My friend Dick Morris, who is the lead attorney suing Arizona Governor Jan Brewer to enjoin her from declaring state days of prayer each year in violation of the Arizona Constitution, sends this out every year. Obviously he did it a bit early this time, but we need to give our Christian friends some time to prepare. From the PDF: If anyone wishes to submit an answer to the challenge (neither his, nor the original challenge detailed in the PDF, has ever been claimed), let me know and I'll be happy to forward it along to him.
Is the point of this to show that, taking all those accounts, one cant include them into one chronological account? Is that it? If so, what does this have to do with separation of church and state?
Seems rather monotonous for one person to do. Does he actually offer a reward or a prize for doing it? Hey, maybe it could be done as a team, maybe we can do it here. Let me start: After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.(Saint Matthew) On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.(Saint Luke) When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. 2 Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb (Saint Mark) Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. (Saint John) So lets see...the two Marys and Salome bought the spices as the Sabbath was ending -so that would be Saturday around sunset- according to Saint Mark. Then they prepared the spices -presumably during the night- according to Saint Luke. I guess from Saint John we can conclude that Mary Magdalene headed towards the tomb early Sunday while it was still dark, and based on Saint Matthew, Saint Mark and Saint Luke we learn that she met her friends and made it to the tomb right around dawn. They probably didn't get a whole lot of sleep. Then they saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance, according to Saint John. Ok, way too repetitive, I'm bored already. I'll let somebody else do the next verse.
Heh, yes, the reward is $1,000 (see the PDF). The point is that you can't reconcile everything. For example, according to John 20:1 and Luke 24:2, the stone was rolled away when they got there. But in Matthew 28:2, an angel comes down and moves it himself, and tells the women it's cool. In Luke 24:4 there are two dudes in fabulous shiny clothes, and then in Mark 16:5, there's only one guy there in a white robe. And on and on it goes. (Also, everything after Mark 16:8 is a later addition, just as a piece of trivia.)
Justin Z One grand? What a cheapskate! My time is worth a lot more than that. Tell you what. Just for fun, tell your friend to put his money where his mouth is. Here is my counteroffer: Put up ten grand, payable to a mutually agreed charity from his state -he can propose a list of charities and we pick one together- and we solve his challenge publicly together here on BigSoccer's Spirituality & Religion Forum. I'm willing to put in most of the work, and you guys can help me make sure we deal with every possible discrepancy that arises from the four different accounts. Get an answer from him quick, and we might even be able to get it done before Easter Sunday.
Oh, thanks for posting--this had slipped my mind. Yeah he said his offer is as it stands. If your time ain't worth a grand, perhaps someone else will be up to the challenge.
Yeah, maybe over time we can do it here for a grand -to go to charity of course- as frankly I'm now kind of intrigued by the whole thing. But not now, as I'm pretty busy, plus we're going to start another all-time draft soon on The Beautiful Game forum that will probably take up much of my precious "waste-on-useless-endeavors-that-my wife-doesn't-get" time. I'll leave it on sticky so I don't forget about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Nicaea_icon.jpg he was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
meh, I get the fact that he is focusing on the lowest tier of Christianity since the fundies are the ones that show the least respect for the seperation of Chruch and State, but I doubt this forum is the place for that kind of audience. But regardless, it might be fun to take a swing at this. One question, do we have to take a 100% literal interpretation of the text? Because if we do, it cant be done. For example, when the 2 Marys approach Jesus' tomb, the angel is quoted as saying similar things, but in different words. Is this enough to invalidate the chronological account since the words are different? Or can we reconcile the accounts by saying that they communicated a similar message?
Well as you said, that a literal reading of the Bible is impossible, because even something as direct as the story surrounding the resurrection is impossible to reconcile across the four gospels. And yet we are surrounded by inerrantists in this country. It's a ridiculous position. But then of course, once you don't take the text 100% literally, you have to pick and choose where it's literal and where it's figurative. The slippery slope begins. And the result in my case was cognitive dissonance followed by the integrity of what I'd always taken for granted collapsing completely.
