas bloating up so much that he was wider than a chariot. That apparently meant a particular chariot, because it ran him over and his guts came out.

Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out.

[TRANSPONDER]

Indeed. What is clear however is that Judas transacted the field, which means that the priests didn't, or the priests transacted the field which means that Judas didn't, and there was no credible way that they were acting as agents for Judas either before or after his death, as when the silver was thrown back at them, Judas was no longer in the transaction.

[TRANSPONDER]

The OT quote is about throwing the 30 silver to the potter, was it?In the house of the Lord (which reminds me of the Temple treasure in fact) but the Gospels talk opf throwing the money back to the priests not the potter, either in the house of the Lord or the field when they'd inspected it for suitability and they are hardly likely to throw the money at him, but hand it over in a little bag or something.

The whole "Potter's Field" thing looks like Matthew trying to shoehorn in another prophecy and I suspect it has nothing to do with the original tradition, which is why I'm inclined to think that Luke's χωρίον is potentially original. In Zechariah's prophecy, the potter has nothing to do with a field. In the tradition that Matthew likely knew, there was nothing to do with a potter. Matthew had a field and some silver that he wanted to match to a prophecy. Zecharaiah has a prophecy with a potter and thirty pieces of silver. The synthesis is Matthew 27:3-10.

It's worth noting that the tradition that Papias knew is similar to the tradition in Acts. The death of Judas that Papias knew involved Judas bloating up so much that he was wider than a chariot. That apparently meant a particular chariot, because it ran him over and his guts came out.

Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out.

I'm going with a gut feeling here (perhaps because of the feeling I have about Gospel construction and later additions (like the Freer Logion).

Originally there was no death of Judas. None. Then for some reason Matthew and Luke got the idea (just as with the need for a birth in Bethlehem) that Judas needed to get his just desserts. Either a feeling that retribution was needed or there was a tradition that appeared.Take for instance the woman taken in adultery, once in Luke as well as in John (but not both). Along with some amended gospels with Luke amended to match John (as in the the tomb - wrappings (1}. But this isn't an amendment to agree with John but is a subject of two contradictory stories in Matthew and Luke like the nativities. And it would work fine with the Requirement that threw up two different stories, and Potters' field would, as you suggest, appeal to Matthew when he found silver pieces in the Bible, and it was easy to See the thirty silver thrown to the potter in the Temple as the prophecy of what Judas did. Whether there was a place called 'potters' field' in Jerusalem or he just made it up, it looks like a clumsy Matthew job using the OT.

Luke however uses sources. Josephus and Paul as well as the gospels. But he freely improvises where needed, so there is no reason to credit this improbable story of Judas buying a field nor indeed the idea that he fell headlong and burst open. Which is a rather odd story. Acts is quite happy to bring down divine wrath on Aninus and Sapphira for daring to keep back some living expenses instead of giving it all to the church, so why this silly story of bursting open apparently by accident and (though retribution) Not through divine agency?

I don't credit Papias too much. This story of Judas gorging to excess is surely just a hatchet job on the one who was just doing God's will, as without the Crucifixion, nobody would be saved.
The only bother in this easy explanation is this Field. Potter's field (whether there was such a place or not) is an invention to link the Field (of Blood) with the potter. Potter's field does not appear in Acts, nor of course the prophecy, as Luke found his own - just as bad. Two OT lines stuck together and mistranslated as well.

The only thing is this Field of blood and Judas dying there. That is the only thing that connects the two stories. That can't be a 'need'. It sounds like a claim or tradition that had popped up later on after Mark and John, so they did not add it in. It's a strange one.

(1) they are so crafty In one of my Bibles after Mary says the tomb was empty the disciples went to look and found the grave cloths as in John. But My Other Bible says 'some other authorities have..' and this is apologerical for 'They amended it later on to agree'.

[Masterblaster]

Hello TRANSPONDER
You say-But we Darwinist Pondslime will continue to dig and deduce, whether you are in or out.

Dig and deduce all you want. I asked you a question. What has the potter"s field got to do with Jesus. At this stage, you are just beating a drum.

[Masterblaster]

I am observing debate strategies and techniques in an attempt to perceive an underlying purpose.
Skeptics are suddenly interested in the potters field. Why. I was considering this- to quoque
Are we working our way to discredit this reference so that we can make the deductive leap that all the Jesus stuff is equally rubbish.
Would that constitute a successful dig.
What has the potters field got to do with Jesus.

[TRANSPONDER]

Hello TRANSPONDER
You say-But we Darwinist Pondslime will continue to dig and deduce, whether you are in or out.

Dig and deduce all you want. I asked you a question. What has the potter"s field got to do with Jesus. At this stage, you are just beating a drum.

If I had your mindset, I would ignore this, but you asked so I'll tell you as well as others who may wonder what I'm about.

The whole Jesus claim is whether Bible -Jesus is true. If not - especially is the resurrection isn't true, the case collapses. Not that the Believers will ever admit that, but pointing it out to anyone with ears still open, they'd see it.

But can we show it isn't true? There are several ways to argue this, but I find contradictions telling ("I don't need no atheist tellin' me anything"). But it is arguable whether they are real contradictions and whether they make the narrative unsound even if they are. I won't say 'does it matter for Jesus even if they are?' Obviously it logically and reasonably should, and it will for the logical and reasonable.

I have said before the Nativities are the test cases. If anyone believes they are true, it is through ignorance or denial. The Resurrection sare almost as bad. They are more full of contradictions than my Bible's full of notes. Faithbased denial can't be helped. Others...we just have to reach them.

And Judas is a telling contradiction. It fails of four points - the method of death, who purchased the field and who had the money (trying to make one mean the other is tortured credibility - stretching) and the cagmag of the prophecies; in fact perhaps a test - case for how prophecies are fakes and undermines the whole 'OT predicts Jesus by prophecy' claim, as a fake and a fraud.

Finally, last and perhaps not least, it is not in Mark or John, and that it isn't in Mark means they are not part of the original story. And not being in John really means the same. John actually has material from the synoptics but used differently, just as Luke shares material with Matthew, but used differently. The obvious example to anyone but 2000 years of Bible scholars who apparently missed it, is the palzied person, in Galilee in the synoptics but at the Siloam pool in Jerusalem in John. He also heard the quip: 'A prophet is not without honour in his own country' but he doesn't use it in connection with the rejection at Nazareth.

I then note that John also has a blind beggar healed by Jesus. Not at Jericho, but in Jerusalem. So I wonder whether Lazarus might be totally unknown to the synoptics? Luke's son of the widow of Nain was dead, and Jesus raises him with hardly a comment. It's just an idea. Floating stories and claims that can be elaborated in various ways might explain a lot. Even including why Luke has no walking on water. And none to the credibility of Gospel -Jesus.

[Masterblaster]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #29]
Hello TRANSPONDER
You say - The whole Jesus claim is whether Bible -Jesus is true.
That is a preconceived deduction of your own making. How much latitude are you going to allow for error,embellishment, accuracy, mischief, and many others things. Have you a tolerance level for what is true, in all this. Do you believe in Jesus , despite your biblical reservations. Does the Jesus message survive the buffeting that is constant from both sides of this theological skirmish.