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Author Topic:   Jesus: Why I believe He was a failure.
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 11 of 427 (539985)
12-21-2009 10:53 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Brian
12-20-2009 12:08 PM


Jesus, Interrupted
For me it is certainly a nice coincidence that you started this thread, I just started reading Jesus, Interrupted by Bart Ehrman and he goes over the geneology discrepancy and it just floored me. In my time as a believer I read the gospels straight through more than any other books in the Bible and I never noticed.
I try to remember and I think that I usually just skipped over the "...begat..." parts because I didn't really care. It is amazing what you can't see until someone says, "look right there"!
The biggest problem I have with assigning one of the geneologies to Mary is that both of them mention Joseph explicitly. I never quite understood where that argument came from although I admit I haven't look very hard. Who's idea was that? It seems painfully easy to refute right there in the text. Either they literally meant to describe the geneology of Joseph or if one of them really meant Mary then the text itself is in fact wrong.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Brian, posted 12-20-2009 12:08 PM Brian has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 15 by slevesque, posted 12-21-2009 5:28 PM Jazzns has replied
 Message 30 by Brian, posted 12-23-2009 6:11 AM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 13 of 427 (539987)
12-21-2009 10:56 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Brian
12-20-2009 6:33 PM


Re: Immaculate deception
There's a nice little clue in Paul's 1 Timothy 1:3-4 as to the construction of Jesus' ancestors.
As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines
any longer 4nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God's work*which is
by faith.
Is there any significance to this in that Paul is thought not to have written Timothy? All of the Gospels were written post Paul's ministry so I wonder if the emphasis on geneologies can be dated to some point. Perhaps all it does it date Timothy.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

This message is a reply to:
 Message 5 by Brian, posted 12-20-2009 6:33 PM Brian has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 19 of 427 (540068)
12-21-2009 10:49 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by slevesque
12-21-2009 5:28 PM


Re: Jesus, Interrupted
Just quickly on how Luke's genealogy could be Mary's. It is because Jew's always mentioned men in the genealogies. And so if he did follow the jewish traditions , then it is normal that we find Joseph's name instead of mary's.
Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, ...
So you are saying that Luke really meant "Mary, the daughter of Heli"?
Your link provides no evidence for why we should leap to this conclusion other than literally "tradition".

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

This message is a reply to:
 Message 15 by slevesque, posted 12-21-2009 5:28 PM slevesque has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by slevesque, posted 12-22-2009 4:49 PM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 23 of 427 (540203)
12-22-2009 5:27 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by slevesque
12-22-2009 4:49 PM


Re: Jesus, Interrupted
Luke, on the other hand, followed the jewish way of doing and recored only men. And so, even if he was doing Mary's genealogy, he could not have written her name and had to write Joseph's.
Which contradicts the standard interpretation that Matthew was writing for a Jewish audience while Luke was writing for a gentile audience.
You also still didn't answer my question, did Luke really mean "Mary, daughter of Heli"?
How then do we knoe it was Mary's ? Because when comparing with Mathew's (which we know is joseph's beyond reasonable doubt) we see that there is quite a difference between the two especially towards the end. This shows that they are not doing the same person. Which gives support to Luke's genealogy been Mary's.
So your argument is that it MUST be Mary's because otherwise the Bible is wrong? And you expect that argument to impress who?
And if you are in the position that you think the apostles made up the story of Jesus, then you have to think that they made sure their were no contradictions in the four gospels. and in fact their is little to no contradictions between the four gospels and Jesus's life can be pretty much reconstructed in a continuous sequence. If this is your position, then you cannot logically think that they would have left such a glaring contradiction right at the beginning of the book; once again showing that the two genealogies are probably of two different persons. And the most logically reasonable is that Luke was doing Mary's genealogy, but had to write Joseph's name due to tradition.
I don't know quite where to begin. First, Luke could not have been a direct witness to Jesus. Second, just because they made up their stores does not mean that they made them up together with the intent of trying to jive with one another. You one HUGE assumption is that they were even writing with knowledge of each other.
In fact we have direct evidence that Matthew and Luke were written a generation apart, in different regions, for different audiences, in support of different sects of Christianity. Luke is very much in the tradition of Paul and Matthew is not.
But in the end, you are basically just arguing that the Bible can't be wrong therefore there must be another explanation. It doesn't matter how rediculous the explanation is, as long as it preserves inerrancy then its okay to invent explanations wildly without any evidence.
Which brings me to my last point, you have still provided no evidence that expressing maternal lineages through the husband was even a so-called tradition.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by slevesque, posted 12-22-2009 4:49 PM slevesque has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by slevesque, posted 12-22-2009 6:39 PM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 28 of 427 (540245)
12-22-2009 11:01 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by slevesque
12-22-2009 6:39 PM


