Why is Scripture true?

[PennitentMan]

And it can have been by no means so easy as some writers seem to think to invent words and deeds of Jesus in those early years, when so many of His disciples were about, who could remember what had and had not happened. Indeed, the evidence is that the early Christians were careful to distinguish between sayings of Jesus and their own inferences or judgments. Paul, for example, when discussing the vexed questions of marriage and divorce in I Corinthians vii, is careful to make this distinction between his own advice on the subject and the Lord’s decisive ruling: ‘I, not the Lord,’ and again, ‘Not I, but the Lord.’
And it was not only friendly eyewitnesses that the early preachers had to reckon with; there were others less well disposed who were also conversant with the main facts of the ministry and death of Jesus. The disciples could not afford to risk inaccuracies (not to speak of wilful manipulation of the facts), which would at once be exposed by those who would be only too glad to do so. On the contrary, one of the strong points in the original apostolic preaching is the confident appeal to the knowledge of the hearers; they not only said, ‘We are witnesses of these things,’ but also, ‘As you yourselves also know’ (Acts ii. 22). Had there been any tendency to depart from the facts in any material respect, the possible presence of hostile witnesses in the audience would have served as a further corrective.
We have then in the Synoptic Gospels, the latest of which was complete between forty and fifty years after the death of Christ, material which took shape at a still earlier time, some of it even before His death, and which, besides being for the most part firsthand evidence, was transmitted along independent and trustworthy lines. The Gospels in which this material is embodied agree in their presentation of the basic facts of the Christian faith-a threefold cord not quickly broken.

end.

 

[PennitentMan]

Like I said, we are done.

See you around on the forums

 

[Erich]

Hey Erich.
For starters, Catholics seem to agree that Mark was first:

catholic-resources.org/Bible/Synoptic_Problem.htm

People used to “seem to agree” that the earth was flat, too… even though Aristotle (in 330 BC) provided observational evidence for a spherical earth, and Eratosthenes (in 240 BC) first determined the circumference of the earth to within 2% of the actual circumference.

So, too, the error of Markan Priory (and the error that Mark was written before Luke) shall pass.

Mark’s basic chronological/geographical structure is the same as in the other two Synoptics; but the material found in both Matthew and Luke (but not in Mark) is in very different orders in these two Gospels.

According to the Markan priority theory, when Matthew ceases to follow the order of Mark, Luke continues in it until, when Luke ceases, Matthew takes over, and this continues throughout the Gospels. This could only have been accomplished if Matthew and Luke co-ordinated their work very closely. But, according to the Markan priority theory, these Gospels were created in separate communities that were out of touch with one another. This is an insoluble difficulty for the Markan theory.

This difficulty also applies to individual phrases. Matthew and Luke use exactly the same five Greek words to form a phrase concerning Peter`s denial. Mark uses three different words conveying the same meaning (Mark 14: 72). If Markan priority is correct, how could Matthew and Luke have arrived at the same phrase without having been in contact with one another?

…We find, for example, that the substance of 606 out of the 661 verses of Mark appears in Matthew, and that some 350 of Mark’s verses reappear with little material change in Luke. Or, to put it another way, out of the 1,068 verses of Matthew, about 500 contain material also found in Mark; of the 1,149 verses of Luke, about 350 are paralleled in Mark. Altogether, there are only 31 verses in Mark which have no parallel either in Matthew or Luke…

The duplications of Mark are a feature of his style. For example:

Matthew: “That evening they brought to him“ (Mt. 8: 16-17).
Luke: “Now when the sun was setting, …they …brought them to him “ (Luke 4: 40-41).

The gospel of Mark (1: 32), conflates the material together as:
“That evening, when the sun was setting, [or sundown] they brought to him …”.

By using evening and sundown, Mark is duplicating himself. For those who accept that Mark is conflating, there is no difficulty as it is just part of the style of Mark. But for Markan priorists duality is a serious problem. If there were only a few instances of duality, they could be ignored. It could be said that Matthew just happened to use half of the duality and Luke happened to use the other half. But there are many dualities and where both halves are of equal importance, they never chose the same half. Matthew and Luke would have had to divide up Mark`s dualities between them in a consistent manner to avoid them using the same half. The only way this division could have been achieved would be for them to have worked closely together. Again the advocates of Markan priority meet the problem that, according to their theory, Matthew and Luke did not know one another.

