RE: The Jesus Itinerary
October 13, 2013 at 8:14 pm
(This post was last modified: October 13, 2013 at 8:15 pm by DeistPaladin.)
(October 13, 2013 at 5:40 pm)John V Wrote: He came back for some reason - maybe he made connections while he was there for 6 weeks the first time.
Sure. By all means, write your fan-fic that helps to square the circle. Star Wars fans, Star Trek fans and others engage in this kind of "explanation" when a continuity gaffe is discovered. With enough ad hocs, you can explain anything away.
Remember when Han Solo boasted that his ship could make the Kessel Run in so many parsecs (I forget how many)? Turns out "parsec" is a unit of measure of distance, not time. Did the scriptwriter make a mistake? Of course not. The fans wrote about the Kessel Run and how there was an option to short cut through an area close to a black hole but you'd have to be traveling at light speed to avoid getting pulled in past the point of no return. Problem solved.
Now me, when I read Matthew talk about the Wise Men coming to "The House", I do assume that this is Mary and Joseph's house because this is the natural conclusion barring any other information. You would as well were it a Star Wars or Star Trek novel or some other story were you weren't emotionally invested in a different conclusion. And since all the other reasons of chapter 2, contrasted with Luke, support the idea that Bethlehem was Joseph's home town, I'm satisfied with that conclusion.
But hey, you go write your fan fic about how Joseph, after the shepherds left the manger, landed a great job and found a nice home at a really bargain basement price that he could afford and decided to relocate to this new town. I'll stick with what's actually written in scripture.
Quote:Occam's Razor (Occam was a Christian BTW) is in my experience pretty useless, as it's usually impossible to objectively quantify what is simplest.
The least number of ad hocs is a start for an objective measure. How likely each ad hoc is remains a subjective matter but debates are frequently about who's subjective evaluation seems better supported.
In my case, I'm reading what's there without assuming there's a good explanation for the continuity problem aside from two different authors working independently writing two different stories. No ad hocs there.
In your case, you want to write an entire fan fic to explain the problem away.
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"The trinity can be equated to having your cake and eating it too."
... -Lucent, trying to defend the Trinity concept
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... -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
