Surely one of the biggest questions is why an 'eyewitness' of this extraordinary life of Jesus would take decades to get round to writing their accounts - Mark 40 years, Matthew & Luke 50 years, and John 60 years or so. Would you want to get this remarkable story out there as quickly as possible, especially in age age where life expectancy was 40-50 years?
Really? Did people in classical antiquity just drop dead as soon as they noticed wrinkles appearing? The testimonial evidence indicates otherwise. Even apart from the early church fathers, writers like Pliny in the first century speak of people living past 30 years of age. Pliny devoted an entire chapter in his Natural History to those who lived for a long time. For example, he lists the consul Valerius Corvinos (100 years), Cicero’s wife Terentia (103), a woman named Clodia (115, who had 15 children!), and the actress Lucceia who performed on stage at 100 years old. He also writes, more of an exception than the rule of a musician who lived to 105, who had a pleasantly healthy old age. I recall hearing first hand battle accounts from of a World War veteran friend of mine, back in the early 1990’s. The information gap is not that spread out when a few significant people are able live long full lives. According to Papias Matthew wrote, what was translated later in Greek, a gospel early on. This would have likely have taken place in the first few years of the church’s existence. For the most part the testimonies were orally given and not written.
@@jessknauftofsantaynezvalle4111 The gospel of Matthew is not what Papias is referring to. It is not a translation from Greek, but a wholesale copying of Mark. That is not something an eyewitness would do.
It’s also important to note that the gospels themselves don’t claim to be eyewitness, that is a later claim made by other people in an attempt to raise the perceived likelihood that Christianity is true.
But I just concluded the book of John. In one of the final chapters, John claimed that a soldier inserted a spear into Jesus's side and said that this was witnessed by an anonymous he called trustworthy (John 19:35). Finally, he added that the entire book was written by "the disciple Jesus loved" (John 21:19-25). I'm told that was a name he gave himself. I'm not coming from a place of antagonizing this video. I think I appreciate learning that the gospel might not be eyewitness accounts but how do you explain these verses in the book of John?
@ does any of that indicate there was an author who identified himself as “John” and who witness the events? Or are those vague claims in a book where the author is not identified or who claims to be an eyewitness? Many scholars claim the “the disciple Jesus loved” to be Lazarus, and many claim this character to be a creation written to one-up Peter, as this seems to be the role he is written to do and this character never appears in any other gospel. Given that the accepted dating of John is CE90 to 120 and is wholly different from the Synoptics, presenting the most mythical and magical version of Jesus, and written in academic Greek, the likelihood of it being an actual eyewitness account seems ridiculous when compared to what is most likely: it was written almost a century after the claimed events by someone with a theological goal.
@@MrMattSax I see your points and they're plausible I must say. I myself cringed when I read John 19:35. The unidentified author is assuring us that his anonymous witness is trustworthy. I'm supposed to just believe? When I'm not sure who wrote this book or who this anonymous witness to the spearing of Jesus is. Mind you, I've been a pretty devout Christian all my life. Started doing active apologetics three years ago or so but I only recently stumbled on certain issues with the Bible even I can't defend. I won't even try to. I'll just follow the issues to the conclusion they lead. In other words, I'm beginning to have doubts about this religion
@@DavidSamuel-gz7cf I respect your honesty, in fact, if you continue to be so honest with your analysis, it seems likely you may abandon your pursuit of apologetics. In my experience, every apologetic argument is either built on a fallacy or contains unsupported premises, so it seems apologetics needs to rely on dishonesty. The best apologists are the ones able to deflect from their dishonesty and perform the most unbelievable mental gymnastics to defend their views. But props to you, you've identified a major issue with biblical claims: it all comes down to believing what someone tells you. Essentially, it is an argument from authority (or false authority, really). As a believer, you are tasked to take on the unbelievable as believable and to do this on the testimony of someone else. Now, it's possible you've been raised to believe these things as true (again, by trusting an authority), but compare these claims to the reality you experience. They are not congruent with that reality. Realty, for the most part, is knowable and consistent and I'm willing to bet you operate your day with that understanding. The world the bible describes is not knowable and it is not consistent. If at some point it is true that a donkey can talk then our understanding of biology, physiology, physics, etc all go out the window. All we can say is that those things are mostly true but not always. The same can be said about all of the miracle claims in the bible. They undermine our understanding and experience of reality. Now, is it possible that an illiterate, unnamed Aramaic-speaking peasant lived to be ninety years old (or more) and moved hundreds of miles away to study at a university of the wealthy upper class and learned how to write in educated Greek and accurately recalled the events he witnessed over sixty years ago down to specific phrases and actions which included things that defy the laws of nature? Sure, I suppose. But doesn't it seem more likely that legend grew over time about a person, shaped by the spreading of word of mouth and that someone, a sincere believer, wrote down those ideas as a narrative and though they may have been loosely based on a real person, were actually more myth than reality? Well, sure, that happens all the time.
Thank you for your channel, it’s good to hear of your various qualifications.. that resonated with me. Last year I did the online course by Prof James Tabor on “Mark”, taking it on its own terms, and it blew me away! I’d always found it the least compelling because I was trying to shoehorn it into the the others to try “harmonise” them .. Tabor helps you see it as a unique composition that rewards the thoughtful listener/ reader… and the short ending is no problem. It becomes problematic only as all this other stuff begins being bolted on later and “Mark”no longer is appreciated as a standalone whole composition. I loved your juxtaposition of the “Christ secret” with John’s “Before Abraham was, I AM”.. that really landed lol. I loved reading Bishop Ryle and Matthew Henry on the gospels, but Puritan & Victorian theology, however stirring, blinded me to the actual texts and skewed the way I saw my world today. Please keep making videos like this, it did me much good 👍
That's one of the problems with trying to force the four Gospels together: you miss out on appreciating them as their own works, with four (or possibly more) authors using the same basic story to push four different visions of what that story means, from Mark's almost mysterious story to Matthew's more Judaic view to Luke's pseudo-historical approach to John's quasi-superhero version.
Another major contradiction was where did the disciples meet resurrected Jesus? In Galilee as Matthew says. Or in Jerusalem as Luke says. You don’t expect eye witnesses to report the same car crash in different towns.
@@racerx4152 The problem is the angel mentions different things to the women that would be very weird if the angel said both things. Also Matthew and Luke mention the disciples meet Jesus on the same day. And Galilee and Jerusalem are a distance of a 20 hour walk. Is it not easier to say maybe one of them made a mistake?
No contradiction. Jesus met the disciples in the upper room after his resurrection; a week later (when Thomas was present); in Galilee sometime during the 40 days between the resurrection and ascension; in Jerusalem around the 30th day.
I have never thought of the question of how all these fishermen who spoke Aramaic could write in Greek. I am Malaysia. Though English is widely used and spoken here, it remains as the language that educated people use, not fishermen who usually have only minumal level of education. They speak and write in Malay. Of course we could meet some fishermen who could be fluent in English but that would be a very rare occasion. I have given up evangelicalism and became a Catholic (no inerrancy nor sola scriptura in Catholicism) Thanks for pointing that out. Fruit for thought 😊
600 years prior,the students of Confucius immediately set themselves to preserving his teachings when he died. That that wasn't the case with the Jesus story speaks volumes, particularly in the claim that he was "the Word of god" who didn't manage to leave behind any, you know, words.
Your observation that "Luke" knew a lot about sailing and the Mediterranean Sea is interesting. It is not known if the Luke associated with the visionary Paul was a sailor. However, we are certain that Marcion of Sinope was a ship owner and merchant, and it is my understanding that what can be reconstructed from Marcion's Gospel seems to be a rudimentary version of the Gospel of Luke. It would make fundamental sense if Marcion was the author of this gospel, and not any companion of Paul. The entire New Testament is literary fiction...
This is actually great in that it answers some questions about making the bible "inerrant" having a negative impact upon my life. I was a young earth creationist, presumptionalist, Calvinist, Reformed Baptist. You gotta understand how freaking painful this is for me. It is a good pain, though... but wow, this is doing my head in. *whistles*
Thanks for your well-reasoned, scholarly, compassionate and thoughtful analysis. This gives me a nuanced view of the synoptics that I previously never even considered.
I concur. Its actually wild how keeping a belief in biblical inerrancy can somehow make you miss all of the many issues between the gospels- or atleast assume that someone smarter must surely have an answer to such a stark problem. Keep growing the channel and making content, man!
Thanks for your honesty, something i rarely see in so-called christians. If you believe it's because of faith not facts. I am saddened and sickened by apologists lame and dishonest efforts to make this bs work. Search for the truth not confirmation
@cubsbaseball9 100% - and even if you end up in a faith tradition, it's way richer when it's not just because of confirmation bias. Thanks so much for these kind words
It’s actually quite fascinating that they are able to tell a cohesive story at all with all the variants and redactions. With what they had to work with, the severe limitations of writing, being able to communicate with the other writers etc. the expense of materials and educated men to clean things up and edit the stories, you have final products that demonstrate a great deal of literary skill and artistic commitment to the Jesus story. The spun straw into gold. Just my honest opinion.
Thank you for your thoughts on this. I'd like to share my thoughts on this subject: 1) Matthew and Luke copying from Mark. While this is an idea put forth, and a well known theory, there is actually no proof that this was the case. Matthew, Luke and Mark could all be using another source, no longer available to us and since Matthew and Luke both have extra material not found in Mark, it does seem apparent that at least there are grounds for considering a further source, known as 'Q'. There may be and probably were other sources as we read in Luke's prologue. So while it is a popular theory that Matthew and Luke copied from Mark, this could equally be false. Therefore the 'literary dependence' may not be upon Mark at all, but from some other source and since we don't actually have proof of the literary dependence on Mark other than its similarity, it is not an entirely dependable theory. The absence of the manuscripts which Luke referred to, not only suggests that they existed but that the literary dependence upon Mark remains unproven, though a possibility. 2) re: "this is not our Matthew" - well, I wouldn't disagree with that, however, it doesn't imply that an original record from Matthew was not the source of our present gospel of Matthew's material. If Matthew the tax collector did write accounts of Jesus's life, since he would be likely to be literate for his job and as time went on, he would quite likely consider it important to write about Jesus for the benefit of others, then what are the chances of him writing his first records in Greek? I think it unlikely. Later when gospels were written for both a Jewish and Greek audience, then Greek would obviously be the language of choice for widest distribution. So Matthew could well have authored records of Jesus's life in Aramaic/Hebrew, but what if any relationship such writings had to the quoted "Gospel of Matthew to the Hebrews", which was destroyed in the Library of Ceasarea in the 7th century, we cannot now know. I confess to being disappointed that your thinking appears to be dominated by the popular thoughts, theories and assertions made by academics, rather than an original contribution from yourself. For instance you adopt the now popular idea that the synoptics and John show a trajectory of theological development. Whilst I can see the rational behind this thinking, I think it is dependant upon assumptions, which if wrong, could make this theory wildly misleading. I agree, as do most people that each gospel writer had a theological message to present and that they framed each gospel according to that. Finally, I do think the gospels CONTAIN eye witness accounts and am most impressed by Richard Bauckham's analysis in which each of the named individuals in the gospels are actually the eye witnesses who remembered each of their personal interactions with Jesus as well as his crucifixion and resurrection. I do not align with the sceptical criticisms that have now become very popularised on the internet, now followed by 'every man and his dog'.
19 дней назад
start with the fact that dead guys don't come back to life. period. ever.
You need to read Mark Goodacre’s work on the idea that Matthew and Luke copied from Mark. There is a vast amount of proof, mainly that both of them copy Mark verbatim. Literally copying entire sections without a single change. And Luke also copies material invented from Matthew verbatim.
@ That isn’t proof. It’s possible, but there is no proof of this, since Mark could equally have been using a source shared with. Matthew and Luke, at which point, that theory fails.
18 дней назад
@@theonlyway5298 Yes it is proof (ie evidence). Critical analysis of the text = evidence.
18 дней назад
"Matthew the tax collector" never wrote anything. "The Gospel of Matthew" never says or implies any such thing, and actually refers to "Matthew" in the third person, twice. It's amazing how many people that think the bible is "the word of god" have no idea what's in it.
Hey CJ, a pastor who a little home church in asia here. I've been saying alot of stuff you've been saying on the inerrancy of the NT and gospels (probably why your video got onto my sugested feed). That the church chose to preserve the 4 gospels and include it in cannon makes you wonder what gave them such confidence to do so instead of just keeping 1? Surely we aren't the only ones who've noticed such inconsistencies So for me,i believe the old testament has been preserved and is sufficient evidence to point to Jesus as the messiah. I appreciate what you said at the end that you dont have a monopoly on truth and that to be honest with ourselves and each other as we seek it. agree w your other video as well that Christianity takes faith and for me that a good thing. for what we know in part and see in part will fade when the fullness of Christ is revealed. thanks for your channel, appreciate the work that went into the vid
I agree although I think they contain a lot of eyewitness second hand testimony. I've often wondered if John contains some eyewitness statements from Philip as he suddenly gets more of a mention, plus he went to Samaria and Samaritan characters appear. Re: Matthew - there was a Hebrew gospel believed to be by Matthew but with no nativity section, and it's been lost since probably nearly 1900 years ago.
Bring in narrative as a rhetorical device. The stories matter. I'm an atheist, but I have a passing understanding of the gospels. I always come to the core of Matthew 25, when Jesus responds, that which you do to the least of you, you do to me." It's the story of the telling of that that moves me. And then there's John and the Last Supper Discourse at that point when Jesus says there is no love like the love of one who will lay down his life for his friends. I think in language other than English "friend" in John may have a deeper meaning. But it's the way the discourse fits in the narrative of the passion that moves me. I'm not a theologian, and I'm not a believer but I can put the two together and have a story about love from the words of Jesus.
Yeah and then Jesus ALSO commanded slaves to obey their masters, and respect and fear their masters just as they would Christ. Well a swell guy and touching story!
@@DavidSamuel-gz7cf Jesus didn't condemn of correct Paul did he? He certainly - conveniently - didn't condemn slavery either. This is a not a relifion based on peace, good morals, or love of your fellow man. Except love for Israelites, the ones who just so happened to invent the religion. Kind of convenient...
I listen to James Tabor and Bart Ehrman daily. So much to unpack, but like you said in another video... knowing the truth sets you free to see the stories as historical accounts and not words Christians must lay on the tracks for.
The strange thing is that in the study of the Gospels is the assumption that nobody knew about the differences and the contradictions. When the church put them together it knew about it. A better question would be why, and why 4 and not one composed from the 4 without contradictions or a hundred.
@@eus38io there were are some early attempts to harmonize them. The diatessaron is a famous example of this. But you're right, leaving them as 4 was seen as more credible--even with tensions and contradictions.
I think there is a false dichotomy here between a “fundamentalist” view and the view that the gospels were not eyewitness accounts in a meaningful sense - more meaningful than you would grant . I was surprised you didn’t at least mention Dr Richard Bauckham’s famous book on the gospels as being based on eyewitness accounts . Have you read his book - in particular the second edition ? also there is a minority view that the Synoptics were in fact originally written in Aramaic or Hebrew and then translated and redacted into the Greek gospels we know . Unfortunately the key work here it out of print now in English though it is likely you could find it in French. It was surprisingly convincing to me because, the author really didn’t have a dog in that fight . He was a French Old Testament scholar and also a scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls: After publishing a work on the Dead Sea Scrolls he had kept notes of some parallel ideas also found in the New Testament and thought he might write a text on that . Since the scrolls were written in Hebrew (and perhaps some Aramaic) he thought it would be useful to translate a gospel from Greek into Hebrew . I will let him take it from there: “ 12:54 I had imagined that this translation would be difficult because of considerable differences between Semitic thought, and Greek thought, but I was absolutely dumbfounded to discover that this translation was, on the contrary, extremely easy. Around the middle of April 1963, after only one day of work, I was convinced that the Greek text of Mark could not have been redacted directly in Greek, and that it was in reality only the Greek translation of an original Hebrew. The enormous difficulties which I had envisioned for myself, had all been resolved by the Hebrew -Greek translator who had transposed word for word, and who had even preserved in Greek the order of the words preferred by Hebrew grammar.” Of course there a number of explanations that could account for this phenomena. So he spent a 20 years to study and verify any conclusions scientifically. As he says ultimately not only did he continue to support his original reaction to Mark but “Technical investigations have resulted in some proofs which seem decisive and which have an equal bearing on the Gospel of Matthew and the documents used by Luke.” He does conclude the documents could have been originally in Aramaic but actually leans towards Hebrew . Even if you disagree his small preliminary study translated into English is fascinating. The author is Jean Carmignac and the English title is “The Birth of the Synoptics “. As I said it is out of print and used copies that are occasionally available cost over $100. Perhaps you can find it in a library system somewhere . It was published in 1987 by the Franciscan Herald Press.
17 дней назад
"there is a minority view that the Synoptics were in fact originally written in Aramaic or Hebrew" that is a fringe view that no serious modern scholar supports.
I really don't understand the reticence to challenge faith. Faith is believing in things for no good reason, arguing against all reason, and never admitting when you are wrong.
