judge

As I pointed out sevearl other verses indicate Judas was alive after the resurrection.
If Judas died in Mathew 27 then this is not possible. Obviously ...sigh....hanging is meant to be taken figuratively...sigh...

Tod

Where are these "several verses"? You have cited the verse in Acts that is in question, and the link you provided cited one other verse from I Corinthians. The verse in Acts is inadmissible because it is the verse in question that contradicts the verse in Matthew. The verse in I Corinthians says absolutely nothing about Judas, and neither verse can be considered evidence Judas is alive unless you presuppose inerrancy. Assuming inerrancy to prove inerrancy would be begging the question.

So by all means provide these "several verses" that I have apparently missed.

judge

Luke 24:33 Jesus appears to the eleven


John 20:24 Thomas is not present


Therefore Judas is there

Tod

Okay... Judas "the traitor" has BETRAYED Jesus just a few days earlier and you expect a reasonable person to accept that he is still hanging around the apostles who were so enraged when the betrayal actually occurred that one of them cut off a man's ear? Especially since, according to the author of Acts, who might be the same author as the author of Luke, Judas took the blood money and spent it!

He betrays Jesus, keeps the money he was paid for doing so, and you think he's hanging out with the crew a few days later! Not to mention that Act's account of Judas keeping the money contradicts Matthews claim that he "took the thirty silver pieces back to the chief priests and elders...[flung] down the silver pieces in the sanctuary...made off, and went and hanged himself...[while]...the chief priests picked up the silver pieces and...bought the potter's field as a graveyard for foreigners." (Matt. 27:3-7).

It seems reasonable to assume that the person missing in Lukes account is Judas! John, on the other hand, doesn't say there are eleven disciples, only that Thomas is missing. So there is no support from John that either Judas was there OR that there were eleven present in the absence of Thomas. So John is of no hope there.

Taking what John DOES say, only that Thomas is missing, will not support your above conclusion unless you assume harmony between the accounts, which is what is at issue! You can't assume what you are trying to prove, i.e. assume harmony to prove harmony. You are taking what Luke says, that there were only eleven present, and what John says, that Thomas was missing, and saying one supports the other ONLY because otherwise we'd have a contradiction.

Why, I wonder, if you are not an inerranist as you claim, do you find it unlikely that John and Luke simply aren't reporting the same tradition or don't have the same facts? Why can't it simply be that Luke was referring to the absence of Judas, wasn't aware of any tradition that Thomas was missing and John was reporting the absence of Thomas because it was relevant and assuming the absence of Judas was obvious?

It seems unlikely to think that Luke knew about the story of Thomas' role and didn't record it! Luke makes no mention of Thomas' doubt or that any non-traitorous disciple wasn't present. If one of the faithful disciples wasn't present, it would seem very relevant to the story to mention this and explain it. Judas' absence would need no explanation, because any rational person reading the story would know why Judas wasn't present.

I'm sure you may claim the disciples simply forgave him, but there is no evidence of this, and such a great display as forgiving the betraying disciple who literally turned over their teacher to a torturous death would be highly noteworthy since it would display the greatest forgiveness of all, to the person who is among the most infamous in Western tradition and whose name is synonymous with betrayal! Making note of such a powerful example of Jesus' ideas of forgiveness would be something you'd think no gospel author would leave out, if it happened.

To claim they simply forgave him and were all hanging out like Judas hadn't just done what he done would be, I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you, special pleading.

Considering you claim you aren't an inerranist, what would you consider an example of a Bible contradition?

judge

It could be they reporting the same tradition, it matters little in the scheme of things really.

However I believe that the the Aramaic copies of the NT that have come down to us through the Assyrian Church of the East did in fact come from..."the hands of the blessed apostles themselves".

It seems quite parsimoniuos to myself that the people who witnessed these events (or were very near to those who had) simply wrote down what had happened.
None of them records all the details and so a times things which are not contradictions can be made to appear so.

The Eastern peshitta new testament is unedited (word for word the same) and so does not contain complicatins that arise in the old testamant due to editing.
One can find many contradictions in the OT. Different versions have different stories at times.

The story of David and Goliath is agood example. The version in our english translations taken from the massoretic hebrew text is a combination of two varying accounts, one of which survives in the LXX.

At some time someone mixed the two stories together and the result is what we have today.

judge

There are two lots of money involved here. One lot is the money that Judas stole whilst treasurer. This is mentioned in Johns gospel (I think).

The second lot of money is the 30 pieces of silver.

There are two different fields as well, which are denoted by two different word for field. The quote regarding this comes of course from zechariah. For some reason the greek translator added Jeremiah but this does not occur in the aramaic

There is no reason to assume either one field or one lot of money. when we examine the details is seems that there were two of each.

Abel Stable

To make this claim, you need to rely on the fact that all the gospels agree with each other, and (despite differing details) tell the same story. Although Tod already gave some examples of their disagreements, here are just a few more:

In Luke, Jesus ascends to Heaven on the first day, immediately after the discovery of the empty tomb and the appearance to the disciples at the room in Jerusalem.
In John, Jesus remains on the earth for about a week before making the appearance. Also, no ascension to Heaven is mentioned....although the convenient qualifier: "many other signs that are not written" is included.

