I thought Q was supposed to represent a source for the elements common to Matthew and Luke that are not found in Mark.
I misremembered: the early testimony is from Papias not Polycarp.
According to Wikipedia Schleiermacher was the first to take Papias' claim that Matthew wrote a collection of sayings rather than a narrative gospel at face value, and then a scholar named Weisse formulated the two source (Mark and the sayings) hypothesis for Matthew and Luke based on Schleiermacher's theory. The sayings source was named Q when sceptical scholars wanted to disassociate the theory from reliance on Papias.
There may be something in the assertion of overcompensation, but theologising is always best when it demonstrates an open analytical process. If folks make it clear what they think they’ve found and why, I don’t have a problem with that. Whether I’m convinced or not.
I misremembered: the early testimony is from Papias not Polycarp.
According to Wikipedia Schleiermacher was the first to take Papias' claim that Matthew wrote a collection of sayings rather than a narrative gospel at face value, and then a scholar named Weisse formulated the two source (Mark and the sayings) hypothesis for Matthew and Luke based on Schleiermacher's theory. The sayings source was named Q when sceptical scholars wanted to disassociate the theory from reliance on Papias.
Aren't the works of Papias yet another text that is lost, so that any references to him are based only on what other people say that he said?
That seems to me to put any references to him as in the 'likely' sense, not as used in normal speech, but in the sense in which it has all too often been used on this thread, i.e. 'likely = a possible suggestion as to how something could perhaps have been that happens best to suit what I want to assert'.
I think I was saying Paul knew some oral traditions as they were developing. He would have known the witness of all the disciples who attended the first council of Jerusalem. He obviously was familiar with many of the early church's hymns, which are a means of carrying on oral traditions.
In relation to the Gospels, I think it's clear that there was an oral transmission of the stories of Jesus for at least 40 years before the Gospels were written down, that transmission could have been the first stages of the development of an oral tradition - except the Gospels were written and that, at best, resulted in a hybrid of oral and written tradition, and certainly by the time of the Fathers an almost entirely written tradition. Paul certainly heard the stories of Jesus spoken rather than read; an example could be 1 Corinthians 15 "what I received I also passed on ... " being almost certainly "what I heard" rather than "what I read". The Epistles are just a small portion of the Apostolic teaching - Paul, Peter etc would have spent the vast majority of their time talking, the Epistles are a necessary second best option when actually visiting people wasn't possible, if there was an issue in a church and they could get there they would go rather than dictate a letter.
For the Old Testament, the arguments for an oral tradition are much stronger, possibly with very little written before the Exile.
About the only thing I would differ with you on is the relationship between Matthew and Luke. I've never been convinced that either of them knew the other. My theory (for what it's worth) is they they developed separately in different places at around the same time. Matthew in Israel, aiming at Jewish Christians; Luke in Europe or Turkey, aiming at Gentile Christians in an urban setting.
One reason (though there are many) for this belief is that their birth narratives are so very different. Although they both have a Virgin Birth in Bethlehem, almost everything else is different. We blithely reconcile the two narratives at Christmas, often failing to see how much they differ and appreciating their distinctiveness.
Luke could have used Matthew if he was building on both Mark and an already‑expanded teaching Gospel. The Farrer view argues Luke smooths Matthew’s Greek, rearranges his sermons, and reshapes shared sayings for his own themes. This removes the need for a hypothetical Q source while still acknowledging that Matthew and Luke share substantial non‑Markan material that must be explained somehow.
While it seems you are saying other than the birth narrative the two Gospels differ widely, I would argue in some ways the differences show commonality. Both have similar forms of the beatitudes. Matthew has Jesus speaking from a mountain/hill; Luke has Jesus speaking from the plain. The difference there has more to do with their theological outlook. Luke seems to improve Matthew's Greek and rough edges. To me, it seems Luke is revising the Matthew story.
Now I could run with the Q theory, but for me the Farrer hypothesis seems more likely.
It's a long long time since I studied this stuff but my impression was that there was no clear sign of Luke amending Matthew or vice versa. In some of their shared material, it looked like Matthew's was the more primitive but in others it looked like Luke's was. The best conclusion I could draw was that they were both amending some common material in differing ways, depending upon their contexts and readership.
In addition, where they both have Markan material, they both seem to adapted it in their own ways. I couldn't see a clear line of "Matthew adapted Mark and then Luke adapted Matthew". If Luke was aware of Matthew, I doubt that he would have gone back to Mark's rather scruffy Greek and worked from that, rather than working from Matthew's better Greek.
But the "Synoptic Question" has always kept biblical scholars on their toes, hasn't it?
I go back to Luke's preamble. He is aware of other written accounts of the life of Jesus and he says he is setting about to write an accurate account. We agree he very likely knew of Mark. There were probably non canonical accounts out there. Could be he is also referring to the Matthew account. Either/or we have two accounts, each with their own perspectives. I enjoy the richness they both have.
