JESUS’ TOMB DISCOVERY IS TITANIC FRAUD http://www.catholicleague.org/
07..._jesus_tomb.htm
February 26, 2007
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I saw something about this on the news last night. My first reaction was to feel ashamed and embarassed for the idiot newscasters talking about this seriously. But I guess if you get into the TV news business you must know what you're in for.
JD's comment was noted by the big word "If" these bones are those of Jesus.
I just hope the show is in HD. PP you have a few days left to get a HDTV. Circuit City will even ship it free of charge.
RfC, Crossan is sufficiently part of the academic guild and smart enough to cover his rear end by the using the provisional term 'if', but not wise enough to absent himself from being called upon to enter the limelight of publicity to comment on this nonsense on behalf of Cameron. Read Fr. Newman's article -- "Your Faith is Vain, Dr. Crossan."
Hitler seems unfortunately to have been right about one thing: the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it. Call to witness the German play, "The Deputy," by Hochhuth, which falsely maligned and defamed Pope Pius XII's reputation by portraying him as a Nazi sympathizer. Call to witness Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, which most sophomoric young people appear to take for historical fact. Call to witness John Dominic Crossan and the Jesus Seminar and their celebrated fables about the historical Jesus, which broad cross-sections of the American public take for scientific truth. And now call to witness James Cameron's Discovery Channel documentary and its idiotic claim that the bones of Jesus have been discovered!
PP et al,
But on the other hand with Heaven being a spirit state, there also would be no bones there. So where are they??
RfC,
Please consult (1) St. Paul's theology of the glorified body in I Cor. 15 and (2) the tradition of Catholic theological reflection upon this, including (3) the traditional Catholic claim that Jesus is is ascended as to his body (affirmed by St. Athanasias) -- in opposition to the quasi-gnostic view that He is now merely a disembodied spirit.
RfC,
In addition to the above, I would suggest reading the easily accessible book by the English investigative journalist who examined the case of Jesus and changed his mind, Frank Morison's Who Moved the Stone?
"Israel may open 'Jesus tomb' to public
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS AND DAVID HOROVITZ"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Sat...icle%
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"IAA [Israel Antiquities Authority] officials would not comment on whether further such access to the ossuaries would be allowed. The IAA said it had lent out the two ossuaries displayed in New York in the name of "artistic freedom," without endorsing the filmmakers' findings in any way."
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My comment: Poor Athanasius, a member of the Franciscan Order, yet he just does not get it. I thought you were on our side brother? 'Simple'? Strange, ....he really pissed me off. There must be a misunderstanding, or was he was misquoted?
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"Analysis: Christian heresy of the Talpiot tomb?"
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Sat...icle%
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By MATTHEW WAGNER
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Nice to see that the Israel Antiquities Authority supports "artistic freedom". Artistic freedom.....hmmm
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Here is what I was looking for:
"Kloner: A great story, but nonsense
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Sat...icle%
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By DAVID HOROVITZ"
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Never did figure out "glory" Bodies. Hmmm, what then is the Father?? And we know the spirit called the Holy Spirit. Then again raising of spirits is easily done. JP II had Heaven as a spirit state as did Aquinas.
See http://www.faithfutures.org/JDB/...JDB/
jdb017.html, http://www.faithfutures.org/JDB/...JDB/
jdb018.html and
http://www.faithfutures.org/JDB/...JDB/
jdb480.html
I don't believe "glorified" body is found literally in the Bible. One might infer this, however, to make the post resurrection and ascension stories believable.
"I don't believe 'glorified' body is found literally in the Bible."
Read Phil. 3:20-21, I Cor. 15:35-53, and I John 3:2. Jesus has a glorious body, and in the resurrection our bodies will be conformed to His body and will become glorious, i.e., will be "glorified."
You may now quote your divinely-inspired Book of Crossan in order to establish to your own satisfaction (albeit to no one else's) that St. Paul and St. John didn't really write those words.
Jordan,
Actually Professor Crossan spends little time analyzing the question about "glory" bodies since the physical Ascension, according to his analyses and those of many Catholic universitiy theologians, did not take place nor did the apparitions.
In his book, In Search of Paul p. 343, he did address 1 Cor 15: 44-45, "When buried it is the physical body, when it is raised it will be the spiritual body. There is of course the physical body so there has to be a spiritual body. The first man Adam was a created living being but the last Adam is the life-giving Spirit. "
One assumes that a spiritual body or life-giving spirit has no bones.
Of course we could start a discussion about the mythical Adam or the real Adam and his African bones apparently buried in Africa some 60,000 years ago.
And we could start a discussion about Paul's prediction about the imminent second coming as a test of the infallibility of Paul's epistles.