This has been explained . Yes ..yes we know all this You need to return to the early fathers... who interacted with the disciples of Jesus . We do not depend totally on there. You need to cross check these with what is written.
19 дней назад
there's no evidence that any "early fathers" interacted with any "disciples of jesus". they don't even claim to, except for papias, who was a nutjob.
@@khairulazmykamaluddin8222 Contradiction , thats proove just different perspective." Corrution" ? Which one? Why the greatest scholars in NT which are christians dont expose them, if they re real? It seems some guys are trying hard to push their wish thinking for" undeniable truth" .That doesnt work.
@@cristianpopescu78 Biblical contradictions: Before we handle biblical contradictions we must know what's contradiction and why are there contradictions? The Bible is a word of God addressed to the fallen mankind, so must know the purpose of the word of God having contradictions, discrepancies and inconsistencies. The purpose of contradiction is to motivate the minds of a fallen men, why is the mind motivated? The mind must be motivated so as to open the closed mindedness so as to see, and understand God. Therefore, in order to open the closed mindedness contradictions are necessary. If there's no contradiction then there's no possibility to motivate the mind of a man, then man would simply continue without seeing or understanding God and blindly assert that God does exist or doesn't exist, and attitude would result chaos. What's closed mindedness of men? When man disobeyed the command of God & ate the forbidden fruit 🍓, then his eyes opened, meaning his eyes opened to wickedness and at the same time his eyes was closed to the ways of God, and that he has become a fallen and closed minded man as these has been achieved by an adversary by deceiving them, so God's Spirit departed from a man and instead an Unclean Spirit has arrived into the man. This is why the Bible calls a sinner is blind, dead, captive or imprisoned. Now in order to restore men God have spoken through various peoples and finally through His Son, and that there's Holy Bible, so when we study the word of God, we encounter contradictions, therefore when we take these contradictions then we can't handle it, and in such situations one can allow those contradictions to work in his mind that's seated in the brain and sealed in it, so during the pursuit of contradictions the brain go through various scenarios and in the end there shall be a breaking of the seal of the mind in the brain, once the breaking of the seal of the mind happens then it will be removed from the brain, paving way for the Holy Spirit or God's Spirit to get into the brain and seal again in a fraction of time dramatically, this is only known to an individual, not to anybody else. This is the opposite of what happened to man in the beginning wherein the Holy Spirit or God's Spirit departed from him and instead an Unclean Spirit arrived into his physical body and now through JESUS, so an Unclean Spirit is removed from the brain 🧠 and instead the Holy Spirit or God's Spirit can be replaced back into the brain 🧠 and seal it. Thus, contradictions of the Holy Bible are meant to motivate the closed men so as to open closed mindedness of men, and to prove that God does exists.
Your problem is, you listen to an argument and then agree with it! There are many discussions on all topics related to these questions, and many have been aswered already.... Saying that... just like the first testament, everything is allegorical.
I'm not suprised with the contradictions and the mythological stylings of the stories. The authors try really hard to convince the readers while making huge claims without providing any evidence to back up the claims.
@@GregAnderson-r3k IT was not neccesary while many allready knew about but not so much as the authors knew.This is easy to see from the large amount of Informations from Jesus times later no more available due romans destruction in Judeea .Betsaida was completely destroyed f example. Modern archeology confirm anyway many of NT details to be right.
A historian and u don't realize the Hebrew Tanakh used by the Jews was translated into Greek more than TWO CENTURIES before Jesus's time, that tell us Greek was at least a well known language in Jesus's time. Especially since the Romans ruled for a century before Jesus's ministry. Apart from that, the early church fathers tell us who wrote the FOUR ACCOUNTS OF THE ONE GOSPEL, Matthew and John were Jesus's disciples, Mark and Luke worked with Jesus's apostles as well as Paul.
@@robinharwood5044, u don't have good reason to believe all those who lived close to Jesus's time but u believe the stories that started almost 2000 years later, it explains a lot.
I think what you're saying is perfectly valid. If I were to disagree with any of it, I still question the validity of the "Q" document. Its possible that Matthew had some source beyond Mark and that Luke borrowed from that as well.
@@williamwatson4354 Mark Goodacre has done a lot of work untangling this possibility--it's interesting. I find Q as a separate source for Matt and Luke pretty convincing, which I think most scholars do. There's also a hypothesis of a signs gospel behind John--although not nearly with as much certainty as Q
I appreciate the effort and research which went into this video as well as the generally good faith way in which the material is presented. Respectfully, I think the video presents a one-sided perspective on the evidence. And as someone who holds the opposite point of view, I thought I would provide some counter-points to those raised in the video. 1. Literary Dependence So let me begin by acknowledging the presence of literary dependence among the Synoptics. It’s definitely there. What I fail to see is why this is supposed to be a challenge to the traditional ascriptions of authorship. And to the extent that it is a problem for the Synoptics, since John is literarily independent of the Synoptics, it seems like this should be a reason to affirm that John is an eyewitness! Luke, at least, outright tells us that he’s working from other sources (specifically eyewitnesses) in his prologue. So literary dependence is not at all surprising in his case. Indeed, if Matthew was actually authored by an eyewitness, then it would be surprising if Luke did not copy from Matthew. I’m genuinely unsure of what the problem is supposed to be here. I’m somewhat confused as to why this is even being included as a reason to doubt that the Gospels are rooted in eyewitness testimony. Towards the beginning of this segment, C. J. claims that this is probably the biggest reason to doubt the eyewitness nature of the Gospels, and then towards the end he acknowledges that by itself it doesn’t really establish this. I, for one, don’t even think it suggests this. There are also a lot of really controversial claims in this section which are just sot of presented as facts. For example, the claim that Matthew and Luke copy from Mark or even more controversially that there was a “Q” source. Both of these claims (especially the second) are debated among scholars to this day, and I would personally reject both of them. But in any case, none of this is relevant to the question of who authored the Gospels so I won’t pursue this any further. 2. Dubious Historical Reports Again, I’m not sure how this is supposed to be an argument against the idea that the Gospels are grounded in eyewitness testimony. At best, it establishes that early witnesses like Papias and Irenaeus are not good evidence for the Gospels containing eyewitness testimony. But that just makes it an open question again. It certainly does nothing to indicate that the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses. As for the specific objections offered against Papias, I think a lot of pertinent information is being left out here. For example, C. J. asserts that Papias says that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew. But this is controversial. The word Papias uses here is “dialekto” which can be translated as “language” but it can just as easily mean something like “style” or “dialect” which leaves it open that Papias is not saying that Matthew was written in the Hebrew language but rather written in a Hebrew dialect. And this same point actually holds for Irenaeus too. Irenaeus can also be read either way. And this alternate translation actually accords rather well with the evidence we have in Matthew’s Gospel since it contains the highest number of semitisms of any of the Synoptics and it also clearly was written for a substantially Jewish audience. We know this because of the constant attempts to prove that Jesus is the Messiah by the author quoting from the Hebrew Bible. As for the claims that Matthew had to have been written in Greek originally because he supposedly copies from Mark, I would simply refer people to my own video series on the Synoptic problem. I argue there that there is no good evidence for Markan priority and that the arguments that Matthew could not have been written in Aramaic are unsuccessful. There’s also this claim that if Peter was the source for Mark, as Papias says, then Peter didn’t know anything about the virgin birth or the resurrection appearances. The resurrection point is certainly false since the young man at the tomb clearly predicts them. And I have no idea how the fact that Mark doesn’t mention the virgin birth implies that his putative source (Peter) didn’t know anything about it. Mark is obviously not telling us everything he knows. This is clear from his prediction of the resurrection appearances and his subsequent failure to tell us anything about them. So we may not conclude that Mark (or Peter) don’t know about something just because it isn’t mentioned in the Gospel. Later on in the video, C. J. says that John “ignores” the birth narrative. C. J. here assumes that John was aware of it. So if John can be aware of the birth narrative without mentioning it, why can’t Mark? 3. Theological Disagreements I can agree that each Gospel has its own theological goal. None of that is incomaptible with the thesis of traditional authorship. The problem, I guess, is supposed to be theological disagreements among the Gospels. Of course, that also doesn’t necessarily challenges the thesis of traditional authorship since, even if true, perhaps the eyewitnesses just had thelogical disagreements? But what are these disagreements even supposed to be? The one example we get from C. J. is Mark’s messianic secret vs. John’s declarations of Jesus’ divinity. But what exactly is the contradiction supposed to be here? In both Gospels we have a combination of concealement and divine statements (Yes, this is in Mark. See Simon Gathercole’s “The Preexistent Son” for a mountain of evidence to this effect.) The divine statements are more of a focus in John’s Gospel, but that’s because it’s being written to combat Gnosticism when there was perceived need for this. That doesn’t show a contradiction between Mark and John. It just shows that John has a different purpose than Mark. 4.Contradictions We are presented with one example of a contradiction, the supposed disagreement between Matthew and Luke as to when Jesus was born. This “contradiction” has been obsolete for a long time now since we now know that Publius Sulpicius Quirinius served two non-consecutive terms as governor of Syria thanks to the Trivoli tombstone inscription. And unfortunately C. J. shows no awareness of this at all. C.J. acknowledges that harmonizations are possible for all of the putative contradictions in the Gospels. His response is rather puzzling. He says that harmonizing the Gospels is not doing history but rather theology. The implication here is that historians are not allowed to harmonize accounts which might appear to conflict. Sorry, but why the hell not? Why on earth would historians not be allowed to harmonize? I think that the assumption here is that harmonization can only stem from a prior commitment to biblical inerrancy. But that’s just absurd. Harmonization is just another part of doing history. For example, there are conflicting accounts and theories regarding why it is that Spartacus and Crixus parted ways during the Third Servile War. But historians also have ways of harmonizing them. If C. J. wants to put a ban on harmonization, he’s going to need to provide a reason for as to why. Saying “that’s not doing history” is just not engaging with the response. If you think contradictions are a better explanation of the data, then you need to actually argue for that. You can’t just stipulate that harmonization isn’t allowed because “that’s not doing history.” Yes, we absolutely should not be presuming inerrancy in advance. At the same time, we also shouldn’t insist on contradictions if there doesn’t have to be one. 5.Geographical Issues There are two objections raised in this section. The first concerns how the Gospel writers could have written in Greek if they were a bunch of backwater Jewish peasants. C. J. exempts Mark from this criticism since his Greek is famously rather poor. But what about the others? Well Luke, by most accounts, was Greek. So there’s no problem there. Matthew, by all accounts, was a tax collector. Writing in Greek would have been an essential part of this job. So again, no surprises there. And what about John who was a fisherman? Many of our sources tell us that John had someone write his Gospel for him (some sources say it was Papias in fact). And we know that transcription was fairly common in the ancient world. Even Paul used scribes to write for him at times. So again, I don’t see a real problm here. Second, C. J. objects that there are geographical errors in the Gospels. But he only gives one example where in Mark 7 we read that Jesus went to Galilee by way of Sidon which would be super out-of-the-way. Of course, this actually betrays Mark’s intimate knowledge of the geography since there’s a mountain between Galilee and and Jesus’ starting point which he would have had to go around. But again, C. J. just doesn’t seem to be aware of the responses to the points which he’s raising. There’s also this line at the end about how we “fundamentalists” should acknowledge that Christianity is a faith as opposed to something rational. This appears to assume that faith cannot be rational. And I just fundamentally reject that.
1 if they were different people and they were responsible for authorship of their own gospels they'd be able to describe events from their own perspective in their own words. Copying word for word someone else's testimony in their the original authors' literary style instead of their own strongly suggests that they weren't there themselves to view events 2 Eusebius also suggests that Mathew wrote in hebrew. The Greek word usedis glossa which is the word for language. Wtf does it mean to write in Greek using a dialect of another language? Papias and Ireneus were not eye witnesses If he didn't copy from Mark and wrote in a different language/style then he wouldn't have copied the literary style of mark If it was written in Aramaic the literary style of Mark writing in Greek wouldn't have carried over into Greek. It wouldn't be so obvious that they were copied unless both were written by the same person 2/2 Peter is considered to be Mark's source, according to Papias. Papias also thought Mark wasn't an eye witness The passage in Mark 16:9-20, which includes the appearance of the young man at the tomb and several post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, is considered by many scholars to be a later addition to the Gospel of Mark. This portion is not found in the earliest manuscripts of Mark, such as the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, which end at Mark 16:8. The literary style is also completely different than the rest of Mark I have nothing to say about the other points, since I agree that they are rather weak
I would say that I'm far more liberal than you, but I agree with many of your points. Characterizing harmonizations as theology surprised me, because every historian should initially try to reconcile accounts before we accuse people of making mistakes about events they were much closer to.
17 дней назад
that's not what "tax collectors" did then. More thug less accountant.
The gospels can be backed by historical artifacts, documents that can answer questions about times, places, events, people etc. one example would be all the Roman coins found with Caesars face on them etc.
What are those artefacts and documents? What questions do they answer? Roman coins with Caesars face tell us that Caesar probably existed, but what does that tell us about the Gospels?
I actually come at this subject from a different context. First, do you BELIEVE (Faith) in the G-D of Israel prior to the time of Jesus/Yeshua. I do Believe in YHVH. Now, I am not saying the entire Old testament is perfect either but rather the One creator known as YHVH, Yaweh in English, is indeed the one G-D in Heaven. If you don't believe in that G-D then there is NO POINT to go any further as the house can not stand. If you do believe in that G-D then the Jews were expecting a Messiah around 0-100 AD. Does Jesus fit that description? Who was He exactly? How does Jesus fit into G-D's plan for all the nations? Yes, there are many things in the New Testament which are clearly made-up and inconsistent with each other. But, be careful about throwing out the baby with the bath water.
The Bible was written based on the account of Jesus that were teached and preached by His disciples to the people at that time (read Matthew 10 :1-20). So those people who have heard the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of His disciples can write about Jesus, not only His disciples. And those people who have healed by Jesus are the witnesses of Jesus, because Jesus performed miracles in front of them. Jesus said, I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where the Jews come. I said nothing in secret. So Jesus said, ask those who heard Me. Surely they know what I said (John 18).
@robinharwood5044 yes! It's written in the Bible (read Matthew 10 :1-20). Because Jesus came to the world to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom of God through His words. Jesus said, what I heard from Him I tell the world (John 8 :26).
@@badonlikoy5571 That's a circular argument. Why believe the Gospels? Because they were based on the accounts of the disciples. Why believe that? Because the Gospels say so. Why believe the Gospels? Because they were based on the accounts of the disciples. Why believe that? Because the Gospels say so.... (Incidentally, the past tense and past participle of "teach" is "taught" . "...the accounts of Jesus that were taught and preached by His disciples.")
We know what the gospels CONTAIN. books CONTAIN material that PEOPLE wrote. Wizard of Oz CONTAINS material. The koran CONTAINS material. The book of Morman CONTAINS material. The Book of Moa za dong CONTAINS material. along with millions of books. Some of those books are referred to as gospels. Some people base their FAITH on these writings without evidence. Did these eyewitnesses you speak of provide any EVIDENCE outside of these gospels?
@ If they did, the church would have probably… included it in a gospel. These sources were canonized because they were believed to represent information from the earliest generations of the church. They were not believed to be eyewitnesses because they were canonized. They were canonized because they were believed to represent eyewitness testimony, right or wrong.
@@steveferguson698funny how people who think they have enough knowledge to criticize the gospels never apply their high standards to any other historical writings. So 4 biographies aren't enough for you? Why? Because they were written by followers? Newsflash - there is no "neutral" history or biographies in antiquity.
So these so called gospels were written by followers? That make incredible claims. Claims of supernatural healing, Humans raised from the dead, Words of Jesus written down word for word many years after his supposed death. Okay..I don't believe it because there is no evidence outside these gospels that any of it is true. If you believe its because you have faith. Fine, You don't subscribe to the fact that incredible claims require incredible evidence. You subcribe to Hebrews 11:1. Fine. But please don't claim you know about the neutrality of historical writing, archeology, and studies of ancient history. If you're a believer why do you need credible evidence? You believe in science fiction and the supernatural. If that floats your boat (Noah) go with it
@@steveferguson698 There is enough material in the New Testament documents to believe in the resurrection as a plausible (IMO likely) historical event. There is not enough to make this hypothesis certain. So yes, based on the accounts embedded within the gospels (Mark, Q, L, M, etc.), as well as other early material (1 Cor 15, 2 Philippians), you can either accept the testimony or not. Later inclusion into the Christian canon does not disqualify these texts as historical documents, so avoid that error. Denial of miracles outright will make acceptance of any of this impossible, but this of course is a presupposition you come into the conversation with. I come into the conversation with a presupposition that miracles are possible and don’t find this to be scientifically problematic. For an idea of where my perspective is, I have a PhD in biochemistry and have no qualms with evolutionary history. … in fact, evolution of protein function is one of my focuses of study.
This discussion has been going on for centuries. For one example of the alternative case, one might investigate Richard Bauckham's "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses". It is good for any scholar to look at both sides and their claims.
