Doug Shaver

Because their holy book says it was a star, that's why.

Steven Carr

BLOMBERG
Blomberg acknowledged that there are numerous points at which the gospels appear to disagree...

"Ironically," I pointed out, "if the gospels had been identical to each other, word for word, this would have raised charges that the authors had conspired among themselves to coordinate their stories in advance, and that would have cast doubt on them."
"That's right," Blomberg agreed. "If the gospels were too consistent, that in itself would invalidate them as independent witnesses. People would then say we really only have one testimony that everybody else is just parroting.

CARR

Mark 14
Many testified falsely against him, but their statements did not agree.

57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple made with human hands and in three days will build another, not made with hands.’” 59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree.

Yes, the Bible really does trash the apologist's own arguments.

Out of one corner of their mouth , apologists say Christian testimony must be valid because it does not agree.

And out of the other corner of their mouth, apologists say we can be certain these witnesses were false because their testimony did not agree.

Diogenes the Cynic

Another huge flaw with that argument is that we already know that Matthew and Luke copied Mark and Q, and that it's exactly where they don't have a shared source that they diverge wildly. In the Appearance narratives, for instance, after they lose Mark as a guideline, the rest of the Gospels each go off into totally different tangents. It isn't just different versions of the same basic story, they tell utterly different stories.

Are there any serious NT scholars that still deny literary dependency in the Gospels anyway?

sotto voce

We know so very much.

Historical errors in the New Testament?

aa5874

If the Jesus stories were IDENTICAL then only ONE would be needed in the Canon and perhaps could be called "The Memoirs of the Apostles".

Diogenes the Cynic

I linked to a detailed piece I wrote about it. Just to name a few off the top of my head - nobody had to go back to ancestral homes to register for a census, there was no slaughter of innocents by Herod, and Augustus never issued a census of the world.

Sarpedon

Roman soldiers were given the death penalty for falling asleep on duty; yet bible says caiaphas bribed the guards to say they had fallen asleep on duty.

Bible says all the world was covered in darkness when jesus died. No one else noted this.

Bible says 500 prophets rose from their graves and 'appeared to many' when jesus died. No one else noted this.

And of course, no one but the magi saw the supposed 'star.'

sotto voce

At least those are on topic.

aa5874

We don't know that the author of Matthew and Luke copied "Q". We have no actual document that is called "Q".

Why do people persist in making claims that cannot be show to be true? We don't know of any actual "Q" document.

The fact that gLuke and gMatthew have commonly material may have derived by gLuke copying the parts gMatthew that were INVENTED by the author himself.

If gMark is NOT an historical account then someone must have INVENTED stories about Jesus.

sotto voce

What should the soldiers have told their superiors?

They knew that they had better chance with the backing of the Sanhedrin than without, even before a bribe was offered. Bribery (or threat) of Pilate was a real possibility, also. Herod would certainly have put pressure on Pilate to keep the thing under wraps.

The word used could mean that darkness covered as far as could be seen from Jerusalem.

No-one else made a record that survived.

Many people could have seen it. But as it was plainly a supernatural phenomenon for the use of magi, it did not matter if no others saw it.