David Bowden

Since at least one account referred to by Barker (the gospel of Mark) ends on Easter day, I think it would be generous of you to accept that Barker made a technical error by not consistently excluding or including post-Easter day gospel material, but then to address his challenge on the following terms:

Using only material from the NT's Easter day accounts, give us an outline of that day's events, without omitting or changing a single detail from those accounts. Using Barker's language: Tell us "what happened; who said what, when; and where these things happened."

If you still can't stomach Barker's problematic presentation, I invite you to accept, as a substitute, the preceding paragraph as David Bowden's Easter Challenge.

For extra credit, you might consider writing "a simple, chronological narrative of the events between the resurrection and the ascension." But for the purposes of this particular thread, I think we'd be happy just to see Easter day outlined with every NT detail.

Best regards,
-David

[ December 05, 2002: Message edited by: David Bowden ]</p>

JohnV

Mark ends with the ascension. We know from John that there were at least 8 days between Easter and the ascension.

Also, an open question: how many people noticed the glaring error in Barker's question(s)?

[ December 05, 2002: Message edited by: JohnV ]</p>

Primal

Or maybe he's stating the obvious? Also Barker's challenge is more directed at the Gospels, which were written by different people.

Lastly, I don't know what "spirutally infallible" could even mean. The whole concept is silly and not even accurate as the Gospels each have different overall messages anyways. All that supports these Gospels over other sacred writings or other Gospels at the time even is "Church authority": which to me is really no grounds at all.

The whole issue of literal infallibility of the Bible stems from the Protestants rejection of the Catholic Church and hence need to find another ultimate authority on spiritual matters. For this they use the Bible, but they also need to say WHY the Bible is so special. For this they present assumed "special traits" like being "historically reliable", "unchanging", "inconsistent" etc. Otherwise its just utterly blind faith totally devoid of all intellectual merit, resting on nothing more then mysticism in most cases and determined by little more then "interpretations" of the most arbitrary sort.

I also find it amusing when a religious person goes: Gee nobody believes that, except for the fundmanetalists. Ignoring the fact that the fundamentalists are not really that small a portion of the religious population at all. I mean I could understand it if there were only a handful in some parts of the country: but there are in fact tens of millions spread out all through the country. In fact just about every PTA board has at least one creationist fundy I imagine. And even if one doesn't change the fundies minds, it is important I believe to work to descredit them time and again as Barker does. Especially since fundamentalism seems to be growing.

[ December 05, 2002: Message edited by: Primal ]

[ December 05, 2002: Message edited by: Primal ]</p>

David Bowden

It ended on Easter day, at Chapter 16 verse 8. As the NIV text note puts it:

"The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have Mark 16:9-20."

And the New Jerusalem Bible says:

"Originally Mk probably ended abruptly on this note of awe and wonder. The next 12 vv., missing in some MSS, are a summary of material gathered from other NT writings."

Scholarly consensus, in other words, doesn't consider that part of Mark describing events after Easter as being authentically Markan.

A few years ago I had an afternoon free and tried to do this harmonization according to Barker's challenge, and I did it in two parts, one for Easter day and one for everything thereafter. So I was aware of his inconsistent language before you brought it up. Having read the entire book from which the Easter Challenge comes, I can say that Barker's writing certainly has its high and low moments.

That doesn't undermine Barker's larger and still not invalidated point, concerning the inconsistent testimony in the New Testament. If anything, it shows that humans still produce inconsistent writings. The gospels, showing the same capacity for error, don't indicate that the writers had a divine guiding influence.

How's your harmonization coming, by the way, JohnV? Have you decided not to do Barker's version of the challenge and chosen mine instead?

-David

[ December 05, 2002: Message edited by: David Bowden ]</p>

JohnV

Still have it, and if so, care to share it?
I agree. In fact, I doubt that anyone else even noticed, which was my point - when two or more passages speak of the same thing in different levels of detail, we tend to interpret the more detailed as the more accurate, and the less detailed as a summary. We don't yell "Contradiction!" Using this method of interpretation on the Gospel accounts of Easter, most of Barker's objections dry up.
Good. I have the verses arranged, but my own commentary will have to wait until the weekend. Only one relatively minor verse in Luke was chronologically problematic.
I'm covering his first question, or, if you prefer, your revision.

