Phineas, I'd love to see you harmonize the conflicting accounts into a single coherent story. This is a flawless word of God right? It shouldn't be too difficult for you.
It's been done. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel.
It's been done. I'm not going to reinvent the wheel.
The earliest gospel is Mark, and it is almost universally agreed that the later gospel writers used him as source material. Mark makes no mention of post-mortem appearances of Jesus. The original version of Mark ENDED with the women keeping their silence and telling noone about the empty tomb. That is all Matthew/Luke had to go on when they wrote their versions 30 years later. The conflicting accounts of post-mortem events in their gospels are easily explained by the fact that they were not contemporaries of Jesus..and had no firsthand knowledge of the events described. They were however true believers with a strong motivation to embellish their stories..so it's no mystery how the story of a missing/stolen body could become a magical resurrection in the course of a few decades.
Nice context shift. Now back to the value of preaching which you carefully chose to leave unaddressed.Not all people in Christian ministry get up in front of a crowd every Sunday.
Also there are plenty of lay people that take time of from work and travel at their own expense, domestically and internationally, to help others. They do so without any payment or compensation. The churches that I've been associated with have mission trips several times of year.
As far as the value, you'll have to ask those who have been helped by Christian volunteers.
The earliest gospel is Mark, and it is almost universally agreed that the later gospel writers used him as source material. Mark makes no mention of post-mortem appearances of Jesus. The original version of Mark ENDED with the women keeping their silence and telling noone about the empty tomb. That is all Matthew/Luke had to go on when they wrote their versions 30 years later. The conflicting accounts of post-mortem events in their gospels are easily explained by the fact that they were not contemporaries of Jesus..and had no firsthand knowledge of the events described. They were however true believers with a strong motivation to embellish their stories..so it's no mystery how the story of a missing/stolen body could become a magical resurrection in the course of a few decades.
Nice context shift. Now back to the value of preaching which you carefully chose to leave unaddressed.
Harvard Law professor and attorney Simon Greenleaf wrote a book called The Testimony of the Evangelists Examined by the Rules of Evidence Administrated in Courts of Justice. In addition to demonstrating why the Gospel accounts would be acceptable in a court of law, the 1874 edition featured a section called Harmony of the Gospels, which chronologically reconciled the testimonies from the King James Bible and addressed alleged discrepancies.
Regarding the differences in the accounts, Greenleaf wrote in § 34, The character of their narratives is like that of all other true witnesses, containing -- as Dr. [William] Paley observes -- substantial truth, under circumstantial variety. [From A View of the Evidences of Christianity, 1794. See Appendix 2.] There is enough of discrepancy to show that there could have been no previous concert among them; and at the same time such substantial agreement as to show that they all were independent narrators of the same great transaction, as the events actually occurred.
http://www.tektonics.org/harmonize/greenharmony.htm
There are different accounts , but they harmonize.
If Christianity was a big fraud, then then why would the bible even contain different accounts which at fist glance are contradictory. That's a pretty bad conspiracy!
If it was all make believe, don't you think that they would have said something?
You seem to miss the point of a cult. Some of us wonder this very question about the present. Besides, this argument doesn't support you. What about all those other religions? If they were phony, wouldn't somebody have said something when they were being cooked up? At best, that just puts Christianity on equal (equally bad) footing.
Hold on. Are you seriously claiming that because there are contradictions, that is a point in favor of the validity of these accounts?
The Gospels say Jesus performed miracles and rose from the dead. People who lived with Jesus saw these documents. What do you think there reaction have been if it weren't true?
There are no contradictions, there are different retellings of events. That's no great suprise. Ask any witnesses to an event and they'll proabablu see the same event a little differently.
If there was conspiracy, I would think that that were be a vanilla recording of events such that they would all be in lock step.
So are you admitting that the Bible is not the flawless Word of God, but the work of a human sort?
Especially when it was only in Latin
So are you admitting that the Bible is not the flawless Word of God, but the work of a human sort?
The Old Testament was mostly Hebrew and the New Testament Gospels were written in Greek.
I believe what the bible says about itself.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16)
Also, the printing press didn't come in until about the time of the Reformation. Bibles were too precious to let the dung covered masses paw through them.Referring to the Catholic church's past practice. Common people were too stupid to read the Bible, only the priests can interpret it for them.