James Brown

Thanks for the props. I'm actually working on a play along this theme, mostly for my own amusement. A apatheist director is pressured by his Christian wife to direct her church's passion play. He knows hardly anything about the subject, and he doesn't have much time, so he recruits four friends to sketch out a simple plot based on each of the four gospel accounts with the director aiming to blend them all together. During the dress rehearsal, confusion reigns as the four writers and the director argue back and forth trying to make some coherent sense out of this mess.

gracebkr

James, from a historical point of view, not a Christian, there only being one hour difference in all four stories is remarkable. This was recorded a long time ago by people who heard what the disciples/apostles said and tried to preserve it. Of course it will not be totally accurate as I said before, people remember things differently even if seen at the same time, the exact same way. The one conclusion that is drawn is the tomb is empty.

I have heard that Jesus did not say don't touch me, but if it is literally translated, he said Do not cling to me.

They men when they enter and see the linens, they see Jesus has folded his head linen, which would make no sense if His body was stolen.

I can imagine this would be mightily confusing for someone to experience. Over analyzing their behavior is important to do, but you have to remember, this is written by listeners and people who wanted to preserve it, translated several times. These things might be odd, but given how they got here, it has to be taken into consideration. Even if you view it as purely mythical and made up, it is an amazing it is as in tact and consistent as it is. The constant though is the tomb was empty.

I will not dispute your time lines, they seem okay. I am not perplexed by this. It was 2000 years ago, one hour no biggy. Quite amazing if you asked me.

gracebkr

Think about this James, if the stories were identical, then you should be suspicious. If my mother, whom I trust the most in this world came to me and said my father was walking around--BTW he died-- I would call a mental hospital. I would not believe it for a minute. Then my brother told me the same thing I would still be in disbelief, then he came to be I would still not comprehend what was happening. That's why no one knows what is going on and running around like idiots. Think about it.

If they all sat down and said, okay here's the story and it has to be the same, then what you are pointing out, would not exist.

RED DAVE

I that's all you've got, Occam's razor points to tomb robbers, friendly or unfriendly.

Pretty narrow basis for a religion. Unless of course you want us to believe all that stuff about Jesus walking around, being seen and all that.

RED DAVE

Sauron

Ah.

If the stories were the same, then you'd be claiming divine inspiration and obvious eyewitness accounts that corroborate each other.
But since stories are different, you're telling us that their individuality proves they must be authentic accounts.

Either way, you make it work out to be a win for your argument. How convenient for you.

Edited to add: this, by the way, is the reason why the much ballyhooed 'criterion of embarrassment' is useless. It cannot be falsified. People who rely on it -- authors like Meier (A Marginal Jew) and posters like Layman - are mistaken to do so.

Hex

And that's being generous and assuming that Jesus physically lived. A simpler answer is that Jesus never existed, thus his imaginary body would have left the tomb empty no matter what ...

James Brown

While my arbitrarily chosen start-and-end times may have turned out to be only an hour different, that isn't the most important difference in the story. The more important details are the obvious inconsistencies and contradictions. Mary either sees an angel roll the stone away or she finds the stone already rolled away. It can't be both. Mary either runs to tell Peter that Jesus is alive, or she tells him that his body has been stolen. She can't do both. Apologists have tried to stitch all this into a coherent package, and the results always fail scrutiny. They end up giving Mary, as one poster I read put it, "the speed of a cheetah, the eyes of a mole, and the memory of a goldfish." Sure, if the only problem with this story is that the sun is a little higher in the sky in John's version compared to Mark's, then I'd have nothing to say.

Are you wanting it both ways? If a scripture makes sense, it's because its inerrant and flawless and inspired by God. But if a passage is flawed, it's because they wrote so long ago, and memories fade, and of course it's not accurate, they're only human. Your arguments for defending these passages are identical to the ones that skeptics use for not trusting them. We know perfectly well that these passages were written decades after the fact, but for us, that's a bug, not a feature.

If the issue at hand was merely, "Did Peter and Mary eat breakfast together, or separately that morning?" then no one would really care if the gospels can't exactly pin it down. But that's not the issue, is it. We're told that a corpse rose from his grave, which is the key event that makes all of Christianity possible, and if you don't want to miss out on eternal bliss you better accept this most marvelous event in all of the universe's history. And your proof? These four contradictory muddled narratives which can't be reconciled, even with a generous dollop of grace for the fact they're two millenia old.

RED DAVE

Where oh where can our gracebkr be?

RED DAVE

douglas

Maybe she stumbled on this passage during her evening bible study?
Maybe she has that old "I touched an unclean thing" feeling?

Edit: My wife just said "Hey, I had that feeling last night... in bed...with you... get it?"

gracebkr

Look, I am willing to continue this discussion, I figured what's the point if we can't even get anywhere, no need to keep repeating ourselves right? I will though. I have said repeatedly on this forum and cited outside Bible sources when trying to make a point, that the Bible was inspired by God, written by man. I argued over if the Jews killed Jesus or was it the Romans, if I wanted to use the Bible as the only source for my beliefs why would I do that? I think the Romans killed Jesus, the writing above His head says it all for me. So saying I can't have it both ways, I don't know what you mean by that. The Bible was written by people and on their memories, it only makes sense that things get changed or memories are different. As I stated, we can watch the same thing happen and see it from two different perspectives. Think of the conspiracy you are insinuating. Let's think about how conspiracies work, a few people get together, make their plan to fool, what do they do? What is the next step? Get the story straight. They would have been exactly the same if they had started this off a conspiracy as you are suggesting. There would not be any differences, that's how conspiracies work. So couple that with what I said about the human brain and how it works, and make a logical guess. Let's test my theory if you want to. How about we both watch a movie and then write a brief review honestly on what we watched? Then we can have a third person watch the movie as well and read what we saw. See if they can find any inconsistencies. I bet they will. I am willing to try it, it is no joke if you want. Now imagine telling the movie we watched to another person and them writing a review on what we told them we saw. Do you think, if we tried our absolute hardest to keep things as true as we knew them, there would be inconsistencies? I also bet their would be consistencies as well. The point is, there is one consistency we can rely on, that is the tomb was empty. If you don't believe He was God, that is nothing that I can change.