Bart D. Ehrman - The Bane of Fundies!

[Godscreated]

What makes you think that John had to place the event, cleansing the temple, at a certain place in his writings.

Because he's supposedly an eye witness (Even though the author wasn't born when Jesus died), and if his memory is that fucking terrible that while putting it into writing he gets it completely wrong it seriously damages the credibility of the testimonial (though it's just a story).

You make no sense, an eye wittness but was not born yet, let's straighten you out here John was a disciple of Jesus so your first notion is correct he was an eye wittness. Why do you think he got it wrong John tells the event like it happened regardless of where he placed it in his gospel of Jesus, John was giving a testiment to the life of Jesus not a time line of His life.

John's gospel is not one written to convey a straight line historical account. Only Luke's gospel tries in any way to tell a historical account and this was not his main intention. All four gospels were written as a wittness about Jesus and the order of the events are not that important, the spiritual truth is the great importance of the gospels.

None of them are witnesses buddy, Mark was the first gospel and was written around 55AD, Luke and Matthew use about 90% of Mark verbatim in their accounts, ruling out the possibility of them all being primary sources. It's clear that whoever wrote Matthew was using Mark and had a very Jewish influence, while whoever wrote Luke also had Mark and wrote from and had a more Alexandrian approach to Christianity.

Well pal seems to me you are the one denying the authorship of the gospels so prove it, find the originals and prove what I believe wrong. They were eyewittnesses except maybe for Luke and he searches out the eyewittnesses to give a historical and spiritual account of the life of Jesus. You might want to consider this, truth has a way of repeating itself with very little deviation from the original so what you see as copying from one gospel, to write the others, could be an example of how the truth will remain in tack when stated by others.

Matthew being Jewish would have a jewish tint to his gospel and Luke being a physician could have had a Greek education giving his gospel a more alexandrian flavor so what's the big deal here, these men were writting in a style that was suited to them.

John is something somewhat removed from the textural history, it appeared from much more contrived sources some time later, almost 30 years after the authorship of Mark and is fairly clear intended for preaching, it's much more poetry and enticement that the other 3.

John was only a teenager when called by Jesus to be a disciple so the world and religions of the day would have had less influence on him and he would have developed a more spiritual nature than the others as a follower of Christ.

If you will look at the gospels the events are not always in the same order from gospel to gospel Mark and Luke are the ones with close time lines. We actually do not know which events happened when so as far as the event cleansing the temple is concerned John may have it in the proper order.

Wait, you've just decried the difference by saying that John wasn't intended to be a historical account, and now you've said John may be the one who is correct? Do you want to explain all this flip-flopping?

Yes I stated that John was not a historical time line of events in the life of Jesus but that does not mean that the temple cleansing event as recorded in John was not in it's proper place in the life of Jesus.
All of this flip-flopping, I've not flip-flopped anything it's your narrow mindness that has you seeing things in a way that was not intended.

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None the less, your position that "John" was not meant to be a chronicle fails by a simple reading of the text.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...ersion=NIV

Chapter 1

29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him

35The next day John was there again with two of his disciples.

43The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.

Ok Min these days are consecutive and relate to a single event with episodes of different activities.

Chapter2 V.1On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee

12After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

On what third day, if you are trying to tie this in with the days above then someone needs to learn how to count.If you count the day before verse 29 then you have four days before the wedding begins, so this third day most likely refers to the third day of the week.
There is some time not recorded here because Cana is south of Capernaum so Jesus could not have gone down to Capernaum, Jesus at this time must of been north of Capernaum.

13When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money.

Now if Jesus went to Jerusalem from Capernaum and He went up (north) then He took the long way around and would have crossed both poles. So again there is time and places not recorded since Jesus was south of Jerusalem it's the only way He could have gone up to Jerusalem.

Chapter 3

22After this, Jesus and his disciples went out into the Judean countryside

[quote='Min']and so on and so on.....

Ehrman is correct in that this 'gospel' seeks to lay out a story in chronological fashion and he is correct in his assertion that this tale is different from the others. In fact, 'John' is largely out of step with the others but I'm sure we'll get to that.

Seems to me Ehrman needs to learn more about places and his position in relation to those places before he tries to set a time line for anyone. Bet he got lost a lot.