Bumble Bee Tuna

Barker, Barker, Barker...All I hear is minor technical problems with Barker's presentation. Who cares? The point is glaringly obvious- write a narrative about what happened. Barker obviously wants a narrative of what happened from Easter morning to the ascension. When I issued the challenge to someone else without knowledge of Barker at all, I started at the crucifixion, but Easter morning is where the details really start contradicting each other so starting at Easter is fine.

Seriously, though, if Barker's presentation bothers you so much, ignore it. Pretend you never heard it. Now I issue Bumble Bee Tuna's Easter challnge:
Write a narrative of what could have happened, starting with Easter morning and ending with the Ascension. Don't leave out any biblical details, and remain internally consistent.

You make the 4th person I've issued the challenge to, in some form, and also the fourth person to try to avoid it by complaining about superficial things like presentation and attitude. Very strange.

Edit: Crossposted with you, JohnV. I guess you aren't backing down after all. Never mind, then. I will feel bad when you post your response because I don't have my Bible here at school so I won't be able to check it myself. Oh well, I'm sure others here will be happy to.

-B

[ December 05, 2002: Message edited by: Bumble Bee Tuna ]</p>

Butters

Now hold on everyone, this is what Barker says,


Now I know he starts out saying Easter, but Easter is about the Resurection, and assention, so I don't see the big deal. Compare this "problem with what has already been said here. Who wrote these texts? Is Mark missing something?
Lok at how Christians think. "He said "ON THIS DAY", if you have so much trouble reading what he said, how in the hell do you people even think you have a clue as to what some Jews wrote two thousand years ago!

I'd like to see a poll of how many Christians believe this is a historicaly true story, and how many think it is theology(fiction).
My favorite argument against Christianity, is their disbelief in other religions. What makes Christianity different? It is historicaly accurate!(sez them).

Of course the problem is simple. Anyone intelligent enough to discuss religion in a semi-rational way, is to smart to believe that it is not history. Anyone gulliable enough to believe it is, is not rational enough to make sense.

MortalWombat

That's not how it appears in Luke. If you read Luke Chap 24, you get the impression that the ascension took place on the same day as the resurrection.

Rusting Car Bumper

I think you are selling Barker short. Remember the text is public. It's not just aimed at biblically knowledgable scholars. Its audience is to a whole host of people. It includes questioning people in the middle who, quite literally, believe with great confidence the Bible is infallible without even having read it all the way through.

In one case, I gave Barker's text to one of these and he was an atheist a short time later. Basically it was the hole in the dike that led to the flood.

Imagine his psychology. He's thinking, "If I believed this most important part of Christian literature was perfect and harmonious and I was wrong, then what else could here be?" It doesn't take him long to find it. He is faced with rearranging his faith while at the same time realizing his deepest interpretations were wrong or he can go downt he road of abandoning it.

DC

David Bowden

I regret now that I don't. I do recall that I personally wasn't able to reconcile each detail into the whole without depending on unconscionable assumptions or proposing unevidenced scenarios just to make things fit. Maybe you'll have more success.

As long as no detail exists in one account which contradicts a detail in the more specific version, I agree that yelling "Contradiction" is silly. The terms of the challenge are that not one detail from any account be omitted. I think that any admission on a harmonizer's part that one gospel account is "the more accurate" one, only proves Barker's point, where he quotes Thomas Paine:

"the disagreement of the parts of a story proves the whole cannot be true."

We'll see. As I read the gospels, there exist specific claims which cannot possibly be reconciled except by saying that one account or the other should be disregarded.

Mark 16:8 especially comes to mind. Unless one makes the weak claim the passage tacked on afterwards overrides the verse that says the women "said nothing to anyone" after they learned of the resurrection, then Mark's gospel is in disagreement with any account that says they talked about it.

So I'm interested in checking out that part of your harmonization: do you think Mark, generally considered the closest witness to these events, needed a later editor to correct or "modify" his statement in verse 8? Or will you try and leverage the notion that Mark believed (but didn't say) that his statement "They said nothing to anyone" actually means, "They did say something... later on that day."

Glad to hear it! Keep us posted.

-David