Diogenes the Cynic

You make an interesting point in your linked discussion about the necessity of some kind of title. I've often wondered if Papias' logia was an early form of Q. If Q was ever circulated under Matthew's name, and then became incorporated with Mark, there could have been a proto-GMatt which might still have retained the name Matthew in its title (and would have eliminated the need to continue copying Q). Have you ever read much on this kind of theory? I'm aware that there are still some translational issues as Q is not a direct translation from Hebrew or Aramaic but I wonder if you've encountered any attempts to take this theory seriously.

Roger Pearse

Wouldn't the same argument show that the apostles didn't have names?

Pardon me, but this is neither here nor there.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Patriot7

emphasis mine

Except for the empty tomb. And then there's that pesky problem of the Church, - you know, the billions of believers worldwide who have existed since the death and resurrection of just some Jewish laborer .

Are you saying that Christianity is false because Christians believe it? So the litmus test for the truth of a worldview is in the emotional reasons for belief? How does this not prove your own view false?

As there is no internal evidence that the gospel attributed to Peter was written by him, what external evidence have you come across that suggests Peter was named prior to Matthew?

Toto

But we don't have any evidence of an empty tomb, and even if we did, we have many alternative explanations that are more likely.

We also know that churches grow and prosper based on fictions. The existence of any church in modern history is not evidence of the truth of its foundational beliefs.

This is a bizarre misinterpretation of what I said. I have no idea how you concluded that.

This is about the opposite of what I said. The litmus test for a worldview is its explanatory power and its correspondence with facts on the ground.

It's all speculation. You can read a variety of opinions here.

Diogenes the Cynic

What empty tomb? Where is it? What is your proof that Jeus' body was ever in it?

FYI, dude, there is no evidence that there ever was a tomb at all. The empty tomb story does not appear in any Christian literature until Mark's Gospel, 40 years after the alleged crucifixion. Mark probably made it up. The story carries a number of inherent implausibilites (besides the miraculous).
That existence of a church proves the validity of it's beliefs? How big is the LDS? It got there a lot quicker than Christianity did, but maybe that's because it has better evidence for its central claims..
How did you get this out of what Toto said?

Mageth

What empty tomb? Or, alternatively, which empty tomb? There are many, many, empty tombs, and at least two are alleged to be the Tomb of Jesus (though there is nothing but tradition to link Jesus to them).

Is every empty tomb evidence that the occupant was resurrected?

Was Jesus killed, buried, and resurrected multiple times?

Inquiring minds want to know...

Bottom line: "the empty tomb" fails miserably as evidence.

The existence of N people (no matter how large N is) that believe in a particular myth are not evidence that the myth is true. Just evidence that a lot of people believe it is true.

There are millions of Mormons (LDS). Is that evidence that Joseph Smith really found a couple of gold tablets?

There are hundreds of millions of Hindus. Is that evidence of reincarnation?

And so on...

Patriot7

For what it's worth.....It is a category error to argue that empirical evidence and arguments for that empirical evidence as the same thing. <IMHO>

Mageth

Could you clarify as to what this is directed at?

S.C.Carlson

Papias's statement about the logia is what, in fact, inspired F. E. D. Schleiermacher to propose what we now call Q in 1832. Your "early form" is an interesting twist. I'm not aware any recent Q scholar who takes Papias serious, but maybe in light of Kloppenborg's stratification of Q (arguing that Q grew in stages) it ought to be revisited.

Stephen

Carin Nel

I was talking about Mel Tari. He was dishonest and greedy, and she was innocent and naive. After she witnessed all the miracles as a team member with him in Indonesia, she trusted him and thought he could do miracles with her money too.