Killing two birds with one post. Two points and videos about the Gospel of Matthew.
1. Is the guard story a fabrication?
If the author of Mathew made the guard story up does that not mean he lied? Out of respect for Dr William Lane Craig, I don’t think he would say such but these comments are really interesting coming from a respected Christian scholar. At the very least, it’s a trigger for Christians to look into these things for themselves. And to be fair to the original author of Matthew, it could be a later scribe who is responsible for the guard story.
Dr Bart Ehrman writes: what I can say is that the guard story is almost everywhere taken by critical scholars to be an invention of either Matthew or his community to try to “verify” that Jesus’ really was raised from the dead.
2. Can Dan Wallace, Mike Licona and other scholars believe Matthew is “Inspired Scripture”?
Here we note an apologist, James White, teaching people that the actual words the author of Matthew wrote (and the words of the authors of other works in the NT) are inspired scripture but not anything else that was edited into the text later on. This would mean he cannot believe books like Matthew and Romans are inspired if the theories Christian scholars like Prof Wallace and Dr Licona discuss/espouse are correct. The mere fact scholars like Dan Wallace and Mike Licona are willing to entertain such theories would indicate they have a different view of inspiration than the traditionalist apologists.
I understand Dr Licona is planning to make a video discussing some of the videos circulating on YouTube featuring his comments in the near future. I would like to hear him discuss this issue. I follow the work of his son-in-law, Nick Peters, so I suspect this departure from White’s position would be seen as another case of how traditionalists like White have a view of Biblical scripture that is not inline with an earlier strand of Christianity (the rigidity of Biblical inerrancy on the part of traditionalists like Dr David Farnell and Dr Norman Geisler is seen as a modern phenomenon too).
Having said that there’s more for the traditionalist to look into. 2 Corinthians may also have been edited; according to Bart Ehrman, many scholars believe it to be a formulation of two or more letters.
Categories: Islam
Blogging Theology 
Licona has for a long time not understood inerrancy the way White and co have. I’m pretty sure Licona doesn’t even hold to inerrancy as defined in the Chicago Statement. So all of the this is hardly news.
The real question is whether Jesus died and resurrected. It is this question from which Licona falsifies Islam.
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Funny ol Paulus. It seems you are unaware of the huge literature around defining death and resurrection.
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Knock knock…
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Paulus I’m still waiting for your own personal take on the “historical” resurrection.
https://bloggingtheology.net/2016/09/28/historicity-of-the-resurrection/
Come on, true believer, don’t be shy. It’s Christmas soon, please enlighten our lost Muslim souls with a cozy fairytale. Angels, light, moving rocks, walking talking revived corpse, music perhaps? No? Please.
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My personal take would be reflective of what actual historians believe, namely, that the earliest oral creeds (as quoted in 1 Cor 15) date to within months of the event.
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it’s interesting to note that the dead saints leave the tomb when jesus is hanging DEAD on the cross
removed words : after jesus’ resurrection,
At that moment the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split. 52The tombs broke open, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised. 53 when they had come out of the tombs, they entered the holy city and appeared to many people.…
jesus is DEAD and dead saints are entering the city.
why jesus’ crucifiction public, but his “resurrection” so private?
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@ Edward
You claim “but his “resurrection” so private?”
“and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles”
Whoops, I guess you didn’t think your ignorance of the topic would be so easily disproved.
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You claim “but his “resurrection” so private?”
“and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
we don’t know about the ghost which appeared to “more than 500”
this is a claim from one man writing in another place.
500 people saw me flap my arms all the way to the moon
1 writer/fraudster called matthew said saints roamed the city
2 writers
we don’t have 500 eyewitnesses
if mark knew of these 500 eyewitnesses, there is no way on gods earth he would have had the women report nothing to anyone. he just has an empty tomb and that’s it. the rest is just BELIEF
so why was the “resurrection” so unknown and private, yet crucifiction public?
quote :
For light relief, consider this article from Kenya, “Christ seen by 6,000 in Kenya” http://miracles.mcn.org/nairob… That was 1988 and they’re still talking about it. The movement is Christianity. At least it was 6,000 Christians who were calling him “Jesus.” Although others later claimed him to be Maitreya, the crowds were calling “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus of Nazareth!”. As it says on the website 6,000 believed they saw Jesus Christ, in broad daylight. They are not the only Christians in history who have claimed to see Christ or other Christian figures to the embarrassment of other Christians as I know you are well aware. First hand witnesses in Kenya even testified with multiple attestations and photographs which is far more impressive than what 1 Cor. 15:6 gives us.
