Ronnie wrote:1) How many animals did Jesus ask for?
He asked for two animals, a donkey and a colt with her (Matt 21:2)
But, as you know, Mark and Luke each took
five occasions to have their Jesus ask for one animal. And either Jesus asked for one, or he asked for two. There is a difference.
2) How many animals did he receive?
He recieved two. (Matt 21:7)
But, as you know, Mark and Luke each took
four occasions to refer to Jesus receiving one animal, which is consistent with the one he asked for in their accounts. And either he received one animal, or he received two. There is a difference.
I feel the need to explain why there is no contradiction
Well, if asking for and receiving one animal, is the same as asking for and receiving two (or more) animals, then 2=1 and words cease to have meaning. If "2=1" isn't a contradiction, then perhaps you can share with us what you would consider to be a contradiction.
Matthew is the only apostle which gives all the information.
No, Matthew put an extra donkey in his story because he misread his Hebrew Parallelism in Zach 9:9. Who ever wrote "Matthew" didn't know his Hebrew very well. This is just one of his many mistakes revealing this.
The others leave out the fact that Jesus asked for two animals>>
No, they didn't leave it out. They both included
nine references referring to how many animals Jesus asked for and received. In the Mark and Luke accounts it is one animal.
This time I am not going to speculate why they did it.
That's good, because those speculations weren't very convincing, or biblical.
what is your arguement when people say that all the disciples who were tortured and killed for not denying the fact that Jesus rose from the grave
a) the martyrdom stories are almost without exception unsupported legends.
b) People die for mistaken beliefs all of the time. See Taliban, 9/11, etc.
and they would not have died for a lie?
Again, the stories of martyrdom are largely legendary, but even if they aren't they have very little to do verifying the truth of the stories they may have believed in. Note:
"As to martyrdom, it is rather easier to die for a false idea
than the apologists argue. Peregrinus, in the account of his
life by Lucian, got arrested as a Christian, and wished to
pay the ultimate penalty. His death wish was frustrated by
the Roman magistrate, who recognized the selfish desire
for attention by Peregrinus, and freed his prisoner instead.
Martyrdom is the ultimate narcissism.
In Lucian's story, Peregrinus finally dies by flinging himself
in a pagan god's fire, seeking immortality, with narration
of his glory supplied by one of his bootlicking followers."
-- Jeff Lowder
"As late as about 240/250 AD, Origen in Contra Celsum Book 3 Chapter 8
admits that the number of Christian marytrs was 'few' and 'easily
numbered'. This is after more than 2 centuries of persecution.
'For in order to remind others, that by seeing a few engaged in a
struggle for their religion, they also might be better fitted to
despise death, some, on special occasions, and these individuals who
can be easily numbered, have endured death for the sake of
Christianity..."
As Schweitzer pointed out: "Martyrdom has always been a proof of the intensity, never the correctness, of a belief."
-Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) theologian
After all, people will not die for a lie they know to be a lie,
People were very gullible back then, even more so than now.
I am sure that you say that Jesus rising from the dead is a lie, didn't happen, or some version of that.
Correct. And in saying that I have all mainstream Bible scholarship on my side. Here I quote the highest ranking Episcopal Bishop in the US, in 2000, John Shelby Spong:
"If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be believed except by assenting to the fantastic descriptions included in the Gospels, then Christianity is doomed. For that view of resurrection is not believable, and if that is all there is, then Christianity, which depends upon the truth and authenticity of Jesus' resurrection, also is not believable. If that were the requirement of belief as a Christian, then I would sadly leave my house of faith. With me in that exodus from the Christian church, however, would be **every ranking New Testament scholar in the world--Catholic and Protestant alike**: E. C. Hoskyns, C. H. Dodd, Rudolf Bultmann, Reginald Fuller, Joseph Fitzmyer, W. E. Albright, Ray-mond Brown, Paul Minear, R. H. Lightfoot, Herman Hendrickx, Edward Schillebeeckx, Hans Kung, Karl Rahner, Phyllis Trible, Jane Schaberg, D. H. Nineham, Maurice Goguel, and countless others.