 

[Erich]

…the common order of the three Synoptists is the order of Mark, since Mark and Matthew sometimes agree in order against Luke, and Mark and Luke still more frequently against Matthew, while Matthew and Luke never agree in order against Mark. Mark thus seems in this respect to be the norm from which the other two occasionally deviate. To this must be added the fact that most of the Markan subject matter reappears in Matthew and Luke, with a considerable part of the actual language of Mark preserved, and that on grounds of literary criticism the differences in the presentation of common material between Mark on the one hand and Matthew and Luke on the other seem to be more easily accounted for by the priority of Mark than by the priority of Matthew or Luke. But while the Markan hypothesis is still the remnant hypothesis, it has been assailed by writers of great scholarship and ability…

Of the ten healing stories in Mark, eight appear in Matthew and Luke. They have chosen exactly the same eight ((WRF 166-7)). Mark lists six Commandments (10: 19). Matthew and Luke list five and these are exactly the same five ((WRF 160)). If Mark was reading from the other two there is no problem in accepting that he copied what was in front of him and added something of his own.

But if Matthew and Luke were using Mark, the pattern of choosing exactly the same items would be highly unlikely if they did not consult with one another. Markan priority insists that they did not know one another.

Clement of Alexandra recorded that: “And when Peter got to know about it [Marks Gospel] he exerted no pressure either to forbid it or promote it”. This raises interesting questions. If Marks Gospel was the first gospel to be written, and therefore the flagship of the Christians, why was Peter so indifferent regarding its promotion? On the other hand, if we accept that two well prepared and constructed Gospels already existed, and Peter had merely preached a series of sermons based on them, Peter’s attitude is easy to understand.

It has been objected that Peter, even with assistants, would not have been able to ‘juggle’ between two scrolls. But once we accept Orchard’s construction of Peter delivering five talks, the problem disappears.

There are 25 places from where Peter commenced quoting. Ten of these would be where Peter started his talks, so his assistants could have easily have opened the scrolls at these places prior to the talks. In eight places Peter would have to return to a verse following on from (or very close to) where he had ceased quoting from a few minutes previously. So the scroll could have remained open without disturbance. There is no reason to suggest that the 7 longer jumps, spread over four evenings, would have been outside the capabilities of pre-warned assistants.

The longest ‘jump’ occurs in the second talk. Matthew’s gospel would need to have been unrolled for 31 verses whilst Peter is quoting from 13 of Luke’s verses. It is interesting that Mark interjects four verses of his own at this point. Did he do so in order to provide his assistants with a little more time?

 

[Erich]

…The strength of the Markan hypothesis cannot be conveyed in a sentence or two; the evidence is cumulative, and can best be appreciated by studying a good synopsis (preferably Greek, but much of the evidence is apparent even in an uptodate English translation), where the three Gospels have their parallel passages arranged alongside each other in a form free from prejudice in favour of any one hypothesis. Along with such a synopsis, Greek students should examine the linguistic data as marshalled by Sir John Hawkins in his Hora Synoptica (2nd edition, 1909)…

B.H.Streeter, the main promoter in England of Markan priority during the early part of the 20th century, wrote regarding the difference between the style of Mark and the other two:

It is the difference which always exists between the spoken and the written language. Mark reads like a shorthand account of a story by an impromptu speaker – with all the repetitions, redundancies, and digressions, which are characteristic of living speech. And it seems to me most probable that his Gospel, like Pauls Epistles, was taken down from rapid dictation by word of mouth`.
((BHSG 163)).

Streeter presumed Mark had taken down the words in private while acting as a personal secretary. So Streeter was not deflected from advocating Markan priority. Although the opinion of Streeter was remembered, it was not till the 1980s that his observation was seen as very significant. Bernard Orchard had become particularly interested in the opening verses of Mark where scripture is misquoted. This led him in 1987 to speculate that Peter had given a series of public talks to a carefully selected audience, and that Marks Gospel was a transcript of these talks. In 1991 a book by E.R.Richards established, on the basis of new data, that Greek shorthand had been developed before 52 BC. He explained: …it had long been the custom for public men to have their speeches recorded by competent shorthand writers` ((BOO 13)).

This transformed the speculation of Orchard into a practical hypothesis, which he published in 1993 naming it: The Fourfold Gospel Hypothesis ((BOF 1)). The evidence for the conflation of Matthew and Luke has been explained in the previous chapter. What Orchard realised was the manner in which it had taken place. Mark had not been leisurely sitting at a desk in a private room.

