It’s easy? Who cares if scholars agree that Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke?
Who cares? Those who want to be informed, I presume.
I understand that the ending verses in Mark are later additions. I see this more as a credit towards Biblical textual criticism giving us accuracy for Biblical transmission then I see it as a conclusion of unreliability.
Why?
I have been over the ending of Mark MINUS the interpolation 1000 times and I’m at a complete loss at how people do not see that it results in the resurrection of Jesus.
Of course Jesus is resurrected in the original ending of Mark. The "angel" literally said so. Did you read what I said?
Insisting that you don’t see it hardly creates an argument for me that it is not there. You are free to not understand that moon phases reflect angles of circular sunlight, but your confusion would hardly convince me of a flat Earth. You being historically obtuse is not an argument!
Let me spell this out for you again.
Matthew and Luke often copy Mark word for word. Mark did not describe Christ's birth or ancestry, and the original version did not describe the events after the resurrection. Matthew and Luke, lacking a source for these parts of the gospel, seem to have invented their own versions. Their versions are not only worded differently but are obviously contradictory of one another.
You said it yourself. The resurrection is in the original version. Matthew and Luke leaned on creativity to continue the story in their own divergent ways.
Please just read what I'm saying. Don't read into it. Don't read a bias into it. Just read what I'm saying.
You do know the difference between cultures with oral tradition and cultures that revolve around Amazon.com right? Naturally in a culture of oral tradition Matthew or Luke would not feel obliged to add to documented perspectives that have already been articulated from Mark unless there were different focal points that they wished to highlight, most likely later on.
Yet they copied Mark word for word all over the place. Perhaps you should rethink what you just said.
Who cares if Mark was followed up??
Matthew and Luke invented their own versions of the resurrection because the story ended abruptly in Mark, and then someone else later on added their own ending to Mark. In fact, there are several different endings to Mark. Who cares indeed! The resurrection is not historically reliable.
You really need to pull yourself out of your 21st century blinders! First century Israel was more about stories around the campfire with strict rules of oral communication than it was about written texts.
The authors of the gospels were very highly educated. They weren't illiterate fisherman or thuggish tax collectors.
It’s a rather complex mixture of ancient literary styles along with theological truths designed to explain different perspectives, more than it’s meant to oppose Mark. Superficial ‘Contradictions’ of the passion story have a long history of being explained with theological/literary reasoning.
Those are all things that we would literally attempt to ignore and read around when interpreting a historical document.
Personally, when I encounter a historical document that says something like, "King Ramses' army fled in terror from the battlefield, so Ramses killed 25000 men by himself" I read around the propaganda.
You can’t just say “Because I don’t get it it’s a contradiction.” There were variations of the written gospels that came about through time, so what? It’s similar to an American not feeling the need to regurgitate an already existent text, but to instead hit it from a different angle later on. You can’t just sum up an original point of view as being a fabricated exaggeration. It’s as if ignorance to Jewish literary practices is a license launch attacks on it, instead of better trying to grasp it.
And do you really engage Islamic works with this much dedication? Buddhist works? I think not. I need apologists to answer me directly, but instead you're just ranting and raving and beating around the bush. You didn't even seem to have read what I said!
How is BELIEF in the resurrection irrational, when historically speaking belief in the resurrection of a failed Messiah named Jesus is precisely the historical argument that argues for its accuracy?
Because it's not historical. That's the point. The absolute most I can accept is the original manuscript of Mark. Matthew and Luke literally added fan fiction. Historically speaking, this is absolutely irrefutable. Please acknowledge so.
Now, with regard to the original manuscript of Mark, all we have is an "angel" telling people that Jesus rose from the dead. Is that enough to conclude that Jesus was most probably risen? No! That would be insane.
That orthodox 1st century Jews believed that an executed false Messiah named Jesus was God is total blasphemy according to their own belief, and in their eyes such a belief was totally irrational. The Christian argument is that only something as drastic as a resurrection could vindicate such grandiose claims.
