Clutch

Why, oh, why, is anybody still trying to make out that there are biblical contradictions?

It's perfectly clear that any apparent contradiction -- and not just biblically -- can be explained away by postulating unknown information, or even postulating equivocations. Is "p and not-p" a contradiction? Only on the assumption that the propositional constants are used univocally. If someone wants to insist that, contextually, the first p has a different interpretation than the second p, they can evade even this transparent self-contradiction.

But since when was the bar for believability set so fabulously low as mere consistency-on-some-assignment-of-interpretations? If someone says, "My magic book says that donkeys can talk, humans bred with giants, and Jesus flew away in the sky... but you can't mathematically prove that it's self-contradictory!" -- well, what am I supposed to say? Darn, I lose?

The point, surely, is just to get them to say this as often and as publically as possible. You can't rationally force fundies to believe reasonable things. But you can encourage them to explicitly announce their craziest superstitions. In large measure, I think that's all it takes to get them put back in their box.

Pomp

I don't usually post in BC&A, but I tought I'd pop in to express agreement with Clutch's post. COntradictions and the like are useless for disproving any text, because there's always a creative explanation that can resolve them. Discussions about contradiction are very useful, however, for forcing the individual(s) defending any given text to demonstrate the precise degree of mental gymnastics that are necessary to make the text coherent.

Family Man

I'll agree that contradictions don't disprove any text, but it does demonstrate the absurdity of many of the claims made for the Christian religion. The value of, say, the contradictions inherent in the accounts of Judas death is that one, or more likely both, were pieces of fictions invented to make theological points. The immediate question becomes what else is made up? The birth narratives? That little walk on water? The resurrection?

Too often, the debate slides into the minutiae of the text instead of focusing on the real issue that arises out of the contradictions: why should we believe any of it when so much of it was made up in the years after Jesus's death?

Clutch

Thanks, Pomp.

Family Man,
But that's exactly what contradictions or near-contradictions don't do, in my view. As utterly loopy as it is to suppose that the "fell and burst open" passage about Judas was just intended as further information about what happened to his hanged and rotted corpse, there is an intelligible likelihood of this actually being the case. No to-and-fro about the absurdity of this resolution, therefore, can serve to cast a worse light on claims like that Jesus walked on water, or that goats have speckled kids when they look at strips of bark, since these claims are themselves antecedently far less probable than anything we can imagine about the ineptitude of the gospel writers.

The motivation regarding contradictions seems to be to force the literalist to accept that at least one thing in the bible must be false. This motivation is what I'm questioning. David Koresh claimed to be a messiah, claimed to work miracles. Do we examine the text of his known speeches for contradictions, in order to prove that he said at least one false thing?

[ November 17, 2002: Message edited by: Clutch ]</p>

Douglas J. Bender

You people don't think very deeply about these things, do you? First of all, in the two accounts of Judas' death, the two authors can be assumed to have had close personal knowledge of each other (I don't know if there is any way to prove this, but I should think that two of the authors of the four gospels would have at least an acquaintance with the other, if they were contemporaries [which I believe they were]), if they were contemporaries. Second, if they were not contemporaries, then one or the other book, Matthew or Acts, was written sometime before the other; and given the close-knittedness of the Christian community enduring first century persecution, whichever book was written first would almost certainly have been known to the author of the other book, and thus the likelihood of this latter author mucking up the account of Judas' death to such an extreme degree becomes absurdly unlikely. Third, if they were contemporaries, then it is possible that neither one had read the other's book prior to writing their own book; however, again given their importance in the Church, it is unlikely that they would have received two versions of Judas' death from "word-of-mouth" - the "higher ups" in the Christian community (which would have included Matthew and Luke) would have maintained written and personal contact with one another (see the "Jerusalem Council" in the Book of Acts for one example of this), and an event important enough to later warrant inclusion in the Bible (Matthew's account, and Luke's, of Judas' death) almost certainly would have received some attention from those "higher ups", so that they would have discussed between themselves what occurred, either merely out of their own curiosity, or because they felt that the manner of Judas' death, or some specific details associated with it, evidenced God's hand in the matter.

