Raf

I'm going to have to move this to doctrinal at some point, but maybe not just yet. The problem I have with the harmonization efforts is that they take a reasonable proposition and stretch it to unreasonable limits. Remember the old story about the blind men and the elephant, and how every one of them is right about the elephant even though they appear to be contradicting each other? That's a real healthy way of trying to approach apparent Bible contradictions, and as long as the conflicts lend themselves to such a solution, I am comfortable accepting the harmonization. But sometimes, now and then, the conflicts just don't lend themselves to such a solution. Every single gospel puts three crosses on that hill. Every one. Maybe, MAYBE John doesn't, but I think the more natural reading of the verse puts three crosses up there, not five. Not one gospel explicitly states there are five crosses up there. Three in Matthew, three in Mark, three in Luke, and I'm no Greek scholar, but I think three in John makes more sense than five. Every gospel that mentions Peter's denials say he denied Jesus three times. There's a discrepancy in the number of cockadoodle-doos, but not in the number of denials. We can harmonize and find six, but can you find me a gospel that lays out six denials? You can't. They all count to three and then stop. Where was Jesus when the Magi come to visit? Read Matthew, and only Matthew. He's in Bethlehem. There's not a scrap of an indication to the contrary. Then Jesus goes to Egypt. Then he comes back. Then AND ONLY THEN does his family settle in Nazareth. But read Luke, and only Luke. There are no Magi in Luke, of course. There's also very little Bethlehem. Jesus is there to be born, then skips town right away. A pit stop at Jerusalem, and whamo! They're in Nazareth. Not a hint of an Egyptian detour before or after. Jesus is still an infant when the family settles in Nazareth according to Luke. He's probably in preschool by the time they get to Nazareth according to Matthew. These are not "apparent" contradictions. It's a big fat glaring gaping discrepancy. Now, one can argue that Matthew never says the Magi find Jesus in Bethlehem. It's true. It doesn't say that. But it utterly fails to give even the slightest indication to the contrary. You cannot read Matthew on its own and conclude that the Magi found Jesus somewhere else. These guys were writing quasi-biographies (as opposed to full biographies). They were not manufacturing jigsaw puzzles and deliberately leaving out pieces that deliberately created an incomplete picture that could only be assembled by buying someone else's puzzle! Matthew didn't leave out Nazareth and just say "Ah, whatever; Luke will fill them in." Matthew doesn't take the writing of Luke for granted like that. And Luke just ignores Matthew entirely on the Nativity. The only things they have in common are Joseph, Mary, virginity, Bethlehem and the baby. I could go on. Maybe after I move this to doctrinal...

Some folks may have noticed, back during the Mike wars a decade ago (it's been longer), that I refused to allow the debate to be distracted by appeals to actual errors in the Bible. My reasoning back then was simple: I was holding PFAL to its own standard of what it meant for a written work to be God-breathed. The Bible never actually declares itself to be without error or contradiction. That's an assertion made by PFAL about the Bible, not an assertion made by the Bible itself. If PFAL is God-breathed, then PFAL must be right about what it means to be God-breathed. PFAL must therefore be without error or contradiction. We saw rather clearly that it is not. PFAL has both errors and contradictions. If PFAL is right about the Bible,, then the Bible will be without errors or contradictions. But what if PFAL is wrong? Not about itself, but about the Bible? What if the premise that the Bible is without error or contradiction is simply a false premise? We find a shocking reality we cannot ignore: The Bible quite simply never, ever, anywhere, makes such a claim about itself. Nowhere. You may find a reference to God's word as perfect, but here's a shocker: the Bible lacks the self awareness to call itself God's word! VPW popularly said: "The Bible does not contain God's Word. It is God's word." Really? Is that the testimony the Bible gives of itself? Where? Why can't two writers looking at the same event disagree on minor details, as is common? Why shoehorn six denials for Peter when every single gospel says there were only three? What if God's Word is simply that he was crucified, and the small stuff is just that-- small stuff? Scriptural inerrancy as promoted in TWI really appears to be an unattainable fantasy. A thread on actual errors in the Bible would make the Actual Errors in PFAL thread look like child's play.

I was only interested in how TWI addressed the discrepancy. Addressing the discrepancy itself is doctrinal. Not sure I'm interested in THAT conversation.

As you wish, WordWolf. However, I do believe Steve answered my question.

It's not Wierwille who skips from noon to 9 a.m., it's John. And John skipping from noon to 9 a.m. without so much as a "the next day" reference strains credibility beyond the breaking point, in my opinion.

Perhaps plausible, but it now strikes me as rather arbitrary to shoehorn an entire day of activity between vv. 16 and 17 and suggest, for no comprehensible reason, that the author did not find the events of those 21 hours worth mentioning.

Oh, that's right. Wierwille stretched out the timeline. Totally forgot about that.

I tossed my copy of Jesus Christ our Passover in the trash some years ago, but I have a question regarding how TWI handled one of those pesky apparent discrepancies. In Mark 15:25, it says that Jesus was crucified at 9 a.m. In John 19:13, Pilate doesn't hand Jesus over to be crucified until noon. They can't both be right. I remember being very impressed with how JCOP handled discrepancies (although there are some arguments I no longer buy, but that's not important right now). How did JCOP handle this one? Anyone still have it?

Jump in

Oh duh. Psycho

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl First quote was a clever quip about the actual Disney ride.

Cheated to get it. Will post an answer Monday if no one really gets it before then.

Are the movies in the right order, or did you describe the second one first again? I think I've got the first one, but I'm stumped on the second.

George, because I cheated.

Very good sir.

A boy wizard learns more about potions than he ever bargained for when he stumbles upon a used textbook written by a cartoon Moses.

Eric Bana Troy Orlando Bloom

I'm here. I'm here. A boy wizard learns more about potions than he ever bargained for when he stumbles upon a used textbook written by Moses.

I say give him the credit for it, WordWolf!

The Thomas Crown Affair to Remember

Love it

You are up

Cheating permitted after a couple of days. This was a recent Best Picture Oscar nominee. Not a blockbuster, but hardly obscure by definition.

SIT and TIP are by inspiration, not by revelation. I love how VPW can invent distinctions out of whole cloth and have people parrot that opinion as gospel decades after he lost the ability to con anyone out of another dime.

Please do a word study on firmament. Please show what that word means throughout scripture: empty space, or a solid structure? Please tell me, based on genuine historical research, what that word meant to the audience that originally read it. What did it mean to the first century church? Please show me any indication that Biblical Israel or the early Christian church was aware of the vastness of outer space. You won't find it. Science, not scripture, gave us this knowledge. P.S. You keep saying things along the lines of accusing me of sounding like a natural man, etc. I would appreciate it if you would cut the bs. If you're going to challenge my points, challenge them. This ad hominem nonsense is beneath you. Challenge the merits of what I'm saying, with facts instead of opinion. Saying it sounds like what a natural man would say dodges the issue of whether a natural man is approaching the subject matter with more intellectual honesty than you. I contend that on this issue, he is.