Realist,
Your thinking is so freighted with interpolated Crossanist biases that you can't see the data for what it is. The more problematic is that these Crossanist biases have utterly no scientific warrant but rest on the anti-supernaturalist prejudices of the Enlightenment legacy of 'critical' philosophy (Kantian metaphysical assumptions, inspired by Humean prejudices). Hence, your assumptions: (a) the Ascension simply cannot have happened; (b) a resurrected spiritual body can have no bones; (c) Adam is mythical, meaning non-historical, (d) Adam was African, as opposed to Mesopotamian, etc., etc.
The point is that these are not conclusions of arguments for you, but rather uncritically assumed premises occupying the position of first principles. This not only makes it impossible for you to consider the data of the NT without prejudice -- such as the reports of the bodily resurrected Jesus eating fish with His disciples, being touched in His wounds by Thomas, and yet possessing a body with glorified properties (being able to pass through locked doors, ascend to heaven, etc.; it also makes it difficult, if not impossible, to carry on a real conversation with you. We end up talking past one another, I'm sorry to say.
What would help is if we could begin discussing the Crossanist assumptions and asking why one should believe them. Why should one assume, for example, the universality of cause and effect within a closed system (that is, a 'naturalist' system closed to any supernatural intervention)? On what grounds? On what evidence? On what argument?
PP,
Well lets see what the documentary has to say before we step into the fuzzy world of philosophy and theology. In the meantime, I again recommend reading some of Professor Crossan's books so that his pages of assumptions and arguments can be absorbed. (i.e. "boning up" on the subject 
)
They discovered that tomb in 1980. Yeah....seriously look it up in the news reports. Same crappy story. They're just recycling the news.
James Cameron finally discovered it about 3 years ago. Idiot...
PP,
This movie will sink faster than the Titanic did in Cameron's movie. I haven't heard much about the Da Vinci Code lately...The Opus Dei assassins work quickly and the Vatican's Catherine Medici School of International Espionage has doubled its enrollment...Cameron doesn't know who he is messing with, for 2000 years the Catholic Church has been able to able to overthrow the Roman Empire, establish a One World Order, institute a plan of world domination...to think, it all started with the death of a carpenter from Nazareth, his cronies lying about his resurrection, and then proceeding to launch a New World Order that dominates global politics right to this present day!
And people accuse the Church of concocting and believing in myth!
See Professor Crossan's comments about the discovery on the On Faith blog: 2/28/2007(http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/
onfaith/guestvoices/2007/02/
crosson_bones_and_wounds.html
"One assumes that a spiritual body or life-giving spirit has no bones."
Why would one assume that? Jesus had flesh and bones when He showed Himself to His disciples after His resurrection, so why wouldn't our resurrection bodies have flesh and bones too? Or does God renounce and annihilation His creation that He loves, rather than redeem it?
Jordan,
But did Jesus show his flesh and bones to his disciples? Not according to many NT exegetes. Hallucinations by the NT scribes/apostles and/or competition with the Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Babylonian gods requiring embellished stories are more rational conclusions.
see:275-. The Empty Tomb: (1a) Mark 16:1-8 = Matt 28:1-10 = Luke 24:1-11, (1b) John 20:1,11-18, (1c) Gos. Pet. 11:44; 12:50-13:57;
http://www.faithfutures.org/JDB/...JDB/
jdb275.html
18±. Revealed to Disciples: (1) 1 Cor 15:5b,7b; (2) Matt 28:16-20; (3a) Luke 24:36-39; (3b) John 20:19-21; (4) Ign. Smyrn. 3.2b-3
http://www.faithfutures.org/JDB/...JDB/
jdb018.html
Realist,
Thomas "touched" the wound in his side, it doesn't get much more "real" than that!
"Rationalization" is the key word, if one can "rationalize" some type of mega-psychosis on the part of the countless witnesses of the resurrection mentioned in the NT, maybe others could rationalize your own pseudo-agnostic embellishments to a type of God-complex!
"But did Jesus show his flesh and bones to his disciples?"
His disciples who knew Him personally said He did, and they had no reason to lie and couldn't have been delusional. Then there's the Empty Tomb. Why would the enemies of the early Christians say the disciples stole Jesus' body if Jesus' tomb was both known and known to contain His body?
Think, Bernard! Don't just reflexively quote the Book of Crossan whenever your religious faith is found to conflict with the facts and elementary logic.
The "witnesses" unfortunately did not write the gospels. We are relying on gossip and hearsay twenty years after the crucifixion. And the spiritual resurrection agrees with the "no bones allowed in spirit states" rule of logic.
