Mochaloca

Atticus:

You indicate that you were applying a maxim of statutory construction, however, I have never seen that particular maxim applied. Of course, I am only familiar with CA law, so maybe they do things differently in MO, (maybe you can furnish me with a cite?). In CA the first rule of statutory construction is "If the language is clear and unabiguous there is no need for construction, nor is it necessary to resonrt to indicia of the intent of the Legislature..."

However, having said that, I do not believe the rules of statutory construction even apply. The purpose of those rules is to determine the application of a rule of law to specific facts. Here, IIRC, we are trying to determine the reliability of factual assertions in the bible.

The text that is under analysis is a narrative which purports to be an eye witness account. The issue therefore is credibility. In this case the rules of evidence (if we have to use legal rules at all) are the most appropriate. While someone could argue that the witness has gotten his chronology mixed up and that's why it doesn't conform to other people's accounts, that is not a very persuasive argument in light of the belief that these accounts were divinely inspired.

As most people probably know (anyone whose watched "legal" TV shows and other attorneys) contradictory accounts of an event can be the basis of reasonable doubt as to the occurrence of that event.

Since reasonable minds can differ as to whether the accounts of Jesus' life & death are true, the best outcome for someone trying to prove the truth of the accounts, to a reasonable doubt standard,is a hung jury.

M.

Jack the Bodiless

Uh... Sez who?

Same problem as Spin's Garden of Gethsemane monologue. Who is the narrator?

"Hi, I'm an angel. Jesus is in yonder tomb, but before you go in, it's very important that I tell you that I came down from the sky just now (rather than simply teleporting here from Heaven, as you might otherwise have assumed). Also, please make sure that Matthew knows the following: even though you may have felt an earthquake just now, this did NOT dislodge the stone sealing the tomb. For reasons that I prefer not to divulge, I wish to clarify that I moved the stone myself. I'm stronger than I look, you know.

By the way, please don't tell Mark that I did these things. Tell Matthew, but do NOT tell Matthew that I told you to tell him, or that I told you not to tell Mark. Got that? OK, the boss will see you now".

Ruy Lopez

I sense this thread is about run down. One last thing though. Genesis is Hebrew folklore; if not, the God of the Bible is an ignoramus since he doesn't know how the universe came to be. Similarly the Gospels are largely myth since Jesus suffered pain and died. Divinity is defined as immutable; how can the divine die?

DMB

Well, I apologise for coming late to this interesting discussion. I am interested that a couple of pages ago Atticus Finch said:

I think I can give you the answer. You are looking at the wrong holy book. God obviously got fed up with people misunderstanding or misinterpreting the bible, so he later revealed the koran to Muhammad.

And he wanted it to be understood!

As I am sure you know, the koran explains why the xians have got the wrong end of the stick.

Don't turn away from the koran!
{Edited to correct spelling}

[ April 14, 2002: Message edited by: DMB ]</p>