RBH

This thread is a peanut gallery for the debate between Toby Beau and llamaluvr on the topic:

Resolved: The post-resurrection accounts of the New Testament cannot be reconciled.

RBH

OneInFundieville

Do they need to be successfully reconciled?

Doug Shaver

If this is essentially Barker's Easter Challenge, I have never seen even an unsuccessful reconciliation.

No apologist, to my knowledge, has ever actually written a narrative in which every post-resurrection event recorded in the New Testament is accounted for. I don't mean no one has written a believable narrative. I mean no one has written any narrative that does not leave something out.

If it has been done unbeknownst to me, I'd love to find out about it.

aa5874

I just read Toby Beau's car accident analogy to the resurrection, and this analogy does not reflect the so-called resurrection scene.

First of all, according to the NT, no-one witnessed the so-called resurrection, no-one saw the body of Jesus actually changing from the the state of being dead to the state of being alive. The witnesses can only make a missing body or grave robbery report.

Toby Beau's analogy will only be applicable, if his so-called witnesses, in the car accident, admit that the information they have given was told to them by angels and that they never really saw anything.

The resurrection was never established, it is futile to even consider its reconciliation.

The Evil One

Toby, you're not meant to post in the peanut gallery until the debate is over.

Re llamaluvr's first post, I must say I'm underwhelmed. If you're arguing against the notion that the accounts cannot be reconciled, then surely the best way to do this would be to reconcile the accounts?

But llamaluvr doesn't do this. There is no attempt whatsoever to produce an account that incorporates all the details from all accounts. Instead we get the same old, same old apologetics.

The gospel-writers weren't trying to tell the full story... then what the heck were they trying to do?

Saying there was "one" doesn't mean there weren't more... I have one leg you know. Now don't go assuming I'm disabled, I haven't said anything about any other legs I may or may not have.

yada yada yada. Not impressed.


(ETA - but I do hope Toby picks him up on the pluperfect he inserts in Matthew 28:2. It's not there in any translation I know of other than the NASB. Why is that the translation being relied on, I wonder? I see Toby suggested it...)

Toto

Some posts by the debate participants have been removed.

Cygnusx1

I'd like to say that, thus far, Toby is doing a great job.


One of the things that bothers me in such discussions is that often the person defending the Bible talks about interpretations that are "possible".

If the defender can prove an interpretation (the one they want) is possible, then their job is finished.

For my own part, I care about what is probable. And I think the God Christians talk about would care too. That is, given the average reader of average intelligence, what is he *most likely* to conclude from this passage?

Keep up the good work, Toby. llamaluvr, I do applaud you for being civil while making your case.

Cygnus

Johnny Skeptic

Post-resurrection accounts of the New Testament cannot be reconciled for the simple reason that if they were beneficial, a lot more of them would have been much more beneficial. It is a question of God's intent. If you rise from the dead, and want people to know that you rose from the dead, it would be quite natural for you to appear to as many people as possible who will recognize you. If Jesus rose from the dead, it is obvious that he wanted to limit the number of people who believed that he rose from the dead, but why? The best conclusion is that Jesus did not rise from the dead.

Von Smith

This strikes me as a particularly bizarre argument. It is as if apologists want us to think that the four evangelists sat down at a conference table one day and agreed to each contribute to a projected anthology, as opposed to writing their respective gospels on separate occasions for separate audiences. So when reading Matthew 28, for example, we need to remember that the bulk of its original audience would be relying on Matthew's account alone for a proper understanding of the resurrection, without the benefit of knowing what any other gospels said about it. How many people in such an audience would have come to any conclusion *other* than that the angel moved the stone while the women were watching? And given that, why would Matthew describe events as he did, if that wasn't what he intended to convey?

The Evil One

Exactly, Von Smith. And the same point applies to the one-versus-two-versus-many distinctions.

If you had read John, and only John, then you'd think Mary Magdalene had gone alone to the tomb, quite clearly.

If John knew that she'd gone in company of other women (which he would have, according to llamaluvr's scenario), then John was guilty of lying by omission by giving the impression that she went on her own.

If John didn't know that MM went with other women, then one has to ask, why should we take seriosuly the account of someone who plainly doesn't have all the facts?

Same applies to other points:

If MM went to the tomb twice, as llamaluvr claims, then all the evangelists were guilty of lying-by-omission by implying she only went once - unless they didn't know she went twice, in which case their knowledge was bizarrely incomplete.

If there were two angels, as llamaluvr claims, then Mark and Luke were guilty of lying-by-omission by implying there was only one - unless they didn't know there were two, in which case their knowledge was bizarrely incomplete.

I really can't see how the inerrant-eye-witness-account notion can get around this dilemma.