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Old 08-20-2008, 11:22 AM   #981
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I agree that the fact that he uses Angel elsewhere might make the question less revealing as to why he used young man in this case.
Do you think the fact that he mentions a similarly anonymous young man fleeing the scene of Jesus' arrest earlier in the text might be relevant?

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There is too many examples in the Old and New Testament of men being referred to as Angels and Angels being referred to as men.
There are also examples of men referred to as wearing white so that really doesn't help your case.
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Old 08-20-2008, 11:29 AM   #982
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Do you deny that, absent Matthew's account, you would accept the description in Acts as depicting the cause of Judas' death?
sschlicter and aChristian have already made it clear that they cannot read one of the accounts in a vacuum without bringing into consideration the other account as well. aChristian even went so far as to say that gMatthew was written in 35 AD and was widely circulated, meaning that any first-century reader of Acts would be as familiar with Matthew's hanging scene as a modern post-Nicean reader. They appear to be unable to separate the two passages, much like a person who can't find a joke funny when he already knows the punchline.

I've said it before: Read both accounts together, and you have a contradictory death. Read both accounts separately, and you have a contradictory life. Pick one.
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Old 08-20-2008, 12:06 PM   #983
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(Matthew 28 2-3)"...for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. 3 And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow"

There is not a shadow of a doubt that we are dealing with an actual angel from heaven here. Now, is Matthew's description correct? If not, he is lying. So it must be correct.

Who do you think Mark wrote to when he used the word "angel" elsewhere in his gospel? Someone other than those he writes to here??? See Mark 1:13, 8:38, 12:25, 13:27, and 13:32 for some good examples of Mark writing about clearly heavenly angels.

Again: When Mark describes this person as a young man in white robes, he is shamelessly lying if he knows that it was an angel.
My point about possible reasons why Mark would use young man instead of Angle was in the form of a question because it was a question. I agree that the fact that he uses Angel elsewhere might make the question less revealing as to why he used young man in this case. Irregardless, the young man, wearing white robes, in a tomb, announcing the resurrection and the whereabouts of Jesus is a messenger from God even if it looked like a young man.

There is too many examples in the Old and New Testament of men being referred to as Angels and Angels being referred to as men.

God himself is referred to as 3 men in Genesis.

(Gen 18:1) The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest time of the day.
(Gen 18:2) Abraham looked up and saw three men standing across from him. When he saw them he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

If you see this as contradictory, then add it to your list. I do not find it compelling at all.

~Steve
Sorry, Steve, I have changed my position; I no longer say that the bible is full of contradictions; I say that it is full of lies! As a result of this topic I have completely lost faith in my ability to tell if anything is contradictory or even if it is at all possible for anything to contradict anything, but I still trust that I am able to tell when someone is lying.

Mark says it was a man while Matthew says it was an angel, therefore one of them must be lying. It's as simple as that. Note that Mark does not write that it looked like a man; he writes that it was a man. And similarly, Matthew unambiguously tells us that it was an angel, not that it just looked like it was an angel.

I also feel that it is less than honest to say that it was one man (or angel) there when in reality there were two. An honest person is not "economical" with the truth but tells it like it is.
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Old 08-20-2008, 08:29 PM   #984
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(Acts 1:18) (Now this man Judas acquired a field with the reward of his unjust deed, and falling headfirst he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out.
You think he survived having his intestines gush out and the other disciples picked a replacement while he recovered?
I 'think' he was already dead when this occurred, but what I think is not the question. You failed to point out the word or phrase that states the cause of death in Acts 1:19.

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Where is the clear indication of something supernatural about the young man Mark describes?
the white robe that you describe as glowing, the causing of fear, the sitting in the tomb of a resurrected man, the knowledge of the plans of the resurrected man. Luke 24:4 describes them the same way, as men that suddenly appear in white. No wings, no glowing, no flying, two legs, two arms, a torso, a head, and a mouth. In other words, appearing as a man.
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Old 08-20-2008, 08:52 PM   #985
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My point about possible reasons why Mark would use young man instead of Angle was in the form of a question because it was a question. I agree that the fact that he uses Angel elsewhere might make the question less revealing as to why he used young man in this case. Irregardless, the young man, wearing white robes, in a tomb, announcing the resurrection and the whereabouts of Jesus is a messenger from God even if it looked like a young man.

There is too many examples in the Old and New Testament of men being referred to as Angels and Angels being referred to as men.

God himself is referred to as 3 men in Genesis.

(Gen 18:1) The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent during the hottest time of the day.
(Gen 18:2) Abraham looked up and saw three men standing across from him. When he saw them he ran from the entrance of the tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.

If you see this as contradictory, then add it to your list. I do not find it compelling at all.

~Steve
Sorry, Steve, I have changed my position; I no longer say that the bible is full of contradictions; I say that it is full of lies! As a result of this topic I have completely lost faith in my ability to tell if anything is contradictory or even if it is at all possible for anything to contradict anything, but I still trust that I am able to tell when someone is lying.

Mark says it was a man while Matthew says it was an angel, therefore one of them must be lying. It's as simple as that. Note that Mark does not write that it looked like a man; he writes that it was a man. And similarly, Matthew unambiguously tells us that it was an angel, not that it just looked like it was an angel.

