pharoah

Scenario #1:
Some archaeologists make the the sensational discovery of a 1st century copy of Mark and it turns out to be significantly different from the version of Mark that we have today.

Scenario #2
Some 1st century Christian named "Matthew" reads Mark but disagrees with the text in several places. He decides to write his own gospel. He uses Mark as a template but makes some significant changes in the story.

Why is that Christians would probably be very upset about scenario 1 (scribal interpolations), but are so blase about scenario 2 (complete rewrite). What's the difference? :huh:

Gregg

Most Christians don't dig that deep. They just tell themselves that the gospels are like witnesses to an auto accident telling different versions of what happened, or that the different gospel writers saw and heard mostly the same things, but also witnessed things the others did not witness, so that explains the seeming "discrepancies" and "contradictions." It doesn't matter that that's not the way it really is, it's just a simple, easy explanation that's good enough for people who want to believe.