Kosh

Make your case (don't forget to include info on your background in the Greek language (your background of studying Greek, but write it in English ))

JoeWallack

Jesus, Lee I Am overjoyed at last,
To meet you face to face.
You've been giving Jesus quite a Name,
All around the Place.
Healing cripples, raising from the Dead.
And now I understand he's god,
At least that's what you've said.


JW:
Jesus, Lee, you've Confessed ("usually"). What more is there to say? Doesn't the word than mean it Probable that "Matthew" intended a complete Genealogy? The primary meaning is direct physical parent. When another meaning is used it usually has a strong Figurative element. Try to find an example of the word used in a Greek genealogy that Skips. Hint - there isn't one. But don't let that stop you. Sounds like you understand that the word is a Verb and therefore "father of" (noun) would be a mistranslation.

1:1 (ASV)
"The book of the generation of Jesus Christ" at the Beginning of the Genealogy Implies that this is intended to be a Complete Genealogy. Especially for someone that apparently didn't have a complete genealogy anywhere else."


1:17 (ASV)
"So all the generations from Abraham unto David are fourteen generations; and from David unto the carrying away to Babylon fourteen generations; and from the carrying away to Babylon unto the Christ fourteen generations."

"Matthew" is emphasizing that the Fourteen generations are Significant. This would be a strange thing to claim if you thought there weren't really 14. How could "Matthew" have made it any clearer that there were 14 generations? If he added "Really"? Also, have you taken a look at the underlieing Greek word for "all" here? Let me know what you find.



Joseph

BIRTH, n.
The first and direst of all disasters. As to the nature of it there appears to be no uniformity. Castor and Pollux were born from the egg. Pallas came out of a skull. Galatea was once a block of stone. Peresilis, who wrote in the tenth century, avers that he grew up out of the ground where a priest had spilled holy water. It is known that Arimaxus was derived from a hole in the earth, made by a stroke of lightning. Leucomedon was the son of a cavern in Mount Aetna, and I have myself seen a man come out of a wine cellar.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Chris Weimer

Really? You've actually read the Gospels in Greek? Perfect. Now that we have concluded that we both know Greek, there's no point in continuing to use English translations, is there?

You'll have to do better than either Bultman or Lewis. They're old school.

Odd, I could have sworn you could read Greek. If you do, I have no idea where you got that translation from - it's not there!

Can you translate this sentence for yourself?

διο και αφ' ενος εγεννηθησαν και ταυτα νενεκÏ?ωμενου καθως τα αστÏ?α του ουÏ?ανου τωι πληθει και ως η αμμος η παÏ?α το χειλος της θαλασσης αναÏ?ιθμητος.

But Origen heard from third-hand reports, not the actual recounting of an incidence. There's simply no basis at all for this assumption. The fact that Mark has been shown over and over again to be the middle term of Luke and Matthew, and the fact that Mark, Luke, and Matthew share so much verbatim makes it quite implausible that they each wrote independently of each other, which your church fathers also held to be true.

You must show this to be the case. 99% of everyone attempting a serious look at synopticity of the texts disagrees with this assumption of yours. You only hold it by faith, and not reason, thus is invalid.

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

Quite so! But maybe enough evidence to reasonably conclude that? I don't want to be assuming, and I expect these church fathers were not prone to making stuff up, from all I have read and heard of them.

Well, I read a "Teach Yourself NT Greek" book! That must of course, make me an expert. :-) I also have been trying since then to read each day in the Greek NT, and discuss it with those who have studied it.

But my point was not that I can demonstrate that Matthew did or did not copy Mark, my point is that neither view seems undeniable to me, after having read both these books, in Greek. Could you be more specific as to what you mean? Since you were the one making a "claim of demonstrability" here.

Not if there are obvious gaps in it! Well, there are...

Actually is my example I gave not pertinent here? Heb. 11:12 uses this word in a way that does not imply direct descent, which was the point at issue.

But a "beginning" need not imply an exhaustive list, why is there this implication?

Unless the members in the genealogy he picked were the significant ones? All the significant ones?

I haven't noticed that the most recent commentators who seem to deny the more traditional views are doing much better work nowadays!

"Since Bernhardt Duhm identified four passages as 'servant songs' (42:1–4; 49:1–6; 50:4–9; 52:13–53:12), the discussion of 'the servant' has centered on these passages. A central question has been: who was the servant? Surely the Ethiopian treasurer (Acts 8:34) was not the first to ask it? ... When pressed for the identity of the person, some have thought the passages autobiographical for the prophet himself, as the Ethiopian did. Others have suggested Jeremiah. Still others pointed to Zerubabbel." (Word Commentary, Isaiah)

And then he takes the extraordinary measure of speculating that Isaiah 53 refers to Zerubabbel, stretching and straining all the way:

"We did not esteem him implies a recognition that the crowd had not supported Zerubbabel as they should have."

