Nativity narratives

[Pillar_of_truth]

If Matthew states Jesus was a descendant of Solomon and Luke claims that Jesus was a descentant of Nathan, one is clearly in error. That was PROVEN.

Not even close. As I alluded to earlier, the commonly accepted answer to the question going all the way back to a Church chronologer, Julianus Africanus, who lived around the year 200, is the following:

Estha married Mathan, a descendant of David through Solomon, and became the mother of Jacob; after Mathan’s death she took for her second husband Mathat, a descendent of David through Nathan, and by him became the mother of Heli. Jacob and Heli were, therefore, uterine brothers. Heli married, but died without offspring; his widow, therefore, became the levirate wife of Jacob, and gave birth to Joseph, who was the carnal son of Jacob, but the legal son of Heli, thus combining in his person two lineages of David’s descendants.

 

[ralphinal]

I am confused. What is the point in all of this? Are we to scrap the Bible? Are we to say that the Gosples are no longer considered inspired? What are we doing here?

Two stories, one message: Christ is born.

 

[Pillar_of_truth]

I am confused. What is the point in all of this? Are we to scrap the Bible? Are we to say that the Gosples are no longer considered inspired? What are we doing here?

Two stories, one message: Christ is born.

We’re basically arguing against an atheistic sort of person, or at least someone who doesn’t think the Bible is inspired by God.

 

[Little_Les]

No, the argument doesn’t fall flat. I don’t think you are folowing it.

What I am saying is that according to Justin Martyr, Quirinius was the Procurator, and NOT the Governor of Syria (the procurator was a sort of second-in-command, if you will, in charge of matters which were delegated to him either by the governor or by Rome directly) at the time the census Luke refers to was undertaken.

Quirinius was the GOVERNOR of Syria in 6 AD, therefore the census Luke is referring to is NOT the one of 6 AD.

RESPONSE:

Luke says it is. “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus 2 that the whole world should be enrolled.
This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

The census was necessary because Judea had come under direct Roman control after Archalaus, Herod’s son was banished.

 

[Little_Les]

Let’s conduct a little experiment.

Step 1.

Everyone go outside and look up and describe what you see.

Is everyone’s description to be dictated to him by the Holy Spirit?

Or will they be uninspired?

 

[Little_Les]

All of your claims look back through a modern lens which is faulty.

Any evidence this time or is this an assertion without evidence?

(Anybody can make those).

 

[Little_Les]

I didn’t make the claim that what the Gospel writers wrote was based on what was commonly believed true, but on the facts as they knew them. That is very different.

The point is there was and is no attempt being made by the Church to deceive anyone. And the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is not limited to your or my definitions nor your or my inaccurate criteria for inerrancy.

Inspiration is absolutley incompatible with erro of any sort. That was the Church’s constant teaching (and therefore infallible) up until relatively recently when it quietly did a 180 degree turn on this.

 

[Little_Les]

Not so fast, high speed.

Riddle me this…

If a Torah-abiding Jewish man dies leaving a wife and kids, what’s his brother to do? Who is the father of the kids? Are any of the men in the geneologies brothers? Did any of these brothers die? Can you assure us that this is definitley not, at least in part, responsible for the variances?

God Bless,
RyanL

Not a very significan number if any. Let’s face it. Luke switched from Solomon’s genealogy to Nathan’s. He even says that it’s Nathan’s.

 

[Little_Les]

Not even close. As I alluded to earlier, the commonly accepted answer to the question going all the way back to a Church chronologer, Julianus Africanus, who lived around the year 200, is the following:

Estha married Mathan, a descendant of David through Solomon, and became the mother of Jacob; after Mathan’s death she took for her second husband Mathat, a descendent of David through Nathan, and by him became the mother of Heli. Jacob and Heli were, therefore, uterine brothers. Heli married, but died without offspring; his widow, therefore, became the levirate wife of Jacob, and gave birth to Joseph, who was the carnal son of Jacob, but the legal son of Heli, thus combining in his person two lineages of David’s descendants.

Yes indeed. Julius was a very creative apologist much like Jerome.

He also calculated the period between Creation and Jesus as 5500 years.

None of his writings survive but are recorded in Eusebius who also admits he only writes thing favorable to the church.

Most don’t take his yarns seriously. But some apologists still quote him.

 

[Little_Les]

Little Les, while Papal encyclicals are AUTHORITATIVE, and the faithful are expected to follow them, they are not, by themselves, considered INFALLIBLE.

The quote you have given earlier from Vatican I, however, would be considered infallible.

Scripture is inerrant. It is only necessary to determine what the writer was actually asserting. Again, as Neil has pointed out, Matthew and Luke had access to each others writings. Matthew almost certainly came first, but it could go either way. Anyway, do you think that they were so stupid that they did not notice the obvious contradictions, say, in the geneologies? Or do you suppose that there IS no contradiction, and it is the case that the reasons for the discrepancies are lost to history, although we can piece together some of the reasons?

