Why do gospel contradictions matter?

[Jenny A]

Then a fifth guy from Korea shows up and tells that after the store owner died he came back from the dead to tell him about the robbery.

Saul of Seoul, I presume?

Bingo! But I have the order wrong. Paul published first.

[dyresand]

Saul of Seoul, I presume?

Bingo! But I have the order wrong. Paul published first.

Also Paul self appointed himself he never knew if jesus was human or not.

[YGninja]

Imagine you are a policeman attending the aftermath of a supposed armed robbery of a shop. If all of the cashiers claimed the masked man entered the building at precisely 20:47, would you be more or less suspicious about their story than if they had given slightly varying times? "10 to 9", "about quarter to 9", "just before closing time at 9"...??
The differences are natural and demonstrate that there wasn't a conspiracy to invent the entire story.

You believers really should stop with the whole eyewitness testimony thing. Time and time again, we've demonstrated the fallibility of human memory and recollection of events. Bottom line? It's poor. Very, very poor. Studies have been done. Papers written. Case closed.

In court, one piece of circumstantial evidence will blow away 50 eyewitnesses. Case in point - all of the convictions overturned with DNA evidence. If the DNA doesn't match, it makes no difference what a fallible, emotional human "testifies" to. "But I SWEARS he done did it! I SWEARS!!" Please.

So, do yourselves a favor and stop with thinking your so-called eye-witless testimony helps your case in any respect. It does not. Not to mention, the eyewitless accounts are relayed by a fucking 3rd party such as Paul. There are no eyewitness accounts of the tales of Jesus and his Merry band. None. Paul never met him in the flesh. Everything else was written post-hoc, decades later - at best.

You really think this is compelling? Maybe if half your brain was knocked out and stomped upon the ground by a herd of escaping llamas and then boiled and served back to you as a breakfast cereal. Then, just mebbe.

But, you have no circumstantial evidence. All of the evidence is in favor of the Gospels, both within and outside of the Bible. You got Tacitus relaying Christus the founder of the Chrsitian faith being crucified by Pontius Pilate, "great multitides" being convicted of being Christian and murdered for not relinquishing their faith. Opponents of Christianity, not denying Christ or his miracles, but rather attributing them to the works of demons, or magic tricks.

"Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain [magical] powers... He
returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god... It was by means of
sorcery that He was able to accomplish the wonders which He performed... Let us believe that these cures, or the resurrection, or the feeding of a multitude with a few loaves... These are nothing more than the tricks of jugglers... It is by the names of certain demons, and by the use of incantations, that the Christians appear to be possessed of [miraculous] power..." - Celsus 178AD.

If there were any room to deny Jesus, or atleast his miracles, don't you think he'd have done it? The most reasonable inference is that he is reduced to dismissing Jesus' miracles as tricks or by demons because they were historically accepted.

We even have a script of Julius Africanus rebutting Thallus' (52AD) explanation of the midday darkness and earth-trembling which occurred after the crucifixion. THallus tries to explain it away as an eclipse, but Africanus corrects him by the fact it couldn't have been an eclipse due to the time of the month.

"On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness. The rocks were rent by an earthquake and many places in Judea and other
districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the
sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Savior falls on the day before the
passover. But an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time... Phlegon
records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth-manifestly that one
of which we speak. Chronography XVIII, 47"

Lastly, you just have no argument that all of the Gospels were written by third parties, or were originally written decades after the fact. The earliest copies we have can be ascribed as pre 60AD as they don't mention the falling of the temple which Jesus prophesized, which actually happened around 60AD. Surely if they were writing after the temple fell, they would have mentioned it as vindication of Jesus' prophesy.

