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owr39
Guest
You won’t get a response from him. He’s been called on being an Atheist a few times now, but for some reason likes to confuse others by using the Catholic label.
Accuracy of the Scriptures Concerning Miracles and the Game of Telephone
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Abu
Guest
Only if, as you do, the individual evades the clarity of the institution of His Personal Church by Jesus, who is God, and the clarity of His guarantee of the truths taught by Her as protected by the Holy Spirit as dogma and doctrine, since the “memories” are protected from error by God Himself.
You continue to evade the facts of the miracle of the Sun at Fatima, the medically attested miracles that take place at Lourdes, and the Eucharistic miracles.
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Lion_IRC
Guest
NM505StKate,
Could you please clarify your faith position with respect to God’s existence and whether you self-identify as Christian?
Sorry to ask, but having just finished reading your posts in this thread I am unclear and I believe Christians ought speak the truth plainly. I’m sure you agree right?
TIA
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Lion_IRC
Guest
Oh, and by the way, there’s no contradictions in the link you posted below.
Assuming you think ‘contradiction’ means mutually exclusive plainly understood fact claims.
Ambiguous language does not amount to a contradiction.
Atheist interpretation of religious theology doesn’t prove the existence of a contradiction.
Assuming you think ‘contradiction’ means mutually exclusive plainly understood fact claims.
Contrasting opinions or differing beliefs are not contradictions.
Ambiguous language does not amount to a contradiction.
Atheist interpretation of religious theology doesn’t prove the existence of a contradiction.
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Lion_IRC
Guest
Which of these seemingly contradictory statements is true?
- Robert Gordon Menzies became Prime Minister of Australia when he was 45 years old.
- Robert Gordon Menzies became Prime Minister of Australia when he was 55 years old.
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HelenRose
Guest
These are interesting questions and they represent the problems that faced the early witnesses of Christ’s life.
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Two thousand years ago I would not have been able to check out the nitty gritty details but today I checked Wikipedia to see who Robert Gordon Menzies is.
I found out that he was the Prime Minister of Australia and he was elected twice.
I have observed that atheists and fundamental thinkers (either Christian or Muslim) tend to be literal to the point that they get lost in the details. They want something definite that clearly explains life. The human mind is not capable of comprehending the mind of God so we try to fit Him in a tiny box of unconnected details.
That doesn’t mean that we should dismiss the details. It means that we need to place these details in their proper place. Details are pieces of an enormously rich puzzle. We are not able to see the whole picture. We must trust that the details will fit together and that God’s beautiful puzzle will be clear to us some day. That day, God willing, will be when we can see Him face to face.
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Peter_Plato
Guest
No, I am claiming – quite consistently – that the stories are not contradictory despite the fact that you keep claiming that about the Gospel accounts without so much as coming close to having made the case.
Here is a plausible way of reconciling the two accounts in a completely logical and chronological sequence. I have included every important detail. The source is in brackets following the detail.
Jesus arrives by boat. (Mark)
Jairus meets him pleading with him to save his sick daughter. (Mark)
Jesus goes with Jairus. (Mark)
On the way, people arrive telling Jairus his daughter had died. (Matt)
Jairus kneels before Jesus again and says, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her and she will live.” (Matt)
Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid, only believe.” And continues to Jairus’s house. (Mark)
On the way, he encounters the woman with the hemorrhage. (Both)
Jesus heals her and they continue on their way. (Mark)
Jesus sees the loud flute playing and crowd making a commotion (Matt)
Getting closer, they encounter much wailing and weeping. (Mark)
Jesus says, “The child is only sleeping and not dead.” (Both)
The people laugh at him. (Mark)
He puts everyone outside and goes in to see the child. (Both)
He says, “Little girl, get up!”(Mark)
Jesus takes her by the hand and she gets up. (Matt)
Everyone is overcome with amazement. (Mark)
Jesus orders them to tell no one. (Mark)
Acting against Jesus’ admonition, the story gets spread throughout the district. (Matt)
Where, precisely, are the contradictions?
