Comparing converts from a thousand years ago to enlightened people today…it’s a bit more of a hard sell. Plus many became converts for political reasons when their kings or Lords were converted. People don’t do that anymore, either.
Even in the last few.hundred years one can make that claim.
Was that so of the 3000 at Pentecost?
A report that 3000 converted would be more believable if some of those 3000 corroborated the event. Similar to Paul’s claim of 500 that no one else knew about. If you have great confidence of factual reporting in the Gospels, then you’ll believe the claims. If you view the Gospels as evangelizing propaganda and containing exaggerations…not quite as believable…sorry. :hugs:
Every convert in the first century knew this as Paul was repeating a creed in the Letter to Corinthians. So all of Greece would’ve known and at least some would take it at face value.
Tacitus refers to Jews in Claudius’s time getting thrown out of Rome because of a certain Chrestos, which is a malopropism for Christos. Many of those 3000 went back to.their homes, some of which were Rome. So they caused quite a stir.
Ignoring that people then had less knowledge of the universe to conceive how it could be created without diving intervention, we know that there are many things that a majority of people thought were true that turned out not to be. E.G.:1)No. Matthew’s ambiguous to whether the Angel actually went into the tomb.
The earliest say Matthew wrote first. So who’s to say Mark didn’t copy from Matthew?
Because Matthew is an expansion on Mark’s gospel. Those writing after another don’t make it shorter, they make it longer and add explanatory verses. The majority of scholars pretty much agree that Mark wrote first. Including Catholic scholars.
So Papias, Irenaeus and Ignatius didn’t know the size of Mark?
Majority of scholars today, not majority of scholars back then.
You think he would leave out seeing an angel inside the tomb? That’s a fantastic part of the story. Even if we make the huge unwarranted leap that there was an angel or angels in the tomb, were thee one or two? One is not two and two is not one.
Mark’s angel was found inside the tomb and Matthew’s was found on the rock outside the tomb. In fact, Mark says the women were startled to see the angel inside, which wouldn’t make sense if they already met him outside.
Matthew said the women hurried from the tomb and ran to tell his disciples. Mark said the women fled (which means hurried) to NOT tell his disciples. The point of the contention is whether they did or didn’t speak to the disciples.
This reminds me of one apologetic I read where the person tried to square why Peter’s three denials of Jesus don’t match between Gospels. He concluded that Peter actually denied Jesus SIX times to make it all fit. There are no limits to what apologists will do to manipulate the text.
Do a search on Marcan Priority. It’s quite interesting. This article is no means comprehensive study of the matter, but it does show how editorial fatigue shows how Matthew and Luke copied from Mark and not vice versa.
Mark didn’t say anything about the guards neither did Luke.
And again, Matthew seems to include a flashback.
No. Mark says they ran along the WAY and said nothing to anyone. No “He is risen” to crowds of people. Just shock. The longer ending indicates the women told the disciples.
Will you do a search on the Four-fold Gospel Hypothesis if I do so? Pretty consistent with the Patristic testimony.
Like how you’re manipulating the text to say it doesn’t match up? People like Augustine have dealt with these already and satisfied many.
But they specifically said that stone had already rolled away. The fact that one of the gospels has guards is a strike against its consistency.
What verses in Matthew do you consider a flashback?
You’re focusing on the running and not on the speaking, which is the whole point. Mark said they didn’t speak and Matthew said they did.
This is odd. You suggested to @Pattylt that Mark may have copied from Matthew and/or Luke, yet the Four-fold Gospel Hypothesis specifically states that Matthew and Luke used Mark as one of their sources. So which is it?
So far I’ve pointed out several items that in a plain reading that conflict with one another. You have made accusations that I am misreading these passages, but have not provided anything that demonstrates this.
Flashback.
Or it just means the Evangelists can pick whatever details they wish to zero in on.
Angel rolling away the stone.
Matthew says nothing about whether the women talked to passerbys. Again, the longer ending of Mark says they did deliver the report.
Nope. It states Mark used Matthew and Luke. You didn’t check it.
No. You’ve made claims about details and tried to make slam dunk arguments against the accounts. I’ve shown otherwise.
The Synoptic Problem is as likely to multiply the original sources as to contract them (Q, L, A, M, R, B, etc.). I realize that claims are claims, and not evidence; and your counterclaims are also no more likely to be true without evidence.
We can impugn the testimony (as you’re doing with Christianity), but if 14 witnesses corroborate a material fact, that is sufficient to support the claim. It’s not conclusive because there is still room for doubt, but it certainly would support it (again, prima facie and before credibility challenges to impugn that testimony). Now, can you tell me why you don’t think that 14 witnesses is sufficient testimony? How many do you need? Why?
In combination, I’m certain it’s uniquely Christian, especially the full human participation in both, by connecting transcendent rational divinity and immanent intelligible nature with humanity in a new and unique way. This doesn’t mean that Christianity is merely a metaphysical system, but implies how it developed the metaphysics that motivated and nurtured modern science. And “intentional” is necessary for science, or we could not think about it with any kind of intent. The term has both a volitional and rational meaning.
It’s begging the question with respect to the alleged fact of the Resurrection, which is the focal point to compare the truth claims of Christianity and Islam. It’s not the same to ask how or why you deny it; the point is to examine hidden assumptions.
You can see how Catholics accepted the disconfirming evidence from geology. That was a hundred years ago. That process continued and continues. Not only did Catholics accept the disconfirming evidence, they were among those early geologists who searched for and discovered it. If nothing else, at least cut out the assumed conflict thesis in your approach: it’s not true and only confirms biases.
I had just become a Christian at 21, and I just happened to be reading the newspaper (Los Angeles/South Bay). There was a very small article about a university studying the silt deposits from the Mississppi River and correlating them to rainfall on the continent. They found a layer of silt that would have required drainage of water that would have even covered the Rockies. They estimated the flood to have been about 7 or 8 thousand years ago. Not sure if it was a state university, nor the newspaper (LA Times or some local one). Article mentioned nothing of the biblical flood. I wish I kept the article. Be nice to research it.The article was 1975.
Likely is a strong term. Yes, something like the Four-Document Hypothesis could mean there are more witnesses, but that’s by no means a given. One other possibility is that there is Q or Mark and then Matthew and Luke derived theirs from that. This could mean there was a source like a proto-Luke that got merged with Mark and/or Q, but it could just be the authors just used a single source and then jerry-rigged it to make it fit better with the OT. Matthew especially seems to do this.
One verifiable witness is sufficient. A claim by one or two people that there were 500 witnesses when we can not verify them (or even name them) is insufficient.
What specifically is that way? How does this apply to how modern science is done?
In what specific way did it motivate and nurture modern science that other cultures did not?
Thank you for that link. I was using the legal version of that term as opposed to the philisophical one. I’ve spent parts of the last day getting a crash course on intentionality, specifically how it was derived and how it is said to apply in science (specifically neuroscience).
The problem with how it accepted it is that it doesn’t fit with what we know about anthropology. The people in Noah’s story had full language, had ways to measure things, and could construct things. By the time humanity had reached that stage it had spread throughout much of the world, therefore a local flood would not have been able to kill all but 8 people and it certainly would not have required 2 (or 7) of each animal to be saved.
I’ve said many times in my time here on CAF that nothing I or anybody else say will disprove any faith. Faith was built to be unfalsifiable. There’s always one of the three Rs of Apologetics: Retreat, Redefine, and Rationalize to not put the faith in jeopardy. So I’m not engaging in conflict thesis, BUT when a faith makes a claim that can conflict with our knowledge and should be pointed out.