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If you don't see fatal contradictions there, then you are welcome to your blinkered denial, and as I predicted, you picked up on the last one that you thought might be worth trying to argue rather than dismiss out of hand.
But I do not intend to try to hold up clear evidence before someone who simply isn't looking to see, because I have been too cheeky already peddling my wares in a thread specifically about the fig leaf..no I mean figtree.
What I might say is - compare them yourself, gospel by Gospel, and you test how pure your faith is by the amount of denial you'll need to ignore the discreapancies and contradictions.
OK. My Sunday School class is actually going through a harmony of the Gospels right now. It's interesting to see the points that each one chooses to emphasize. Again....I fail to see the issue, but if you're presuppositions cause you to see them where they don't exist....ok.
Ok indeed and a happy 2018 to you. Because I can already see that you are ignoring the pretty clear contradictions pointed up. Just aas I imagine your Sunday School will (1).
("Well...could have happened.." No, they could not, not with rewriting the whole thing to make it work)
and I have to choose my battles. This isn't the time, and you are not the one I'm talking to. But the discussion will happen sooner or later.
(1) did you catch the vid I posted on an apolgetic about the nativity? It conceded a few irrelevant details, and totally ignored all the real problems.
Of far more import to me are the inconsistencies between gospels, the fact that they inherently can't represent good scholarship and research and certainly aren't the "eyewitness accounts" that many believers claim them to be. Also the huge disconnect between the gospel mythos and the much earlier writings of Paul. I think the least-forced explanation is that the gospels were a corrective for (and integration of) the teachings of Paul into a nascent Christian orthodoxy. P.
Gosh If I were going to fake something I sure would do a better job of putting all of my ducks in a row. Perhaps the Gospels were not faked and were just separate accounts. Ask any cop about "eyewitness accounts" of any accident or event. Take four eyewitnesses you get four accounts that are basically similar, but may differ in details. Just how it is, sorry.
Gosh If I were going to fake something I sure would do a better job of putting all of my ducks in a row. Perhaps the Gospels were not faked and were just separate accounts.
Or perhaps they were separate fakes. But thanks for admitting the ducks aren't in a very good row.
Although I would not term them fakes in the sense that they are products of a conspiracy, as if some people sat down and (sloppily) wrote them all out. I think they evolved, the synoptics from a common earlier source now lost to us, John from something else. But this is insufficient for inerrantists; they must claim to have totally accurate and unflawed documents. This is unfortunate as they just manifestly are not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr5150
Ask any cop about "eyewitness accounts" of any accident or event. Take four eyewitnesses you get four accounts that are basically similar, but may differ in details. Just how it is, sorry.
Well if you're going with that metaphor you might consider how investigators work with differing testimony.
One of the things they do is interview witness #1, then interview witnesses #2 and and 3 with the same questions. Where those witnesses differ, is is generally the case that one of the differing accounts is a lie. The investigators then will generally do things that aren't available to us -- they look at other sources, develop and record their own eyewitness accounts, timelines, etc. to figure out WHO was lying (or, less commonly, who innocently remembers it differently -- and yes, trained and un-corrupt prosecutors are seldom wrong about which is which).
I say this isn't a tactic we can use, but that in itself is interesting; it's not a viable tactic because of a paucity of corroborating recorded accounts, to the point of basically zero. Somehow all these amazing things that happened in and around Jerusalem during Jesus' public ministry impressed no one enough to record them contemporaneously. We are left with anonymous authors from about 37+ years after the fact, telling factually inconsistent narratives full of extraordinary miracles. These inherently cannot meet their burdens of reasonable proof. Even Paul, when he passingly mentions Jesus, corroborates nothing and in fact presents a celestial being more than a flesh and blood human. And "validates" his assertions, not with eyewitness accounts, but with claims of a divine vision given privately to him -- which of course, is totally unprovable. And that's too bad, because Paul could have provided much earlier detail on this score, yet ... he does not. The Acts of the Apostles is no help, that dates from about 80 to 90 AD, the same general time frame as the gospels.