I also feel that it is less than honest to say that it was one man (or angel) there when in reality there were two. An honest person is not "economical" with the truth but tells it like it is.
It is evident to me that Mark is also talking about an Angel. (and Luke 24 as well). I gave you many reasons why that is. If you need a technical resolution then consider that Angels are spirits and take on the form of a man (an angelophany). If you do not accept the fact that the angels looked like men as plausible then now you can have an Angel that because he took on the form of a man, is technically correct to be called a man.

Too bad the content is not more technical for you. Matthew was a tax collector, perhaps if he would have included the records from that line of work we could have tested your concept of inerrancy because there would have been plenty of math involved. Errors in that field are easier to agree on.

~Steve
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Old 08-20-2008, 09:18 PM   #986
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You are ignorant about angels.
Have you ever seen an angel? What evidence do you provide of what they may look like? Human like with wings perhaps? :Cheeky:
I have never seen one that I am aware of, but I may have seen one and not realized it. I do know some facts about angels that the people writing here are ignorant of. If you want to learn about them, the bible is the place to go.
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Old 08-20-2008, 09:41 PM   #987
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I 'think' he was already dead when this occurred...
I'm glad you put quotes around the notion that thought was involved in such a ridiculous reading.

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You failed to point out the word or phrase that states the cause of death in Acts 1:19.
The entire sentence does that job for anyone reading it without your faith-based presumptions and the ridiculousness of your reading only serves to support that conclusion.

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the white robe that you describe as glowing...
...belongs to Matthew's angel, not Mark's young man. Please pay attention.

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...the causing of fear...
A fearful response upon finding a guy in the open tomb of your beloved leader neither requires nor even suggests he had a supernatural nature.

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...the sitting in the tomb of a resurrected man...
Entering and taking a seat in a tomb that is open requires no supernatural powers.

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...the knowledge of the plans of the resurrected man.
Remembering what Jesus told his followers several times requires no supernatural powers.

Your belief that Mark's young man was somehow supernatural apparently has no basis in the actual text.

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Luke 24:4 describes them the same way, as men that suddenly appear in white. No wings, no glowing, no flying, two legs, two arms, a torso, a head, and a mouth. In other words, appearing as a man.
Why make your job more difficult by adding contradictions when you haven't been able to deal with what has been presented?

Two men instead of one man (or a single, flying angel).

Outside the tomb rather than inside.

No glowing? Their garments are described as "shining"! Luke uses the same word to describe lightning so you are clearly wrong to say their garments did not glow. You really should read the stories some time. :banghead:
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Old 08-20-2008, 09:42 PM   #988
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We will just have to disagree agreeably. sschlicter's analogy appears perfectly relevant to me. Four accounts of an historical event that disagree until you fill in unnammed details.
*sigh* I'm all for disagreeing agreeably in principle, but I have a hard time understanding why you're not getting the point here. Two versus four airplanes are directly analogous to one versus two young men (or angels). If you had seen one newsreport saying there were two airplanes and another that there were four airplanes attacking the twin towers, you would immediately know that one of them must be wrong.
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You have filled in a detail about the 911 accounts that was not given in the texts. You filled in the detail that two of the four airplanes went into the twin towers and two others went elsewhere. This was not in the accounts given. You filled in the details with your common knowledge about the 911 event. That is the same thing people 2000 years ago did with the gospels.
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Yes, and others have tried to explain why they don't answer the Easter Challenge. Now let me try: One of the things you need to do to meet the challenge is to harmonize what was said by the various persons at the various places. None of your links even attempts to do that. Where, for example, are Mary's words to Peter: "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"
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Mary's words to Peter are right there in section 8 subsection 1. You just need to read a little more carefully before you accuse the harmony of leaving things out. It meets the Easter challenge.


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[
Could you give us the titles of those books, please?
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A Harmony of the Gospel by A.T. Robertson is one of them. I can't think of the titles of the others off the top of my head.


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Your characterization does not appear valid to me. We have four historical accounts (yes from eyewitnesses (Matt. & John and maybe Mark) or taken from eyewitnesses (Luke and maybe Mark)). They don't have to be identical to all be reliable accounts. One can leave out lots of details and they are still reliable accounts. The people back at the time took them as such and I see no reason to disagree with that now.
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We have many more sources than the canonic gospels which could have mentioned this earthquake and the risen saints. The apocrypha, the Talmud, Josephus, they are all silent about these events. The silence is deafening.
The silence from the apocrypha, the Talmud, and Josephus do nothing to affect the fact that the reliable eyewitnesses most involved in the events and with the best understanding of the events do record them. There is no good reason to not believe them. In addition, the authors of the apocrypha (especially), the Talmud, and Josephus do not have the credibility that the authors of the gospels have.
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Old 08-20-2008, 09:48 PM   #989
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No glowing? Their garments are described as "shining"! Luke uses the same word to describe lightning so you are clearly wrong to say their garments did not glow. You really should read the stories some time. :banghead:
You need to do a little studying about angels and then get back to us.
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Old 08-20-2008, 10:21 PM   #990
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You need to do a little studying about angels and then get back to us.
You make no sense. I'm just relating how Luke describes the two men and noting that Steve has apparently not read the story since it clearly does involve glowing garments.
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