Why do gospel contradictions matter?

[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.