sschlichter

or they share a common source, such as the actual oral telling of the story. Matthew, took Mark's text and added the parts of the story that he felt needed to be added that Mark did not feel were important. they had different purposes and different audiences and highlighted different parts of the story.

Had you belevied Mark's text, you still would not have beleived that Mark told every possible detail that could be told. There is every reason to beleive that if two people recalled a story, they would highlight, include, and exclude different events and perspectives. The guards have no theological usefulness. You will notice that all the gospels have the empty tomb. The later writer would have the advantage of knowing what was already covered and could expand on it.

They actually do not even read the same to me. I agree that the 20th century chapter heading that you apparently included as part of the text are the same but otherwise, they are only common in that they are describing the same events. if you wanted to argue about inerrancy, you could use this text to object to the differences instead of the similarities. e.g. Did the angel say fear not, or did the angle say be not amazed? did they flee from the tomb in astonishment or depart quickly with fear and joy?

~Steve

Petergdi

That's a nice thought, but I'm pretty sure I'd fail badly. I'd be apt to try to explain jokes on the final exam.

Nah, I was just being Peter. I'm nearly always like this.

My conclusion may have been incorrect, but my reasoning was good. I did not say that I knew you hadn't taken such a course, but only that there was a good reason to think so. That is: that someone who had taken such a course would know that the course content would be quite different from what you implied. My best friend from high school did sign up for such a course at university under the mistaken impression that there would be some content dealing with informal logic.

It is clearly my lack of sense of humour that led me astray, not my reasoning. I had made the mistake of interpreting your comment as an insult rather than as a friendly bit of humour. I'm sorry that I made that mistake.

You do not seem to understand. Your example had "reasonable to think" represented by something intended to meet the very criterion of "anyone who knew of it would normally mention" which you had previously objected to as too strict.

Your claim was that "a reasonable expectation provides a reasonable doubt about the claim, if it goes unfulfilled". You also specified reasonable to mean something less than the "anyone who knew of it would normally mention" criterion which I had been willing to accept,

I said that there is no logical connexion bewteen the two reasonables.

I will try to explain. The first reasonable has to do with how surprising it is that that the writer does not mention X on the assumption that he knew X. The second reasonable has to do with how confident you can be that a lack of knowledge is the best explanation for the silence.

My example was Josephus' lack of mentioning Hillel. Is is very surprising because he does mention Shammai and other prominent rabbis of the period. But it is on other considerations practically impossible that Josephus had not heard of Hillel. Josephus does know something about Phariseeism, and Hillel and Shammai were the two giants of the late second temple period. This provides a case where it should be obvious that lack of knowledge is vanishingly unlikely to be the reason for the silence, while the fact of the silence is quite surprising.


I was registering my astonishment that someone with training in informal logic seemed to argue in such a way as to cause me to doubt their training. See below for a fresh egregious example:


This is both nearly textbook ad hominem and a misstatement of what I have said.

I have not argued for the empty tomb on this thread, nor as far as I remember, ever done so on IIDB or FRDB. I have said that your presumption that Paul, if he knew of the empty tomb, would have used it in discussions of the resurrection in the same way as modern Christians, appears not to take into account my observation that the empty tomb was not nearly as big a part of such discussions before the mid-nineteenth century as it has been since.

Peter.

JoeWallack

JW:
Ah, as Inspector Clouseau used to say, "Now we are getting somewhere!". So your position is that you are certain "Matthew" is correct when he says that there were guards but you are not sure what "Matthew's" source was. Now are you sure this is your position before I proceed?



Joseph

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Kapyong

Gday,

But your "observation" is falsified by the fact that Christians started talking about the "empty tomb" in late 2nd century.

You just completely ignored that.


K.

Diogenes the Cynic

That isn't exactly what he says. What he says is that he's studied everything that was passed on from those who (he believes) were "witnesses from the beginning," and now that he understands everything from beginnning to end, he's going to compile his own account.
He did not talk to witnesses, nor would he have had opportunity since he was writing in the 90's. Furthermore, we know what his sources were. They were Mark and Q. he copied them word for word. He also does not claim to have ever spoken to a single witness.
No, Acts is far too late, and it was not written by any travelling companion of Paul's (the "we" passages are either cribbed from some other pre-existent text, or may possibly represent a Greek literary tradition at the time of describing sea voyages in the first person plural). Anyway, Paul himself was no witness, so even if the author of Luke had known him (which he didn't), it would be meaningless.

The biggest problem for your assertion that Luke interviewed witnesses (other than the fact that he makes no such claim) is that he copies the majority of his Gospel from other secondary Greek texts. Why would he copy from Mark (a non-witness) if he had access to people who were there?
Or, more economically, something the author made up.