I think we need to give greater emphasis to their different perspectives and styles. Too often, in my experience, people treat them as being interchangeable.
Yeah sure, a miracle, but what Chromosomes/alleles/genomes did the god-man have in his cells, and where did he get them from? The Orthodox view, and I think the Catholic view, is that he got 100% of his humanity from his mother. How does that work? I mean we can throw up our hands and say "goddidit" but then why bother having a SOF at all? I think Alan alluded to this.
Does humanity solely reside in genes? Would miraculous gene editing to turn an X into a Y (or merely activate the SRY gene) and fuse two eggs to make an embryo make the genetics other than human? Heck, would divine creation of an embryo to be implanted make the resulting baby non-human? Surely humanity also resides in being nurtured in the womb, nursed and raised, growing and learning as human? Even limiting it to biology, does not the building of the body in the womb from the mother's blood, flesh and bone not make the resulting baby fully human?
If that ever happened and there was a live birth, they wouldn't survive. Human genetics is particularly resistant to genetic mutations of this kind (for which there is a name that I don't remember) unlike for example strawberries.
If we're already positing miraculous genetic modification, doing the GM right is hardly a stretch. Heck, Mary could have had a mosaic condition that gave her some functioning male gonadal tissue and she self-impregnated. Biology is weird AF when it comes to edge cases. Theoretical possibility indicated here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28282768/
All that does is potentially eliminate anything miraculous about Jesus' birth. Biology, however rare, is still Biology.
It’s true that some things thought to be miraculous in earlier times do turn out to have a natural explanation in the light of more modern scientific awareness.
But I’m pretty sure that the Virgin Birth isn’t one of those.
There's also a massive question to answer: does "miraculous" mean "without natural explanation"? Can't something be a sign from God with a simple natural explanation?
Yeah sure, a miracle, but what Chromosomes/alleles/genomes did the god-man have in his cells, and where did he get them from? The Orthodox view, and I think the Catholic view, is that he got 100% of his humanity from his mother. How does that work? I mean we can throw up our hands and say "goddidit" but then why bother having a SOF at all? I think Alan alluded to this.
Does humanity solely reside in genes? Would miraculous gene editing to turn an X into a Y (or merely activate the SRY gene) and fuse two eggs to make an embryo make the genetics other than human? Heck, would divine creation of an embryo to be implanted make the resulting baby non-human? Surely humanity also resides in being nurtured in the womb, nursed and raised, growing and learning as human? Even limiting it to biology, does not the building of the body in the womb from the mother's blood, flesh and bone not make the resulting baby fully human?
If that ever happened and there was a live birth, they wouldn't survive. Human genetics is particularly resistant to genetic mutations of this kind (for which there is a name that I don't remember) unlike for example strawberries.
If we're already positing miraculous genetic modification, doing the GM right is hardly a stretch. Heck, Mary could have had a mosaic condition that gave her some functioning male gonadal tissue and she self-impregnated. Biology is weird AF when it comes to edge cases. Theoretical possibility indicated here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28282768/
All that does is potentially eliminate anything miraculous about Jesus' birth. Biology, however rare, is still Biology.
[Yes, I'm late getting back to this thread]
Eliminate as necessity, perhaps, but such an occurence happening by chance for a baby who grew up to claim what Jesus did leaves divine providence vs serendipity wide open.
I don't see how a baby conceived by such fat-fetched but non-miraculous means would ever come to know about it (in pre-modern times). I mean, Mom might say "I was a virgin," but without anything to back that statement up (such as a visit from an angel), well...
There's also a massive question to answer: does "miraculous" mean "without natural explanation"? Can't something be a sign from God with a simple natural explanation?
Indeed. Healing by medical intervention is still healing.
Also Ive personally seen a few cases of healing which have not been explicable in medical terms, even following helpful medical intervention. In one case the person was expected either to die or have a severely impaired brain function. His healing and more or less immediate full recovery of mental faculties was inexplicable to the surgeons who treated him, such was the damage to his brain. I met him at home after his surgery and admit frankly that I was knocked out by how much he was still himself. I knew how massive the damage was.
Some things are beyond purely natural explanations.
I don't see how a baby conceived by such fat-fetched but non-miraculous means would ever come to know about it (in pre-modern times). I mean, Mom might say "I was a virgin," but without anything to back that statement up (such as a visit from an angel), well...
I think people might be just as likely to say "yeah, sure!" over the angelic visit claim as they would over the virgin pregnancy claim, to be honest.
I don't see how a baby conceived by such fat-fetched but non-miraculous means would ever come to know about it (in pre-modern times). I mean, Mom might say "I was a virgin," but without anything to back that statement up (such as a visit from an angel), well...