---Bishop John Shelby Spong, John Shelby Spong, Resurrection: Myth or Reality? A Bishop's Search for the Origins of Christianity (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994), p. 238.
And:
"It is clear that the scriptural stories about this six-week period contradict one another egregiously with regard to the number and places of Jesus' appearances, the people who were on hand for such events, and even the date and the location of the ascension into heaven. Despite our best efforts above, the gospel accounts of Jesus' post mortem activities in fact cannot be harmonized into a consistent "Easter chronology." Nor need we bother to ask if the miraculous events of this Easter period could have been observed or recorded by cameras or tape recorders, had such devices been available. The reasons both for the patent inconsistencies and the physical unrecordability of these miraculous "events" come down to one thing: The gospel stories about Easter are not historical accounts but religious myths.
"I say this not at all out of disrespect for Christian faith or for the doctrines that it holds. Rather, I mean to indicate the general literary form of the Easter accounts. They are myths and legends; and it is absurd to take them literally and to create a chronology of preternatural events that supposedly occurred in Jerusalem and Galilee during the weeks after Jesus had died."
--Thomas Sheehan of the Religious Studies Department at Stanford. “The First Coming: How the Kingdom of God Became Christianity.”
I would die saying that Jesus did raise from the dead and is alive right now.
This just shows the fervency of your belief, not the accuracy of it. This is very common. The world is filled with billions of people with equally strong beliefs regarding extraordinary claims about all sorts of religious claims that you would have no trouble recognizing as absurd. But you can't see your own. Religion is a neat little trick of personal self delusion. But once you know how the magic trick works, and how it fools the person in question, you can't go back to believing the trick anymore. That's me. I know how the religion trick works.
I didn't see it happen but believe the eye witness accounts of those early Christians
You have, no, eye-witness, accounts. Not one.
who died horrible deaths saying that Jesus rose from the grave">>
Let's see you confirm one of these. And for every one you have, I can give you a hundred examples of equally sincere and mistaken people dying for equally false beliefs. In WWII, over 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses stood up to Hitler and died for the Jehovah's Witness beliefs. Does this mean the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses are true Ronnie? No, it means the people held strong beliefs and chose to die for them. Nothing more. But almost without exception, you can't even confirm your martyrdom stories anyway.
they saw Him and talked with Him after His death.
You have no report from anyone who even claims to have done this. You should study your Bible more carefully and stop getting your information from the fundamentalists who are misinforming you.
The disciples were there along with hundreds of others who saw Jesus after he had been raised from the dead,
Then show this. Names, and what
you can confirm that wrote. The gospels, are anonymous, the names were added decades and over a century later. And they admit they are passing along stories they heard. Hearsay.
they told this truth to people until many/most of them were put to death.
Show this.
I definitly don't hold out hopes of winning any prize for doing so from the Fayetteville Freethinkers,"
All of our prizes are bone fide, valid, legally binding, public offers. If you would like me to have my lawyer draw up contractual papers detailing this specifically for you, this can be done. Please stop this false insinuation that our offers are not legitimate.
Please, correct me if I am wrong or if there really is a way that someone could actually take advantage of the "Easter" story reward.
The Easter challenge is quite simply stated and straight forward. There aren't even very many verses involved. Again:
***
Tell us exactly what happened at the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and win $1,000! Read:
Matthew 28
Mark 16
Luke 24
John 20 & 21
Acts 1:3-12
1 Corinthians 15:3-8
Then, without omitting a single detail from the accounts, write one consistent narrative - with scriptural citations - of the events from the Resurrection to the Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Send your claim for the $1,000 REWARD to:
fayfreethinkers@yahoo.com
***
Simply cut, or type out the verses, and put them in order. See if they are consistent or can be put in an order that is consistent, without leaving anything out, or adding anything in. You will quickly learn this exercise is not about the money. It's about you learning something new about your Bible. Something your pastor forgot to tell you.
I agree that it is a shame that noone has at least "tried" to claim the reward just to get shot down with your arguements.
Indeed it is. I don't think anyone has made it past the "learning it can't be done stage." So it's never once been necessary for us to shoot anything down.
D.
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer