storytime

The most pivotal historical factor that changed the face of Judaism is seen in its defeat by all major world powers. Judaism was a backward, uncivilized, hate-filled religion whose "tongue" was in a consistent jealous and accusatory mode, always ripe to provoke violence and death. It could not expand due to its repulsive image in the world.

You have no way of knowing the number count in 70AD Jewish war, so you exaggerate. Reworking OT fabrications?

Rome's greatest war was with the Jews? That's what the Christians have taught for hundreds of years and it seems the Jews have believed it. Just think, the Christians have made the Jews more supernatural than the Jews could ever make themselves. :devil1: :clapping:

Judaism can never be taken seriously due to its stealing from ancient existing stories, evolving gods and restructuring of existing laws of the land, and its oral tradition in heresay. Due to this lack of creativity of Jews the validity of both Christianity and Islam and any other religion for that matter can rightly be said to be an authentic construct in their own right,..and even if we non-believers know the truth of how men invent their lies and how fearful people follow those lies to the destruction of their own lies by and through contradictions, distortions, embellisments, wild imaginations and more.

What other monumental structure would have made the Temple Fortress appear as an ant hill in those days?

aChristian

Judge's logic is correct and your logic is faulty. You have not proved there is a contradiction if someone can show that both can be true. It is obvious that both can be true. As was said earlier, it does not say in the text that both occurred at the same time. You need to show that it is impossible for both to be true or there is no contradiction, just as judge said.

Husker

If you merge the two narratives, they become thematically null. This makes them incompatible, and I believe that's all he was trying to demonstrate.

Net2004

One wonders why luke did not use chronological marker, like he did in the examples below, to indicate how much time had passed.

Acts 5:7 After an interval of about three hours his [Ananias's] wife came in, not knowing what had happened.
Acts 10:9 9 About noon the next day, as they [the messengers from Cornelius] were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray.
Acts 10:23 The next day he [Peter] got up and went with them [the messengers], and some of the believers from Joppa accompanied him.
Acts 10:24 The following day they came to Caesarea.
Acts 15:36 After some days Paul said to Barnabas, "Come, let us return and visit the believers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are doing."
Acts 16:11 We set sail from Troas and took a straight course to Samothrace, the following day to Neapolis....
Acts 17:2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures....
Acts 20:2 When he [Paul] had gone through those regions and had given the believers much encouragement, he came to Greece, 3 where he stayed for three months.
Acts 20:5 They went ahead and were waiting for us in Troas; 6 but we sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days we joined them in Troas, where we stayed for seven days.
Acts 21:4 We looked up the disciples and stayed there [in Tyre] for seven days.

Clinical

Both cannot be true because each Gospel must be understood on its own since they were written separately in different times by different authors for different communities. Early Christians did not have access to all the four Gospels together.
You cannot merge both of them together, you would get something that neither Gospel says.
It is you who have to show us evidence that Luke was aware of Jesus;s journey to Egypt. You cannot and hence the contradiction stands.

Doug Shaver

OK, it is logically possible that both could be true.

Now, why should I believe that both of them are true, not just as a logical possibility but as a matter of fact?

Kasper

Well, I think the Bible demonstrates it clearly. One gospel says they went to Galilee, it even uses the words "return to". As I pointed out, I do not believe "return to" opens up the possibility that they might have gone somewhere else. Then again, English is not my native language, so maybe someone who is more familiar with English than I am, could help me out a bit?

Kasper

Can you explain then, how it is possible that people go to Egypt when it says they return to Galilee? As I understand English, they might also have used the words "arrived at" instead, but probably chose "return to" due to the fact that this (Galilee) is where they came from. Is my interpretation of the words "return to" correct?
In Matthew, however, the word "departed" is used. "And when they were departed," could also be said like this: "When they left," am I right?

So yes, as I understand the 2 gospels, there is a very clear contradiction here.

Lord Emsworth

Of course, proof is for math and alcohol as they say. Remains only the question, are Luke, Matthew et al proof spirits?

hefdaddy42

I am a believing Christian, but even I can see the contradictions between Matthew and Luke. Both can't be true, so I see neither as true, especially given the fact that neither Mark nor John (nor Paul, nor any other author in the New Testament) seems to know anything remarkable about Jesus's birth (presumably, because there was nothing remarkable about it).