JEST2ASK

My orginal question caused me to think (once I got over the surprise of the novelty ... I returned to post a follow - up) .... If Craig admits that G-Matthew may have added something in response to what ctitics were saying does that not mean G-Matthew was embellishing the "Truth" and not bound stickly by the guiding of the "Holy Spirit" so what other liberties might he have taken :huh:

Theophage

It would indeed be nice for an admission like that, but I think it would probably go more like this: "The guards were really there, but were simply a detail that would normally be left out. Matthew chose to include that detail specifically because it seemed that by referring to it, it would answer some of the critics..."

You can rationalize anything.

Doug Shaver

Craig is slick. I don't know what he tells his acolytes when no skeptics are within earshot, but for public consumption he carefully avoids any appeals to divine inspiration. His argument is that even without assuming inerrancy, a cogent argument exists for considering the gospel stories reliabile enough to establish Jesus' physical resurrection as a historical fact.

His point here is that even if Matthew was mistaken about a guard having actually been posted, his inclusion of the story is itself evidence that Christianity's opponents early on were having to make up lies to explain why the tomb was found empty.

Of course he is still begging the question, since we have only Matthew's word for it that anybody was telling any lies. But that is Craig's main problem. It's not that his arguments are inconsistent, but that they're all circular. He says we don't have to assume inerrancy, but at the end of the day he invariably does.