No, the witnesses did write the Gospels, there is ample inter-textual evidence available in Mark, Matthew and John. Even Harnack commented on the unique Hebraisms found in Matt 16 which had to be linked to a pre-oral tradition first hand source. Also, examine Luke's Gospel and Acts, he says he consulted witnesses and conducted historical research, why should the veracity of his words be doubted? The early parts of his Gospel reflects a women's oral tradition that differs from the rest of his Gospels, again stories collected via historical research, this from Scripture scholars such as Fitzmeyer and Pelikan.
The Gospel of Crossan might be acceptable to some ideologues, but many Scripture scholars also support the views held by the Christian tradition.
"The 'witnesses' unfortunately did not write the gospels."
Two of the witnesses did. The other two were written by men who spoke to the witnesses.
"We are relying on gossip and hearsay twenty years after the crucifixion."
Just two decades after the resurrection. Not a very long time at all -- most of the eyewitnesses would still be alive at that time. That, of course, would help explain why the Gospels are so consistent in their accounts of Jesus and His teachings and actions.
Even apart from special divine assistance, I could tell you what my life was like 20 years ago, no problem. I could tell you about the people I knew back then, and the things we did. You probably can recall your life 20 years ago too. Why, then, do you and unbelievers like you have such difficulty accepting that the disciples could easily have remembered what Jesus said and did a mere two decades earlier?
"And the spiritual resurrection agrees with the 'no bones allowed in spirit states' rule of logic."
You still don't know the difference between an "incorporeal" spirit and a spiritual "corpus." The biblical contrast is between natural body vs. spiritual body, not body vs. spirit. Ah, but I once labored under the same misconception as you back in my docetic heretical days. Your denial of the resurrection disagrees with the "God loves His creation and will keep His promise to redeem it" rule of logic.
Jordan,
If there were so many "witnessed" accounts, there would be only one gospel not four.
And because there are so many differences in these four gospel accounts, we have the likes of Professor Crossan and his fellow NT exegetes in the Jesus Seminar writing books and making conclusions in an attempt to separate the "wheat from the chaff". Their "wheat" does not need "bones" or lack thereof to give the four accounts rational analyses.
Christians divided over film
01/03/2007 09:15 - (SA)
http://www.news24.com/News24/
Ent...2076485,00.html
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Realist,
Do you believe God created us as spirits trapped in bodies? That view eqates to the heresy of Manichaeism. God created as an integrated body (corporeal)and soul (spiritual). After the fall when sin entered the world there was a rupture between God and man, Man and Woman, man and nature, etc...
God does not work by chance. Everything about creation and especially human beings is significant. To propose ideas that have no philosophical, biblical, or historical basis is to propose opinions with no substance. I will pray for you.
An excellent antidote to Crossan is the recently published book by Richard Bauckham: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Chris Trilling has been blogging on this book at some length.
"If there were so many 'witnessed' accounts, there would be only one gospel not four."
Ah, so if there are four or more witnesses to an event, it would only be possible to end up with one eyewitness account of an event? Seems to me that the more eyewitnesses there are, the more eyewitness accounts there could be -- and we all know how eyewitnesses report what they see from various perspectives, and sometimes contradict or seem to contradict each other.
Rational analysis is the one thing Crossan and the Jesus Seminar have never provided. Indeed, due to the veil over their eyes they are incapable of rationally analysing the Gospels.
If there were so many "witnessed" accounts, there would be only one gospel not four.
Then why do we have multiple accounts of what happened on 9/11, the JFK assassination, the Bush election, the Iraqi war, let alone the Jerusalem ossuaries?
PP,
Actually there were more than four accounts but the Church only approved four. http://www.faithfutures.org/Jesu...us/
Crossan1.rtf
And with some accounts, very important events, e.g. the changing of water into wine, it only appears in one, i.e. a single attestation is significant cause of concern with respect to the authencity of said account.349-. Water into Wine: (1) John 2:1-11 http://www.faithfutures.org/JDB/...JDB/
jdb349.html
I am no theologian nor do I understand what one might gain when one attempts 2000 years after the fact 'researching' the validity of various scriptures. Humans like to believe. If one diminishes the mystery one in the end will not have much left to believe in. As a naive lay person I certainly wonder when reading some of the 'findings' why our Lord did not see to it that his message got out in a singular crystal clear voice.
Than again everybody involved in this besides Jesus is a human being with all the known limitations.
The endresult of this confusing bunch of scriptures seems to work out for a lot of people - why mess with it?
There must be some wisdom in the fact that Jesus was able to inspire billions of people.
I am sure while the specifics of our believes will continue to change we human beings will allways find reason to believe in a Creator.
It is in some ways interesting how interested parties find ways to project todays desires into scripture.
Wouldn't it be nice if Jesus was married like most of us?
Wouldn't it be nice if his wife was a apostel of sorts?
Wouldn't it be nice ...
The funny thing is that IMHO one can be assured that some future christianity insprired religion will include all of the above more recent desires.
Continued from above....
I thought about it some more, and reread it. I conclude that poor Athanasius, a member of the Franciscan Order, was mislead, - or what he said was misrepresented by the reporters. I owe this man Athanasius an apology. Very sorry. My mistake.
If anybody cares, I now think he correctly believes that Jesus has Risen from the dead, - so the question he really seemed to be dealing with is, 'from which tomb did Jesus in fact rise'? The Church said Athanasius would not deceive her pilgrims. He said: "We take the Holy Sepulchre seriously because we think it happened there," [...] "If we thought it wasn't there we would have to adjust our attitudes. Catholics try not to mislead their pilgrims."
I doubt he had even heard about the bones (remains) fraudulently/wrongfully said to belong to Jesus! I am not convinced the reporters told the full story, or if he understood them if they did.
That Jesus rose from a different tomb than the Holy Sepulchre contradicts Christian tradition, said the friar. He then adds, "People have not even taken it seriously. Still, we have to wait until all the evidence is in," i.e. we will wait and see what people think, and whether they begin to take reports of a 'new tomb' seriously.
That is all. Thanks!
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Sat...icle%
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So, dare I ask... is anybody going to watch THE LOST TOMB OF JESUS? If yes, why? If no, why? Thanks!
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I am going to watch. Why? 1. Based on all the hype, it should be good reality TV.
2. To get up close and personal with first century ossuaries.
and 3. Because B16 and the Vatican folk will also be watching.
"Seems to me that the more eyewitnesses there are, the more eyewitness accounts there could be -- and we all know how eyewitnesses report what they see from various perspectives, and sometimes contradict or seem to contradict each other."
Matthew and Mark have Jesus appear to the 11 in Galilee. Luke and John 20 have him appear in Jerusalem. None of the four writers was actually there. They are drawing on oral traditions that were formed over the forty to eighty years between easter morning and the time of composition of their accounts. Forced harmonizations of the two traditions are unworkable. Better face up to the complexity of the literary and historical situation. Also it must be recognized that many of the resurrection appearance stories are either spiritual allegories -- Emmaus, Thomas, Jesus and Magdalene, Peter and John at the tomb -- or apologetical compositions -- Jesus eating fish and proving he is not a ghost; the guards at the tomb seeing the grave opened.
“Matthew and Mark have Jesus appear to the 11 in Galilee. Luke and John 20 have him appear in Jerusalem.”
Why couldn’t Jesus have appeared to the 11 in Galilee and also appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem?
“None of the four writers was actually there.”
You have proof they were somewhere else at the time?? Well, call a press conference, produce a Discovery Channel documentary and commission a companion volume!
“They are drawing on oral traditions that were formed over the forty to eighty years between easter morning and the time of composition of their accounts.”
That’s one possibility, although nowhere near the most likely one.
“Forced harmonizations of the two traditions are unworkable.”
Why not? They’ve worked for 2,000 years. How come you don’t think they work any more?
"Why couldn’t Jesus have appeared to the 11 in Galilee and also appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem?"
Because it would not have been possible for the 11 to get to Galilee and back in time for the 2nd encounter with Jesus on Sunday evening. Matt has the first encounter in Galilee, Luke and John have the first encounter in Jerusalem. So while it would of course be possible for Jesus to appear in both places, it is not possible that he did so in a manner that corresponds to the chronology of the actual gospel texts.
“None of the four writers was actually there.”
"You have proof they were somewhere else at the time?? Well, call a press conference, produce a Discovery Channel documentary and commission a companion volume!"
If you believe that Matthew wrote Matthew and John wrote John, you can claim that 2 of the 4 were there. But such a view is not upheld by scriptural scholars today as far as I know.
“They are drawing on oral traditions that were formed over the forty to eighty years between easter morning and the time of composition of their accounts.” "__That’s one possibility, although nowhere near the most likely one."
Have you an argument in support of this claim? Do you think there were written documents? If not, what else can link the easter events and their narration 40 plus years later except oral tradition?
“Forced harmonizations of the two traditions are unworkable.”
"Why not? They’ve worked for 2,000 years. How come you don’t think they work any more?"
So how do they work on the topic of the first appearance of Jesus, for example? In Matt he first appears in Galilee; it would be very off if he already appeared in Jerusalem and said nothing about it -- remember that the women at the tomb are told in both Mark and Matt that the disciples will see Jesus in Galilee. Conversely, Luke 24 and John 2O make no mention of Galilee.
