aChristian

It does not say his death was accidental anywhere. When you take both accounts from the time, it is obvious that it was not.
You may think it deserves an explicit mention (by more than one author), but apparently God didn't. Your judgement that it should be part of the Acts story is a poor reason to reject a historical account from the time in question.
However, we don't have any accounts from the time to suggest this happened so I don't believe that it did. We do have a historical account from the time about Judas' suicide.

Doug Shaver

How do you distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable conclusions? Is it possible, in your opinion, for a scholar to reach a reasonable conclusion that you disagree with?

And how do they show you that? What do you look for as evidence that a scholar is knowledgeable in his or her field? And do you believe that within any field, all knowledgeable scholars much reach similar conclusions to similar questions? That is, do you think it possible for knowledgeable people to have profound disagreements about important questions within their field of expertise?

Doug Shaver

Well, yes, if we assume inerrancy, then we may infer that God did not think it deserved explicit mention by both authors.

However, inerrancy presupposes that the documents convey God's thinking. You are therefore arguing in a circle.

Do you think we are being unreasonable if we do not presuppose that the documents convey God's thinking?

James Brown

Again, as I explained to sschlicter, to consider both accounts is to cheat. There was a period of time when Matthew and Acts were not conveniently bound together in a volume with little footnotes referencing each other at the bottom of the page. Luke (or whoever wrote Acts) does not appear to have an open copy of Matthew in his lap while writing Acts. If both accounts cannot be accepted individually, then forcing them together doesn't help you.

As it is, you are stuck either way. When both accounts are read individually, Acts shows no hint that Judas felt remorse or committed suicide, which contradicts Matthew. When read combined, the contradiction that both the chief priests and Judas purchased the same land with the same money is evident. Choose whichever method you want; you've still got a contradiction.

This is circular logic. You are arguing that God wrote the Bible because it contains no contradictions, and that there are no contradictions because God wrote the Bible.

Yes. That account shows Judas to be remorseful, to have given back the money, to have committed suicide by hanging, and the chief priests buying land with the money.

Which contradicts the other account that shows no hint of remorse, that Judas kept the money for himself, that he used the money to buy land, and that he accidentally fell and disemboweled himself.

sschlichter

well, I do not have any reason to think you were talking about me, however, I expect that you were being pretty inclusive.

maybe it is better if you keep the scores to yourself and you can let me know at the end how I did. I trust you. I am sure you will be objective.

~Steve

sschlichter

It certainly is not. You have to consider both accounts to look for a contradiction. One says he hanged, the other says he swelled up and burst open (or fell headlong if you prefer).

Lincoln was shot in the head and then Lincoln died in a bed after being in a coma for 6 hours. It is the exact same thing as Judas. The only difference is you have the missing details in the case of Lincoln and you do not in the case of Judas.

Pretend you know nothing about Lincoln's death and explain to me why these two accounts do not contradict.

James Brown

Wow are we ever going in circles. I'll say to you what I said to aChristian:

Plus, as per your Lincoln example, what would the author who wrote that Lincoln died after being in a coma say when asked what caused the coma? "Read the other guy's account to find out how he was shot in the head." Of course, the author of Acts didn't have that luxury.

"Hey, what caused Judas to swell up and burst?"

"Well, gosh, if you don't know I'm certainly not going to tell you. Wait a couple of hundred of years for something called the Council of Nicea to combine the two accounts together. Then all of your questions will be answered."

On the other hand, if we insist that the two methods of Judas' death merely complete each other and that if 21st-century Christians can combine them together to make a whole then 1st-century Christians would have had the means to do so as well, then you still have the glaring contradiction that two different people cannot buy the same piece of land with the same money. Or you have to explain with satisfaction why Judas, being so full of remorse that all he can think to do is commit suicide, why would the first thing--the very first thing--that he does is find a piece of land for sale and purchase it? A real estate transaction is complicated, even in 1st-century Palestine. Was his moral code so high that he couldn't possibly kill himself anywhere unless he owned a free and clear title?

Wedge

A biographer who said that Lincoln was shot and died could be criticised for not giving enough detail, but he may not be concentrating on the gory details--for example, in a textbook for children. His account includes the important information--that Lincoln was murdered.

A biographer who simply stated that Lincoln died after being in a coma would be factually accurate but completely misleading. Any critic would be justified in responding to such an account with total bewilderment at the biographer's selection of detail. It's factual accuracy is beside the point--it entirely misrepresents the situation.

If you can't see the difference between the two, I guess I understand why you can't see the problem with the two accounts of Judas' death.

aChristian

Matthew and Acts may have been bound (or tied) together as early as 65 AD and given the way the scriptures were copied by and passed around by the church, Matthew (possibly written as early as 35AD)was probably available to Luke and others all over the empire. At least the history of Judas' death was probably known all over the place from the oral accounts of the many early disciples. So your premise that Luke knew nothing about the details that Matthew mentions in reference to Judas' death is extremely doubtful. Both accounts can be accepted individually and if you were living in the first century and attended church or were familiar with the events otherwise, you would see no contradiction between the two accounts but would easily realize how they fit together, just as sschlicter pointed out with 911 and Lincoln.


Again, Acts not mentioning Judas' suicide is not equivalent to his saying he did not commit suicide, which is what you need to demonstrate in order to show a contradiction with Matthew. Until you come up with a statement from Acts that says, 'Judas did not commit suicide', you have no contradiction no matter how hard you look for it.
No, both you and Doug Shaver miss the point here. I could have left out the parenthetical statement (which is in fact true) and the point would still be the same. That point is that just because you believe that an account should include some detail has no bearing on its historicity. We have good reasons to believe it was written by an eyewitness of the event and just because he doesn't put in what you want to see in the account doesn't change that one iota. It is a historic eyewitness account whether you like the way the story is told or not. A second point as I mentioned above is that the story was probably well known from all the early disciples, in addition to Matthew's account and maybe Mark's account, and so when Luke referred to it he may have thought that it was redundant to mention details that everyone knew or could find out about easily from others if they had a question.
No, it does not contradict the other account. The other account does not say he had no remorse. It does not say he didn't throw the money into the temple. It does not say that he didn't acquire the the rights to the land after his death by means of the priests finding a way to dispose of his blood money. It does not say that he did not accidentally fall (in the process of hanging himself) and disembowl himself. It does not contradict Matthew's account in any of these events that you mention.

jab

An interesting defense has developed by Chrisitans on this site: God was a bad writer/ inspirerer/ editor/ author of the Bible, but He was inerrant as to factual content--there are (it is alleged) no contradictions if you wrack your brains hard enough to reconcile different narratives of an overall unitary work.
A work that was created by a great author/ editor who was striving to be clear would not cause readers to wrack their brains over apparent narrative inconsistencies. I can understand abstruse doctrines about the meaning of it all being hard to grasp--but simple narrative consistency?-->nah, that shouldn't be a problem. As several of us on this thread have shown, a few simple changes in narrative portions of the scriptures would have made the narratives of the Resurrecution (and of Judas' death) clearly jibe in the way that Christian apologists say they do if you make enough allowances and imaginative additions. In other words, we atheists on this thread are better editors of narrative than your "ominipotent" God.