[Huggy Bear]

---

Tonus the Bible is a book of wonder. Why is it the greatest selling book of all time and no book even comes close. The bible is the living word and can cut into the soul. You can read it a thousand times and you will always learn something new from it. Also if gospels dont supposedly contradict then sceptics would say it was made up and copied. They are eye witness accounts who died for their eye witnes testimony. Also pen and paper was not so common 2000 years ago. People relied more on memory. Rabbis could recite old testament. In any case gospels are eyewitness accounts and you can be sentenced to death based on eye witness testimony. The bible is a reliable source it shows how holy god is and gives us an escape plan. Jesus words will never die. A fulfilled prophecy

The book is a fabricated lie...fact.

The synoptic gospels are the very definition of pseudepigrapha (look it up).

People die for what they believe every day, that is not the litmus test for truth, that is the litmus test for conviction. ISIS is convinced they are right, Jim Jones thought he was right, and so did all of his followers...I would suggest otherwise...

No, the gospels are not eyewitness testimony, you aren't very good at this are you?

Writings of the Gospels: Mark (60 to 75 CE), Matthew (80 to 90 CE), Luke (80 to 90 CE based on the Gospels of Mark), and John (80 to 110 CE) (Albl 283). I have shown before in various venues the issues with the Gospels, the fact that we don’t know who wrote the gospels, the community effort that put them together, and the fact that they don’t agree with one another, all of which make them a suspect source of empirical evidence. When one posits a super natural, extraordinary story, one requires extraordinary evidence....sadly it doesn't exist, except philosophically.

Mark is an interesting fable isn't it? Since Mark is the oldest of the synoptic gospels, of which the authors of matthew, and luke based their stories. All scholars agree that the last 12 verses of Mark, are highly dubious and are considered interpolations. The earliest ancient documents of mark end right after the women find the empty tomb. This means that in the first biography, on which the others based their reports, there is no post-resurrection appearance or ascension of jesus. uhoh.

Mark: Most modern scholars reject the tradition which ascribes it to Mark the Evangelist, the companion of Peter, and regard it as the work of an unknown author working with various sources including collections of miracle stories, controversy stories, parables, and a passion narrative.

Matthew is riddled with whimsical creative writings as well. I find it interesting that the writer of matthew refers to "matthew" in the third person. Matthew claims jesus was born in "the days of herod the king." Yet Herod died in 4 BCE. Luke reports that jesus was born "when Cyrenius (Quirinius) was governor of Syria." Cyrenius became governor of Syria in 6 CE...that is a discrepancy of 9 years. Luke says Jesus was born during a roman census, and it is true there was a census in 6 CE. This would have been when jesus was 9 years old according to matthew. There is no evidence of an earlier census during the reign of Augustine. Which is true?

Matthew also reports that Herod slaughtered all first born in the land in order to execute jesus. No historian, contemporary or later, ever mentions this alleged genocide, an event that should have caught someones attention....like the many miraculous stories of jesus, no one at the time thought they were cool enough to record...odd don't you think?

Matthew: The Gospel of Matthew is generally believed to have been composed between 70 and 110, with most scholars preferring the period 80–90; a pre-70 date remains a minority view, but has been strongly supported. The anonymous author was probably a highly educated Jew, intimately familiar with the technical aspects of Jewish law, and the disciple Matthew was probably honored within his circle. The author drew on three main sources to compose his gospel: the Gospel of Mark; the hypothetical collection of sayings known as the Q source; and material unique to his own community, called "Special Matthew", or the M source. Note the part where I said...disciple matthew honored...and anonymous writer...do some research. Knowledge is power, and quite liberating.

John 20:30-31 - "but these are written that ye might believe that jesus is the christ, the son of god; and that believing ye might have life through his name".......just about says it all right there, let me paraphrase; "we are making up these stories to help people believe...the story."

This sounds like a red flag that what we are reading should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

John: The gospel identifies its author as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Although the text does not name this disciple, by the beginning of the 2nd century, a tradition had begun to form which identified him with John the Apostle, one of the Twelve (Jesus' innermost circle). Although some notable New Testament scholars affirm traditional Johannine scholarship, the majority do not believe that John or one of the Apostles wrote it, and trace it instead to a "Johannine community" which traced its traditions to John.

