| That Guy said: I'm not going to quote the whole thing, as you can look like 3 posts up and read everything. If you want me to do research, I can and will dig up information that will support my stand as well. It is by no credulity that I believe the things that I do. I'm fine with the fact that there is a lot of dialogue about the things in Biblical history. Some things can get cleared up as time goes by and we unearth more information. Just because there are some perceived contradictions doesn't mean that there lacks a explanation that reconciles the perceived contradiction. For example, up until 100 years ago, no one thought that there was ever a King Belshazzar of Babylon in history, so they thought the Daniel account was totally made up (or written later in history). But then archeologists unearthed the Nabonidus Cylinder that confirmed the existence of his son, Belshazzar. And what you see in the Gospels (it sounds that you have had some classes or some sort of education on the history of the Bible), the typical view is that Mark wrote the first book (because it was the shortest and most concise) and then the others used Mark as a base and further embellished upon it. On the other hand, I see it more like accounts of 4 witnesses with 4 different points of view. Matthew, a tax collector, for example, would have paid more more attention to the exact amounts of money or whatever. Luke, a doctor, would have picked up medical conditions and such. For example, Matthew and Mark say that Peter's mother in law had a fever, whereas Luke said she had a *high fever,* which was a more precise diagnosis. It doesn't mean that Luke was wrong, or Matthew and Mark were wrong, but when we look at all four accounts, it gives us a bigger picture of what really happened. For the example you mentioned about Mary at Jesus tomb, one gospel lists Mary, one of the others lists Mary and Mary Magdelene and Simone, and another one lists the two marys and Joanne. That just shows that there were other women that were perhaps not mentioned in the account. In the culture at the time, women weren't mentioned too often by name. What was Peter's wife's name? Jesus had "sisters" but what were their names and how many of them were there? Its not mentioned, but we can safely assume they existed (the answer to the sisters is at least 2, as "sisters" is plural). Matthew was an apostle, John was an apostle, Mark was said to get most of his information from Peter, and Luke accompanied compiled together eye witness accounts when he was with Paul. This would be as if a doctor, a mechanic, and a chinese person were to witness a crime scene. The doctor may have noticed some details about the victim, the mechanic would probably have a better recollection of what the escape vehicle looked like, and the chinese person would be able to tell if they were speaking in a chinese dialect (cantonese or mandarin). All together, they could flesh out a pretty good picture of whatever went on. As for when these things were written, something huge would be easily recalled. Go ask a WWII veteran what they were doing during Pearl Harbor. Can you remember what you did during 9/11? Or you can ask what your parents were doing when Kennedy was shot. You would think if you hung out with the Son of God for 3 years, you would be able to recall it pretty quickly.
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If only it were that easy, we could all go home and be happy. However you do not seem to be realizing the level of the contraditions here. All of these can not be swept under the rug by saying "we need more evidence". Some you may hope one day can be uncovered by future researchers. These are not all "perceived contradictions " as you would like to believe. Unfortunatly Erebus beat me to the punch here. Just look what has crawled out of the shadows. In his post he did not even bring up the time of Jesus death, which according to 3 gospels occurs after passover, while John has it occur on passover. The author of John has a reason for this, he wanted to make it look like on passover when the lambs are slaughtered, Jesus himself the "lamb of God" was slaughtered too. Yes, the author of John fudged reality to make a theological point. This is not a perceived contradiction. This is a contradiction. And the author did it for a very apparent reason. The gospels are not to be taken literally. I say this every time to you for a reason. A literal interpretation of the bible is headed for disaster, please jump ship.
One more word on the empire wide census. Don’t hold your hopes out for the truth of this one. Perhaps I should have explained this one a little more to get the point across. According to Luke, Joseph and Mary have to go back to their ancestral homeland to register for a tax. Joseph traces his lineage back to King David, so he goes back to Bethlehem. However King David lived 1000 years before Joseph. So all the citizens of the Roman empire went back to their ancestral home from 1000 years ago? How would everyone know where to go? Do you know where you would go? We are left with the question, did this event really happen? And the inescapable answer, no, this did not happen as was written in Luke.
On the authors of the bible; The idea that the authors were the disciples themselves is a 2nd century contrivance which we do not have evidence for. In fact all the evidence we have would show that they did not write the gospels. Think about it for a second, if Matthew had written the one of the books, he would have not titled it "The Gospel according to Matthew". In fact the gospels were written anonomously. The titles were attached later and the person who attached the title was trying to show whos version of the story this was. The books are written in the third person. They are written in Greek. The disciples did not speak Greek. Read the intro to Luke. The authors were not eyewitnesses.
@moe_nl
You said: "what means dispair? since english isnt my 1st language i dont understand that."
Sorry, its despair, and its the feeling I get when I read internet forums. :)
