Re: Smoke one for

"Alex W." <ingilt@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:5fh945F3cpa00U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:


Firstly, if you cite Luke, I counter with John 20:31:

I'm not a fundamentalist. Verses don't "counter" each other.
And only the crappiest sort of theology is done by bantering
verses. (Besides, since John is writing to believers, he can
hardly be "proselytizing".)


Secondly, it is amazingly difficult to confirm the events described
through other sources such as contemporary chroniclers or official
records.

1. You're wrong. Lots of the events are chronicled in Roman records
and 2. even if you weren't wrong, so what? You can gather up all
the records for some historical event, set them aside and then
complain that "there's no other historical records to back these up".
Big deal. The Gospels ARE the historical record.


Thirdly, except for Mark it is highly unlikely that Matthew and Luke
were even contemporaries to the events they described -- never mind
that they were admittedly not eye-witnesses. John is so far removed,
it would have been quite impossible for him to have been part of the
events as described or even judge them accurately across several
generations' distance. This makes their accounts inherently less
reliable as they would have had to rely on hearsay and memory.

"Unlikely"? You can't do probability on a one-event space. And John
died historically around the year 90. So he's just the right age.



Point four, both the gospel writers and their sources were disciples,
followers of what was at the time a distinctly apocalytpic cult. IOW,
not only did they have no interest in portraying a historically
accurate vita of Jesus, their very mindset would have precluded them
from producing such had they wanted to.

Just the opposite. Most of the apostles were martyred, and could have
avoided it by recanting. They didn't. So your ad hominem argument
works exactly against you.


Point five: I am not a biblical scholar and can't expertly judge the
validity of the reasons for excluding all other gospel accounts of
Jesus' life and sayings but these four, but the very fact that this
was done by men several centuries removed from the events cannot but
raise my doubts.

Your doubts about what? Google the ante-nicene fathers and read
some of Origen or Justin. They're good writings, but you can tell
right away that they're not Scripture-quality. To include a book
or letter in the NT, several things had to come together. Foremost
was the authority of the author. (The fact that Hebrews and James
have questionable authorship is why Luther considered not including
them, e.g.)


Seven: my favourite. Sorry, but I get hung up on the fact that the
official accounts of Jesus' life cannot agree on his death. Did he
say anything? What did he say? We are asked to accept that the last
words on Earth by the King of Kings, the Messiah Himself, were so
unremarkable that all the accounts differ. Sorry, I cannot do that.

Don't be sorry, be sensible. One account says that Jesus says some
things. If another account says that Jesus DIDN'T say those things,
then you'd have a point. It doesn't and you don't.


Next, I miss the detail. Maybe my mind is jsut too modern and I am
too stuck in the format of "proper" biography, but I would have liked
to see mention of his siblings, his family life, his childhood.

It's only a hole because you want to know it. But the details are
not really relevant. The Gospel writers weren't writing a bio, but
were chronicaling Jesus' ministry and work. They report this just
fine.


Nine, cui bono? The two middle gospels are really gospels according
to Peter and Paul;

Nobody buys this "historical criticism" anymore. It was a 70's fad
that fell into disrepute pretty quickly.

B.


--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.
.

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