Peter - Many scholars question the authorship of Peter of the epistles. Even within the first epistle, it says in 5:12 that Silvanus wrote it. Most scholars consider the second epistle as unreliable or an outright forgery. The unknown authors of the epistles of Peter wrote long after the life of the traditional Peter. Moreover, Peter lived (if he ever lived at all) as an ignorant and illiterate peasant (even Acts 4:13 attests to this). In short, no one has any way of determining whether the epistles of Peter come from fraud, an author claiming himself to know what Peter said (hearsay), or from someone trying to further the aims of the Church. Encyclopedias usually describe a tradition that Saint Peter wrote them. However, whenever you see the word "tradition" it refers to a belief passed down within a society. In other words: hearsay. This is the definition of Pseudepigrapha; a book written in a biblical style and ascribed to an author who did not write it...otherwise known as a FORGERY.

James - Epistle of James mentions Jesus only once at the beginning of James 1 and James 2 as an introduction to his belief. Nowhere does the epistle reference a historical Jesus and this alone eliminates it from an historical account.

Jude - Even early Christians argued about its authenticity. It quotes an apocryphal book called Enoch as if it represented authorized Scripture. Biblical scholars do not think it possible for the alleged disciple Jude to have written it because whoever wrote it had to have written it during a period when the churches had long existed. Like the other alleged disciples, Jude would have lived as an illiterate peasant and unable to write (much less in Greek) but the author of Jude wrote in fluent high quality Greek..more forgery.

paul - written about 60 C.E., of the 13, he actually wrote 8. Not a single instance in any of Paul's writings claims that he ever meets or sees an earthly Jesus, nor does Paul give any reference to Jesus' life on earth (except for a few well known interpolations - Bible interpolation, or Bible redaction, is the art of adding stuff to the Bible). Therefore, all accounts about a Jesus could only have come from other believers or his imagination. Hearsay.

There’s no indication from Scripture that Paul and Jesus ever met before the Damascus Road incident. And Acts 9:4-7 doesn’t specify whether the Lord’s encounter with Paul was physical or not. It only says Paul saw a bright light and heard a voice. (hallucination/lie)The men with him heard a loud sound but didn’t see anything. In subsequent re-tellings of the encounter Paul never indicated that He had actually seen Jesus at that time.

OT?

Today we know that the Judean priests cooked up/assembled Genesis for political reasons in Babylon as a text for reference for the return, to provide a national story and a legal system for a basis for the return. They did it around 575-550 BCE, in order to promote political unity during a crisis caused by the exilic experience in Babylon, after having written the book of Job, (as an attempted "spiritual" response to the question of suffering). While the "Persian Imperative" is now discounted by scholars, it was probably on the right track in some ways, i.e. the unification of the warring priestly class with the Yahwist land owners into a unified, post exile state. In any case in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah it describes the Return from Babylon, with Ezra carrying two things, ... the letter from Artaxerxes giving him and the King the power to rule in his name, and the Torah of Moses --- the first time in human history what is now the beginnings of "The Bible" (The Scroll of Moses), are ever mentioned.

We don't know of anything "jesus" said as every word ever written about him is by someone who never met him.

and no, He is not the fulfilled prophesy.

The Bible claims that Jesus made the following comment:

Matthew 16:28

“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”

Jesus also advised against going to court over someone who steals something and also told people not to store up stocks or reserves for the future. Clearly, he thought the end was very near.

Likewise, Paul advised followers not to marry and that the end time was near. In this scripture he obviously believes that some of the people he is talking to will still be alive at the second coming.

I Thessalonians 4: 16-18

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

The obvious fact is that the second coming was not forthcoming at that time, or even close to being near. The 2000-year delay is a strong piece of evidence that Christianity is a failed religion.

