mountainman

The evidence indicates that logically precise and exhaustive "Similarity Tables" were authored in the 4th century and not only accompanied the gospels, but were lavishly published in expensive colour at the beginning of each gospel in the earliest Greek bible codices.

The question is why did the bible propaganda assume this format?

Four eyewitnesses are cross examined in a court of Roman law in the 4th century.

Are they expected to agree?

Are contradictions expected?

What answer would Sherlock Holmes give to these questions?

I think he would give a "NO" and a "YES".




εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Toto

Yes

No


There are contradictions between and among the gospels. Christians have known about this from at least the 4th century, probably as soon as anyone read more than one gospel. Christians prefer to harmonize or ignore the contradictions.

Focusing on the similarities does not solve the problem of differences. It just papers it over.

This only became really important in modern times, after Protestants started reading the Bible in modern languages and after the doctrine of inerrancy was invented. These modern Christians have had to twist themselves into logical pretzels to pretend that there are no contradictions

The earlier Christians did not base their religion on bibliolatry or naive fundamentalism. Their bible told them that all scripture was inspired by god and useful for instruction, not that it was literally true in the lower plane of materialism.

Is there a point to this thread?

mountainman

This is a simplistic approach that might service four eyewitnesses being cross examined over a single event, but the event being examined is the entire life of a single person (historical or fictional), consistent of a large number of events. As such it is not even remotely possible that all witnesses to this entire life (historical or fictional) will agree on all events within that life.


They did more than prefer to harmonise, since the evidence clearly demonstrates that the earliest Greek gospel publications were consistently prefaced with a specific list of agreements. The earliest propaganda demonstrably highlighted the harmonies, and ignored the contradictions.




Yet such was the focus of the imperial propaganda of the 4th century.




Of course.

The bible did not do this in the 4th century because most people were illiterate and did not read the bible.

The bible was read to the people by appointed readers and bishops (who could read).

The harmony tables were read to the illiterate and to the prospective converts.

It was the authority of the Christian emperors, who were directly responsible for the large scale publication of the bible codices in Greek, which told the people - in no uncertain terms - that the bible was true.



One question is why were the earliest Greek bible codices published by these emperors with lavishly highlighted harmony tables.

One answer is that these emperors, who sought to implement a centralised monotheistic state religious cult based on the bible, wanted agreement at all costs, and went out of their way to include the publication of how four so-called eyewitnesses agreed with each other.


A parallel harmony presentation demonstrates 160 issues of partial agreement (and hence partial contradiction) between the gospel authors.

Do we look at the agreements or do we look at the contradictions?

In the modern epoch we have a choice.

In the 4th century and no earlier the emperors made the choice for the people.







εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

aa5874

If people were illiterate then your claim is not logical at all. There would be no need to write FIVE contradictory gospels for the illiterate and then attempt to harmonize them.

It is just not expected that a person or a group would knowingly write FIVE Gospels with different versions in order to show the story of Jesus was true.

May I remind you that there are FIVE versions of the Jesus story in the Canon. The short version of gMark was not composed by the same person who invented the Long ending.

The harmonization must or most likely mean the stories were already composed and were found to be contradictory.

In "Against Celsus" Origen admitted that Celsus claimed the Gospels were being corrupted [harmonized] by certain Christians since the 2nd century.

[u]Against Celsus 2.27

mountainman

A parallel harmony presentation demonstrates 160 issues of partial agreement (and hence partial contradiction) between the gospel authors.

Is it reasonable to expect that a person of a group would knowingly write gospels in which the 4 or 5 authors consistently agreed in these 160 issues?





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

aa5874

You seem to have made a grave error.

If you examine those very 160 events carefully you will find a most disturbing fact.

There is very little harmony in all four Gospels.

Only 11 of the 160 events are found in all four Gospels.

93% of the 160 events in the Four Gospels cannot be reconciled.


Examine the same 160 events.

45% are ONLY found in ONE Gospel.

Almost half of the story of Jesus cannot be harmonized.

Of the 160 events about 103 are in gMatthew composed by a supposed disciple of Jesus yet the author of gJohn another supposed disciple of Jesus only mentioned about 17 of the 103 events in gMatthew.

About 86 events, 83% of gMatthew cannot be reconciled or harmonized with gJohn.

It is not logical at all that one person or a group of persons could have simultaneously written FIVE contradicting Gospels that could NOT be reconciled in order to prove their story of Jesus was true.

The data you presented suggest the Gospels were composed at some earlier time by different authors before harmonization was attempted.

steve_bnk

There is a reason why the RCC for a thousand years kept the bible in Latin and the Mass as well.

Jaybees

4th Century Rome had multiple problems, beginning with Xtian barbarians invading the empire. Back in the good old days of paganism on both sides of the border, the emperors got along reasonably well with the barbarians, hiring them as mercenaries, settling them along the frontier to prevent invasions and just generally absorbing them and their deities into the Roman way of life. Not so with the heirs of Constantine. They had to be constantly fighting those new, eager Xtians invading, rampaging, taking over, and engaging in religious warfare on a grand scale. And, of course, there were heresies springing up internally like dragon's teeth. The latter was the reason for the desperate attempts to impose some sort of orthodoxy on these squabbling groups and to bring the still pagan majority into the new order. Xtianity, as we know it today, was born out of that strife, so it's little wonder that warring factions within the faith continue their battles up to the present day.

mountainman

I did not pronounce any judgement.
I stated the presence of BOTH partial agreement (and hence partial contradiction).

And I asked you a question, which I will repeat below.


There is a more appropriate link than these 160 listed issues.

When the Eusebian canon tables themselves (as they appear in Vaticanus etc etc) are examined, and the correspondences and the contradictions are examined, the statistics of these agreements and correspondences may be analysed.

You will find my summary analysis of the Eusebian canons here.

The data shows that, out of a total of 650 items presented, there are only 73 in which all 4 gospels agree. This is 11% total agreement and 89% partial contradiction in the 4 actual sources listed in the canon tables of antiquity.

Now I have made no judgement on this. The OP concerns the fact that the very first widespread publications of the bible, from the 4th century through to perhaps as late as the 12th century (I am not sure when it officially stopped) included each of the 4 gospels being prefaced by these Eusebian canon tables which listed the agreements.

The logical converse, that these tables also therefore specified the statistics of contradiction, was never mentioned by the bible publishers during this epoch of many many centuries.

The question again: summary analysis of the Eusebian canons here.


My answer is that if we had before us 4 gospels that each agreed on these 650 issues then this would be suspicious in itself. Do you or does anyone else disagree with this statement?

It would be entirely natural that 4 different accounts must differ in some regards, but the $64000 question here is BY HOW MUCH.

In summary therefore I think that it is reasonable to expect some authors to mention certain things that other authors did not. These variances may be interpreted as contradictions, but to some extent such contradictions must be expected, because some of the gospel authors would naturally recall (if the Jesus story is historical) or fabricate (if the Jesus story is fiction), certain events of a (historical or fictitious) life not recalled by the others.






εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Duvduv

And considering the fact that the gospels under consideration are limited to FOUR documents, it must increase the suspicion. After all, we are not talking about five, six or ten similar gospel stories. There exist only these four with the story format they have. Four and no more. There is no canon containing five, seven or eleven.

There is no story of a gospel according to Henry, a gospel according to Albert or a gospel according to Barack that correspond to the storyline of the canonical gospels based on the story described in GMark.

Thus despite the differences, there is reason for the strongest suspicion that these FOUR texts of the story line referring to the life and death of JC were produced as part of a single SET along with the epistles..........