angelo

I believe you are coming from the old saying of ''where there is smoke there is fire'' argument.
Regarding 9/11 that holds true. But how can it hold true of the gospel narratives as there were no eye witnesses?
Not one author was an eye witness. They are writing hearsays that circulated for decades before they were finaly put in writing.
Paul whose letters were the very first christian writings were at least a decade after the fact and probably more.
This is all christianity has as proof of Jesus even existing, let alone the birth of the myths.
I sometimes wonder how many of the millions of believers would be left if they all took the trouble of finding out how this babble of gospels came to be.

thentian

This just brings us back to the post you so cleverly avoided answering in this manner. ChristMyth pointed out that ssclichter's analogy is a bad one. Now, I don't completely agree with Amaleq that analogies are a bad way to conduct this kind of debates, but for the analogy to work, it has to compare cases that are relevantly similar. But ssclichter's analogy is not relevantly similar, as it would have been if one newpaper had written that the twin towers were attacked by two planes and another that it was attacked by four. Or, to give an example of my own, if one paper had said nobody was hurt, while another had written that there were 2974 casualties. (Compare Mark 16:8 to the other gospels.) The long and short of it is that it is easy to reconcile the various accounts of 9/11, while nobody has yet managed to reconcile the easter accounts in the gospels. Both you and ssclichter have spent more time writing posts in this topic than it would have taken either of you to write your own account of the events, trying to meet the Easter Challenge. I wonder why that is. If you can't find the time to do it yourself, why not ask members of your congregation to do it?

BTW: It wasn't me who wrote that I don't like your use of smileys. I use them a lot myself, so don't be afraid to use them on my account.

Cheers!

ETA: Come to think of it, you managed to derail my question about the earthquake in Matthew as well, didn't you?

I had almost forgotten about that, but now you can answer me this: Suppose you have been away from your home town a couple of days and on your return you buy a newspaper that has a front-page story about an earthquake which allegedly shook the town yesterday. Concerned, you buy three more newspapers to read all about it, but find to your surprise that none of them mentions anything about it. In fact there is no mention at all about this earthquake anywhere, not even in the national papers (Josephus) or in the more unreliable papers (apocrypha). Surely, at this point you would start to wonder about the reliability of the newspaper that had the story?

Amaleq13

And the quote marks around the reference to another hijacker and the fact that they are context-free sentence fragments.

Wrong. Given various sentence fragments without a context, one would be rather foolish to assume much about them though, as I've already noted, the quotes do provide a clue. The sentences in the Gospels are given in a context. This is another failure of the attempted analogy.

No, I pointed out a significant difference that destroys the analogy. One description with an angel(s) meeting the women at the tomb and one with a young man meeting the women at the tomb is not analogous to one story with 19 hijackers and another referring to a "20th hijacker".

sschlichter

as I said, the account is phenomenal, not technical.

Yes, it is quite similar. If someone says that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11, then they may be telling the truth. However, Osama bin Laden was also not involved in the attacks from the perspective of someone being asked who flew the planes.

Abraham Lincoln died because he was shot in a theatre, no wait he died in a bed after being in a coma. these would be apparently contradictory accounts from an actor in the theatre and perhaps the doctor in his room.

In the same manner,

(Mark 16:5)
Then as they went into the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.

(Matt 28:2) Suddenly there was a severe earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descending from heaven came and rolled away the stone and sat on it.
(Matt 28:3) His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.

A being with two arms, two legs, and a head wearing extremely white robes is accurately and collaboratively described in either of these two manners with contradiction. Unless you happen to know that angels look differently.
Do you?

as I said earlier, the analogies do not work for you because you already pre-suppose them to contradict in the gospels.

Amaleq13

Regardless of what you call it, you don't have an analogy.

It would be false to claim that Osama flew one of the planes. Which Gospel makes an analogous false claim? Mark when he describes a young man or the others when they describe at least one angel? Your analogies suck, amigo.

The former is the cause of death and the latter is the location. To describe the latter as though it were the former is a false claim as well as a contradiction. An account of Lincoln's death that only included the latter would be the work of an imbecile.

Not just apparently. They are actually contradictory accounts if they are both presented as descriptions of what caused his death.

According to the Gospels, they apparently do look differently. Angels, unlike young men, apparently float down from the sky and glow like a lamp.

No, the analogies don't work because they aren't actually analogous. With regard to the Gospels, my conclusions follow from reading them without faith.

ChristMyth

sschlichter, I also analyzed the Lincoln example a few pages back and showed how, it too, was an inadequate analogy for the gospel accounts. When it comes to examples here, it seems to me your 0/2.

Christmyth

sschlichter

It is an ideal analogy and you are demonstrating that by not reading carefully. what the analogy said was that one person might say Osama was responsible while others would list only the hijackers. someone inattentive like you might come along 2000 years later and make a statement that they contradeict because you do not understand the context. One is saying that Osama may have motivated, planned, or funded while the other is referring to only the hijackers. thank you for demonstrating the analogy.

again, thank you for your help. this is true as in the case of Judas, one account is explaining the cause of death and the other is describing what occurred later in his disgrace.

I am glad you agree that they do not both describe the cause.

come on, read the context, the young man in a previously sealed tomb privy to the whereabouts of a resurrected man is obviously alluding to more than a young man.

sschlichter

well, did your lengthy 'analysis' of 3 sentences include a reason or just a general feeling in inadequacy.

thentian

So, according to ssclichter, we're looking at a couple of gospel writers who just can't remember the word for angel.

(Luke 24:4-5) 4 While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing; 5 and as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living One among the dead?

TsK! He keeps insisting that they are men while they are in reality angels.

(Mark 16:5) 5 Entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting at the right, wearing a white robe; and they were amazed.

Mark is a very economical writer; no need to mention that there were two men, sorry -angels-, when one will suffice.

(Matt 28:2) 2 And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.

Matthew is economical with the angels, but he likes to throw in an earthquake for good effect. :Cheeky:

(John 20: 12-14) 12 and she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying. 13 And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” 14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus

John, however, forgot about the earthquake, but unlike all the others, he remembered that Jesus was also at the tomb. Good for him!

sschlichter

please tell me what an angel looks like? Should be easy for you since you know they do not look like young men.

No reason for 4 different accounts to all mention the exact same things. We would be in this thread wondering why the same book has 4 different names.