robto

According to (one version of) Papias, Judas got so fat that he couldn't get out of the way when a chariot came and so was run over.

Contradictory? Not at all: Judas tries to hang himself, the rope breaks, he falls onto a Roman road, can't get out of the way, gets run over, guts all over the street.

This scenario has a lot going for it: Judas's obesity helps explain why the rope broke, and the chariot explains why he burst open (which would be impossible under most circumstances from a simple fall). But apologists don't usually propose this one. Why not? Because it's obviously forced.

Moral: a few coincidental details that seem to support a harmonization can't outweigh a basic historical improbablility.

Doug Shaver

Like apologists have a problem with that?

In The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel asks one of his sources about the healing of a blind man named Bartimaeus. In Luke's gospel, Jesus was going into Jericho when when he met Bartimaeus and healed him. In Mark's gospel, he'd already been to Jericho and was coming out of the city. Not a problem, according to Strobel's source, since Jericho had been destroyed and rebuilt a few times during its history. If Jesus was approaching the present city, he could have been leaving a place where the city used to be, or if he was leaving the present city, he could have been approaching a place where the city used to be. Therefore, on the same occasion, he was going into the city and coming out of the city, and therefore there is no contradiction.

Steven Avery

Not a good representation of what Stroebel said. since he was referring to the situation at the very time that Jesus walked to Jericho.

http://www.konig.org/wc112.htm
Then there’s the "contradiction" of Luke and Mark, in which the gospel of Luke states that Jesus was walking into Jericho when He healed the blind man Bartimaeus, while Mark says He was coming out of Jericho. McRay explained "It only appears to be a contradiction when you think in contemporary terms, in which cities are built to stay put. But that wasn't necessarily the case long ago. Jericho was in at least four different locations as much as a quarter of a mile apart in ancient times. The city was destroyed and resettled near another water supply or a new road or nearer a mountain or whatever. The point is, you can be coming out of one site where Jericho existed and be going into another one, like moving from one part of suburban Chicago to another part of suburban Chicago." Mark and Luke are both right, Jesus could have been going out of one area of Jericho and into another at the same time.

We have similar spoken analomies in geography right where I live. I often say I am going to lawng igland .... but opps, I live in Queens, which actually is on Long Island. Then I say I'm going into 'the city', and the city here is New York City, however.. Queens is in New York City. So, if my transcripts are saved for posterity, I can be accused of errancy :-)

Also discussed by Eric Lyons
http://apologeticspress.com/modules....emid=578&cat=2
Controversial Jericho

And James Patrick Holding
http://www.tektonics.org/af/bidstrup02.html

Although as a textcrit afficiodo it is not surprising to see him come up with something like "compositional requrements". Analagous to the famous catchall of the modernversion movement "scribal error".

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Steven Avery

Actually he didn't come up with it, he likes the idea ('most coherent). JPH says it comes from Rene Latourelle in The Miracles of Jesus. It would be interesting to know what it says, if it has any coherent substance :-)

Jack the Bodiless

praxeus, you have indeed demonstrated the point of the OP!

In fact, the Judas example is worse than the analogy, because it requires that one of the accounts of the death of Judas must fail to mention the actual cause of death, but merely the fate of the corpse.

You're asking us to imagine that the author wrote the equivalent of "while out driving one afternoon, Judas suddenly decomposed".

Ben C Smith

Just out of curiosity, let me ask you another question about these pericopes. According to Matthew 27.6-8 the Field of Blood (verse 8) appears to have received its name from the blood money (verse 6) that the chief priests used to purchase it (verse 7). That is, the blood in the title is that of Jesus. According to Acts 1.18-19, the Field of Blood (verse 19) appears to have received its name from the gory mess that Judas left when he burst open on the field that he himself had purchased (verse 18). That is, the blood in the title is that of Judas. Is that a contradiction in your judgment?

Thanks.

Ben.

browntoven

A Jewish viewpoint taken from Klinghoffer's "Why the Jews Rejected Jesus" p.24:

"The Pentateuch contained innumerable textual difficulties- syntax errors.....internal contradictions.....gaps of logic.....and so on. The rabbis [of Jesus' time] taught that what looked like editing glitches in almost every verse were really allusions to esoteric teachings."

