Gamera

Well that's simple. The Hebrew scriptures and the gospels take the form of narratives. And narratives have meanings. Period. It's the fundamental way in fact that humans understand their lifes, through narrative.

Now whether a date is wrong in a narrative has no impact on the meaning of a narrative. Shakespeare got his dates all mixed up. Who cares? The plays have meaning. Herodotus (who 'invented" the narrative form of historiography) tells a narrative about Greeks and their various wars. He gets the numbers wrong. Who cares? He has a point to make and he makes it.

The fact that there are contradictions in Jesus's teaching or the Hebrew narratives doesn't efface all meaning. Indeed every text is contradictory, as poststructuralists have been at pains to show. I think your assumption is that texts must be harmonious to have meaning, and if that were the case, no text would mean anything.

spamandham

I neither stated, nor implied anything about incorrect dates.

It does when the central message of one narrative is in complete contradiction to the central message of another narrative. The only reasonably consistent theme throughout the Bible is "mindlessly obey authority, or else!". Other than that, it's a hodgepodge of crap.

I've read it in entirety several times, and studied it for years before I finally admitted this blatantly obvious conclusion to myself. It's going to take a hell of a lot more than hand waving or speculative apologetic nonsense to overcome that.

DCHindley

Yes, there are some exceptions to this rule (didn't I say 'virtually' or something?).

In my analysis, the letters of Paul (or whoever the original author was) were "tweaked" to make them "Christian".

So, if the original letter said "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord" (Caris umin kai eirhnh apo qeou patros hmwn kai kuriou, which would be a reference to God as "our" father and lord) the editors simply add "Jesus Christ" (Ihsou Cristou) and we get our familiar "from God our Father and (the) Lord Jesus Christ". The definite article "the" before "lord" is added by English translators.

Similarly, "I know and am convinced in Lord (en kuriw, locative - "in, or by means of") that nothing is unclean in itself" becomes, by addition of one word, "I know and am convinced in (the) Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself."

There are cases where phrases that are clearly praises to God (of the Jews) are turned into praises to Jesus Christ. The editor was fanatical about his Christ (the title for his savior figure, not the Jewish messiah).

We are so used to the phraseology that we don't see what is really being said.

Dave Hindley

Steven Avery

We just had a discussion of a fascinating "earliest evidence" archaeological case.

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=198298
John 5:1-7

John 5:2
Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool,
which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches.

Awaiting some comment from alexandrian text folks as to why their "earliest and most reliable manuscripts" would not know the 1st century Israel name while the TR/Byzantine Text knows the true ancient name.

Shalom,
Steven Avery