Christians - even the Bible says that Jesus was not God so why do you say he was ?

[GrandizerII]

Except it's necessary until a better explanation comes along. Your explanation is not really parsimonious as it doesn't, for example, account for the differences between the genealogies that well. You have to add all sorts of unwarranted assumptions to reach the conclusion you want to make.

No, you just need to add one set of parentheses or a couple of commas to reach my position. That's far less than an entire Q source that was so well distributed that two gospel writers used it, but yet so rare that not a single copy survived.

The better explanation should account for everything, similarities and differences. Yours doesn't, and it shows from the fact that you didn't address the rest of my argument.

[GrandizerII]

And the differences. Don't be selective. If "Luke" had access to "Matthew", why did he write in a way as if he had no idea of Matthew's first couple of chapters?

He didn't see need to repeat it.

Why does his proposed genealogy contradict that of Matthew's in chapter 1?

Because one is of Joseph, the other Mary.

And why do the nativity stories seem like two very different stories that were trying to explain, each in their own way, how Jesus was supposedly born in Bethlehem but then got moved to Nazareth? Luke doesn't even pretend to acknowledge that Matthew 1 and 2 were ever written?

Again, he didn't see need to repeat it.

Even if we went along with your explanation that he had access to Matthew, what it really says is Luke didn't fully agree with Matthew and actually corrected him.

No, it says that Luke added additional information and saw no need to repeat Matthew's account.

Yet Luke repeated most of the other stuff stated in Matthew. Now give me your spin on why that was the case.

Why didn't he need to repeat the nativity story as Matthew stated it?

[John V]

does it matter ? its an  accepted gospel of orthodox christians

Can you support that? That's not what I'm finding:
http://www.serfes.org/orthodox/scripture...church.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_c..._Testament

[John V]

The better explanation should account for everything, similarities and differences. Yours doesn't,

Yes, it does. Quite simply, there's no need for Luke to completely reproduce Matthew.

Find a copy of Q yet?

[John V]

Yet Luke repeated most of the other stuff stated in Matthew. Now give me your spin on why that was the case.

First support that "Luke repeated most of the other stuff stated in Matthew."

According to wiki, only Luke only shares 200 verses (out of 1151 total) with Matthew that aren't in Mark, and the simplest explanation is that Luke had access to Matthew:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic_Gospels

An extensive set of material—some two hundred verses or roughly half the length of the triple tradition—are the pericopae shared between Matthew and Luke but absent in Mark.
...
The simplest hypothesis is that Luke relied on Matthew's work or vice versa.

[GrandizerII]

Doesn't have to be a Q anymore. It wasn't a strange thing for ancients to make references to texts that we no longer have any access to.

Aside from Matthew 1 and 2, Luke copied even more from what's found in Matthew (including what's in Mark) and saw the need to repeat them rather than come up with a totally different account. Why the exception then for Matthew's nativity story? It is very odd this very clear deviation.

Perhaps because Luke didn't have access to Matthew's nativity account.

Do you have a better answer?

And one other thing: Luke never said Heli was Mary's father. Luke said Heli was Joseph's father. Don't make stuff up.

[John V]

Doesn't have to be a Q anymore. It wasn't a strange thing for ancients to make references to texts that we no longer have any access to.

Aside from Matthew 1 and 2, Luke copied even more from what's found in Matthew (including what's in Mark) and saw the need to repeat them rather than come up with a totally different account. Why the exception then for Matthew's nativity story? It is very odd this very clear deviation.

Repeating the bare assertion isn't support. What percentage of Matthew is found in Luke?

And one other thing: Luke never said Heli was Mary's father. Luke said Heli was Joseph's father. Don't make stuff up.

I've acknowledged that punctuation (they didn't use much if any back then - the reader needed to infer it) must be added to support that position.

[GrandizerII]

Doesn't have to be a Q anymore. It wasn't a strange thing for ancients to make references to texts that we no longer have any access to.

Aside from Matthew 1 and 2, Luke copied even more from what's found in Matthew (including what's in Mark) and saw the need to repeat them rather than come up with a totally different account. Why the exception then for Matthew's nativity story? It is very odd this very clear deviation.

