Family Man

No, but divinely inspired certainly would imply that he would.

But it doesn't really matter. Mark clearly states that the women met a man in the tomb. Others accounts state otherwise. How Mark could have missed the other one is a bit of a mystery.

But then I'm sure you'll post more linguistic impossibilities to entertain us with.

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: Family Man ]</p>

David Bowden

John, by that logic, we remain free to postulate the arrival of 7,000 seraphim, homage to the freshly-risen Christ by a reincarnation of Buddha, and a musical dance number by the guards before they fall down as dead men.

Breaking up Matthew's chronology so as to make it seem that the women didn't witness the angel's arrival is just silly, and it opens the door to any number of insertions in any sentence of scripture that isn't qualified with "only" before each number of people present, and "immediately" or some other time-specific word between events.

This would open scripture to any number of chaotic interpretations. Give Matthew and the others (and their first audiences) their due; each of these accounts was meant to be the whole story - don't keep shoehorning events (or invented plot elements) into any unguarded spot in the various timelines, just to make their stories agree.

Actually, I recall you having a problem with it on the first page of this thread, JohnV. Enough of a problem that you seemed unable to understand which time-frame someone was supposed to be incorporating into the challenge. And I recall that I myself said that Barker's challenge contained an error, and suggested two different ways of approaching it.

You opted for the shorter Easter-day only challenge, solving your problem with Barker's error. But do keep in mind that it was admitted that Barker made an error, and thereby contradicted himself, and that some of his text had to be disregarded. Every time I see you comparing the gospels' language with Barker's challenge as though we should look on them both with the same critical eye, I am amused at this irony. You ought, in order to be consistent with your handling of Barker, admit the contradictions between accounts and feel free to disregard the parts of scripture that don't fit the Easter story you opt for. (But then no part of Barker's challenge would have been met, and we wouldn't be having this discussion.)

Once again, by that criterion, anything in scripture that's not specifically time-dated isn't fixed in time, even by the context given by a particular writer. So in, for instance, Genesis ch 22, when Abraham sets out to sacrifice his son Isaac, it's technically open to interpretation whether the space between verses 10 and 11 amount to just a moment, or to the period of time required for Abraham to slay his son, return home, have another child by Sarah, re-name him Isaac in honor of the first one, get challenged again by God, pursue the same course, only to have God intervene this time.

What I've just written is, by your criteria, a scenario that is cannot be thrown out of the realm of possibility, since scripture isn't particular enough in its language to prevent such an insertion.

Your evaluation of my Genesis scenario's likelihood is probably very close to my evaluation of your harmonization's likelihood. And for good reason - none of the writers give their readers any hint that your harmonization's events were looping through their resurrection stories, just as the author of Abraham's sacrifice gives no indication that plot elements belong between his "chronologically unguarded" verses. Tossing that John 20:30 statement at us as if it were a blank check for your radical restructuring of Matthew or the other accounts is an appeal to an absurd amount of leeway in interpretation.

Matthew's intepretation is what he wrote down. Same for John and the other writers. Each believes he's given us the straight facts. Where they conflict, they conflict; they are not saying, "insert various events here" every time they don't say "at the same time," or "immediately afterwards."

The Marys were at the tomb, witnessed the terrible entrance of that supernatural being, but were calmed by him. That is what Matthew is telling his readers; I see nothing in Matthew indicating he believed otherwise than that on the women's early morning visit, they saw these events take place, that Mary Magdalene was among those who was elated, etc. Turning from Matthew's clear language and interpolating other events and states of mind means saying that Matthew's first audience (and he himself) did not believe the truth about these events.

So my objection to your harmonization stands, or else Matthew's and the other writers' reliability falls, meaning your harmonization is orthodox but its sources aren't.

Both of the two women Matthew mentioned encountered the angel. Then they encountered Jesus. [b]Nothing in Matthew or any other gospel account shows Mary Magdalene leaving the group of women, and later rejoining them.[b]

You are inventing that element in order to gloss over the clear contradictions in the plain language of each account.

In so doing, you're making swiss cheese out of each gospel-writer's story, shoehorning whole episodes between verses that don't specifically forbid it. You show these men to be incredibly incompetent as individual writers, unable to bring your harmonization together except as a quartet, and only then by smoothing over their contradictions by excusing them as "normal speech and interpretation".

That's the most accurate summary we can make of your harmonization's relationship to the texts, so far.

Mary Magdalene belongs to that set of women named in Matthew 28:1. Matthew never divides her from that set, nor does any other gospel writer. Only you do that, JohnV.

My contention is that Matthew believed that Mary Magdalene was one of those women who left the angel in a state of awe and great joy. Yours is that she left the group. I can demonstrate where scripture says that Mary was part of the group. Can you show me where scripture says that she separated herself from the group?

If you can't demonstrate that even one account tells of her belonging to the group, leaving it, and after awhile rejoining it, then she remains part of the group, according to one scripture, and was not part of a group and exhibited different emotions, according to another scripture.

And thus, a contradiction exists between accounts, unless your harmonization is orthodox and the gospels persistently omit episodes of Mary Magdalene's activity - an idea which I find ridiculous, since she's important enough to be named and followed in every single account.

So the burden of evidence is on your harmonization, John. Show us where scripture has Mary leaving and rejoining the group of women, or admit that one scripture tells one story about her that doesn't jive with another scripture's account unless you add plot twists not mentioned in scripture.

Before I can allow that insertion to stand, I must demand your scriptural reference for it. We're building our critiques on the language of the gospels; please do the same with your harmonization.

Actually, one gospel says that the angel was already present and already seated when the women arrived, and another says that the angels appeared and then sat down, but only after the women arrived.