They’ve been trying to explain away the contradictions using all sorts of imaginative arguments since the time of Augustine and Jerome. But they haven’t succeeded.

As long as their audience remains gullible, they can get by.

 

[Pillar_of_truth]

Yes indeed. Julius was a very creative apologist much like Jerome.

He also calculated the period between Creation and Jesus as 5500 years.

None of his writings survive but are recorded in Eusebius who also admits he only writes thing favorable to the church.

Most don’t take his yarns seriously. But some apologists still quote him.

Well, just because he may have been wrong on some things doesn’t mean he was wrong about everything.

Now you are resorting to calling a man who lived 1800 years ago a liar, though you know nothing about him. He likely had access to the history at that time, and is more well qualified to say what happened than you are.

Our task is to show you that there are alternatives other than coming to the inexorable conclusion that the two geneologies contradict. The sequence above PROVES that there are logical alternatives, even if YOU choose not to accept it.

I know whose yarns I’m not going to take seriously any more.

 

[Pillar_of_truth]

RESPONSE:

Luke says it is. “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus 2 that the whole world should be enrolled.
This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

The census was necessary because Judea had come under direct Roman control after Archalaus, Herod’s son was banished.

We’re obviously not on the same wavelength here. I’m not even sure what you are trying to say here. To me, it sounds like “but it has to be the census in A.D. 6, because otherwise there wouldn’t be a contradiction, and I just know there is a contradiction”

 

[Little_Les]

Thanks, Pete! I was just about to undertake this myself, since many here are interpreting the writings of Vatican II, and the PBC, as well as other recent authoritative and semi-authoritative sources as being in DISCONTINUITY with previous solemn definitions of the Church (i.e. that of Vatican I).

This simply cannot be. We need to interpret Church statements in continuity with previous statements, as authoritative Church statements cannot contradict each other. The Church cannot, at one time believe that the Scriptures are inerrant, and later admit they do err. Church teaching can and certainly does develop, but not be the opposite of what it was before.

Oh yes, Church teachings can contradict each other and 180 degree turns can be quite sudden.

For example, a definitive Instruction of the Holy Office in 1866 (Pope Pius IX) teaches:

“Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law,… It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given.”

But now this constant Church teaching on the moral legitimacy of buying and selling slaves has been reversed.

Catechism of the Catholic Church #2414
“The seventh commandment forbids acts or enterprises that … lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity.”

And slavery as one of the acts specified in Gaudiem et Spes (#27) is intrinsically disordered. Veritatis Splendor #80 also says slave ownership is contrary to the natural law.

So from a constant teaching that slave ownership had a sound biblical and natural law basis it has now become a sin, all in about 100 years!

 

[patg]

Inspiration is absolutley incompatible with erro of any sort. That was the Church’s constant teaching (and therefore infallible) up until relatively recently when it quietly did a 180 degree turn on this.

Ah, interesting comment. But, you see, the word “inspired” does not contain any hidden meaning as to how the inspiration is accomplished. Nor does it resolve the “what” or the object of the inspiration. Is it the oral or the written word? the translations? the copies of copies? The expression merely asserts that God is the source of the overall message.

I would hope that some here are not naive about the transmission of the biblical text. Certain copies of the Greek New Testament or the Hebrew bible could contain clerical errors that crept in when an inatttentive or less skilled scribe was copying form an earlier text. There are several thousand Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, for instance, and none is an original. They are all copies of copies written over many centuries. There is no way of determining what the originals of any of them looked like. So just exactly what is the real object of this inspiration that some here are so adamantly claiming to be error free in every aspect? We don’t have anything close to an original so just where is this “error free” object?

I’m still waiting for someone on the literalist side to affirm that the Pontifical Biblical Commission and Pope Paul VI openly commited heresy by publishing the Instruction on the Historical Truth of the Gospels. I don’t see how you can avoid stating this based on the arguments I have been reading.

 

[patg]

Let me ask one more question to those who supppor the innerrant in every aspect approach - if the author intentionally fictionalized an account of the nativity (say the Egypt related stuff), then you may accept that it is fiction because it is not an “error”, it is an intentional literary constuct. An error would be something like getting the dates wrong or stating the earth was flat, etc. - an error would not be using a fictionalized account to teach the truth?

 

[Little_Les]

Well, just because he may have been wrong on some things doesn’t mean he was wrong about everything.

Now you are resorting to calling a man who lived 1800 years ago a liar, though you know nothing about him. He likely had access to the history at that time, and is more well qualified to say what happened than you are.

Our task is to show you that there are alternatives other than coming to the inexorable conclusion that the two geneologies contradict. The sequence above PROVES that there are logical alternatives, even if YOU choose not to accept it.

I know whose yarns I’m not going to take seriously any more.

