renassault

The same reason Thomas doubted in John 20. Some people are just more doubtful than others.

It's common sense. Nobody would insert that, unless it were a skilled forger looking for versimilitude, but this would be a very awful thing to do for versimilitude, in which case his original point stands.

The fact that the Eleven + Matthias are seen as residing in Jerusalem (Galatians 2.2ff) is proof enough.

Aside from Galatians 2.2ff., there is the study the culture approach which shows you what an invention would have looked like (i.e. rabbinical miracles in the Talmud, Hellenistic miracles, etc.)

Steven Carr

'Some people are just more doubtful than others'

I guess if you had dropped everything to follow Jesus, saw him work miracles, saw him raise the dead, seen Moses return from the dead, seen all those saints return from their graves to appear to 'many' in the city, and seen proofs supplied by the Son of God Himself, at the end of Matthew 28:17, you too would be doubtful.

After all, the Bishop of Durham doubts the whole story and he has not even seen these proofs supplied by Jesus.

Thomas had personally been given the power to raise the dead (Matthew 10:28). Of course he is going to doubt that Jesus had returned from the dead, as Jesus had prophesied.

That is what followers and disciples do. That's what marks them out as disciples. They doubt their leader. The people who flew the planes into the Twin Towers doubted their leaders. They did not think that what their leader had told them was true. Some people just are more doubtful than others.

In any case, what was Wright's methodology for deciding that 'We can be sure however that this strange comment would not have occured to anyone telling this story as pure fiction...' What was his data? What were his sources? What documents did he look at to compare Matthew 28:17 with?

renassault

Miracles don't always supply immediate faith (Christ's anathema of Chorazin and Bethsaida Matthew 11:20-24, Abraham's answer to the rich man Luke 16:31)

You doubt sometimes; nobody is free of doubt all the time just because he is a disciple of Christ; take for example Peter's error in Antioch (Galatians 2).

Steven Carr

So why should we take as 'sure' the announcements of the Bishop of Durham that the closest followers and disciples of Jesus doubted even after proofs supplied by the Son of God Himself?

Why is what the Bishop of Durham proclaims about Matthew 28:17 more 'sure' than the proofs of the resurrection supplied by Jesus himself?

I see you dropped the question of what methodology the Bishop of Durham used to be so 'sure' that Matthew 28:17 would never have occurred to somebody writing pure fiction? Has the Bishop of Durham developed clairvoyance, and knows that way?

Let us not forget that the Resurrection so transformed the disciples and followers of Jesus that some of them were transformed into doubters.....

renassault

It establishes credibility based on the argument he gave. In my opinion, it leans toward authenticity rather than a skilled forger simply because it is a very, very bad idea to insert doubt at the ending of a Gospel.

I don't know how sure NT Wright can be. The reason I avoid the issue of his methodology is because if I read what it is I'd probably throw up from shame. To be honest, people like Licona, Strobel, Habermas, Craig, Wallace, JP Holding, and a few others, while well meaning, do not delve into the problems correctly (using proofs of the resurrection as proof of Christianity, etc.)

Now, I'm NOT passing judgment on NT Wright, but I suspect he's very much into that same category.

The problem is not with their arguments, but with the fact that the issues they explore are insufficient for their conclusions (and therefore their conclusions are unwarranted). This is why conservative scholarship has such a bad reputation in all of NT (unlike in OT) scholarship..because of stuff written by the above names.

Steven Carr

So the author of Matthew attacks the closest followers of Jesus as having had 'doubters' among their ranks.

This is more 'authentic' in so much as splitters always attack the character of the people on the other side, and religions always split into factions which hate each other.

But it is not authentic in so much as these people were alleged to have seen proofs supplied by Jesus Himself. They were as much disciples of Jesus as the people who flew into the Twin Towers were disciples of their leader. How could those people have 'doubted'?

renassault

They had doubts, as I mentioned, miracles don't guarantee belief, especially since they could have thought it was a ghost of some sort, or some kind of demonic-trick or something. If Matthew were attacking splitters, he would have probably named them, or at least would have implied they split off from Christ's true teachings (as the ending doesn't close off with unreversed doubts), but even if this wasn't the Evangelist's style, and the splitters were known, it is highly unlikely he would have admitted that the splitters actually came from the original Apostles of Christ. Also such splitters are historically impossible as per Galatians 2. Also Verses 28:18-20 are impossible if Matthew was attacking splitters.

Steven Carr

They could have had doubts I suppose, what with having had 3 years of a personal relationship with Jesus, and having the Son of God Himself supplying proofs of his resurrection, and after being given the secret of the Kingdom of God and after having personally been given the power to raise the dead. (Matthew 10:28)

Who would not doubt after that? No wonder these people were transformed from disciples into doubters.

Even NT Wright has doubts, although there is not a story in the Gospels he does not believe.


Of course,not a single Christian in the first century put his name to a document saying he had even heard of Thomas, but Wright can be 'sure' that Matthew 28:17 is not pure fiction, as he has this scientific methodology , which lets him know that every story in the Gospels is true.

renassault

Once again, their doubts could have been due to anything; they could have thought they were seeing a ghost or something like that, and not that they doubted Jesus Himself. It only goes to show they were human.

How many Christian documents in the first century do you think should have been written?

Wright's methodology is not under discussion (and I think I'd agree with you about it being full of holes); his argument specifically for this fragment is in my opinion correct. This would entail that some Apostles doubted SOMEthing (not the Resurrected Jesus, because that has not been proven by this evidence).

squiz

I thought it was.