The following quote from Stephen L. Harris, Professor Emeritus of Humanities and Religious Studies at California State University- Sacramento, completes this point with a devastating argument. Remember that Jesus was a Jew who had no intention to deviate from the Hebrew scriptures:

“Jesus did not accomplish what Israel’s prophets said the Messiah was commissioned to do: He did not deliver the covenant people from their Gentile enemies, reassemble those scattered in the Diaspora, restore the Davidic kingdom, or establish universal peace (cf.Isa. 9:6–7; 11:7–12:16, etc.). Instead of freeing Jews from oppressors and thereby fulfilling God’s ancient promises—for land, nationhood, kingship, and blessing—Jesus died a “shameful” death, defeated by the very political powers the Messiah was prophesied to overcome. Indeed, the Hebrew prophets did not foresee that Israel’s savior would be executed as a common criminal by Gentiles, making Jesus’ crucifixion a “stumbling block” to scripturally literate Jews. (1 Cor.1:23)”

Jesus’ immediate followers, mostly his 12 disciples, probably did not immediately identify this failure, because after Jesus’ body was likely stolen and concealed, a rumor spread that Jesus had been resurrected from the dead. A sense of optimism overcame their grief about his execution and renewed some hope that he was a true messiah. If they had known then that there was to be no return in the near or long-term future, they likely would have abandoned any further activity. Despite this resurgence in their faith, they never agreed with Paul’s concept of Jesus as being divine. Anything written in the Bible to suggest that they did is probably a result of later editing by some of Paul’s followers. Such a belief would have been an exceptional departure from the Jewish faith.

Reference:
Albl, Martin C. Reason, Faith, and Tradition: Explorations in Catholic Theology. Winona: Anselm Academic, Christian Brothers Publications, 2009. Print.


If you need any more education in your faith, let me know, I love helping those who proclaim faith in something without evidence and then don't even know the historicity of the Bible.

EDIT: As an added bonus, here are my top ten favorite biblical interpolations (scriptures added in after the fact).

It seems that some of the most familiar verses of the New Testament were not originally part of the text, but were added by later scribes. The scribal additions are often found in late medieval manuscripts of the New Testament, but not in the manuscripts of earlier centuries. Some of the best-known English editions of the New Testament, such as the King James Bible, were based not on early manuscripts, but later ones, these verses became part of the Bible tradition in English speaking lands.

1 John 5:7 - there are three that bear witness in heaven, the father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.

John 8:7 – let the one who is without sin among you be the first to cast a stone at her.

John 8:11 – neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.

Luke 22:44 – in his anguish Jesus began to pray more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.

Luke 22:20 – and in the same way after supper Jesus took the cup and said, "this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood."

Mark 16:17 – these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons and they will speak with new tongues.

Mark 16:18 – and they will take up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any poison it will not harm them, and they will lay their hands on the sick and they will become well.

John 5:4 – for an angel of the Lord went down at certain times into the pool and disturbed the waters; and whoever was the first to step in when the water was disturbed was healed of whatever disease he had.

Luke 24:12 – but Peter rose up and ran to the tomb, and stooping down to look in, he saw the linen clothes by themselves. And he went away to his own home, marveling at what had happened.

Luke 24:51 – and when Jesus blessed them he departed from them and he was taken up into heaven.

---

I have neither the time or energy to address your post in full, but what I find interesting is that despite all your religious education, you haven't learned that the NIV version of the Bible (I believe that's what your using) changes the context of scriptures and even omits whole passages.

I'll give a few examples.
Missing parts in bold

1 John 4 (KJV)
3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

1 John 4 (NIV)
3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.

Revelation 21
24 And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it.

Revelation 21
24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.

Matthew 18
10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.
12 How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?

Matthew 18
10 “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. [11] [a]
12 “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?

As you can see in the last example, a whole scripture was omitted.

The KJV is translated verbatim from the Hebrew/Greek and the context it places words in matter, which is why we're instructed not to add to or take away from the scriptures.

As I have proven, the NIV does just this.

Anyway, my point is, If you're going to attempt to argue Bible "contradictions" use a version of the Bible that isn't in error.

[JesusHChrist]

But, you have no circumstantial evidence.

