Steven Carr

John Warwick Montgomery writes in
http://www.mtio.com/articles/bissar1.htm



'How good are these New Testament records? They handsomely fulfill the historian's requirements of transmissional reliability (their texts have been transmitted accurately from the time of writing to our own day), internal reliability (they claim to be primary-source documents and ring true as such), and external reliability (their authorships and dates are backed up by such solid extrinsic testimony as that of the early second-century writer Papias, a student of John the Evangelist, who was told by him that the first three Gospels were indeed written by their traditional authors). '

DO any Christians want to try to support the claim that Papias was told by John the Evangelist that the first three Gospels were written by their traditional authors?

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/papias.html is the writings of Papias , so people can check that the word 'Lukel' does not even occur, so how can the authorship of Luke be confirmed?

Will Christians denounce lies told by Christian scholars , when these scholars make up facts supposedly trying to defend the authorship of the Gospels?

Haran

Wayne Lamar Harrington writes in
Crafty Arguments: Confounding the Confused

Let's take a look at the facts about Jerome and check the claims:

Harrington wrote:
"Jerome, was most assuredly criticized not long after his friend Juvianus read the lie for he wrote..."

Jerome was a friend of Jovinianus? How does he know this?

From New Advent we find that Jovinianus wrote and published a treatise. Sometime later, it was condemned and sent to Jerome who answered Jovinianus' claims in the work quoted by Harrington.

Hmm... Let's look at the next fact and then check the next claim:

Harrington wrote:
"Javianum was so insistent that Jerome actually wrote a book and confessed! Follows is his confession."

Jovinianus was so insistent that Jerome confessed?!

Let's look at what Harrington quoted as Jerome's confession again:
"....the Jews argue, that when Isaiah says, 'Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, 'the Hebrew word denotes a young woman, not a virgin, that is to say, the word is ALMAH, not BETHULAH"!"

Interesting that he interrupted the sentence midstream to put in an exclamation point!

Here is the rest of that sentence by Jerome:
"the Jews argue that when Isaiah says,[1] "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son," the Hebrew word denotes a young woman, not a virgin, that is to say, the word is ALMAH, not BETHULAH, a position which, farther on, we shall dispute more in detail." - The Perpetual Virginity of Mary

Wow! Missed a rather important detail there... Doesn't sound like much of a "confession" to me.

Harrington is also trying to convince us that Jerome wrote this last work because of Jovinianus' "insistence". In fact, according to New Advent, Jerome wrote this last work in response to other claims by a certain Helvidius. It has nothing to do with Jovinianus.

Finally, Harrington would seemingly have us believe these events in this order: Jerome wrote Adversus Jovinianus in response to Jovinianus criticizing Jerome's "lie". Jovinianus was still so insistent that Jerome fix his "lie" that Jerome wrote a book, The Perpetual Virginity of Mary, and "confessed".

However, the actual facts seem to be quite different: First, in about 383 AD, Jerome wrote The Perpetual Virginity of Mary against the claims of a certain Helvidius. Then later, after Jerome was given a book by his friend Pammachius in which a certain Jovinianus had made various condemned claims, Jerome answered those claims in Adversus Jovinianus in 393 AD.

Wow! Quite a different timeline! Quite a different story!

I find all this funny for someone who is writing about the supposed lies of Christianity... How are we to believe any of his other claims? We aren't.

Will atheists denounce lies told by other atheists , when they appear to simply make up facts for the sole purpose of trying to defeat Christian teachings?

{NOTE: I was wondering when and where to put my own rant. Thanks for giving me the opportunity, Steven. Moral of the story...be as honest as possible with your history and critique.}

Haran

I don't care to check every Christian or Christian scholars' work or integrity any more than you probably want to check that of other atheists. It does not appear, at first glance, that Montgomery is entirely correct if that makes you feel better. However, why not ask Montgomery, himself? Who is he anyway?

By the way, you might not want people thinking that the page you linked to is everything Papias wrote. Stephen Carlson's webpage has more of Papias as quoted by others.