Gosh If I were going to fake something I sure would do a better job of putting all of my ducks in a row. Perhaps the Gospels were not faked and were just separate accounts. Ask any cop about "eyewitness accounts" of any accident or event. Take four eyewitnesses you get four accounts that are basically similar, but may differ in details. Just how it is, sorry.
"Eyewitness accounts" is merely a feeble excuse to wave away the fatal contradictions. If and when you examine the really bad ones (as I did above in a post that you evidently ignored) 'eyewitness discrepancy' isn't a reason, it is an excuse. To press the analogy, if eyewitnesses were to come into court with a story so evidently based in three cases on a written down account that they had recited, but also elaborated and fiddled in contradictory ways in order overcome some questions, their testimony would be struck from the record as unsafe anf they'd be lucky if they escaped a perjury charge.
That is simply the stock excuse as to why they contradict each other so as to fatally compromise their reliability as a record - whatever point they were trying to emphasize. It does not explain away the discrepancies where they describe the same event.
You can wave away the monumental contradictions and omissions of important 'proof of Jesus and his resurrection' material, while having room for tedious parables, or you can do the other thing and rewrite the account to fiddle them together or invent stuff to try to produce some possible explanation. You can do that as much as you like, but it doesn't fool us for a minute.
The omission of the Transfiguration by John was discussed here some time ago and they did their best; it wasn't the same event (I proved that it was), Jesus told them to keep quiet about it (only until after his death, and that didn't stop Mark, Matthew and Luke writing about it). To their credit, nobody tried your argument that the synoptics 'emphasized different things' and John didn't see the need to emphasize the transfiguration at all to the extent that he describes the event
John 6. 15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
And not a transfiguration in sight.
Nobody tried to pull "John didn't think it was important" because that won't wash and they knew it wouldn't. If it washes for you it is because your idea of laundry is 'Whatever I believe is clean, is clean'.
If what he wanted was to be made king of the Jews, then why withdraw to a mountain?...That makes no sense...
Gosh If I were going to fake something I sure would do a better job of putting all of my ducks in a row. Perhaps the Gospels were not faked and were just separate accounts. Ask any cop about "eyewitness accounts" of any accident or event. Take four eyewitnesses you get four accounts that are basically similar, but may differ in details. Just how it is, sorry.
And that’s the problem the police face on a daily basis, probably only one of those witnesses has given an accurate testimony and, then again, maybe none of them have...
And that’s the problem the police face on a daily basis, probably only one of those witnesses has given an accurate testimony and, then again, maybe none of them have...
But scrutinizing written accounts, or oral accounts, written down, preferably against some other written source, is what we do, from historians to detectives. And they must be doing something right. Despite those who moaned that nobody could work out from the conflicting stories of people who were there what actually happened at Waterloo (1), we have a very good idea of what did or did not happen. We have not abolished crime investigations or court cases because every testimony is equally trustworthy and nobody can work out from conflicting accounts what is true and what is not.
These attempt to say the truth canot be discovered are shown to be invalid, and one suspects that they are postulated by those who don't want to know what really happened in case it isn't what they would like to believe.
(1) I waited under the wrong clock
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard1965
If what he wanted was to be made king of the Jews, then why withdraw to a mountain?...That makes no sense...
Because they wanted to make him a king "By Force" and There is a cover -up thread all through the gospels of taking what seems to be a Jewish messianic mission and repeatedly Editing the text to say 'Oh not - Jesus wasn't a zealot -type Messiah at all, he was a Christians one, teaching Paulinist doctrines about how Jewish dietary laws don't count any more and how Gentiles are the only people he comes across who Really have faith in him.
John the baptist, gathering hordes of Jews to Baptism in Antipas' Perea (on the border with Nabatea, with whom Antipas was at war) calling for a new partnership with God while roundly condemning Antipas..well, I'd have arrested him too. And Jesus carries on the mission. The gospels depict John as proclaiming Jesus the real messiah and he was only there to do the intro.
And the only thing that all the gospels agree on, after that, ..this may surprise you - it surprised me - is Jesus taking his followers to Bethsaida (1) where 500 men (note men, specifically) are sat down on the grass and fed. After which Jesus' messiahship comes out, though apparently only to his disciples and he tells them to keep quiet about it. Not that it stops the people deciding that they would like to make him a king 'by force'. And so Jesus runs off into the mountains, apparently to escape them.
