CX

Unfortunately reasoned debate requires more than simply making a bald assertion. Thus far I've not seen any reasoned argument from you supporting your position. Now I have a few questions. The first is how do you support the claim that the Xian bible is inerrant in the original MSS when, as you have already admitted, such are not to be found and are thus not open to academic scrutiny? Secondly, if we accept for the sake of the argument that the original MSS were inerrant, of what value is that given the complex and variegated nature of the MSS evidence we have today? Could not a divine being capable of producing an inerrant document, apparently by divine fiat, also have preserved the inerrant originals to the present day? Lastly it is your claim (and one which is oft repeated by inerrantists and apologists) that none of the discrepancies in the Xian canon present much difficulty. Alas it is up to you to demonstrate validity of that claim. Mr. Barker's Easter Challenge would certainly be a good place to start.

spurly

Quote:

Here are a few questions to ask the Bible: 1. How did Judas Iscariot die? Did he die from hanging himself (Mt 27:5) or did his stomach bust open (Acts 1:18)?

The answer to this question is yes. He died from hanging himself. After he was up there a while, he fell from where he had hanged himself and his body burst open because it had begun to decompose. That is when his intestines gushed out.



His ministry began after his temptation in the wilderness. When he came back out he began to gather his disciples and then he started spending time with these men. This is where his ministry began. Was it before or after John was put in prison? It was before. John was still preaching at this time.

Here's the timeline. Some of the disciples started following Jesus when John pointed him out to them as the Messiah. They followed Jesus around for awhile. Then they went back to their homes and back to their original jobs (fishing, etc.). Then Jesus came back to them and called them to follow him fulltime. That is when they left everything to follow him. (This is a harmony of all the stories and it makes perfect sense).



Again the answer to this question is yes, both are true. John was given the sign of the dove from heaven. He even recognized Jesus before baptizing him (see Matthew 4). Then the sign confirmed the stories he had been told by his mother about his cousin.

Why did he then doubt and send messengers from prison? Because Jesus wasn't acting like he thought the Messiah should act. Jesus wasn't setting up the earthly Israelite kingdom to overthrow the Roman empire. So John just wanted to make sure that he wasn't wrong. When Jesus answered John's question, I'm sure all of his doubts were satisfied.

One thing I like about the Bible is just this. It is not afraid to show that people actually have doubts, struggles, and give in to sin at times. It presents people as real people, not as "superheroes of faith".




Did Jesus nullify the food laws. Yes. But while he was on earth, in order not to offend anyone, I think he followed the laws because when he was alive he was still living under the Old Covenant. The New Covenant was not ushered in until the death and resurrection of Christ.

The disciples had problems with this, and many other areas of their Judaism, that they had grown up with. They had a hard time letting go of traditions that they thought pleased God. This was a tremendous struggle for the early Jews who converted to Christianity, and it's easy to see why. Change is difficult. However, once they realized this truth (after the church council in Acts 15, the sheet in Acts 10 and Paul's encounter with Peter as recorded in Galatians) change began to come. For another example of a Jewish tradition that was hard for the Jews to let go of - see the battle of whether or not a Christian had to be circumcised.



Again, you have to look at all the gospels to get the full story of what happened in his early years. When Mary conceived, she and Joseph were living in Nazareth (Matthew 1). After conceiving, when it was almost time to give birth, they had to travel to Bethlehem to register for the census. (Luke 2). While they were there, the Christ child was born. Then, evidently, they ended up staying in Bethlehem for a while, until the child was 1 or 2 years old and they were told to flee to Egypt because Herod was searching for the child to kill him.

Why would they settle in Bethlehem instead of returning immediately to Nazareth. Maybe it was because Mary had a difficult birth. Maybe their was a stigma on Mary and Joseph in Nazareth because their neighbors thought they had gotten pregnant out of wedlock so they just decided it would be better to hang out with Joseph's family in Bethlehem for a while. Whatever the case, that is what they did.



