judge

Perhaps it only seems arbitrary to us 2000 years later. Is there any evidcne at all that any individual ever "hung themselves" in the first century in the middle east?

Did people commit suicide this way?

Chris Weimer

Judge, you repeated the exact same thing I said yesterday. :banghead: This doesn't have anything to do with Aramaic.

judge

Eusebius.Book V,
chapter 10 concerning an Egyptian father named
Pantaenus who lived in the 2nd century:

Seems that the idea that matthew was written in greek is a very recent one.
It is a "fundy" idea adopted by infidels.

Toto

Interesting. In ancient Greece, hanging was a woman's way out - Jocasta and Helen are reputed to have committed suicide by hanging, and there are other women in myth and story who allegedly commit suicide by hanging themselves.

I don't know if Jewish culture would be different. In Judaism, hanging from a tree would indicate some curse. (This would argue for the suicide being a literary construct, to show that Judas was cursed.)

Suicide in ancient Greece

judge

No doubt about it I get the best info from infidels :devil3: .....

I have asked this before on other forums and no one seemed to know.

Thanks toto.

Family Man

Gee, are you a Matthean scholar? Do we need to display our credentials before making replies to you?

A patriarachal society doesn't preclude positive mention of women -- in fact, many scholars think that Matthew's gospels was designed to appeal to women. It was a marketing tool, more or less, and as such not relevant to the discussion.

Nevertheless, there is no good evidence to suggest that Matthew's genealogy is Mary's any more Luke's is (which is the standard apologetic). The plain reading of the text indicates that it is Joseph's line. The fact is that every other genealogy in the Bible is through the male line, and in fact Matthew's genealogy is entirely through the male line (the women mentioned are presented as wives, not as the line through which Jesus descended from David, and are again irrelevant.) And, in order to make your case, you have to presume that somewhere God allowed someone to mistranslate a word, thus making me wonder what else is screwed up in the Bible.

In short, on the mere possibility that a word was mistranslated, you're presuming that Matthew's line is Mary's while ignoring both the cultural context and the much larger probability that the authors had the word exactly right. I'll repeat a question I asked earlier: where else, outside of religion, would such claims be considered respectable? I submit there are none, which is why such apologetics aren't credible.

And you don't need to be a Matthean scholar to see that.

Chris Weimer

Yes, and Eusebius was living at the time of the writing, correct? And he always told the truth, no? Laughable judge, you take a late third century early fourth century proponent of the "Noble Lie" and quote him for fact about a document that was written at the end of the first century? :down:

Asha'man

That custom didn't exist in the 1st Century. It was created later, after the destruction of the Temple and a migration to other lands.

Chris Weimer

No but you need to have some idea of what you're talking about. You seem to have none.

Um, use a bit of logic here. Matthew's gospel designed to appeal to women...possible geneology that points to being Mary's...hrm... :banghead:

You are very mistaken friend. I don't claim that the Bible is infallible, and yes, if you would have taken a minute to read through my posts would have realized that much is "screwed up" in the Bible. The Bible is not a homogenous work nor is it free from the hands of men. A quick study in textual history reveals that many many MANY people have altered the Bible, why not here?

How am I ignoring the cultural context? Let me repeat myself lest you continue ignoring what I wrote.

Diogenes the Cynic

Thinking well of women is an entirely different kettle of fish than declaring - against all of Jewish tradition and law - that royal bloodlines could be traced matrilinearly. By law, the Messiah (i.e the heir to the throne of David) had to a be a direct male descendant of David through the father. The mother's bloodline was irrelevant and not even tracked. This was not a trivial detail. If Jews agreed on nothing else about the Messiah, they agreed that he was the legal heir of David.

There is no reason whatsoever to believe that Matthew contains a mistranslation other than to reconcile it with Luke. A plain reading shows a genealogy for Joseph. All historical, cultural and legal context supports that reading. It would make no sense at all for Matthew to trace a bloodline as a proof for Messiahship if that bloodline had no legal or cultural legitimacy.

Matthew was the most Jewish of the Gospel writers in that he made the most effort to appeal to a Jewish audience. It is not conceivable that he would not have been aware of Jewish laws of succession and the text simply does not support a hypothesis of mistranslation.