arnoldo

A writer living in the year 2011 creating a fictional account of events occurring in the previous century, circa 1900-1940, presumably would have to be careful to avoid including any anachronisms. For example, if the writer included in the account that any characters had access to laptops, the writings could be easily discredited. Therefore, the writers of the synoptic gospels may’ve taken precautions to avoid including any anachronisms in their writings. However, the temptation to include information known by the synoptic authors, then backdated into their writings, may’ve been too great. For example, the account of the destruction of Jewish temple (in the form of a prophetic utterance) was included in the gospels. Are there other examples of anachronisms and/or backdated prophecies in the synoptic gospels?

Juststeve

Why assume that Jesus' prediction of the Temple was either an anachronism or a back dated prophesy. He may have simply made a common sense observation that the way things were going the Roman were going to open a can of whoop ass on Jerusalem. People do things like that all the time and sometimes they turn out to be right.

Steve

aa5874

Why assume that the Synoptic Jesus is a figure of history? The Jesus of the Synoptics was the Child of a Holy Ghost.

And in the Synoptics, the JEWS did NOT even know that Jesus made such a prediction.

On the day Jesus died in the Synoptics, the Jews were NOT aware that "the Romans were going to open a can of whoop ass on Jerusalem."

In gMark, Jesus had a PRIVATE conversation with FOUR disciples. That is all.

And what is most glaring is that ALL the PREDICTIONS of Jesus in Mark 13 has TURNED out to be FALSE except those about the Fall of the Temple.

The THIRD day resurrection and the Second coming were completely bogus yet the events surrounding the Fall of the Temple appear to be accurate.

The Jesus story appears to be anachronistic or else Jesus would have been considered a FALSE prophet within 72 hours of his death.

And further, when Josephus wrote his books on the "Wars of the Jews", his "Antiquities of the Jews" and "The Life of Flavius Josephus he did NOT mention any character called Jesus the Christ who should have correctly PREDICTED the Fall of the Jewish and should have been DOCUMENTED in books called Gospels.

The people in the Roman Empire should have known about the DOCUMENTED PREDICTIONS of Jesus if the FOUR Gospels were already written but Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius wrote NOTHING about the supposed ACCURATE predictions of Jesus.

The prediction of the Fall of the Temple in the Synoptics is INDEED an anachronism based on the abundance of evidence.

arnoldo

Good point . . . in the OT there were similar "prophecies" of the destruction of cities such as Tyre, Jerusalem,Babylon, etc which may've been based on common sense observation. FWIW, if that is the case in the NT "prediction" of the destruction of Jerusalem that would leave zero anachronisms in the synoptic gospels.

Toto

This has been discussed before. There are a number of anachronisms. Jesus is addressed as rabbi, but that term was not in use in the first century. The tomb had a cover that could be rolled away, but that round shape was unknown in the early first century.

Just google anachronism gospels.

judge

If you think this is the case you don't understand the evidence Toto. You can't say it. Well you can't say if you wwant to argue rationally anyway.

Feel free to produce evidence that " that term was not in use in the first century." as you claimed , but I dont think you can show that , "that term was not in use in the first century."

Toto

Picking one of the many results from a simple google search

Wise teaching: biblical wisdom and educational ministry By Charles F. Melchert, p. 220 on google books

judge

If we wish to be rational, and be led by the evidence with respect to anachronisms, then I believe we need to be careful about making claims that we can't support with evidence.
Many claims about anachronisms are merely possible anachronisms, and if we claim they are we are not doing any better that religious fundamentalists who believe things and encourage others to despite lack of evidence.

judge

You still dont seem to understand the simplest thing about the rules of evidence Toto.
Posting an assertion by an individual does not prove a term was not used.
Now do you have evidence to support you claim?

Toto

Of course, everything in this area is based on possibilities and probabilities. But the case that "rabbi" is an anachronism seems as well evidenced as anything else.

eta: did you bother to read the link? Do you accept that prominent scholars have scoured the literature of the period?