So having discussed how the apologetic case pre-fails...
And having discussed how the Gospels were not written by credible eye-witnesses...
We now move to cross-examination of the stories they each tell to show how they can't be reconciled with each other.
The Genealogy and Birth of Jesus
The birth and childhood of Jesus weren't documented by Mark. This would be a later add-on by future Gospel authors. It appears there was no collaboration in the fan fics written by Luke and Matthew, since both went in different directions that would make future Christian apologists have to perform mental gymnastics that would have made Mary Lou Retton proud.
First, the genealogies presented by both authors are irreconcilable both in names and numbers. Luke has 43 generations from David to Jesus, Matthew 28, and neither agree with 1st Chronicles chapter 3, which presents part of the geneaology Matthew's contains minus four names: Joash, Amaziah, Azariah, and Jehoiakim. Matthew shaved off a bit from David to the Babylonian Captivity to make it a nice even 14, but then again we have established that Matthew was a liar.
Apologists try to square this circle by claiming one genealogy is Mary and the other is Joseph. Both accounts say "Joseph" but letting that go, considering how Luke's contains nearly double the number of generations, this seems deeply implausible. All this to say nothing of how both are wrong since Joseph isn't the biological father of Jesus, or so we're led to believe.
Then the two authors both seemed to wrestle with how to reconcile "Jesus of Nazareth" with a messiah that was supposed to have been born in the City of David and each came up with a different solution. You can decide who had the more convoluted plot device to square that circle.
Matthew has Jesus' family come from Jerusalem. They originally lived there but had to flee to Egypt to escape Herod the Great's infanticidal rampage. Curiously, this atrocity is nowhere to be found even as Herod had his harsh critics. This event is found in the story of Moses (which, as I've said, was ripped off from Sargon). It seems likely that Matthew, trying to evangelize to the Jews, found it useful to put Jesus on par with Moses. After they returned from Egypt, they couldn't return home because Herod's son ruled that region of Judea, so they headed north to settle in the town of Nazareth and this, Matthew explains, is why Jesus became known as "Jesus of Nazareth".
Luke's version is a tad different, and by that I mean completely aside from his mother being Mary and his step-father being Joseph. Luke's holy family is from Nazareth but they needed to make the journey to Jerusalem because of a highly unlikely census that required everyone to report back to their home town. Mary gave birth while in Jerusalem, thus allowing Jesus to have been born in the City of David even though his family lived in Nazareth. There is no need to flee from Herod the Great, since he'd been dead 10 years by the time Luke's Jesus was born. There was no flight to Egypt, either. The new parents of the Son of God performed some rituals at the temple and then went home.
Things get really tricky when you ask "in what decade did all this happen"?
Matt's nativity (the one with the wise men) clearly happened during the reign of Herod the Great who died in 4 BCE. There would have been no census since Judea was a kingdom run by Herod. They paid tribute to Rome but Rome had no interest in how that money was raised. Any census would have been done internally by the king.
Luke's nativity (the one with the shepherds) clearly happened in the following decade when Rome took control of Judea. There was a census done as Rome was evaluating its newly acquired province but there's neither evidence nor rational reason to suggest that Rome would have required everyone to report back to their home town. Luke tells us this was done when Quirinius was governor of Syria, a post he took in 6 CE.
There's a 10 year gap between the two events. Apologists, stuck with Herod's dates of his life, try to square this circle by dragging Luke's Jesus back a decade. A festival of ad hoc hypothises rain down on the skeptic who must play "wack-a-mole" to hunt down reasons why none of them are valid. Fortunately for the reader, I have danced this dance enough times that I'm pretty familiar with the usual attempts.
John the Baptist
All four Gospels make a point to say that JtB was just a warm-up act, trying to assimilate the followers of JtB much the same way as Muhammad would later try to do with Jesus. Strangely enough, the followers of JtB remained rivals with the early Christians for centuries to come. Evidently, they didn't get the memo. Neither did Josephus who reported on JtB and his ministry. Odd that there was no mention "by the way, John the Baptist told everyone that his ministry was all about setting the stage for another to come." From non-Christian accounts, it seems like John the Baptist's ministry was about his ministry.
The Synoptic Gospels all tell us that Jesus waited until John the Baptist had been put into prison before his ministry began. John's version of Jesus had no need to wait. He started a rival ministry, took his disciples and outdid JtB in the number baptized, beating him at his own game (what a guy). John's Jesus' ministry was going strong before JtB's imprisonment, saying in 3:24, "for John had not yet been put into prison".
Reading the Gospels in order shows us a picture of how JtB sank lower and lower on his knees before Jesus with each telling of the tale. Mark's JtB puts himself down and tells everyone Jesus is coming. Matthew's JtB is uncomfortable baptizing Jesus, as he is the lesser before Jesus, but Jesus orders him to do it anyway. John's JtB never baptizes Jesus at all.
In The Wilderness... Or a Wedding
The Synoptics have Jesus immediately going into the wilderness for 40 days after the baptism. John's Jesus spends two days after the baptism gathering disciples and attends a wedding on the third day.
Both Mark and John are explicit about the days, offering a distinct timeline for the post-baptism itinerary of Jesus. Oops.
End of Part I.
To be Continued.
And having discussed how the Gospels were not written by credible eye-witnesses...
We now move to cross-examination of the stories they each tell to show how they can't be reconciled with each other.
The Genealogy and Birth of Jesus
The birth and childhood of Jesus weren't documented by Mark. This would be a later add-on by future Gospel authors. It appears there was no collaboration in the fan fics written by Luke and Matthew, since both went in different directions that would make future Christian apologists have to perform mental gymnastics that would have made Mary Lou Retton proud.