I’m not calling him anything. We only have Eusebius’ accounts of his writings, not his originals.

“Noe was 600 years old when the flood came on. From Adam, therefore, to Noe and the flood, are 2262 years”
Do you think that’s true?

And I’d be curious to have the source of quotation attributed to him cited. For some reason we were not told that.

 

[Little_Les]

We’re obviously not on the same wavelength here. I’m not even sure what you are trying to say here. To me, it sounds like “but it has to be the census in A.D. 6, because otherwise there wouldn’t be a contradiction, and I just know there is a contradiction”

Perhaps if you compare the nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke you’ll be on the right wavelength and recognize that they contradict each other badly.

 

[timmo]

31st Oct ’07 you started the thread: Errors in Scripture

*Is the following by Pope Leo XIII still considered to be true?

"For all the books which the Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the…*
You had some replies to this post. Mostly orthodox replies but you didn’t acknowledge any of them.
Not very Polite.
One response queried why you were asking the question.

Last reply to that thread was Nov 1st 3.51 pm

Were you testing the ground?

Nov 1, '07, 8:34 am you started this thread “Nativity narratives”.

You laid out your groundwork and then in post 9 you launched the first of your “101 contradictions in the Bible”.

Contradictory accounts can’t both claim inspiration. One must be in error.

For example, King Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. When Judea came under his control, Quirinius conducted as census (6 A.D.)

Jesus could not have been born both before 4 B.C. and after 6 A.D. Either Matthew or Luke are in error.

Contradictory accounts can’t both claim inspiration. One must be in error

.
TRUE

For example, King Herod the Great died in 4 B.C. When Judea came under his control, Quirinius conducted as census (6 A.D.)

From what we know at the moment – PROBABLY TRUE.

Jesus could not have been born both before 4 B.C. and after 6 A.D

TRUE

Either Matthew or Luke are in error

.
FALSE. You conclude that Matthew and Luke contradict each other.
They don’t. Your conclusion requires that one evangelist says “Jesus was born before 4 BC” and the other says “he was born after 6 AD”. They don’t.

We are dealing here with two true accounts that can be reconciled. We are not dealing with contradictory accounts.

I’m quite convinced by your tactics that if these accounts were reconciled for you – you would just move on to Number 2 of your 101 “contradictions” in the Bible.
Maybe you have already.

I think your bona fides are a little suspect. Catholics don’t preach against the Church. That would be a contradiction.

The “101 contradictions in the Bible” has been used by many anti-Christian groups for many years in an attempt to undermine the faith of Christians.
There are many Christian responses to them, as a quick google will confirm.

One good thing. You have exposed the weak faith of some of the faithful and hopefully they will abandon this fuzzy relativism and be obedient to Church teaching.

We’ll pray for them, you and I Les.

tim

 

[Neil_Anthony]

They’ve been trying to explain away the contradictions using all sorts of imaginative arguments since the time of Augustine and Jerome. But they haven’t succeeded.

As long as their audience remains gullible, they can get by.

I agree with you that some of the explanations provided are pretty hard to believe. As an otherwise reasonably educated and intelligent person, I can’t really take them seriously, so you have a good point.

I mainly don’t worry about the genealogies and the quinirius thing for these reasons: 1) maybe luke and matthew will have some explanation for it that no one thought of, and we’ll find out when we get to heaven, 2) maybe the Holy spirit only inspired the theological message, not the dates, 3) maybe one of the far-fetched explanations is true, 4) maybe the older church teaching on inerrancy contained the truth but went beyond it. Perhaps believing in the inerrancy of historical data in a gospel simply isn’t a matter of faith and dogma which the church can teach infallibly on… etc etc etc.

Most of us love Jesus based on what we’ve learned about him from the Gospels, and these questions just aren’t that important.

 

[Pillar_of_truth]

Oh yes, Church teachings can contradict each other and 180 degree turns can be quite sudden.

For example, a definitive Instruction of the Holy Office in 1866 (Pope Pius IX) teaches:

“Slavery itself, considered as such in its essential nature, is not at all contrary to the natural and divine law,… It is not contrary to the natural and divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, exchanged or given.”

But now this constant Church teaching on the moral legitimacy of buying and selling slaves has been reversed.

Catechism of the Catholic Church #2414
“The seventh commandment forbids acts or enterprises that … lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity.”

And slavery as one of the acts specified in Gaudiem et Spes (#27) is intrinsically disordered. Veritatis Splendor #80 also says slave ownership is contrary to the natural law.

So from a constant teaching that slave ownership had a sound biblical and natural law basis it has now become a sin, all in about 100 years!

Right, but as I said, Papal Instructions/Encyclicals, etc., while authoritative at the time, do not carry the weight of infallibility.

Infallible statements, such as those of Councils, or special statements of Popes that invoke his infallibility (which are fairly rare) cannot be contradicted. Other types of documents do not carry the same weight.