Orchard sees Matthew as having written for the Jews of Palestine, and Luke for the Gentiles of Asia. As Luke had not been an eyewitness of the ministry of Christ, Paul asked Peter to endorse the Gospel composed by Luke. Peter did this by giving a series of talks blending together Matthew and Luke, while adding memories and comments of his own. As Mark took down the talks verbatim they contained the blemishes one finds in unedited speech. Orchard has explained his thesis:

Our thesis that Peter was going to restrict his testimony to what he could vouch for by his own personal memories of the Ministry, is supported by his omission of Lukes birth narratives, Central Section, Resurrection stories, and his omission of all that Luke himself has left out of the six composite Matthean Discourses.

He reinstates Lukes Great Omission (Mt 14:22 - 16:12), and furthermore reintroduces a few Matthean stories omitted by Luke, such as the pericope about divorce (Mt 19:3 - 9), and adds a few stories of his own. This leads us to formulate the following hypothesis regarding Peters handling of Luke as follows:

On this hypothesis Peter`s principal aim was to authenticate the text of Luke; and he decided to use the occasion to add individual comments of his own, prompted by his own personal memories, and his intimate knowledge of the Gospel of Matthew which had been circulating in the Church for at least twenty years as a handbook. He therefore concentrates on following Luke in order, pericope by pericope, as closely as his own personal memories will permit. He holds open the scroll of Luke, but the scroll of Matthew is also within reach, though he can quote word for word by heart whenever he wants to.

And so whilst steadily following the order of Luke he feels entirely free either to vary the wording of Luke in favour of Matthews text, or to introduce his own variant of Matthew, in virtue of his being the eyewitness of the events he is describing. At the same time he has no problem in agreeing to follow Lukes alternative arrangement of the stories in Mt 3:1 – 13:58, nor does he need as a general rule to refer to the scroll of Matthew while he follows Luke freely and even conflates it with Matthew`. ((BOA 388-389)).

Harold Riley, an associate of Orchard, stresses the ongoing nature of this conflation. Marks gospel keeps going forward when borrowing from the other two. He never retraces his steps by rolling the scrolls backwards. So stories of the Centurions servant and the messengers of the Baptist are omitted. To find them, Peter would have had to wind back the scroll ((RO 11)). In one place only is there a change in order and it is significant that this is at Luke 6: 12-19. The lines of Matthew and Luke are so close together Peter could see them at the same time. Rolling back was not required.

 

[Erich]

Some Form Critics, attempting to get behind the second Gospel, have envisaged it as consisting amply of independent stories and sayings which had been transmitted orally in the primitive Church, joined together by a sort of editorial cement in the form of generalising summaries which have no historical value. But an examination of these ‘generalising summaries’ reveals that, far from being editorial inventions, they may be put together to form a consecutive outline of the gospel narrative…But the form in which the oral preaching underlies Matthew and Luke is the form given to it by Mark, who not only acted as Peter’s interpreter (presumably translating Peter’s Galilean Aramaic into Greek), but incorporated in his Gospel the substance of the preaching as he heard it from Peter’s lips. There is no lack of evidence in his Gospel that much of the material originally existed in Aramaic; his Greek in places preserves the Aramaic idiom quite unmistakably.

Note how often And is used to link sentences and clauses in Mark’s Gospel. This is a telltale sign of an untutored impromptu speaker of Greek. We have all heard speakers, especially if they are working from notes in front of them, repeatedly using and or then or even erh. In a written composition Peter or Mark would have adopted a more polished format. The words in Chapter 1, verses 2 and 3 lack a main verb, so do not form complete sentences. While Mark omits important aspects of the life of Christ that were reported by Matthew and Luke, he adds trivial details. These are a puzzle for Markan priorists. But, if we accept the Clementine tradition as developed by Orchard the puzzle is solved. Peter was omitting sections of the other Gospels where it was difficult to conflate while adding short personal memories. This would be very human for a speaker.

Peter would have been very familiar with Matthews Gospel, but Lukes would have brought back half-forgotten incidents. As Peter read Luke 8: 22-56 he recalled the scene and spontaneously mentioned the position of the cushion (Mark 4: 38). Matthew in 14:19 tells of the multitudes sitting down on the grass, and Luke in 9:14 of them doing so in companies. Mark in 6:39 conflates the two accounts by speaking of both the grass and the companies. But this must have brought the scene to mind and he remembers something, which at the time had caught his attention – the grass was green in that arid area.

In Mark 12: 41-44 the speaker realises his audience has not understood what he meant by two tines, so explains that they are the equivalent of the smallest Roman coin. In Mark 3: 30 he feels bound to restate the reason for the condemnation in verse 29. In Mark 7: 20, when Peter is teaching about a Jewish eating taboo, he interrupts his flow with an explanation.

