Accuracy of the Scriptures Concerning Miracles and the Game of Telephone

[Peter_Plato]

Again from my research only two things seem to be certain to historians, there was someone named Jesus and he was executed by Pilot.

If your research tells you he was executed by Pilot, there are massive problems with your research.

 

[Peter_Plato]

The rest is iffy as there are contradictions.

The bulk of your posts demonstrate that you do not properly understand the meaning of the word “contradictions.” That much is absolutely clear.

 

[NM505StKate]

Talk about missing the forest for the trees

I guess if you want to see it that way. To me it is more of sifting through to find facts and evidence. I like knowledge and searching for it. I follow where the evidence leads me.

 

[NM505StKate]

I have answered both of these issues. The Matthew one in post 111, the census one previous to that.

What I gave are plausible reasons for why the Gospel writers said what they did. You didn’t answer either one in anything like a satisfactory way but yet you continue to bring up these points as if they have no possible answer. That is not being reasonable. In my estimation, it is having an irrational fixation that no amount of dialogue will ever dispel because it is an act of will rather than a thoughtful position open to plausible alternatives.

Basically, you have made up your mind about reality and refuse to consider any possibilities other than the ones you have decided as an act of will will be true for you. You are free to “think” that way, but let’s not call it being fair-minded or reasonable or even consistently skeptical. It isn’t. Quite the opposite, actually.

It is being skeptical only with regard to the things you have already decided by your act of will that you won’t accept. You impose a kind of absolute skepticism on those ideas, but on the ideas you have accepted, you won’t permit your “hardened” skepticism to come within a mile of those. Protect those at all costs. The term “hardened skeptic” is correct but only consistently applied with bias to those ideas you won’t accept, but not to your own thinking – i.e., to consider that your current beliefs might, in fact, be the errant ones and why.

If evidence comes and I am wrong about something I am fine with changing my position.

If your research tells you he was executed by Pilot, there are massive problems with your research.

Okay why was Jesus executed and by whom?.

 

[HelenRose]

Two different time periods though. One says Jesus was born when the census was being taken, which is another matter, and the other during Herod. Problem is that you can’t have Jesus being born and then running off to Egypt when Joseph has to go to his home town for a census. The story makes it sound like it happened at the same time. Was he born in a house or an animal trough? Which of the genealogies is correct, Matthew or Luke because both are inconsistent? Why did two of the Gospels not say a word about the birth? John didn’t give two figs about it and Mark jumps to the baptism by John, never mentions they are related.

One of the tactics in a criminal investigation is for the detectives to interrogate many different witnesses. Each witness will bring to the story a different perspective. Some of the stories match but the detective will always know when two people have rehearsed the events and tell exactly the same story.

The witnesses of the story of Jesus are like that. There are sections in the Gospels that are borrowed exactly from each other. This sections come from the same source and are recorded the same. There are other sections that a witness saw something that Jesus said or did that the others did not. The writers of the Gospels either wrote what they heard and saw and interviewed what others heard and saw.

If there were no contradictions we would know that the story was rehearsed behind closed doors long after the events took place.

 

[HelenRose]

If evidence comes and I am wrong about something I am fine with changing my position.

Okay why was Jesus executed and by whom?.

By the Roman soldiers under the condemnation of Pilate who was to great a coward to risk the truth.

 

[Peter_Plato]

If evidence comes and I am wrong about something I am fine with changing my position.

What you fail to realize is that you have an evidence “pre-filter” functioning to screen evidence before you permit it to actually be accepted as evidence. It is called bias.

One of the sure ways of recognizing the effects of that pre-filter is that you, on these forums, have not modified your position from insisting that accounts are “contradictory,” when, in fact, the accounts are not. They are difficult to reconcile but they are not contradictory. Yet, you maintain they are but have been unable to provide the logical argument to support that claim even though you keep insisting it.

The truly fair-minded response from you would be to admit as much instead of doubling-down on the “contradictory” claim since you have failed to show the warrant necessary to back up.

My guess is that you don’t understand what is required here, which is precisely why you keep asserting that contradictions exist. It is the position you feel secure in holding purely because it is yours and a great deal hangs on being “right” as far as you are concerned.

Okay why was Jesus executed and by whom?.

Not by Pilot. His name was Pontius Pilate. Check those research sources of yours again. If they insist that Pilot executed Jesus, it is time to toss those sources in the refuse bin.

The reason Jesus was executed is complicated, but it certainly wasn’t because he was a threat to Roman authority. Pilate pretty much rubs the noses of the Sanhedrin in that because he literally crowns Jesus “King of the Jews” and then promptly crucifies him to show how Roman power will deal with any Jewish claims to autonomy or right to self-rule. Pilate was mocking the Jewish leaders in the same instant as he was doing their bidding – that much is clear by the sign he had placed over Jesus’ head.

