ex-preacher

Finally something we can agree on! Let's dwell on this for a moment: a rationalization that has been accepted as the best explanation for hundreds of years by thousands of biblical scholars is now declared to be balderdash (which it is). What does that tell us about the ability of sincere Christians to interpret and agree on this so-called "word of God"? What does this level of confusion also teach us about a God who likes to fool people? But, no fear, for God has secretly revealed the true meaning to his servant, Brother Thomas Cassidy! Preach on, brother! Tell us the true meaning!

<STRONG> Did you mean to say "Jeconiah" here? If so, don't worry, it's easy to get those Bible names mixed up. Even Jesus did.

<STRONG> Maybe you did mean to say that Jesus is in no way decended from Joseph, physically or legally. This brings up an important question: Why in the world is Joseph's genealogy in Matthew? Perhaps more importantly, why didn't Matthew or Luke state what you have stated? It sure wasn't obvious. Was it to test the faithful and damn the reasonable?

One other interesting point. You say that the genealogy from David diverges completely by going through Solomon in Matthew and through Nathan in Luke. One slight problem: the geneaologies reconverge! Compare Mt 1:12 and Luke 3:27. In both places we have Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel. Mere coincidence? It is my understanding that there is only one Zerubbabel in the Old Testament. He is quite well known, featuring places in the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai and Zechariah. And guess what, he is the son of Shealtiel! So, brother Cassidy, how is it that the between David and Joseph diverged, re-converged, and re-diverged? I can't wait to hear your immaculately conceived explanation.

SingleDad

Let's look at the whole issue another way.

There are two ways something can be truthful. Either it is truthful per se, or it is the result of truth.

Now if the bible is truth, it seems that it is necessary that one does not need to add information to make sense of it. But the inconsistencies in the bible can be resolved only by adding information (e.g. the added words in ThomasCassidy's account of the signs).

Now it is manifestly and obviously true that the bible does result from truth: It actually exists, therefore there is (or so we all believe) a truthful account of its existence. Don't get excited, every existing thing has this property.

To determine a truthful account, we have to add information. The question is, how do we determine what information to add? Or to put it a different way, Bob claims that "verse X results from B" whereas Alice claims that "verse X results from A" (assume A and B are mutually exclusive). Both of them are adding information (A and B) to provide an account for verse X. How do we decide whether to believe A or B?

A naturalist presupposes that the world reliably behaves in a consistent manner. Therefore if we know that a circumstance C is known to be an account of X', something very much like X (i.e. we directly observed the account of C to X'), we can infer that the account A or B that is most like C is most likely to be true.

This is nothing more that the naturalistic presupposition of historical investigation.

Now it is well known that in looking at two separate descriptions of an ordinary event, whether it is two different people, or the same person at two different times, we often find discrepancies. We've examined literally millions of such events (especially when dealing with crime witnesses), and we draw an unsurprising conclusion: people's powers of observation and recollection are imperfect. We never find that reality was actually different for these people (indeed, we can often look at physical evidence and determine precisely where their internal errors lie.

We also often find discrepancies in fictional accounts. The author is known to be making up a story from his imagination, and his imagination is not nearly as rigorous at maintaining self-consistency as is actual reality. Again, this phenomenon is observed time and again.

Therefore, if one discovers a discrepancy in the bible, it is reasonable to conclude that the discrepancy is the result of unreliable observation or recollection, or the result of someone writing fiction.

Now this conclusion might not be true. But the task of the inerrantist is not just to cook up a logically possible alternative, but to show that that alternative is more plausible and compelling than the trivial (and plausible and compelling precisely because of its triviality) account of fallibility or fiction.

In other words, the presence of internal inconsistencies (not to mention absurdities and moral abominations) make the interpretation (added information) that the bible is a work of fiction (actually an anthology of obvious fiction, historical fiction, political propaganda, and some semi-accurate ordinary history) obvious and compelling.

True, it is possible that the bible is indeed the work of a god that speaks cryptically to the point of apparent self-contradiction, sometimes actually claims to seek to fool us, orders actions ordinarily considered monstrously criminal, and has the scientific understanding of, well, an ancient preliterate nomadic goat herder.

Sure it's possible. The question is why should I believe such an implausible account next to the ordinarily comprehensible and plausible account of a book of superstitious mythology?

[ November 06, 2001: Message edited by: SingleDad ]

Fortuna_of_Rome

NOT !

The problem with this explanation is that both texts SAY plainly that these are the geneologies through Joseph. Further, if you belive that Jesus was the result of a virgin birth, then Joseph's genelogy is unimportant.

This is an attempt by Mathew to show that Jesus was of the line of David. Of course, the argument fails for eithr of the 2 reasons listed above.

aikido7

There was one sign above the cross. Anyone who could read would remember it.

BUT...

The "big four" news media representatives in Palestine, 33 AD were liberals (as all members of the press are, you know) and they all took liberal license to "put their own spin" on the subject. Luckily there are a lot of conservative believers around today who take the Bible literally. It's just that in this case, there is no "literal" to take literally!!!

aikido7

There was one sign above the cross. Anyone who could read would remember it.

BUT...

The "big four" news media representatives in Palestine, 33 AD were liberals (as all members of the press are, you know) and they all took liberal license to "put their own spin" on the subject. Luckily there are a lot of conservative believers around today who take the Bible literally. It's just that in this case, there is no "literal" to take literally!!!

aikido7

There was one sign above the cross. Anyone who could read it and wanted to pass it along to their readers would remember it. After all, they had four chances to get it right.

BUT...

The "big four" news media representatives in Palestine, 33 AD were liberals (as all members of the press ARE, you know) and they all took liberal license to "put their own spin" on the subject. Luckily there are a lot of conservative believers around today who take the Bible literally. It's just that in this case, there is no "literal" to take literally!!!