Petergdi

I think you misunderstand. I'm not saying that no Christian ever mentioned the empty tomb before the mid 19th century. I am saying that Christian discussions of the resurrection which made no reference to the empty tomb were fairly common before the mid-19th century.

For instance, the long discussion of the resurrection in Irenaeus' Against Heresies Book 5 chapter 3 to chapter 15 (some thirteen big pages) does not mention the empty tomb once. I'm not saying that he never talks about the empty tomb anywhere, but he is quite capable of going on at very considerable length about the resurrection without mentioning the empty tomb.

Peter.

sschlichter

The women could have been his source. They may have seen the guards. the guards could have been common knowledge for that matter. Those religious leaders that converted (such as Nicodemus - John 19) would have had access to the knowledge of the request for guards by the High Priest. Jesus had interactions with Roman guards that exercised faith in him during his life. Anyone of them could have been Matthew's source. Any of these that converted could have easily been his source, between the crucifixion and the writing of Matthew. Any person walking by and seeing guards could have been his source.

sschlichter

(Luke 1:2) like the accounts passed on to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning.
(Luke 1:3) So it seemed good to me as well, because I have followed all things carefully from the beginning, to write an orderly account for you,

This is his claim,

accounts (plural) passed on to us (could be verbal, could be written)

by those whe were eyewitnesses and servants of the word (e.g. the apostles and disciples of Christ) from the beginning.

Here is a section of Luke 20

[I]
(Acts 21:8) On the next day we left and came to Caesarea, and entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him.
(Acts 21:9) (He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.)
(Acts 21:10) While we remained there for a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.
(Acts 21:11) He came to us, took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it, and said, "The Holy Spirit says this: 'This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will tie up the man whose belt this is, and will hand him over to the Gentiles.' "
(Acts 21:12) When we heard this, both we and the local people begged him not to go up to Jerusalem.
(Acts 21:13) Then Paul replied, "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be tied up, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus."
(Acts 21:14) Because he could not be persuaded, we said no more except, "The Lord's will be done."
(Acts 21:15) After these days we got ready and started up to Jerusalem.
(Acts 21:16) Some of the disciples from Caesarea came along with us too, and brought us to the house of Mnason of Cyprus, a disciple from the earliest times, with whom we were to stay.
(Acts 21:17) When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers welcomed us gladly.
(Acts 21:18) The next day Paul went in with us to see James, and all the elders were there.

Two things.

1) There is no ship in this passage. WE has been used by Homer sparingly in a voyage. We, in this passage as in 99.9% of all passages anywhere means first person plural.

2) You will notice that the person saying we is in Jerusalem meeting with James and a disciple from the earliest times. A person that Luke could easily refer (as he does in Luke 1) to as a servant of the word from the beginning. Not to mention everyone else that is obviosuly in Jerusalem.


As far as the date of Acts. You have no idea when it was written any better than I do. However, I am certain the research, interviews, and ordering of the accounts took place before the authoring. No reason to assume the eyewitness were in the room as he wrote his final draft.

~Steve

~Steve

Doug Shaver

I'm sure there were other people who agreed with the opinions he was expressing. And he could well have believed that anybody who disagreed with him was not a True Christian^TM. It does not follow that no Christians disagreed with him, or even that those who disagreed were a minority.

If by "the church" you mean "Christians who agreed with Justin's opinions," then I agree.

Your guarantee might count for something. Evidence would count for a lot more.

OK. You agree with Paul. So?

I don't deny that some Christians in Justin's day believed in a historical Jesus who rose from the dead.

Yes. Those Christians believed that the gospels were factual history. My point is that Christians believing it does not make it so.

Prove it. If it is illogical, then it implies a contradiction. Show me the contradiction.

So says your dogma.

Of course they don't, to anyone who presupposes their truth.

I believe, from the all the other evidence relevant to Christianity's origins, that there was no historical Jesus, and I don't think it probable that the gospel authors would have believed there was a historical Jesus if there had been none. Therefore, I'm supposing that they knew the stories they were writing were not true. If they intended their readers nevertheless to think the stories were true, then they were perpetrating a fraud. I do not believe they had fraudulent intentions. If you write a story that you know isn't true and do not expect your readers to think it is true, then you're writing fiction.

spamandham

The key words being "could have". Here's another "could have", there was no empty tomb and someone made up the idea.

So how do we go about determing which of these scenarios is the right one? We are stuck at this point arguing parsimony, and the idea of an empty tomb is far fetched, whereas the idea that someone made the story up, is not.