dockeen

It is very noticible that, rather than providing a reference to the quote in question,
you try to muddy the waters by providing this list.

Toto

That quote is very different in meaning. The guiding principle is not the Bible, but a literary approach to the Bible. Goethe's opinion of the Bible is better phrased around p 205-6.

compare the fake quote:

But funny thing - if you google <"memoirs of goethe" bible> this comes up:

Memoirs of Goethe: - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ... - Google Books
books.google.com/books/about/Memoirs_of_Goethe.html?id...

Memoirs of Goethe: written by himself‎ ... Page 410 - It is a belief in the Bible, the fruits of deep meditation, which has served .... QR code for Memoirs of Goethe: ...

Which is nowhere in the text...

:constern01:

Google - what's up?

rlogan

argumentum ad movie-stardum
argumentum ad general-dum
argumentum ad poet-dum

etc.

I need playboy bunnies to move me. Give me playboy bunnies. If you got good enough pictures, I am convinced the Bible is historically accurate.

Diogenes the Cynic

Its lack of structural importance to Matthew's narrative would not have stopped people from saying "ZOMG, ZOMBIES!" and making a record of it. It's implausible, to say the least, that no one in the 50 years before Matthew wrote his Gospel would ever have thought to mention all the dead bodies crawling out of graves and descending on Jerusalem.
Actually Matthew says the saints were resurrected after Jesus. He mentions this detail while narrating the crucifixion, but he says (or more likely an interpolator says) it happened "after he was raised."
Once recorded, twice copied. No independent attestation beyond Mark.

Just as an aside, I've always wondered what is supposed to have happened to the saints after they went into Jerusalem. How long did they stay alive? Did they live out natural lives (again)? Did they crawl back into their graves? Did they turn into dust when the sun rose? Did they get shotgunned by the residents?

sotto voce

Aha. But lore was then largely transmitted orally, a factor that supposed scholarship fails to take into account in this whole period. If Luke was correct, there were twelve good men and true who acted as a self-regulating factual reservoir, challenged by Sanhedrin and Herodians, but supported by the observations of countless ordinary citizens of Palestine and of the Jewish diaspora from Spain to Persia. It mattered not when Matthew wrote. The lore was there, inviolate, even before the resurrection, and must have been recorded from the start of Jesus' ministry, and indeed before it.

One must remember that many ordinary Jews, as well as the established powers— that of the Sanhedrin, and later the Roman Empire— had no interest in preserving any record of Jesus. What was left in Judaea after the Sanhedrin and Simon ben Kosiba had persecuted Christians would have been destroyed in 136 by the Romans, who by then were also opposed to Christianity. The Romans of course had power to censor and destroy over a much greater region than Palestine. What they could not reach, Islam would have destroyed in its relentless path. Added to this was the fragility and ephemeral nature of papyrus and parchment; so what the censor's fire did not destroy would have been corrupted by the elements. There really isn't any reason to expect records of this nature.

No, he says they were resurrected at the moment that Jesus died. That was, and remains, significant, and not just for Christians. Resurrection was already recorded several times in the Scripture, and rabbis were in the habit of ascribing unusual events at the deaths of pious fellows, so Matthew's record would not have been lost on them. Of course, rabbis, whose very existence was contrary to Scripture, would not have been disposed to preserve any record of this embarrassment.

These saints appeared to people in Jerusalem after Jesus' resurrection. If those appearances were in private, to believers, as with Jesus after his resurrection, the general public would not have noticed anything. The only real problem is what they did with themselves in the interim!

That's guesswork. And a red herring. :frown:

Reported thrice. That is what is unquestionable, what is to the point, and what matters.

No doubt the sensible explanation from the New Testament perspective is that these bodies simply disappeared after their appearances, as Jesus did, but in their cases, unobserved.

Sarpedon

So, you revise the holy scripture to say that the saints arose from the dead 'privately' and appeared 'privately' to many 'believers.' OK, even if I accept this blasphemous revision, it poses another problem.

I presume that the disciples are included in the 'many believers.' If the disciples witnessed the ressurection of these saints, why then would Thomas continue to be so skeptical that Jesus himself was resurrected?

Personally, I think you are making things up as you go, saying whatever you have to say to score a point, and not thinking the implications through.

sotto voce

Academia does not use 'you'.

No Robots

Quite right. The Christian apologists have quote-mined Goethe, and not really taken the time to consider the depth of his thought, all in order to make him look like an orthodox proponent of the Bible. But I would caution others against doing the same in the opposite direction.

Sarpedon

Yeah, and academia doesn't use shitty ad populum arguments either.

Now that we've established that you are not an academic, but a hypocrite and a poser, answer the fucking question.

sotto voce

So was everyone mentioned in the Bible an idiot?