quote:
What non-matching documentation are you talking about in regard to Jesus?
Luke is the most obvious one.
I’m sure you already know these and I don’t want to argue these.
Statement by Craig L. Blomberg, PH.D. in the book The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel
It’s Important to acknowledge that strictly speaking, the gospels are anonymous.
By tradition the author of the Matthew Gospel is supposedly Matthew the tax collector, one of the disciples, one of the twelve. So we check the evidence.
1. The Book of Matthew is not written from an eyewitness point of view.
Matthew 9:9
As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew , sitting in the tax collector's booth; and He said to him, "Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him.
Per The Popular and Critical Bible Encyclopaedia and Scriptural Dictionary of 1902; The most ancient testimony about the Gospel of Matthew is by Papias (75AD?-163AD?), who was supposedly a disciple of John. His testimony is that Matthew wrote down the sayings of Christ in Hebrew.
Quite obviously the Book of Matthew that we have today is more than just sayings.
Testimony of Jerome (340AD-420AD), who translated the Bible into Latin also from the Bible Encyclopaedia above:
Jerome in his Catalogue of Illustrious Men, reports that the Hebrew Gospel of St. Matthew was preserved in the library at Caesarea, and that he took a copy of it. In his commentary on Matthew XII:13, he says that he translated this Hebrew gospel into Greek. In the same passage, and in his book Contra Pelagianos, Jermone states that this Hebrew copy was considered ‘by most people’ to be the original test of St. Matthew.
Not really a concrete testimony and considerably late.
Jerome also asserts that in the Bible there is no material error due to the ignorance or the heedlessness of the sacred writer, but he adds: "It is usual for the sacred historian to conform himself to the generally accepted opinion of the masses in his time"
Here we have testimony that sacred historians are influenced by culture of the time.
2. Luke supposedly drew up an
account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses...Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning
So we compare Matthew (eyewitness) to Luke (investigator)
M — Birth Bethlehem - Magi visit house - Move to Egypt — Avoided Judea and moved to Nazareth instead.
L — Left Nazareth — Census Bethlehem — Birth Bethlehem Manger — Shepherds no Magi — Returned to Nazareth, no tour of Egypt.
The Nativity stories don’t compliment each other as they should. So now we have to look at secular information and the census part of the story doesn’t mesh with history.
We also have historical information on a
Jesus ben Pantera which does match some of the basics of the Jesus story.
The funniest story in Matthew is the one about the donkeys. If it happened the way Matthew describes, I'm sure it was memorable.
Matthew 21:7
They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them.
A little hard to sit astride two animals. Luke in his investigation came up with Jesus riding only one animal.
That is just a little information that leads one to question whether the author of Matthew was actually an eyewitness.
Even though I answered this question, I do not want to follow this line of discussion with you.
I've already read all the inane apologetics and from reading your posts, I don't feel that you possess the spiritual maturity necessary to discuss this type of topic seriously.
A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.
™ Version 4.2