I don't see how a baby conceived by such fat-fetched but non-miraculous means would ever come to know about it (in pre-modern times). I mean, Mom might say "I was a virgin," but without anything to back that statement up (such as a visit from an angel), well...
There is no indication Mary ever made the claim she was a virgin when she conceived Jesus. It appears Matthew developed that idea and was picked up by Luke. Either that or it developed through a Q source; moreover, at least two major Christian communities will argue she remained a perpetual virgin.
That does require the statement attributed to Mary in Luke 2
How can this be since I know not a man?
has to be part of Luke’s construction of the birth narrative being a matter of theology not history.
In short, Mary didn’t say it.
Doesn’t that require an assumption that the whole of the birth narrative is non-historical? That there was nothing in the oral tradition or the memories of those living that Mary said that?
It might be better to say “there is this indication in the text, but I think it’s more likely to be a necessary part of Luke’s construction/theological reflection than a reference to something which actually happened”.
That’s what I think you actually believe. And it’s difficult to deny that there are aspects of Luke’s accounts which seem more like story telling e.g the historicity of the census and the need for Mary and Joseph to go. But I think that argument can be taken too far.
It’s true that some things thought to be miraculous in earlier times do turn out to have a natural explanation in the light of more modern scientific awareness.
But I’m pretty sure that the Virgin Birth isn’t one of those.
Hey, thanks. Sometimes I drift off a bit. Yes, the God of the Gaps has less and less room to maneuver.
There's also a massive question to answer: does "miraculous" mean "without natural explanation"? Can't something be a sign from God with a simple natural explanation?
Christopher Hitchens shared in a number of videos how Dr. Francis Collins, Hitchens' friend and the head of the US side of the Human Genome Project, became a Christian. As Hitchens told it, Collins was taking a winter hike and came across a waterfall that had frozen into a three-stream structure. Collins derived the Trinity from this happenstance, and purportedly accepted his faith then and there.
David Hume's takes include this: "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined... There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as an uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior."
Hume also reminds:"That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish: And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior."
All that does is potentially eliminate anything miraculous about Jesus' birth. Biology, however rare, is still Biology.
[Yes, I'm late getting back to this thread]
Eliminate as necessity, perhaps, but such an occurence happening by chance for a baby who grew up to claim what Jesus did leaves divine providence vs serendipity wide open.
I'm just going to have to disagree. All life happens by chance, albeit some stronger than others. Your comment reads a little too closely to reverse engineering to me, here.
There's also a massive question to answer: does "miraculous" mean "without natural explanation"? Can't something be a sign from God with a simple natural explanation?
Indeed. Healing by medical intervention is still healing.
Also Ive personally seen a few cases of healing which have not been explicable in medical terms, even following helpful medical intervention. In one case the person was expected either to die or have a severely impaired brain function. His healing and more or less immediate full recovery of mental faculties was inexplicable to the surgeons who treated him, such was the damage to his brain. I met him at home after his surgery and admit frankly that I was knocked out by how much he was still himself. I knew how massive the damage was.
Some things are beyond purely natural explanations.
"Healing" can be a bit of a loaded word. I doubt many medical professionals would use it. A number of more clinical terms are available: rejuvenate, regenerate, repair, restore, revive, rehabilitate, resuscitate, remission, even cure...
I don't see how a baby conceived by such fat-fetched but non-miraculous means would ever come to know about it (in pre-modern times). I mean, Mom might say "I was a virgin," but without anything to back that statement up (such as a visit from an angel), well...
I think people might be just as likely to say "yeah, sure!" over the angelic visit claim as they would over the virgin pregnancy claim, to be honest.
Certainly; but I was considering this from the point of view of the child so conceived. I imagine that, if my mother told me simply "I conceived you as a virgin" and said nothing more, I'd be inclined to think she was lying to cover up a rape or something. The extra context of "I saw this angel, and this is what he told me about your future" at least offers an alternative explanation for the miracle she's claiming. But on its own with no purpose supplied? I'd find it even more impossible to believe.
I suppose that says that I am capable of believing in (some) miracles, but not in meaningless ones.
Nice clarification re healing. In the example I referred to, the patient was restored to full cognitive function, as he was before his illness, despite the fact that half his pre-frontal cortex had been completely destroyed by his illness. My medical friend observed. “The only natural explanation was that the part which was destroyed had nothing in it which related to his cognitive functioning”.
Of course I’m aware of cases in children who gave grown up functioning normally despite a significant amount of the brain matter being irreparably damaged or simply not there. There appears to be a re-routing capability in development.
This wasn’t like that. The patient was in his mid 50’s and needed no help in the restoration of cognitive functions eg speech, recognition, loss of memory. His motor functions weren’t affected at all. He lived for another 20 years before dying of a heart attack.