@@cjohnyrun Which scholars? Secular modernists? Church liberals? Or traditionalists? All are using exactly the same documents and historical/archaeological evidence. For many decades, I followed the secular modernists' logic. But later, I discovered that traditionalists had rational counters to all of it. In the end, one's conclusions will depend on the opening assumptions and methodology one chooses. (Especially since none of the scholars lived at that time.)
@@cjohnyrun He is by far the most convincing in his explanations of who the eye witnesses in the gospels are. Yes, he is a minority but that is because most scholars are either liberal, or non Christians with a sceptical agenda.
@@cjohnyrun Liberal and traditional and those who have a foot in both camps. That's how church scholars generally engage with each other. 'Liberal' in scholarship being 'accepts many of the conclusions of purely secular scholars'. This is different than denominational decisions regarding practice and doctrine.
An additional problem with anyone's having written a "gospel" in Hebrew is that Hebrew had been a "dead" language for over 300 years by then, used only by Jewish scholars, while everyone in the Eastern Mediterranean of the time spoke Aramaic and/or Koine Greek. So, who would such a Hebrew text have been written for, if not just to be presented as a fake antique?
There are traditions of a historical Jesus behind the Christ. There is a certain individual from Paul's part of Asia Minor to whom we attribute the origins of Santa Claus. We can say that there was a Saint Nickolas who lived and died. Whether or not he was a magic elf who lived at the North Pole is a matter of faith!
It all sounds very logical to me...and I hope to see you counter some of these youtube apologists who DO JUSTIFY EVERY THING.... Good luck to you and we need all the HISTORIANS WE CAN GET...and try and get the Theology out of the history....or at least until we find the best truth we can get to......
I wish more churches would have these discussions. One of my profs always complained -- he said that ministers/pastors don't think people can handle this stuff, but they should give them a chance
Our church would have several topics for bible study (Sunday School) to choose from. I asked a associate pastor if we could have a class on actual bible history. That is a study focused on the Bible itself. As a young " babe in Christ" I wanted to know where these writings really originated. I was told " we just don't have enough information on that to fill a class" Mind you this was before the Internet.
@@steveferguson698 that's really too bad. I do know that many Christian leaders don't actually know much about it. Unfortunately Bible colleges often don't see any reason to teach people where the books came from, just "what the Bible teaches."
Great video ! Do you think Christianity will survive the modern times if there isn’t a strong faction trying to rationalise the faith and maintain the inerrancy of the Bible ? I feel that pure faith does not resonate with most people anymore and hence they go to such ridiculous lengths to justify their beliefs.
Thanks! I have no doubt Christianity will survive, but unfortunately the fundamentalist forms seem to be growing much faster. And the Christiani nationalist forms. I'd love to see a resurgence of rationality + faith. Who knows
It would take an excellent script writer to create the Jesus story and put in place all the words Jesus spoke . ..l wonder who this could be ? Secondly...throw out all Paul's and the disciples writings .. Just read the verbatim words of Jesus ..and you will find all the other writings disappear slowly...for these words of his are unique and unless copied from another source to fit in with the script ...the writer himself must have imagined himself as the actual actor depicting Jesus' life of 3 years ..that has changed the world .....fantastic .. These postulations are not new...but remain postulations because of insufficient forensic evidence... inconclusive... You can only suggest ..the same story line The Vatican is covering up .
The writer of John fabricated the story who runs to the tomb. The author adds another disciple (beloved disciple) runs with Peter to the tomb (John 20:3-10). In Luke the author says the information received is from witnesses and that the writer carefully investigated everything, yet the author/witnesses only mention Peter running to the tomb (Luke 24:12). So we either have a fabrication, or a unreliable author/investigator, or the witnesses are simply not reliable.
Excellent video Chris, if you don’t mind to ask you personal question what is your opinion about afterlife, do you think there is life after death ? ..
What is the ectoplasm-like anomaly that appears over your right shoulder six to eight seconds into your video? Had you noticed this? I am a paranormal researcher, and were such a thing to appear in one of my investigations I would consider that a hit...
So whar? What they understood, what they wrote have no importance.The impotant thing is is Jesus Son of God? If he is Son of God how is that possible his teaching got lost? " I ll send you a Conforter " never happened? We have the evidence he did that.
@steveferguson698 " We" are followers of Jesus Christ who established his Church directly under his power. Lets say we accept this double standart in which few copies ( 8 if I good remeber) of Tacitus is enough to reproduct with accuracy the original but 5000 copies of NT including Acts and all Letters are not enough to reconstruct the original teaching of Jesus... What would that mean "theolgy is not history "?! Does that mean that all reports about miracles are merry tales and therefore could not be historical facts?History? If so, thats Materialismus, which is atheimus, quite easy to debunk due modern science. Finaly the evidence about Jesus's identity, Mission and permanent presence and Support in the Church is supernatural matter , occured in many encounters with evil powers in Exorcism. They know who is Jesus, they fear him, they confirm the power and the autoriy of the Church. Richard Gallagher ,among many others, a top scientist can prove that by many facts he witnessed.
@@andrevisser7542 I assume you are referring to John 14 where Jesus is saying he will send a comforter. Which some say he is referring to the holy spirit. You say you have evidence of that. What is your evidence?
The script writer must have for seen these questions...with his own question When the son of man returns Will he find faith on earth ? It's a question that you need to answer .. because it resonates on faith ..nothing to do with word for word accuracy......Jesus did not instruct anybody to write but preach ..funny isn't it?
Why is hardly anything said about Jesus after the resurrection Mathew 20 versus Mark 8 versus, Luke and John 50, and almost nothing about what he said during the 40days. Surely that would be hugely important?
@ Thank you for responding. Love your work so far and I hope to see it blow up. Conditional Immortality is the position, more so Protestant than Catholic, that the idea of eternal torment for the unsaved upon reaching the afterlife is a teaching not to be found within an objective reading of the Bible, and is instead an anachronistic concept influenced by Platonism and imputed into the text. What the authors of the Bible truly posited is that living after death is a gift granted only to those who follow Christ and is not the default state of the soul. “For this corruptible must PUT ON incorruption, and this mortal must PUT ON immortality.” The wicked on the other hand will instead be “destroyed forever”, they will disappear like straw, or chaff, in a flame and will be consumed entirely, leaving neither root nor branch. They will cease to exist after death or, at the least, in the end times.
@@keithallison8340 on interesting! This is really fascinating. I'm woefully a bit behind on Catholic bible interpretation. I read a few Catholic theologians in seminary and really enjoyed them, but otherwise not much
From what i understand, the gospels were not eyewitness accounts, nor even could they be, since they were written 40 to 70 years after the events they describe. The names were put on as a matter of tradition. I'll post the link to your channel in the Facebook discussion groups, hopefully you'll quickly pick up some subscribers. 👍
It's not "exactly what happened" because we don't know when the gospels were written. The whole "vaticinia ex eventu" stuff wasn't even taught as consensus anymore in very mainstream university textbooks 20 years ago. At least here in Germany the birthplace of the German higher criticism.
I wonder why would somebody writing late compromise Jesus, making him a false prophet, by using the "same generation" in Mathew 24. What might have been the reason, I wonder?
The reason is that the gospels weren't written late because it makes no sense to preserve prophecies that could no longer be fulfilled. That's the major problem with dating the gospels after 70.
@ In other words, Jesus is either a false prophet or he is made to look like one if the writing is late. Or one misunderstood the meaning of Mathew 24 entirely, in which case either early or late date can work.
Once a man of faith,a witness of my beliefs to others ,leading several (I hasten to say many ) to strong decades long christian faith .By earnestly seeking truth ,studying both Torah and Christian bible with Hebrew and Greek Concordance (before either was available on the internet )... instead of Church Bible Study at church or groups... (i saw how biased and cherry picked, krivda...which means ,bent truth,used to prop up faith )....in time with much personal grief and loss of christian family and life long friends ... studied myself out of all faith ....and belief ,not only the god of both both Jew and Christian but having beliefs in anything .I free will choose to only know ,which is not comprehensible for any believer.I ether know or do not know.Impossible for a believer to believe. Ha Ha. LOL ,but true.Hence a life of study and seeking ,all I desire is the truth ,I have found most is krivda ( bent truth ) or / and fiction.
This sounds a lot like my journey too. Although I decided that the Christian tradition is where I still choose to hang out. I find spiritual practice still rewarding, even if I don't believe the right things
I'm not seeing any contradictions here. It truly is one author choosing which details from the life and ministry of Jesus best supports their thesis about Jesus. The gospels should not be read as chronological narratives. They are not meant to be read as such. For Mark, Jesus is the King of Kings. For Matthew, Jesus is the Messiah. For Luke, Jesus is the Savior of the world. For John, Jesus is God Incarnate. Each author chooses details about Jesus that best supports their argument and leaves out details that either distract from or otherwise do not help their thesis. That they chose different events, or told them from a different perspective, does not make them contradictory, just different. And if each gospel told the same details in the same way, there would be no need for multiple versions. And also, the gospel authors do not have to be eyewitnesses themselves to record eyewitness accounts. Further, if what they were saying was untrue, there would have been many eyewitnesses around who would have pointed out the errors.
the archeology alone contradicts your assertions. time and time again, the narrative of the gospels are vindicated by the archeology. you need to apply the methodologies of criminology to make a fair assessment of the gospels. various statistical analyses of details in the gospels are hard to fabricate. and apparent contradictions especially between mark and john were solved by the discovery of the essene calendar. the narratives were consistent. mark narrated according to the essene calendar while john wrote according to the hebrew calendar
This is a common apologist trope, and it's wrong. As I say in the video, the gospels (esp John) are certainly right about some things. But wrong about others
Liked your video. Are you familiar with Bart Ehrmann? He is a PhD at the U. of North Carolina I think. Some of his perspectives are similar to yours. Just wondered.
Ehrman simply parrots the German higher criticism from 100 to 200 years ago. Completely unoriginal. People would do better to read something like Albert Schweitzer's "Quest of the historical Jesus". Ehrman also told quite a lot of nonsense in order to make people question the gospels. On the same level as the infamous "Zeitgeist" movie.
@@MrSeedi76 what are you talking about? Most of Ehrman's work is within the mainstream of current biblical scholarship, and most of it would be taught in any critical intro to the Bible class. Schweitzer is cool, but that book is over 100 years old. And every biblical scholar worth their salt ends up reading Germans from 100 yeras ago, whether they want to or not
If the dating of when the gospels were written is correct, then it becomes highly unlikelt that they were written by eyewitnesses. Luke and John would have been really old when they composed their gospels, and therefore, they were more likely dead than writing gospels.
That's assuming that Jesus lived and died when the Gospels say he did. But why believe them about that? Maybe he was a lot earlier, and the Gospels were just repeating myth that put him in the time of Pilate.
@@robinharwood5044or maybe Jesus was actually a Martian 😂? At this point people make up basically anything to discredit the gospels it seems. No matter how unlikely.
@@MrSeedi76 I'm sure it seems that way to you, but the Gospels are full of fantastic, contradictory, and unlikely stories. (Just like the non-canonical early Christians writings.) There is no need to make up stuff to discredit them. There is a great need to make up stuff to make them seem halfway believable.
Excellent video, CJ. Subscribed. I think you are correct in that it is pretty obvious, at least to me, that legends of Jesus and his deity developed over time. Mark’s Jesus was a normal man until his baptism. In the first gospel we are introduced to Jesus as a full grown man. Nothing about a special divine birth is mentioned. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus is divine from birth, and by implication, from conception. Throughout the synoptic gospels, there is no indication that Jesus existed prior to his birth or conception. That final development awaited the fourth evangelist. In John, Jesus is eternal, the preexisting logos who created the world. John’s Jesus abstains from plot elements that are beneath the dignity of a deity: he is not baptized at all, nor does he go into the desert to be tested by temptation, as he does in the three earlier gospels. No, I am afraid these are not stories by eyewitnesses. These are myth and legend, slowly evolving from a normal man into a god. This type of literature and mythology was, as you know, all the rage at that time and place. Miracles, gods, ascensions, etc. abounding.
This whole "evolution theory" from low to high Christology completely falls apart when comparing the supposedly latest gospel of John to Paul's letters, one of the earliest sources.
there are a couple holdout Bible scholars who are. Mark Goodacre is worth a google if you want the case against (from a scholarly rather than ideological position). But I'd say it's the predominant view, and for me the best way to explain the relationship between Matt and Mark
Great video CJ. Genuine points, and I sense where you're coming from. Ultimately, you may need to define what your expectations are for an eyewitness report. I sense you want a very forensic, modern eyewitness report, and that's the definition you're imputing here. You'll be very hardpressed to find that from ancient writings. The question we should ask is whether we should trust these gospels as worthy witness reports for a historical Christ. Were they viewed that way by the original readers... because believe me CJ, Satan has a greater drive than you to discredit their reliability as eyewitness reports. A few points: 1. You seem to have more issues with the synoptics, and not John. It's quite clear John is from John and is penned by him. So perhaps the Video title is a tad disingenuous. The greek vs hebrew thing? Come on, just because a greek scribe writes the gospel doesn’t negate the first hand account of the author. 2. You imply the synoptics would only be trustworthy if were exact copies. That would not be the case. I work in an investigatory profession and I have never seen true witnesses describing things the same way--unless they colluded to do that. 3. Why do theological and eyewitness motivations have to be mutually exclusive. Have you read Paul's letters? Galatians has similar themes to Corinthians but the readship is different, and so the theological focus is different. Does that negate the same points made a tad differently in the books? We also see this in the gospels. Matthew's description of Judas' death draws from the royal theme he has in the book. So he makes clear allusions to this. If Jesus is a new David, Judas is a new Absalom. So Judas' death paints this picture. Does this negate that Judas was a real person who died after betraying Jesus? No. Luke has a clear physicians perspective and he writes Judas' death this way. Praying for you, brother. Be blessed
It’s shocking to me how many Christians don’t know that the Gospels are completely anonymous Greek texts that were not written by eyewitnesses. The worst part is seeing people simply repeat what their favorite apologists tell them without questioning whether it makes sense or seeking to understand the reasons and evidence that lead the vast majority of Christian scholars to the same conclusion shown in this video.
@@vejekeso what’s the proof that they aren’t eyewitness? Or the proof they were anonymously written? Acts was also written by Luke and there are times during the writing where Luke will go from speaking about events as an outsider to using pronouns like “We” showing us that he was indeed there for certain portions of what was going on. Really fascinating. Also Josephus and other historians of the time wrote accounts of history that correlate to the writings in Acts. Like Herod dying suddenly after allowing people to regard him as a god. Very interesting stuff!
@vejeke Friend, the fight to discredit Christianity is not a new phenomenon. It's been Satan's game since Jesus ascended. We live in an age where the ability to discredit it would be more likely due to technology--still hasn't happened. Atheists have been at since Darwin's theory gave them extra motivation. The flesh wants to rebel against God, so any fuel to discredit His Gospels would have exacerbated the fall of Christianity, and yet here we are. Bart Ehrman is a more credible scholar than most, and even he won't discredit the gospels completely. They aren't made up. Jesus lived, died, resurrected, and ascended. Men and women went to death believing and proclaiming it, and still do today. Praying for you
@shawnkloosterman7691 Hey Shawn. Good questions. I find most refuse answers because they want to refuse them. I can give you good, plausible answers that would satisfy any reasonable person, but if don't want to receive them (because you want to continue living in your imaginary, supposedly God-free, world), you'll reject them. CS Lewis has a perfect analogy for this when he utilizes the Dwarves in the Last Battle. You refuse to believe because you don't want to believe. Same as the Pharisees when they saw Jesus clearly demonstrate He was their Messiah. Needless to say, here are good answers to your questions, I pray the Holy Spirit gives you conviction and that you respond and believe. 1. Who went to the tomb first? Mary Magdalene. John's gospel, which personifies the God-man Jesus' love for people, focuses on her so it can pivot back to when she speaks with Jesus face to face later in the occurrence. John wants us to pay attention to Mary Madgalene, so he gives very clear details. She went first and was alone. The synoptics generally summarize the details for who was at the occurrence of the resurrection, not because it is unimportant, but because they want us to see prophecy fulfillment. And I'm not even doing justice to the nuance of each focus in each synoptic. We do this in life today. For example, what happened in Endgame? I might say, dude, Cap finally said Avengers assemble after it had been teased for years--it finally happened. Falcon was there, Spiderman was there, Thor was there--it was awesome. You might say Falcon showed up first and said "on your left," which showcases his special relationship with Cap. Spiderman was there. Thor was there. But ultimately, we will both conclude that the Avengers beat Thanos through Tony's sacrifice. Those are the gospels. I implore you, Shawn, to give them a chance and reread them with original context. 2. Drafts of the 10 commandments? Perhaps you can clarify why this is a stumbling block for Christianity. But I'll bite. The 10 commandments were given by Yahweh to Israel. He wrote them on stone Himself. Moses broke that set. The second set was handwritten by Moses. 3. The sun question. Well, today, people can grow plants in bunkers with artificial lighting. The sun is a temporary light source that will someday be done away with. Revelation says light will emanate from God Himself. With that premise, God wouldn't have needed the sun to create light. He could have created an even more temporary light source. I'd like to think when God first started the strokes of creation, when everything was still good, light naturally emanted from Him. Quick question: How do you have light in your house at night without the sun? 4. Break after day 6. Creation was finished in 6 days. The 7th day hasn't ended, and that was purposeful. The first 6 days had clear time markers, evening and morning, but day 7 didn't. This is because God purposefully brings creation into complete satisfaction. Day 7 represents God saying to humanity, everything is ready for habitation, and everything is as it should be. This is why Day 7 never had a time marker--it was continuous. But guess what, mankind rebelled, and sin entered God's creation. God's plan for the 7th day was marred by us. Ohhhh, but here's the GREAT NEWS Shawn, God Himself came and reintroduced the 7th day to us--through Jesus' death. If you repent and accept Jesus's sacrifice for us, you are brought back into the 7th day. Everything becomes as it should be. Have you done this? You can. 5. Was he tiered. I don't think I understand this? More context here 6. Why did Rome want a monotheistic god. Wrong question. I really have no care for Rome, and what Constantine may have wanted. If God allowed Rome to grow to what it was so the word can be brought to you and me, then so be it. (Read Nahum and see the analogy of God and Assyria). God won't judge you and Rome together, it'll be you in front of Him. God's word stands separate from Rome. There is only God, and only one advocate for us before God. 7. Gospel of Thomas and Mary. Because they are false gospels. There is only one gospel, Jesus is the way, truth and the life. As Galatians 1:8 says if anyone preaches anything other than this, it's false. But how do I know they are false, both have false theology-- I've read them, as have many true Christians. Praying for you Shawn.