The insertion of “the father of Alexander and Rufus” (Mark 15: 21) at such a sorrowful moment, indicates the remark had some personal relevance to Peter’s audience. It calls to mind that a Rufus was present in Rome (Rom. 16:13). In Mark 16: 4 Peter interjects the exuberant comment “For it was mighty big”. This is known to grammarians as an intensifier used to create a sense of wonder. A trained writer of Greek would not have used it while he sat at his desk. It is such interjections that give this gospel its fresh and vivid style.

As Orchard has written:

… the Gospel of Mark is in no way the smooth product of a skilled author sitting at a desk, but has all the vividness, the inconsistencies, and the peculiar turns of speech, that one finds in actual transcripts of live speeches, for example, sudden breaks, asides, anacolutha [incoherence within a sentence] and so forth ((RO 273))

Two scriptural allusions of Mark are significant. The first is in chapter I, where Peter opens his talk by proclaiming a title. In the second verse, he says he is going to quote from Isaiah the prophet. But he then quotes from Malachi 3: 1. As the words leave his lips he realises his error so runs on with Isaiah. The audience understands and it passes in a moment but the shorthand secretary has recorded the slip of the tongue for posterity.

The second is in chapter 2: 26, where Abiathar is referred to as the high priest who gave David and his companions the Bread of the presence to eat (1 Samuel 21: 1-6). But Ahimelech, father of Abiathar was the high priest at that time. Again the shorthand recorder has caught the slip. A writer in the quiet of his room composing a Gospel, or taking private dictation from Peter, would have made corrections. But if we accept that it was an unedited verbatim record of a talk, there are no problems.

The Gospel of Matthew has 18,293 words and that of Luke 19,376, which are just the right lengths to fill a standard papyrus roll. Mark, with 11,025 words, would leave nearly half the roll unused. This is a pointer to Matthew and Luke carefully planning their compositions, while the publication of the third gospel had not been planned.

 

[PennitentMan]

http://www.frontiernet.net/~joe14580/this thread has derailed.jpg

 

[Erich]

Last time I checked, the thread title was still “**Why is Scripture true?”

**If your post asking folks to “delve a bit deeper and try to find out exactly how they finally agreed on what classifies as scripture, or more to the point, how did they determine what exactly was divinely insprired writings and what wasn’t” (#7) is appropriate for this thread, then so is my post correcting your obvious error that Luke’s gospel was written first (#33).

For one thing, Luke himself states the following in his first three verses:

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus

Matthew’s Gospel is constructed in a thematic form. So while the author recounted historical events, he did not place them in chronological order.

Why else would Matthew give precise times and places while Luke, who has promised in his first chapter to be accurate, omits them? And why does Luke include them only when he has not altered the timing? Questions such as these are problems for Markan priorists, who assert that Matthew and Luke borrowed these incidents from Q or Mark.

No, what’s derailing this thread are your continued attempts to discredit 1,800 years of history.

 

[PennitentMan]

Just give it up and realize that your claims are at best postulations. The current school of thought, including the Vatican (I might add again), maintains that Mark is oldest and no, that doesn’t go to prove at allwhether scripture is true or not, only nitpicking on the order of the books.

Dude, Whatever, I’m done now. We have gone around this merry-go-round long enough. If you don’t wanna see…

 

[Erich]

The current school of thought, including the Vatican

Proof, please.

(I might add again) maintains that Mark is oldest and no, that doesn’t go to prove **at all **whether scripture is true or not, only nitpicking on the order of the books.

From Dei Verbum (about as Vatican as it gets):

1. …The Church has always and everywhere held and continues to hold that the four Gospels are of apostolic origin. For what the Apostles preached in fulfillment of the commission of Christ, afterwards they themselves and apostolic men, under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, handed on to us in writing: the foundation of faith, namely, the fourfold Gospel, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.(1)

1. Holy Mother Church has firmly and with absolute constancy held, and continues to hold, that the four Gospels just named, whose historical character the Church unhesitatingly asserts, faithfully hand on what Jesus Christ, while living among men, really did and taught for their eternal salvation…

So the companions of Jesus wrote two Gospels and others, using second-hand information, wrote two. If all four depended on second-hand information (which would be the case if Mark is oldest), why a distinction between the two sets of authors?

Two of the Gospels – Matthew and John – are eyewitness accounts, written for two different audiences.

You can’t even decide whether Luke is oldest (post #33) or Mark is oldest (subsequent posts). Clearly, it is your claims which are at best postulations.

 

[PennitentMan]

Proof, please.

