aChristian

Someone asked about sschlicter's 911 example. Here it is again.

aChristian

[QUOTE=jab;5494078]No, just because he doesn't answer every dumb little question that you have doesn't mean the story is written poorly. If the details you are asking about now had been included, you would look for some other detail that isn't mentioned and claim a contradiction because your new pet detail wasn't mentioned.

thentian

So the gospels were news articles written in the few frantic hours after the events happened?

aChristian

No. You are missing the point that all of these articles were true and you can easily put them together because you know the details that aren't mentioned, just as first century readers could do with the gospels.

thentian

What an idyllic picture that presents. All the christian congregations around the mediteranean; in Jerusalem as well as Antioch, Nicaea, Smyrna, Ephesus, Rome, Alexandria and all the other towns and places, each with their own collection of gospel-scrolls and copies of the letters of Paul and the apostles in addition to their no doubt complete collections of Old Testament books, not to mention all the not-so-canonic scriptures, like the Didache and Barnabas. Some of them even had heretic scriptures like the Gospels of Peter and Thomas! The rumors about the early christians being poor illiterate people must have been greatly exaggerated! :Cheeky:

However, you are missing the point of what I wrote; Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were not shocked reporters writing their stories as they unfolded. They had ample time to gather facts and talk to people. What possible reason could they have to not report everything they knew? Were they writing the way Donald Duck's nephews talk; In turns? Did God say to Mark "No need for you to bother with this detail. I'll tell Luke to mention it when he starts to write his gospel in a few years."

sschlichter

I am glad you were not consulted then on the writing of the gospels. matters of importance would be lost in the thousands of pages of technical manuals on who ate what, who said what, and who went to the bathroom when.

~steve

sschlichter

wow, you make false assumptions about modern day writings as well. none of these were frantically written right after the event. the story of the 20th hijacker is long after.

sschlichter

so the audience ( children) matters and changes what you would expect him to write. what level of detail would you expect on Lincolns biographer to supply on his doctors death. after all none of the gospel authors are judas biographer.

~steve

sschlichter

Wedge brings up a good point. A biographer of a childrens book would omit gory details. Wedge seems to be saying that the audience needs to be taken into account when interpretting a narrative.

Matthew was written to a Jewish audience. What was the attitude toward suicide of a first century Jew?

Luke was a greek writing to greeks (at least one greek). What was the greek attitude toward suicide?

I expect that the difference in these two attitudes may shed some light on the details of the account that were shared in each case. I.e. Jews found suicide a disgraceful end while greeks would not have associated a stigma with it - swelling up and bursting might have been a better way to convey to this group the disgraceful end that Judas had chosen for himself.

Why would you forgive a biographer of Lincoln the omitting of facts based on his audience but afford no such luxury to the gospel authors?

You are stating yourself that an omission of a fact does not constitue an error.

~Steve

aa5874

This is erroneous and mis-leading information.

You don't know who wrote gMatthew, when it was written, the original language in which it was written, when it was first circulated and when Jews first saw the gMatthew.

Philo and Josephus made no mention of any author named Matthew who wrote anything for the Jewish audience and Justin Martyr never recorded that some-one called Matthew wrote a gospel.