Flaws in the Scriptures

Hi,I think that this poor analogy, the premises of both situations are entirely different.To begin with, we do not know for certain who wrote any of the Gospels, I assume that you would know who wrote your students essays.Next, The Gospels were written anytime up to 80 years after Jesus died, I assume you havent given your students that long a deadline.Next, all your students were present at your lecture, not all evangelists were present at these events. Mark did not know Jesus, Luke ceratinly didnt know Jesus, there are major disputes whether Matthew's gospel was written by Matthew Levi, and John's Gospel is far too late to have been written by an eyewitness.Next, although you would expect the stories to be similar, if any of your students handed in an essay that reproduced many sentences identical in places to ther students then you would surely query it, I certainly would.Also, in the Gospels there are stories about events that no one else was witness too, the temptations for example, or Jesus questioning by Pilate. Ths strongly suggests that these stories were copied from earlier texts, or passed on orally before being written down.The big problme is that 'Matthew', the only possible eyewitness, has reproduced 90% of Mark who was a non-eyewitness, why would an eyewitness do this? This is like a student of yours who attended your lecture, copying an essay from someone who wasn't, and since they fit in with the rest of the class' essays, where did the absent student get his information from?Finally, none of the evangelists were present at Jesus birth, his attending the temple at 12 years old, and many other events, so where did they get their information from?Brian.

Hi Z,You said there are ample stories of a man called Noah.......However, there are only two stories of Noah and they are both edited into the one account in the book of Genesis.Two conflicting stories edited into one account may be 'ample' for you, but for the rest of us, well work it out.Brian.[This message has been edited by Brian, 11-25-2003]

Ok I see,So Noah is only referred to in two stories, both spliced and made into one account in Genesis.The next question is, why can't the Noah myth simply be the retelling of much older flood myths from around the Near East? The Hebrew's are notorius for 'borrowing' the myths of other cultures.Brian.

Hi, What were these? How can an author borrow a text that hasn't been written yet. The Hebrew bible's flood narratives are not the oldest flood narratives. The bible flood myths cannot be copied by people who wrote long before anything in the bible was dreamed up. I am not saying that any of them are accurate, they are all myths, they are written for a specific purpose and not to be taken as literal. A retelling of something older doesn't mean that I believe any of them. None to my knowledge, care to expand a little? Make more statues of the Virgin Mary, sell water from Lourdes, put the Turin Shroud on exhibition, put a fake ossuary on exhibition? January 1987 I believe: WHat does Homer have to do with the Flood. Why not post something more relevant to the thread?Here's one, what is the oldest extant flood text and what is the oldest surviving text relating to Noah?Brian.[This message has been edited by Brian, 11-25-2003]

Hi, As you know, there is no way to show that the originals are correct since there are no extant originals.There is no way to prove that texts as ancient as these would have been correct in every detail anyway, history is not that easy. The authors of the Bible clearly had their own agenda and their propaganda is easy to spot, for anyone to claim that the originals were 'correct' do so purely on a faith basis, to claim it from any other angle is to show ignorance of their composition.Brian.