Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

[joobz]

.., if they did add something, probably were just trying to give additional info to their readers.

So you've come from saying "The bible writers told the truth" to saying that "The bible writers only told little lies".

 

[Belz...]

 

[DOC]

As such, it is IMPOSSIBLE to claim they are seperate observations at seperate times and my critique still stands. The empty tomb accounts aren't MINOR differences, but represent ENORMOUSLY different accounts.


The bizarre point to the "seperate times/seperate observations" excuse is that it requires a complete lack of having read the bible.

The next paragraph is the conclusion made by Liam Thatcher in his detailed article "What happened on Easter Sunday?" And after reading his article, I would agree with his conclusion -- the facts can be reconciled to an unbiased reader.

Conclusion: "Whilst, on the face of it, there appear to be a number of discrepancies between the gospel accounts, when thought about in a clear and unbiased way, none prove to be insurmountable, and can in fact be reconciled. When read alongside each other the gospels provide a coherent and compelling picture of the events of Easter Sunday."

http://www.mobilise.xtn.org/resources/whathappenedoneastersunday

 

[DOC]

So you've come from saying "The bible writers told the truth" to saying that "The bible writers only told little lies".

Non Sequitur -- copyists of a Josephus' work are not bible writers.

And if something is added to a quote, what is added can certainly be true. And if the copyists did not believe what they were doing was wrong, but an accepted activity (assuming there was an insertion), and they were not trying to deceive but inform people where information was very scarce, then there was no lying.

 

[Simon39759]

Even if there was an interpolation (which some scholars don't believe) there is no way in the world that anyone would be charged by any legal authorities for the crime of forgery.

Jeez, you think? Maybe being dead for 1000+ years did give them some cover from legal repercussion?

Also, I don't think legal authorities care much for this kind of forgery. But it would get you kicked out of academia at the speed of sound, so, if you are going for an anachronistic comparison, go for this one.

Your trying to transplant our concept of forgery to biblical times The copyists, if they did add something, probably were just trying to give additional info to their readers. Information was very scarce back then -- it's not like they had newspapers or magazines or printed books or CNN back then. Many probably felt the more true information (and clarification) given to the readers the better since information was so scarce.

Indeed, information was scarce, so they made up stories to fill in the gaps and incorporated myths from other sources.
This body of legends grew up over time and, later, when looking at older texts written before this evolution, they found them lacking and decided to complete them. Which is why the earliest gospel of Mark is lacking accounts of the birth of Jesus, the myth had not developed at the time of the writing, and why it was modified in many ways to "retro-fit" it into the accounts of Matthew and Luke.
To be clear on this subject, Mark was written first. Then Matthew and Luke had it available when they wrote their gospels, which is why so many passages are copied word for word. But, by that time, the 'Jesus myth' had grown and legends had sprung that the authors were familiar with and they also included these legends to the Markian account. Similarly, Mark was edited over time to get its message more in line with the story of Jesus as it had developed by that time.


In the case of Josephus, it seems that the text was considered 'suspicious' at some time and I like to believe that a cunning copyist monk decided to add a nice passage about Jesus to insure the safety of the rest of the text.
That'd explain why we only have the altered version.
Please note that I am not transferring anything and have nothing but sympathy for the guy.
But truth remain that the passage was deliberately modified and can not be trusted as a reliable source of information.

The thing is, we know that people from different culture might have different notions of truth and historicity than we do. But it does not means that we are going to adopt their standard when investigating their period.

This is false, according to Professor Maier, there is actually more scholars that believe the whole Josephus quote is authentic than believe the whole quote was false.

Nope. From the quote you gave, he consider interpolation to be the most favoured hypothesis.
According to him, it is only that the majority of scholars believe that this forgery was replacing an existing passage about Jesus.
I am not sure that I agree. I don't think that there was such a passage to begin with, and I believe that most scholars actually agree with me.
Also, despite the numbers of people quoting Josephus at the time, there is not a single reference to this passage until the 4th century; which would not be surprising if the forgery occurred at that time.

Let see:

But Pilate undertook to bring a current of water to Jerusalem, and did it with the sacred money, and derived the origin of the stream from the distance of two hundred furlongs. However, the Jews were not pleased with what had been done about this water; and many ten thousands of the people got together, and made a clamor against him, and insisted that he should leave off that design. Some of them also used reproaches, and abused the man, as crowds of such people usually do. So he outfitted a great number of his soldiers in the clothing of the crowd, who carried daggers under their garments, and sent them to a place where they might surround them. So he directed the Jews himself to go away; but when they boldly cast reproaches upon him, he gave the soldiers that signal which had been beforehand agreed on; who laid upon them much greater blows than Pilate had commanded them, and equally punished those that were disorderly, and those that were not; nor did they spare them in the least: and since the people were unarmed, and were caught by men prepared for what they were about, there were a great number of them killed by this means, and others of them ran away wounded. And thus an end was put to this rebellion.

3. Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named for him, are not extinct at this day.

4. About the same time also another sad calamity put the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful practices happened about the temple of Isis that was at Rome. I will now first take notice of the wicked attempt about the temple of Isis, and will then give an account of the Jewish affairs. There was at Rome a woman whose name was Paulina; one who, on account of the dignity of her ancestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life, had a great reputation; she was also very rich; and although she was of a beautiful countenance, and in that flower of her age wherein women are the most gay, yet did she lead a life of great modesty. She was married to Saturninus, one that was every way answerable to her in an excellent character. Decius Mundus fell in love with this woman. He was a man very high in the equestrian order; and as she was of too great dignity to be caught by presents, and had already rejected them, though they had been sent in great abundance, he was still more inflamed with love to her, insomuch that he promised to give her two hundred thousand Attic drachmas for one night's sexual intercourse; and when this would not prevail upon her, and he was not able to bear this misfortune in his amours, he thought it the best way to famish himself to death for want of food, on account of Paulina's sad refusal; and he determined with himself to die after such a manner, and he want on with his purpose accordingly. Now Mundus had a freedwoman, who had been made free by his father, whose name was Ide, one skillful in all sorts of mischief. This woman was much grieved at the young man's resolution to kill himself (for he did not conceal his intentions to destroy himself from others), and came to him, and encouraged him by her discourse, and made him to hope, by some promises she gave him, that he might obtain a night's sexual intercourse with Paulina; and when he joyfully hearkened to her entreaty, she said she wanted no more than fifty thousand drachmas for entrapping the woman. So when she had encouraged the young man, and gotten as much money as she required, she did not take the same methods as had been taken before, because she perceived that the woman was by no means to be tempted by money; but as she knew that she was very much given to the worship of the goddess Isis, she devised the following stratagem; She went to some of Isis's priests, and upon the strongest assurances [of concealment], she persuaded them by words, but chiefly by the offer of money, of twenty-five thousand drachmas in hand, and as much more when the thing had taken effect; and told them the passion of the young man, and persuaded them to use all means possible to beguile the woman. So they were drawn in to promise so to do, by that large sum of gold they were to have. Accordingly, the oldest of them went immediately to Paulina; and upon his admittance, he desired to speak with her by herself. When that was granted him, he told her that he was sent by the god Anubis, who was fallen in love with her, and directed her to come to him. Upon this she took the message very kindly, and valued herself greatly upon this condescension of Anubis, and told her husband that she had a message sent her, and was to dine and lie with Anubis; so he agreed to her acceptance of the offer, as fully satisfied with the chastity of his wife. Accordingly, she went to the temple, and after she had dined there, and it was the hour to go to sleep, the priest shut the doors of the temple, when, in the holy part of it, the lights were also put out. Then did Mundus leap out (for he was hidden therein), and did not fail to enjoy her, who was at his service all the night long, as supposing he was the god; and when he was gone away, which was before those priests who knew nothing of this stratagem were stirring, Paulina came early to her husband, and told him how the god Anubis had appeared to her. Among her friends, also, she declared how great a value she put upon this favor, who partly believed the thing, when they reflected on its nature, and partly were amazed at it, as having no pretense for not believing it, when they considered the modesty and the dignity of the person. But now, on the third day after what had been done, Mundus met Paulina, and said, Nay, Paulina, you have saved me two hundred thousand drachmas, which sum you might have added to your own family; yet have you not failed to be at my service in the manner I invited you. As for the reproaches you have laid upon Mundus, I value not the business of names; but I rejoice in the pleasure I reaped by what I did, while I took to myself the name of Anubis. When he had said this, he went his way. But now she began to come to the sense of the grossness of what she had done, and rent her garments, and told her husband of the horrid nature of this wicked contrivance, and prayed him not to neglect to assist her in this case. So he revealed the fact to the emperor; whereupon Tiberius inquired into the matter thoroughly by examining the priests about it, and ordered them to be crucified, as well as Ide, who was the occasion of their ruin, and who had contrived the whole matter, which was so injurious to the woman. He also demolished the temple of Isis, and gave order that her statue should be thrown into the river Tiber; while he only banished Mundus, but did no more to him, because he supposed that what crime he had committed was done out of the passion of love. And these were the circumstances which concerned the temple of Isis, and the injuries occasioned by her priests. I now return to the relation of what happened about this time to the Jews at Rome, as I formerly told you I would.