Bede

Steven,

How do you know he is lying and not just ignorant? I mean if I shouted liar, liar pants of fire every time an atheist said some ignorant on the History of Science it would be all I ever said. Tell you what though, next time you make a mistake, all of us will join together and accuse you of blatant dishonesty.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Bede

Actually, looking through the Papias writings Steve Coulsen has gathered together he does tell us that Mark, Matt and (arguably) John were by the traditional authors. So if Luke was later than John...

Steven Carr

Who he?

Is he quoted as often as John Warwick Montgomery?

Where does Jerome dispute the reading of 'aalmah' later on?

I couldn't find it, on a quick scan through.

Is it where he claims Joseph was a virgin?



--------------

To Bede.
Montgomery is an often quoted apologist. Was he just ignorant?

And I have read what Papias wrote, and he does not use the word Gospel about the writings of Matthew or Mark, and , unlike Montgomery's (ignorant?) claims, he was not acquainted with John the Evangelist, but with a different John.

Steven Carr

Now, should we believe Haran when he claims Harrington is a lying atheist?

Would Haran ever pick up the writings of a 'Servant of God', pick on errors on them, and try to pass them off as examples of poor atheist scholarship?

Harrington writes 'I was in my late teens when I concluded there is no God. The path that would lead me back to a belief in God was long and painful.'

Yes, Harrington is an atheist who turned to God. (Hence his new found interest in lying, I suppose).

http://members.cox.net/galatians/Wayne2.htm

But ignoring harrington for the moment.

http://www.trinitysem.edu/journal/hazenpap.html was linked to by the Internet Infidel's web site and is a praise job on Montgomery - the man who claimed sceptics doubted the existence of Pilate, because Pilate was only ever mentioned in connection with Jesus's death.

Steven Carr

Where?

15 And the presbyter would say this: Mark, who had indeed been Peter's interpreter, accurately wrote as much as he remembered, yet not in order, about that which was either said or did by the Lord. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but later, as I said, Peter, who would make the teachings anecdotally but not exactly an arrangement of the Lord's reports, so that Mark did not fail by writing certain things as he recalled. For he had one purpose, not to omit what he heard or falsify them.

Where does this equate to a Gospel? It just said Mark wrote something , and the word Gospel is never mentioned.

There is also the

'Catena of the Greek Fathers on John (ed. B. Corder, Antwerp, 1630)':

and something from the 9th century, which might support Bede's view , but Bede can't surely be claiming that as evidence of what Papias actually wrote...

We will be having 20th century Robin Hood TV scripts as historical evidence of Robin of Sherwood next (the gap is smaller :-)

Haran

Oh, well. Oops. I guess you caught me lying...

Ok fine...

"Will critics of Christianity and the Bible denounce lies told by other critics , when they appear to simply make up facts for the sole purpose of trying to defeat Christian teachings?"

By the way, I was just using wording similar to your own to show how ridiculous it sounded. I have no idea whether Harrington just goofed in his zealousness or if he was truly lying.

Actually, I ran across the website linked to atheist websites, so I just assumed he was an atheist (which I shouldn't have done), especially since he appears to make use of Internet Infidels resources. Just as you say many theists use this Montgomery (I don't even know who he is) to support their claims, I have seen many atheists use Harrington's claims. Apparently, Harrington is popular enough among skeptics to have a long diatribe against him on Tektonics.

Ultimately, as Bede mentioned (and I unfortunately displayed), people make mistakes. So, be careful Steven.

Steven Carr

No, I knew you had simply overlooked that.



Well, he is a theist, so they are not mutually exclusive possibilities.....

I've never heard of Harrington, and as goofs go it is not as big as Montgomery's deliberate propaganda piece. (And where did jerome refute what he said he was going to refute?)

http://www.ciltpp.com/bio_jwm.htm

Professor Montgomery is honoured by inclusion in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Law, The Directory of American Scholars, Contemporary Authors, Who's Who in France, Who's Who in Europe, International Scholars Directory (editor-in-chief), and Who's Who in the World.

Along with Lord Hailsham and Sir Norman Anderson, he has recently received chapter-length treatment in Ross Clifford's book, Leading Lawyers' Case for the Resurrection (Edmonton: Canadian Institute for Law, Theology and Public Policy, 1996).

Rather more famous than Wayne Harrington, who features on tektonics, rather than Who's Who in American Law.


As Montgomery was supposed to be an authority, one assumes he is just lying, rather than ignorant.