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Thorolfr
Guest
The account you have presented is a melded one that was obviously unknown to either Mark or Matthew. No reputable historian would find this to be a sound method of analyzing historical sources.
It’s just like the difficulty of reconciling the two versions of how Judas died, one saying he hung himself, the other that he fell headlong on the ground and spilled his guts. So I’ve seen people claim that he must have hung himself, but that the rope must have broken so that he then fell headlong to the ground and spilled his guts. Voila! Problem solved!
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Peter_Plato
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Well, now you are being disingenuous. You claimed “contradictory accounts,” but now are back peddling to “would not be accepted by reputable historians.” At least be intellectually honest and admit that the two accounts are NOT contradictory, as has been demonstrated. You won’t do that will you?
By “reputable historian” do you mean those historians who happen to have the same take on melding events that you do?
It would seem to me that any historian who doesn’t use logical possibility to permit the “melding” of what are merely superficial differences isn’t much of an historical scholar. I am not clear why this is not a “sound method” because it takes into account the very likely possibility that two individuals were not in precisely the same place at the same time and didn’t necessarily collude after the fact to arrive at one completely consistent “melded” account from the get go.
Good historians understand how historical accounts were written and don’t take the rigid view that you seem to insist must be true with regard to the Gospels, but I am reasonably certain that you would permit it regarding other non-Christian historical accounts. Actually, the problem is that in the case of the vast majority of ancient historical events we have relatively few multiple accounts of those events. Ancient historians don’t regularly run into the multiple account problem since only one extant narrative is the usual situation. Having to reconcile multiple accounts is relatively rare. The fact that there are multiple accounts regarding the life of Jesus is the bone being picked here – an embarrassment of riches from the time period where little is to be had is what atheists (and apparently some theists) seem to find problematic in a nit-picky kind of way.
Yes, the problem that does get solved is that the two accounts are NOT contradictory, which makes it a problem for those, like you, who want to insist a contradiction does exist when, in fact, there is none.
What is interesting, I think, is that Jesus called himself a “stumbling stone” and Paul referred to Jesus as the one who confounds the “wisdom” of the “wise.” It seems to me that if the omniscient God is behind the events in the Gospels, then orchestrating things to give those merely looking for the opportunity to indulge biases and disbelief would not be beyond his power. Those not truly searching for the truth will find the assurances they want so desperately to have. In other words, those who seek WILL find, but those who seek merely to reinforce their errant views will not be prevented from doing so – i.e., they, too, will find what they are seeking. God may indeed have a highly refined sense of humour with regard to not standing in the way of the “smart” and self-assured who merely wish to indulge their conceits.
Jesus does caution us not to judge purely by appearances nor according to the superficially obvious but to look for the deeper meaning.
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Peter_Plato
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Actually, the fact that it may have been “unknown” to both Mark and Matthew lends credibility to both of their accounts because they can be consistently – and without contradiction – melded. These are examples of unrehearsed or unplanned coincidences. Where seemingly disparate accounts can come together and be melded in a totally plausible way is a sign of authenticity.
Are you saying that after Jairus asked Jesus to heal his daughter they could not possibly have been met on the journey with news that she had died? What makes that so implausible that we ought to discount the possibility? It isn’t far-fetched.
For a long time, blood and water flowing from the pierced side of Jesus was considered as incontrovertible proof that the crucifixion story was problematic. It is now a confirmed medical fact that blood and water from the heart and pleural cavity could flow separately depending upon how death was induced.
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Thorolfr
Guest
Also, the accounts cannot even be seamlessly melded. Lets try it:
It doesn’t seem to work very well does it? In the first account in Mark, Jesus is by the sea surrounded by a crowd when Jairus first meets him, but Jairus doesn’t know at that first meeting that his daughter is dead. But in the second version in Matthew, when he first meets Jesus, he already knows she’s dead. Also, in Mark, the intervening story of the hemorrhaging woman takes place before Jairus knows his daughter is dead. But in Matthew, he already knows she’s dead before Jesus meets the hemorrhaging woman. You can only reconcile the two if you disregard the sequence of events in the two different versions.
