God's Will Hunting

I am preparing a project aimed at "low information Christians" whose goal is to educate them about bible criticism, and hopefully open a crack in their belief system. The vast majority of Christians have no idea that the gospels are not first hand accounts, that there are verses added hundreds of years later, the synoptic problem etc.

So I would like to tap into the vast knowledge base here for some help. What I need are "Christian friendly", or at least "neutral" sources to back up the claims I am making on these various points. It can be a website or book citation, but should carry some weight. Wiki is great in general, but not an impressive source, for instance. I'm looking particularly for "Bible scholar" quotes ie "the vast majority of Bible scholars agree that the Gospels are not first hand accounts".


Here are some of the areas I need quotes for:

Gospel authorship: they are not first hand accounts, and authorship is unknown

Likelihood of Q being real

Bishop Irenaeus choosing four gospels as canon because of there are "four directions"

dating of gospel accounts

The fact that Mark 16:9-12 does not appear in early documents and was likely added later

The parable of the "Woman taken in adultery" was added later

NKJV was written to correct errors in KJV

Amount of errors between different NT books, copyist errors etc.

Number of different bible versions


Any and all help is appreciated! Remember these answers need to be geared to "low information" Christians, not apologists! I know Bart Ehrman is a great source but there has been pushback against him in the media, so Christian friendly sources would be best. I will certainly use some of his stuff though.

sotto voce

:rolling:

One of Satan's Little Helpers?

andrewcriddle

I'm not sure if I agree here.

The NKJV was primarily written to modernise the language of the KJV. There are some places where it understands the passage differently to the KJV but they are not very significant.

Andrew Criddle

Bronzeage

I think you will discover that low information Christians are also low interest Christians and you are asking for a lot more work on this sort of thing than they really care to put into it.

God's Will Hunting

Yes that is the beauty of my project, it will be a bit of a trojan horse in the form of a bible quiz. Fun! Score points! Youtube and email format. In any case, the questions are written, just need some solid back up for the answers.

sotto voce

Authorship and dating are of no consequence. The extraneous passages are pointed out in modern Bible versions, and the NT is better without them, anyway. Copyist errors are obvious, therefore inconsequential, obviously. 'Errors between different NT books' sounds like contention. The large number of different Bible versions has no relevance, unless it is to the gain of the believer.

The only thing one is likely to do with this approach is gain 'converts' by means of misleading ideas and misinformation. Unless it is to assist the Christian cause.

Bronzeage

Good luck with that. If you come up with a question that has never been asked and answered a thousand times, let me know.

God's Will Hunting

You apparently aren't hanging out with the same kind of Christians I do. The Bible is the infallible word of God. The authors of Mark and Luke are apostles named Mark and Luke who sat around and chatted with Jesus, then wrote their accounts down under God's supervision. So sorry pal, it does matter.

God's Will Hunting

A source for this would be helpful. Hence the thread.

sotto voce

Low achievers, you mean? Maybe you are hanging around with hangers-on and dead-beats!

How is that relevant to the above, except for the unsupported, unexplored claim about errors?

Didn't you say that you wanted to deal with 'low information' people? People who are so sure of so much crap don't seem to fit.

If you really want to waste your time tilting at windmills, be my guest. Pal.