David Hume's takes include this: "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined... There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as an uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior."
Hume also reminds:"That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish: And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior."
I'd disagree with Hume in his definition of "miracle". Though, the impossibility of establishing a miracle to have occurred is a valid point - not because it's impossible to establish what happened, but because to me the essence of miracle is what that event means to people, in particular whether it leads to increased faith, which is something unquanifiable.
If it helps, the Orthodox tend to think of the 'supranatural' rather than the 'supernatural' - specifically that God works in and through natural processes and can speed them up or slow them down if he so wishes.
How that applies to the Virgin Birth, I don't know, but generally speaking we don't tend to see these things as God 'zapping' things externally as it were - as in the Terry Gilliam 'Monty Python' animation with a giant foot descending from the clouds and splatting people.
The whole Nativity account in Matthew could be a literary conceit of course, something Mary didn't actually say. We could go further and say that Christ didn't actually say any of the things attributed to him either.
Which would be a bit of a stretch.
Luke gives Mary a lovely song, the Magnificat, clearly inspired by Hannah's song in 1 Kings 2:1-10.
Was anyone there with a tape recorder or a pen and paper to write it down?
That there are clear and obvious literary and theological tropes doesn't mean there wasn't also oral testimony of course, but unless we are very fundamentalist I see no need to regard the dialogue in the Gospels as some kind of newspaper report of what was said.
What we have is the gist, I think and marshaling of material for literary and theological effect.
That doesn't debunk it of course.
Orthodox Christians hold out the possibility that some of the miraculous events in the scriptures may be the result of processes we don't yet understand. I've heard other Christians say this too and on these boards perhaps.
What I do baulk at somewhat are attempts to link Bible stories too closely to scientific or astrological phenomena and natural disasters and so on.
I've known an Orthodox priest argue that the volcanic eruption on Santorini was contemporaneous with the Exodus and Pharoah's army were swept away by the ensuing tsunami.
I see no need to be as specific as that.
Do I believe in unexplained and miraculous events? Yes.
But I don't go looking for them nor do I seek to 'explain away' their occurrence in the Gospels.
What's most important is their theological import.
Potentially a different thread. But, the defining feature for me is that miracles are signs that point to God, that show something about the nature and plan of God. I'll sort of accept the Orthodox 'supranatural', sort of. God continuously calls all things into being, continually saying "let there be ...", usually in a predictable manner which we describe as the laws of science. There's nothing stopping God saying something different so that things happen in a way inexplicable to science. Is there anything fundamentally different between God giving us a sign by saying "let there be ..." in accordance with normal practice and explicable to science and giving us a sign by saying something inexplicable to science?
To bring that thought back to the subject of this thread. Many Christians would call the Bible the "Word of God", considering the text we have to be a miraculous document through which God can speak to us. Those same Christians may also consider it to be a document that's the product of human beings, constrained by normal human experience, and would consider textual criticism, the insights of archaeology and sociology etc to be valid tools to investigate and understand the text. The Bible is both a book of human writings produced by processes that are explicable to human sciences, and a miracle from God.
A deity that defied the normal natural laws to conduct miracles would likely leave strange effects. It could even make predictive science essentially impossible.
To bring that thought back to the subject of this thread. Many Christians would call the Bible the "Word of God", considering the text we have to be a miraculous document through which God can speak to us. Those same Christians may also consider it to be a document that's the product of human beings, constrained by normal human experience, and would consider textual criticism, the insights of archaeology and sociology etc to be valid tools to investigate and understand the text. The Bible is both a book of human writings produced by processes that are explicable to human sciences, and a miracle from God.
I hesitate to call the Bible the actual Word of God. That smacks of Bibleolatry to my way of thinking. A much better way is the Living Word of God rests in the Bible. The Bible is the cradle on which the Word of God lays. I think it was Karl Barthe who said the Bible becomes the Word of God when the Bible speaks through it.
Saying “the Bible is the Word of God” treats every verse as direct divine speech with equal authority. Saying “the Word of God is in the Bible” sees Scripture as a human witness through which God speaks, with Christ as the clearest revelation. The first locates authority in the text; the second in God’s self‑revelation through it.
I deliberately said "many Christians", because I know there's a lot of discussion possible over the phrase "Word of God" in relation to Scripture. FWIW, most of those I've known who use that short hand phrase, when pushed to explain how they actually believe the Word and words combine in Scripture would end up with something much more nuanced along the lines of the Word speaking through the words, the Word in the words etc. Those who are more widely read may well use phrases like "the cradle in which the Word lays" (which is a saying of Luther - though frequently reused by others, and may predate Luther) or agree with Barthe.
There are, of course, parallels between the Word becoming flesh in the person of Christ Jesus and the Word speaking through the text of Scripture (which is why the "cradle in which the Word lays" is a meaningful phrase, Luther drawing that parallel with the Incarnation). Both are miraculous.