Those ramshackly harmonizations were sustained by a magical idea of how the bible texts were written and by a failure to attend to the literary individuality of the four gospels.
Don't be so silly, Silly, though I wouldn't want to force you to be someone you aren't. But if you spend time reading only books like The Atheist's Arsenal, you shouldn't be surprised that all find are discrepancies in the Bible. On the other hand, if you read within the tradition of more circumspect believing scholars, you find that most of these discrepancies -- far from being ramshackle or forced harmonzations -- are quite easily accounted for. There are all sorts of encyclopedias of Biblical difficulties and discrepancies, if you hunt them down.
RfC,
You wrote: "Actually there were more than four accounts but the Church only approved four."
I know that, and she did so for good reasons which are besides the point right now. The point is that you either missed completely the point of my response.
You had stated: "If there were so many 'witnessed' accounts, there would be only one gospel not four."
To which I responded: "Then why do we have multiple accounts of what happened on 9/11, the JFK assassination, the Bush election, the Iraqi war, let alone the Jerusalem ossuaries?"
My point is that you don't have a sound argument when you state that because there were many witnesses there should be only one gospel account. That doesn't follow. Even if you had four different cameras record an identical event, they would yield different results if the pictures were taken from different vantage points. How much more variation are you going to get with different individuals interpreting a common pool of data and experience. This isn't to say that the variations in their account are irreconcilable. It's only to state that you're inevitably going to have some divergence of perspective and reporting and interpreting. That's not rocket science.
PP,
And why was the changing of water into wine only noted in John's Gospel? Here is one of the great miracles and only John knew about it?
Strangeness amongst other strange single or conflicting attestations in the NT as noted by all contemporary NT exegetes.
Jordan,
Again I recommend Father Ray Brown's Church-approved, 878 page book, An Introduction to the New Testament. He reviews all the available references with respect to the four Gospels and also the epistles in the NT. His summaries of gospel and epistle authorship are quite helpful. You will note that authorship is reviewed from the standpoint of tradition and also detection by content. Most contemporary NT exegetes conclude that authorship by content is the better method i.e. none of the authors were eye witnesses.
"Because it would not have been possible for the 11 to get to Galilee and back in time for the 2nd encounter with Jesus on Sunday evening."
Wouldn't that depend on when Jesus appeared to the disciples in Galilee?
"Matt has the first encounter in Galilee, Luke and John have the first encounter in Jerusalem."
St. Matthew first mentions an encounter in Galilee. Nowhere does he say it was the first. That's just you imposing your own beliefs onto the text instead of reading what it actually says.
"So while it would of course be possible for Jesus to appear in both places, it is not possible that he did so in a manner that corresponds to the chronology of the actual gospel texts."
You mean your opinion of what the chronology was.
"If you believe that Matthew wrote Matthew and John wrote John, you can claim that 2 of the 4 were there. But such a view is not upheld by scriptural scholars today as far as I know."
It's not upheld by many scriptural scholars, but it is upheld by Tradition and Magisterium. Vatican II's dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum affirms it, as did the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1964 in their final binding decree before being reorganised and demoted to a merely advisory panel of experts.
"Have you an argument in support of this claim?"
Yes. The historical record shows that the very, very early belief throughout the entire Church was that the four Gospels were written by Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in that order. St. Irenaeus said St. Matthew's Gospel was published about the time that Saints Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome, which was circa 64-68 A.D. The Fathers also tell us that St. Mark wrote his Gospel in Rome before the death of St. Peter, or perhaps soon after that. That indicates the Synoptics first appeared in the 60s A.D., less than 40 years after the Resurrection.
Of course it's possible the early Fathers were mistaken, but if they were, we have no way to tell when the Gospels were written. Anything but the early tradition is nothing but speculation in the absence of historical evidence. At least with the ancient tradition we have something to go on.
"Do you think there were written documents?"
St. Luke says there were, and it would be very surprising if there were, so yes, I do think there were written "proto-Gospels" prior to the writing of the Synoptics.
"If not, what else can link the easter events and their narration 40 plus years later except oral tradition?"
The living memory of the disciples and eyewitnesses, most of whom were still alive even in 70 A.D. St. John survived until circa 100 A.D., so the only "oral tradition" was that which came from the lips of the apostles and went straight into the ears of the first Christians. That "oral tradition" was then set down in writing in various ways.
