Christians: Can you see why atheists don't buy this stuff?

[vulcanlogician]

It's no secret that I am a fan of Star Trek. My old roommate and I were so familiar with Trek lore, that we could spot incongruities in the canon. When this occurred, we would sometimes whip up an ad hoc explanation to explain any discrepancies that arose. We did this out of a desire that our cherished fictional world remain logically consistent. But we knew (deep down) that the explanation was much simpler than that: there were multiple teams of writers contributing to the Trek canon, and one set of writers didn't always take into account what the others had written.

So it is with the Christian canon. And we see similar maneuvering from Biblical literalists. I offer exhibit A:

Matthew says that Judas died by hanging. Here is the account in Matthew’s Gospel: "So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself. The chief priests picked up the coins and said, ‘It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.’ So they decided to use the money to buy the potter's field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day" (). 

Luke says that Judas fell into a field and that his body ruptured. Here is the account in Acts: "With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood" ().

Which account is correct? Did Judas die by hanging, or did he die by falling? Or are both true? ...

Concerning how Judas died, here is a simple reconciliation of the facts: Judas hanged himself in the potter’s field (Matthew 27:5), and that is how he died. Then, after his body had begun to decay and bloat, the rope broke, or the branch of the tree he was using broke, and his body fell, bursting open on the land of the potter’s field (). Note that Luke does not say that Judas died from the fall, only that his body fell. The Acts passage presumes Judas's hanging, as a man falling down in a field does not normally result in his body bursting open. Only decomposition and a fall from a height could cause a body to burst open. So Matthew mentions the actual cause of death, and Luke focuses more on the horror surrounding it. 

https://www.gotquestions.org/Judas-die.html

Anyone familiar with mythology knows that multiple stories often arise concerning gods and heroes. Athena and Kali have multiple origin stories, for instance.

My question to theists is: doesn't the reasoning quoted above seem the slightest bit fishy to you? Would you at least admit that those who don't already presuppose Biblical inerrancy have good reason to call BS on this? Do you defend the interpretation offered by gotquestions.org?

[Cyberman]

M*A*S*H had similar inconsistencies. In early episodes, Hawkeye's mother was still alive. Later, she had died when he was a child. Klinger had blood group A (iirc) in one episode, then AB- in a later one (to Major Winchester's chagrin). Colonel Blake's wife was called Mildred initially, then Lorraine several episodes later. Mildred then got transplanted onto Colonel Potter. And good luck trying to come up with a consistent timeline - the whole series takes place between some time after the start of the war in 1950 to June 1953, yet certain first-season episodes indicate that the 4077th had been in situ for at least a year. Colonel Potter and BJ Hunnicut arrive in late September 1952, despite a much later episode showing them already there throughout 1951.

The reason should be obvious. Many writers working over many years. There are more parallels than merely the 38th.

[vulcanlogician]

I love M*A*S*H. Best series ever. It's even better than Trek.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'll try to get the wife back on the boards for a no bullshit explanation of how a person works out those discrepancies.  Long story short...sane people are fine with the writers of an anthology fudging the details between them.

No one -has- to tie their scrotum into a knot over it..that's a personal choice they make.

[RoadRunner79]

I think that this is certainly one of the more understandable and reasonable of the contradictions pointed to by skeptics.  I can also understand your criticism of the explanations given. I also wouldn't expect a non-believer, to believe in Biblical inerrancy. When I first became a Christian, I was quite a liberal one, and didn't hold to inerrancy, and it is not necessary to believe the Gospel.  Even now, while I do believe in inerrancy, I don't hang my hat on it, and if my views changed (on inerrancy), I would still believe the Gospels, even as just a mere human account with all our flaws and inadequacies.

So I can see your point, and I don't know if the explanations given are that good for these two accounts of Judas's fate.  It's one of those things, that I simply hold in tension.  Some of them even get quite extravagant detailing that perhaps the tree was next to a cliff and he fell after hanging himself.  I also wonder, what type of fall it would take (in a field) to burst asunder in the middle, with ones bowels gushing out.  This seems like an odd description to make up, and the speculation does somewhat account for this (even if some are a little wild).  Then we have the following commentary to consider

Polhill in his Acts commentary [92n] notes that the phrase translated "becoming headlong" (prenes genomenos -- translated as "falling headlong" in the KJV, but literally being "becoming headlong" as shown in Green's Interlinear translation, 366) is a mere transcription error away from being "becoming swollen" (presthes genomenos). The latter may well be what was originally written, and as such might describe Judas' body swelling up after hanging for a while. This reading is found in later Syriac, Georgian and Armenian mss., though perhaps as an attempt at textual criticism of the sort we are doing. 
Tektonics.org

With a little study, it also seems that the ancient commentary (~4th century) has a number of different reconciliations and traditions for Judas's death and these two tellings of it. Qutie a few say he was removed from the noose, before dying, and died as stated in the account of Acts some time later. 
Some commentaries say that Matthew was pointing to a type, and was just saying that Judas committed suicide.  Which would certainly be consistent with his writing. And yet others make note of the audience stating that the Jews would relate more to being hung from a tree (cursed) while the gentiles in Luke's audience had seen suicide as honorable in some circumstances and focused more on the gruesome aftermath (relating to the answer you found). 
So I think that it could be two separate focus's of the same account.   I can also see (in this case) why you might just think they are telling what they heard and one or both is incorrect.  I don't advocate for those getting into a lot of unnecessary detail about in number of things.  Both accounts are quite brief in the scriptures to go into much speculation.  And while I can see your side here as well, I don't think that it is necessarily a contradiction; especially with the extent that some go to find contradictions in every nook and cranny (perhaps I have become numb to these claims to get too excited).  In any case it is a minor detail, concerning the scriptures and I don't think that it makes that big of difference either way.

[The Valkyrie]

I love M*A*S*H. Best series ever. It's even better than Trek.

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[Amarok]

I love M*A*S*H. Best series ever. It's even better than Trek.

MASH was brilliant 

It was funny when it needed to be and soul destroying when it had to be . That episode with Hawkeye and  the bus and the baby ......Still have not gotten over that.

---

M*A*S*H had similar inconsistencies. In early episodes, Hawkeye's mother was still alive. Later, she had died when he was a child. Klinger had blood group A (iirc) in one episode, then AB- in a later one (to Major Winchester's chagrin). Colonel Blake's wife was called Mildred initially, then Lorraine several episodes later. Mildred then got transplanted onto Colonel Potter. And good luck trying to come up with a consistent timeline - the whole series takes place between some time after the start of the war in 1950 to June 1953, yet certain first-season episodes indicate that the 4077th had been in situ for at least a year. Colonel Potter and BJ Hunnicut arrive in late September 1952, despite a much later episode showing them already there throughout 1951.

The reason should be obvious. Many writers working over many years. There are more parallels than merely the 38th.

True they just count on us being so interrupter with the story we overlook little details like that .

[vulcanlogician]

I love M*A*S*H. Best series ever. It's even better than Trek.

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I see two dots. Is that what you meant to put, or are those phone emojis?

[The Valkyrie]

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I see two dots. Is that what you meant to put, or are those phone emojis?

You've been black balled!

Hmph!

[vulcanlogician]

I see two dots. Is that what you meant to put, or are those phone emojis?

You've been black balled!

Hmph!

I'd rather be black balled than blue balled