Luke concludes (same day) in Bethany, which lies close to Jerusalem.
John concludes in an epilogue, an indefinite period of time after the appearance, at the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee (about 70 miles away). Seven disciples are present.

Also, the only other gospel to end in Galilee is Matthew. Eleven of the disciples meet Jesus not long after Mary discovered the empty tomb (if not the same day, then ASAP), and it is definitely the first time they see him...the scene of the room in Jerusalem (and the events leading up to it) having never happened.


Of course, these are only useful arguments against an inerranist. Rational BAC, for instance, is probably chuckling or something.

Tod

[QUOTE]Originally posted by judge
There are two lots of money involved here. One lot is the money that Judas stole whilst treasurer. This is mentioned in Johns gospel (I think).

The second lot of money is the 30 pieces of silver.

Not according to the author of Acts, who says Peter said: "As you know, he bought a plot of land with the money he was paid for his crime" Acts 1:18

So in the Acts account the money is the blood money. Matthew also makes it clear that the money being thrown down is the blood money. It says he took the money "back" to the priest.

Furthermore, you are making a baseless assertion. Nowhere does it say or even imply in either case that the money thrown back at the priest or the money used to buy the field in Acts is money Judas stole while the treasurer. It doesn't say that anywhere in the entire New Testament, and as pointed out, each account separately indicate that the money spoken of in each case was the money Judas was paid for betraying Jesus.

This is turning into one big, heeping pile of stinking special pleading.

Tod

[QUOTE]Originally posted by judge
It seems quite parsimoniuos to myself that the people who witnessed these events (or were very near to those who had) simply wrote down what had happened.

Nevermind the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that these people did witness these events, or that the life of Jesus as detailed in the gospels actually occurred. Not only is there no good reason to believe that people who actually witnessed these events wrote these stories, the fact that Paul displays no real knowledge about the story of Jesus' life as portrayed in the gospel stories seems to act as good evidence that these stories were not known to Paul, whose writings predate the gospels.

Paul allegedly knew Jesus' disciples personally through the Jerusalem Church. It seems very improbable that if any of this information was from any of the disciples that Paul wouldn't be aware of it, or if he was, wouldn't say more about the life of Jesus in his epistles.

Furthermore, we know that Matthew and Luke relied heavily on the story written by the author of Mark, as almost all of Mark in its word-for-word entirety is found in both Matthew and Luke! Two people relying almost exclusively on another more bare-bones story probably didn't know Jesus personally, and probably didn't have a person close to Jesus as a reference. This would seem to indicate that the elements unique in Luke and Matthew that aren't found in Mark are results of two different traditions that Luke and Matthew draw upon to a lesser degree to elaborate the less detailed gospel of Mark.

Lastly, we aren't talking about little details here. If Luke meant us to understand that Judas was the among the eleven he list in his gospel present when Jesus visited the disciples after the resurrection you'd think he'd find it prudent to explain why Judas was among the disciples when he had betrayed Jesus! Especially since, unless the author of Luke is an idiot, and I'm willing to grant he is not, he would have to know that everybody reading his account would assume Judas was the missing disciple.

This is just an example in the context of our present discussion. What of more spectacular "details" as you so dismissively call them such as Matthew's report that when Jesus died there was an earthquake and dead people rose from their graves and wandered the streets of the city! That is hardly a "detail" that I'd think any other gospel writer would leave out, had it actually happened or were they actually aware of it occurring (and who in hell WOULDN'T have been aware of such events had they been there and had these events actually occurred?)

John claims Jesus made multiple appearances to the disciples after his death. Why on earth would the authors of Matthew, Mark, and Luke leave this out? The author of Acts claims Jesus stuck around 40 days, while no other gospel claims this, and most imply he only appeared once to the disciples. This is just a "detail" to you?


None of them records all the details and so a times things which are not contradictions can be made to appear so.

Or, maybe this assortment of anonymous authors actually did contradict themselves from time to time. That seems more parsimonious than all of special pleading and assumptions of inerrancy.

judge

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Tod

Quote:

Originally posted by judge There are two lots of money involved here. One lot is the money that Judas stole whilst treasurer. This is mentioned in Johns gospel (I think). The second lot of money is the 30 pieces of silver. Not according to the author of Acts, who says Peter said: "As you know, he bought a plot of land with the money he was paid for his crime" Acts 1:18 So in the Acts account the money is the blood money. Matthew also makes it clear that the money being thrown down is the blood money. It says he took the money "back" to the priest.

Hi Tod,
here is the verse translated direct from the aramaic. also in this site you can look at the meaning of each word in aramaic/syriac.

http://www.peshitta.com/jamesmurdock/books/acts.html

You need to explain why you think this is the "blood money" . Blood money is not mentioned in the book of acts here.
Why are you introducing it?

Why can't the money not be that which judas stole?
After all we are told in the gospels that he whilst treasurer stole money.

Why would anyone assume it was the thirty pieces of silver when elsewhere we are told that the thirty pieces of silver was returned to the priests?