Interestingly the late Metropolitan Kallistos Ware didn't have an issue with calling the Bible the 'word of God' - as long as we don’t confuse it with 'God the Word'.
He was also comfortable with converts from evangelical backgrounds continuing to use the NIV.
Of all the numerous scriptures in the Hindu tradition, the Bhagavad Gita is the best known and most studied. It takes place on a battlefield, and consists of a conversation between the righteous warrior Arjuna, and his charioteer Krishna, who is an incarnation of God. I doubt if there are many devout Hindus who believe this story to be a narrative of historical events, but rather a road map for the journey of the soul.
Origen of Alexandria, and the Alexandrian School, suggested that the Bible, while undoubtedly containing historical events, notably the crucifiction of Jesus under Pontius Pilate, but many others too, contains a lot of allegory, myth, and interpretation interspersed with any description of events. In the post Reformation period it seemed to become important to regard the Bible as a history book which simply describes events that happened. I've been unable to see it that way since I was 15, which is one of the reasons I was expelled from a fundamentalist Evangelical Church in 1969 at that age.
To me the Bible tells us how we get from our slavery to sin, in a world bounded by death, to rest eternally in God's loving arms. It tells us of the humility we need to follow Christ, and to say, " not my will but Your will be done." It is therefore the inspired word of God. But that doesn't mean that I believe it was dictated by God and is therefore inerrant. It contains numerous contradictions. Some of its narratives, IMO, are there to guide of on our path of repentance and purification, not simply to describe something which happened. So I would never get hung up, for example, about whether Jesus' brothers and sisters, which he clearly had, were full, half, or step siblings. That depends on interpretation and everyone is welcome to their opinion on it. So inspired, yes of course, but totally factual, no.
I don't think anyone thinks the Bible is 100% literal.
The quibbles happen when you get to picking apart exactly which parts are factual, which parts are mythical, and even more pointedly, what those myths mean.
Everyone is fine with doing God's will. But if it comes down to describing what it is that God would will us to do, that's where the real fights start to break out. That's when expectations start getting real.
Belief that the Bible is free from errors. That’s not the same as saying every word is literally true. Inerrant interpretations can allow for other explanations of the texts.
Right, and that can lead to all kinds of conversations about where the edges are of proper interpretation, or what the nature of biblical authority is.
... I've known an Orthodox priest argue that the volcanic eruption on Santorini was contemporaneous with the Exodus and Pharoah's army were swept away by the ensuing tsunami. ...
That is OK if one just thinks of it as a possible explanation, as long as one does not make the next jump, to 'this could explain how the events of the Exodus happened. Therefore that is how it happened.'
Whether applied to speculation about the Old or New Testament, that was what I was getting at in my comment a few days ago about the misue of 'likely'.
I am fairly sure I have mentioned this before on these threads. Fifty + years ago I remember being shown by some US evangelists from somewhere in the Southern States a 'creationist' film about Noah, the Ark and the Flood. It started by pointing out a small selection of flaws and inconsistencies in evolutionary scientific orthodoxy as it was at the time. From that it made a neat jump to 'therefore, evolution must be wrong'. From that the next step was 'Genesis is 'the Word of God'. It is therefore accurate history'. The final step was to, 'as I have already disproved evolution, my explanation of the sequence of events described in Genesis must be the right deduction from the account'.
If that was an intellectually respectable dialectic technique, it would make life so much easier.
“You shal know the truth and the truth shall set you free”.
“But what is truth?”
I am convinced by observable facts that the universe and this world are very very old. Billions of years old.
I am also convinced by observable facts that life on our world has existed in some form or other for millions of years. And very primitive living organisms for billions of years. And death has always been a feature of that life.
So that is truth, so far as I can judge. After very serious examination. So what am I supposed to do with those who in some sense share my faith but assert that I am deceived? I MUST be deceived?
I agree with you that theirs is not an intellectually respectable dialectic technique! I’d even add “provably so”!
But this is “their truth”. So I tell them my understanding and why, respectfully disagree. And if they get arrogant about it, insist I’m wrong, I walk away until they calm down!
That seems to work. In my local church today there aren’t that many out and out anti-evolution, YEC believers. As far as I can judge anyway. Nobody is strident about it. That wasn’t the case 50 years ago. Variations of understanding on those matters are regarded as normal and agreement on them is not essential for living and working together. That’s been a positive change.
Does it affect the way folks look at the Bible. I’m sure it does.
... I've known an Orthodox priest argue that the volcanic eruption on Santorini was contemporaneous with the Exodus and Pharoah's army were swept away by the ensuing tsunami. ...
That is OK if one just thinks of it as a possible explanation, as long as one does not make the next jump, to 'this could explain how the events of the Exodus happened. Therefore that is how it happened.'