The orthodox ancient Indians believed that we are all reincarnated when we die. To believe that an enlightened one could end the cycle of birth and rebirth is total blasphemy according to their own belief, and in their eyes such a belief was totally irrational. The Buddhist argument is that only something as drastic as the end of reincarnation could vindicate such grandiose claims.
Want me to do Islam as well? Similar things could be said about Muhammad (feces be upon him). Oh, and Mormonism. Joseph Smith started a blasphemous religion that is still going to this day.
By definition a crucified person who claimed to be the Messiah in 1st century Israel was a false prophet. Do you see the logical conundrum in Jesus succeeding, short of there literally being a resurrection to vindicate Him? You couldn’t be the promised Messiah if you were executed and dead, that made no logical sense FROM THEIR PERSPECTIVE (please pull yourself out of your perspective to see clearly!).
The gospels were written after the Jewish religion had been shattered. The temple was destroyed and the Jews were already in captivity. The Jews literally believed that God inhabited the temple, and it was destroyed for all to see. And yet you'd have me believe that the messiah couldn't have been crucified. I find that to be very odd.
Psychologically, I must be different than most people. When I was a Christian, I had the tacit understanding that "Yep, praise God and etc., but if we find out this is all false then we're dropping it. Right? Right guys? Anyone...?" Ape minds apparently don't usually work that way. Most of you cling to beliefs that you
know are false.
I came to understand this when watching a particular episode of Star Trek. I won't attempt to spell names, so I'll refer to characters X and Y. X was clinically dead for over 24 hours and was revived with Borg technology. He was extremely distraught to learn he'd been dead for so long because he saw nothing, when he should've been experiencing his afterlife. He started to lose his faith, but then Y astonishingly said, "This can lead to an even stronger faith." No one laughed or ridiculed him for saying it. Apparently this is how apes think.
So when the temple of God was destroyed, it led to an even stronger faith for the Jews. They do remain to this day, after all. I don't see why the crucifixion of the messiah is any different.
Ironically this evolutionary love affair that you have of Mark...to Matthew...to Luke...to John completely undermines the love affair that most Bible bashers have with their bogus 30 year time gap obsession that they love to insist upon between Jesus’ resurrection and the Jewish belief in that resurrection.
Bogus 30 year gap?
Ok, fact check time. I need to know whom I'm talking to.
What is the age of the universe? What is the age of earth? Is earth flat or spherical? Do we share a common ancestry with all life on earth?
These are not sarcastic questions.
You completely throw out lag times that would naturally exist for cultures of oral traditions between events, and the written transmissions of such event. Very convenient! So BY YOUR OWN ADMISSION OF EVOLUTION BETWEEN GOSPELS you undermine your strict 30 year argument. Which one is it, a significant amount of time passed by between each gospel, or there was a rigid 30 year gap between the events of Jesus and the beliefs that Jesus pulled off the things that were attributed to him?
I don't understand. Why are these mutually exclusive?
Which one is it, a significant amount of time passed by between each gospel YES, or there was a rigid 30 year gap between the events of Jesus and the beliefs that Jesus pulled off the things that were attributed to him? ALSO YES
Keep in mind that this question is rather absurd to begin with, relatively speaking 30 years is 1990. So it’s not that I even find a 30 year gap as problematic, it’s not, it’s that I notice a conflict in argumentation.
That conflict being...?
First Corinthians was WRITTEN in 55 AD so the notion of Jesus being resurrected was clearly underway by that time, if you wanna TEXTUALLY start things off in the most critical timeframe possible. The evolution of time argument is a joke. Do you believe that you could convince people that Freddy Mercury healed crippled people, and came back from the dead because he died WAY BACK in 1991 lol?
Uh... what? The resurrection is the #1 pillar of the Christian faith, so of course it was an idea being kicked around in the very beginning. Are we saying that all core religious ideas get to be true now? Or are we saying that if core religious ideas are embellished decades later that they get to be true? What
is your actual point?