It's not a matter of the gospels lacking exhaustive detail. It's a matter of them possessing contradictory details.

Did the angels appear and sit down after the arrival of the women and their inability to find Jesus' body, or did they discover them (him) already there, and already seated, upon entering?

Scripture tells it both ways, but we won't let a harmonization get away with any ambiguity. Please, fully commit your harmonization to one or the other gospel account.

If it's a fair criteria that we cannot add or substitute words for what the gospels clearly say, I think your harmonization's in more danger of collapsing than our critiques of it. I think that this criteria of "no additions or substitutions" is indeed fair; and we'll keep applying it to your harmonization.

There are a couple of things, but I might just toss them into the discussion later on. I've shown that none of your stated objections to my rebuttals stand, and I'm assuming my others still stand without objection.

-David

Family Man

I see another problem with this. Presumably, these accounts are coming from people viewing things from different vantage points. In addition, it almost certainly happened at great speed. That these witnesses reported different things is quite understandable.

In the gospel accounts, however, all the women are in one group -- i.e. share the same vantage point -- and even took time to interact with the man (or angels, depending on which version you accept as being the accurate one). There is no excuse for the differing claims. It is very clear that these details are fictions added by the gospel writers.

Gee, John, for someone who claims that others are so incompetent, you don't seem to be doing so well here. You've even appeared to have dropped your "only" argument. I must be more formidable than you thought.

Butters

With all due respect, yes he is wrong. The challenge is laid out in clear language, so even a Christian could understand it.

Whats so friggin' hard to understand? hehe
If you read the entire text, you could understand it. Quit reading it like you read the Bible, looking for "he COULD have meant this or that" and just read it.

I'm about ready to write Barker and ask him to change his opening statement because some people are to stupid to understand it, even though those same people are willing to tell me what the Gospel writers meant.hehe

You are just yanking our chain now. No one is stupid enough to claim that forgeting to mention the apperance of an Angel does not make a writer uncredible. I am going on the record to state.
YES That does make them uncredible.

Your policeman story is SO funny.
Yes- if one person reports two men and another reports three, something is wrong.
One is lying, or was not even there. One of the accounts are wrong.

By your way of thinking the cop that got the report that there were two men should have automaticly assumed that the person he was interviewing MIGHT have actully saw three men, or five, or ten, or a hundred.

In the real world,when the cop found out from another source that there were indeed three men, not to, he should realize that the person he interviewed gave a FALSE statement. Not "not exaustive". False. hehe

Bumble Bee Tuna

Hmmm...I was somewhat excited to see someone try to respond, I thought I might even get a serious response. What I'm getting is someone who dodges pertinent questions and pretends he answered them, all the while being puerile and giggling like a schoolgirl.
My only thing to add is that JohnV keeps bringing up real world cases to try to strengthen his argument but they're always against it. Barker made mistakes? Yes, we expected that, so we interpretted his account with the assumption that he contradicted himself. You then imply we should apply the same standards to Biblical texts...The funny thing is, that's what we're doing. You're the one who is using a different standard.

As to how many angels were there- Since you can't seem to understand language, let's imagine you're right, that if the writers of an account don't say "only", it leaves things wide open for more people. WHY would the author do this? Every eyewitness saw BOTH angels, they were wearing shining dazzling garments, hard to miss them. So every eyewitness account would have had two angels in it. Why would the author who said there was "a man" there leave out the other one? It makes sense that each author might leave out some details, yes, but this isn't a detail that would be left out. It doesn't help condense your story any to say "a man" instead of "two men". As a writer trying to condense a story, you would look for details that are less important. Along these lines, you would either include both angels, or just leave out the angel detail altogether. It's just sheer incompetence to decide to leave one out.

-B

diana

Thanks, Butters.

With all due respect, Bumble Bee Tuna, I think he is/was trying to give us a serious response. At this point, it's hard to say who took the first jab, but I suspect it was one of us infidels. At any rate, we've done our share of antagonizing him, so we're just as guilty of poor behavior as he is.

JohnV is a theist, although of what stripe, I haven't a clue. I've learned that theists tend to dodge questions we think are pertinent. I wonder if they realize they are key questions and avoiding dealing with them is their way of avoiding cognitive dissonance, or if they simply don't see them as pertinent, for whatever reason. As odd as it sounds, I really don't think theists' avoiding questions we put to them is willful (i.e., a conscious effort).

For what it's worth, JohnV, I respect your efforts, and I apologize if I've done anything to bring this discussion down to the level it has dropped to.

d

Kosh

It's not hard at all. The thread is here for us to read, and it's clear that johnV was the one to start poisoning the well. Everyone else has been cordial to him. When he got backed into a corner he started slinging insults. Par for the course.

Radcliffe Emerson

If "god" is all-powerful, omnipotent, all-knowing, capable of anything, etc, you'd think his divine inspiration of the writers would have least have gotten his facts straight!

Using police scene analogies, etc cannot apply to stories about Jesus in the bible, because the Christian claim is that everything in the bible is true as written and divinely inspired by god, who apparently isn't smart enough to know where he is at any given time, when this event allegedly occurred, or his divine inspiration can't even instruct 4 guys to write the same story.

diana

Hi Kosh! How ya been?

I know I could have just reread the thread, but once was enough for me. My point was that even if he did hurl the first insult, we wasted no time in regressing with him. And once all that begins, most casual lurkers just see us all being rude and petty, and it matters little who started it. That's all.

It may be par for the course, but it needn't be.

d

(P.S. What the hell happened to me? I used to be the first rock-thrower. I must be getting old.)

Kosh

Must be all that good luvin' you're getting! We'll be out your way for xmas, I'll wave as we drive by the base.