Oops, I think I missed the Mary virgin question. Sorry. I think Matthew is pretty unquestionable about Mary’s virginity, so is Luke. Is your position that it doesn't make sense? Mary’s virginity fulfills the Isaiah 7 prophecy. It also fulfills the prophecy in Gen 3 that the descendant of the woman would crush the snake. Note it wasn't the descendant of man and woman, but the woman, which implies a virgin birth.
Good Q! Ppl in the galilee probably did have some level of bilingualism-- Aramaic & Greek at least. the issue comes with composition of Greek at a high level (e.g. John), which would require quite a lot of education
@@vander6089 The Bible itself mentions that the apostles were simple and uneducated (i.e. Acts 4:13). They were regular dudes, fishermen from Galilee and other blue collar jobs - literacy was a thing for less than 1% of Roman Empire's population, mostly rich ones from big cities. If (and that's a big if) any of the apostles/eye witnesses spoke could read and write that would be rather in Hebrew not Greek.
Doesn't the bible say give unto Caesar what is Caesar's? That doesn't sound like something an omnipotent being would concerned with. That sounds like something the emperor of Rome would want in there.
@@cjohnyrun amongst textual critics who focus on grounding these texts in a political reality, this is the interpretation. Amongst those looking for spiritual guidance or congruence with the message of the Luke/Acts story, the message may be to not focus on the perceived power of this world. So the interpretation focus may actually be within the text. Interpret this as a political statement if you are looking for a political text. Interpret it as spiritual if you are looking for a spiritual text. I’ll give the political interpretation to the textual critics- that’s not where my focus is.
@SamDupree-bw4rt Message for both of you experts just stated. How on God's earth does that statement by Christ have anything to do with omnipotence or C.J.'s response, neither of which have anything to do with your nonsensical claims. When Christ was approached by acolytes of the pharisees, who were questioning Him as to corner him into giving an answer that would be invoked as blasphemous. Christ is asking for the coin showing Ceaser's image. Then his statement ( render unto ceaser what is ceaser's, and render unto God what is God's ) was Christ claiming that there must by a separation between Church and State. One is sacred, and one is temporal. Hence Democracy with axiomatic truth built in, with the government, although separate from the Church, will avoid corruption and selfishness, will work for the betterment of humanity simply because they acknowledge that their people are made in the image of God. If humanity acknowledges that individually God loves them, then they would naturally respect the state. But thanks to the French so-called intellectual faternity decided, just like you, that their was no transcendent entity, brought out the guillotine, and killed over 1 million Catholics, mainly in western France simply because nihilism and humanism will enlighten the world, which as Nietche quite brilliantly prophesied that God is dead, who will replace him. Marxists, Darwinian Nazis who overwhelmingly loved him and engles, hence natural selection and survival of the fittest. Athiesm in the 20th century killed over 130 million people simply because they either hated or believed that they were God. Hitler, Stalin, Mao. Polepot, Kim, Ho chi ming. Castro, etc. Of course, Christians have a lot to answer for by abusing and confusing love with power. Finally, I am just a simple irishman who speaks a few languages and worked in the Middle East for seven years as a Christian missionary before my wife and two boys were murdered in Alexandria Egypt in a Church explosion in 2011. It's my love of Christ that gets me out of bed every day because only He truly knows me, my pain, and at times hate, but he saw me 2000 years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem, and He sees me now. Omniscience.
@Polycarp-g6z by boble logic, all those atheist regimes horrific actions are gods fault The NT clearly states that all governments come from god "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." This clearly states that god put those atheists in power. He is allegedly omniscient so he knew what they'd do if he did put them in power and they couldn't have gained power without his support So it's all his fault.
I'd be interested in your take on the so called fulfilled messianic prophesies in the Gospel of Matthew. Everytime Matthew states that something was done to fulfil a prophesy it actually turns out that either the prophesy being claimed to be fulfilled is NOT a messianic prophesy or it is not actually fulfilled. In fact, the only part of any actual messianic prophesy that Jesus appears to have fulfilled is riding a donkey (or two at the same time) into Jerusalem. But even this is a problem as the prophesy states this would be fulfilled by a king and Jesus was never an actual king in Israel.
Its called a crucifixion not a crucifact 😂. No but seriously I think Jesus was real but the story is mainly fantastical. He was crucified with the other “miracle workers” as expected.
C.J., you are such a brilliant mind, with ALL THE ANSWERS. That you've got almost 1k views. Stay at it and follow that other fool, Carson, and in a year or two, you might get 2k views. Keep up the poor work😅😅😅😅
@cjohnyrun No problem, brother. Christ referred to people such as yourself, lost within a prism of your own making, white washed tombs. On the surface, discerning but on the inside!!!!!!! NOTHING
it's meaningless as to whether mathew was written in hebrew or greek, the same thing goes for theological divergence. if they all read the same, you would complain about that. your just making up straw men. quirinius ruled at 2 different times. I would encourage any one who doubts the bible, to make sure you look at both sides of the argument before you decide what to believe. don't just base it on u-tube video's. there are many pro bible scholars mentioned on the internet.
Thanks really enjoyed the video. Have you seen the excellent work that this team of scholars are doing to in large part to go along the way to prove that Marcion did not butcher Luke's gospel but the other way around as Marcion claimed all along?? www.youtube.com/@Patristica
Yes! I've been following Vinzent's work and really interested in it. I think he's doing a really interesting job of restating the Marcion priority. I'm not totally convinced, but it's a fascinating subject. He'd probably be better placed to ask
The problem with you like guys who have PhD or any other degrees in the biblical study is that those PhD or eloquent degrees aren't beneficial when it comes to biblical doctrines, the necessary thing is that not the degrees but the Holy Spirit, so receiving the Holy Spirit from God and receiving these sort of degrees are mutually exclusive. So, here is the fact that the Gospels are eye witness accounts, and it can be explained in words and also can be physically demonstrated and it's impossible if anyone has a PhD or other degrees. Now, who is the eye witness? Early Apostles were with JESUS over a period of 3 years, seeing and hearing what JESUS was speaking,doing etc , so technically they're eye witnesses but according to JESUS, they're not witnesses or eye witnesses. Now Jesus said you must be witnesses to Me just before His ascension, and after 10 days only all of them became witnesses. Now, what do you learn from these things? One can only become a witness of JESUS only through the reception of the Holy Spirit into the body by the removal of his parents Spirit from his physical body. Thus, one can become a witness of JESUS at any time even in the 21st century as per this criterion. So, early Apostles were eye witnesses of everything that's there in the Holy Bible. Now in the 21st century one can receive the Holy Spirit and eventually become an eye witness of JESUS & able to physically demonstrate by claiming to exist before 2k years, and also challenging his physical body is the temple of God, and prove to the world objectively. However, this is only possible with two people as of now they're living in South India having their ancestry root from Jerusalem. So, your studies on the Holy Bible and your degrees never ever give you any facts, and that you are wrong dude.
Having degrees in Theology and being guided by the Holy Spirit, are not 'mutually exclusive'. I'm convinced that Paul was himself highly educated and an intellectual giant of his age, yet he was guided by the Holy Spirit himself. However, having degrees and higher degrees, has the tendency not for the individual to grow spiritually in humility, but to becoming proud of their academic achievements and as the Bible describes, "being puffed up" with pride. Secondly, rather than being guided by the Holy Spirit, such academic achievers tend to be guided by the theological theories of academics, being persuaded by sceptical criticisms instead of growing in faith and the peace, love and joy that is found only in Christ.
@theonlyway5298 Paul throw all of his studies, because whatever he studied were not helpful, in fact those aren't correct, but traditions. The result of Bible studies is the reception of the Holy Spirit into the physical body by the removal of his parents Spirit from his physical body, thereafter you become a temple of God and thereafter the LORD does things, not necessary for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, what you're saying is simply an assertion that the believers are saying many years. The Holy Spirit can guide anybody without the indwelling, that happened all the time to all the people but that's not needed now, I replied to this guy the following but he blocked it, it's useful for you as well, Hard to understand? I don't find anything you say is hard to understand? My question is that why did you believe? I'm not a believer like you. The blunder mistake you made is that you remained as a believer before you gave up your beliefs or faith or Church. So, your blunder mistake led you to renounce the great Christianity. You led people to Christ? No, how could you led people to Christ when you're a blind? You're a blind guide the LORD said in Matthew 23. So, being a believer you or all are blinds, even billions of Christians who are blind but the fact is that they continue to believe at least, not renounce as you are. Whereas I'm too a Christian but not a believer, so who I'm? I was a sinner, then became a believer like you, and as a result of believing in JESUS I have become a witness of JESUS. So these are my sequence of positions as 3. Now the thing is that you got many degrees, and PhD but the issue is that you're not studied the Holy Bible properly, how do I say? I say because you said that you believed, but the LORD didn't instruct you or anybody to be a believer when it comes to Post-Pentecostal times, you live in a Post-Pentecostal times, therefore when you study the Holy Bible, you should've noticed Acts 1:8, wherein the LORD instructed everybody to be a witnesses, not to be believers, but you remained a believer, and this is what I said that you made a blunder mistake. If you would've understand Acts 1:8 & applied to yourself then you would've known that you need to become a witness of JESUS, and that remains to be a believer isn't enough but you missed out, the same way the ex-Christians missed out to become witnesses of JESUS, and now are you finding fault at the Holy Bible is something laughable. So, you're Wrong and guys like you are WRONG. Try to refute me if possible and answer my points, let's have a party.
Y'all are ridiculous. Why are you coping so hard? We can plainly see that the claims made in the bible are demonstrably false without any grounding in reality whatsoever. Enjoy your delusions.
@@robinharwood5044 He doesn’t. He hates FoT’s (abbreviation for ‘Full of Themselves’). The problem with FoT’s is a tendency to become blinded in two significant ways: a) blinded by self righteousness, thinking they are superior and ‘right’ b) blinded to the faith as written in the Bible by cynicism and scepticism. There is an unfortunate tendency for such people to effectively become academic refuse bins, in which they collect the sceptical ideas and efforts of liberal or unbelieving scholars, instead of actually challenging their ideas and theories.
It's obvious you have little knowledge of what constitutes as eye-witness accounts. Look up Cold Case Christianity with J. Warner Wallace and he'll explain it to you. Also, you failed to address other supporting evidence that these are eye-witness accounts like undesigned coincidences between the Gospels and the criterion of embarassment. For people that don't know any better, they may take your erronious conclusions as facts. I urge all viewers and readers to do their own research if you want to arrive at the truth. God Bless.
ahh yes, the old "do your own research" by appealing to a fundamentalist apologist with almost 0 training in bible. You're well on your way. This channel is probably not for you
@cjohnyrun J. Warner Wallace was a homicide detective with years of experience in dealing with eyewitness testimony. So, I think he would be a good example of someone who qualifies as highly knowledgeable in this area. As for your point about "this channel is probably not for [me]", I agree - I like RUclips channels with more factual content like those from Wes Huff, Sam Shamoun, David Wood, William Lane Craig, etc.
It's not eye witness testimony. It's a book full of unverifiable claims made 40-70 years after the alleged events It was based on oral tradition, which is hearsay by definition What you have is the unverifiable claim that a story had eye witnesses
Wrong! The 4 gospels don't copy Mark, each offer a one or more different added details, for instance John is the only one that includes Jesus last words "It is finished."
How about the fact that Origen, who had first hand knowledge of gospel origins, says directly and unambiguously the the gospels were not written until multiple generations after the events the purport. God waited till all human memory had been effaced lest it interfere with divine inspiration.
Surely one of the biggest questions is why an 'eyewitness' of this extraordinary life of Jesus would take decades to get round to writing their accounts - Mark 40 years, Matthew & Luke 50 years, and John 60 years or so.
Would you want to get this remarkable story out there as quickly as possible, especially in age age where life expectancy was 40-50 years?
@@hansarphil very good point
Could be that they truly believed Jesus woud return in their lifetimes, so why write anything down.
Really? Did people in classical antiquity just drop dead as soon as they noticed wrinkles appearing? The testimonial evidence indicates otherwise. Even apart from the early church fathers, writers like Pliny in the first century speak of people living past 30 years of age.
Pliny devoted an entire chapter in his Natural History to those who lived for a long time. For example, he lists the consul Valerius Corvinos (100 years), Cicero’s wife Terentia (103), a woman named Clodia (115, who had 15 children!), and the actress Lucceia who performed on stage at 100 years old. He also writes, more of an exception than the rule of a musician who lived to 105, who had a pleasantly healthy old age.
I recall hearing first hand battle accounts from of a World War veteran friend of mine, back in the early 1990’s. The information gap is not that spread out when a few significant people are able live long full lives.
According to Papias Matthew wrote, what was translated later in Greek, a gospel early on. This would have likely have taken place in the first few years of the church’s existence. For the most part the testimonies were orally given and not written.
@ They did (Matt 16:28). So, given that he didn’t come when he promised, why write anything down?
@@jessknauftofsantaynezvalle4111 The gospel of Matthew is not what Papias is referring to. It is not a translation from Greek, but a wholesale copying of Mark. That is not something an eyewitness would do.
It’s also important to note that the gospels themselves don’t claim to be eyewitness, that is a later claim made by other people in an attempt to raise the perceived likelihood that Christianity is true.
@@MrMattSax definitely
But I just concluded the book of John. In one of the final chapters, John claimed that a soldier inserted a spear into Jesus's side and said that this was witnessed by an anonymous he called trustworthy (John 19:35). Finally, he added that the entire book was written by "the disciple Jesus loved" (John 21:19-25). I'm told that was a name he gave himself.
I'm not coming from a place of antagonizing this video. I think I appreciate learning that the gospel might not be eyewitness accounts but how do you explain these verses in the book of John?
@ does any of that indicate there was an author who identified himself as “John” and who witness the events? Or are those vague claims in a book where the author is not identified or who claims to be an eyewitness? Many scholars claim the “the disciple Jesus loved” to be Lazarus, and many claim this character to be a creation written to one-up Peter, as this seems to be the role he is written to do and this character never appears in any other gospel. Given that the accepted dating of John is CE90 to 120 and is wholly different from the Synoptics, presenting the most mythical and magical version of Jesus, and written in academic Greek, the likelihood of it being an actual eyewitness account seems ridiculous when compared to what is most likely: it was written almost a century after the claimed events by someone with a theological goal.
@@MrMattSax I see your points and they're plausible I must say. I myself cringed when I read John 19:35. The unidentified author is assuring us that his anonymous witness is trustworthy. I'm supposed to just believe? When I'm not sure who wrote this book or who this anonymous witness to the spearing of Jesus is.
