Contradictions within the Gospels?

PDN

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

The idea of a Galilean passover celebrated on a different day to that in Jerusalem is entirely speculative with not a shred of evidence in support of it. There was no such thing as a "Jerusalem Passover" and a "Galilean Passover".

It should be noted that the scholar in recent times who was most prominent in pointing out the existence of a Galilean Passover was Professor Julian Morgernstern. As one of the most prominent Jewish rabbis and scholars of his day, he certainly did not conform to Pompous Magnus' strawman of someone trying to harmonise the Gospels because of a misguided belief in the inerrancy of the New Testament.

Also,in the Mishnah, Tractate Pesachim chapter 4 Mishnah 5:

וחכמים אומרים ביהודה היו עושין מלאכה בערבי פסחים עד חצות ובגליל לא היו עושין כל עיקר הלילה בית שמאי אוסרין ובית הלל מתירין עד הנץ החמה

"The sages say in Judah they use to do work on the eve of Passover until noon (work would be permitted until noon on the fourteeth of Nisan), but in Galilee (among Galileans) they would not work at all (on the fourteeth of Nisan). On the evening (after sundown on the thirteenth), the school of Shammai forbade (work), but the school of Hillel permitted it until sunrise."

This is significant. According to the Mishnah (which dates from the First and Second Century AD) Galileans calculated the Passover as commencing at darkness. Therefore their day of preparation would have been on the Thursday - and they would have started their Passover celebrations with a meal after nightfall on that day. This is consistent with what we are told in the Synoptic Gospels.

Judeans, however, calculated the Passover as commencing later, and their day of preparation would have been on the Friday, which is consistent with what we read in John's Gospel.

Pompey Magnus wrote:

not a shred of evidence in support of it

So the Mishnah, and the studies of the President of the Hebrew Union College, don't count as shreds of evidence then?

Pompey Magnus

Festus wrote: »

Who are you talking about?

Josef Pickl in "Messiaskönig Jesus in der auffassung seiner zeitgenossen" (1942)

38,700. Take your pick http://www.google.ie/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Galilean+Passover#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=Galilean+Passover&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=Galilean+Passover&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=e8f59a40fbc345a3

38,700 Christians repeating Mr Pickl's claim does not equal 38,701 sources. Still just one source I'm afraid. Show me a historical source please, and when I say historical I am thinking a little further back than Nazi Germany.

PDN

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

You'd like to see me prove false a speculative suggestion based not on written evidence from historical Jewish sources but rather on the thinking of one German Christian living in the 1940s?

You want to argue that Rabbi Julian Morgernstern, President of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, was really a German Christian?

Oh yes please! I'm just dying to hear your argument on this!

Pompey Magnus

PDN wrote: »

"The sages say in Judah they use to do work on the eve of Passover until noon (work would be permitted until noon on the fourteeth of Nisan), but in Galilee (among Galileans) they would not work at all (on the fourteeth of Nisan). "

This is significant. According to the Mishnah (which dates from the First and Second Century AD) Galileans calculated the Passover as commencing at darkness. Therefore their day of preparation would have been on the Thursday - and they would have started their Passover celebrations with a meal after nightfall on that day. This is consistent with what we are told in the Synoptic Gospels.

Judeans, however, calculated the Passover as commencing later, and their day of preparation would have been on the Friday, which is consistent with what we read in John's Gospel.

You are making this Mishnah say what you want it to say. All it says is that on the Day of Preparation Judeans stopped work at noon whereas Galileans did no work on that day. It says nothing about their being any difference in when they considered the Passover to start.

What I find most interesting is that I have just come across an explanation by H. W. Hoehner which is exactly opposite of yours, that as Galileans followed a sunrise to sunrise timing for Passover and uses this argument to assert their is no contradictions. I have got to compliment you guys, you sure have all your bases covered when exactly opposite claims can be used to "prove" there is no contradiction.

PDN

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

You are making this Mishnah say what you want it to say. All it says is that on the Day of Preparation Judeans stopped work at noon whereas Galileans did no work on that day. It says nothing about their being any difference in when they considered the Passover to start. .

So, try using your brain. If the Galileans could do no work on the Judean Day of Preparation, then they had to have their Day of Preparation on the Thursday instead of the Friday. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out, does it?