Did he openly proclaim who he was? At times yes, but most of those proclamations were veiled. They were not out and out proclamations saying "I am the Messiah". Instead they were veiled descriptions of who he was. But the Jews did catch on to what Jesus was saying. Also, in the synoptics the main phrase used by Jesus to identify himself was "the son of Man". This was also a Messianic title. So he proclaimed his identity there as well. I can point out stories in the synoptics where Jesus told who he was like the case of the healing of the paralytic carried by his four friends. The Pharisees said, "Only God can forgive sins". And they were right. However Jesus did it because he was God in the flesh. He went on to prove that he had the right to do that by healing the paralyzed man. (see Mark 2).

Most of the things that people point out as contradictions are as easy to explain as the ones that you listed in your link. I have studied them for years and have found God to be faithful.

Thanks for giving me a chance to explain.

Kevin

spurly

Could God have kept errors from entering the Manuscripts. You bet. But he chose instead to rely on us. He does this in many areas of life. We are his agents as we follow the directions of the head of the body - Christ.

By the way, I have explained 6 discrepencies in the above post. I have to get to work now. I will address more later.

Kevin

Dargo

Spurly's position is similar to that of many evangelical Christians. They will admit to some minor scribal errors, but believe there to be no major errors between the current Bible and the perfect yet unseen original manuscripts. I would have once shared his view. There are some hardcore Christians who actually claim the King Jimmy version is perfect and divinely inspired.

I can remember my pastor once explaining why Biblical inerrancy is so important to evangelicals. This was several years ago, so please correct any of my errors and things that you might disagree with, Spurly.

A perfect god should be able to create a perfect holy book, and preserve that perfection. If he fails to prevent significant errors from creeping into the text, how can one be certain what comes from god and what comes from humans? For that matter, how can you be certain that any of it comes from god?

That is the essential problem with liberal Christianity. You take what parts of the text you like, and decide that the parts you don't like were not divinely inspired. For all you know, the nice parts might have been later additions, and the unpleasant bits the word of god. Liberal Christianity does however, allow wiggle room to ignore historical errors, scientific errors, and contradictions. I went from believing the Bible was perfect to convinced the Bible was bunk in less than a year, so I'm admittedly not very familiar with more liberal views of Christianity.

RUmike

The way Dargo explained it is basically my feeling as well. If I find major portions or considerably important things to be false, then how can I be expected to trust any of it? How am I supposed to be able to seperate fact from fiction? EIther it needs to be all fact, or some combination of fact and fiction but no reasonable deity (IMO) would expect one to believe any of it.

For instance, I don't believe in creation as it happened in Genesis. I feel certain about this, and I don't believe Adam and Eve existed. I don't see how one can believe Genesis, unless he or she also believes the Earth is only 6,000 years old. However, the truthfulness of the New Testament relies entirely on the validity of the Old. Jesus' genealogy is even traced all the way back to Adam, and he mentions such people as Abel in his teachings -- people I don't believe ever existed. How, then, can I believe the Jesus of the New Testament reflects any Jesus that may have actually existed?

Spenser

Spurly,

I would just like to say I applaud you for showing up here.

Cheers
Spenser

Amlodhi

Not according to Luke they didn't:

Luke 2:22 "And when the days of her (Mary's) purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to present (him) to the Lord."

According to Leviticus, this purification period would (if the child is male) last a total of forty days:

Lev. 12:3-4 "And in the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised, (4) And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days . . . until the days of her purifying be fulfilled."

Luke 2:39-40 "And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth." (40) "And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him."

Plus, every year they went from Nazareth to the feast of the passover:

Luke 2:41 "Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover."

Thus, according to Luke, after the forty days of Mary's purification were fulfilled, they went to Jerusalem to sacrifice according to the Mosaic law and then returned to their home in Nazareth; from which place they traveled annually to the feast of the passover.

I have heard one desperate apologetic which claimed that what Luke actually meant to say was:

Luke 2:22 "And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, {they went to Egypt until Herod was dead, and then} they brought him to Jerusalem."

However, if Luke was aware of, and/or believed, the "flight to Egypt" tradition, such an omission in the middle of this sentence is inexplicable.

That Matthew's story cannot be interpolated into the middle of Luke's sentence here is further demonstrated by the gospel of Matthew itself:

1) Matthew says nothing about traveling from Nazareth to Bethlehem but simply: (Matt. 2:1) "Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem . . ."

