FunkyRes

Also from that page- (emphasis mine)

Marguerite

Hi all,
Just getting back to my thread. I had read just one reply before finally having some time to check responses again. I sent a web address to my friend from that first reply. She e-mailed me saying she refused to look at the website because it was as offensive to her as looking at a pornographic site.(Having known her since high school I found this to be a profoundly hypocritical statement.)

Be that as it may, I truly appreciate the response and plan to do my homework researching the websites and books you all have recommended.
My next response to my friend will not include the word "atheist." We'll see how that turns out,
but I won't be holding my breath.

Thanks again to everyone for your help.

Marguerite

Beach_MU

The first mistake that you are making is that you're ignoring the style of writing that this story is told in. In 1st century writing they were not concerned as much with every detail as we are in today's society so first off don't read the accounts like they had appeared in the newspapaer this morning. That being said though I'm not going to just say "you're reading it wrong" which won't solve anything, rather out of all the accounts those two are actually the easiest to resolve. I apologize if I don't mention every detail in both stories but if it's really a problem I'd love to discuss it later.

To start off with, have you ever heard a story from two different people's point of view? Are the stories identical? Of course not, and if they were they would be discarded as being collaborated and fabricated. Also each author had a different audience and theme that he was writing about so while one would mention the details that pertain to his theme, the other would omit them, focusing on other details instead (a common practice in the writing of the time period). Matthew's story tells the accounts of the women, while John intros his account by saying the women had gone to tomb and then ran to get Peter, but the rest of John's account is of the events that happened to Peter, not the women. So in reality these two accounts aren't the same and shouldn't be, because they are of events that happened to two different groups at two different times. Both occured on that morning, but Matthew's story comes first and then John's story is of the events that followed. In fact Matthew's story ends by saying that the women ran to tell the other disciples what happened.

I again apologize that this is not exhaustive (a fact I'm sure many critics will point out), but please if there is still glaring problems between these two accounts, point them out and I'd love to explain them for you.

Vorkosigan

The first mistake that you are making is ...

...that your explanation has more problems than you think. In your view what are the principles for determining who is right when there are discrepancies between the stories? I agree with you that first-century writers were often a bit hazy with details, but that does not excuse us from a duty to attempt to figure out what actually happened. For example, in John the Temple scourging comes early in Jesus' ministry, in the Synoptics, later. Which story is correct, and why?

To start off with, have you ever heard a story from two different people's point of view? Are the stories identical? Of course not, and if they were they would be discarded as being collaborated and fabricated.

It's good that you've agreed with NOGO that the accounts are at odds with one another. You've saved ever so much bandwidth.

Vorkosigan

Clutch

Paul, I'm afraid your screed about critical thinking is empty, given your manifest confusion over terms like "inconsistent". The scenario you go on to describe is not one in which the two reports are inconsistent. If they really were inconsistent then, as the poster said (I don't know who you're alluding to), one or both of them really must be false. There is no error in that statement -- only in yours.

To turn your own dubious grasp of reasoning into an indictment of the "commonplace" reasoning on this board is a remarkable combination of ineptitude, hubris, and false generalization.

Beach_MU

Did you fail to read the rest of the post? At what point did I agree with NOGO that the accounts are at odds with one another. Taking half of someone's thoughts and drawing conclusions from them doesn't fit with logic thinking, so please in the future how about being open-minded enough to at least read all of someone's idea before replying to it.

In response to your question about the timing of the Temple scourging, does it matter? Like I said the Bible is not meant to be read as a history book. That's not to say the Bible doesn't have more historical evidence and support than some of our history books which are accepted as fact, but Jesus's ministry lasted for a short three years so if one account, using general terms, says it was early and the other later does that really prove that it didn't happen or that either account is wrong.

CX

Certainly not. Even if every writer got it wrong that doesn't prove it didn't happen. It is impossible in principle to prove it didn't happen and there is nothing especially extraordinary about concluding that it did happen.

This is a different question entirely. Let's say you and I both witness a heated argument whereupon one of the disputants slugs the other one. Let's further say that the argument lasted for quite some time, say an hour. Now if I say that the aggressor slugged the guy right off the bat and you say he slugged that guy just before walking away, is it possible for both of us to be correct?

In any case what position are you trying to support here, the historicity of the temple scourging or the complete and perfect agreement of the gospels?

[ July 26, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]</p>

Beach_MU

I am not a historian, nor will I ever pretend to be one, so I guarantee that I'm not going to try and prove the historicity of the temple scourging. I agree with your example that the timing of the event does matter when trying to decide if two accounts are both correct, at least by today's standards, and I do agree that there isn't anything wrong with questioning what we read both in the Bible and in other sources, but I don't think the 1st century writers we as concerned with the timing of events as they were with the ideas and the events themselves (I could be wrong. If so, please let me know and explain why.) So to finish answering your question, I was merely responding to the question that Vorkosigan brought up in trying to disprove my explanation of the agreement between the morning accounts, though it had nothing to do with the accounts themselves.

CX

Fair enough. Your candor is appreciated and I freely admit that neither am I anything more than a dilletante myself. I agree that first century Xians would have been unconcerned about the specific chronology in the gospels much as modern Xians are largely unconcerned with it either. Further I strongly doubt that the NT was ever intended to be strictly historical (GLk's introduction notwithstanding). Literalism is largely a modern invention of protestant fundamentalism. I suspect that much of the "history" in the NT is legendary accretion. That being said it is tilting at windmills to try and harmonize clearly contradictory accounts and I fail to see the point of it unless one is committed to a literalist and inerrantist interpretation of the Xian scriptures. I further fail to understand why my fellow nontheists even bother to argue against that position since it is inherently dogmatic and nonrational.

Beach_MU

I have studied some of the first century background behind the Bible and I don't think the lack of concern for chronology was specific to the Christians, but rather it was the widely accepted writing style that the culture was used to and I think it is that reason why modern Christians aren't concerned with it either because it is unreasonable to judge a text by a different standard than it was written in. And as far as the "history" of the NT is concerned, while it has been scrutinized for centuries very little of it (if any) has ever been solidly disproven. My point when I brought up the history issue is that most of our ancient history came from one source (forgive me but I don't remember if it was Plato or Aristotle or Socrates or whoever - I am not a historian) who was writing about events that happened centuries before he lived and yet those accounts are accepted as fact in today's society. The NT accounts are mostly all written within a decade or two of the events, but certainly within the same generation, and even though there may be small differences such as chronology between the accounts, there is still tons more support and evidence for the history of the NT than for our ancient historical accounts. So at least use the same standards when analyzing it as you would when analyzing any other text.