Essentially, unless Matthew and Luke had no awareness of each other and their respective writings, then it is practically impossible that one or the other wrote an acount of Judas' death which would have contradicted the other's account. Since it is incredibly, almost unbelievably, impossible that they did not have any awareness of each other, this informs us that the purpose of both authors in relating some aspect of Judas' death was not to describe exactly how he died, but his actions, and some eventual results, both important in explaining the resulting reasons for naming a field "The Field of Blood".

And, even if they themselves were not personally aware of each other, given the "structure" of the Church in its beginnings, it becomes very, very unlikely that two leaders of the Church, as were Matthew and Luke, would have been unaware of the reasons for accepting one version of Judas' death over another, and if there had ever been any question about this issue, and if it had ever been presented as being a teaching in favor of seeing God's hand involved, then certainly the Church leadership would have met to determine what occurred. Both Matthew and Luke were scholars enough to not accept mere rumors, and thus would not risk their reputations in spreading a mere rumor.

Besides, at the time of the writing of both Matthew and Acts, there would have been enough people still living who had firsthand knowledge of what actually occurred to have pointed out where one of them was in gross error. It would have been like someone, 10 to 20 years after JFK's death, writing a book claiming that JFK had died by drowning. It is only those who are intent on disproving the Bible who will insist that the two accounts in Matthew and Acts must be evidence of a Biblical contradiction.


In Christ,

Douglas

Clutch

Well, it depends what you mean by "deeply". Does it mean aspiring to standards of reasoning like this?
Truly, the thought is so deep as not to be excavable. Let it lie buried, I say.

Douglas, nowhere in your remarkable collection of words do you address the interesting question: Why would someone write an independent account of a detail as narratively embedded as a man's corpse bursting open after hanging himself, decomposing for some time, and the rope's breaking, without even vaguely mentioning that it was his corpse, that it had been hanging for some time, that it had decomposed, that he had hanged himself, that he had been hanged at all, that the rope broke, or that there was a rope?

Your answer seems to be: (1) Assume that the circumstances of the writing of the gospels precludes any error. Then, by premise (1), everything is just fine, honest.

Iasion

Greetings Douglas et al,

Douglas said :

First of all, in the two accounts of Judas' death, the two authors can be assumed to have had close personal knowledge of each other

There is no evidence for this what-so-ever - we have no details for these persons at all - it is not even entirely clear that they were real people (only later was it assumed that Paul's Luke was Luke the Evangelist).
You are merely making up an assumption to bolster your theory.


and thus the likelihood of this latter author mucking up the account of Judas' death to such an extreme degree becomes absurdly unlikely

But you have assumed Judas' death was a real event without any evidence of this - yet the Gospels seem to have been written as religious mythology, not history. The Gospel writers regularly changed the details of the stories to suit their (or their readers) purposes. Judas plays the role of a traitor, and his story varies as the authors chose to portray the traitor role differently.

Judas as a historical figure makes no sense - Paul makes no mention if him, even when giving examples of traitors - NOT one contemporary or early Christian writer makes any mention of Judas till nearly a CENTURY after the events in question.


again given their importance in the Church...
very unlikely that two leaders of the Church, as were Matthew and Luke,

Pardon?[*]There is no early record or evidence for the the Evangelists.[*]No early Christian shows any knowledge of the Gospel authors or the Gospel stories until early-mid 2nd century.[*]The material in Luke only first turns up in Marcion's Gospel (WITHOUT a name and WITHOUT the genealogy or the "seed of David" comment) in the 140s.[*]The still UN-named four Gospels only become widely known in the mid 2nd century with Justin Martyr.[*]The Gospels were not NAMED until the 180s.

In short there is no evidence that the evangelists had any importance in the early church - the Gospels and their writers were unknown till early or mid 2nd century.