The New American Bible, 2nd edition (NAB) (1991), rejects the traditional view that Matthew was written first and supports the modern theory that Matthew borrowed from Mark and Q (an unknown source), though the NAB acknowledges that the view that Matthew was written first is "a view that goes back [at least] to the late second century A.D., to be fair.
It still is published by the Magisterium as represented in the United States, namely the American bishops.

From Dei Verbum (about as Vatican as it gets):

So the companions of Jesus wrote two Gospels and others, using second-hand information, wrote two. If all four depended on second-hand information (which would be the case if Mark is oldest), why a distinction between the two sets of authors?

Yeah, based on their word-of-mouth tradition. Never proven. They “maintain and always have” because their superiors told them so.

Two of the Gospels – Matthew and John – are eyewitness accounts, written for two different audiences.

They are most certainly not eyewitness accounts, please prove that. Never mind, it’s never been done and you won’t be able to either.

You can’t even decide whether Luke is oldest (post #33) or Mark is oldest (subsequent posts). Clearly, it is your claims which are at best postulations.

That was a typo and I apologize for the confusion. I meant Mark.

Once again, I’m done here.

 

[Erich]

It still is published by the Magisterium as represented in the United States, namely the American bishops.

The Magisterium is all the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome. It’s not just the American bishops (which, by the way, are not “the Vatican”).

From Dei Verbum

How does that answer the question?

They are most certainly not eyewitness accounts, please prove that. Never mind, it’s never been done and you won’t be able to either.

Per the forum rules, “Non-Catholics are welcome to participate but must be respectful of the faith of the Catholics participating on the board.” Methinks you’re skirting dangerously close to the edge of respectfulness.

From the “Gospel of Wikipedia”

Admissible evidence, in a court of law, is any testimonial, documentary, or tangible evidence that may be introduced to a factfinder–usually a judge or jury–in order to establish or to bolster a point put forth by a party to the proceeding. In order for evidence to be admissible, it must be relevant, without being prejudicial, and it must have some indicia of reliability.

For evidence to be relevant, it must tend to prove or disprove some fact that is at issue in the proceeding.

For evidence to be reliable enough to be admitted, the party proffering the evidence must be able to show that the source of the evidence makes it so. If the evidence is in the form of witness testimony, the party introducing the evidence must lay the groundwork for the credibility of the witness, and his knowledge of the things to which he attests. Hearsay is generally barred for its lack of reliability. If the evidence is documentary, the party proffering the evidence must be able to show that it is authentic, and must be able to demonstrate the chain of custody from the original author to the present holder.

Papias (c. 60-139) was the bishop of Hieropolis. Eusebius said Papias wrote five books and mentions his commentaries on the Gospels of Matthew and John. Ancient Armenian literature records Papias writing commentaries on Luke and John ((RO 171)). Papias had carefully studied at least three of the Gospels. Hieropolis was close to the Christian centres at Colossae and Laodicea, and about one hundred and fifty kilometres from Ephesus along a good surfaced road. So contact with John the Apostle would have been easy. No doubt John took a great interest in Papias as he trained to be a bishop, and afterwards gave him good advice. His life span overlapped that of John by 30-40 years and Papias speaks of The Presbyter, who traditionally has been identified as John the Apostle. An extract from the fourth book by Papias and preserved by Eusebius reads:

And this the Presbyter used to say: "Mark, being the recorder of Peter, wrote accurately but not in order whatever he [Peter] remembered of the things either said or done by the Lord; for he [Mark] had neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but later, as I said, Peter, who used to make teachings according to the cheias, [a special kind of anecdote] but not making as it were a systematic composition of the Lord's sayings; so that Mark did not err at all when he wrote certain things just as he had recalled [them]. For he had but one intention, not to leave out anything he had heard, nor to falsify anything in them". This is what was related by Papias about Mark. But about Matthews this was said: “For Matthew composed the logia [sayings] in Hebrew style; but each recorded them as he was able”`. ((EH 3: 39, 8 and RO 166r)).

Papias, bishop and author, certainly passes the “relevant” and “reliable” tests with flying colors (and there’s no record of the Apostle John ever saying he was misquoted by Papias), and the “chain of custody” is certainly short enough (from the mouth of John to the ear of Papias). Of course no court of law ever had to rule on this, but that is because no one ever challenged it (at least, not until 1,800 years later, when the principals were long gone).

Once again, I’m done here.

We can only hope … this is now the fourth time you’ve said so :yawn:

 

[Erich]

Also check out the following web sites:

The Evidence for Jesus (which addresses the reliability/historicity of the Gospels)

Jesus: The Evidence (for agnostics, atheists, and Christians… you qualify on at least two counts; all three, actually, since you were validly baptized).

The Case for Christ Examine the historical evidence!