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Post by LunarOrbit on Aug 27, 2007 13:46:52 GMT -4
No, answering questions is not what the Bible is good at. That's the problem.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 27, 2007 14:28:41 GMT -4
Perhaps rather than complaining "the Bible doesn't answer my questions" you should instead ask what questions the writers of the Bible were trying to answer, and see if they answered those questions.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Aug 27, 2007 14:31:29 GMT -4
So the only important questions are the ones they were willing to answer?
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 27, 2007 14:46:35 GMT -4
If I write a book about whales it's unfair to complain it doesn't anwer your questions about elephants.
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Post by BertL on Aug 27, 2007 15:11:09 GMT -4
That's a bad metaphor. If I'd write a biography about a person I'd mention at least when he was born and when he died, regardless of his actions.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 27, 2007 15:21:27 GMT -4
But the Bible is not a biography, and you are a member of a modern industrial society that pays much more attention to things like dates and the time of day.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Aug 27, 2007 15:41:53 GMT -4
If I write a book about whales it's unfair to complain it doesn't anwer your questions about elephants. But you should at least answer questions about whales. A book about Jesus that leaves out very important details about him leads me to wonder whether the authors really knew the subject.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 27, 2007 16:06:43 GMT -4
Each of the gospels does answer the questions its author was most concerned with. None of them were interested in presenting a biography.
Matthew was written to persuade the Jews that Jesus is the promised Messiah, so he often cites Old Testament prophecies that Jesus fulfilled and speaks repeatedly of Jesus as the Son of David, thus emphasizing his royal lineage. Mark appeals to a gentile audience as it gives some cultural and geographical explanations, which would be ncessary for a non-Jewish reader. It places more emphasis on Jesus' miracles than on his teachings. Luke is a more polished account which presents Jesus as a universal savior of both Jew and gentile (as you might expect from one of Paul's missionary companions). He also presents more stories involving women than the others. John's account seems to be written to members of the Church who already had basic information about Jesus' life and background. His primary purpose is to emphasize the divine nature of Jesus.
The questions each author attempts to answer are the ones they found important, and none found an exact birthday for Jesus important to the message they were trying to deliver.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Aug 27, 2007 17:18:13 GMT -4
Either way, even if we accept 50 CE as the date, that's 20 years -- which is a long time later for the authors to start writing down exact quotes. So I guess when people write their autobiographies and history books on events that happened more then 20 years ago we should consider them wrong? You were aware that Greek was the primary written language at the time? That, with the possible exception of Matthew (there is a line of thought that Matthew being targeted towards the Jews could have originally been in Hebrew, thoiugh there isn't any evidence of that other then possible language structure that some claim shows Hebrew origins), the likelihood is that all the NT works were originally written in Greek? We have at least four works, all of which are more numerous and have originals closer to the date of writing than those other documents. If not for the fact they were gathered together in the 300's they would still be separate works. Why do you discount them as corroboration for each other just on the basis they were gathered up and bound together 250 years after they were written. If I was to gather up a bunch of Apollo works and put them together, would that remove their own independence?
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 27, 2007 18:45:54 GMT -4
I, for one, do believe the Gospels were written in Greek. But they are quoting Jesus, who was not speaking in Greek. To translate is to interpret. So if Greek is all we have, we lost Jesus' actual words right at the start.
You can point me to an existing fragment that predates P52?
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 28, 2007 10:58:38 GMT -4
Some of Jesus' actual words are preserved, where one of the Gospels (often Mark) transliterates Aramaic words, like Abba "Father", into Greek. From a religious standpoint, if the authors were inspired while writing the Gospels then the translation of Jesus' words into Greek is an inspired one as well, and therefore essentially accurate.
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 28, 2007 11:50:17 GMT -4
It can be claimed that original Aramaic was translated from the original words of Jesus, but it can't be shown when it was done or who the author of the translation was. Secular scholarship does not agree with opinions here that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses. There is a healthy debate about the authorship of Luke, but not so much about the others. My position is that the author of Mark was not an eyewitness. You may believe he was an eyewitness, but the burden is on you to show that he was.
From a bit earlier -- the idea that Gospel author self-identification proves his identity would suggest that Mickey Spillane is actually Mike Hammer, as Mike Hammer also often identifies himself on the written page. The idea that one part of the bible is similar to another part of the bible does not constitute evidence of anything. That, to me, is similar to a moon HB pointing me at the work of another moon HB as proof of his position.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Aug 28, 2007 16:53:44 GMT -4
Mark is believed to have been Peter's son. The Gospel of Mark is based on Peter's recollection. Matthew and John were witnesses, Luke was a doctor and historian whose writting style, intro and the mirrors in Acts can be identified as the author of the Acts of the Apostles. Since the Author of Acts identifies himself as Luke....
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Post by wdmundt on Aug 28, 2007 17:38:36 GMT -4
Matthew and John may have been witnesses, but that does not in any way prove that the Gospels of Matthew and John were written by those persons. To show that Acts and Luke have the same author, who identifies himself as Luke, does not prove that he is in fact Luke. Given the complete lack of evidence about Jesus outside of the bible, showing me internal consistency in the bible does not constitute proof.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Aug 28, 2007 18:27:40 GMT -4
wdmundt is correct. The self-identification of the authors in the books of the Bible is not really evidence that they were written by those authors.
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