Roland

"not be what Luke implied"

David -

That's too funny. I still maintain that, as written, Luke "implies" that all eleven were present at Jesus' first appearance, since there is nothing in the text to "imply" otherwise and, in fact, the logical reading of it is that Thomas certainly WAS present. An author sets his scene and Luke certainly set it up so that we would see all eleven apostles present (just as Matthew expects us to understand that the angel spoke to Mary Magdalene).

If we took into consideration all the things that were apparently left unsaid in these accounts, we would probably end up with an entirely different story from the one we have now. So much for Bible "literalism."

BadBadBad

This is a pretty good demonstration of the mind set. Magus, just because it is "an" explanation doesn't make it true. Perhaps that's how we differ in our reasoning. For me, it's not an explanation unless it's true, or at least it's more reasonable than other more obvious and more plausible explanations.

Dr Rick

Seriously?! What part of arguing the veracity and consistency of a story that includes a talking snake and knowledge from a plant strikes you as "reason"?

Tabula_rasa

davidH,

I do understand that your interpretation of the term 'for in the day' means when. In this particular usage however, it is in the conjugate form and not the adverb form. Here are the definitions and usages for the conjugate meaning of the word when from Webster's Ninth Collegiate.

1a) at or during the time that : WHILE <went fishing when he was a boy>

1b) just at the moment that <stop writing when the bell rings>

1c) at or every time that <when he listens to music, he falls asleep>

2) in the event that : IF <a contestant is disqualified when he disobeys the rules>

3a) considering that <why use water at all when you can drown in it>

3b) inspite of the fact that : ALTHOUGH <quit politics when he might have had a good career in it>

If I understand the way you are interpreting the usage, you seem to be using the second sense of the word as in: in the event that. Correct?

Let's get back to Gen.2/17 for a moment and do a little rewriting.

Original: "for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"

Replacing with when: "for [when] thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"

Replacing with the definition: "for [in the event that] thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"

Finally, replacing with the contracted definition: "for [if] thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die"

That's enough pedantic gymnastics for one day.

Before I continue, I'd like to make sure of something. This is your interpretation, correct? A simple yes or no will suffice. If the answer is "No," I'd appreciate if you would point to the correct definition of "when" from the list above.

Regards,
Tabula_rasa

unregistered_user_1

BS. Magus, and you know it. All it would take would be for the bible to be infallible as it says it is. If it was, there'd be no need for apologists.

Hell, what if angels appeared and told us "the truth"? or christ himself for that matter?

If god had let christ's presence be known all over the world when he was born, then the natives would have already had the gospel when the europeans came...that would have been convincing, because how else could they have gotten it?

All you seem to do Magus, is make bad judgement calls and over-generalizations on the non-believers here. There is no way that your statment above could be applied to every atheist here, and you know it.

If, as you say, it would take "hell freezing over" to get us to worship your god, then why are you here?

Take off, then.:banghead:

Kosh

I did no such thing. Who's making unsupported assertions now? I made a statement. Nowhere in this thread (go back and read it) did I "refuse" to back up my claims. As this is the first time I've posted since you asked me to.

And now I will.

Rolands earlier post, where he listed the passages from Luke, shows rather explicitly how there is no room for wiggling out of the contradiction of "The eleven" by claiming that one of them could have left. It's there a plain as day. That easily shows that you are attempting "Mental Gymnastics" to reconcile the problem. I don't expect you to admit to it, but it is clear for all the other lurkers here with an IQ over 100 to see.

Need more? Last year you attempted to prove the Exodus based on a single inscription which YOU interepreted to mean that a pharoah should not have been pharoah because he was not next in line. That in itself was a huge illogical leap, but then you attempted to claim that it verified the story of Moses leaving and allowing his half brother to take over. That was an even bigger leap, or shall we say... "Mental Gymnastics". You were shown by some rather knowledgable people why you were wrong.

Mental Gymnastics. That's the mindset.

Clutch

I'm sorry -- I didn't know you wanted a reply. I thought you were just looking for a face-saving way of ending the exchange.

But since you harp on the matter, I'm happy to oblige.

Your mental gymnastics to which I alluded (of course there may be many others!) comprise your suggestion that between the beginning of verse 34 and the end of verse 35, Thomas left the room. Your reasoning was that, after all, it doesn't say that Thomas didn't leave the room. That "the eleven", specifically mentioned in verse 33, remained and listened to what was told is, you triumphantly inferred, an assumption.

I showed that taking a similar attitude towards the assumptions that inform our understanding of any text would resolve any apparent contradiction.

My example was this:

A: "Smith was in the house when the bomb exploded, killing everyone inside."

B: "Smith was unharmed."

Notice that it is an assumption that the bomb was in the house, and a further (and logically independent) assumption that A is talking about everyone inside the house. In this case, the implicature that the bomb was in the house is firm but reasonably defeasible, while the implicature that it was those inside the house who were killed is very strong indeed. By your standards, though, since these are assumptions, it would simply be a mistake to describe B as contradicting A.

The application of these standards trivially dissolves any natural language contradiction, though.

Consider even a case like:

A: "Smith was killed"
B: "Smith was unharmed"

Solution: What, you think there's only one guy named Smith in the world? There's no contradiction here!

Thus I explained thatJust as any concatenation of sentences would.

This is the mindset referenced in the thread title -- which is why I have been saying all along that it's pointless to try stick fundies with contradictions.

Crisor

I think its interesting that fundies seem to think that the Bible was somehow written in a vacuum. Example:

The writers of the Bible (no matter who they were) were unable to be influenced by outside sources (such as other myths that abounded at the time).

They were not infallable as most people are which means that there are not contridictions in the Bible(at least in the original Greek and Hebrew for Magus55)

They had no imagination (which, in my opinion, would make life in general, unbearable)

Out of all the people on the earth, only the Apostals (and, for some unknown reason, Paul) were privilaged to the inside information of God.

And these are just a few of the examples they expect us to swollow all on faith. So, in reality, the Bible was truly written by men who were trapped in a small room adn away from all other humanity since birth. Anybody else see a problem with this?

Clutch

Just a bump for davidH, who so wanted an accounting of his mental gymnastics.

Kosh

This is typical for David. Having been soundly trounced, he'll now retreat into the woodwork until it all blows over, then show up again in a couple months. He seems to take his tactics from his fellow countrymen (the IRA).