Whether applied to speculation about the Old or New Testament, that was what I was getting at in my comment a few days ago about the misue of 'likely'.
I am fairly sure I have mentioned this before on these threads. Fifty + years ago I remember being shown by some US evangelists from somewhere in the Southern States a 'creationist' film about Noah, the Ark and the Flood. It started by pointing out a small selection of flaws and inconsistencies in evolutionary scientific orthodoxy as it was at the time. From that it made a neat jump to 'therefore, evolution must be wrong'. From that the next step was 'Genesis is 'the Word of God'. It is therefore accurate history'. The final step was to, 'as I have already disproved evolution, my explanation of the sequence of events described in Genesis must be the right deduction from the account'.
If that was an intellectually respectable dialectic technique, it would make life so much easier.
It's more dishonest than you image. Those "flaws and inconsistencies" - IME, mostly deliberate misinterpretations and misunderstandings, mixed with a few outright lies. I actually suspect a number of creationist sources are grifters who don't believe the nonsense they spout.
I agree about promoters of the view. That’s often the way it seems to me.
But some folks just get taken in. I don’t doubt their sincerity. I think my dissenting tendencies are an aid to spotting BS.
Oh, aye. I've always divided YECcies into three groups - the originators, the propagators and the rank and file. The originators make up the talking points, the propagators disseminate them and the rank and file lap it up. The charlatans are mostly in the first and to a lesser extent the second group.
Flat Earth is the same. I'd say FE and YEC are actually very similar as social phenomena.
Except there are vastly more YEC than flat-earthers, @KarlLB ?
You may know more than me of course! And I suppose they may be an overlapping group.
Well, flat earthers are usually YECcies. They're a subset. I noted over 20 years ago that if your argument for YEC is biblical literalism, you ought to believe the earth is flat with a dome over it to be fully consistent.
Comments
According to Wikipedia Schleiermacher was the first to take Papias' claim that Matthew wrote a collection of sayings rather than a narrative gospel at face value, and then a scholar named Weisse formulated the two source (Mark and the sayings) hypothesis for Matthew and Luke based on Schleiermacher's theory. The sayings source was named Q when sceptical scholars wanted to disassociate the theory from reliance on Papias.
For the Old Testament, the arguments for an oral tradition are much stronger, possibly with very little written before the Exile.
Luke could have used Matthew if he was building on both Mark and an already‑expanded teaching Gospel. The Farrer view argues Luke smooths Matthew’s Greek, rearranges his sermons, and reshapes shared sayings for his own themes. This removes the need for a hypothetical Q source while still acknowledging that Matthew and Luke share substantial non‑Markan material that must be explained somehow.
While it seems you are saying other than the birth narrative the two Gospels differ widely, I would argue in some ways the differences show commonality. Both have similar forms of the beatitudes. Matthew has Jesus speaking from a mountain/hill; Luke has Jesus speaking from the plain. The difference there has more to do with their theological outlook. Luke seems to improve Matthew's Greek and rough edges. To me, it seems Luke is revising the Matthew story.
Now I could run with the Q theory, but for me the Farrer hypothesis seems more likely.
In addition, where they both have Markan material, they both seem to adapted it in their own ways. I couldn't see a clear line of "Matthew adapted Mark and then Luke adapted Matthew". If Luke was aware of Matthew, I doubt that he would have gone back to Mark's rather scruffy Greek and worked from that, rather than working from Matthew's better Greek.
But the "Synoptic Question" has always kept biblical scholars on their toes, hasn't it?
All that does is potentially eliminate anything miraculous about Jesus' birth. Biology, however rare, is still Biology.
[Yes, I'm late getting back to this thread]
It’s true that some things thought to be miraculous in earlier times do turn out to have a natural explanation in the light of more modern scientific awareness.
But I’m pretty sure that the Virgin Birth isn’t one of those.
Eliminate as necessity, perhaps, but such an occurence happening by chance for a baby who grew up to claim what Jesus did leaves divine providence vs serendipity wide open.
Also Ive personally seen a few cases of healing which have not been explicable in medical terms, even following helpful medical intervention. In one case the person was expected either to die or have a severely impaired brain function. His healing and more or less immediate full recovery of mental faculties was inexplicable to the surgeons who treated him, such was the damage to his brain. I met him at home after his surgery and admit frankly that I was knocked out by how much he was still himself. I knew how massive the damage was.
Some things are beyond purely natural explanations.
I think people might be just as likely to say "yeah, sure!" over the angelic visit claim as they would over the virgin pregnancy claim, to be honest.
There is no indication Mary ever made the claim she was a virgin when she conceived Jesus. It appears Matthew developed that idea and was picked up by Luke. Either that or it developed through a Q source; moreover, at least two major Christian communities will argue she remained a perpetual virgin.