2) Matthew's given reason for the "flight to Egypt" story is: (Matt. 2:15) ". . . that it might be fulfilled . . . Out of Egypt have I called my son." However, the words here are quoted from Hos. 11:1 and clearly refer to the nation of Israel rather than any messianic figure.

3) Most importantly, after Herod's death, when Matthew has Joseph and Mary returning from Egypt, Matthew states:

Matt. 2:22-23 "But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: nothwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee." (23) "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets. He shall be called a Nazarene."

Note then, that "he turned aside into the parts of Galilee" because he feared Archelaus, the ruler in Judea. This hardly supports inserting the "flight into Egypt" into the middle of the sentence in Luke 2:22, i.e.: "And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, {they went to Egypt until Herod was dead, and then} they brought him to Jerusalem."

Not only does Matthew say that they "turned aside into . . . Galilee", but also, if they feared Archelaus, it seems quite unlikely that they would go to the temple in Jerusalem where, incidently, according to Luke, no less than two persons, openly and verbally, proceeded to proclaim the messianic status of Jesus. (Luke 2:25-38)

And further, in vs. 23 , Matthew says: "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled . . ."

Note that they did not return home to Nazareth but that they "came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth" . Matthew is here introducing Nazareth as becoming the home town of Jesus for the very first time. Again, he does this in an attempt to make an exegetical connection (albeit, again, misguided) to OT passages.

Thus, when we "examine all the gospels" we see that:

John says only, ". . . We have found him . . . Jesus of Nazareth . . ." (John 1:45)

Mark, the earliest gospel says only that: "And it came to pass in (the days of John the Baptist), that Jesus came from Nazareth . . ." (Mark 1:9)

Matthew states only that Jesus was born in Bethlehem (no traveling, no census), Joseph and Mary flee from Bethlehem to Egypt and, upon their return from Egypt, go for the first time to Nazareth to fulfill Matthew's exegesis; (no visits to the temple).

Luke states that Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, after Mary's forty days of purification are fulfilled they go to the temple in Jerusalem; while they are there, no less than two persons verbally extol the messianic status of Jesus; when their temple rituals are finished they return home to Nazareth. (no magi, no Egypt)

I see no amount of semantical gymnastics that can credibly interpolate Matthew's story into Luke's or vice versa. Therefore, it seems reasonably apparent that the author of Matthew and the author of Luke were simply two different men with two different versions of a story.

Namaste'

Amlodhi

Dargo

Reading the full chapter of Hosea 11 makes this prophecy even more absurd. Hosea 11:1,2 RSV

1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
2 The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and burning incense to idols.

The rest of the chapter goes on to describe how Israel had repeatedly disobeyed god, and how god was going to punish them by letting the Egyptians and Assyrians kick their butts. So tell me, Spurly. Did Jesus sacrifice to others gods like Israel did, or does just part of the first verse in Hosea 11 apply to Jesus? Sounds like Mathew took Hosea out of context to me. I thought that was a no-no or does that rule only apply to non-Christians.

spurly

Yes, only the part Matthew mentioned applied to Jesus. Jesus was too young at that time to do any sacrificing anyway.

Kevin

spurly

Amlodhi:

In order to understand the life and death of Jesus, we have to take into account the gospels (not the spurious ones) and mesh what they say together to get a full picture. It is sort of like taking several autobiographies of Lincoln and reading them all to get the full picture.

Even when we read all of the gospel accounts, we have to realize that they do not contain every single thing that ever happened in his life. Each writer wrote about what they felt was important. Thus some writers included things that other did not. Much of this was determined by the audience for whom they were writing.

I have no problems at all with the minor discrepencies when I realize that not everything has been written. (Plus, there are explanations for those discrepencies that are logical and thought out)

In the one you mentioned, Luke just sped up the account to get to what he felt was more important. Thus he went right from circumcision to his childhood encounter at the temple. Luke wanted the two of those to flow together so he left out some of the details in between. Details that don't change the good news about Jesus Christ one iota.


Kevin