Totally NOT a debate about the veracity of the gospels

[Bucky Ball]

As Requested

Ok, here's my problem. This is what clinched it for me.

Red is not purple.

Matthew says that the soldiers “put a scarlet robe” on Jesus (27:27-28), Mark says that “they clothed Him with purple ” (15:16-17), and John states that the soldiers put “a purple robe” on Him (19:1-2)

I've heard any number of takes on this and none of them are convincing.

Matthew could have been colourblind. Fine, but that means the human limitations of the authors have to be allowed for. Which means someone else might have written something wrong because of perspective.

It could be that one has to COMBINE the gospels to get to the truth. In which case we have a bible which all together leaves us a robe 2/3rds of the way between purple and red. Which is a different colour which is NOT RED AND NOT PURPLE. Read any one gospel and its wrong.

Or we could go down the route that it was a FADED red robe which was starting to look purple. In which case it wasn't red any more.

Some people have it that the romans used the same word for red AND purple. Bully for them. We don't. Red is not purple. Purple is not red.

I've read (ha) a few other explanations but fundamentally it boils down very simply. Red and purple are different. Thus if it was one thing, it was not the other thing. And if it was a THIRD thing (purply red or reddish purple) then it was NEITHER red nor purple.

That's it. Red is not purple.

That's seriously the LEAST of the problems.
a. The Jewish Sanhedrin was NEVER ONCE in all of history called into session the week prior to, or on Passover weekend. So there's that. If they had been this one time, a Jewish historian would have said something.
b. Matthew says the temple curtain was spontaneously torn, that rocks were split, and many other people also rose from the dead, on Easter Sunday morning. If that had happened, some Jewish historian would have mentioned it, (such as Philo who talked about all sorts of other more mundane things going on in Jerusalem at that time. Some think he may actually have been Jerusalem at the time. He says nothing.) Someone would have talked about, or pointed out ONE of the other risen people, or empty graves, (or split rocks) and the Roman authorities would have mounted some sort of action to find them, or at least Jesus. Nothing. Do the Jews or Romans go try to find him, upon hearing he might be alive again, after they went to all the trouble to get rid of him ? No. Not one word. In fact in Acts when Peter is trying to convince them they killed Jesus, they have no clue what he is even talking about, and Peter eventually backs down, and says "Well your sins killed him".
c. The accounts of the trials are seriously contradictory. Most say he was silent. John says he gave a long speech. No Galilean peasant ever was brought into the presence of Roman aristocrats for trial. In the Pax Romana, troublemakers were summarily executed with no trial. There was no trial.

The gospels are not "history". Archaic Hebrew had no word for "history". They are faith texts to be used in liturgical services, written by believers, for believers to remind themselves what they already believed. No one sat around reading anything, in those days. The literacy rate was about 5 %.
There were all kinds of "gospels". Euseubius said he was cutting down the number to 4, because "There are 4 winds, and 4 pillars upon which the Earth is set". Nothing about "inspired" anything or content.