I find it quite clear, the passage really jumps at you as not fitting in the narrative. And the writing style really is different. It really is a rather poor fit.

It is also a very Christian accounts of the story where Pilate is essentially innocent and only execute Jesus under the pressure of the locals. This is an account that many scholars have disagreed with.

 

[joobz]

Non Sequitur -- copyists of a Josephus' work are not bible writers.

But you use that work to validate the bible account. So, it's ok to use a falsely attributed work if it agrees with what you want it to say?

And if something is added to a quote, what is added can certainly be true.

And it can also be false.

 

[joobz]

The next paragraph is the conclusion made by Liam Thatcher in his detailed article "What happened on Easter Sunday?" And after reading his article, I would agree with his conclusion -- the facts can be reconciled to an unbiased reader.

Conclusion: "Whilst, on the face of it, there appear to be a number of discrepancies between the gospel accounts, when thought about in a clear and unbiased way, none prove to be insurmountable, and can in fact be reconciled. When read alongside each other the gospels provide a coherent and compelling picture of the events of Easter Sunday."

http://www.mobilise.xtn.org/resources/whathappenedoneastersunday

So, your best counter argument is that the details aren't That different.

Well, excuse me if I find that contrary to the unbiased review of the gospels.

But "There was one angel sitting atop the stone outside the tomb",

"There was one MAN sitting INSIDE the tomb",

"There were TWO men STANDING inside the tomb", and

"There were two ANGELS SITTING inside the tomb"

can all be right?

Can you imagine a DA using similar evidence to make a conviction.

Your honor we have 4 witnesses to the murder.
witness1: Yes the killer was a black man, and he was outside the building with a gun.
Witness2: Yes, there were two white killers, and they were inside the building with guns.
Witness3: The killer was a white guy and he had a knife.
Witness4: There were 2 black killers, and they were inside the building with guns.
Judge: YOur accounts do not agree, which one of you is telling the truth?
Witnesses: We all are. They are all true.
Defendant: Your Honor, we wish to file a motion to dismiss all charges on the grounds that the witnesses are retarded.

If you look at the accounts written as they are, with an unbiased eye, it is clear that NONE of them are in agreement on the basic details of the story. If we took these in as evidence, we would have to assume that they are certainly not eye witness accounts of the original happening. Indeed, the differences reflect differences that one would expect from oral repetition of a legend. As the story is retold, the details change. Perhaps there was some truth to the original story, but there is no evidence that any of these stories reflect that original account.

 

[Simon39759]

The next paragraph is the conclusion made by Liam Thatcher in his detailed article "What happened on Easter Sunday?" And after reading his article, I would agree with his conclusion -- the facts can be reconciled to an unbiased reader.

Conclusion: "Whilst, on the face of it, there appear to be a number of discrepancies between the gospel accounts, when thought about in a clear and unbiased way, none prove to be insurmountable, and can in fact be reconciled. When read alongside each other the gospels provide a coherent and compelling picture of the events of Easter Sunday."

http://www.mobilise.xtn.org/resources/whathappenedoneastersunday

That's pretty lame apologetics:

We can safely assume that the angel of Matthew 28 and the young man of Mark 16 are one and the same.

Say the **** who? Since when can we assume that Angel=Young men?
Also, once again we have a relatively mundane early version, that grow more fantastical in the later version of the gospels.

The other example is stupid:

Imagine I went to watch the football with my brother and two friends. The next day, if I were asked by a selection of people how I spent my evening (some of whom know my brother, but not my friends, and others of whom know only me), I might legitimately reply in any number of ways: (1) I watched the football; (2) I watched the football with my brother; (3) I watched the football with some mates; (4) I watched the football with my brother, Andy, and Martin. At no point have I contradicted myself. I have merely given fuller or shorter versions of the same story.

In reality, you would only use version 1 and three. If you are going to mention being with people, and start clarifying who you were with, you are not going to leave any any mention of half of the people you were with. That's just plain silly.
Also, we are not talking about a casual mention about a mundane activity. We are talking about maybe the most important segment of the Bible, the final vindication of Christ and his message. One would expect the writer to take great care about it.

Really, the final idea of the complex dance between the several parties is plain silly and involve multiple group and multiple visions and the gospel writers cherry-picking some events and not even mentioning others.
More likely is that they were one original version that got modified after a few hundred repetitions.
The most likely version, in my opinion is that Mary Magdalena, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, others went to anoint the body with spice, saw the stone rolled and got told by a young man that the body was missing.
The listener quickly assumed that the young man was the one rolling the stone and that he was an angel. By the time of the later gospels, it had morphed into a certitude. Why did the angel's number double between account? I have not fricking idea...