What I find most interesting is that I have just come across an explanation by H. W. Hoehner which is exactly opposite of yours, that as Galileans followed a sunrise to sunrise timing for Passover and uses this argument to assert their is no contradictions. I have got to compliment you guys, you sure have all your bases covered when exactly opposite claims can be used to "prove" there is no contradiction

Well I disagree with Hoehner, but if you want to listen to him then that adds another plausible explanation, dooesn't it. So that makes it even less of a contradiction.

Fanny Cradock

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

What I find most interesting is that I have just come across an explanation by H. W. Hoehner which is exactly opposite of yours, that as Galileans followed a sunrise to sunrise timing for Passover and uses this argument to assert their is no contradictions. I have got to compliment you guys, you sure have all your bases covered when exactly opposite claims can be used to "prove" there is no contradiction.

Then there is another possible explanation for you. But, no, to you there exists no other possible explanation other than contradiction.

philologos

Pompey Magnus - I gotta give it to you! If something doesn't look like a contradiction, use an external belief (that nothing exists apart from what is material) to make it one.

Soul Winner

Apparent differences in the Gospel accounts.

A diamond is not a diamond unless it has all the facets that make a it a diamond. Hardness, weight, transparency are just a few of them, there are others. Defining the Messiah is very similar. The four accounts of the life, ministry and death of Jesus paint four pictures of the Messiah as He was prophesied about in the Old Testament. On the entrance to the Old Testament Tabernacle you had different colored veils stretching from top to bottom. Purple, Red, White and Blue. Purple being the color of royalty. Red the color of the blood of the sacrifice. White the color of perfection and blue the color of eternity.

Now notice how each of the gospel writers go about portraying Jesus.

Matthew starts out recording the genealogy of Jesus, tracing His lineage back through King David who was of the line of Judah, the line which God promise the scepter and right to rule would never depart from. - Purple

Then we have Mark, who, more than any other gospel records the sufferings of Jesus in His passion. Red

Luke portrays Jesus as the perfect servant. - White

And John starts out by showing the eternal nature of Jesus as the Logos who was always facing the God from the beginning. Blue

These are not contradictions. They are all simply describing the various facets of the nature of the Messiah. Do you think they all colluded together in order to mix this truth into their accounts on purpose? Do you think that they were that clever? I find it hard to believe that these relatively simple men (well Mark and John anyway) could have contrived to produce such a vivid picture by purposely focusing on one particular facet of the nature of Christ beforehand. How could they have contrived together to paint an overall picture of Christ throughout all their gospels in this way? I doubt they were sufficiently familiar with the teaching of the Tabernacle to be able to purposefully do so. They don't even mention the Tabernacle in any of their accounts.

Festus

Atheism etymological analysis

greek "theos" = God

greek "a" = without

therefore

greek 'atheos' = without God.

Implies - God exists

Bonus points: Spot the contradiction

corollory

God is the author of the Bible.

who is the author of atheism?

If God authored the Bible then he who is without God authored atheism.

conclusion. Atheism is contradiction

+

Pompey Magnus

PDN wrote: »

So, try using your brain. If the Galileans could do no work on the Judean Day of Preparation, then they had to have their Day of Preparation on the Thursday instead of the Friday. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work that out, does it?

It might not take a rocket scientist but at the same time it must take a special kind of theologian as this claim does not seem to widely accepted even among your own side, for instance R.T France (a scholar you brought up for your side yesterday, now its his turn to be called for the prosecution) dismisses the claims of Morgenstern by pointing out that a standardised timing of sunset to sunset had been introduced between Judeans and Galileans long before the first century. Had the crucifixion occurred a few hundred years BC then this argument might have stood up but its not very credible in 30AD.

Just to be clear, is the point you are trying to make that you regard the act of having the Passover lamb sacrificed and doing the other preparations for the Passover as having been considered "work", and therefore Galileans would have to have their Preparations done the day before whilst Judeans had only until to noon to get their Preparation ready?

Anyway as I said you are making it say something that the text itself does not say. It simply deals with attitudes to work on the Day of Preparation. There is nothing in it suggesting different timings for Passover. Its wording also simply says "in Judah" and "in Galilee" (the "among Galileans" was added by the author of this post that I am guessing you took the quotation from), during the Passover Jesus was "in Judah".

Well I disagree with Hoehner, but if you want to listen to him then that adds another plausible explanation, dooesn't it. So that makes it even less of a contradiction.

There is no such thing as degrees of a contradiction, two statements either do or do not contract one another, there is no such thing as another explanation making the statements "less of a contradiction".