 

[mattp0625]

If evidence comes and I am wrong about something I am fine with changing my position.

Okay why was Jesus executed and by whom?.

Pilot allowed the Jews to execute Jesus. He washed his hands of the decision and handed him over to the mob’s will.

He sent centurions to carry out the mob’s will.

 

[Thorolfr]

Bart Ehrman’s new book, Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior (HarperOne, 2016) just came out earlier this month and he gives some good examples of what he calls distorted memories in the transmission of stories about Jesus. One way to clearly see these is to look at different versions of the same story:

For example, in Mark 14:3-9:

3 While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper,** as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. 4 But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? 5 For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii,[c] and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 6 But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. 7 For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. 8 She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. 9 Truly I tell you, wherever the good news[d] is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”**

John 12:1-8:

1 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them[a] with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii** and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it[c] so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”**

Luke 7:36-50:

36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus[j] to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. 37 And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. 38 She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. 39 Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner.” 40 Jesus spoke up and said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Teacher,” he replied, “speak.” 41 “A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii,[k] and the other fifty. 42 When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?” 43 Simon answered, “I suppose the one for whom he canceled the greater debt.” And Jesus[l] said to him, “You have judged rightly.” 44 Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. 45 You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. 46 You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. 47 Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.” 48 Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” 49 But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” 50 And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

The first story in Mark takes place in the home of Simon the Leper but the second version of the same story in John takes place in the home of Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary. The third version takes place in the home of Simon the Pharisee. In the first version, the nard is poured on Jesus head but in the second and third ones, it is put on his feet. In the first version, the woman in the home of Simon the Leper who puts the oil on Jesus’s feet is unnamed but in the second version, it is one of his hosts, Mary the sister of Lazarus. In the first version in Mark, several different people are angry because the cost of the valuable oil (300 denari) could have been used on the poor, but in the 2nd version in John, only Judas is angry. In the 3rd version in Luke, the point of the story is completely different. Simon the Pharisee is angry, not because of the cost of what is put on Jesus’s feet, but because the unnamed woman is a sinner. The first two versions take place just before Jesus’s arrest, but the 3rd one takes place early in Jesus’s ministry.

Some version of this story probably, took place, but the details have been mixed up and the memories of this story have been distorted in transmission.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Bart Ehrman’s new book, Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior (HarperOne, 2016) just came out earlier this month and he gives some good examples of what he calls distorted memories in the transmission of stories about Jesus. One way to clearly see these is to look at different versions of the same story:

For example, in Mark 14:3-9:

John 12:1-8:

Luke 7:36-50:

The first story in Mark takes place in the home of Simon the Leper but the second version of the same story in John takes place in the home of Lazarus and his sisters Martha and Mary. The third version takes place in the home of Simon the Pharisee. In the first version, the nard is poured on Jesus head but in the second and third ones, it is put on his feet. In the first version, the woman in the home of Simon the Leper who puts the oil on Jesus’s feet is unnamed but in the second version, it is one of his hosts, Mary the sister of Lazarus. In the first version in Mark, several different people are angry because the cost of the valuable oil (300 denari) could have been used on the poor, but in the 2nd version in John, only Judas is angry. In the 3rd version in Luke, the point of the story is completely different. Simon the Pharisee is angry, not because of the cost of what is put on Jesus’s feet, but because the unnamed woman is a sinner. The first two versions take place just before Jesus’s arrest, but the 3rd one takes place early in Jesus’s ministry.

Some version of this story probably, took place, but the details have been mixed up and the memories of this story have been distorted in transmission.

Actually, I think there is a case to be made that these are, in fact, three different stories that occurred at three different times in Jesus’ ministry which lasted three years and many supper invitations, including three Passovers. The question is whether, culturally speaking the behaviour of anointing heads or feet could have been common enough to have created these similar stories.

I think Ehrman needs to build a much stronger case. I would propose there is a counter argument to be made.

There is no necessary logical connection between the similarities in the three stories to therefore refer to the same event. There are many differences, as well, which seem to be just glossed over.

This requires further investigation, not simplistic agreement.

 

[Thorolfr]

Actually, I think there is a case to be made that these are, in fact, three different stories that occurred at three different times in Jesus’ ministry which lasted three years and many supper invitations, including three Passovers. The question is whether, culturally speaking the behaviour of anointing heads or feet could have been common enough to have created these similar stories.

I think Ehrman needs to build a much stronger case. I would propose there is a counter argument to be made.