Mind you, I've been a pretty devout Christian all my life. Started doing active apologetics three years ago or so but I only recently stumbled on certain issues with the Bible even I can't defend. I won't even try to. I'll just follow the issues to the conclusion they lead. In other words, I'm beginning to have doubts about this religion
@@DavidSamuel-gz7cf I respect your honesty, in fact, if you continue to be so honest with your analysis, it seems likely you may abandon your pursuit of apologetics. In my experience, every apologetic argument is either built on a fallacy or contains unsupported premises, so it seems apologetics needs to rely on dishonesty. The best apologists are the ones able to deflect from their dishonesty and perform the most unbelievable mental gymnastics to defend their views. But props to you, you've identified a major issue with biblical claims: it all comes down to believing what someone tells you. Essentially, it is an argument from authority (or false authority, really). As a believer, you are tasked to take on the unbelievable as believable and to do this on the testimony of someone else. Now, it's possible you've been raised to believe these things as true (again, by trusting an authority), but compare these claims to the reality you experience. They are not congruent with that reality. Realty, for the most part, is knowable and consistent and I'm willing to bet you operate your day with that understanding. The world the bible describes is not knowable and it is not consistent. If at some point it is true that a donkey can talk then our understanding of biology, physiology, physics, etc all go out the window. All we can say is that those things are mostly true but not always. The same can be said about all of the miracle claims in the bible. They undermine our understanding and experience of reality. Now, is it possible that an illiterate, unnamed Aramaic-speaking peasant lived to be ninety years old (or more) and moved hundreds of miles away to study at a university of the wealthy upper class and learned how to write in educated Greek and accurately recalled the events he witnessed over sixty years ago down to specific phrases and actions which included things that defy the laws of nature? Sure, I suppose. But doesn't it seem more likely that legend grew over time about a person, shaped by the spreading of word of mouth and that someone, a sincere believer, wrote down those ideas as a narrative and though they may have been loosely based on a real person, were actually more myth than reality? Well, sure, that happens all the time.
Thank you for your channel, it’s good to hear of your various qualifications.. that resonated with me.
Last year I did the online course by Prof James Tabor on “Mark”, taking it on its own terms, and it blew me away! I’d always found it the least compelling because I was trying to shoehorn it into the the others to try “harmonise” them .. Tabor helps you see it as a unique composition that rewards the thoughtful listener/ reader… and the short ending is no problem. It becomes problematic only as all this other stuff begins being bolted on later and “Mark”no longer is appreciated as a standalone whole composition.
I loved your juxtaposition of the “Christ secret” with John’s “Before Abraham was, I AM”.. that really landed lol.
I loved reading Bishop Ryle and Matthew Henry on the gospels, but Puritan & Victorian theology, however stirring, blinded me to the actual texts and skewed the way I saw my world today.
Please keep making videos like this, it did me much good 👍
I'm so glad to hear that! James Tabor is great-- good to know about his course on Mark. I'll have to check that out
That's one of the problems with trying to force the four Gospels together: you miss out on appreciating them as their own works, with four (or possibly more) authors using the same basic story to push four different visions of what that story means, from Mark's almost mysterious story to Matthew's more Judaic view to Luke's pseudo-historical approach to John's quasi-superhero version.
Another major contradiction was where did the disciples meet resurrected Jesus? In Galilee as Matthew says. Or in Jerusalem as Luke says.
You don’t expect eye witnesses to report the same car crash in different towns.
yes, true.
jesus met them at both places.
@@racerx4152 which you just made up because it isn't in the bible
@@racerx4152 The problem is the angel mentions different things to the women that would be very weird if the angel said both things.
Also Matthew and Luke mention the disciples meet Jesus on the same day. And Galilee and Jerusalem are a distance of a 20 hour walk.
Is it not easier to say maybe one of them made a mistake?
No contradiction. Jesus met the disciples in the upper room after his resurrection; a week later (when Thomas was present); in Galilee sometime during the 40 days between the resurrection and ascension; in Jerusalem around the 30th day.
I have never thought of the question of how all these fishermen who spoke Aramaic could write in Greek. I am Malaysia. Though English is widely used and spoken here, it remains as the language that educated people use, not fishermen who usually have only minumal level of education. They speak and write in Malay. Of course we could meet some fishermen who could be fluent in English but that would be a very rare occasion. I have given up evangelicalism and became a Catholic (no inerrancy nor sola scriptura in Catholicism) Thanks for pointing that out. Fruit for thought 😊
The Bible is the ultimate rorschach test. You can see what you want in passages.
@@Marc010 agreed
sometimes. and sometimes it is perfectly clear, and immoral.
Yes, you can see negative stuff you want to see, to prove to yourself that you were right about the gospels being false.
600 years prior,the students of Confucius immediately set themselves to preserving his teachings when he died. That that wasn't the case with the Jesus story speaks volumes, particularly in the claim that he was "the Word of god" who didn't manage to leave behind any, you know, words.
definitely. The "word" is lifted out of Greek philosophy -- the "logos"
nobody thought Confucius was a god
@@cjohnyrunno, it's not. The "logos" in John's gospel is not the logos of Greek philosophy.
@ yes it is. he adapts it, obviously. It's not aristotle. But Christians borrowed the concept, just as hellenistic Jews did. It pissed Celcus off even
Your observation that "Luke" knew a lot about sailing and the Mediterranean Sea is interesting. It is not known if the Luke associated with the visionary Paul was a sailor. However, we are certain that Marcion of Sinope was a ship owner and merchant, and it is my understanding that what can be reconstructed from Marcion's Gospel seems to be a rudimentary version of the Gospel of Luke. It would make fundamental sense if Marcion was the author of this gospel, and not any companion of Paul. The entire New Testament is literary fiction...
This is actually great in that it answers some questions about making the bible "inerrant" having a negative impact upon my life. I was a young earth creationist, presumptionalist, Calvinist, Reformed Baptist. You gotta understand how freaking painful this is for me. It is a good pain, though... but wow, this is doing my head in. *whistles*
Sounds like we have a similar journey. There is Beauty on the other side I think, but there's some pain to get past it all.
Thanks for your well-reasoned, scholarly, compassionate and thoughtful analysis. This gives me a nuanced view of the synoptics that I previously never even considered.
I concur. Its actually wild how keeping a belief in biblical inerrancy can somehow make you miss all of the many issues between the gospels- or atleast assume that someone smarter must surely have an answer to such a stark problem. Keep growing the channel and making content, man!
@chrishollandsworth6700 Thanks so much! Appreciate the encouragement
Thanks for your honesty, something i rarely see in so-called christians. If you believe it's because of faith not facts. I am saddened and sickened by apologists lame and dishonest efforts to make this bs work. Search for the truth not confirmation
@cubsbaseball9 100% - and even if you end up in a faith tradition, it's way richer when it's not just because of confirmation bias. Thanks so much for these kind words
It’s actually quite fascinating that they are able to tell a cohesive story at all with all the variants and redactions. With what they had to work with, the severe limitations of writing, being able to communicate with the other writers etc. the expense of materials and educated men to clean things up and edit the stories, you have final products that demonstrate a great deal of literary skill and artistic commitment to the Jesus story. The spun straw into gold. Just my honest opinion.
Thank you for your thoughts on this. I'd like to share my thoughts on this subject:
1) Matthew and Luke copying from Mark. While this is an idea put forth, and a well known theory, there is actually no proof that this was the case.
Matthew, Luke and Mark could all be using another source, no longer available to us and since Matthew and Luke both have extra material not found in Mark, it does seem apparent that at least there are grounds for considering a further source, known as 'Q'. There may be and probably were other sources as we read in Luke's prologue. So while it is a popular theory that Matthew and Luke copied from Mark, this could equally be false. Therefore the 'literary dependence' may not be upon Mark at all, but from some other source and since we don't actually have proof of the literary dependence on Mark other than its similarity, it is not an entirely dependable theory. The absence of the manuscripts which Luke referred to, not only suggests that they existed but that the literary dependence upon Mark remains unproven, though a possibility.
2) re: "this is not our Matthew" - well, I wouldn't disagree with that, however, it doesn't imply that an original record from Matthew was not the source of our present gospel of Matthew's material. If Matthew the tax collector did write accounts of Jesus's life, since he would be likely to be literate for his job and as time went on, he would quite likely consider it important to write about Jesus for the benefit of others, then what are the chances of him writing his first records in Greek? I think it unlikely. Later when gospels were written for both a Jewish and Greek audience, then Greek would obviously be the language of choice for widest distribution. So Matthew could well have authored records of Jesus's life in Aramaic/Hebrew, but what if any relationship such writings had to the quoted "Gospel of Matthew to the Hebrews", which was destroyed in the Library of Ceasarea in the 7th century, we cannot now know.
I confess to being disappointed that your thinking appears to be dominated by the popular thoughts, theories and assertions made by academics, rather than an original contribution from yourself. For instance you adopt the now popular idea that the synoptics and John show a trajectory of theological development. Whilst I can see the rational behind this thinking, I think it is dependant upon assumptions, which if wrong, could make this theory wildly misleading.
I agree, as do most people that each gospel writer had a theological message to present and that they framed each gospel according to that.
Finally, I do think the gospels CONTAIN eye witness accounts and am most impressed by Richard Bauckham's analysis in which each of the named individuals in the gospels are actually the eye witnesses who remembered each of their personal interactions with Jesus as well as his crucifixion and resurrection. I do not align with the sceptical criticisms that have now become very popularised on the internet, now followed by 'every man and his dog'.
start with the fact that dead guys don't come back to life. period. ever.
You need to read Mark Goodacre’s work on the idea that Matthew and Luke copied from Mark. There is a vast amount of proof, mainly that both of them copy Mark verbatim. Literally copying entire sections without a single change. And Luke also copies material invented from Matthew verbatim.
@ That isn’t proof. It’s possible, but there is no proof of this, since Mark could equally have been using a source shared with. Matthew and Luke, at which point, that theory fails.
@@theonlyway5298 Yes it is proof (ie evidence). Critical analysis of the text = evidence.
"Matthew the tax collector" never wrote anything. "The Gospel of Matthew" never says or implies any such thing, and actually refers to "Matthew" in the third person, twice. It's amazing how many people that think the bible is "the word of god" have no idea what's in it.
Hey CJ, a pastor who a little home church in asia here. I've been saying alot of stuff you've been saying on the inerrancy of the NT and gospels (probably why your video got onto my sugested feed). That the church chose to preserve the 4 gospels and include it in cannon makes you wonder what gave them such confidence to do so instead of just keeping 1? Surely we aren't the only ones who've noticed such inconsistencies
So for me,i believe the old testament has been preserved and is sufficient evidence to point to Jesus as the messiah. I appreciate what you said at the end that you dont have a monopoly on truth and that to be honest with ourselves and each other as we seek it. agree w your other video as well that Christianity takes faith and for me that a good thing. for what we know in part and see in part will fade when the fullness of Christ is revealed. thanks for your channel, appreciate the work that went into the vid
Thank you so much man. I really appreciate your perspective. Thanks for taking the time to comment
I agree although I think they contain a lot of eyewitness second hand testimony. I've often wondered if John contains some eyewitness statements from Philip as he suddenly gets more of a mention, plus he went to Samaria and Samaritan characters appear. Re: Matthew - there was a Hebrew gospel believed to be by Matthew but with no nativity section, and it's been lost since probably nearly 1900 years ago.
What is your reference for a Hebrew gospel of Matthew lacking the nativity story? If it’s in what Jerome writes about, I don’t recall it at all.
Bring in narrative as a rhetorical device. The stories matter. I'm an atheist, but I have a passing understanding of the gospels. I always come to the core of Matthew 25, when Jesus responds, that which you do to the least of you, you do to me." It's the story of the telling of that that moves me. And then there's John and the Last Supper Discourse at that point when Jesus says there is no love like the love of one who will lay down his life for his friends. I think in language other than English "friend" in John may have a deeper meaning. But it's the way the discourse fits in the narrative of the passion that moves me. I'm not a theologian, and I'm not a believer but I can put the two together and have a story about love from the words of Jesus.
That was beautiful mang
@Sforeczka I agree. You've obviously discovered something about the gospels that sadly too many Christians miss
Yeah and then Jesus ALSO commanded slaves to obey their masters, and respect and fear their masters just as they would Christ.
Well a swell guy and touching story!
@@jcollura6766you're mistaken. That was Paul.
@@DavidSamuel-gz7cf Jesus didn't condemn of correct Paul did he? He certainly - conveniently - didn't condemn slavery either.
This is a not a relifion based on peace, good morals, or love of your fellow man. Except love for Israelites, the ones who just so happened to invent the religion. Kind of convenient...
I listen to James Tabor and Bart Ehrman daily. So much to unpack, but like you said in another video... knowing the truth sets you free to see the stories as historical accounts and not words Christians must lay on the tracks for.
The strange thing is that in the study of the Gospels is the assumption that nobody knew about the differences and the contradictions. When the church put them together it knew about it. A better question would be why, and why 4 and not one composed from the 4 without contradictions or a hundred.
@@eus38io there were are some early attempts to harmonize them. The diatessaron is a famous example of this. But you're right, leaving them as 4 was seen as more credible--even with tensions and contradictions.
I think there is a false dichotomy here between a “fundamentalist” view and the view that the gospels were not eyewitness accounts in a meaningful sense - more meaningful than you would grant . I was surprised you didn’t at least mention Dr Richard Bauckham’s famous book on the gospels as being based on eyewitness accounts . Have you read his book - in particular the second edition ?
also there is a minority view that the Synoptics were in fact originally written in Aramaic or Hebrew and then translated and redacted into the Greek gospels we know . Unfortunately the key work here it out of print now in English though it is likely you could find it in French. It was surprisingly convincing to me because, the author really didn’t have a dog in that fight . He was a French Old Testament scholar and also a scholar of the Dead Sea Scrolls: After publishing a work on the Dead Sea Scrolls he had kept notes of some parallel ideas also found in the New Testament and thought he might write a text on that . Since the scrolls were written in Hebrew (and perhaps some Aramaic) he thought it would be useful to translate a gospel from Greek into Hebrew . I will let him take it from there:
“ 12:54 I had imagined that this translation would be difficult because of considerable differences between Semitic thought, and Greek thought, but I was absolutely dumbfounded to discover that this translation was, on the contrary, extremely easy. Around the middle of April 1963, after only one day of work, I was convinced that the Greek text of Mark could not have been redacted directly in Greek, and that it was in reality only the Greek translation of an original Hebrew. The enormous difficulties which I had envisioned for myself, had all been resolved by the Hebrew -Greek translator who had transposed word for word, and who had even preserved in Greek the order of the words preferred by Hebrew grammar.”
Of course there a number of explanations that could account for this phenomena. So he spent a 20 years to study and verify any conclusions scientifically. As he says ultimately not only did he continue to support his original reaction to Mark but “Technical investigations have resulted in some proofs which seem decisive and which have an equal bearing on the Gospel of Matthew and the documents used by Luke.”
He does conclude the documents could have been originally in Aramaic but actually leans towards Hebrew . Even if you disagree his small preliminary study translated into English is fascinating. The author is Jean Carmignac and the English title is “The Birth of the Synoptics “. As I said it is out of print and used copies that are occasionally available cost over $100. Perhaps you can find it in a library system somewhere . It was published in 1987 by the Franciscan Herald Press.
"there is a minority view that the Synoptics were in fact originally written in Aramaic or Hebrew" that is a fringe view that no serious modern scholar supports.
I really don't understand the reticence to challenge faith. Faith is believing in things for no good reason, arguing against all reason, and never admitting when you are wrong.
This has been explained .
Yes ..yes we know all this
You need to return to the early fathers... who interacted with the disciples of Jesus . We do not depend totally on there. You need to cross check these with what is written.
there's no evidence that any "early fathers" interacted with any "disciples of jesus". they don't even claim to, except for papias, who was a nutjob.
It's full of contradictions and corruptions. No doubt about it
@@khairulazmykamaluddin8222 Contradiction , thats proove just different perspective." Corrution" ? Which one? Why the greatest scholars in NT which are christians dont expose them, if they re real?
It seems some guys are trying hard to push their wish thinking for" undeniable truth" .That doesnt work.
Brother really thinks 2 things can’t be true at once and then calls it a contradiction 😂😂
@@cristianpopescu78 "Why the greatest scholars in NT which are christians dont expose them" for a simple reason; because they are christian
If u find contradictions in the Bible, it show ur understanding is flawed.
@@cristianpopescu78 Biblical contradictions:
Before we handle biblical contradictions we must know what's contradiction and why are there contradictions? The Bible is a word of God addressed to the fallen mankind, so must know the purpose of the word of God having contradictions, discrepancies and inconsistencies. The purpose of contradiction is to motivate the minds of a fallen men, why is the mind motivated? The mind must be motivated so as to open the closed mindedness so as to see, and understand God. Therefore, in order to open the closed mindedness contradictions are necessary. If there's no contradiction then there's no possibility to motivate the mind of a man, then man would simply continue without seeing or understanding God and blindly assert that God does exist or doesn't exist, and attitude would result chaos.
What's closed mindedness of men? When man disobeyed the command of God & ate the forbidden fruit 🍓, then his eyes opened, meaning his eyes opened to wickedness and at the same time his eyes was closed to the ways of God, and that he has become a fallen and closed minded man as these has been achieved by an adversary by deceiving them, so God's Spirit departed from a man and instead an Unclean Spirit has arrived into the man. This is why the Bible calls a sinner is blind, dead, captive or imprisoned.
Now in order to restore men God have spoken through various peoples and finally through His Son, and that there's Holy Bible, so when we study the word of God, we encounter contradictions, therefore when we take these contradictions then we can't handle it, and in such situations one can allow those contradictions to work in his mind that's seated in the brain and sealed in it, so during the pursuit of contradictions the brain go through various scenarios and in the end there shall be a breaking of the seal of the mind in the brain, once the breaking of the seal of the mind happens then it will be removed from the brain, paving way for the Holy Spirit or God's Spirit to get into the brain and seal again in a fraction of time dramatically, this is only known to an individual, not to anybody else.
