The Question of the Greek New Testament

[Jenny A]

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I think you have a misconception about how the New Testament was put together.  The individual books were written between . But not all Christian groups had copies of all the books and some groups considered other books not in the New Testament to be sacred.  There wasn't a consensus about which books belonged in the New Testament until the 3rd or 4th Century depending upon what you consider a consensus.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development...ment_canon  And even then it wasn't a really settled matter.  Martin Luther considered taking Jude, James, Hebrews, and Revelations out, and did put them in a subordinate position.

Given that the books were transcribed, edited, and preserved seperately, and not in a single volume, contradictions between them aren't surprising. Or, are only surprising if you think they are divinely inspired.

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Yes, I'm aware that there was no compilation until the ecumenical councils of the 4th century. Although I did not know about Martin Luther. Learn something new everyday. I guess the lack of a printing press made it hard even for the councils to keep track of everything. Still, the contradictions are so blatant. Ex. after his resurrection Jesus tells Mary not to touch him because he had not yet ascended to his father. Ten verses later he tells Thomas to touch the holes in his hands and feet.. So in many instances we're not talking about discrepancies between separate books.  In many cases books were spiced together with no regard for agreement. Makes me wonder if the writers and editors weren't using opium to induce what they thought was the Holy Spirit.

The biggest problem with understanding how all those blatant contradictions got there is our modern perspective.   Critical thinking is largely a Renaissance and Enlightenment idea.  Up until the 1300 and 1400s history appears to have been largely just a collection of anecdotes.  There are a few exceptions where you see ancient historians actually trying to figure out the contradictions such as Herodotus and Livy, but they're few and far between.

And I don't think the writers of the Gospels saw themselves as writing history. They saw themselves as preserving traditional/sacred lore. What Jesus' different responses to requests to touch his hands and feet tell me is that the author of the Gospel had two or more different sources to work from and rather than leave anything out, he choose them all.  To the extent he left anything out, my guess is his choices were doctrinal.   And he probably wasn't afraid to change the story a little to emphasize a doctrinal point.

And it's kinda lucky for us that the writers of the gospels behaved that way, because the contradictions make it so very clear just how removed they were from actual knowledge of the events they describe.

The OT has similar problems.  Genesis has two complete and contradictory creation myths.  I'm sure both were in a traditional text available to the author(s), and as each contained theological and/or political points they wanted to make, they kept both.  Joshua contains one story of the conquering Canaan, and Judges another very much slower are less miraculous tale of the same events.