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Because those words have been edited through the years and ar4enot even reported to be actual statements.
Because in 2015 there has been more intense inquiry from people with no bias in these things than at any time in history, and especially your bible.
But of course you will never admit to the possibility of being wrong. To much for your ego to take.
Quotations from Clement match fairly well to what was said in Gospels. So chances are what we have is what originally was written down. There is a strong oral tradition present in the Gospels. The editing is very minor and based on mistranslations of individual words.
You make the assumption that while obvious intelligence is necessary to create such stories, that all bases can ever be covered. Rome was and still is particularly covetous of its right to rule.
Paul could well have been the equivalent of a black ops agent, working for Rome with both Jewish and Roman sympathies and there is no doubt he was something of a soldier/mercenary.
Anything remotely resembling a threat to Romes rule was swiftly dealt with. The problem with these 'followers of Jesus' was that they fully expected death at the hands of Rome and this was peculiar because ordinarily the threat of death is enough to get people to tow the line. Therefore it is not unreasonable to think that Paul was put in charge of finding a way to deal with that by infiltrating the group(s) and using his obvious intelligence to secure a position of high ranking within said group(s) and the rest - as the saying goes - is history.
Doesn't that imply that Christianity was already a substantial problem for Rome so they had to deal with it?
You couldn't argue that Paul was sent to undermine the Jewish -christian element, because he took the Jesus -story to the gentiles. In effect, he created the problem for Rome.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rotagivan
You make the assumption that while obvious intelligence is necessary to create such stories, that all bases can ever be covered. Rome was and still is particularly covetous of its right to rule. Paul could well have been the equivalent of a black ops agent, working for Rome with both Jewish and Roman sympathies and there is no doubt he was something of a soldier/mercenary.
Anything remotely resembling a threat to Romes rule was swiftly dealt with. The problem with these 'followers of Jesus' was that they fully expected death at the hands of Rome and this was peculiar because ordinarily the threat of death is enough to get people to tow the line. Therefore it is not unreasonable to think that Paul was put in charge of finding a way to deal with that by infiltrating the group(s) and using his obvious intelligence to secure a position of high ranking within said group(s) and the rest - as the saying goes - is history.
Nah, I don't think he would have kept up the pretense during long imprisonment and in the face of death.
Because examination of these supposed eyewitness accounts reveal something that was overlooked up until now - they contradict so badly that they cannot be eyewitness. They are even worse than the nativity, regarding the evidence of which they are irreconcilably NOT eyewitness accounts I still await your comments.
This story is even worse as there are three different accounts, and in one -Luke's - we can see clearly how he had the same bit of wording as Mark and Mathew, but he changes it totally because he does not want the disciples to go to Galilee. he wants them to stay in Jerusalem.
I'll mention - in hope rather than expectation - that Matthew says that the women saw Jesus before they reported back to the bretheren, while Luke says specifically that they did not see him. This is just one of the many, many reasons to reject utterly the suggestion that the resurrection accounts are eyewitness.
Actually, it may be reason to believe there WERE eyewitnesses. Eyewitnesses are notorious about arriving at different conclusions concerning what they saw, particularly concerning emotional, stressful events (was that hit and run car blue or black or blue on black?)--and the more eyewitnesses, the more reports conflict. Add to that the redaction of scores of copyists and scribes--and getting the kernel of truth out becomes quite a chore.
This is where the majority of Christians fall flat on their face. Instead of studying and reflecting, dividing and refining, they choose to skip through scripture conflating and spiritualizing to make everything "fit."
It's never as easy as they like to think.
By the way, I don't have any doubt in my mind that Jesus existed. But if they really found His bones as stated in the other thread, well that puts a wrinkle in everyone's "Christian" view.
Actually, it may be reason to believe there WERE eyewitnesses. Eyewitnesses are notorious about arriving at different conclusions concerning what they saw, particularly concerning emotional, stressful events (was that hit and run car blue or black or blue on black?)--and the more eyewitnesses, the more reports conflict. Add to that the redaction of scores of copyists and scribes--and getting the kernel of truth out becomes quite a chore.
This is where the majority of Christians fall flat on their face. Instead of studying and reflecting, dividing and refining, they choose to skip through scripture conflating and spiritualizing to make everything "fit."
It's never as easy as they like to think.
And THAT may be a reason not to be impressed with holy writ as a vehicle for conveying important information. By the time everyone "divides and refines" differently it ends up not providing the clarity and certitude that moderates claim for it, much less inerrantists.