First, the genealogies presented by both authors are irreconcilable both in names and numbers. Luke has 43 generations from David to Jesus, Matthew 28, and neither agree with 1st Chronicles chapter 3, which presents part of the geneaology Matthew's contains minus four names: Joash, Amaziah, Azariah, and Jehoiakim. Matthew shaved off a bit from David to the Babylonian Captivity to make it a nice even 14, but then again we have established that Matthew was a liar.
Apologists try to square this circle by claiming one genealogy is Mary and the other is Joseph. Both accounts say "Joseph" but letting that go, considering how Luke's contains nearly double the number of generations, this seems deeply implausible. All this to say nothing of how both are wrong since Joseph isn't the biological father of Jesus, or so we're led to believe.
Then the two authors both seemed to wrestle with how to reconcile "Jesus of Nazareth" with a messiah that was supposed to have been born in the City of David and each came up with a different solution. You can decide who had the more convoluted plot device to square that circle.
Matthew has Jesus' family come from Jerusalem. They originally lived there but had to flee to Egypt to escape Herod the Great's infanticidal rampage. Curiously, this atrocity is nowhere to be found even as Herod had his harsh critics. This event is found in the story of Moses (which, as I've said, was ripped off from Sargon). It seems likely that Matthew, trying to evangelize to the Jews, found it useful to put Jesus on par with Moses. After they returned from Egypt, they couldn't return home because Herod's son ruled that region of Judea, so they headed north to settle in the town of Nazareth and this, Matthew explains, is why Jesus became known as "Jesus of Nazareth".
Luke's version is a tad different, and by that I mean completely aside from his mother being Mary and his step-father being Joseph. Luke's holy family is from Nazareth but they needed to make the journey to Jerusalem because of a highly unlikely census that required everyone to report back to their home town. Mary gave birth while in Jerusalem, thus allowing Jesus to have been born in the City of David even though his family lived in Nazareth. There is no need to flee from Herod the Great, since he'd been dead 10 years by the time Luke's Jesus was born. There was no flight to Egypt, either. The new parents of the Son of God performed some rituals at the temple and then went home.
Quote:Luke 2:39 And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth
Things get really tricky when you ask "in what decade did all this happen"?
Matt's nativity (the one with the wise men) clearly happened during the reign of Herod the Great who died in 4 BCE. There would have been no census since Judea was a kingdom run by Herod. They paid tribute to Rome but Rome had no interest in how that money was raised. Any census would have been done internally by the king.
Luke's nativity (the one with the shepherds) clearly happened in the following decade when Rome took control of Judea. There was a census done as Rome was evaluating its newly acquired province but there's neither evidence nor rational reason to suggest that Rome would have required everyone to report back to their home town. Luke tells us this was done when Quirinius was governor of Syria, a post he took in 6 CE.
There's a 10 year gap between the two events. Apologists, stuck with Herod's dates of his life, try to square this circle by dragging Luke's Jesus back a decade. A festival of ad hoc hypothises rain down on the skeptic who must play "wack-a-mole" to hunt down reasons why none of them are valid. Fortunately for the reader, I have danced this dance enough times that I'm pretty familiar with the usual attempts.
- There were two governorships of Quirinius: This would violate Roman tradition. They didn't want anyone to serve twice as governor of a province for fear that he would gather too much local power. Additionally, we know where Quirinius was at the time around 5 BCE and it was governor of a province in the middle of modern Turkey.
- Luke says the census "before" Quirinius was governor: No translation supports this apology but even so, there was no previous Roman census of Judea because Rome didn't own Judea.
- Maybe Rome wanted Herod to perform a census anyway: What? Why would they...? Oh, never mind, the last imperial census was in 9 BCE. Luke tells us Jesus was "about 30" when he started his ministry and John the Baptist started his in 27-28 CE. Jesus would have been too old to be "about 30" when JtB started his ministry, never mind when Jesus did.
- Maybe Luke meant "administrator" instead of Governor: So the Romans wanted Herod to perform a census for no reason and dragged Quirinius away from his post as governor of a distant province to micro-manage Herod's census for him because clearly a governor of a province has nothing better to do than administrate a census of a distant kingdom that isn't even a Roman province? Sorry, but Jesus is still too old by the time 28 CE rolls around.
John the Baptist
All four Gospels make a point to say that JtB was just a warm-up act, trying to assimilate the followers of JtB much the same way as Muhammad would later try to do with Jesus. Strangely enough, the followers of JtB remained rivals with the early Christians for centuries to come. Evidently, they didn't get the memo. Neither did Josephus who reported on JtB and his ministry. Odd that there was no mention "by the way, John the Baptist told everyone that his ministry was all about setting the stage for another to come." From non-Christian accounts, it seems like John the Baptist's ministry was about his ministry.
The Synoptic Gospels all tell us that Jesus waited until John the Baptist had been put into prison before his ministry began. John's version of Jesus had no need to wait. He started a rival ministry, took his disciples and outdid JtB in the number baptized, beating him at his own game (what a guy). John's Jesus' ministry was going strong before JtB's imprisonment, saying in 3:24, "for John had not yet been put into prison".
Reading the Gospels in order shows us a picture of how JtB sank lower and lower on his knees before Jesus with each telling of the tale. Mark's JtB puts himself down and tells everyone Jesus is coming. Matthew's JtB is uncomfortable baptizing Jesus, as he is the lesser before Jesus, but Jesus orders him to do it anyway. John's JtB never baptizes Jesus at all.
In The Wilderness... Or a Wedding
The Synoptics have Jesus immediately going into the wilderness for 40 days after the baptism. John's Jesus spends two days after the baptism gathering disciples and attends a wedding on the third day.
Both Mark and John are explicit about the days, offering a distinct timeline for the post-baptism itinerary of Jesus. Oops.
End of Part I.
To be Continued.
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