On what basis does he make this comment? Nor does esteem imply support! and then he continues: "The chorus of Jerusalemites continues: He bore our sickness. This is a belated expression of solidarity with [the governor]."

Now you can bear with a sick person, or suffer in some way, but that is not bearing a sickness of another. Now this is a commentary from an evangelical publisher, and yet not apparently seeing the plain disconnect with his comments and the passage, and in looking further afield to other commentators, the situation seem to deteriorate considerably, I could refer to some rather liberal commentators on Proverbs, Whybray, for instance.

Well yes, I can, and indeed it seems to be a place where the word in question is used to refer to more than just direct descendants: "So in fact children were fathered by one man ... like the number of stars in the sky..."

Unless the witnesses were reliable? Let's not just assume that they weren't!

Cute! Or should I say, Qute? But a common source could have been had by all of them, isn't that what "Q" refers to? Which could then be the "sayings" of Matthew, from which (likely among other sources) he wrote his book.

Yes, agreed...

Well, again, I find these current commentators whom you seem to be referring to as lacking in judgment, though they are certainly quite learned in their area.

Facility in learning does not imply facility in judgment!

These scholars also all seem to assume that there was a period of oral transmission, even though a Jewish person, hearing what could well be prophecy, after a drought of prophets for hundreds of years, would be almost certain to find a way to write those statements down. That thought would have occurred to me, for sure, so it would seem they are susceptible to skipping some reason here, and taking matters on faith...

Regards,
Lee

Amaleq13

I think there is a significant difference between "making stuff up" and "uncritically passing on oral traditions".

We should never forget that, right along with the authorship "traditions", Papias passed along the story of Judas getting squished by a chariot after becoming bloated with guilt or that Irenaeus defended the number of canonical Gospels on the basis of the four cardinal directions.

Kosh

Here is a link explaining the "two source hypothesis" to which I originally aluded.

Two Source Hypothesis

Since this is the mainstream scholarly view, please "make your case" as to why you think otherwise.

JoeWallack

JW:
As the teacher in the classic "The Breakfast Club" said after he feigned a punch at the supposed tough guy Bender and Bender cowered back in fear, "That's what I thought." This must be what drove Sauron to The Dark Side. If "Matthew" intended to Skip to M'Jew than "Father of " would have been a better choice, wouldn't it. You have the following Problems with thinking "Matthew" Intended to Skip according to Ben C. Smith:

1) "Matthew" used "Begat" which is never used in a Linear, immediate Greek Genealogy.

2) "Matthew" Explicitly says there were 14 Generations 3 times.

3) "Matthew" describes the Generations as "All" (still waiting for you to look up the Greek word).

4) Brown, who wrote The Book so to speak sez "Matthew" did not intentionally skip.

5) No Early Church Father (you know, the guys who selected "Matthew" in the first place and who you believe are a direct link to you know who) claimed skipped Generations.

6) The book of the generation of Jesus Christ" at the Beginning of the Genealogy Implies that this is intended to be a Complete Genealogy.

7) Jesus' complete Genealogy isn't listed anywhere else so why abbreviate?

Here are a few General problems:

Father Brown confesses to us that Catholicism retarded Critical Christian Bible scholarship until relatively recent times. Ironically, for purposes of the Genealogy analysis here, Jean Steinmann's La Vie de Jesus (1959) was the last book placed on the Roman Catholic Index of Forbidden Books. Most people don't realize that Christian consent to Critical Bible scholarship is a relatively recent phenomenon. Until 1955 the official Catholic position was that Greek "Matthew" was written by the Disciple Matthew and identical in substance to Hebrew or Aramaic "Matthew".

The official Catholic ban of Critical Bible scholarship helps explain why German Bible scholarship dominated Critical analysis in the late 19th and pre-Nazi 20th century as Germany was the large, majority Protestant, European country. When we get to the Birth Narratives we'll see that the outstanding scholarly book in the area is Helmut Brunner's pre-Nazi Die Geburt Des Gottkoenigs.

In the course of Pro and Con Arguments the history of an Argument will sometimes be noted as related to its weight. If an Argument is new it may be argued that its weight is reduced because of a lack of history. Due to Christianity's offical prevention, or at least discouragment of Critical Bible scholarship for most of it's history we need to keep in mind that weight in this area is One Way. Modern Arguments against Errancy do need to be evaluated for Discount if they lack or have little History. On the other hand, Modern Arguments for Errancy generally do not need to be discounted due to lack of History as for most of its History Christianity successfully prevented/discouraged them.

