Doug Shaver

Your dogma says it's reliable. The evidence does not.

thentian

First Luke tells us that the women saw two young men. Then he reports what the women say about it; that they had a vision of angels. Can we take it from this that they saw actual angels? Can we draw from Luke's account that: [young man in white == vision of angel == actual angel] ?

I have my doubts. Maybe what we see here is the development of a myth; a feather becoming five chickens. Or are we perhaps looking at Luke trying to take the middle ground between Mark and Matthew? Or is it the case -as you are claiming ?- that whenever someone writes "young man in white" it is to be read as "angel"?

I hope that's not the answer to the question I am repeating below, because then it is not clear to me what you would say:

Would you tell people "I have seen a young man in white"?

thentian

Whether or not Matthew's account is reliable is precisely what is being questioned. It does not help to simply assert that it is. You need to bring forward reasons and evidence to support your case.

aChristian

I think this thread was started in response to Barker's challenge. I think it has already been demonstrated to have been answered by others. As far as Matthew not being accurate because he is the only on to mention an event, I think that is irrelevant. The reasons I think it is accurate have been given many times before by conservative scholars and some of them have been given during this thread I think. Anyway if you want to continue to believe that Barker's challenge has not been met, that is up to you. If you want to believe Matthew is inaccurate because he mentions events that others don't, that again is your choice. Good bye for now.

Sheshonq

Now you're just being childish. The text about shining garments is quite plain. If you think you know something relevant that might change that, then spit it out.

Otherwise, you're just pretending to know something and trying to play "guess my secret" when there really isn't any secret knowledge to be guessed.

Sheshonq

If you think that, then it's because you decided to blind yourself to the contrary evidence.

Then you "think" incorrectly.

Too bad none of those "reasons" stood up very well under close inspection and cross-examination.

That's what the evidence in this thread says - it has nothing to do with "belief".

The evidence says that you don't want to do the hard work of investigating this on your own. You prefer to piggyback on other people like some kind of cheerleader and borrow their arguments because you don't have any of your own to give. And now that the squeeze is being put on you to put up or shut up, you've resorted to sticking your fingers in your ears as a debate defense. You're leaving this thread because you're backed into a corner and you're afraid of getting pinned down - so before that happens, you need to make your exit.

Typical bible literalist - when they finally are forced to support their claims, suddenly they hear their mother calling / have to walk the dog / "Oh my, is that the time? Gotta go".

sschlichter

No, you are playing a game and purposefully derailing any progression to the conversation. I've seen you do it in other threads as well. Don't do it to me.

I posted http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthr...34#post5515434 which states that the Septuagint was translated into Greek.

You altered my quote here http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthr...25#post5516425 and changed the meaning of what I said and then declared that I am confused. You are intentionally being mis-leading.

sschlichter

A progression of a myth does not happen 4 sentences later in the same chapter of the same book. Luke was obviously referring to Angels in Luke 24:4 because he said that is what the men were in Luke 24:23. If you are allegating that the progression of the myth is from later authors then the progression would have replaced the men with angels. It did not.

Obviously, all young men are not Angels but there are some clues about these specific young men.

According to Matthew, they descended from heaven, wore shining white clothes.

According to Mark, , he was wearing white clothes, but he does not specifically say they are dingy white clothes. So, it does not contradict with shining white clothes.

According to Luke, they shone like lightning, and wore white clothes. Again, no contradiction.

Matthew refers to the men as Angels, writing to a Jewish audience the language he selected makes perfect sense.

Mark described a young man, obviously inferring a supernatural presence indicating that a young man in a white robe, sitting at a tomb of a resurrected man, and providing instructions from God. These are things a messenger from God does, not some guy who stumbled into the tomb after a toga party.

Luke provides us with the best bridge between the two making it very clear that it is quite normal to refer to Angels as men and also referring to those specific men as Angels in verse 23.

Matthew confirms they are Angels, Luke confirms they are Angels but also confirms that Angels are referred to as men because they take the form of men, Mark's young men are the same Angels as Martthew's.

So, when you see a man in shining white robes in relationship to and in support of a supernatural act of God, then yes, it is socially acceptable to refer to that Angel as a man as long as you include the fact that there was a supernatural event.

Amaleq13

You are confused or trying to create confusion. Matthew only refers to one angel and it is his face, not his clothes, that shines like lightning.

He just says the young man's clothes are white and that does not agree with the other two who explicitly describe the figure(s) the women encounter as somehow shining.

A young man wearing white is not the same as an angel or a man who somehow shines. Since the figure described is clearly supposed to be the same figure (ie who the women met at the tomb) that is a contradiction.

Setting aside the false addition of the last phrase, we have already seen that none of Mark's depiction requires or even suggests that the young man is somehow supernatural. To continue to claim this despite having no basis in the text is simply disingenuous on your part.

James Brown

You might be confused here, because Matthew only describes one angel.

I think you have this backwards. Since Mark wrote his gospel first, the original version is that the single young man's robes were white--nothing supernatural about them. It's Luke who both doubles the number of men on the scene and embellishes their robes to make them shining.

Except in Matthew and Mark, there is no 'they,' and Luke embellishes their robes. Unless you think Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote in collusion with one another, in which case your "number of independent sources" is reduced by two. The three Synoptic gospels must now be counted as a single source, and a shaky one at that.

Again, it was one individual angel in Matthew.

Your snide humor aside, I still can't understand how a young man putting on a white robe, sitting in an opened tomb and repeating a set of instructions is a supernatural act. Yes, angels can do all that, but doing all that isn't angelic. Just like (according to the Bible) angels can sing, but singing isn't something that only angels can do. Descending from the sky, causing rock-splitting earthquakes, wearing lightning-bright clothes--all of those are beyond mortal means (in first-century Palestine.)

And if delivering a message from God is angelic, then Noah, Moses, and every prophet in the Old Testament was really an angel. Are you prepared to defend that? Are you now saying that John the Baptist was really an angel who was beheaded?

Good to know.