I'm also curious about what explanations were used to attempt to reconcile the Judas death passages in earlier centuries.

Doug Shaver

Your quotation from Strobel's book fails to demonstrate that. It confirms what I said.

Oh, do you now? The examples you give don't prove it.

Suppose you're in a car with someone and a tire goes flat. You stop and replace it with the spare and resume your journey to whereever you were headed. Is there any circumstance in which you would tell people that the flat occurred while you were going into Queens and your companion would tell people that it occurred while you were leaving Queens -- and nobody who heard both of you would think you were contradicting each other?

Steven Avery

One major problem with your concern. Context. Luke is recording the speech that Peter made, to the disciples, who were well aware of who Judas was, including the fact of his death.

Acts 1:15-20
And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,) Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry. Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem; insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue, Aceldama, that is to say, The field of blood.For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein: and his bishoprick let another take.

Luke is recording the history of the speech, no more, no less.

Now, this also shows the bifurcation in viewing the NT text. The analyst, the logician, the source critic and such are trying to analyze, psycho-analyze and writing-analyze in all different ways Luke and the others. Why did he say this, how could he have said that, what were his motives here.

The believer tends more to look at the text itself, seeing harmonies within the gospels and between the gospels and the rest of the NT, complementarianism is the norm, and 2 Timothy 3:16 is the foundational understanding. One section can fill in a 'gap' left by another section, a small word here and there can give the clues and the big picture. He sees the book of scripture, and the book of the New Testament, as a unit.

This does not mean that the believer might not engage in the former for various discussions and purposes (although often it will be seen as simply unprofitable and unedifying).

Likewise the analyst would do well at times to step back and see the scriptures as a full unit, and, as was lacking in any case, try to remember to see not just the specific written word, but also the context.

In a sense your response to this issue demonstrates a weakness ofthe dissection methodologies of modern textual studies.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Steven Avery

Anybody who reads your quote (myself included) can get the sense that Strobel was imposing an historical anomaly upon the times. That is why I checked the quote. And saw that he was talking about something far simpler.

Don't "prove" what ? They demonstrate that geographical verbiage can have a certain nuance that might look like error to the ultra-logician yet simply represent the actual historical fact. I do say "let's go to Long Island" all the time, yet I live on Long Island. The ultra-logician could gasp in horror, yet nobody IRW would have the slightest concern that I was speaking in error.

We have another example with the Islips. normal and east and west and whatever. The term means villages, and a town, at the same time, and the villages are oddly placed. I ferget the details, but it turns out somebody could go east from Islip to West Islip, something like that. Again the ultra-logician reading that from afar might gasp in horror, while "the facts on the ground" are quite simple, albeit unusual.

That is all Strobel was saying in quoting his source. And there is a certain amount of evidence to support that view. A reasonable amount, archaeological. One studies it and decides their conclusion.

And personally I agree that it is not "proved" (whatever that means). In fact it may not be the best and only explanation. There is another possibility of the facts on the ground covered in the Eric Lyons article that is analagous to what I discovered when researching the swine-demoniacs question. A healing on the way in, lots of excitement in the town created, leading to the "great multitude" and two healings on the way out of town, However it is not at all as tight and well-supported a case as the swine texts.

You are trying to dissect too closely since the various geographical anomalies all have their own nuance. Yet the answer is essentially yes.

One might say "we were going to West Islip" the other "we were heading east from Islip".

Per your question above, one might say
"we got the flat when we were leaving the city"
(we were leaving Manhattan, the city, to Queens).
From my perch in Queens, normal language.

The other might say
"we got the flat after entering the city"
(from Kearny to Manhattan to Queeens..
we had entered New York City).
From my Kearny friends view, normal language.

Oops, it is just as "difficult" to the non-informed to understand as the scripture case, and yet a local would "get it" with no difficulty. This is actually the way we talk here. Same with the Long Island example.

Remember, these were two different authors, and their accounts could well have come from folks viewing from different parts of town.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic