JERDOG

Roland,

OK, my fundie coworker today entangled himself into a web of contradiction when he attempted to set me straight on the jesus rising from the dead story contradiction you posted about.

He said, (and I'm paraphrasing to keep it short) that the very fact that two slightly differing accounts of the same event happened, is because it was from two different perspectives. He said that this just adds to the validity of the bible. Like if a car crash happened, and it was seen from two different people on either side of the street. Ones story may be a little different than the other.
I explained to him that this was not a fair comparison because these are no "minor" discrepancies in the jesus story, only out right contadictions.The car analogy would have to be that one person who saw the wreck said the car slammed on the brakes, and the other said it accelerated. This is the magnitude of the contradictions in the jesus case.

This is how the rest of the conversation went..

ME: Well how did the resurrection happen? One way or more than one way?

HIM: Well it happened one way of coarse. The fact that there are some discrepancies just adds to the validity of the text.

ME:Well OK, not that I agree with you, but, you just said a very interesting word there. "Discrepancies". Don't you and other christians believe that the bible was inspired by an all powerful all knowing god that can make no mistakes?Didn't you say one time that the bible has no contradictions? So now you admit that the bible has contradictions in it?

CHECK MATE.

The back peddling began.
And he ended up contradicting himself in his back peddling to something that he said another time. But that is too long to get into here. I kind of like watching these fundies squirm especially when they have that high and mighty attitude you know?

Roland

Very good, Jerdog, keep at it.

That car crash analogy has always struck me as so lame. Either these accounts are inspired or they aren't. Either they are telling us what really happened or they aren't. Either the angel spoke to Mary Magdalene or he didn't. I don't see how you can have it both ways.

My fantasy is to some day go to a church on Easter morning and have a group of actors perform each of the accounts EXACTLY AS WRITTEN one right after the other. I can assure you that such an event would leave the audience scratching their heads in perplexity after all four versions had been performed. But I'm sure no church drama director would ever have the nerve to do it.

JERDOG

Yea. This gets me thinking though. What version do they use in the popular TV version they play every easter?

Asha'man

I'ts worse than that. One person saw two cars collide in Detroit, late at night. Another person saw a truck and a motorcycle collide in Chicago, in the mid afternoon. These are not longer accounts of the same car crash, no matter who you claim was driving!