“There is no indication”?
That does require the statement attributed to Mary in Luke 2
has to be part of Luke’s construction of the birth narrative being a matter of theology not history.
In short, Mary didn’t say it.
Doesn’t that require an assumption that the whole of the birth narrative is non-historical? That there was nothing in the oral tradition or the memories of those living that Mary said that?
It might be better to say “there is this indication in the text, but I think it’s more likely to be a necessary part of Luke’s construction/theological reflection than a reference to something which actually happened”.
That’s what I think you actually believe. And it’s difficult to deny that there are aspects of Luke’s accounts which seem more like story telling e.g the historicity of the census and the need for Mary and Joseph to go. But I think that argument can be taken too far.
Hey, thanks. Sometimes I drift off a bit. Yes, the God of the Gaps has less and less room to maneuver.
Christopher Hitchens shared in a number of videos how Dr. Francis Collins, Hitchens' friend and the head of the US side of the Human Genome Project, became a Christian. As Hitchens told it, Collins was taking a winter hike and came across a waterfall that had frozen into a three-stream structure. Collins derived the Trinity from this happenstance, and purportedly accepted his faith then and there.
David Hume's takes include this: "A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined... There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as an uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature of the fact, against the existence of any miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior."
Hume also reminds:"That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish: And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior."
I'm just going to have to disagree. All life happens by chance, albeit some stronger than others. Your comment reads a little too closely to reverse engineering to me, here.
"Healing" can be a bit of a loaded word. I doubt many medical professionals would use it. A number of more clinical terms are available: rejuvenate, regenerate, repair, restore, revive, rehabilitate, resuscitate, remission, even cure...
Certainly; but I was considering this from the point of view of the child so conceived. I imagine that, if my mother told me simply "I conceived you as a virgin" and said nothing more, I'd be inclined to think she was lying to cover up a rape or something. The extra context of "I saw this angel, and this is what he told me about your future" at least offers an alternative explanation for the miracle she's claiming. But on its own with no purpose supplied? I'd find it even more impossible to believe.
I suppose that says that I am capable of believing in (some) miracles, but not in meaningless ones.
Of course I’m aware of cases in children who gave grown up functioning normally despite a significant amount of the brain matter being irreparably damaged or simply not there. There appears to be a re-routing capability in development.
This wasn’t like that. The patient was in his mid 50’s and needed no help in the restoration of cognitive functions eg speech, recognition, loss of memory. His motor functions weren’t affected at all. He lived for another 20 years before dying of a heart attack.
I appreciate Hume’s opinion.
How that applies to the Virgin Birth, I don't know, but generally speaking we don't tend to see these things as God 'zapping' things externally as it were - as in the Terry Gilliam 'Monty Python' animation with a giant foot descending from the clouds and splatting people.
The whole Nativity account in Matthew could be a literary conceit of course, something Mary didn't actually say. We could go further and say that Christ didn't actually say any of the things attributed to him either.
Which would be a bit of a stretch.
Luke gives Mary a lovely song, the Magnificat, clearly inspired by Hannah's song in 1 Kings 2:1-10.
Was anyone there with a tape recorder or a pen and paper to write it down?
That there are clear and obvious literary and theological tropes doesn't mean there wasn't also oral testimony of course, but unless we are very fundamentalist I see no need to regard the dialogue in the Gospels as some kind of newspaper report of what was said.
What we have is the gist, I think and marshaling of material for literary and theological effect.
That doesn't debunk it of course.
Orthodox Christians hold out the possibility that some of the miraculous events in the scriptures may be the result of processes we don't yet understand. I've heard other Christians say this too and on these boards perhaps.
What I do baulk at somewhat are attempts to link Bible stories too closely to scientific or astrological phenomena and natural disasters and so on.
I've known an Orthodox priest argue that the volcanic eruption on Santorini was contemporaneous with the Exodus and Pharoah's army were swept away by the ensuing tsunami.
I see no need to be as specific as that.
Do I believe in unexplained and miraculous events? Yes.
But I don't go looking for them nor do I seek to 'explain away' their occurrence in the Gospels.
What's most important is their theological import.
A deity that defied the normal natural laws to conduct miracles would likely leave strange effects. It could even make predictive science essentially impossible.
I hesitate to call the Bible the actual Word of God. That smacks of Bibleolatry to my way of thinking. A much better way is the Living Word of God rests in the Bible. The Bible is the cradle on which the Word of God lays. I think it was Karl Barthe who said the Bible becomes the Word of God when the Bible speaks through it.
Saying “the Bible is the Word of God” treats every verse as direct divine speech with equal authority. Saying “the Word of God is in the Bible” sees Scripture as a human witness through which God speaks, with Christ as the clearest revelation. The first locates authority in the text; the second in God’s self‑revelation through it.