We have a lack of supposed X-Hand/Foot Witness Testimony for Genealogies compared to main narrative describing people who knew Jesus Christ once he was Jesus Christ. "From Moses unto Moses there Arose None unto Moses. From Jesus unto Christ, there arose none."

We have a lack of coordination between the Remarkable claimed circumstances of The Genealogy/Infancy and the Un-remarkable description of Jesus' origin/origins in the rest of The Gospel.

"Jesus Christ" as a name is only used by "Matthew" in the Genealogy/Infancy. Using "Jesus Christ" as a name is generally thought of as a Later development in Christianity. So its use in the Genealogy suggests that the Genealogy is from a later Christianity than the rest of the Gospel.

JW:
Christ Weimer said he didn't see the word in Heb. 11:12 and I can practically guarantee you that Chris knows Greek. Are you going to Ignore his claim? I know what you're thinking, you're not sure. Your Lexicon shows it there but you can see it's not the exact same word. Why is that Lee? Don't you think you should know before you claim it as an example? Are you an Apologist Lee? Do you start with the Assumption that there is no error and just use the best defense you can find as support? Have you ever acknowledged any error?



Joseph

"I'm going to rip you a New Testament" - JoeWallack

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

Chris Weimer

Your'e going to get in trouble arguing from authority, Joe. I never said that word wasn't there. It is there. I doubted his interpretation, but upon further examination it appears to be a valid interpretation. Oi vey, Joe, when are you going to learn Greek?

Anyway, it says that "they" were begat by one. It doesn't definitely say that everyone was begat by one, but its not a stretch to see it that way.

Mea culpa,

Chris

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

I agree they were fallible! And not omniscient, so they might accept a wrong account. But I'm mainly just arguing for their integrity here, which it seems was in question. Not to mention access to sources we don't have access to, though I agree we need to sift what they said. Baby and bath water, you know...

Well, this actually fits with my view, for "Q" means that Matthew didn't just copy Mark, which is all I need to make my case that at least some of Matthew may well be based on material earlier than Mark, and thus Matthew did not simply copy from Mark.

Unless the word he used can skip generations, which indeed, it can.

Do you mean never not used? But I think this is moving the goalposts:

"This word always indicates direct descent."

"Here is a counter-example."

"This word always indicates direct descent in a linear, immediate geneaology."

Well, if you restrict it enough "Never not used in Matthew 1-8 in linear, immediate geneaologies," you will certainly make your point.

I agree (and agreed) that it means all, and then ask: all the significant generations?

Well, again we move the goalposts, first the claim was that they claim no skipped generations, now the claim is that none claim skipped generations. But in any case, an absence of a claim does not prove they meant the opposite.

Um, you need to reply to my last answer to this point you made here.

Actually, I don't know, I can't tell you every purpose these writers may have had. The other paragraphs that you wrote after this, I am not sure what you were meaning, by and large.

No, but I do state that the words indeed are the same word, my Bible program found this other verse for me, I double-checked then, and the words are actually the same. Sorry, but they are, like "riding" and "rode," they are two forms of the same word.

Regards,
Lee

JoeWallack

JW:
Uh no Chris, here's the conversation:

JW:
I took your response to mean the root is there but not the exact same word:

"Christ Weimer said he didn't see the word in Heb. 11:12 and I can practically guarantee you that Chris knows Greek. Are you going to Ignore his claim? I know what you're thinking, you're not sure. Your Lexicon shows it there but you can see it's not the exact same word. Why is that Lee? Don't you think you should know before you claim it as an example? Are you an Apologist Lee? Do you start with the Assumption that there is no error and just use the best defense you can find as support? Have you ever acknowledged any error?"

Which was a reasonable understanding. Not to mention the root is there but not the exact same word. I have nothing to apologize for here. Lee didn't know that the words were not exactly the same.

If I Am indulging someone who is obviously a Truth-Challenged Advocate for whatshisface, why shouldn't I have some fun with him as my price? I mean look at his response:

"No, but I do state that the words indeed are the same word, my Bible program found this other verse for me, I double-checked then, and the words are actually the same. Sorry, but they are, like "riding" and "rode," they are two forms of the same word."

He still doesn't know what the difference in the words is after a difference was pointed out to him. You don't find that amusing? Just for all this I Am not going to call you Christ anymore.



Joseph