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Lion_IRC
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Why did you leave out Mark 26 to 34 ?
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Lion_IRC
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Mark clearly shows Jairus learning that his daughter - who was close to death - had in fact now died.
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Thorolfr
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I already posted those verses in post #139 above. They are all about the hemorrhaging woman, not about Jairus and his daughter.Why did you leave out Mark 26 to 34 ?
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Thorolfr
Guest
Yes, in Mark, Jairus learns his daughter has died after Jesus meets with the hemorrhaging woman, but he does not know this yet when he first meets Jesus. In Matthew, however, Jairus already knows his daughter is dead when he first meets Jesus and this is before Jesus meets the hemorrhaging woman.
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Lion_IRC
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No that’s wrong.
The account in Matthew comes after Jairus has learned his daughter is dead.
Mark clearly states that “some people came from the house of Jairus” came to Jairus after he had already spoken to Jesus the first time. They told Jairus that it was pointless to continue bothering Jesus since the girl had died. The text clearly shows that members of Jairus’ house were aware he had already spoken to Jesus at least once.
It’s quite easy to reconcile the intervening miracle because Matthew does not compel us to think that this is the first time Jairus has ever spoken to Jesus.
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Peter_Plato
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The problem arises when skeptical interpreters see the stories as closed narratives, not allowing for the fact that some of the Gospel writers could have left out details while others included them. It is as if the standard applied to these writers is “omniscience” such that each writer had to include every detail of the complete narrative in order for the account to pass the “smell” test of the skeptics.
This isn’t the standard normally held for witnesses in a court of law. Each is permitted to give their own account of what they saw and these accounts are expected to have details missing – those that each witness did not see or didn’t think were crucial to the story. I think that is quite permissible. Investigators look for plausible ways that the different accounts fit together and these corroborate the overall case being built. Never is it the case that detectives expect the accounts to be perfectly identical.
In fact, this feature of eye witness accounts supports the Gospels because by competent scholarly analysis, the undesigned coincidences from each of the individual accounts corroborate the complete narrative in ways that the writers could not have known when they wrote what they did.
Philosopher Tim McGrew is currently doing some great work on these and has written a five part series here:
apologetics315.com/2013/11/undesigned-coincidences-series-by-tim.html
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Lion_IRC
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Yep. Great link thanks. He does excellent work on undesigned coincidences and showing how Gospel authors corroborate rather than contradict one another.
My point was that Matthew does not compel us to think that this is the first time Jairus has ever spoken to Jesus
My point was that Matthew does not compel us to think that this is the first time Jairus has ever spoken to Jesus
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Peter_Plato
Guest
The problem for you, I take it, is the translation of Matthew’s account where words like “suddenly” are used inserting a sense of urgency and immediacy as if Jairus came to him immediately and suddenly when the crowd gathered. That isn’t how all translations render that part.
It might even be that using those words creates a misapprehension of what is going on.
The phrasing of… “Then one of the leaders of the synagogue came…” need not entail that this was Jairus’ first encounter with Jesus.
Matthew may be picking up the story in mid-stream, after their first encounter. He may, in fact, be leaving out the entire story to the point that Jairus gets the news of his daughter’s death.
Compare your translation…
18 While he was saying these things to them [the disciples of John], suddenly a leader of the synagogue[d] came in…
…to the NIV:
The way this is rendered is consistent with Mark’s account of Jairus already having encountered Jesus and they are making their way to Jairus’ house. It could be that Jairus gets the news while they are walking. I mean there is no reason to think that on the way Jesus could not have been interrupted by John’s disciples with a question and while addressing them, Jairus may have received news of his daughter’s death. I picture Jesus walking with determination, but still interacting with those around him on the way. Jairus, himself, may have been approached “to the side” by the messengers with the news. He may then have interrupted Jesus by kneeling in front of him and the story continues where Matthew picked it up.
Still consistent with the melding of the two accounts. the issue is leaving “room” in each account for the details from the other. That space is there, logically speaking.
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