As a non-believer myself, I have to take issue with this. There's a difference between having the words used in two different accounts slightly differ vs. having entirely different meanings. Two different newpapers may have slightly different accounts of the same event that happened yesterday. That doesn't mean I can't believe in the literal truth of both newspapers, does it? Now if they have mutually exclusive versions of a set of facts or events, that's an entirely different story.
That is the whole point of this challenge. When it comes to Christ's resurrection and aftermath, can we reconcile the different accounts from the four gospels reasonably into a logical timetable while accounting for the differences and apparent discrepancies that come up? (Leaving aside the issue of the supernatural -angels, resurrections etc- of course.) I do want to see if it's doable, when I have the time. I hope other people here help me out, so we can go through all the verses methodically and reasonably address all the possible contradictions. It should be a fun exercise, and hopefully we can get a result that makes Justin Z's friend donate his thousand bucks to a charity.
You will never get a result that Justin Z's friend will accept, especially if Justin Z's friend is the one judging the result. --Scott
The problem with the challenge, as I understand it based on Justin Z´s reply, is that we need to reconcile a completely literal interpreation of the bible, one that even most fundamentalists do not hold. For example, here is what the angel said to the two Marys when they arrived at the tomb from Matthew and Mark. Matthew: He is not here: for he is risen Luke: He is not here, but is risen: The angels are quoted to have said this in the bible, yet, you cannot reconcile these two passages if you take a completely literal approach to the text. The angel either said ¨but is risen¨ or ¨for he is risen¨, there is no way he could have said both. I am not a biblical literalist, but as Giuseppe said, most fundamentalists would not have trouble reconciling these two examples as it is perfectly understandable for two writers to differ slightly on what was said, when describing an event that really happened, especially if they are writing based on someone else´s account.
Well, obviously it's generally agreed that gospel writers borrowed from each other or from oral tradition, and even fundamentalist Christian Bible scholars will concede that. The writer of Saint Luke says as much himself in the first paragraph of his gospel. So logically there are going to be minor discrepancies as you might see if, for example, you and I are describing the same movie that we both saw. But as I understand it, the challenge wants us to assume that all four gospels are telling us exactly what happened. So, in the example you gave us, the best way to reconcile it would be to theorize that the angel actually said both statements. Maybe he first said "But is risen" and right afterward said "For he is risen". Obviously nobody is saying that any of the gospels accounts is all inclusive, so although the most logical conclusion would be that there is a minor discrepancy in the actual language, it's also not unreasonable to assume in our compilation that both sayings are accurate because the Angel simply repeated himself, with a minor change in his emphasis. I mean we all repeat ourselves when we talk sometimes. All of us repeat ourselves sometimes when we talk. And you can quote me on both those sentences in two different posts without there being any discrepancy between the two posts, because I did write both sentences.
So your point is that accounts given of a certain event years after the fact tend to differ in details? Not exactly earth-shattering, it's just the Bible's version of Telephone.
Reading these past few posts--I realize I have overstated the requirement. The goal is to have a coherent summary that lacks contradiction, yet includes all significant details Slight differences in sentence structure/grammar are not the issue. It's the fact that accounts differ greatly. Saying substantively different things in two different gospels at the "same time," circumstances being different, contradictions of that sort. Not word-for-word stuff. Sorry about the confusion. As for this . . . How the ******** do you know, and who the hell are you to say anything of the sort?
Right, but versions of events told after the fact differ in their details all the time, it's the nature of human beings' skewed perception. That doesn't mean that something didn't actually happen. That's why things like the Jesus Seminar are interesting, they look at those different versions and try to come to the best possible understanding of the core truth underneath, sifting out contradictions and obvious mythical and political embellishments. And even so there's a lot of disagreement.