Why do gospel contradictions matter?

[JesusHChrist]

YG has a braincase as thick as a rhino. No amount of facts, scholarly references or logical refutation will sway him.

No matter virtually no scholars think the gospels are eyewitness accounts. Or were written by "Mark", "Matthew", "Luke" or "John".

No matter the much later dating than YG conjures out of thin air.

No matter the gospel inconsistencies clearly demonstrable and documented, over and over.

The god-googles are surgically implanted and the brainwashing too effective.

See kids what happens when you play with dangerous toys? Don't do it. Just say no to religious hogwash.

[Drich]

First off, I'm not a believer. But I constantly hear from fellow non believers that the gospels aren't reliable because they contain contradictions. Honestly, I don't understand why this argument is used. From my understanding, the gospels spread by word of mouth for at least 20+ years before being written down. And then mark was written down, which the others are based off of. So isn't the real reason they are unreliable due to them being circulated by conversation for over 20 years?

Please, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm happy to be educated.
(Any helpful links would be appreciated!)

What contradictions?

[Jenny A]

What contradictions?

Here are few pages of contradictions to chew on:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/paul_...tions.html

[Homeless Nutter]

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What contradictions?

Here are few pages of contradictions to chew on:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/paul_...tions.html

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[Thumpalumpacus]

Tonus the Bible is a book of wonder. Why is it the greatest selling book of all time and no book even comes close. The bible is the living word and can cut into the soul. You can read it a thousand times and you will always learn something new from it. Also if gospels dont supposedly contradict then sceptics would say it was made up and copied. They are eye witness accounts who died for their eye witnes testimony. Also pen and paper was not so common 2000 years ago. People relied more on memory. Rabbis could recite old testament. In any case gospels are eyewitness accounts and you can be sentenced to death based on eye witness testimony. The bible is a reliable source it shows how holy god is and gives us an escape plan. Jesus words will never die. A fulfilled prophecy

Yeah, no.

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In context, the amount of corroboration we have is practically historically unique in its quantity and quality.

This is laughably naive.

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.

They are riddled with direct contradictions; the two links above, which you will not open, no doubt, document most of them. One day the scales will fall from your eyes, and you will lament the years you've wasted pursuing this folly.

[JesusHChrist]

What contradictions?

rimshot!

lol! good one!

As if we haven't discussed this dozens of times, but every comedian needs a straight man.

[Drich]

What contradictions?

Here are few pages of contradictions to chew on:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/paul_...tions.html

Here are a few answers to digest.

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/merrit01.php

Or if you like you can pick say, 5 and we can go over them.

[Minimalist]

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. Opponents of Christianity, not denying Christ or his miracles, but rather attributing them to the works of demons, or magic tricks.

Tacitus wrote "Chrestianos," dummy, if he wrote anything.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_...of_MII.png


This change to "christianos" was made by an unknown 11th century scribe who probably thought he was improving the spelling.

Try again.

[Drich]

A few more here:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/by_name.html

Yeah, I think they had 'a skeptics annotated bible Answered' a week after the sab came out.
http://www.berenddeboer.net/sab/

[Jenny A]

Here are few pages of contradictions to chew on:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/paul_...tions.html

Here are a few answers to digest.

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/merrit01.php

Or if you like you can pick say, 5 and we can go over them.

Explanations for why there are contradictions, do not cause those contradictions to cease to exist. And there are very good explanations for why there are contradictions: muddled accounts passed down through multiple story tellers; theologically driven changes and additions; made up material; language barriers between the story tellers; and so on.

The explanations attempting to explain that there are no contradictions tend to be more complex and unbelievable than the contradictions themselves.

Your citation is to a mixture of the two.