Re: Jesus, Interrupted
The standard interpretation that Mathew was writing for a Jewish audience etc. goes far more than the scope of this thread and is based on far more than a single piece of evidence such as this.
So you agree that he is writing for a Jewish audience yet you attribute a presumed strict Jewish genealogical tradition to Luke?
Similar response than to PaulK. It is not about the Bible being wrong or right. It is about it being a historical document, and you treat it just as you treat any other historical document. Doing otherwise is having a double-standard.
That is totally ridiculous! You never assume that a document is accurate until shown otherwise! Are you going to give the same amount of credulity to the Illiad? The burden of proof is ALWAYS on the claimant and in this case it would be Matthew and Luke and the people who presume that they are both accurate and harmonious.
I'll try to analyse this by logical deduction, while supposing that the story was made up.
The similarities in the texts show that either:
A. They knew each other and made it up together, in which case my previous reasoning stands in that they would have written the same genealogy if they were both talking about Joseph.
B. They didn't know each other. In this case the similarities show that Luke had at least access to Matthew's account. In which case, if he was also writing Joseph's genealogy, he would have written the same as Matthew to avoid the contradiction.
Or they both copied from a handful of common sources. Both copied from Mark, Luke did it badly, and both copied from other sources known to have circulated in early Christian communities.
And where they differ they do so on the basis of their own theological agendas for the audiences they were intended.
Now this is assuming the story is made up. even accounting for every alleged contradiction in the Gospels, they are still widely similar in many aspects. This similarity is what forces these two options, which both lead to the conclusion that the two Genealogies are not of the same person.
The only reason you need to reach that conclusion is if you have the pre-condition that the Bible must be accurate. The other totally viable option is that one or both are in fact wrong.
I'm afraid you are in the position of dichotomy in this situation. You want to, at the same time, claim the biblical Jesus never existed,
I never made that claim. I believe that Jesus is a historical figure. Thus begins your fantasy description of my position.
that his story in the four gospel was made up and that this explains why they are similar in many aspects. But at the very same time claim that it is s full of contradictions a monkey would see through it, and at the same time claim that both genealogies are of the same person even though it brings a load of logical inconsistencies with the previous affirmation that it was made up.
You are calling it a dichotomy because you are creating a total fairy tale of my position. I said very explicitly in my last post that Matthew and Luke were separated by time, space, and theology. They did not collaborate. In fact they were theological competitors. Can you really not think of any way that they could share similarities other than collaboration?
Those of us who don't require Biblical inerrancy can. Both gospels were made up from various traditions that shared core beliefs, oral histories, and early texts. They are similar precisely because there was an evolution of the Christian religion and they differ precisely on the issues that seperated early Christian communities. In many respects Matthew and Luke are polar opposites. Matthew paints a picture of a very jewish Jesus while Luke is borderline anti-jewish. If they HAD tried to collaborate on a gospel they would have totally disagreed on many issues.
The only person with a dichotomy here is anyone wanting to claim inerrancy in the face of a blatant error. The only counter you have given is an unsourced, unevidence "tradition", misrepresentations of your critics, and an imaginary universe where anything that claims to be a historical document is given the benefit of the doubt.
Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.
Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by slevesque, posted 12-22-2009 6:39 PM slevesque has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3911 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 32 of 427 (540278)
12-23-2009 9:19 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by Brian
12-23-2009 6:11 AM


Re: Jesus, Interrupted
If the author of Luke lists women in his genealogy then it is fairly obvious that he would have had no problem listing Mary. The whole idea is just silly.
I thought only Matthew mentioned the moms occasionally...
Both genealogies are of Joseph, they were probably just two of many genealogies 'doing the rounds'.
That is a good point, I believe there is some quote of "Paul" somewhere that mentions that we need to stop worrying about all the competing genealogies. In one of the Pastoral Epistles isn't it?
We also have to consider the reliability of the Gospel of Matthew given the whole range of errors that the author of Matthew makes regarding the OT prophecies, he pulls so many out of context and invents quite a few of his own that we really need to question how useful this book is for reconstructing the past. We also have the added possiblity that the Gospel of Matthew that we have is not the one that was named by Papias in 169 CE. Papias said that Matthew was written in Hebrew, the gospel we have is written in Greek and shows no sign of having been translated, so we might not even have a copy of the original Matthew!
That is sort of difficult because Papias was just plain old wrong about a lot of things. It IS almost certain that gospels were circulated that we no longer have a copy of though so it is quite possible that there were many presumed to be of Matthew. I mean, we can know that no such disciple of that name wrote the book that we have. I just wouldn't take the word of Papias very seriously.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. --Thomas Jefferson

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by Brian, posted 12-23-2009 6:11 AM Brian has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by Brian, posted 12-23-2009 3:18 PM Jazzns has not replied

  
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