"So how do they work on the topic of the first appearance of Jesus, for example? In Matt he first appears in Galilee; it would
"So how do they work on the topic of the first appearance of Jesus, for example? In Matt he first appears in Galilee; it would be very off if he already appeared in Jerusalem and said nothing about it"
Why would it be very off? Why would St. Matthew have to mention each an every detail pertaining to Christ's life? He doesn't even tell the story of Christ's birth -- only St. Luke does that. So why would he have to mention every post-Resurrection apparition of Jesus? Ancient pious tradition says that Jesus' first post-Resurrection appearance was to His own Mother, something the Evangelists never mention. Does that mean it never happened, or couldn't have happened?
"remember that the women at the tomb are told in both Mark and Matt that the disciples will see Jesus in Galilee."
But they are not told that they won't see Jesus until they go to Galilee, so there's no contradiction.
"Conversely, Luke 24 and John 2O make no mention of Galilee."
But they also don't say that the disciples did not later go to Galilee. On the contrary, although St. Luke doesn't mention Galilaean apparitions, St. John does in John 21.
"Those ramshackly harmonizations were sustained by a magical idea of how the bible texts were written and by a failure to attend to the literary individuality of the four gospels."
That "magical idea" would be the infallible doctrine of the Church, wouldn't it? But I suspect by this remark of yours that you aren't willing to treat this matter seriously. It's a snarky, dismissive caricatures, a straw man. You need to deal with actual beliefs of your opponents, not superciliously sneer at them.
"And why was the changing of water into wine only noted in John's Gospel?"
Probably for the same reason that most of the things the Synoptics mention aren't in St. John's Gospel, and most of the things in St. John's Gospel aren't in the Synoptics. As the Muratorian Canon indicates, one of St. John's purposes was to cover ground that the other Evangelists had not.
"Here is one of the great miracles and only John knew about it?"
You're still not thinking clearly, Bernard. How do you know only St. John knew about it? Just because the others didn't mention it doesn't mean they didn't know about it. You are assuming facts not in evidence. Maybe they didn't know about it, maybe they did but didn't mention it for some reason.
"Most contemporary NT exegetes conclude that authorship by content is the better method i.e. none of the authors were eye witnesses."
Again, you're not thinking clearly. If we must restrict ourselves only to internal evidence to determine authorship, then the names and identities of the Gospels' authors must remain forever unknown. That means the authors could have been eyewitnesses, or maybe they weren't. But it also means, judging from internal evidence, that the author of St. John's Gospel was either an eyewitness or a liar for claiming to be something he wasn't.
Anyway, it just doesn't follow that "authorship by content" means the authors weren't eyewitnesses, even IF it were reasonable (it's not) to think that "authorship by content" is necessarily superior to determining authorship by external evidence (i.e. tradition).
On the question of the authorship of the Gospels, that's not a question that can be answered without the Church's help, and the Church says they weren't written by Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Church was there when those Gospels were written, so I trust her when she says they were written by apostles and apostles' disciples. (Hint: a book written by a priest with an imprimatur is not an organ of the Church's Magisterium, no matter how helpful the book may be, and an imprimatur is not infallibly granted, but can be revoked. Imprimaturs are, or can be, helpful guides, but they're not a Mandate from Heaven.)
"if you read within the tradition of more circumspect believing scholars, you find that most of these discrepancies -- far from being ramshackle or forced harmonzations -- are quite easily accounted for. There are all sorts of encyclopedias of Biblical difficulties and discrepancies, if you hunt them down."
So how do they explain the problem?
I mean: how do they make the first appearance to the 11 happen in Galilee (Matt) and in Jerusalem (Luke) when John lists three appearances and counts the appearance at the lake in Galilee as the third (so the one in Matthew would be the fourth); then back to Jerusalem for the other appearances in Luke and the Ascension?
I cannot imagine any harmonization that would not be ramshackly.
"St. Matthew first mentions an encounter in Galilee. Nowhere does he say it was the first."
Jesus says the 11 will see him in Galilee -- very odd indeed if he is going to see them that very evening in Jerusalem; obviously we are not dealing with literal history. Tortured evasion of the plain meaning of these narratives, in defiance of all normal reading of narrative texts, is the staple of harmonizers. Their pathetic labors become necessary when the simple faithful ask questions about the texts, claimed to be literal historical reports. In fact the church kept the Bible out of their hands until recently just to avoid such troublesome questions.
"That "magical idea" would be the infallible doctrine of the Church, wouldn't it?"
Where does the church teach infallibly that the resurrection narratives are literal accounts of actual historical facts?
" But I suspect by this remark of yours that you aren't willing to treat this matter seriously. It's a snarky, dismissive caricatures, a straw man."
Not at all -- it is a real problem -- people have even lost their faith over it. Here is the most important claim of the whole Bible and it is put forward in story form. Take the story literally and you are faced with obvious impossibilities, as well as much that reads like apologetic inventions. Guess we gotta read the story as story or symbol?
