RE: The Jesus Itinerary
October 13, 2013 at 5:23 pm
(This post was last modified: October 13, 2013 at 5:33 pm by DeistPaladin.)
(October 13, 2013 at 4:47 pm)John V Wrote: So, you need another reason to support your position.
Well, to repeat my list of reasons:
1. When Matt introduced the word "house", the simplest assumption is that Joseph and Mary lived there unless other details were provided, like who else owned the house?
2. Why would they need an inn if they owned a house or had relatives they could have stayed with?
3. Why give birth in a manger when they had access to a house?
4. Why did Joseph try to return to Bethlehem if it wasn't where his home was?
Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is its exactly what it looks like, two authors working independently produced a continuity gaffe.
To Matt, Bethlehem was the home town, necessary since Jesus would have to be born in/near Jersualem and later they had to relocate to Nazareth to explain why he was Jesus of "Nazareth". Luke had a different, more convoluted plot device: the unlikely census that dragged Joseph and his family to Bethlehem and Mary's water broke at an inopportune time.
This is why I disparage overuse of ad hoc hypotheses. If you keep saying "maybe... maybe... maybe..." enough, you can "harmonize" anything, from UFO abductions to Bigfoot to conspiracy theories to faeries to any crazy thing you want to believe.
For a demonstration on the fallacy of the ad hoc hypothesis, see this sketch:
Occam's Razor is a useful tool for slicing through the pile of ad hocs.
Quote:No, I haven't missed it in some versions. Others say "after" rather than when.
Which brings me back to what were they still doing in Bethlehem? Joseph had just been dragged there to the census. I don't think he was a rich man, certainly not before the Wise Men arrived, so renting a house for year and being removed from his livelihood during that time doesn't seem likely.
Quote:Who knows? As you disparage "ad hoc" explanations I haven't bothered giving any. Putting Matthew and Luke together, we have Jesus born in Bethlehem, the family staying there for six weeks, a return to Nazareth, and then a return to Bethlehem. We don't know what went on in the six weeks in Bethlehem. Maybe Joseph saw opportunity there, or met family there - there's lots of possibilities, but you don't want to hear them.I no, I do want to hear them. I really do enjoy watching the mental gymnastics Christians employ. Don't forget to account for the flight to Egype and reconcile that with Luke's account of the immediate return to Nazareth. And explain why Joseph would have wanted to return to Bethlehem from Egypt at all, seeing that his home and livelihood was in Nazareth. And don't forget to explain why Quirinius had an earlier govenorship of Syria, concurrent with Herod the Great, and why a Roman census would have been performed in a client-kingdom and why there is no record of such a thing and why Jesus wouldn't have been too old to be "about 30" at his baptism by JtB if he was born before 4 BCE.
Go to it!
Atheist Forums Hall of Shame:
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
"(Yahweh's) actions are good because (Yahweh) is the ultimate standard of goodness. That’s not begging the question"
... -Statler Waldorf, Christian apologist