 

[Mojo]

Non Sequitur -- copyists of a Josephus' work are not bible writers.

And if something is added to a quote, what is added can certainly be true. And if the copyists did not believe what they were doing was wrong, but an accepted activity (assuming there was an insertion), and they were not trying to deceive but inform people where information was very scarce, then there was no lying.

But whatever, it certainly knackers it as a contemporaneous account.

 

[Belz...]

Conclusion: "Whilst, on the face of it, there appear to be a number of discrepancies between the gospel accounts, when thought about in a clear and unbiased way, none prove to be insurmountable, and can in fact be reconciled. When read alongside each other the gospels provide a coherent and compelling picture of the events of Easter Sunday."

Translation: "When you think about it, you can rationalize away all those annoying contradictions!"

Were there TWO or ONE blind man, DOC ? You can't have both.

 

[Lothian]

Conclusion: "Whilst, on the face of it, there appear to be a number of discrepancies between the gospel accounts, when thought about in a clear and unbiased way, none prove to be insurmountable, and can in fact be reconciled. When read alongside each other the gospels provide a coherent and compelling picture of the events of Easter Sunday."

http://www.mobilise.xtn.org/resources/whathappenedoneastersunday

In a clear and unbiased way the answers conflict. It is a bit like the following answers to the question. “Who won the football last night?”

Matthew “City beat United 1-0”
Luke “It was 2-1 to United”
John ”United lost 1-2”
Mark “City and United drew 0-0”


What the author has done is assumed the statements are right and done his best to invent a story where the statements could all be true

e.g

When the game kicked off the score was 0-0 (Mark), then City scored just before half time (Mathew). Early in the second half united equalised, then in the last minute a united player scored an own goal (Luke) so City won (John).

Desipte the convaluted reasonoing In my example 3 answers are plain wrong which is one less than the apostles.

 

[paximperium]

Translation: "When you think about it, you can rationalize away all those annoying contradictions!"

Were there TWO or ONE blind man, DOC ? You can't have both.

DOC logic: "It technically is one blind man with both his eyes blinded but some people would call not having the use of both eyes as two blind men."

 

[paximperium]

Roman Cop: So who saw this Jesus person?
Witness 1: Hey, Jesus appeared to the women near the tomb.
Witness 2: Nah ah, He appeared in Gallilee a hundred miles away.
Wintness 3: No way dude, he appeared to the women later, near the city.
Roman Cop: Are you guys high or drunk?
Witnesses: Dude...

So DOC let's say you're the Roman cop and now need to write a report.

A little homework for you. Write a simple straightforward timeline of what happened during Easter. What happened first, second etc. and include times of days and places and peoples involved. Who were the witnesses? What are the details? Leave no details out from the Bible.

I believe you can't or will just ignore this challenge.

Am I psychic? DOC ignored the challenge. Hey, DOC are you going to show how wrong we all are about the contradictions by showing us the Easter timeline?

 

[Elizabeth I]

Even if there was an interpolation (which some scholars don't believe) there is no way in the world that anyone would be charged by any legal authorities for the crime of forgery. Your trying to transplant our concept of forgery to biblical times The copyists, if they did add something, probably were just trying to give additional info to their readers. Information was very scarce back then -- it's not like they had newspapers or magazines or printed books or CNN back then. Many probably felt the more true information (and clarification) given to the readers the better since information was so scarce.

ROFL. Have you given up misinterpretation, cherry-picking and apologetics for outright comedy? If so, I applaud your decision!

Non Sequitur -- copyists of a Josephus' work are not bible writers.

And if something is added to a quote, what is added can certainly be true. And if the copyists did not believe what they were doing was wrong, but an accepted activity (assuming there was an insertion), and they were not trying to deceive but inform people where information was very scarce, then there was no lying.

Who taught doc the formal names for logical fallacies so that he can throw them around like salt on popcorn? 1,000 lashes with a copy of a logic text for you!

 

[Belz...]

Woo-woos love to throw around the names of fallacies. It makes them sound so much smarter.

Remember the 9/11 CTers ? "STRAWMAN!!" "AD HOM!!"

 

[joobz]

I would have no problem with DOC calling out logical fallacies... if he was right.

 

[DOC]

So, your best counter argument is that the details {concerning the resurrection} aren't That different.