What does he do there? Well, there is no transfiguration or it is inconceivable that John would ignore it. But the Synoptic version pretty much re -does the Messianic approval message of the baptism, we get the three trusted disciples witnessing Jesus approved as messiah.
So your pertinent point. Why, if Jesus was going to me a messianic king, did he run away when the people (5,000 men) wanted to do just that? Because it was 'by force' which John will wave away in horror. No, no, Jesus wasn't That kind of Messiah at all.
No, no, stopping off in Peraea to allow people to flock to him before he goes onto Jerusalem was only so he could preach and heal. No, no, the set up donkey ride which was the only prophecy that Jesus did set out to fullfil was merely so they would have faith in his Passover self -sacrifice to remit all tgheir sins. But as John says they did not 'understand', not the palm waving excited crowd following what looks exactly like a Hosanna procession of the promised liberator into the temple which effectively he and his followers take over - despite (it being a festival) Pilate and about 1,000 troops being on duty there.
If there is any basis to Luke's mention of Pilate mingling the blood of the Galileans with their sacrifices (Luke 13.1), putting down an insurgency of Galilean rebels in the temple is what it had to be. And that was before any Jewish war, because Pilate was recalled to Rome in 36 AD.
But no, despite Cleophas saying that they hoped Jesus would be the one to liberate Israel (but he wasn't) that was not the kind of messiah Jesus was at all, and look rather at Matthew's little kiddies chorusing "Hosanah to the son of David" in tinkly voices (21.15) and don't think at all of 5,000 Bethsaidan zealots plus Peraean recruits bellowing 'Save, us, son of David". No, that wasn't the kind of Messiah Jesus was at all.
But whatever kind he was, there he is, under arrest, and bless me if there isn't also in Jail a 'robber' or 'bandit; "lestes" - an Herodian term used to refer to insurgents and rebels, and if you don't believe it, we hear that he had created an insurgency in the city and had done murder.
Well, wherever that had been it couldn't be in the Temple, as Jesus was there oveturning tables and making a preachfest out of it plus the inevitable debate with the Jews; and Pilate must have been killing Galileans amongst their sacrifices at some Other Temple, because that wasn't at all the kind of messiah Jesus was. As the people could all see when they are offered a choice (in a 'custom' unknown to Jewish tradition) whom will you release, or rather, for whom will you take the blame for condemning to death, Jesus the Christian spiritual messiah or Jesus Barrabbas, the bloody insurgent? Jesus Christ or Jesus Bar Abbas? Jesus son of God or Jesus son of the Father (Abba). There. I've Said It My Conspiracy Theory
Of course the Jews opt for the rebel and send Jesus the spiritual messiah to the cross, taking the curse of it on themselves, and damn me if Jesus isn't executed with the method specially reserved to Rebels against Rome and reportedly by all four gospels, for the crime of being "king of the Jews'. Or at least a claimant as he never actually sat on the throne. But that doesn't make him a 'failed messiah' mark you , because he wasn't that kind of messiah at all, even being crucified along with a couple of "robbers" who despite being also given the punishment for rebels, were really only pickpockets or footpads as they were not part of any messianic revolt let alone Jesus followers, Oh dear no, because Jesus wasn't THAT kind of messiah at all.
(1) I read somewhere that one of the first actions of the Jewish war was cleaning up a nest of zealots at Bethsaida, but I can't find out anything about it.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-30-2017 at 12:07 PM..
Parallels between Jesus between Jesus and the *Apollo space program? Well that's just silly.
(the first person to destroy my vile, yet precious pun by saying something like "No, stupid. Not the space program. The Greek god Apollo" gets their ears boxed.)
(( No, I'm not actually threatening to box someone's ears. *sigh*))
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and 
There is a cover -up thread all through the gospels of taking what seems to be a Jewish messianic mission and repeatedly Editing the text to say 'Oh not - Jesus wasn't a zealot -type Messiah at all, he was a Christians one, teaching Paulinist doctrines about how Jewish dietary laws don't count any more and how Gentiles are the only people he comes across who Really have faith in him.
My Conspiracy Theory 