Both Matthew and Luke were scholars enough to not accept mere rumors

Really? how do you know this?
The Gospels are full of all sorts of superstitions, mythology, errors, and contradictions - how on earth did you conclude that they were "scholars enough to not accept mere rumors" ?


at the time of the writing of both Matthew and Acts,
G.Matthew is totally unknown until early-mid 2nd century - about a CENTURY after the alleged events, thats several GENERATIONS later.
Acts is unknown till late 2nd century.

Furthermore Jerusalem was RAZED to the ground in 70 and then the Jews were EVICTED en masse from the smoking remains of the city in the wars of the 130s.

The period between the alleged Gospel events, and the appearance of the Gospels/Acts writing is about a CENTURY of some of the most tumultuous and destructive events in Jewish history - the temple was destroyed, the city was razed to the ground, the Jews were dispersed from their homeland..


there would have been enough people still living who had firsthand knowledge of what actually occurred to have pointed out where one of them was in gross error.

After a CENTURY of war and destruction and dispersal?
Rubbish.

Far more likely is that the Gospels arose as myth after the destruction, myths of a Messiah from the now lost Jerusalem.

Especially when you consider that all the actual details of Jesus' life as found in the Gospels only arise after this century of destruction - no early Christian shows ANY knowledge of e.g. Mary, Joseph, Pilate, Judas, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the trial etc..

Also consider the total lack of contemporary evidence that ANYTHING happened, and much to suggest it DID NOT happen.

The weight of evidence supports the view that the Gospels were religious mythology and that Iesous Christos was never a historical figure.


It would have been like someone, 10 to 20 years after JFK's death, writing a book claiming that JFK had died by drowning.

Oh Rubbish.
We have contemporary, multiple, different types of human and technical records of the actual JFK event.

But for the Gospel events we have :[*] no contemporary evidence[*] only late accounts, from a CENTURY later, after massive disruption and dislocation of the Jews and their state.

A better analogy for the Gospels would be:

In the year 2075, after World War III destroyed all books, it was revealed that JFK did not die, but was resurrected in a secret CIA facility and went on to explore the galaxy in a ship called the Millenium Falcon, discovering the magic element "Phorgium" which gives immortal life.


Who would believe such a tale?
Well,
the Gospels are just like that...


Quentin David Jones

Celsus

While all kinds of arguments can be made to establish possibility, to seal the case, apologists must establish probability. When they fail to do so, they end up only preaching to the choir. Douglas, that should be your goal: Show not only that explanations are possible, but also that they are probable. That seems to be the major failing of almost all apologists, at least to sceptics.

Family Man

That isn't what I mean. To make his case, Douglas has to argue that the text doesn't mean what it says it means. He's essentially said that Matthew and Luke were incompetent writers who left out vital information while trying to make their points. Then he accuses us of "sloppy reading" while assuming that a simpler explanation -- that the authors were making up their stories -- doesn't even needs to be addressed for his version to be accepted as true. That's the absurdity that I'm referring to.

Family Man

Douglas --

The absurdity I'm referring to isn't the contradiction itself. I'm referring to the absurd manner in which you reconcile it. However, since you took the trouble to post this:

Oh, Douglas, I'm soooo hurt.

No, Douglas, we can't assume this. Both Matthew and Luke operated in different Christian communities and we can't assume they know each other. Assumptions that make a desired conclusion more likely are questionable assumptions. Remember what I said about the absurdity of your approach?

Another assumption that is questionable. Matthew and Luke clearly knew Mark, but wrote things that were contradictory to Mark, mostly because they didn't like the implications of Mark's narrative. You might compare Mark's and Matthew's accounts of Jesus's baptism. John and Jesus are portrayed in quite different lights in the two narratives.

A third extremely dubious assumption. These folks were living in different communities in the 1st Century C.E. There wasn't central control, and the transportation and communication systems in the first century was atrocious. And there is considerable evidence that Matthew and Luke revised Mark in ways that were more palatable to their theology. Your assumption is contradicted by the facts.

[Snipped the rest as Douglas was simply restating his dubious assumptions]

So, who isn't thinking things through here, Douglas?

And Clutch, do you see what I mean by the absurdity of Douglas's approach to the text?

[ November 17, 2002: Message edited by: Family Man ]</p>