There is no necessary logical connection between the similarities in the three stories to therefore refer to the same event. There are many differences, as well, which seem to be just glossed over.

This requires further investigation, not simplistic agreement.

But isn’t it a rather big coincidence that the cost of the nard in both the 1st and 2nd stories is 300 denari (which many commentators point out represented about one year’s wage for a day-laborer)? Or maybe nard was usually sold in 300 denari bottles. And the 1st and 2nd version both take place shortly before Jesus’s arrest. Was it so usual for people to put nard which cost a year’s wages on a guests head or feet that this would happen twice within the span of a week or so? And in both cases someone gets angry? It seems to me that the similarities in these stories are too great for them to represent two different occasions.

And lets say that these are different occasions and the first one in Mark happened first. Wouldn’t the other apostles have said to Judas the second time at Lazarus’s house, “Hey Judas, why are you angry? Didn’t you hear what our Lord said the last time this happened at Simon the leper’s house?”

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

But the other three Gospels have the first miracle as something else. They make no mention of the wedded. If Matthew is an eyewitness surely he would have been at the wedding and wrote down the first miracle.

The genealogy is also in Luke but is different.

But there is a difference in time. Say Jesus was born around the time of Herod that is a good 7+ years before the census took place.

No it is at least two years before his death.

 

[JB_Brother_4446]

But the other three Gospels have the first miracle as something else. They make no mention of the wedded. If Matthew is an eyewitness surely he would have been at the wedding and wrote down the first miracle.

The genealogy is also in Luke but is different.

But there is a difference in time. Say Jesus was born around the time of Herod that is a good 7+ years before the census took place.

We been trying to tell you this! Luke gives His blood ancestors while Matthew his legal ancestors!

I would actually like to point out that John’s chronology fits in the Synoptic Gospels pretty well, if you study it correctly.

And there is NO difference in time! The census under Quirinius took place during 3 BC. And Herod died in 1 BC. So Luke is right in saying that the census took place in Quirinius governorship of Syria.

 

[Peter_Plato]

But isn’t it a rather big coincidence that the cost of the nard in both the 1st and 2nd stories is 300 denari (which many commentators point out represented about one year’s wage for a day-laborer)? Or maybe nard was usually sold in 300 denari bottles.

Do you suppose there was a spike in the commodity price of nard in those three years? Obviously, nard was sold in containers of some kind, no?

And the 1st and 2nd version both take place shortly before Jesus’s arrest. Was it so usual for people to put nard which cost a year’s wages on a guests head or feet that this would happen twice within the span of a week or so? And in both cases someone gets angry? It seems to me that the similarities in these stories are too great for them to represent two different occasions.

I haven’t taken the time to look into this with the precision it requires, but on the surface there are a couple of clarifying points to be made. Mark’s Gospel was not even alleged to have been a chronological account – which is the reason Luke tried to put events into an order of some kind. So if Mark’s account was one of the two you refer to, the chronology isn’t even assumed to have been referring to the Passover before Jesus’ death – didn’t Mark reduce all three years to one set of events in his narrative?

The similarities may be coincidental because there are differences as well. Now given that people in the same culture at the same time have a similar outlooks on things, it is entirely possible that different women thought alike in terms of anointing Jesus prior to his death and men, especially those with pharisaical tendencies, may have had a similar reaction to what might have been an outrageous amount/cost of nard being used as it was.

It may appear oddly coincidental for us in our time, but it may not have been in that time.

And lets say that these are different occasions and the first one in Mark happened first. Wouldn’t the other apostles have said to Judas the second time at Lazarus’s house, “Hey Judas, why are you angry? Didn’t you hear what our Lord said the last time this happened at Simon the leper’s house?”

The assumption here is that all of the Apostles went everywhere Jesus did over the whole three years. That may be a problematic assumption. The problem is that we are too far removed from the time to make accurate statements one way or the other with respect to these details.

Sure, there is reason to think these might have been referring to the same event, but I think there are good reasons to think otherwise. Therefore Ehrman’s argument isn’t as strong as he might suppose it is. I am waiting for NT scholars to address this point over the next number of years since I don’t at the moment have time to do so. I do think there is a case to be made against Ehrman here.

 

[Thorolfr]

Actually, I think there is a case to be made that these are, in fact, three different stories that occurred at three different times in Jesus’ ministry

Let’s look at another case of different versions of the same story:

In Mark 5:21-43, a man named Jairus comes to Jesus and tells him that his daughter is very ill and that he would like Jesus to come and heal her. But they are delayed and and before they arrive, Jairus’s daughter has died. People in Jairus’s house tell Jesus that there is no longer any need for him to come because the girl is dead. Jesus nevertheless raises her from the dead.

