DoubtingDave

Are there any major historical/geographical errors in the new testament that just cannot possibly be reconciled? I don't want an appeal to silence, but something that couldn't possibly have happened.

I need it for a debate called "The we testament is an unreliable historical document."

Toto

Google is your friend

Geographical errors in Mark with attempted rebuttal

Opposing views

Muslim take on geographic errors.

Google books - Mark by Robert Stein at p 250 has a scholarly discussion of the Gerasene - Gadarene confusion.

You will not find much in the way of comparable historical errors, because our primary source for checking the historical claims in the gospels is Josephus, who was presumably known to the gospel writers and editors. But there is one in particular noted here regarding Gamaliel's speech in Acts 5:

Toto

You will want to raise issues such as the sources for the NT - it is generally agreed that the gospels and Acts were not written until after 70 CE and are not by eyewitnesses.

There are a few primarily evangelical scholars who try to make a case for some eyewitness testimony in Acts around what are called the "we" passages, because they use the first person plural. Nonevangelical scholarship is not in favor of this, and tends to date Acts to around 110-150 CE. There has been a lot of scholarly attention to the historical value of Acts - the best short introduction is by Richard Pervo The Mystery of Acts (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Of course, for most secularists, the mere fact that the NT is largely anonymous, is written for theological purposes, and describes a variety of supernatural events count as strong evidence against its historical reliability.

Doug Shaver

That depends on who is doing the reconciling. For anything that most of us would consider an error, apologists have an answer.

Trying to win a debate with inerrantists about the factual accuracy or consistency of the NT is a fool's game.

sotto voce

Was 'the New Testament' written as a historical document? Is that name actually a proper description? The proposition for this debate may misrepresent, may mislead, and may therefore need revision if it is to have validity in an intellectually responsible context.

What is known as the NT is actually, in the minds of its authors, completion of a story that began as recorded in Genesis. It was and is not a new testament at all; it is re-statement of old perceived truth. It merely confirmed what was laid out in all essentials in Genesis, as indeed is confirmed explicitly several times in the NT text, and is implicit throughout. Whether or not those authors were correct that the narrative was complete is beside the point. One must take that view as the one they intended to convey, and that they regarded their own works as essential Scripture, part of an organic continuum, not an optional add-on.

So while there is undoubtedly historical development implied in this narrative, it is not intended to be of use for historians. History, in the sense of the passing of time, is its tool; but history, as record for its own sake, is not its purpose. So if the text indicates that author of Mark did not know where Dalmanutha was, it has no effect on the overall narrative, because that detail is not germane to the overall narrative. All it tells us is that the author of Mark did not know where Dalmanutha was.

Though it really does seem perverse and desperate to suggest that Matthew corrected Mark. Two witnesses can very easily indicate that a person has gone to the same place but use different definitions of that place.

Doug Shaver

OK, let's never mind what it was "written as." The question remains: Wherever a New Testament author claims that some event happened, do we have good reason to take the author's word for it that the event really happened?

rizdek

I'd be surprised that there would be many...if any geographical errors, given these "accounts" were written after the supposed events but not so much later that the writers would have forgotten the local geography. They would likely avoid serious errors. Plus, as manuscripts are copied/recopied, edits can easily be made to avoid grievous errors. Kind of like if someone was to give an account now (2012), of some sort of miraculous event that supposedly happened near where they live, say in the 1980s. They would probably get most of the geography right. And if they didn't, someone coming along later could correct any errors.

I'd say that aspect would be the weakest area with which to discredit the NT. Jesus' inconsistency, and some cases almost bipolar thoughts and philosophy is far more important in showing it was a cobbled ideology framed in the culture of the time by folks with differing views of how things ought to be and what god thought. But a determined apologist can account for each of these inconsistencies...they have had 2000 years in which to do it.

sotto voce

Let's mind it. If a recipe book contains a claim that a tagine dish originated in Morocco, but it subsequently turns out that it originated in Turkey, does it change the taste of the dish?

Steven Carr

Jesus flew into the sky and disappeared into a cloud on his way to Heaven.

If you fly into the sky you end up in outer space, not in Heaven.

The fetus John the Baptist leaped for joy in the womb when the fetus Jesus entered the room.

This could not have happened.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Steve,

LOL.

Yes, I wonder how far the fetus leaped before it banged its head. I wonder how many witnesses there were?

Matthew 2:1-2 is geographically amusing.

1Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, 2“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

If you're East of some place and you follow a star in the East, you're going to end up further East than when you started. Of course, the solution is that they walked East and eventually circumnavigated the Earth. Of course it took them about six years to do this. The proof of this is in the Parmigianino Code which we understand from reading the signs in his Madonna with the Long Neck.






Archaeologists have also discovered this ancient snapshop of the three wise men catching their first glimpse of the baby Christ.



Warmly,

Jay Raskin