There are, of course, parallels between the Word becoming flesh in the person of Christ Jesus and the Word speaking through the text of Scripture (which is why the "cradle in which the Word lays" is a meaningful phrase, Luther drawing that parallel with the Incarnation). Both are miraculous.
He was also comfortable with converts from evangelical backgrounds continuing to use the NIV.
Although a book and a person - or Person - are indeed totally, completely different things.
I quite like that.
Origen of Alexandria, and the Alexandrian School, suggested that the Bible, while undoubtedly containing historical events, notably the crucifiction of Jesus under Pontius Pilate, but many others too, contains a lot of allegory, myth, and interpretation interspersed with any description of events. In the post Reformation period it seemed to become important to regard the Bible as a history book which simply describes events that happened. I've been unable to see it that way since I was 15, which is one of the reasons I was expelled from a fundamentalist Evangelical Church in 1969 at that age.
To me the Bible tells us how we get from our slavery to sin, in a world bounded by death, to rest eternally in God's loving arms. It tells us of the humility we need to follow Christ, and to say, " not my will but Your will be done." It is therefore the inspired word of God. But that doesn't mean that I believe it was dictated by God and is therefore inerrant. It contains numerous contradictions. Some of its narratives, IMO, are there to guide of on our path of repentance and purification, not simply to describe something which happened. So I would never get hung up, for example, about whether Jesus' brothers and sisters, which he clearly had, were full, half, or step siblings. That depends on interpretation and everyone is welcome to their opinion on it. So inspired, yes of course, but totally factual, no.
The quibbles happen when you get to picking apart exactly which parts are factual, which parts are mythical, and even more pointedly, what those myths mean.
Everyone is fine with doing God's will. But if it comes down to describing what it is that God would will us to do, that's where the real fights start to break out. That's when expectations start getting real.
Whether applied to speculation about the Old or New Testament, that was what I was getting at in my comment a few days ago about the misue of 'likely'.
I am fairly sure I have mentioned this before on these threads. Fifty + years ago I remember being shown by some US evangelists from somewhere in the Southern States a 'creationist' film about Noah, the Ark and the Flood. It started by pointing out a small selection of flaws and inconsistencies in evolutionary scientific orthodoxy as it was at the time. From that it made a neat jump to 'therefore, evolution must be wrong'. From that the next step was 'Genesis is 'the Word of God'. It is therefore accurate history'. The final step was to, 'as I have already disproved evolution, my explanation of the sequence of events described in Genesis must be the right deduction from the account'.
If that was an intellectually respectable dialectic technique, it would make life so much easier.
I almost got postmodernist on you!
“You shal know the truth and the truth shall set you free”.
“But what is truth?”
I am convinced by observable facts that the universe and this world are very very old. Billions of years old.
I am also convinced by observable facts that life on our world has existed in some form or other for millions of years. And very primitive living organisms for billions of years. And death has always been a feature of that life.
So that is truth, so far as I can judge. After very serious examination. So what am I supposed to do with those who in some sense share my faith but assert that I am deceived? I MUST be deceived?
I agree with you that theirs is not an intellectually respectable dialectic technique! I’d even add “provably so”!
But this is “their truth”. So I tell them my understanding and why, respectfully disagree. And if they get arrogant about it, insist I’m wrong, I walk away until they calm down!
That seems to work. In my local church today there aren’t that many out and out anti-evolution, YEC believers. As far as I can judge anyway. Nobody is strident about it. That wasn’t the case 50 years ago. Variations of understanding on those matters are regarded as normal and agreement on them is not essential for living and working together. That’s been a positive change.
Does it affect the way folks look at the Bible. I’m sure it does.
It's more dishonest than you image. Those "flaws and inconsistencies" - IME, mostly deliberate misinterpretations and misunderstandings, mixed with a few outright lies. I actually suspect a number of creationist sources are grifters who don't believe the nonsense they spout.
I agree about promoters of the view. That’s often the way it seems to me.
But some folks just get taken in. I don’t doubt their sincerity. I think my dissenting tendencies are an aid to spotting BS.
Oh, aye. I've always divided YECcies into three groups - the originators, the propagators and the rank and file. The originators make up the talking points, the propagators disseminate them and the rank and file lap it up. The charlatans are mostly in the first and to a lesser extent the second group.
Flat Earth is the same. I'd say FE and YEC are actually very similar as social phenomena.
You may know more than me of course! And I suppose they may be an overlapping group.
If someone's going to go pomo, they better go all in and accept that we're all images of god unto ourselves and granted our own ultimate dignity.
Well, flat earthers are usually YECcies. They're a subset. I noted over 20 years ago that if your argument for YEC is biblical literalism, you ought to believe the earth is flat with a dome over it to be fully consistent.