This is the opposite of what happened to man in the beginning wherein the Holy Spirit or God's Spirit departed from him and instead an Unclean Spirit arrived into his physical body and now through JESUS, so an Unclean Spirit is removed from the brain 🧠 and instead the Holy Spirit or God's Spirit can be replaced back into the brain 🧠 and seal it.
Thus, contradictions of the Holy Bible are meant to motivate the closed men so as to open closed mindedness of men, and to prove that God does exists.
Thank you for your fair and reasonable discussion of gospel authorship. Much appreciated!
thanks!
Your problem is, you listen to an argument and then agree with it! There are many discussions on all topics related to these questions, and many have been aswered already....
Saying that... just like the first testament, everything is allegorical.
I'm not suprised with the contradictions and the mythological stylings of the stories. The authors try really hard to convince the readers while making huge claims without providing any evidence to back up the claims.
definitely. and it's interesting to see how stories evolve as communities pass them on
@@GregAnderson-r3k IT was not neccesary while many allready knew about but not so much as the authors knew.This is easy to see from the large amount of Informations from Jesus times later no more available due romans destruction in Judeea .Betsaida was completely destroyed f example.
Modern archeology confirm anyway many of NT details to be right.
Im curious, what is your evidence that it is untrue?
@@brianmcdowell7377 ummm, did you read the comment? 😆 🤣
@@GregAnderson-r3k yes, you said huge claims were made without evidence to back them up, what is your repudiating evidence?
A historian and u don't realize the Hebrew Tanakh used by the Jews was translated into Greek more than TWO CENTURIES before Jesus's time, that tell us Greek was at least a well known language in Jesus's time. Especially since the Romans ruled for a century before Jesus's ministry.
Apart from that, the early church fathers tell us who wrote the FOUR ACCOUNTS OF THE ONE GOSPEL, Matthew and John were Jesus's disciples, Mark and Luke worked with Jesus's apostles as well as Paul.
Really? Tell me more about the LXX - first I'm hearing about it
Sure, but we have no good reason to believe the early church fathers.
@@robinharwood5044, u don't have good reason to believe all those who lived close to Jesus's time but u believe the stories that started almost 2000 years later, it explains a lot.
@@andrevisser7542 What makes you think I believe any of the stories?
@@robinharwood5044, so u believe nothing, feel sorry for u.
I think what you're saying is perfectly valid. If I were to disagree with any of it, I still question the validity of the "Q" document. Its possible that Matthew had some source beyond Mark and that Luke borrowed from that as well.
Isn't the Q theory precisely that Matthew and Luke shared a source other than Mark?
@jeffmacdonald9863 yes but I agree with those who say Matthew had a source and Luke copied him. Or Matthew made it up and Luke still copied it
@@williamwatson4354 Mark Goodacre has done a lot of work untangling this possibility--it's interesting. I find Q as a separate source for Matt and Luke pretty convincing, which I think most scholars do. There's also a hypothesis of a signs gospel behind John--although not nearly with as much certainty as Q
I appreciate the effort and research which went into this video as well as the generally good faith way in which the material is presented. Respectfully, I think the video presents a one-sided perspective on the evidence. And as someone who holds the opposite point of view, I thought I would provide some counter-points to those raised in the video.
1. Literary Dependence
So let me begin by acknowledging the presence of literary dependence among the Synoptics. It’s definitely there. What I fail to see is why this is supposed to be a challenge to the traditional ascriptions of authorship. And to the extent that it is a problem for the Synoptics, since John is literarily independent of the Synoptics, it seems like this should be a reason to affirm that John is an eyewitness!
Luke, at least, outright tells us that he’s working from other sources (specifically eyewitnesses) in his prologue. So literary dependence is not at all surprising in his case. Indeed, if Matthew was actually authored by an eyewitness, then it would be surprising if Luke did not copy from Matthew. I’m genuinely unsure of what the problem is supposed to be here.
I’m somewhat confused as to why this is even being included as a reason to doubt that the Gospels are rooted in eyewitness testimony. Towards the beginning of this segment, C. J. claims that this is probably the biggest reason to doubt the eyewitness nature of the Gospels, and then towards the end he acknowledges that by itself it doesn’t really establish this. I, for one, don’t even think it suggests this.
There are also a lot of really controversial claims in this section which are just sot of presented as facts. For example, the claim that Matthew and Luke copy from Mark or even more controversially that there was a “Q” source. Both of these claims (especially the second) are debated among scholars to this day, and I would personally reject both of them. But in any case, none of this is relevant to the question of who authored the Gospels so I won’t pursue this any further.
2. Dubious Historical Reports
Again, I’m not sure how this is supposed to be an argument against the idea that the Gospels are grounded in eyewitness testimony. At best, it establishes that early witnesses like Papias and Irenaeus are not good evidence for the Gospels containing eyewitness testimony. But that just makes it an open question again. It certainly does nothing to indicate that the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses.
As for the specific objections offered against Papias, I think a lot of pertinent information is being left out here. For example, C. J. asserts that Papias says that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Hebrew. But this is controversial. The word Papias uses here is “dialekto” which can be translated as “language” but it can just as easily mean something like “style” or “dialect” which leaves it open that Papias is not saying that Matthew was written in the Hebrew language but rather written in a Hebrew dialect. And this same point actually holds for Irenaeus too. Irenaeus can also be read either way. And this alternate translation actually accords rather well with the evidence we have in Matthew’s Gospel since it contains the highest number of semitisms of any of the Synoptics and it also clearly was written for a substantially Jewish audience. We know this because of the constant attempts to prove that Jesus is the Messiah by the author quoting from the Hebrew Bible.
As for the claims that Matthew had to have been written in Greek originally because he supposedly copies from Mark, I would simply refer people to my own video series on the Synoptic problem. I argue there that there is no good evidence for Markan priority and that the arguments that Matthew could not have been written in Aramaic are unsuccessful.
There’s also this claim that if Peter was the source for Mark, as Papias says, then Peter didn’t know anything about the virgin birth or the resurrection appearances. The resurrection point is certainly false since the young man at the tomb clearly predicts them. And I have no idea how the fact that Mark doesn’t mention the virgin birth implies that his putative source (Peter) didn’t know anything about it. Mark is obviously not telling us everything he knows. This is clear from his prediction of the resurrection appearances and his subsequent failure to tell us anything about them. So we may not conclude that Mark (or Peter) don’t know about something just because it isn’t mentioned in the Gospel. Later on in the video, C. J. says that John “ignores” the birth narrative. C. J. here assumes that John was aware of it. So if John can be aware of the birth narrative without mentioning it, why can’t Mark?
3. Theological Disagreements
I can agree that each Gospel has its own theological goal. None of that is incomaptible with the thesis of traditional authorship. The problem, I guess, is supposed to be theological disagreements among the Gospels. Of course, that also doesn’t necessarily challenges the thesis of traditional authorship since, even if true, perhaps the eyewitnesses just had thelogical disagreements?
But what are these disagreements even supposed to be? The one example we get from C. J. is Mark’s messianic secret vs. John’s declarations of Jesus’ divinity. But what exactly is the contradiction supposed to be here? In both Gospels we have a combination of concealement and divine statements (Yes, this is in Mark. See Simon Gathercole’s “The Preexistent Son” for a mountain of evidence to this effect.) The divine statements are more of a focus in John’s Gospel, but that’s because it’s being written to combat Gnosticism when there was perceived need for this. That doesn’t show a contradiction between Mark and John. It just shows that John has a different purpose than Mark.
4.Contradictions
We are presented with one example of a contradiction, the supposed disagreement between Matthew and Luke as to when Jesus was born. This “contradiction” has been obsolete for a long time now since we now know that Publius Sulpicius Quirinius served two non-consecutive terms as governor of Syria thanks to the Trivoli tombstone inscription. And unfortunately C. J. shows no awareness of this at all.
C.J. acknowledges that harmonizations are possible for all of the putative contradictions in the Gospels. His response is rather puzzling. He says that harmonizing the Gospels is not doing history but rather theology. The implication here is that historians are not allowed to harmonize accounts which might appear to conflict. Sorry, but why the hell not? Why on earth would historians not be allowed to harmonize? I think that the assumption here is that harmonization can only stem from a prior commitment to biblical inerrancy. But that’s just absurd. Harmonization is just another part of doing history. For example, there are conflicting accounts and theories regarding why it is that Spartacus and Crixus parted ways during the Third Servile War. But historians also have ways of harmonizing them. If C. J. wants to put a ban on harmonization, he’s going to need to provide a reason for as to why. Saying “that’s not doing history” is just not engaging with the response. If you think contradictions are a better explanation of the data, then you need to actually argue for that. You can’t just stipulate that harmonization isn’t allowed because “that’s not doing history.”
Yes, we absolutely should not be presuming inerrancy in advance. At the same time, we also shouldn’t insist on contradictions if there doesn’t have to be one.
5.Geographical Issues
There are two objections raised in this section. The first concerns how the Gospel writers could have written in Greek if they were a bunch of backwater Jewish peasants. C. J. exempts Mark from this criticism since his Greek is famously rather poor. But what about the others?
Well Luke, by most accounts, was Greek. So there’s no problem there. Matthew, by all accounts, was a tax collector. Writing in Greek would have been an essential part of this job. So again, no surprises there. And what about John who was a fisherman? Many of our sources tell us that John had someone write his Gospel for him (some sources say it was Papias in fact). And we know that transcription was fairly common in the ancient world. Even Paul used scribes to write for him at times. So again, I don’t see a real problm here.
Second, C. J. objects that there are geographical errors in the Gospels. But he only gives one example where in Mark 7 we read that Jesus went to Galilee by way of Sidon which would be super out-of-the-way. Of course, this actually betrays Mark’s intimate knowledge of the geography since there’s a mountain between Galilee and and Jesus’ starting point which he would have had to go around. But again, C. J. just doesn’t seem to be aware of the responses to the points which he’s raising.
There’s also this line at the end about how we “fundamentalists” should acknowledge that Christianity is a faith as opposed to something rational. This appears to assume that faith cannot be rational. And I just fundamentally reject that.
1 if they were different people and they were responsible for authorship of their own gospels they'd be able to describe events from their own perspective in their own words. Copying word for word someone else's testimony in their the original authors' literary style instead of their own strongly suggests that they weren't there themselves to view events
2 Eusebius also suggests that Mathew wrote in hebrew. The Greek word usedis glossa which is the word for language. Wtf does it mean to write in Greek using a dialect of another language?
Papias and Ireneus were not eye witnesses
If he didn't copy from Mark and wrote in a different language/style then he wouldn't have copied the literary style of mark
If it was written in Aramaic the literary style of Mark writing in Greek wouldn't have carried over into Greek. It wouldn't be so obvious that they were copied unless both were written by the same person
2/2 Peter is considered to be Mark's source, according to Papias.
Papias also thought Mark wasn't an eye witness
The passage in Mark 16:9-20, which includes the appearance of the young man at the tomb and several post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, is considered by many scholars to be a later addition to the Gospel of Mark. This portion is not found in the earliest manuscripts of Mark, such as the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, which end at Mark 16:8. The literary style is also completely different than the rest of Mark
I have nothing to say about the other points, since I agree that they are rather weak
I would say that I'm far more liberal than you, but I agree with many of your points. Characterizing harmonizations as theology surprised me, because every historian should initially try to reconcile accounts before we accuse people of making mistakes about events they were much closer to.
that's not what "tax collectors" did then. More thug less accountant.
The gospels can be backed by historical artifacts, documents that can answer questions about times, places, events, people etc. one example would be all the Roman coins found with Caesars face on them etc.
What are those artefacts and documents? What questions do they answer? Roman coins with Caesars face tell us that Caesar probably existed, but what does that tell us about the Gospels?
I actually come at this subject from a different context. First, do you BELIEVE (Faith) in the G-D of Israel prior to the time of Jesus/Yeshua. I do Believe in YHVH. Now, I am not saying the entire Old testament is perfect either but rather the One creator known as YHVH, Yaweh in English, is indeed the one G-D in Heaven. If you don't believe in that G-D then there is NO POINT to go any further as the house can not stand. If you do believe in that G-D then the Jews were expecting a Messiah around 0-100 AD. Does Jesus fit that description? Who was He exactly? How does Jesus fit into G-D's plan for all the nations? Yes, there are many things in the New Testament which are clearly made-up and inconsistent with each other. But, be careful about throwing out the baby with the bath water.
The link to the video on the Secret Gospel of Mark doesn't seem to work.
oh weird - ruclips.net/user/shortsDu_BpetfvFc
The Bible was written based on the account of Jesus that were teached and preached by His disciples to the people at that time (read Matthew 10 :1-20). So those people who have heard the teaching of Jesus and the teaching of His disciples can write about Jesus, not only His disciples.
And those people who have healed by Jesus are the witnesses of Jesus, because Jesus performed miracles in front of them.
Jesus said, I have spoken openly to the world. I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where the Jews come. I said nothing in secret. So Jesus said, ask those who heard Me. Surely they know what I said (John 18).
"The Bible was written based on the account of Jesus that were teached and preached by His disciples
Have you any good evidence for that claim?
@robinharwood5044 yes! It's written in the Bible (read Matthew 10 :1-20). Because Jesus came to the world to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom of God through His words.
Jesus said, what I heard from Him I tell the world (John 8 :26).
@@badonlikoy5571 That's a circular argument.
Why believe the Gospels?
Because they were based on the accounts of the disciples.
Why believe that?
Because the Gospels say so.
Why believe the Gospels?
Because they were based on the accounts of the disciples.
Why believe that?
Because the Gospels say so....
(Incidentally, the past tense and past participle of "teach" is "taught" .
"...the accounts of Jesus that were taught and preached by His disciples.")
@@robinharwood5044sorry, English is not my first language. You are so bless, because you are fluent in English.
@@badonlikoy5571 Glad to help.
Cheers Chris good luck with your channel and sticking up for the truth!
Another Bart Ehrman degrees that mean nothing.
The Gospels CONTAIN material from eyewitnesses.
We know what the gospels CONTAIN. books CONTAIN material that PEOPLE wrote. Wizard of Oz CONTAINS material. The koran CONTAINS material. The book of Morman CONTAINS material. The Book of Moa za dong CONTAINS material. along with millions of books. Some of those books are referred to as gospels. Some people base their FAITH on these writings without evidence. Did these eyewitnesses you speak of provide any EVIDENCE outside of these gospels?
@ If they did, the church would have probably… included it in a gospel. These sources were canonized because they were believed to represent information from the earliest generations of the church. They were not believed to be eyewitnesses because they were canonized. They were canonized because they were believed to represent eyewitness testimony, right or wrong.
@@steveferguson698funny how people who think they have enough knowledge to criticize the gospels never apply their high standards to any other historical writings. So 4 biographies aren't enough for you? Why? Because they were written by followers? Newsflash - there is no "neutral" history or biographies in antiquity.
So these so called gospels were written by followers? That make incredible claims. Claims of supernatural healing, Humans raised from the dead, Words of Jesus written down word for word many years after his supposed death.
Okay..I don't believe it because there is no evidence outside these gospels that any of it is true. If you believe its because you have faith. Fine, You don't subscribe to the fact that incredible claims require incredible evidence. You subcribe to Hebrews 11:1. Fine.
But please don't claim you know about the neutrality of historical writing, archeology, and studies of ancient history. If you're a believer why do you need credible evidence? You believe in science fiction and the supernatural. If that floats your boat (Noah) go with it
@@steveferguson698 There is enough material in the New Testament documents to believe in the resurrection as a plausible (IMO likely) historical event. There is not enough to make this hypothesis certain. So yes, based on the accounts embedded within the gospels (Mark, Q, L, M, etc.), as well as other early material (1 Cor 15, 2 Philippians), you can either accept the testimony or not. Later inclusion into the Christian canon does not disqualify these texts as historical documents, so avoid that error.
Denial of miracles outright will make acceptance of any of this impossible, but this of course is a presupposition you come into the conversation with. I come into the conversation with a presupposition that miracles are possible and don’t find this to be scientifically problematic. For an idea of where my perspective is, I have a PhD in biochemistry and have no qualms with evolutionary history. … in fact, evolution of protein function is one of my focuses of study.
This discussion has been going on for centuries.
For one example of the alternative case, one might investigate Richard Bauckham's "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses".
It is good for any scholar to look at both sides and their claims.
yeah, I've read Bauckham. quite a few people in the comments have mentioned it. His views are a minority among scholars I would say
@@cjohnyrun Which scholars? Secular modernists? Church liberals? Or traditionalists?
All are using exactly the same documents and historical/archaeological evidence.
For many decades, I followed the secular modernists' logic. But later, I discovered that traditionalists had rational counters to all of it.
In the end, one's conclusions will depend on the opening assumptions and methodology one chooses. (Especially since none of the scholars lived at that time.)
@@cjohnyrun He is by far the most convincing in his explanations of who the eye witnesses in the gospels are. Yes, he is a minority but that is because most scholars are either liberal, or non Christians with a sceptical agenda.
@theonlyway5298 can conservative scholars ever have an agenda? Or just liberal ones?
