Diogenes the Cynic

Fair enough. I could search to see if Robbins has responded to these kinds of critiques but it's not a hill I'm ready to die on. I am willing to concede that Robbins has not proven his case and defer to the alternative commentary made by Toto above.

Diogenes the Cynic

2 is being workshopped as we speak. I hope to finish it sometime tonight.

Roland

Here are two right off the top of my head:

Luke says eleven disciples were present when Jesus appeared to them in the room after his resurrection, while John says Thomas was absent.

In Matthew, an angel informs Mary Magdalene that Jesus has risen, while in John, she tells the disciples that she and the other women fear Jesus' body has been stolen.

Jon Promnitz

Hey PhilVaz,

If you're working on a site and want a list of contradictions to answer, you might want to check out "Is it God's Word," by Joseph Wheless. Chapter 13 attacks the prophecies that the four gospel writers used to make a case for Jesus; similiar to Thomas Paine's Examination of Prophecies. Chapters 14 and 15 outline probably every contradiction concerning Jesus' birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. I suggest you start from here.

Is it God's Word
http://members.cox.net/galatians/chapters.htm
http://www.infidels.org/library/hist...rd/index.shtml

Iasion

Greetings Diogenes,

Great work :-)

Would it be ok to post a copy of this in some other fora?
With proper attribution to you of course.

Iasion

Diogenes the Cynic

Be my guest. It's still a work in progress, though and I'm taking the criticisms and questions here to heart. I'd really like to hone everything some more so that it's as air tight as I can make it so some things might change.

Amaleq13

I was recalling a much older thread where this subject came up and someone offered what I considered to be a sufficiently compelling argument that I was incorrect to make the assumption that Papias meant a collection of sayings. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the thread with the search engine.

It was somebody who really seemed to know their Greek....

I think it went beyond the references RGD has offered but the bottom line was that you could not assume that Papias meant only a collection of sayings with no narrative.

All I really recall was being convinced that my then-held assumption was in error.

Amaleq13

He doesn't do it in the linked article. Is this from the JesusMysteries forum?

Randomly?

Toto

No - from memory his article does include at least one sea voyage account with a shift from third person to first person plural, which his critics tried to explain away.

Robbins elected not to respond to his critics after some postings on CrossTalk. He is a practicing Christian and did not understand why his article became such a focus of controversy, and did not welcome the controversy. His faith is not based on purported eyewitness accounts, and his professional standing is not based on that article.

I have not looked at the issue in a while, but after I read Robbins' original article and the CrossTalk controvery, I felt that the people who cite his article for the simple proposition that "Robbins has shown this is a literary convention" were misrepresenting him, but that most of the critics who tried to "disprove" his thesis were misrepresenting him even more, and sometimes had an edge of visciousness about them. I can understand why he would want to find something better to do with his career than defend an article he wrote a quarter of a century ago.

Robbins critics had no particular theory for why a narrative would shift from third person to first person plural with no explanation and no literary reason. They generally failed to show that their "eyewitness" explanation of the we passages was a better explanation than the "literary device" explanation, or even that it was a very good explanation.

PhilVaz

Roland << Luke says eleven disciples were present when Jesus appeared to them in the room after his resurrection, while John says Thomas was absent. >>

Luke says 11, John says 11 (12 - Thomas = 11). Don't see the contradiction here.

Luke: When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. AND.... There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.�

John: Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.

Of course the "doubting Thomas" account is only found in John. I don't read this chronologically, the Gospels portray Jesus making several appearances, sometimes to 11 (without Thomas), sometimes to 12 (with Thomas), and to others.

Also the claim that the Gospels don't speak of eyewitnesses is false.

Luke: Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

Acts: In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.

Now I don't read Greek so you can tell me whether Luke (or the author of the Gospel of Luke) means eyewitnesses or not (cf. 2 Peter 1:16). And I'm not saying there can't be contradictions, and I'm not prepared to present a full defense of the historicity (which I do accept based on tradition), but I'm sure if I re-read Blomberg, Bruce, R.T. France, Raymond Brown, etc I'll get some good ideas for a rebuttal.

Roland << In Matthew, an angel informs Mary Magdalene that Jesus has risen, while in John, she tells the disciples that she and the other women fear Jesus' body has been stolen. >>

Luke: They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them....

John: Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!� ....Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot. They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?� “They have taken my Lord away,� she said, “and I don't know where they have put him.� etc.....

I don't see the contradiction. They (Mary Magdalene, and others) went to the tomb, saw the body wasn't there, and they (according to Luke) "wondered about this" or they (according to John) thought the body was taken away. Then they had it explained to them that Jesus had risen.

The Gospels as Historical Sources by R.T. France

Apparent Chronological Contradictions

Are the New Testament Documents Reliable? by F.F. Bruce, see chapter 4 on the Gospels online

And St. Augustine of Hippo long ago attempted a Harmony of the Gospels

I'll check out those other articles, a lot of contradictions to deal with there.

Phil P