I don't need any evidence. The onus is on you, the believer to prove your case. You don't have any circumstantial evidence either. Not helpful for you.

All of the evidence is in favor of the Gospels, both within and outside of the Bible.

What evidence? All you have are the claims themselves without a shred of contemporary corroboration. Not one shred.

You got Tacitus relaying Christus the founder of the Chrsitian faith being crucified by Pontius Pilate, "great multitides" being convicted of being Christian and murdered for not relinquishing their faith.

Written in 116 AD. Very late. Not a contemporary. All Tacitus proves, is that there were Christians in existence during that time period; a fact no one would dispute. He could be merely repeating what the Christians of the time said; repeating their own legends. Ultimately, even if you take it face value, Tacitus in no way relieves the believer of explaining the contradictions in the gospels.

Opponents of Christianity, not denying Christ or his miracles, but rather attributing them to the works of demons, or magic tricks.

"Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain [magical] powers... He
returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god... It was by means of
sorcery that He was able to accomplish the wonders which He performed... Let us believe that these cures, or the resurrection, or the feeding of a multitude with a few loaves... These are nothing more than the tricks of jugglers... It is by the names of certain demons, and by the use of incantations, that the Christians appear to be possessed of [miraculous] power..." - Celsus 178AD.

And this helps your case how? Celsus, again 150 years later, is related the *stories of the current Christians*. That's it. He would have zero first-hand knowledge of any of this.

If there were any room to deny Jesus, or atleast his miracles, don't you think he'd have done it? The most reasonable inference is that he is reduced to dismissing Jesus' miracles as tricks or by demons because they were historically accepted.

You do realize Celsus was an early critic and thought Christianity was bullshit, right?

We even have a script of Julius Africanus rebutting Thallus' (52AD) explanation of the midday darkness and earth-trembling which occurred after the crucifixion. THallus tries to explain it away as an eclipse, but Africanus corrects him by the fact it couldn't have been an eclipse due to the time of the month.

"On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness. The rocks were rent by an earthquake and many places in Judea and other
districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the
sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Savior falls on the day before the
passover. But an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time... Phlegon
records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth-manifestly that one
of which we speak. Chronography XVIII, 47"

Eclipses and earthquakes happen. Big deal. Doesn't help with the contradictions in the gospel. When writing fiction after the fact, it's pretty easy to insert actual details to sex it up. How hard is that?

Lastly, you just have no argument that all of the Gospels were written by third parties, or were originally written decades after the fact. The earliest copies we have can be ascribed as pre 60AD

The gospels make no claim to be eyewitness accounts. Mark couldn't even get the geography correct! Some eyewitness.

Tradition holds that the Gospel of Mark was written by Mark the Evangelist, as St. Peter's interpreter.[61] Numerous early sources say that Mark's material was dictated to him by St. Peter, who later compiled it into his gospel.[64][65][66][67][68] The gospel, however, appears to rely on several underlying sources, which vary in form and in theology, and which tell against the story that the gospel was based on Peter's preaching.[69]

Most scholars believe that Mark was written by a second-generation Christian, around or shortly after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple in year 70.[70][71][72]

Its author seems to be ignorant of Palestinian geography. Mark 7:31 describes Jesus going from Tyre to the Sea of Galilee by way of Sidon (20 miles farther north and on the Mediterranean coast).[73] The author of Mark did not seem to know that you would not go through Sidon to go from Tyre to the Sea of Galilee, and there was no road from Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the 1st century, only one from Tyre.[74][75] Catholic scholars have interpreted this passage as indicating "that Jesus traveled in a wide circle, first north, then east and south".[76]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_...he_Gospels

Oops. Also, note most scholars think Mark was written around 70AD. Very late.

As for the other gospels, it goes downhill, and later in time from there.

The gospels are not eyewitness accounts. Also, I notice you avoid the entire issue of the unreliability of eyewitnesses. I know it's all you lot have and you are loath to abandon it, but really, it just makes for a very weak case.