PDN

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

It might not take a rocket scientist but at the same time it must take a special kind of theologian as this claim does not seem to widely accepted even among your own side, for instance R.T France (a scholar you brought up for your side yesterday, now its his turn to be called for the prosecution) dismisses the claims of Morgenstern by pointing out that a standardised timing of sunset to sunset had been introduced between Judeans and Galileans long before the first century. Had the crucifixion occurred a few hundred years BC then this argument might have stood up but its not very credible in 30AD.

What do you mean by "my own side"? By using that phrase you have inadvertantly betrayed your own agenda. In exploring what happened in the past, whether we are talking about the Bible or about any other text or event, the aim should be to find what really happened - not to score points against 'the other side'.

So, I am in a position where I can see a number of plausible explanations as to why the Synpotics wrote what they did and why John wrote what he did. These options include:
a) Jesus celebrated a Passover meal a day early with His disciples because He knew He would be otherwise engaged in saving the world the next day.
b) Jesus and His disciples observed the Passover a day earlier than the Judeans because the Galileans calculated days differently.
c) The meal that Jesus ate with His disciples was not the actual Passover meal, but rather the first meal of the festival of Unleavened Bread.
d) Either John or the Synoptics got it wrong.

So, I am quite happy to discuss the ins and outs of these various positions. Dick France holds one view about how days were reckoned, but the Mishnah holds a different view. Neither of these are conclusive, but they are what makes theology interesting.

But, and this is where you dig yourself into a hole. Your anti-Christian agenda in this forum compels you to pursue one option only - option d. So, while your agenda means you have a 'side' - I don't. So it is incorrect to say that Dick France is 'on my side' or on some other side.

There is no such thing as degrees of a contradiction, two statements either do or do not contract one another, there is no such thing as another explanation making the statements "less of a contradiction".

That would be true in the normal world that most of us inhabit and the normal use of language. A contradiction is where no plausible explanation exists other than that two statements are mutually contradictory.

However, once you chose to involve yourself in this thread we jumped the shark and entered the weird world of Atheism and Agnosticism where, a la Alice in Wonderland, language is redefined to mean whatever you guys want them to mean. So now a 'contradiction' loses its objective meaning, and is redefined to mean, "Two statements which, while plausible explanations exists as to how they can both be true, are deemed to be a contradiction because an atheist, following a polemical agenda, arbitrarily deems a contradiction to be more likely."

So, I was accomodating my language to Atheism's own mushy subjective definition of a 'contradiction' - and in that case the more options you have the less likely it is that any one of them is true.

So, I can see four plausible explanations for the way the Synoptics and John speak differently of the Passover. One of them would involve a contradiction, three of them don't. Therefore, without holding any one of these options dogmatically, I can say that I don't think a contradiction exists. You, however, in order to argue that a contradiction exists, have to dogmatically assert one option, and one only. And I don't think a single person reading this thread will genuinely believe that you reached that point through any motive other than ideology.

Pompey Magnus

PDN wrote: »

These options include:
a) Jesus celebrated a Passover meal a day early with His disciples because He knew He would be otherwise engaged in saving the world the next day.

Not just one problem but two with this one:

(1) It was said to be on the day the lambs for the passover meal were killed. Not "It was the day before the lambs for the passover were to be killed but Jesus made an exception for his particular lamb because he would be otherwise engaged in saving the world the next day."

(2) It was the disciples who came to Jesus to ask where they would prepare the Passover. Did they know that Jesus would be "otherwise engaged in saving the world the next day" and therefore suggested having the Passover earlier than usual? Or maybe they just collectively forgot what day it was?

b) Jesus and His disciples observed the Passover a day earlier than the Judeans because the Galileans calculated days differently.

They didn't. I repeat that the Mishnah does not say this and you are making a massively unjustified extrapolation to the text to suggest otherwise.

I will repeat my question that I asked in my last post that would be most helpful if you would address:

"Just to be clear, is the point you are trying to make that you regard the act of having the Passover lamb sacrificed and doing the other preparations for the Passover as having been considered "work", and therefore Galileans would have to have their Preparations done the day before whilst Judeans had only until to noon to get their Preparation ready?"

c) The meal that Jesus ate with His disciples was not the actual Passover meal, but rather the first meal of the festival of Unleavened Bread.

The meal is specifically called "the Passover meal" in three Gospels.