If god is not willing that any should perish and rather than simply decree them forgiven he wants to go the Rube Goldberg route and set them up to fall and then redeem them, the least he could do is put the vital information and understanding into their brains in the first place. Requiring that mostly illiterate humanity (up to very recently) has to listen to a learned elite's interpretation and emphasis of some moldy, much copied scrolls doesn't strike me as the way to go about it. Even the current situation where most of us can read them for ourselves clearly hasn't helped.
Granted at that time 'education' wasn't up to standards of today. But in any case the literature of the time fell in nicely with what people could take in and process. For how else could understanding be transmitted? For one thing the writers never spoke down to their audience. In fact they respected them.
Actually, it may be reason to believe there WERE eyewitnesses. Eyewitnesses are notorious about arriving at different conclusions concerning what they saw, particularly concerning emotional, stressful events (was that hit and run car blue or black or blue on black?)--and the more eyewitnesses, the more reports conflict. Add to that the redaction of scores of copyists and scribes--and getting the kernel of truth out becomes quite a chore.
This is where the majority of Christians fall flat on their face. Instead of studying and reflecting, dividing and refining, they choose to skip through scripture conflating and spiritualizing to make everything "fit."
It's never as easy as they like to think.
By the way, I don't have any doubt in my mind that Jesus existed. But if they really found His bones as stated in the other thread, well that puts a wrinkle in everyone's "Christian" view.
That is certainly something I took into account, but the problem (which I found after an effort to reconcile the four gospels) is threefold:
(a) the worst discrepancies are too glaring to be passed off as 'witnesses don't always agree';
(b) the text shows signs of being an original common text - which is only 'eyewitness' if the gospel writers got together to learn the entire script by heart. And then alter it (as Luke does) for their own purposes;
(c) eyewitnesses would surely have spent a decade or so yarning about Jesus by the fireside. How then can we explain that nobody but Matthew heard about the massacre of the innocents, the star, sinking Simon, the Tomb guard, the descending angel and the appearance of Jesus?
(d) (ok, fourfold ) where did Luke get his stories of the rumpus in Nazareth, the miraculous draft of fish, Jesus sent to Antipas and the strengthening angel? Not to mention appearances of Jesus after the ascension, or the memorable parables which do not appear in either Mark or Matthew? Where would Luke have got them? He must have made them up.
Therefore, Matthew (or whoever wrote it) must have made his up and John, whose gospel differs even more strikingly from the synoptics, must also have made up the sermons, the squabbles and in fact, everything memorable (1) that doesn't appear in all four gospels has to be regarded as unsafe and not explicable as the faulty memory of eyewitnesses.
(1) which is why the 'many other things' explanation doesn't wash. Nobody minds that John might have omitted the presentation in the temple or even Jesus as an adolescent rabbi, but not a single parable or mention of the nativity and massacre of innocents (and if Mathew knew of it, so did everyone else) and most staggeringly, no Transfiguration. Conversely, the synoptics have none of those theological lectures nor that memorable spear wound, which Luke tacitly denies. We are not talking about a 'different point of view'. We are talking about different - and invented - material.
That is certainly something I took into account, but the problem (which I found after an effort to reconcile the four gospels) is threefold:
(a) the worst discrepancies are too glaring to be passed off as 'witnesses don't always agree';
(b) the text shows signs of being an original common text - which is only 'eyewitness' if the gospel writers got together to learn the entire script by heart. And then alter it (as Luke does) for their own purposes;
(c) eyewitnesses would surely have spent a decade or so yarning about Jesus by the fireside. How then can we explain that nobody but Matthew heard about the massacre of the innocents, the star, sinking Simon, the Tomb guard, the descending angel and the appearance of Jesus?
(d) (ok, fourfold ) where did Luke get his stories of the rumpus in Nazareth, the miraculous draft of fish, Jesus sent to Antipas and the strengthening angel? Not to mention appearances of Jesus after the ascension, or the memorable parables which do not appear in either Mark or Matthew? Where would Luke have got them? He must have made them up.
Therefore, Matthew (or whoever wrote it) must have made his up and John, whose gospel differs even more strikingly from the synoptics, must also have made up the sermons, the squabbles and in fact, everything memorable (1) that doesn't appear in all four gospels has to be regarded as unsafe and not explicable as the faulty memory of eyewitnesses.
(1) which is why the 'many other things' explanation doesn't wash. Nobody minds that John might have omitted the presentation in the temple or even Jesus as an adolescent rabbi, but not a single parable or mention of the nativity and massacre of innocents (and if Mathew knew of it, so did everyone else) and most staggeringly, no Transfiguration. Conversely, the synoptics have none of those theological lectures nor that memorable spear wound, which Luke tacitly denies. We are not talking about a 'different point of view'. We are talking about different - and invented - material.