[YGninja]

But, you have no circumstantial evidence.

I don't need any evidence. The onus is on you, the believer to prove your case. You don't have any circumstantial evidence either. Not helpful for you.

All of the evidence is in favor of the Gospels, both within and outside of the Bible.

What evidence? All you have are the claims themselves without a shred of contemporary corroboration. Not one shred.

The Gospels are contemporary corroboration. They are independent books compiled into one much later. Jesus' ministry lasted just 3 years, the Christians were burned and tortured. In context, the amount of corroboration we have is practically historically unique in its quantity and quality.

You got Tacitus relaying Christus the founder of the Chrsitian faith being crucified by Pontius Pilate, "great multitides" being convicted of being Christian and murdered for not relinquishing their faith.

Written in 116 AD. Very late. Not a contemporary. All Tacitus proves, is that there were Christians in existence during that time period; a fact no one would dispute. He could be merely repeating what the Christians of the time said; repeating their own legends. Ultimately, even if you take it face value, Tacitus in no way relieves the believer of explaining the contradictions in the gospels.

"He could merely be repeating the Christians" - This is nothing but weak conjecture. He was a HISTORIAN and a Roman Senator. He was never corrected either by the senate nor any historian. The timeframe of writing is close enough that there would still be living witnesses to the fact.

Opponents of Christianity, not denying Christ or his miracles, but rather attributing them to the works of demons, or magic tricks.

"Jesus, on account of his poverty, was hired out to go to Egypt. While there he acquired certain [magical] powers... He
returned home highly elated at possessing these powers, and on the strength of them gave himself out to be a god... It was by means of
sorcery that He was able to accomplish the wonders which He performed... Let us believe that these cures, or the resurrection, or the feeding of a multitude with a few loaves... These are nothing more than the tricks of jugglers... It is by the names of certain demons, and by the use of incantations, that the Christians appear to be possessed of [miraculous] power..." - Celsus 178AD.

And this helps your case how? Celsus, again 150 years later, is related the *stories of the current Christians*. That's it. He would have zero first-hand knowledge of any of this.

Conjecture, again, and not even coherent conjecture, as what Celsus is relaying is not part of Christian doctrine or seen anywhere in the NT (ie the idea that Jesus went to egypt and he got his "magical" powers while there.

If there were any room to deny Jesus, or atleast his miracles, don't you think he'd have done it? The most reasonable inference is that he is reduced to dismissing Jesus' miracles as tricks or by demons because they were historically accepted.

You do realize Celsus was an early critic and thought Christianity was bullshit, right?[/quote]

Thats exactly my point. If he could have denied there were any miracles, or that Jesus didn't exist, this is what he would have done. The best explanation for him not doing that, is that they were established historical facts at the time.

We even have a script of Julius Africanus rebutting Thallus' (52AD) explanation of the midday darkness and earth-trembling which occurred after the crucifixion. THallus tries to explain it away as an eclipse, but Africanus corrects him by the fact it couldn't have been an eclipse due to the time of the month.

"On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness. The rocks were rent by an earthquake and many places in Judea and other
districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the
sun. For the Hebrews celebrate the passover on the 14th day according to the moon, and the passion of our Savior falls on the day before the
passover. But an eclipse of the sun takes place only when the moon comes under the sun. And it cannot happen at any other time... Phlegon
records that, in the time of Tiberius Caesar, at full moon, there was a full eclipse of the sun from the sixth hour to the ninth-manifestly that one
of which we speak. Chronography XVIII, 47"

Eclipses and earthquakes happen. Big deal. Doesn't help with the contradictions in the gospel. When writing fiction after the fact, it's pretty easy to insert actual details to sex it up. How hard is that?

You seemed to have missed the point here too; Thallus is a very early source which corroborates the Biblical claim of darkness after Jesus' death and earth trembling. He tried to attribute it to an eclipse, but as Africanus points out, it could not have been an eclipse.