@@cjohnyrun Liberal and traditional and those who have a foot in both camps. That's how church scholars generally engage with each other.
'Liberal' in scholarship being 'accepts many of the conclusions of purely secular scholars'.
This is different than denominational decisions regarding practice and doctrine.
There is contradiction in most witness stories, never do multiple witnesses remember every detail the same, but they all add evidence.
An additional problem with anyone's having written a "gospel" in Hebrew is that Hebrew had been a "dead" language for over 300 years by then, used only by Jewish scholars, while everyone in the Eastern Mediterranean of the time spoke Aramaic and/or Koine Greek. So, who would such a Hebrew text have been written for, if not just to be presented as a fake antique?
I think It was still being used in literary contexts. The Essenes at Qumran were still producing in Hebrew til the 1st c
There are traditions of a historical Jesus behind the Christ. There is a certain individual from Paul's part of Asia Minor to whom we attribute the origins of Santa Claus. We can say that there was a Saint Nickolas who lived and died. Whether or not he was a magic elf who lived at the North Pole is a matter of faith!
It all sounds very logical to me...and I hope to see you counter some of these youtube apologists who DO JUSTIFY EVERY THING.... Good luck to you and we need all the HISTORIANS WE CAN GET...and try and get the Theology out of the history....or at least until we find the best truth we can get to......
Thanks very much
I would have loved a discussion like this back when I went to Sunday school.
I wish more churches would have these discussions. One of my profs always complained -- he said that ministers/pastors don't think people can handle this stuff, but they should give them a chance
Our church would have several topics for bible study (Sunday School) to choose from. I asked a associate pastor if we could have a class on actual bible history. That is a study focused on the Bible itself. As a young " babe in Christ" I wanted to know where these writings really originated.
I was told " we just don't have enough information on that to fill a class"
Mind you this was before the Internet.
@@steveferguson698 that's really too bad. I do know that many Christian leaders don't actually know much about it. Unfortunately Bible colleges often don't see any reason to teach people where the books came from, just "what the Bible teaches."
Great video !
Do you think Christianity will survive the modern times if there isn’t a strong faction trying to rationalise the faith and maintain the inerrancy of the Bible ?
I feel that pure faith does not resonate with most people anymore and hence they go to such ridiculous lengths to justify their beliefs.
Thanks! I have no doubt Christianity will survive, but unfortunately the fundamentalist forms seem to be growing much faster. And the Christiani nationalist forms. I'd love to see a resurgence of rationality + faith. Who knows
Martin Luther never believed in an inerrant Bible and Lutherans are still around.
keep studying brother. you’ll find truth. not there yet
It would take an excellent script writer to create the Jesus story and put in place all the words Jesus spoke . ..l wonder who this could be ?
Secondly...throw out all Paul's and the disciples writings ..
Just read the verbatim words of Jesus ..and you will find all the other writings disappear slowly...for these words of his are unique and unless copied from another source to fit in with the script ...the writer himself must have imagined himself as the actual actor depicting Jesus' life of 3 years ..that has changed the world .....fantastic ..
These postulations are not new...but remain postulations because of insufficient forensic evidence... inconclusive... You can only suggest ..the same story line
The Vatican is covering up .
The writer of John fabricated the story who runs to the tomb. The author adds another disciple (beloved disciple) runs with Peter to the tomb (John 20:3-10). In Luke the author says the information received is from witnesses and that the writer carefully investigated everything, yet the author/witnesses only mention Peter running to the tomb (Luke 24:12). So we either have a fabrication, or a unreliable author/investigator, or the witnesses are simply not reliable.
Excellent video Chris, if you don’t mind to ask you personal question what is your opinion about afterlife, do you think there is life after death ? ..
Here : ' Near death and out of body experience in the Blind " Dr Kenneth Ring and Cooper.
Thanks very much. I don't know if I have a very satisfactory answer. I've lost enough people to have hope. I've lived enough life to be skeptical.
What is the ectoplasm-like anomaly that appears over your right shoulder six to eight seconds into your video? Had you noticed this? I am a paranormal researcher, and were such a thing to appear in one of my investigations I would consider that a hit...
I think it's dust. My office gets a bit of dust and fluff particles in the winter. But you never know! :)
@@cjohnyrun It sure looks spooky, doesn't it? Next, you'll be talking to the air!!!
So whar?
What they understood, what they wrote have no importance.The impotant thing is is Jesus Son of God?
If he is Son of God how is that possible his teaching got lost?
" I ll send you a Conforter " never happened?
We have the evidence he did that.
@@cristianpopescu78 what evidence do (we...who is we?) have? Please be specific
@steveferguson698 " We" are followers of Jesus Christ who established his Church directly under his power.
Lets say we accept this double standart in which few copies ( 8 if I good remeber) of Tacitus is enough to reproduct with accuracy the original but 5000 copies of NT including Acts and all Letters are not enough to reconstruct the original teaching of Jesus...
What would that mean "theolgy is not history "?! Does that mean that all reports about miracles are merry tales and therefore could not be historical facts?History?
If so, thats Materialismus, which is atheimus, quite easy to debunk due modern science.
Finaly the evidence about Jesus's identity, Mission and permanent presence and Support in the Church is supernatural matter , occured in many encounters with evil powers in Exorcism. They know who is Jesus, they fear him, they confirm the power and the autoriy of the Church. Richard Gallagher ,among many others, a top scientist can prove that by many facts he witnessed.
@@steveferguson698, those who know the God of the book.
@@andrevisser7542 I assume you are referring to John 14 where Jesus is saying he will send a comforter. Which some say he is referring to the holy spirit. You say you have evidence of that. What is your evidence?
@@steveferguson698, good evidence is all of those who followed the manual then get to know God, u can too.
The script writer must have for seen these questions...with his own question
When the son of man returns Will he find faith on earth ?
It's a question that you need to answer .. because it resonates on faith ..nothing to do with word for word accuracy......Jesus did not instruct anybody to write but preach ..funny isn't it?
Why is hardly anything said about Jesus after the resurrection Mathew 20 versus Mark 8 versus, Luke and John 50, and almost nothing about what he said during the 40days. Surely that would be hugely important?
I always found that interesting too. Very detailed narratives up until, then just a few stories after. You'd think it would matter more
because it could be debunked
This is awesome. Have you ever looked into conditional immortality, also known as annihilationism?
not really, I've heard of it. Why?
@ Thank you for responding. Love your work so far and I hope to see it blow up.
Conditional Immortality is the position, more so Protestant than Catholic, that the idea of eternal torment for the unsaved upon reaching the afterlife is a teaching not to be found within an objective reading of the Bible, and is instead an anachronistic concept influenced by Platonism and imputed into the text. What the authors of the Bible truly posited is that living after death is a gift granted only to those who follow Christ and is not the default state of the soul. “For this corruptible must PUT ON incorruption, and this mortal must PUT ON immortality.”
The wicked on the other hand will instead be “destroyed forever”, they will disappear like straw, or chaff, in a flame and will be consumed entirely, leaving neither root nor branch. They will cease to exist after death or, at the least, in the end times.
@@keithallison8340 on interesting! This is really fascinating. I'm woefully a bit behind on Catholic bible interpretation. I read a few Catholic theologians in seminary and really enjoyed them, but otherwise not much
From what i understand, the gospels were not eyewitness accounts, nor even could they be, since they were written 40 to 70 years after the events they describe. The names were put on as a matter of tradition.
I'll post the link to your channel in the Facebook discussion groups, hopefully you'll quickly pick up some subscribers.
👍
@@nickydaviesnsdpharms3084 💯. That's exactly what happened. And thank you so much! That is so kind 😊
It's not "exactly what happened" because we don't know when the gospels were written. The whole "vaticinia ex eventu" stuff wasn't even taught as consensus anymore in very mainstream university textbooks 20 years ago. At least here in Germany the birthplace of the German higher criticism.
What if Q were oral or eye witness accounts?
maybe! Q isn't really narrative though.
Since Q is found often word for word identical in Matthew and Luke it's very likely not an oral source.
@MrSeedi76 Do you know about oral history?
I wonder why would somebody writing late compromise Jesus, making him a false prophet, by using the "same generation" in Mathew 24. What might have been the reason, I wonder?
The reason is that the gospels weren't written late because it makes no sense to preserve prophecies that could no longer be fulfilled. That's the major problem with dating the gospels after 70.
@ 1) that’s true 2) however, if early then Jesus is shown to be a false prophet given that he didn’t come back
@ In other words, Jesus is either a false prophet or he is made to look like one if the writing is late. Or one misunderstood the meaning of Mathew 24 entirely, in which case either early or late date can work.
Once a man of faith,a witness of my beliefs to others ,leading several (I hasten to say many ) to strong decades long christian faith .By earnestly seeking truth ,studying both Torah and Christian bible with Hebrew and Greek Concordance (before either was available on the internet )... instead of Church Bible Study at church or groups... (i saw how biased and cherry picked, krivda...which means ,bent truth,used to prop up faith )....in time with much personal grief and loss of christian family and life long friends ... studied myself out of all faith ....and belief ,not only the god of both both Jew and Christian but having beliefs in anything .I free will choose to only know ,which is not comprehensible for any believer.I ether know or do not know.Impossible for a believer to believe. Ha Ha. LOL ,but true.Hence a life of study and seeking ,all I desire is the truth ,I have found most is krivda ( bent truth ) or / and fiction.
This sounds a lot like my journey too. Although I decided that the Christian tradition is where I still choose to hang out. I find spiritual practice still rewarding, even if I don't believe the right things
I'm not seeing any contradictions here. It truly is one author choosing which details from the life and ministry of Jesus best supports their thesis about Jesus. The gospels should not be read as chronological narratives. They are not meant to be read as such. For Mark, Jesus is the King of Kings. For Matthew, Jesus is the Messiah. For Luke, Jesus is the Savior of the world. For John, Jesus is God Incarnate. Each author chooses details about Jesus that best supports their argument and leaves out details that either distract from or otherwise do not help their thesis. That they chose different events, or told them from a different perspective, does not make them contradictory, just different. And if each gospel told the same details in the same way, there would be no need for multiple versions.
And also, the gospel authors do not have to be eyewitnesses themselves to record eyewitness accounts. Further, if what they were saying was untrue, there would have been many eyewitnesses around who would have pointed out the errors.
the archeology alone contradicts your assertions. time and time again, the narrative of the gospels are vindicated by the archeology. you need to apply the methodologies of criminology to make a fair assessment of the gospels. various statistical analyses of details in the gospels are hard to fabricate. and apparent contradictions especially between mark and john were solved by the discovery of the essene calendar. the narratives were consistent. mark narrated according to the essene calendar while john wrote according to the hebrew calendar
This is a common apologist trope, and it's wrong. As I say in the video, the gospels (esp John) are certainly right about some things. But wrong about others
Liked your video. Are you familiar with Bart Ehrmann? He is a PhD at the U. of North Carolina I think. Some of his perspectives are similar to yours. Just wondered.
Sure, of course. He's a great scholar and communicator. big fan! And thanks!
Ehrman simply parrots the German higher criticism from 100 to 200 years ago. Completely unoriginal. People would do better to read something like Albert Schweitzer's "Quest of the historical Jesus". Ehrman also told quite a lot of nonsense in order to make people question the gospels. On the same level as the infamous "Zeitgeist" movie.
@@MrSeedi76 what are you talking about? Most of Ehrman's work is within the mainstream of current biblical scholarship, and most of it would be taught in any critical intro to the Bible class. Schweitzer is cool, but that book is over 100 years old. And every biblical scholar worth their salt ends up reading Germans from 100 yeras ago, whether they want to or not
Great video 👍. Very interesting.
you lost me at Q. no evidence whatsoever, yet being proliferated like facts. The documentary hypothesis has been debunked long ago..
If the dating of when the gospels were written is correct, then it becomes highly unlikelt that they were written by eyewitnesses. Luke and John would have been really old when they composed their gospels, and therefore, they were more likely dead than writing gospels.
That's assuming that Jesus lived and died when the Gospels say he did. But why believe them about that? Maybe he was a lot earlier, and the Gospels were just repeating myth that put him in the time of Pilate.
@@robinharwood5044or maybe Jesus was actually a Martian 😂? At this point people make up basically anything to discredit the gospels it seems. No matter how unlikely.
@@MrSeedi76 I'm sure it seems that way to you, but the Gospels are full of fantastic, contradictory, and unlikely stories. (Just like the non-canonical early Christians writings.) There is no need to make up stuff to discredit them. There is a great need to make up stuff to make them seem halfway believable.
Excellent video, CJ. Subscribed. I think you are correct in that it is pretty obvious, at least to me, that legends of Jesus and his deity developed over time. Mark’s Jesus was a normal man until his baptism. In the first gospel we are introduced to Jesus as a full grown man. Nothing about a special divine birth is mentioned. In Matthew and Luke, Jesus is divine from birth, and by implication, from conception. Throughout the synoptic gospels, there is no indication that Jesus existed prior to his birth or conception. That final development awaited the fourth evangelist. In John, Jesus is eternal, the preexisting logos who created the world. John’s Jesus abstains from plot elements that are beneath the dignity of a deity: he is not baptized at all, nor does he go into the desert to be tested by temptation, as he does in the three earlier gospels. No, I am afraid these are not stories by eyewitnesses. These are myth and legend, slowly evolving from a normal man into a god. This type of literature and mythology was, as you know, all the rage at that time and place. Miracles, gods, ascensions, etc. abounding.
This whole "evolution theory" from low to high Christology completely falls apart when comparing the supposedly latest gospel of John to Paul's letters, one of the earliest sources.
Sorry about my typing.I had just had a son,not a sin
And Matthew is very fast and loose as to what “prophecy” means.
he definitely puts the work in... Perhaps one of the greatest apologists of all times
If everything has been said, what he saying now? If nothing is new. What is the point?
Good stuff. But I am dubious about Q.
there are a couple holdout Bible scholars who are. Mark Goodacre is worth a google if you want the case against (from a scholarly rather than ideological position). But I'd say it's the predominant view, and for me the best way to explain the relationship between Matt and Mark
Great video CJ. Genuine points, and I sense where you're coming from. Ultimately, you may need to define what your expectations are for an eyewitness report. I sense you want a very forensic, modern eyewitness report, and that's the definition you're imputing here. You'll be very hardpressed to find that from ancient writings. The question we should ask is whether we should trust these gospels as worthy witness reports for a historical Christ. Were they viewed that way by the original readers... because believe me CJ, Satan has a greater drive than you to discredit their reliability as eyewitness reports. A few points: 1. You seem to have more issues with the synoptics, and not John. It's quite clear John is from John and is penned by him. So perhaps the Video title is a tad disingenuous. The greek vs hebrew thing? Come on, just because a greek scribe writes the gospel doesn’t negate the first hand account of the author. 2. You imply the synoptics would only be trustworthy if were exact copies. That would not be the case. I work in an investigatory profession and I have never seen true witnesses describing things the same way--unless they colluded to do that. 3. Why do theological and eyewitness motivations have to be mutually exclusive. Have you read Paul's letters? Galatians has similar themes to Corinthians but the readship is different, and so the theological focus is different. Does that negate the same points made a tad differently in the books? We also see this in the gospels. Matthew's description of Judas' death draws from the royal theme he has in the book. So he makes clear allusions to this. If Jesus is a new David, Judas is a new Absalom. So Judas' death paints this picture. Does this negate that Judas was a real person who died after betraying Jesus? No. Luke has a clear physicians perspective and he writes Judas' death this way.
Praying for you, brother. Be blessed
It’s shocking to me how many Christians don’t know that the Gospels are completely anonymous Greek texts that were not written by eyewitnesses. The worst part is seeing people simply repeat what their favorite apologists tell them without questioning whether it makes sense or seeking to understand the reasons and evidence that lead the vast majority of Christian scholars to the same conclusion shown in this video.
@@vejekeso what’s the proof that they aren’t eyewitness? Or the proof they were anonymously written?
Acts was also written by Luke and there are times during the writing where Luke will go from speaking about events as an outsider to using pronouns like
“We” showing us that he was indeed there for certain portions of what was going on. Really fascinating.
Also Josephus and other historians of the time wrote accounts of history that correlate to the writings in Acts. Like Herod dying suddenly after allowing people to regard him as a god.
Very interesting stuff!
@vejeke Friend, the fight to discredit Christianity is not a new phenomenon. It's been Satan's game since Jesus ascended. We live in an age where the ability to discredit it would be more likely due to technology--still hasn't happened. Atheists have been at since Darwin's theory gave them extra motivation. The flesh wants to rebel against God, so any fuel to discredit His Gospels would have exacerbated the fall of Christianity, and yet here we are. Bart Ehrman is a more credible scholar than most, and even he won't discredit the gospels completely. They aren't made up. Jesus lived, died, resurrected, and ascended. Men and women went to death believing and proclaiming it, and still do today. Praying for you
@shawnkloosterman7691 Hey Shawn. Good questions. I find most refuse answers because they want to refuse them. I can give you good, plausible answers that would satisfy any reasonable person, but if don't want to receive them (because you want to continue living in your imaginary, supposedly God-free, world), you'll reject them. CS Lewis has a perfect analogy for this when he utilizes the Dwarves in the Last Battle. You refuse to believe because you don't want to believe. Same as the Pharisees when they saw Jesus clearly demonstrate He was their Messiah. Needless to say, here are good answers to your questions, I pray the Holy Spirit gives you conviction and that you respond and believe.
