No fabrication in Gospels

by Shining One 103 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Abaddon

  XJW4EVR

  Of course you don't see how you're out of line... that's the entire point!

  I also love, as has been pointed out, that whilst coming high and mighty you haven't contributed anything tangible to the discussion at hand.

  If you have a case regarding the authenticity or otherwise of the gospels, state it. Otherwise you are all talk and no trousers. An implied argument from authority ("have you read x type of writers") simply implies they somehow know better, without actually demonstrating it like what people do in conversation. It's no different to saying "well, x says otherwise" and not actually engaging in a debate but using fallacious argumentation to make it look as though you have a point.

  Example;

  "The Seahawks suck, this guy says so".

  Dull. Stupid. Boring. Undiscussable. Unreasoned. Dismissive.

  "The Seahawks suck because x, y,z etc..

  Reasoned. Engaging. Intellectually challenging. Debatable."

  I am sure you are a nice guy who treat animals well etc., but you're really missing the point here...
• 

  Shining One

  Hi EXJW,
  >Abbadon says that I am "rude" because I called out the intellectual laziness of a poster. Yes, Abbadon, I'll remember from now on to run scared and never challenge a member of the "old guard" ever again.
  
  Abaddon doesn't have the experience nor the longevity to be of the 'old guard'. He wasn't even around for the old H2O board. As far as weasels go, he is a young one....LOL. How's that for an Ad Hominem, Abadacadabra?
  Rex
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  Shining One

  Hey ExJW,
  You are pretty good. You have been around the debating boards for awhile I'll bet. You got these guys 'steppin and fetchin like they arses on fire'!
  Rex
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  Shining One

  >we could hold him to account for his beliefs.
  Hey Jignat,
  When I did that with your professed beliefs as opposed to your REAL beliefs you got all whiney and had the moddys lecture and warn me. Now you have again set YOUR SAVIOR up for ridicule in your eager rush to proclaim the unpopular parts of scripture as questionable. What's that passage say in Hebrews about 'trampling on the blood'?
  Rex
• 

  Shining One

  >Oh purleeese. Mythical WoMD in 2003 were used as a pretext. The analogy fits. They may not have been mythical in the 80's or 90's, but that's not the point is it?
  
  The POINT is that the world's cumulative intelligence community BELIEVED Saddam had WMD, including biologicals that could be put into action within 24 hours. His OWN GENERALS we're actually shocked to find out (on the eve of the invasion) that Saddam had been bluffing! His whole goal was to get the sanctions lifted THEN he could start up his WMD programs again. President Bush called his bluff, baby! Guess what, there are now 55 million people who are out from under despots. Is there still fighter going on? Of course, just like there was after Germany surrendered in WW2. The New York times was almost as bad (liberal bias) back then as they are now. The media isn't going to make another Vietanm out of this. We have other news sources that have trumped the mainstream, dive by media.
  Personally, I hope that the Pres let's the Euroweenies handle Iran. If they do then there better be some mass backbone implants!
  Rex
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  Shining One

  Hi TS,
  >whatever it takes to get you through the night. rex.
  How many Americans have died protecting the ungrateful butts of people like you? That's what it takes to get YOU through the night.
  Rex
• 

  Forscher

  I can't help pondering on the feeling of tiredness and boredom which seems to prevail on both sides of this debate. In spite of the amazing amount of newly found material (Qumran, Nag Hammadi, etc.) on the context and inner diversity of early Christianity, we are still basically stuck, on the popular level, in the same late 19th- early 20th-century methodological arguments.
  
  On the scholarly level, things are a bit different I think. Nobody expects conservative scholars to propose new models of interpretation taking the additional data into account. This positive task naturally falls upon the so-called "critics". On the other hand, conservatives have been pretty good at criticising the new proposals, pointing to their (often real) flaws. Iow, I feel the so-called "critical" scholars now spend less time and efforts attacking anything than trying to reconstruct something. And most conservative scholars are increasingly "critics" of every new reconstruction. What is fading, I feel, is the notion of "consensus".

  
  
  Somehow I missed that when I was so focused on what was going on between Leo and myself. When I read it, I felt that it was insightful enough to bear repeating, Narkissos. I would like to add that not all conservative scholars are all that stuck in attack mode. they just kind of get lost in the squabble between the two camps and what ever new insights they have to lay on the table tend to get ignored by both camps.
  The problem tends to be the extreme points from which the most prominent members of both camps come and their insistence that the other side has anything relevent to say (Please note I said both sides, I am not picking on either one alone with my comment). Although I am more in the conservative camp, I do not deny that some things coming out of the liberal camp can illuminate our understanding of the scriptures. For instance, the Q document theory points out the obvious, that one or more of the synoptic writers worked with one or more previously written documents. Although I've lightly engaged with Leo in a bit of debate about which document that might have been, it really isn't all that important to me one way or the other. The important part consists in the high probabilty of coordination that possibility reveals. And it suggests roads for research into the early church which neither camp has properly explored. They are just too busy trying to cut each other's throats.
  I know I've not said much good about Dominic Crossan. But I'll give him his due right here because he has tried to do what I am talking about. My problem with him is with his assumptions and hence the methodologies which he uses. Of Course, I realise that since he is bound to anthropology with its secular orientation, he is also bound to it's atheistic assumptions. That leads him down the wrong road in my opinion. It also led him into his work with the "Jesus seminar" and its dubious conclusions. How anyone who as a Catholic priest claims to speak for God could go down that road beggars the inagination as far as I am concerned.
  I hold a bachelor's degree in a related field and a minor in anthropology (my anthropology professors did try to get me to change my major, but I was not in a real good position to make that change at the time and realistic enough to realise that my personal beliefs would be a hinderance to going on since it is now becoming a practice to deny those who hold beliefs like mine a graduate education in that field). So I am in a position to evaluate his work.
  I'll give you your due as well Narkissos. I think it was you who said you spent three years in an Evangelical university and wasn't really impressed with the conservative argument. Although I disagree with your conclusions, You are entitled to them and I will not question either your right to them, or your credentials. I think it is uncalled for on your critic's account to dismiss them so lightly. Although we disagree at times, I find your argumentation knowledgeable, and respectful. And that is as it should be. We should all be prepared to let the arguments stand on their own merit when we enter this arena and respect the other man.
  My best wishes to all for the moment.
  Forscher
• 