Now I am no expert in Koine Greek and I am fully open to correction on this but I believe that it only has the definite article, so if a meal is described as "the Passover meal" it actually means the Passover meal as the listener/reader would understand it and would not be used to refer to any meal over the Passover festival. But as I say this is just based on my small knowledge of Ancient Greek so I am not attributing massive importance behind this point as I may well be wrong.

philologos

Festus - Although I see the logic in your point. Most atheists do not call themselves atheos. Rather they would say that they are atheists. Theism being the conviction that a personal God exists. Therefore atheism would be the lack of a conviction that a personal God exists rather than without God.

PDN

Pompey Magnus wrote: »

Not just one problem but two with this one:

(1) It was said to be on the day the lambs for the passover meal were killed. Not "It was the day before the lambs for the passover were to be killed but Jesus made an exception for his particular lamb because he would be otherwise engaged in saving the world the next day."

If RT France is correct, then it was standard practice for the Jews to calculate a day as running from sunset to sunset. So, the day on which Jesus ate the meal with the disciples (being after sunset) was the same day as the one when the lambs would be sacrificed (what we would think of, with our strange habit of measuring a day as beginning at midnight, as the next afternoon.

In that case the Last Supper on Thursday night, by Jewish reckoning, occurred on the same day that the lambs were slaughtered, with the Passover meal itself taking place after sunset on Friday night.

(2) It was the disciples who came to Jesus to ask where they would prepare the Passover. Did they know that Jesus would be "otherwise engaged in saving the world the next day" and therefore suggested having the Passover earlier than usual? Or maybe they just collectively forgot what day it was?

Yes, of course the disciples knew what Jesus would be doing on Friday. Matthew 26:2 records that Jesus had told them that on the Wednesday.

If you read Luke 22:7-9 you will see that the reason why the disciples came to ask where they would prepare the Passover was because Jesus had already told Peter and John to make the preparations. See what happened there? You were so busy trying to find a contradiction between the Gospels that you missed out on where we get a fuller picture by comparing them!

They didn't. I repeat that the Mishnah does not say this and you are making a massively unjustified extrapolation to the text to suggest otherwise.

Unfortunately your repetition of your opinion does not make it any more valid than it was the first time.

"Just to be clear, is the point you are trying to make that you regard the act of having the Passover lamb sacrificed and doing the other preparations for the Passover as having been considered "work", and therefore Galileans would have to have their Preparations done the day before whilst Judeans had only until to noon to get their Preparation ready?

I'm not arguing it dogmatically because, unlike you, I am not ideologically committed to any particular option in this debate.

But, if Professor Morgernstern was correct, and the Galileans calculated the commencement of the Passover Day differently from Judeans, then, yes, that would probably have affected the time slots in which they could carry out preparations without breaching the command that forbade them to work.

Morgernstern as a (Reformed) Jew was immune to the belief among many Christians that Judaism has one rigid set of rituals with no regional variations.

The meal is specifically called "the Passover meal" in three Gospels.

Now I am no expert in Koine Greek and I am fully open to correction on this but I believe that it only has the definite article, so if a meal is described as "the Passover meal" it actually means the Passover meal as the listener/reader would understand it and would not be used to refer to any meal over the Passover festival. But as I say this is just based on my small knowledge of Ancient Greek so I am not attributing massive importance behind this point as I may well be wrong.

I think you are wrong. At no point is it called 'the Passover meal' - it is simply called 'The Passover' (ta pascha). This word was often used to apply to the entire Passover festival with its range of meals.

In a similar way, my wife's relatives will say they are coming to my house "for Christmas". We understand this to mean that her parents and her sister's family will arrive early on Christmas Eve, we all eat the traditional vegetable soup on the evening of the 24th, and that they will be with us all Christmas Day andon St Stephens Day also. However, for her brother's family - coming to us "for Christmas" means they arrive late afternoon on the 25th (having had lunch with his wife's parents). Nobody sees any contradiction in using 'Christmas' as a generic term for different ddays during the whole holiday season.

Festus

Jakkass wrote: »

Festus - Although I see the logic in your point. Most atheists do not call themselves atheos. Rather they would say that they are atheists. Theism being the conviction that a personal God exists. Therefore atheism would be the lack of a conviction that a personal God exists rather than without God.

It is because of the logic that most atheists use a redefinition that suits themselves to avoid the inherent contradiction.
The argument is not what they call themselves but their origins. That they call themselves something that denies their origins is the first law of atheism.
Or in other words, the first law of contradiction.