"I do not disagree that there are similarities betwenn Elisha and this event. You can point to them. However, it is your burden to prove that simply because of this Mark invented the feeding event based upon the account with Elisha. Remember, not only did Mark "invent " this account, but so did Peter who add most likely recounted it to Mark, as did Luke, who as an historian states that he had investigated everything and it was true, and Matthew who was a disciple and also recounted the event."
My argument is not based "simply" on the Elisha parallel, as you know; there is also the 23rd Psalm. If the Elisha parallels had existed in one of Mark's stories, and the 23rd Psalm parallel in another, then the power of my argument would be diminished. However, both sets of parallels occur in the same story.
Now, you say that it's my "burden to prove" that these are not just coincidences, but of course I cannot prove there is even one single error, inconsistency, or contradiction in the Bible. For example, if there were a verse which stated that all of the stories told about Jesus were made up, you would just say that I cannot prove that the author of that story was not guided by God to tell this lie to test the faith of believers.
Thus, given that any possbility of "proving" Bible error or contradiction is foreclosed to the skeptic, all he can do is ask true-believers to recognize that the list of parallels and seeming contradictions, errors, and inconsistencies is extremely long, and for them to understand that the believer has to twist himself in knots trying to explain away the difficulties and make up all manner of scenarios under which the difficulty might be explained away. As Gweedo so aptly put it to AChristian, "You're making this up!"
Ask yourself how many times you have to read into the Bible information which is not there, or twist the normal meaning of words so they cure a problem with a verse; if you find yourself doing this almost every time a skeptic raises a question, you might want to consider whether it is more likely that the Bible is not inerrant than it is the perfect Word of God.
Remember, not only did Mark "invent " this account, but so did Peter who add most likely recounted it to Mark, as did Luke, who as an historian states that he had investigated everything and it was true, and Matthew who was a disciple and also recounted the event."
You say that Mark learned from Peter about the events in Jesus' life. Do you believe that Jesus told Peter what he said in his prayer to God at Gethsemane? If so, how did Peter know what Jesus said, or what he did when he was alone?
If Peter told Mark what had happened in Jesus' life, how did Peter explain to Mark how he, Peter, knew that the two folks who appeared at the transfiguration with Jesus were Elijah and Moses? Peter had never seen them before, had he?
The authors of Matthew and Luke plagiarized the stories Mark wrote; I won't try to convince you of that here, obviously, and we shouldn't try to debate this issue, since one would have to consult the wealth of scholarly work which has gone into this. If you're interested in knowing how strong is the evidence supporting your view, and not just searching for ways to continue to believe, you will find any number of links on my web site to articles which show why Matthew and Luke based their gospels on the writings of Mark.
Now, you claim that Matthew was a disciple, but you're really just repeating what others have told you, probably, and they in turn were doing the same thing. There's zero evidence that the "Matthew" in the Bible is the same one who wrote the gospel. Indeed, there's good evidence to the contrary. Consider for example this:
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. (Matthew 9:9)
Does this sound like something the apostle Matthew would write about himself? Speaking of himself in the royal third person? Jesus never spoke of himself this way, so we hardly should imagine that Matthew would be so presumptuous as to do so.
You'll find more information debunking the notion that the author of Matthew was a disciple at the URL http://sol.sci.uop.edu/~jfalward/Matthew.htm
I don't know if you've declared to this forum whether you believe that there are no errors or contradictions in the Bible, RWC. Will you do that now?
For example, do you believe that it is more likely that the author was correct when he said in 1 Samuel 15:1-3 that the Lord ordered the infants and suckling babes be killed, than it is that the writer was mistaken?
Do you think that Jesus never made a false prediction?
Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
