Steven Carr

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/143/story_14376_1.html

Vinnie

I have a few responses up in the comments guide (probably like 10). I pointed out the stupidity of this debate amongst many other things.

Vinnie

Al Kafirun

That's interesting (I like Pagels so therefore its interesting), but the debate is... what's the word? Convoluted and pointless. Neither of them play by the same rules for interpreting the historical. If (stating the obvious) Jesus never existed (dur) and Paul was the prevailing evangelist of Hellenist-Pagan theology that inspired so much of the Gospel philosophy then what's the point of arguing who's the original? Even the Gospels (if interpreted as words of Jesus) aren't clear on what the hell was going on. So... neither.

Much better things to debate. But it entertains the suckers and sells books, so God bless 'em.

Ted Hoffman

I hope this hasnt been posted here before. Its an email debate.

http://www.belief.net/story/143/story_14376.html

PS: What happened to all the links/buttons that created tags on clicking?

Vinnie

It was posted by Carr already.

Ben's latest post argues Thomas is dependent on practically the entire new testament. What a joke. As I stated in a respone long ago. The debate is a joke. By the time the discussion starts its over and discussing just the dependency of say Thomas alone would take forever--not to mention the other topics.

Steven Carr

Witherington writes 'In the first place, it seems clear to me that there was already a collection of Paul's letters, as well as a codex collection of the four canonical Gospels, circulating in the early second century A.D...'

He bases his Thomas stuff on Craig Evans who argues that Luke was written by Luke, because Luke was virtually unknown.

Evans has said 'The benefit of the doubt is in fact given to ancient historians. That’s the routine. If you have reason to suspect the veracity, if you have reason to suspect their motives, fine. But routinely the benefit of the doubt is given to our ancient sources. It’s something about skeptical biblical scholars who do not give the benefit of the doubt to New Testament writers. And I don’t know what that is. It’s a disease or something.'

Evans also says 'If we had four Gospels that said essentially the same thing, then people would suspect collusion. They’d say, "Hey, this is artificial. This just isn’t the way it is." And so the diversity provides us like a check and a balance and we realize, Hey, we’ve got four different sources coming at it from different angles and yet a unified picture still emerges.'


Gosh, Evans says the Gospels have a unified picture, yet we would suspect collusion if they said essential the same thing ?!?


Evans says about the Gospel of Peter 'He seems confused with who Herod is.

The Gospel of Peter says 'And then Herod the king....'

Mark 6:14 also calls Herod 'king'

http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/pr...ings-evans.htm gives you a good idea of the sort of scholarship Witherington depends upon

Toto

{Threads have been merged}

Toto

They have turned into little graphics. Put your mouse over the images above the text box in reply mode, and you will find them.

spin

I'm flabbergasted.
They put the young in these fellows' hands?


spin

Toto

Witherington teaches at Asbury Theological Seminary, not a real college.

He seriously proposed that a DNA match be made between the bone fragments in the James Ossuary and the blood samples from the Shroud of Turin.