Repeating the bare assertion isn't support. What percentage of Matthew is found in Luke?

And one other thing: Luke never said Heli was Mary's father. Luke said Heli was Joseph's father. Don't make stuff up.

I've acknowledged that punctuation (they didn't use much if any back then - the reader needed to infer it) must be added to support that position.

Come on, it's pretty obvious that Luke repeats most of what Matthew said. If you don't like the word "most", replace it with "significant amount". But this isn't up for debate anyway.

What you should consider is why there is an exception for Matthew 1 and 2 in that Luke doesn't seem to be aware of the nativity account from Matthew.

And what's that excuse about lack of punctuation? Even so, no Mary in there anyway.

[John V]

Come on, it's pretty obvious that Luke repeats most of what Matthew said. If you don't like the word "most", replace it with "significant amount".

OK. In that case, your argument on differences in the nativity accounts aren't "very odd" and don't constitute "very clear deviation."

But this isn't up for debate anyway.

You're right, it's a question of fact, which you likely checked on and found it wasn't as high as you thought.

If Luke used a very high percentage of Matthew, say 98%, then your point would deserve consideration. But, it's not nearly that high. Therefore, an explanation beyond Luke didn't see the need to repeat it is unnecessary.

What you should consider is why there is an exception for Matthew 1 and 2 in that Luke doesn't seem to be aware of the nativity account from Matthew.

You haven't shown that it's a glaring exception that requires more of an explanation than already given.

And what's that excuse about lack of punctuation? Even so, no Mary in there anyway.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15464b.htm

The text of the third Gospel (3:23) may be explained so as to make Heli the father of Mary: "Jesus. . .being the son (as it was supposed of Joseph) of Heli", or "Jesus. . .being the son of Joseph, as it was supposed, the son of Heli" (Lightfoot, Bengel, etc.), or again "Jesus. . .being as it was supposed the son of Joseph, who was [the son-in-law] of Heli". In these explanations the name of Mary is not mentioned explicitly, but it is implied; for Jesus is the Son of Heli through Mary.

[GrandizerII]

You're right, it's a question of fact, which you likely checked on and found it wasn't as high as you thought.

If Luke used a very high percentage of Matthew, say 98%, then your point would deserve consideration. But, it's not nearly that high. Therefore, an explanation beyond Luke didn't see the need to repeat it is unnecessary.

Sounds like a strawman. You do know "most" doesn't necessarily imply such a high percentage, right? It just has to mean that more of Matthew was repeated/paraphrased by Luke than not.

And this is obvious by just comparing the Gospels together side by side.

So then why is it that with such a high number of repeats/paraphrasing did Luke not do the same for Matthew 1 and 2.

Compare Matthew 3 to Luke 3. You can see the many similarities/paraphrases between the two chapters. Go further through the Gospels and you'll see more and more of these similarities. Even the last chapters have similarities between the two. Yes, I know Mark has some of them as well. But that's besides the point.

Now go back to Matthew 1 & 2 and Luke 1 & 2. No similarities/paraphrases. Why not? Why the deviation here? Luke was in the habit of repeating Matthew's words elsewhere, but in the nativity accounts, he decides not to repeat anything said there??? Well, I have an answer as to why this is the case. But you actually don't. That's why you have to resort to red herrings, don't you?

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15464b.htm

The text of the third Gospel (3:23) may be explained so as to make Heli the father of Mary: "Jesus. . .being the son (as it was supposed of Joseph) of Heli", or "Jesus. . .being the son of Joseph, as it was supposed, the son of Heli" (Lightfoot, Bengel, etc.), or again "Jesus. . .being as it was supposed the son of Joseph, who was [the son-in-law] of Heli". In these explanations the name of Mary is not mentioned explicitly, but it is implied; for Jesus is the Son of Heli through Mary.

Catholic apologetic rubbish adding to the text something that's not there. I thought you were all about Occam's razor.

So going with your "explanation" here, why didn't Luke just mention Mary then? Did he not know that Heli was her father, and not Joseph's?