While I agree some of the material was probably created after the fact to support "prophetic" views, I'm not as certain about all of it. Most likely there were separate oral traditions going on for years prior to the first amalgamation of sayings, stories, events, etc. Did these get changed by being passed from one to another, no doubt. But it's like I've said about my wife's ancestor (distant uncle) Davy Crockett--we don't have ALL the truth about him, and certainly there is good deal of fabrication by those who wanted him to be larger than life--and, of course, the stories got bigger the further away from his life that they were created.
Was there a great flood that destroyed all the world? Probably not. But because so many different cultures have a flood story in them, differing in details, it doesn't indicate fabrication, it indicates a kernel of truth around which bigger stories were created--the flood got deeper and wider and lasted longer.
The two nativity stories were certainly composed purely for the purpose of fulfilling "prophecy" in the OT. They are so completely different that neither author had a single source document for those. John is so different, not just in writing style but in the personality of Jesus, that it had to be a later date and most likely was the apologetic against various gnostic writings--which probably had their own interpretation of those earliest oral traditions--kind of like branches coming off a tree with some in the sun and others in the shade--reflecting different comprehension and perhaps embellishment of those first stories.
I may agree with many about how the writings were manipulated, what their source material was, etc., but it is sheer folly to think Jesus never existed at all. What one may conclude about Him is certainly up for grabs--but to see some sort of "plot" to get this wrapped up in a tidy package? That's not logical. It assumes the authors were smart enough to attempt it, but too stupid to get the stories straight. That has no ring of truth for me. And because we have MORE NT manuscripts than any other written material from those times there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that there are going to be copyist errors, scribal additions, and so forth. It's too bad our English Bibles came from the worst possible Masoretic texts rather than the original Hebrew. Even the NT authors used the Greek translations of them.
I guess I have to fall in with Bart Ehrman. He certainly has spent his life studying texts and debating the meaning of them with many who are fully committed spiritually to them. And while he finds massive problems in the writings, he has never doubted the existence of Jesus.
If you are referring back to topic I agree. There is a similar agenda on the part of the gospel -writers, but not (so far as I can see) inventing a Jewish messiah figure loosely based on the life and death of Julius Caesar.
I see it as loosely based on the actual life and death of Jesus, failed messiah. Raised to heaven in the spirit by his followers, taken to the Gentiles by Paul and re -invented as a Jew -bashing proto - Christian. That's all the agenda there is.
And THAT may be a reason not to be impressed with holy writ as a vehicle for conveying important information. By the time everyone "divides and refines" differently it ends up not providing the clarity and certitude that moderates claim for it, much less inerrantists.
If god is not willing that any should perish and rather than simply decree them forgiven he wants to go the Rube Goldberg route and set them up to fall and then redeem them, the least he could do is put the vital information and understanding into their brains in the first place. Requiring that mostly illiterate humanity (up to very recently) has to listen to a learned elite's interpretation and emphasis of some moldy, much copied scrolls doesn't strike me as the way to go about it. Even the current situation where most of us can read them for ourselves clearly hasn't helped.
Sorry, but you are now trying to argue the point of the OP by "spiritualizing" what God wanted or not. That is a christian fundamentalist argument. I don't see the books being about what God wanted. They were about people giving their faith testimony regarding larger truths than printed words. The authors were human. Their desire to make things larger than life because of whatever impact Jesus had in their midst is certainly understandable.
From a purely spiritual point of view, God is not IN the Bible. The Bible deals with stories of men WITNESSING about their OWN faith. From that standpoint people with a spiritual interest can learn. Unfortunately, too many drown in elevating the writings beyond what they were intended to be. And some of the authors used tactics similar to those used by "bible-believers" today.
It's okay not to "believe." And there is nothing wrong with belief either. Where it gets ugly is when those writings become some sort of untouchable rule book. That's the failing I see for too many christians. They make their own lives miserable and seem to enjoy attempting to make everyone else's lives miserable as well.
To me, there is nothing Godly about that at all.
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that Matthew says that the women saw Jesus before they reported back to the bretheren, while Luke says specifically that they did not see him. This is just one of the many, many reasons to reject utterly the suggestion that the resurrection accounts are eyewitness.
) where did Luke get his stories of the rumpus in Nazareth, the miraculous draft of fish, Jesus sent to Antipas and the strengthening angel? Not to mention appearances of Jesus after the ascension, or the memorable parables which do not appear in either Mark or Matthew? Where would Luke have got them? He must have made them up. 
I agree. There is a similar agenda on the part of the gospel -writers, but not (so far as I can see) inventing a Jewish messiah figure loosely based on the life and death of Julius Caesar. 