" You need to deal with actual beliefs of your opponents, not superciliously sneer at them."
OK, you believe that Matt tells a story excluding the Jerusalem appearances and that Luke tells one excluding the Galilee appearances, in both cases giving the clear impression that the appearances (or rather appearance in Matthew) took place in only that place. Now please learn to respect my opinion as a simple reader of these narratives that they are not telling compatible stories and stop dripping with condescension.
Also, supposing all four gospels were written as early as you claim, why do Lk and Mt follow Mark, who was not one of the 11, slavishly in the first part of their story? Why does Matt give no indication of personal experience of what happened?
Anyway this is a nutty debate since as you both admit no contemporary exegetes take your line.
"I cannot imagine any harmonization that would not be ramshackly."
That may indicate a weakness in your imagination rather than in the evidence provided by the Gospels. I don't see anything ramshackly about harmonising the Gospel accounts as the Church has been doing for almost her entire existence.
"Jesus says the 11 will see him in Galilee -- very odd indeed if he is going to see them that very evening in Jerusalem;"
What's odd about it. "Tell them I am going before them into Galilee." So they know they ought to go to Galilee. But He also appears to them in Jerusalem before they get a chance to leave for Galilee. Does that mean they should think, "Oh, I guess He didn't want us to go to Galilee after all"? Or should they rather think, "He was dead, and now He's alive. He is Lord and God. We'd better do whatever He says and go to Galilee."
"obviously we are not dealing with literal history."
Obvious to you, perhaps, but I don't have any problem accepting what the disciples wrote about what Jesus said and did.
"Tortured evasion of the plain meaning of these narratives, in defiance of all normal reading of narrative texts, is the staple of harmonizers."
So far the only torturing of the meaning I've seen is what you've been doing, claiming that St. Matthew said Jesus first appearance was in Galilee, when all St. Matthew said is that Jesus appeared in Galilee. Deal with what the text actually says, not with what you wish it said to justify your disbelief in the veracity of the Gospel accounts.
"In fact the church kept the Bible out of their hands until recently just to avoid such troublesome questions."
Careful there, Silly, you're living up to your screenname. You've swallowed a classic anti-Catholic trope that, as usual, has little if any basis in historical fact.
"Where does the church teach infallibly that the resurrection narratives are literal accounts of actual historical facts?"
Among many other documents, that doctrine is found in and supported by Vatican II's dogmatic constitution Dei Verbum, the PBC's 1964 decree on the Historicity of the Gospels, and Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Providentissimus Deus.
"Not at all -- it is a real problem -- people have even lost their faith over it."
Those who lose their faith always have some reason, or pretext, or excuse. If not apparent contradictions in Scripture, it would be something else that scandalises them. It's rarely the real reason, though.
"Here is the most important claim of the whole Bible and it is put forward in story form."
No, it's obviously not put forward in story form. It has all the marks of historical narrative and recollection.
"Take the story literally and you are faced with obvious impossibilities,"
Well, it is impossible, of course, for dead men to rise from the dead. That's why it's called a miracle. God can do anything.
"as well as much that reads like apologetic inven
"as well as much that reads like apologetic inventions. Guess we gotta read the story as story or symbol?"
Show me one thing in the Resurrection narratives that truly is irreconcilable with the four accounts, and I might consider that option. I haven't found one yet.
"OK, you believe that Matt tells a story excluding the Jerusalem appearances and that Luke tells one excluding the Galilee appearances, in both cases giving the clear impression that the appearances (or rather appearance in Matthew) took place in only that place."
No, I don't believe they give that clear impression at all. I believe only that St. Matthew omits the Jerusalem apparitions and St. Luke omits the Galilaean apparitions, nothing more. I see nothing in their Gospels to lead me to believe they meant their readers to think Jesus appeared first in Jerusalem and not in Galilee at all, or appeared first in Galilee and not in Jerusalem at all.
"Now please learn to respect my opinion as a simple reader of these narratives that they are not telling compatible stories and stop dripping with condescension."
Find something in their stories that is incompatible.
"Also, supposing all four gospels were written as early as you claim, why do Lk and Mt follow Mark, who was not one of the 11, slavishly in the first part of their story?"
How do we know they follow Mark, instead of Mark following them, or all three following somebody else? How do we *really* know?
"Why does Matt give no indication of personal experience of what happened?"
I don't know. I only know that the lack of indication of personal experience doesn't prove the author had no personal experience. For example, Caesar wrote his Gallic War as if someone else wrote it, yet all acknowledge he is the author even though it lacks all indication of personal experience with the events he recounts. If St. Matthew didn't want to insert himself into the narrative in any way, what's wrong with that?
