Sven

You should check better next time. The article Steven Carr linked first is one of the articles listed and linked to under the heading "ANSWERING THE SKEPTICS" on the second page he linked. That is, the second page is the table of contents for a collection of articles, one of which he linked to.

Steven Carr

What do you mean that is a completely different article?

Layman's article was written for a web page called 'ANSWERING SKEPTICS' (in capitals) That is where I found it.


It is you who misrepresented Layman's article , which is clearly aimed at skeptics.

What do you gain from blatant misrepresentations, sich as claiming that Layman's article was not aimed at sceptics?


So would you use Crossan's Method to deduce that the Beatitudes in Matthew and Luke both derive from the same source, and are not (as Layman tried to insinuate in his article), both accurate accounts of two different sermons by Jesus?

Steven Carr

Yes, I agree.

The first focus of historians is 'How did these words come to be written?', not 'Why is this account a true picture of what happened?'

Vinnie

Steve's method may be necessitated by squirmy believers. Do you tell fellow Christian you get an icky feeling by their uncritical harmonization attempts and amazing ability to harmonize any possible jot and tittle raised against them? Does the absurd adaptability of Christianity to so many problems, various worldviews and cultures and so forth not make one icky of shoddy interpretive techniques?

If believers didn't specially plead when it comes to their holy book one would not need to have them undercut themselves. Saying historians sometimes harmonize therefore my rampant, excessive, canonical biased and uncritical harmonization of these 200 erros in the Bible is acceptable is nonsense.

Believers have no leg to stand on. At best they can offer logically possible solutions to difficulties without any real evidence their solution should be accepted. It would require a detailed knowledge of New Testament research to expose a lot of apologetics. Thats why the masses largely delude themselves with this absurdity.

The temple was cleansed twice? Jesus gave the sermon on the mount and the plain? How do we know Jesus gave either sermon. Maybe the authors created a pastiche or mosaic of inspirational Jesus-sayings that were originally used in various contexts? Or maybe they both used a context-less source that did this already?

Its not like we have any real settings in the gospels, accurate chronology or eyewitness recollection. See my beginning study into Mark:

http://www.after-hourz.net/ri/mark.html

Matthew made use of this text and also another written text based upon traditions received in Greek (not Aramaic). They used isolated events and sayings and written sayings and parable sources and even a written gospel like Q. The setting and context of most of the material is deemed artificial (see my article). The authors strung stuff together where they saw fit (minus the connected passion narrative).

Any accurate "scene" or "context" that you want to provide has to be argued on historical grounds. You are incapable of doing this for the sermon mount/plain. In fact, I would go so far as to say all the contexts are suspect until shown otherwise. The artificial chronology and theological sequences and an comparative pericope placement analysis all dictate this.

All we have is uncritical harmonization. Its not history.

Vinnie

Price writes:

Price up front admits "we may not be able to answer that question" which is accurate. Maybe Jesus did coin the sermon and said it 38 times, once in a house, twice at a synagogue metting, three times on a plain, 4 times in a wheat field, 3 times in a boat slightly off the shore and so forth. One does not know.

But what we do know is that

1) the authors made use of the same material and placed it in different contexts.
2) The original context and settings have been lost.
3) Materials developed ideal scenes as it was used by the church.
4) The chronology and placement and setting of material in the gospels is artificial and theological rather than historical.
5) Jesus sayings hardly commend themselves as so precisely remembered as to bifurcate between two such settings (plain//mount). This incident would be virtually unique amongst all the other material we have. For precise memory techniques which were non-existent, see my treatment on the divorce saying in the Mark article linked above.

So when Price goes on to write:

We have MUCH MUCH more reason to assume the contexts are artificial than we do that they are not. Agnosticism might seem like the "intelelctually sober" position to take but its not. Laurels of the respective authors dictate skepticism without detailed argumentation showing otherwise.

Of course Price may be capable of treating these incident with detailed argumentation. He appears only to have mentioned them in passing here.

Maybe also, since this is said to be so basic and elementary it will be easy to find examples:

1. Harmonizing Historical Accounts is a Common Historical Practice.

France writes the following:

So what are the examples? Should be fairly easy to document? Hannabil springs to mind as one potential but I could be conflating events in my memory.

Vinnie

This statement by Price is of course correct:

But it skips a step if we use it to harmoniuze. Its not what Jesus said and did. Its what was remembered, how it was remembered, how it was transmitted, how the context and setting was remembered and so forth. A detailed evaluation of the gospels show us that by the time they write they were not remembered. I don't know a critical scholar who denies the gospels consist of movable pericope and that settings have developed.

Vinnie

Steven Carr

There are two different routes in ancient sources, that Hannibal is supposed to have taken.

http://www.livius.org/ha-hd/hannibal/alps_text.html
http://www.livius.org/ha-hd/hannibal/alps.html are informative here.

How do historians 'harmonise' these routes? Did Hannibal invade twice? Are both routes accurate?

An excellent example for Christian defenders of their Gospels to show how secular historians apply harmonising principles to historical difficulties that they do not allow Christians to apply to difficulties in the Gospels.

rlogan

Vork brings up an interesting example for Steven's question. Judas.

The gospel prophesy sluts are busy quote-mining the HB over an extended period. So they will quite naturally have additional or contradictory pieces to weave in the various books over time.

Acts has the "field of blood" that is a fulfillment of Psalms 69:25
Let their habitation be desolate; and let none dwell in their tents. and Psalms 109:8: Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

Acts has them casting lots to replace judas, and his guts spilling out over the field of blood is a rhetorical device. Interestingly, Acts also has Judas purchasing the field himself.

Zechariah 11:12 and Zechariah 11:13 are the 30 pieces of silver and the throwing of the money to the temple for the potters field. Matthew's text weaves everything together with judas throwing the money to the temple, and the temple not wanting to use "blood money" so they buy the potters field and use it as a burial ground for foreigners. Judas hangs himself in that account as the burial ground is a good enough rhetorical device for no-one living there. Note Matthew does not say where judas hanged himself.


Now apparently there is some 1st century tradition of a "field of blood" http://www.bible-history.com/jerusal..._of_blood.html


Without the research grant I deserve for this effort, I'll do no more than speculate that Acts is latching onto an existing tradition that was independent of the Jesus story - but that also required departing from the story depicted in Matthew, and overlooking parts of Zechariah.


Now if you watch how Christians "harmonize" these differing accounts, you get some really contorted ideas. The rotten core of this approach is assuming the truthfulness of the gospel story to begin with.

GakuseiDon

I think it is almost as bad, certainly. At least I know that the Christian is doing it in a desperate attempt to boost an unsupportable belief in inerrancy. I have no idea why Steve resorts in these misrepresentative fudges.

Steven Carr

What misrepresentation?

I read an article which said that skeptics (or 'critics' if you prefer) were using the wrong methodology when they assumed the Beatitudes were not two accurate reports from two different times when Jesus spoke.

So I asked what methodlogy skeptics should be using.

So far you have been unable to tell us how critics (or skeptics if you prefer) can correctly tell whether or not reports in the Gospels are referring to the same event or not.

I imagine nobody can.