1. Who went to the tomb first? Mary Magdalene. John's gospel, which personifies the God-man Jesus' love for people, focuses on her so it can pivot back to when she speaks with Jesus face to face later in the occurrence. John wants us to pay attention to Mary Madgalene, so he gives very clear details. She went first and was alone. The synoptics generally summarize the details for who was at the occurrence of the resurrection, not because it is unimportant, but because they want us to see prophecy fulfillment. And I'm not even doing justice to the nuance of each focus in each synoptic. We do this in life today. For example, what happened in Endgame? I might say, dude, Cap finally said Avengers assemble after it had been teased for years--it finally happened. Falcon was there, Spiderman was there, Thor was there--it was awesome. You might say Falcon showed up first and said "on your left," which showcases his special relationship with Cap. Spiderman was there. Thor was there. But ultimately, we will both conclude that the Avengers beat Thanos through Tony's sacrifice. Those are the gospels. I implore you, Shawn, to give them a chance and reread them with original context.
2. Drafts of the 10 commandments? Perhaps you can clarify why this is a stumbling block for Christianity. But I'll bite. The 10 commandments were given by Yahweh to Israel. He wrote them on stone Himself. Moses broke that set. The second set was handwritten by Moses.
3. The sun question. Well, today, people can grow plants in bunkers with artificial lighting. The sun is a temporary light source that will someday be done away with. Revelation says light will emanate from God Himself. With that premise, God wouldn't have needed the sun to create light. He could have created an even more temporary light source. I'd like to think when God first started the strokes of creation, when everything was still good, light naturally emanted from Him. Quick question: How do you have light in your house at night without the sun?
4. Break after day 6. Creation was finished in 6 days. The 7th day hasn't ended, and that was purposeful. The first 6 days had clear time markers, evening and morning, but day 7 didn't. This is because God purposefully brings creation into complete satisfaction. Day 7 represents God saying to humanity, everything is ready for habitation, and everything is as it should be. This is why Day 7 never had a time marker--it was continuous. But guess what, mankind rebelled, and sin entered God's creation. God's plan for the 7th day was marred by us. Ohhhh, but here's the GREAT NEWS Shawn, God Himself came and reintroduced the 7th day to us--through Jesus' death. If you repent and accept Jesus's sacrifice for us, you are brought back into the 7th day. Everything becomes as it should be. Have you done this? You can.
5. Was he tiered. I don't think I understand this? More context here
6. Why did Rome want a monotheistic god. Wrong question. I really have no care for Rome, and what Constantine may have wanted. If God allowed Rome to grow to what it was so the word can be brought to you and me, then so be it. (Read Nahum and see the analogy of God and Assyria). God won't judge you and Rome together, it'll be you in front of Him. God's word stands separate from Rome. There is only God, and only one advocate for us before God.
7. Gospel of Thomas and Mary. Because they are false gospels. There is only one gospel, Jesus is the way, truth and the life. As Galatians 1:8 says if anyone preaches anything other than this, it's false. But how do I know they are false, both have false theology-- I've read them, as have many true Christians.
Praying for you Shawn.
Oops, I think I missed the Mary virgin question. Sorry. I think Matthew is pretty unquestionable about Mary’s virginity, so is Luke. Is your position that it doesn't make sense? Mary’s virginity fulfills the Isaiah 7 prophecy. It also fulfills the prophecy in Gen 3 that the descendant of the woman would crush the snake. Note it wasn't the descendant of man and woman, but the woman, which implies a virgin birth.
Ofcourse nativity account is not an eye witness. Who will write an eye account incident of a poor carpenter. But the crucification is an eye account.
Q is hypothetical and there are compelling reasons to doubt it was an actual document, despite scholarly consensus.
There are a few good scholars who argue against it. And a lot of ideologically motivated people otherwise.
why do you assume people only speak 1 language?
Good Q! Ppl in the galilee probably did have some level of bilingualism-- Aramaic & Greek at least. the issue comes with composition of Greek at a high level (e.g. John), which would require quite a lot of education
@@cjohnyrun ...and what's the problem with them requiring a higher level of education?
@@vander6089 The Bible itself mentions that the apostles were simple and uneducated (i.e. Acts 4:13). They were regular dudes, fishermen from Galilee and other blue collar jobs - literacy was a thing for less than 1% of Roman Empire's population, mostly rich ones from big cities. If (and that's a big if) any of the apostles/eye witnesses spoke could read and write that would be rather in Hebrew not Greek.
@@vander6089 They were allegedly fishermen. Difficult to get a high level Greek style education when you have to work for your living.
@@robinharwood5044you clearly are not as informed about the time of Jesus as you think.
Doesn't the bible say give unto Caesar what is Caesar's? That doesn't sound like something an omnipotent being would concerned with. That sounds like something the emperor of Rome would want in there.
Or a true sovereign who already reigns snd cares less about those aspects of life.
The most common interpretation of this is that Luke wants to show that Christianity is copacetic with roman rule
@@cjohnyrun amongst textual critics who focus on grounding these texts in a political reality, this is the interpretation. Amongst those looking for spiritual guidance or congruence with the message of the Luke/Acts story, the message may be to not focus on the perceived power of this world. So the interpretation focus may actually be within the text. Interpret this as a political statement if you are looking for a political text. Interpret it as spiritual if you are looking for a spiritual text. I’ll give the political interpretation to the textual critics- that’s not where my focus is.
@SamDupree-bw4rt Message for both of you experts just stated. How on God's earth does that statement by Christ have anything to do with omnipotence or C.J.'s response, neither of which have anything to do with your nonsensical claims.
When Christ was approached by acolytes of the pharisees, who were questioning Him as to corner him into giving an answer that would be invoked as blasphemous. Christ is asking for the coin showing Ceaser's image. Then his statement ( render unto ceaser what is ceaser's, and render unto God what is God's ) was Christ claiming that there must by a separation between Church and State. One is sacred, and one is temporal. Hence Democracy with axiomatic truth built in, with the government, although separate from the Church, will avoid corruption and selfishness, will work for the betterment of humanity simply because they acknowledge that their people are made in the image of God. If humanity acknowledges that individually God loves them, then they would naturally respect the state. But thanks to the French so-called intellectual faternity decided, just like you, that their was no transcendent entity, brought out the guillotine, and killed over 1 million Catholics, mainly in western France simply because nihilism and humanism will enlighten the world, which as Nietche quite brilliantly prophesied that God is dead, who will replace him. Marxists, Darwinian Nazis who overwhelmingly loved him and engles, hence natural selection and survival of the fittest. Athiesm in the 20th century killed over 130 million people simply because they either hated or believed that they were God. Hitler, Stalin, Mao. Polepot, Kim, Ho chi ming. Castro, etc. Of course, Christians have a lot to answer for by abusing and confusing love with power. Finally, I am just a simple irishman who speaks a few languages and worked in the Middle East for seven years as a Christian missionary before my wife and two boys were murdered in Alexandria Egypt in a Church explosion in 2011. It's my love of Christ that gets me out of bed every day because only He truly knows me, my pain, and at times hate, but he saw me 2000 years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem, and He sees me now. Omniscience.
@Polycarp-g6z by boble logic, all those atheist regimes horrific actions are gods fault
The NT clearly states that all governments come from god
"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God."
This clearly states that god put those atheists in power. He is allegedly omniscient so he knew what they'd do if he did put them in power and they couldn't have gained power without his support
So it's all his fault.
They were there,and eye witnesses everything.
I guess that settles it then
I'd be interested in your take on the so called fulfilled messianic prophesies in the Gospel of Matthew. Everytime Matthew states that something was done to fulfil a prophesy it actually turns out that either the prophesy being claimed to be fulfilled is NOT a messianic prophesy or it is not actually fulfilled. In fact, the only part of any actual messianic prophesy that Jesus appears to have fulfilled is riding a donkey (or two at the same time) into Jerusalem. But even this is a problem as the prophesy states this would be fulfilled by a king and Jesus was never an actual king in Israel.
I think Matthew was very concerned in finding Hebrew Bible explanations for Jesus... and he was creative
Eye witness accounts of 1,000 s
Its called a crucifixion not a crucifact 😂. No but seriously I think Jesus was real but the story is mainly fantastical. He was crucified with the other “miracle workers” as expected.
Your problem is that you don’t know who you are dealing with.
So the gospels are just theologizing
C.J., you are such a brilliant mind, with ALL THE ANSWERS. That you've got almost 1k views. Stay at it and follow that other fool, Carson, and in a year or two, you might get 2k views. Keep up the poor work😅😅😅😅
thanks!
@cjohnyrun No problem, brother. Christ referred to people such as yourself, lost within a prism of your own making, white washed tombs. On the surface, discerning but on the inside!!!!!!! NOTHING
it's meaningless as to whether mathew was written in hebrew or greek, the same thing goes for theological divergence. if they all read the same, you would complain about that. your just making up straw men. quirinius ruled at 2 different times. I would encourage any one who doubts the bible, to make sure you look at both sides of the argument before you decide what to believe. don't just base it on u-tube video's. there are many pro bible scholars mentioned on the internet.
Thanks really enjoyed the video. Have you seen the excellent work that this team of scholars are doing to in large part to go along the way to prove that Marcion did not butcher Luke's gospel but the other way around as Marcion claimed all along?? www.youtube.com/@Patristica
Yes! I've been following Vinzent's work and really interested in it. I think he's doing a really interesting job of restating the Marcion priority. I'm not totally convinced, but it's a fascinating subject. He'd probably be better placed to ask
Are you lying for the 👿👿👿😈😈?
1 John 1:1.
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
Then you will not be saved eternally
The problem with you like guys who have PhD or any other degrees in the biblical study is that those PhD or eloquent degrees aren't beneficial when it comes to biblical doctrines, the necessary thing is that not the degrees but the Holy Spirit, so receiving the Holy Spirit from God and receiving these sort of degrees are mutually exclusive.
So, here is the fact that the Gospels are eye witness accounts, and it can be explained in words and also can be physically demonstrated and it's impossible if anyone has a PhD or other degrees. Now, who is the eye witness?
Early Apostles were with JESUS over a period of 3 years, seeing and hearing what JESUS was speaking,doing etc , so technically they're eye witnesses but according to JESUS, they're not witnesses or eye witnesses. Now Jesus said you must be witnesses to Me just before His ascension, and after 10 days only all of them became witnesses. Now, what do you learn from these things?
One can only become a witness of JESUS only through the reception of the Holy Spirit into the body by the removal of his parents Spirit from his physical body. Thus, one can become a witness of JESUS at any time even in the 21st century as per this criterion. So, early Apostles were eye witnesses of everything that's there in the Holy Bible. Now in the 21st century one can receive the Holy Spirit and eventually become an eye witness of JESUS & able to physically demonstrate by claiming to exist before 2k years, and also challenging his physical body is the temple of God, and prove to the world objectively. However, this is only possible with two people as of now they're living in South India having their ancestry root from Jerusalem.
So, your studies on the Holy Bible and your degrees never ever give you any facts, and that you are wrong dude.
Having degrees in Theology and being guided by the Holy Spirit, are not 'mutually exclusive'. I'm convinced that Paul was himself highly educated and an intellectual giant of his age, yet he was guided by the Holy Spirit himself.
However, having degrees and higher degrees, has the tendency not for the individual to grow spiritually in humility, but to becoming proud of their academic achievements and as the Bible describes, "being puffed up" with pride. Secondly, rather than being guided by the Holy Spirit, such academic achievers tend to be guided by the theological theories of academics, being persuaded by sceptical criticisms instead of growing in faith and the peace, love and joy that is found only in Christ.
@theonlyway5298 Paul throw all of his studies, because whatever he studied were not helpful, in fact those aren't correct, but traditions. The result of Bible studies is the reception of the Holy Spirit into the physical body by the removal of his parents Spirit from his physical body, thereafter you become a temple of God and thereafter the LORD does things, not necessary for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, what you're saying is simply an assertion that the believers are saying many years. The Holy Spirit can guide anybody without the indwelling, that happened all the time to all the people but that's not needed now, I replied to this guy the following but he blocked it, it's useful for you as well, Hard to understand? I don't find anything you say is hard to understand? My question is that why did you believe? I'm not a believer like you. The blunder mistake you made is that you remained as a believer before you gave up your beliefs or faith or Church. So, your blunder mistake led you to renounce the great Christianity.
You led people to Christ? No, how could you led people to Christ when you're a blind? You're a blind guide the LORD said in Matthew 23. So, being a believer you or all are blinds, even billions of Christians who are blind but the fact is that they continue to believe at least, not renounce as you are.
Whereas I'm too a Christian but not a believer, so who I'm? I was a sinner, then became a believer like you, and as a result of believing in JESUS I have become a witness of JESUS. So these are my sequence of positions as 3.
Now the thing is that you got many degrees, and PhD but the issue is that you're not studied the Holy Bible properly, how do I say? I say because you said that you believed, but the LORD didn't instruct you or anybody to be a believer when it comes to Post-Pentecostal times, you live in a Post-Pentecostal times, therefore when you study the Holy Bible, you should've noticed Acts 1:8, wherein the LORD instructed everybody to be a witnesses, not to be believers, but you remained a believer, and this is what I said that you made a blunder mistake.
If you would've understand Acts 1:8 & applied to yourself then you would've known that you need to become a witness of JESUS, and that remains to be a believer isn't enough but you missed out, the same way the ex-Christians missed out to become witnesses of JESUS, and now are you finding fault at the Holy Bible is something laughable.
So, you're Wrong and guys like you are WRONG. Try to refute me if possible and answer my points, let's have a party.
Y'all are ridiculous. Why are you coping so hard? We can plainly see that the claims made in the bible are demonstrably false without any grounding in reality whatsoever. Enjoy your delusions.
Why does God hate PhDs? It sounds a bit suspicious to suggest that only the ignorant can understand the Bible.
@@robinharwood5044 He doesn’t. He hates FoT’s (abbreviation for ‘Full of Themselves’).
The problem with FoT’s is a tendency to become blinded in two significant ways:
a) blinded by self righteousness, thinking they are superior and ‘right’
b) blinded to the faith as written in the Bible by cynicism and scepticism.
There is an unfortunate tendency for such people to effectively become academic refuse bins, in which they collect the sceptical ideas and efforts of liberal or unbelieving scholars, instead of actually challenging their ideas and theories.
It's obvious you have little knowledge of what constitutes as eye-witness accounts. Look up Cold Case Christianity with J. Warner Wallace and he'll explain it to you. Also, you failed to address other supporting evidence that these are eye-witness accounts like undesigned coincidences between the Gospels and the criterion of embarassment. For people that don't know any better, they may take your erronious conclusions as facts. I urge all viewers and readers to do their own research if you want to arrive at the truth. God Bless.
ahh yes, the old "do your own research" by appealing to a fundamentalist apologist with almost 0 training in bible. You're well on your way. This channel is probably not for you
@cjohnyrun J. Warner Wallace was a homicide detective with years of experience in dealing with eyewitness testimony. So, I think he would be a good example of someone who qualifies as highly knowledgeable in this area. As for your point about "this channel is probably not for [me]", I agree - I like RUclips channels with more factual content like those from Wes Huff, Sam Shamoun, David Wood, William Lane Craig, etc.
It's not eye witness testimony. It's a book full of unverifiable claims made 40-70 years after the alleged events
It was based on oral tradition, which is hearsay by definition
What you have is the unverifiable claim that a story had eye witnesses
@@roccodivito9354and than there is my spirituality of wine videos that touch upon the insights of C.S. Lewis, John W. Montgomery, etc.
You lost me @ PROBABLY
Come up with. Are you mad?
Wrong! The 4 gospels don't copy Mark, each offer a one or more different added details, for instance John is the only one that includes Jesus last words "It is finished."
The gospels are made up and copied from one another. Sorry you cannot understand reality without your make believe fairytales…….
All are copied from the Gospel of Barnabas but contaminatef
nah. not possible. You'd be closer with the Epistle of Barnabas (not a gospel, but probably written around the same time)
@@cjohnyrun epistle written by a Christian believing like you.
@@hajiabdulrahman3105Gospel of Barnabas is a late forgery.
@@cjohnyrun you Christian hates Gospel of Barnabas as it's supports Muslim belief, truly Jesus is a Muslim
@@MrSeedi76 I read the content it is not, none can forge the true gospel of Jesus canonical bible is the contaminated copy of the Gospel of Barnabas
How about the fact that Origen, who had first hand knowledge of gospel origins, says directly and unambiguously the the gospels were not written until multiple generations after the events the purport. God waited till all human memory had been effaced lest it interfere with divine inspiration.
What is the reference for Origen claiming such a late date composition of the gospels?
@jessknauftofsantaynezvalle4111 Read Contra Celsum. Research can be fun!