. "An eclipse of the Sun only occurs when the Moon is directly between the Sun and the Earth, thus blocking out its light. The day of the Crucifixion was the day before the traditional Passover, which was on the 14th Nisan. On the 14th Nisan there was a full Moon, as was always the case at Passover time. The Moon was therefore on the far side of the Earth away from the Sun.

Furthermore, no eclipse of the Sun can last more than seven and a half minutes in any one place, and this strange darkness lasted for three hours."

Lastly, you just have no argument that all of the Gospels were written by third parties, or were originally written decades after the fact. The earliest copies we have can be ascribed as pre 60AD

The gospels make no claim to be eyewitness accounts. Mark couldn't even get the geography correct! Some eyewitness.

Tradition holds that the Gospel of Mark was written by Mark the Evangelist, as St. Peter's interpreter.[61] Numerous early sources say that Mark's material was dictated to him by St. Peter, who later compiled it into his gospel.[64][65][66][67][68] The gospel, however, appears to rely on several underlying sources, which vary in form and in theology, and which tell against the story that the gospel was based on Peter's preaching.[69]

Most scholars believe that Mark was written by a second-generation Christian, around or shortly after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple in year 70.[70][71][72]

Its author seems to be ignorant of Palestinian geography. Mark 7:31 describes Jesus going from Tyre to the Sea of Galilee by way of Sidon (20 miles farther north and on the Mediterranean coast).[73] The author of Mark did not seem to know that you would not go through Sidon to go from Tyre to the Sea of Galilee, and there was no road from Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the 1st century, only one from Tyre.[74][75] Catholic scholars have interpreted this passage as indicating "that Jesus traveled in a wide circle, first north, then east and south".[76]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_...he_Gospels

Oops. Also, note most scholars think Mark was written around 70AD. Very late.

As for the other gospels, it goes downhill, and later in time from there.

The gospels are not eyewitness accounts. Also, I notice you avoid the entire issue of the unreliability of eyewitnesses. I know it's all you lot have and you are loath to abandon it, but really, it just makes for a very weak case.

1: Mark was a disciple of Peter, he did not claim to be an eyewitness. He merely recorded what Peter had to say.

2: "By way of", to describe a detour, is hardly conclusive evidence that the person was ignorant of the facts.

3: None of the gospels mention the destruction of the Jewish temple in **70 A.D, they surely would have if written later.

4: The book of Acts was written after the Gospel of Luke, by the same writer, and also fails to mention the destruction of the temple.

5: Acts (the historian of the early church), also does not include the accounts of Nero's persecution of the Christians in A.D. 64 or the deaths of James (A.D. 62), Paul (A.D. 64), and Peter (A.D. 65), pushing the earliest date back for the Gospel of Luke to the 50's.

6: The Gospel of Matthew has always been held to by written by the Apostle

7: The Gospel of John speaks as an eyewitness.

8: Eyewitnesses can be unreliable, but we know that this is not the case with the Gospels, as they are all independent yet corroborative, and their truth is the best explanation for the rise of the early Christian church.

[dyresand]

YG none of the Gospel writers never knew jesus. The fact being that the books were written decades after jesus so put 2 and 2 together.
They made things up they never knew about jesus but they spoke about him as if they knew him so their stories are completely irrelevant
and not even worth reading.

[YGninja]

YG none of the Gospel writers never knew jesus. The fact being that the books were written decades after jesus so put 2 and 2 together.
They made things up they never knew about jesus but they spoke about him as if they knew him so their stories are completely irrelevant
and not even worth reading.

YOur comment is refuted by posts ive already made.

[Brakeman]

YG none of the Gospel writers never knew jesus. The fact being that the books were written decades after jesus so put 2 and 2 together.
They made things up they never knew about jesus but they spoke about him as if they knew him so their stories are completely irrelevant
and not even worth reading.

YOur comment is refuted by posts ive already made.

You've made the claims time and time again, but have presented no evidence of your preposterous position yet.

[Losty]

YG none of the Gospel writers never knew jesus.