  Forscher

  Now onto the topic which is the theme of the thread.
  It was observed by several in the thread that the answer depends on what is meant by "Fraud" or "Fabrication". I think Leo and a few others expressed the view that they thought the writers of the gospels at least thought they were reporting genuine events and that eliminate the "mens rea" necessary to sustain the charge of fraud or fabrication. I wholeheartedly agree. Although I disagree with the liberal camp as to the authorship and time of writing of the gospels, It is quite obvious in the case of several of them, namely Luke and Mark, that they were reporting things second hand. The other two are debatable, but I think we can agree on that.
  Luke addressed his gospel to one Theophilis, using a form of salutation indicating the man to be someone of prominence and power. He also assured the man that "I resolved also , because I have traced all things with accuracy, to right them in logical order, to you" (Luke 1:3). Luke also acknowledged the existence of other accounts, which is significant. That acknowledgement tells us that there were other accounts to compare his with and eye witnesses of those events as well. So Luke is inviting his reader to check the facts for himself and confirm the accuracy of the account. Now I don't know about anyone else, but I am not about to place such a statement in anything I wrote and try to include any fabrications. Back in those days, that could cost one more than just losing a paycheck! So I think that it can safely said that Luke wrote what he was confident was the truth.
  Since much of what he wrote can also be found in the other two Synoptic Gospels, I think we can be confident that the other two represent the gospel story as the early Christian community understood to be truthful. John is universally understood to be significantly later in writing than the other three and is on a different plane. To me, it speak of a writer who was trying to express the story in light of a lifetime of thinking on its significance. Much of the difference between it and the Synoptic Gospels can be in that orientation. If it was not written by an eyewitness to the events, it certainly represent a tradition among early Christians which the writer believed to be true.
  If the Synoptic gospels were written within the first century, as both camps seem to agree they were, it would've been very dangerous to fabricate the story since Official Roman archives were still available for inspection and the truth of the matter could be readily uncovered. Remember, Christianity was not liked very well in those days and there were plenty of Roman scholars who would've been only too happy to expose Christianity as a complete fraud.
  So from the foregoing, I think we can conclude that there was no fraud in the gospels. Those stories represent a truthful depiction of the events as the ancient world understood them. Of course I know what many mean by fraud when spaeaking of the gospel stories. But that falls more into a philisophical debate about whether miracles happen or not and is not part of the scope of the question as Leo and others have already pointed out.
  
  Forscher
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  kid-A

  How many Americans have died protecting the ungrateful butts of people like you? That's what it takes to get YOU through the night.
  
  Rex

  LMAOROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Priceless Rex!!! You're right, I sleep better at night knowing good ole' George Dubya is out there savin' the world from Saddams "non-existent" weapons of mass destruction!!!

  Rex, you really should be on the stand-up comedy circuit, I would pay to see ya!
• 

  peacefulpete

  The template for the story (sacred King, dying god/man,descending wisdom figure etc.) was centuries old by the time the Gosples were written. Also it is unlikely that any of the 4 represent the earliest forms of a Jesus (Joshuah/Savior) story given the abundance of these stories in circulation and the literary relationship the 4 have. I have no doubt that with so many versions in circulation there was a call for an "accurate" one. The writer of Luke, writing between lates 90s and 130 or possibly later, had issues with a form of, or source used by writer of Matthew in particular. He used it extensively, quoting verbatim, but often reordered material as he seems to be admitting in his introduction. The order has thematic pattern that he felt he was defending/clarifying. IOW the myth/story has to be told correctly for it to be properly understood. His mention of "eyewitnesses" does not help as he says they were "eyewitnesses to the word", not Jesus. Does this mean those that saw an early form of the story? those that claimed to have visions? We don't know. The G.Mark text is either an early form of the story used and expanded by writers of Matt and Luke or an abbridgement of Matt and Luke perhaps for stage presentation. I'm leaning to the latter lately. At any rate these texts have direct literary relationship and as such do not constitute multiple witnessses to anything.

  Rome was extremely accomodating to new sects and cults and cared not about their "historicity". Stories of miracles surrounded most every notable figure from the Caesars to Apollonius to Phythagorus, the educated recognized these as embellishments while the unschooled as gospel. If a sect of Judaism wanted to embellish or create a figure using their own texts or Greek motifs they would have cared little. The mocking charge that naive Christians had interpreted these embellishments as history was in fact leveled against early Christians many times. It took centuries for the story to be ironed out and made dogma and a principle motive seems to have been in defence of the claim that Jesus was an historical person and not like so many other literary idealist heros. The 4 Gospels represent a middle period in this 'ironing out', they betray diverse intepretations yet include efforts to locate the hero in relatively recent historical setting. The 4 stories were chosen from among the many because they have literary kinship and therefore resemble each other in storyline and, according to early tradition, because it was felt important there be "4" at it was a sacred number of wholeness.