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The census of Quirinius is a full blown brain teaser that falls between...having a very tiny window of explanation that would require a future discovery to vindicate, and being a flat out mistake by Luke (who has a pretty good record of being vindicated by archaeology). Quid est Veritas created a great threat on this issue.
Ancient Greco Roman biographical genre being used as a reason to go nuts with accusations of mistakes is another matter. It actually did not impose chronological order, or even geographical coherence constraints on the authors. They were extremely theme based. You can have Jesus saying/doing such & such in Judea, and in the very next verse or section (without a narrated segue) the theme moves right along with Jesus saying/doing such & such in Galilee. But the major take away is that this was NOT a violation.
Now you make Jesus the hero of the story and the sky becomes the limit on how many possible theme angles each gospel writer could have had in mind when they attacked the subject matter. Jesus as the regal descendant of David, Jesus as the bloodline descendant of David, Jesus as suffering Messiah, Jesus as conquering Messiah, Jesus as the servant Messiah, Jesus as King of the future world, Jesus as prophet, etc. ‘King of the Jews’ was more of a title the author would attatch to the viewpoint of non-Jews. Jeez so now the theme possibilities have increased even more, which pair of eyes is ‘This’ particular reference assuming in this particular situation. And then on top of that each gospel writer played with and mixed up themes like crazy.
Matthew scholars constantly point out that it seems like his audience was more skilled with their understanding of OT scripture and that it seems like he actually adds ‘Bonus points’ of OT allusions all over the place for people to pick up on. There are so many possible lines of reference for a man/God that fulfilled prophecies that to an extent we are stuck with this word ‘Seems.’ It is too complex to totally nail down the theme, the themes ‘Seem’ to be mixtures too as I already said. Mark will rarely hit a certain theme whereas Matthew is heavy on that theme, and vice versa, yet both of them touch on it.
All 3 synoptics ‘Seem’ to have the same main skeleton of geographic structure to them and based on Jewish feativals they make no chronological sense in how they seem to be stuffed into what ‘Seems’ like a 1 year ministry. Only John’s 3 year ministry actually adds up and makes sense. But again these are not violations to their genre, they are violations to ours.
Matthew is constantly in hot water by skeptics with his loose allusions to his ‘Seemingly’ apt Jewish audience. Suppose my neighbor for whatever the reason had a shoot out with the local police, suppose he fought them off well and then there was a temporary cease fire and there was a window of dead silence. Suppose I then yelled out at him “Remember the Alamo!!!” It ‘Seems’ that Matthew constantly had such a style of loose allusions to events long past. The same skeptics would not be jumping up & down at me blasting me for my ignorance that this has absolutely nothing to do with the Alamo.
And the gulph between what the Christian and the non-Christian considers to be a violation becomes even greater when you have Christians telling you that prophecies were often multi layered where part of the prophecy may occur immediately, part of it may occur 200 hundred years later, and yet again part of it remains to be played out in the future. Think about ‘The abomination of desolation.’ Well this simply becomes historical lunacy to the non-Christian!! The amount of historical meeting points that there are for the Christian & non-Christian to meet has limits.
Using your logical side to confirm the credibility of the basic skeleton outline of Biblical truth...to then justify a bridge of faith to dig deeper into it is necessary. But when these deeper levels of explanations enters into the Christian vs non-Christian debate the dialogue becomes a train wreck of disagreement lol. Tell a non-Christian that a prophecy was BOTH for the time of Isaiah and for the time of Jesus and they start looking at you like you’re crazy ha.
Ancient Greco Roman biographical genre being used as a reason to go nuts with accusations of mistakes is another matter. It actually did not impose chronological order, or even geographical coherence constraints on the authors. They were extremely theme based. You can have Jesus saying/doing such & such in Judea, and in the very next verse or section (without a narrated segue) the theme moves right along with Jesus saying/doing such & such in Galilee. But the major take away is that this was NOT a violation.
Now you make Jesus the hero of the story and the sky becomes the limit on how many possible theme angles each gospel writer could have had in mind when they attacked the subject matter. Jesus as the regal descendant of David, Jesus as the bloodline descendant of David, Jesus as suffering Messiah, Jesus as conquering Messiah, Jesus as the servant Messiah, Jesus as King of the future world, Jesus as prophet, etc. ‘King of the Jews’ was more of a title the author would attatch to the viewpoint of non-Jews. Jeez so now the theme possibilities have increased even more, which pair of eyes is ‘This’ particular reference assuming in this particular situation. And then on top of that each gospel writer played with and mixed up themes like crazy.
Matthew scholars constantly point out that it seems like his audience was more skilled with their understanding of OT scripture and that it seems like he actually adds ‘Bonus points’ of OT allusions all over the place for people to pick up on. There are so many possible lines of reference for a man/God that fulfilled prophecies that to an extent we are stuck with this word ‘Seems.’ It is too complex to totally nail down the theme, the themes ‘Seem’ to be mixtures too as I already said. Mark will rarely hit a certain theme whereas Matthew is heavy on that theme, and vice versa, yet both of them touch on it.
All 3 synoptics ‘Seem’ to have the same main skeleton of geographic structure to them and based on Jewish feativals they make no chronological sense in how they seem to be stuffed into what ‘Seems’ like a 1 year ministry. Only John’s 3 year ministry actually adds up and makes sense. But again these are not violations to their genre, they are violations to ours.
Matthew is constantly in hot water by skeptics with his loose allusions to his ‘Seemingly’ apt Jewish audience. Suppose my neighbor for whatever the reason had a shoot out with the local police, suppose he fought them off well and then there was a temporary cease fire and there was a window of dead silence. Suppose I then yelled out at him “Remember the Alamo!!!” It ‘Seems’ that Matthew constantly had such a style of loose allusions to events long past. The same skeptics would not be jumping up & down at me blasting me for my ignorance that this has absolutely nothing to do with the Alamo.
And the gulph between what the Christian and the non-Christian considers to be a violation becomes even greater when you have Christians telling you that prophecies were often multi layered where part of the prophecy may occur immediately, part of it may occur 200 hundred years later, and yet again part of it remains to be played out in the future. Think about ‘The abomination of desolation.’ Well this simply becomes historical lunacy to the non-Christian!! The amount of historical meeting points that there are for the Christian & non-Christian to meet has limits.
Using your logical side to confirm the credibility of the basic skeleton outline of Biblical truth...to then justify a bridge of faith to dig deeper into it is necessary. But when these deeper levels of explanations enters into the Christian vs non-Christian debate the dialogue becomes a train wreck of disagreement lol. Tell a non-Christian that a prophecy was BOTH for the time of Isaiah and for the time of Jesus and they start looking at you like you’re crazy ha.
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