Actually that is not the argument of the website I brought in from post #3423. Its argument is that the resurrection accounts can be reconciled if you do a little thinking of various scenarios that could have conceivably occurred. I think skeptics make the mistake of assuming that the only things that are happening at the time is what is mentioned in the biblical account. But just taking a little time to think of various scenarios can reconcile the perceived discrepancies in this case.

And as I've mentioned before, these appearances of discrepancies only show that the 4 gospel accounts were written independent from one another. And anytime you have 4 people describing an event (especially when 2 of the people are describing it second hand) there are usually going to be some appearances of discrepancies. But those perceived discrepancies certainly don't mean the event they are talking about never happened.

In fact if all the gospel accounts were exactly the same in every minute detail then that is the time to be suspicious about their veracity. As Geisler points out there is just the right combination of concurrence and the appearance of discrepancy (in the gospel accounts) to show that these four accounts are independently reporting on an event that actually happened.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Actually that is not the argument of the website I brought in from post #3423. Its argument is that the resurrection accounts can be reconciled if you do a little thinking of various scenarios that could have conceivably occurred. I think skeptics make the mistake of assuming that the only things that are happening at the time is what is mentioned in the biblical account. But just taking a little time to think of various scenarios can reconcile the perceived discrepancies in this case.

And as I've mentioned before, these appearances of discrepancies only show that the 4 gospel accounts were written independent from one another. And anytime you have 4 people describing an event (especially when 2 of the people are describing it second hand) there are usually going to be some appearances of discrepancies. But those perceived discrepancies certainly don't mean the event they are talking about never happened.

In fact if all the gospel accounts were exactly the same in every minute detail then that is the time to be suspicious about their veracity. As Geisler points out there is just the right combination of concurrence and the appearance of discrepancy (in the gospel accounts) to show that these four accounts are independently reporting on an event that actually happened.

No, sorry, not quite. What is characteristic of accounts written independently of one another is that they use different words to convey similar meanings or similar stories.

When it comes to the gospel accounts Matthew and Luke lift stories and entire passages from Mark -- even using exactly the same words in the same sequence. This has been known for a long time and is the reason why Mark is considered the first gospel written.

Eyewitnesses to events do not use the writings of other people to tell their story. They tell their story.

Mark is an independent witness -- one who everyone seems to think was not an eyewitness. You can never successfully argue that the authors of Matthew and Luke were eyewitnesses -- so they were not simply describing the same events from another perspective.

That leaves you with John.

We've been through the issues with John before. He is specifically said to be uneducated in Acts. It is highly unlikely that a fisherman --specifically said to be uneducated in a society in which only a small number of people could read and write -- wrote that gospel, especially since it is written in Greek and uses Greek philosophical ideas. There are many arguments against a Galilean fisherman being the author of the work, but suffice it to say that none of them can be the absolute final word since it is always possible that such a person could have learned to read and write later in life. It's just horribly improbable that he did.

 

[X]

Actually that is not the argument of the website I brought in from post #3423. Its argument is that the resurrection accounts can be reconciled if you do a little thinking of various scenarios that could have conceivably occurred. I think skeptics make the mistake of assuming that the only things that are happening at the time is what is mentioned in the biblical account. But just taking a little time to think of various scenarios can reconcile the perceived discrepancies in this case.

And as I've mentioned before, these appearances of discrepancies only show that the 4 gospel accounts were written independent from one another. And anytime you have 4 people describing an event (especially when 2 of the people are describing it second hand) there are usually going to be some appearances of discrepancies. But those perceived discrepancies certainly don't mean the event they are talking about never happened.

In fact if all the gospel accounts were exactly the same in every minute detail then that is the time to be suspicious about their veracity. As Geisler points out there is just the right combination of concurrence and the appearance of discrepancy (in the gospel accounts) to show that these four accounts are independently reporting on an event that actually happened.

So...

If you pretend a whole bunch of stuff happened (for which there is not only no proof, but no mention either) you can twist and contort 3 different stories to be vaguely similar, allowing you to believe that their accounts of an extraordinary event, written a long time (100 years or more) after said event supposedly occurred, are mutually supportive, rather than mutually contradictory.

 

[DOC]

So...

If you pretend a whole bunch of stuff happened (for which there is not only no proof, but no mention either) you can twist and contort 3 different stories to be vaguely similar, allowing you to believe that their accounts of an extraordinary event, written a long time (100 years or more) after said event supposedly occurred, are mutually supportive, rather than mutually contradictory.

Well it seems skeptics pretend nothing else happened outside of the "short matter of fact" accounts of the time of the discovery of Christ's empty tomb. Remember this is the greatest event in the history of the world. It is certainly reasonable to believe there was a lot more happening around the empty tomb than was reported in the short gospel accounts of this incident.