21 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. 22 Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23 and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” 24 So he went with him.

And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25 Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26 She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27 She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” 29 Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 30 Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31 And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32 He looked all around to see who had done it. 33 But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

35 While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?” 36 But overhearing[g] what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37 He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38 When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39 When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40 And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41 He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” 42 And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43 He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

There is also a 2nd version of this story in Matthew 9:18-26, but in Matthew’s version, Jairus comes to Jesus and informs him that his daughter is already dead and begs him to come a raise her from the dead which he does.

18 While he was saying these things to them, suddenly a leader of the synagogue[d] came in and knelt before him, saying, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live.” 19 And Jesus got up and followed him, with his disciples. 20 Then suddenly a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years came up behind him and touched the fringe of his cloak, 21 for she said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” 22 Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well. 23 When Jesus came to the leader’s house and saw the flute players and the crowd making a commotion, 24 he said, “Go away; for the girl is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. 25 But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girl got up. 26 And the report of this spread throughout that district.

You’re not going to claim that Jairus’s daughter died and was brought to life twice are you?

 

[NM505StKate]

One of the tactics in a criminal investigation is for the detectives to interrogate many different witnesses. Each witness will bring to the story a different perspective. Some of the stories match but the detective will always know when two people have rehearsed the events and tell exactly the same story.

The witnesses of the story of Jesus are like that. There are sections in the Gospels that are borrowed exactly from each other. This sections come from the same source and are recorded the same. There are other sections that a witness saw something that Jesus said or did that the others did not. The writers of the Gospels either wrote what they heard and saw and interviewed what others heard and saw.

If there were no contradictions we would know that the story was rehearsed behind closed doors long after the events took place.

Here is the thing. We assume God is real and that God is perfect in all things. Why would a perfect being have imperfections in a story about its own son?

Here is a nice list of contradictions.

thethinkingatheist.com/page/bible-contradictions

 

[mattp0625]

Here is the thing. We assume God is real and that God is perfect in all things. Why would a perfect being have imperfections in a story about its own son?

Here is a nice list of contradictions.

thethinkingatheist.com/page/bible-contradictions

Holy Spirit inspired does not mean written by God

It’s not an assumption, either.

You really shouldn’t be making these statements with such misunderstanding

 

[NM505StKate]

What you fail to realize is that you have an evidence “pre-filter” functioning to screen evidence before you permit it to actually be accepted as evidence. It is called bias.

One of the sure ways of recognizing the effects of that pre-filter is that you, on these forums, have not modified your position from insisting that accounts are “contradictory,” when, in fact, the accounts are not. They are difficult to reconcile but they are not contradictory. Yet, you maintain they are but have been unable to provide the logical argument to support that claim even though you keep insisting it.

The truly fair-minded response from you would be to admit as much instead of doubling-down on the “contradictory” claim since you have failed to show the warrant necessary to back up.

My guess is that you don’t understand what is required here, which is precisely why you keep asserting that contradictions exist. It is the position you feel secure in holding purely because it is yours and a great deal hangs on being “right” as far as you are concerned.

Not by Pilot. His name was Pontius Pilate. Check those research sources of yours again. If they insist that Pilot executed Jesus, it is time to toss those sources in the refuse bin.

The reason Jesus was executed is complicated, but it certainly wasn’t because he was a threat to Roman authority. Pilate pretty much rubs the noses of the Sanhedrin in that because he literally crowns Jesus “King of the Jews” and then promptly crucifies him to show how Roman power will deal with any Jewish claims to autonomy or right to self-rule. Pilate was mocking the Jewish leaders in the same instant as he was doing their bidding – that much is clear by the sign he had placed over Jesus’ head.

I made a mistake on spelling. My bad. Where did you get this information that Pilate was mocking the Sanhedrin? Also why would they let a known murderer, Barabbas, go?

 

[NM505StKate]

Holy Spirit inspired does not mean written by God

It’s not an assumption, either.

You really shouldn’t be making these statements with such misunderstanding

Problem here. The Holy Spirit is part of God correct? Yes it is. So then since God is perfect the Holy Spirit is also. That seems like a fair assumption. Since the Holy Spirit is perfect any inspiration given by it is also perfect. So it can be assumed that since the inspiration is perfect the text written by the inspiration should also be perfect.

 

[mattp0625]

Problem here. The Holy Spirit is part of God correct? Yes it is. So then since God is perfect the Holy Spirit is also. That seems like a fair assumption. Since the Holy Spirit is perfect any inspiration given by it is also perfect. So it can be assumed that since the inspiration is perfect the text written by the inspiration should also be perfect.

This is looking very silly now.