"Anyway this is a nutty debate since as you both admit no contemporary exegetes take your line."
I admit no such thing, because it's not true. Fr. William Most, Fr. Rene Laurentin, Fr. Jean Carmignac, Fr. John McCarthy, and Fr. Brian Harrison are all contemporary exegetes and Bible scholars who take my line, or a line pretty close to mine.
Jordan,
Please give the names and dates of publication of the books written by Fr. William Most, Fr. Rene Laurentin, Fr. Jean Carmignac, Fr. John McCarthy, and Fr. Brian Harrison. Father Ray Brown does not list any of them in his bibliographic index of ~ 1000 authors in his book, An Introduction to the New Testament. Father Brown's book was published in 1997 ( Imprimatur granted in 1996)so I assume your cited experts have more recent publications.
They published their works both before and after Fr. Brown published his book in 1997, a year before his death. He would never have mentioned any of their publications. He especially held Fr. Laurentin's work in contempt.
By the way, could you tell us the names of the men who granted Fr. Brown's book its imprimatur? I know some monkeybusiness went on with the imprimaturs of The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, and I'm wondering if something similar happened with any Fr. Brown's other books.
I don't have all of the specific bibliographical information on the scholars I mentioned, since I've had access to some of them through the internet. However, the bibliographical information you seek should be at the websites that I mention below:
Among the writings of Fr. Jean Carmignac, there's his paper, "Studies in the Hebrew Background of the Synoptic Gospels," Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute 7 (1968-69), and his book, co-authored by Michael Wrenn, "The Birth of the Synoptics" (Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago, 1987).
A convenient collection of the late Fr. Most's writings is found here:
http://www.catholicculture.org/d.../most/
start.cfm
From Fr. Rene Laurentin, there is "The Truth of Christmas - Beyond the Myths - The Gospels of the Infancy of Christ" (original French edition was titled "Les Evangiles de l'Enfance du Christ. Vérité de Noël au-delà des mythes" (Desclée: Paris, 1982).
Many of the studies of Fr. McCarthy and Fr. Harrison are at the Living Tradition website, here:
http://www.rtforum.org/lt/
Jordan,
For Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat information for Brown's 878 page "An Introduction to the New Testament" see http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/...742#reader-
link - under Table of Contents. You might also want to read some of the other pages available at this Search Inside The Book site.
Do you have references showing that Father Brown held Fr. Laurentin's work in contempt?
Your experts would be considered NT historians? PhD's in what? See http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/...742#reader-
link - under Back Flap for a review of Father Brown's educational background.
Thanks for directing me to the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. None of the monkeybusiness that I was afraid of.
"Do you have references showing that Father Brown held Fr. Laurentin's work in contempt?"
That would come from Msgr. George Kelly, here:
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Peri...0/
Article5.html
I believe Msgr. Kelly also discusses this matter of Fr. Brown and Fr. Laurentin in his book, "The New Biblical Theorists."
I don't know the educational histories of the scholars I've cited, but I think they can be discovered without too much difficulty.
And why was the changing of water into wine only noted in John's Gospel? Here is one of the great miracles and only John knew about it?
Why were the Magi mentioned only in Matthew? Why the story of Jesus being left behind in the temple at age 12 only in Luke? Why the above comment about the Cana miracle only by Realist in this combox and not all the others? Gee, I wonder why. I suppose because these details were those that occurred to them in the telling. At least that's not an answer masking ideological motives like Crossan's.
It is a most amusing sight to behold those contemptuous of the Church's authority in other contexts now appealing to her authority by way of an imprimatur in the late Prof. Ray Brown's book as reason for credibility. Simply amazing!
It is also sad to see those with their minds already made up by way of uncritical acceptance of the results of the results of the German Protestant schools of historical biblical criticism arguing as though they sincerely wanted to weigh evidence to the contrary when their arguments presuppose from the outset what is proper to their conclusions. It's not for lack of evidence that a dialogue fails to move forward unders such circumstances, but for reasons closer to doctrinaire adherence to ideology.
PP,
Please read the amazon.com references I noted to Jordan especially the education and experience of Father Brown listed is his book e.g. Father Brown was the only American appointed by two Popes to the Pontifical Bible Commission and the author of 35 books about the Bible.
The discussion with Jordan was about the authors of the Four Gospels. Father Brown in the referenced book gives an exhaustive review on the subject.
Realist,
I'm well-acquainted with Fr. Brown's work.
PP,
Then you have a copy of his exhaustive review of the NT, i.e An Introduction to the New Testament?
Not of my own, but through our institutional library, yes. Why? Is Brown your Pope? No, I misspeak myself, that position must already be occupied by Crossan. Brown must be Prefect for your CDF, then?
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