Did You Chew the Head off of the Bunny?

Notedstrangeperson said:

Somehow I still doubt he could have written his Gospel after he died. I know the Bible talks about miracles but still.

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I'm pretty sure you understand that he would've written the Gospel before he died -- the dates you mentioned allow for that possibility.

The argument that the Jews intentionally wouldn't have bothered writing about the destruction of the temple is incorrect because one of the eyewitness accounts we have comes from Titus Flavius Josephus - a Roman Jew. Or to use the 9/11 comparison - nobody needed to be told, but did that stop the newspapers running it as their cover story the next day?

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Fair enough -- if we consider the Gospels to be on the same level of TItus Flavius Josephus' accounts -- a "newspaper" of the time.

I suspect the authors had different goals.

You're also incorrectly assuming the New Testament writers were writing exclusively for other Jews - they weren't. One of the reason they caused such a stir was because they were inviting gentiles into their religion. The Galatians for example were celts, not semites.

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Not exclusively, but primarily. Jesus was a Jew, the Gospel writers were Jews (Luke may be the exception, but he strikes me as most likely a convert), and their target audience were mostly Jews.

Besides, it's not like the destruction of the Temple was a big secret, was it?

Well yes, that is the entire point of a prophecy. A prophecy which doesn't happen isn't a prophecy.

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Again, not if the event is already common knowledge.

AV1611VET said:

Fair enough -- I'll leave you to your own level of understanding as to what happened.

Just don't expect me to lower myself down to it as well.

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And don't expect me to wear your ignorance like a badge.

TLK Valentine said:

Not exclusively, but primarily. Jesus was a Jew, the Gospel writers were Jews (Luke may be the exception, but he strikes me as most likely a convert), and their target audience were mostly Jews.

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True, but when you look at the letters from Paul many of the people he wrote to were gentiles:

• Romans
• Corinthians (either Greek or Turkish)
• Galatians (Gauls, french celts, living in Turkey)
• Thessalonians (Greek)
• Ephesians (Greek / Roman / Turkish)
• Phillippians (Greek)
• Colossians (Turkish)

TLK Valentine said:

Fair enough -- if we consider the Gospels to be on the same level of TItus Flavius Josephus' accounts -- a "newspaper" of the time.

I suspect the authors had different goals.
...
Besides, it's not like the destruction of the Temple was a big secret, was it?
...
Again, not if the event is already common knowledge.

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To be blunt, I think you're grasping at straws here. You're arguing that somebody added Jesus' prophecy after the destruction of the temple, but that this same somebody never bothered to mention the temples destruction itself because everybody knew about it anyway - despite the fact one of the first people to write about the fall of the temple was himself a Jew. These are closer to conspiracy theories than actual scholarship.

Arguing that Acts was written around 70 AD would mean you're not just be disagreeing with wannabe internet sleuths like me, but genuine NT historians: A.T. Robertson dates Acts to around 64 AD. James Luther Mays dates Acts even earlier, to between 55-59 AD.

TLK Valentine said:

Not exclusively, but primarily. Jesus was a Jew, the Gospel writers were Jews (Luke may be the exception, but he strikes me as most likely a convert), and their target audience were mostly Jews.

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If I remember my basic doctrine correctly, we put it this way:

Matthew wrote primarily to the Jews, presented Jesus as the Messiah, and thus salted his Gospel with fulfillments of prophecy.

Mark wrote primarly to the Romans, presented Jesus as a Servant, and thus salted his Gospel with words like immediately, straightway, and anon.

Luke wrote primarily to the Greeks, presented Jesus as the Perfect Man, and salted his Gospel with the phrase son of Man.

John wrote primarily to [can't recall], and presented Jesus as God.

Josh McDowell points out that, in the synoptic Gospels:

Where Matthew & Mark agree, Luke is silent.
Where Mark & Luke agree, Matthew is silent.
Where Matthew & Luke agree, Mark is silent.

There are some exceptions, as when Jesus fed the 5000.

Notedstrangeperson said:

True, but when you look at the letters from Paul many of the people he wrote to were gentiles:

• Romans
• Corinthians (either Greek or Turkish)
• Galatians (Gauls, french celts, living in Turkey)
• Thessalonians (Greek)
• Ephesians (Greek / Roman / Turkish)
• Phillippians (Greek)
• Colossians (Turkish)

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Quite so -- and I'll admit, I was looking at this from the wrong angle -- The Jews aren't the only ones who would be well aware of what the Romans did -- the news of it would spread throughout the Roman empire as well.

To be blunt, I think you're grasping at straws here. You're arguing that somebody added Jesus' prophecy after the destruction of the temple, but that this same somebody never bothered to mention the temples destruction itself because everybody knew about it anyway - despite the fact one of the first people to write about the fall of the temple was himself a Jew. These are closer to conspiracy theories than actual scholarship.

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And yet we're using an omission of an event (an important event, granted) to date it earlier. Granted, I am going out into left field on this -- but I think there might be a somewhat less than divine source for the prophecies. But you have shown me that, as I said before, I've been going in the wrong direction on this one.

Arguing that Acts was written around 70 AD would mean you're not just be disagreeing with wannabe internet sleuths like me, but genuine NT historians: A.T. Robertson dates Acts to around 64 AD. James Luther Mays dates Acts even earlier, to between 55-59 AD.

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And I've heard dates that stretch from the 60s as far back as AD 100 and later -- though even I admit that's pushing it. Mid 60s actually works pretty well -- by then the anti-Roman sentiment would be brewing, (and would break into open revolt in 66), and one need not be a prophet to predict that would end badly for the Hebrews.

AV1611VET said:

If I remember my basic doctrine correctly, we put it this way:

Matthew wrote primarily to the Jews, presented Jesus as the Messiah, and thus salted his Gospel with fulfillments of prophecy.

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Which he did by carefully wrapping the Jesus story with Old Testament references, characyters, and themes.

Mark wrote primarly to the Romans, presented Jesus as a Servant, and thus salted his Gospel with words like immediately, straightway, and anon.

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Hadn't heard too much about Mark's intended audience -- but the textual evidence is clear that his was the first of the four Gospels. (Were the words you mentioned in the original text, or parts of James' 1611 translations?)

Luke wrote primarily to the Greeks, presented Jesus as the Perfect Man, and salted his Gospel with the phrase son of Man.

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Luke was, most likely, a Hellenized Jew, probably a convert, writing to other Hellenized Jews who were, both physically and culturally, distanced from the more orthodox Judaism presented in Matthew.

John wrote primarily to [can't recall], and presented Jesus as God.

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John is an interesting case because at the time of the other Gospels, Christianity was still considered a subsect or offshoot of Judaism -- John's comes in, IIRC, after the split.

Josh McDowell points out that, in the synoptic Gospels:

Where Matthew & Mark agree, Luke is silent.
Where Mark & Luke agree, Matthew is silent.
Where Matthew & Luke agree, Mark is silent.

There are some exceptions, as when Jesus fed the 5000.

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It's a little more complicated than that, I think.

Notedstrangeperson said:

Arguing that Acts was written around 70 AD would mean you're not just be disagreeing with wannabe internet sleuths like me, but genuine NT historians: A.T. Robertson dates Acts to around 64 AD. James Luther Mays dates Acts even earlier, to between 55-59 AD.

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To be fair, there are also scholars who date Acts to 70+AD.