rhutchin

Not necessarily. For now it can remain a hypothesis, neither formally accepted or rejected as proof is not readily available for both positions. In this case, proof of the soul is provided when a person physically dies. A person need only know that it is possible for him to have a soul in case he might want to prepare for that possible eventuality.

One might also hypothesize that a person contain an invisible, undetectable, inverse doppelganger but so what? How does it affect a person? Does a person really need to care?

rhutchin

You are indeed a man of great faith.

rhutchin

No. It should deal explicitly with what the Bible says and not excise verses from context to distort that which the Bible says. It should not presume anything that is not actually said.

Have not read Bart Ehrman, so I don't know. I like Farrell Till and he does a good job fleshing out issues but he deals with a lot of things for which detailed information is lacking (like where did the Israelites in the wilderness go to the bathroom). I think someone screwed him when he was a pastor and he has had a bug up his butt ever since. Dan Barker seems famous for not being able to understand the whole Damascus Road experience with Saul.

OK. But I would still treat it like the blind men investigating the elephant.

It was your up front claim, "If I observe that John's account of some event is inconsistent with Mark's account and it is therefore unlikely that both accounts are true,..." to which no one would make the counterargument, "That is how God wanted them to report the event." The counterargument would actually be, "What did you read that you found inconsistent and how exactly did you determine that it is therefore unlikely that both accounts are true."

A problem personal to you as it is your opinion that creates the problem. Not a problem generically to other people.

aa5874

You are coming across as a person who is propagating mis-leading and erroneous information.

You make make statements about souls that you cannot prove to be true and then tell people that when they are dead, that these very dead people will find out whether souls exist.

This seems like a con to me, unless you are already dead and have proof.

But, where has it ever been shown that the dead, in the entire history of mankind, can prove anything?

How in the world can the dead prove or disprove John 3.16?

Billions of people have already died, another dead will never prove anything, other than John 3.16 was a con, a false promise.

Your are propagating bogus information, foolishness or you are dead.

Analyst

How? In the history of the world, no such proof has ever been shown.
Precisely the point about the alleged 'soul'. So what? How does it affect a person? Does a person really need to care?

The only place I want soul is in blues music.

Jayrok

This presents a problem for you then. Whatever day it was, and we can agree it was the 14th day. It doesn't matter.

Mark 14:12 -- On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when it was customary to sacrifice the Passover lamb, Jesus' disciples asked him...

Luke 22:7-8 -- Then came the day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, "Go and make preparations for us to eat the Passover."

You continue to get hung up on dates and times of day. But you fail to realize that it doesn't matter how you spin it. The Bible confirms that on the day that it was required to sacrifice the lamb for Passover Jesus was talking in the streets with his disciples. He wasn't crucified until the following day. Therefore he was not the Passover lamb that was sacrificed.

Jesus was alive and well on the day the lamb was supposed to be sacrificed.

Then, also according to LAW, they ate the Passover Meal that very Evening. Mark and Luke confirm it. Jesus ate the Passover on Thursday night. That means, necessarily, that the 14th (the day the lamb was to be sacrificed) was between Wednesday evening and Thursday evening.

Jesus didn't die until the next afternoon a full day after the Passover lamb was sacrificed. And that is the contradiction. John records Jesus' death one day too late to be the Pascal lamb.

The contradiction is that Jesus ate the Passover feast in the synoptics but in John he died before the Passover feast. Both cannot be correct.


That's true, but in the gospel of John Jesus is written to have died on the afternoon prior to the Passover feast. Therefore he couldn't have eaten it.


Wrong. All these verses you mention dealt with the sabbath, not the Passover Feast. The Passover Feast was eaten the night before by Jesus and his boys. The Passover lamb was slain during the afternoon when Jesus was telling his disciples to prepare for the Feast.


Thus the contradiction. The Passover Feast was clearly eaten on Thursday evening


Pure speculation on your part. There's no need to drift away from what the Bible says. Not surprising though since if you hold to inerrency you have to lie and steal, so to speak, to try and maintain what you believe.

By the way, I see you dodged one of my other questions too. You don't have to answer it, just knowing that you see it is enough.

Doug Shaver

Not all other people, but most of them. All of them, in fact, except for those who presuppose that everything in the Bible must be believed because God has ordered us all to believe every word of it.

rhutchin

We merely have to presuppose that the Bible means what it says within the context in which it is presented. Given that the Biblical context is that God exists, it should be read within that context. This does not require that any person believe it or presuppose that it must be believed even though God has commanded people to believe it.

Johnny Skeptic

But who are you to interpret what the Bible means? Christians have frequently disagreed regarding many issues for thousands of years.

Since Christianity is a false religion, it is no more important what the Bible means than what any other religious book means.

Although you have frequently accused skeptics of stating personal opinions and making speculations, you are certainly guilty of the same things.

rhutchin

I think you are confused about dates and times. The Feast of Unleavened Bread (the Passover) began at 6:00 pm on our Thursday. The 14th day runs from 6:00 pm on our Thursday to 6:00 pm on our Friday. That tells us that the events in the above verses take place at this time. The pascal lamb will be slain before 6:00 pm on our Friday. Jesus and the disciples will eat late on Thursday evening. Jesus calls this meal the passover (Luke 22:8).

Jesus was alive and well on Thursday. At 6:00 pm, the first day of Unleavened bread began and Jesus was still alive. He would be crucified and die before the end of that first day of Unleavened Bread.

John and the synoptics all agree that our Friday was the preparation and the day on which the pascal lamb was slain. They are very clear that this day came before the sabbath (which would begin 6:00 pm on our Friday and continue into our Saturday). That was the 14th day and began at 6:00 pm on our Thursday. You note that Jesus said that they would eat the passover on the first day of Unleavened Bread (Thursday evening) and before the pascal lamb would have been slain.

You create a contradiction that is not there. The pascal lamb was slain on the first day of Unleavened Bread which both John and the synoptics clearly identify as the "preparation" and just as clearly identify it to come on the day before the sabbath. They all record the lamb to be slain on our Friday (before 6:00 pm when the sabbath would begin). Given the chronology we find in both John and the synoptics, the pascal lamb could only have been slain on our Friday.

Here both John and the synoptics agree. Jesus ate the passover meal with his disciples on Thursday evening after 6:00 pm and the pascal lamb was not slain until later on Friday.

Then your complaint is that the synoptics label the meal that Jesus ate with His disciples as the "passover" meal when it occurred on Thursday night while John clearly refers to the "passover feast (meal)" that the Jews would eat on Friday night. Both John and the synoptics agree on the sequence of events: first day of Unleavened Bread begins, meal, interrogation, crucifixion, passover lamb slain, sabbath begins at 6:00 pm Friday. The confusion is limited to the name of the meal eaten by Jesus and His disciples and the basis for them to call it a passover meal.

These verses identify the day of preparation to come before the sabbath. The day of preparation was the 14th day of the month and the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. A passover meal was eaten by Jesus and the disciples on Thursday evening even though the pascal lamb would not be slain until later on Friday afternoon. Jewish law simply would not allow the pascal lamb to be slain prior to Friday afternoon no matter how much you want it to have happened that way. The only real issue is how Jesus could describe the meal eaten on Thursday evening as the passover meal.

A meal was eaten on Thursday by Jesus and His disciples that Jesus called the passover. The Jews would not eat the passover until Friday night.

Let's deal only with that which the Bible says. The events that take place between Thursday evening and Friday evening are not in doubt as both John and the synoptics agree on these events. As much as you want to alter these events (by moving the day of preparation back on day, neither the Biblical account nor Jewish law allows you to do this.