Also when Paul states that Jesus “appeared” to “over 500 brethren at once” (1 Cor. 15:6), that would have been to a far greater number of “brethren” than were said to have existed before Jesus’ physical body supposedly rose into the clouds. (Per Acts 1:9, 14-15, 22 only 120 “brethren” existed at the time). So by the Bible’s own admission, whoever or whatever may have “appeared” to “over 500 brethren” could not have been a physically resurrected Jesus, since his body left the Earth before that many “brethren” existed.
Even James D. G. Dunn admits that the time limit put on appearances of Jesus in the book of Acts was probably meant to cap the numbers of people claiming that Jesus had appeared to them, since so many were allegedly claiming an appearance and authority based on such claims. In other words that Luke-Acts stories of Jesus appearing bodily and then his body being carried up into the sky via a cloud that lifts him up to heaven was meant to forestall further claims of additional appearances which may have started to get out of hand at that point. That’s Dunn’s conclusion, and he makes quite a good case for it in his most recent works.
Which makes me suspect that if some leaders of the Jesus group or even one of them claimed an appearance of some kind, the others were probably constrained via being a tight knit cultic group to agreeing and even claiming indirectly that Jesus had appeared to them also, perhaps after regrouping in Galilee (per Mark). We also don’t know how much or how little Paul said to the others concerning such appearances, or vice versa. What we know is that the idea of a soon apocalypse and expectations of bodily resurrections probably constrained the means by which they interpreted and wrote about such experiences, whatever they were. Paul’s “spiritual body” also because “not a spirit” by the time GLuke was composed.
end quote
you see paulus, the flesh and bone jesus is kept hidden and unseen, maybe he did escape crucifixion?
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Then why believe Muhammad who was alone in the cave?
You are still 499 witnesses short.
You apparently don’t realise how contradictory your own worldview is?
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if some random man with holes in his hands and feet appeared and asked for worship , i would still take “Muhammad who was alone in the cave” testimony and attempt to stone this devil (your god).
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“… date to within months of the event.”
Paulus don’t evade. What “event”? What exactly are we talking about a “historical” resurrection? A walking talking revived corpse, angels rolling rocks at 3 am at night?
Don’t be shy.
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yeah paulus, how comes all these miracles, explosions and extra terrestrial events are occurring yet pilate just says ” you have a guard”
must have been very “low key” like the crucifxion, right?
pilate wasn’t really bothered about all those earth shattering events, was he?
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Paulus, this post is not solely about Licona and his view about inerrancy.
What do you think of the theory Dan Wallace mentioned to Licona, can Wallace believe Matthew is inspired if he espouses that theory (not saying he does espouse it)?
What do you think of WLC’s comments about the guard story in Matthew, do you think the author of Matthew lied?
And what do you think about the books of Romans and 2 Corinthians, are they inspired considering the editing involved according to you?
As for the resurrection story, I don’t see Mike’s claims about the resurrection of Jesus story to be convincing. In fact he does not champion the biggest resurrection story in the Gospels (that of the many saints in Matthew). If the author made such a huge resurrection story up then is it not plausible that there were people willing to fabricate resurrection stories into the oral tradition of the time? Thus is it possible the resurrection story about Jesus was fabricated to be a physical resurrection or simply some conjecture after he was seen in visions or physically after being saved from a crucifixion?
And why is Licona not trying to prove the resurrection story of the many saints is historical? It’s because his faith does not revolve around it so he marginalises it just like he does with doctrines like the Trinity. Rest assured if we found a NT manuscript saying the resurrection of the saints is integral to Christian salvation there will be a number of Christians trying to prove it to be historical in the same way Licona operates with the Jesus resurrection story!
Licona is a minimalist who has tried to reduce the amount of convincing he needs to do in his preaching to Atheists (and uncertain Christians) hence why he goes down that path. Ehrman would point to the contradictions in and around the crucifixion story and the post resurrection narratives to highlight the lack of reliability of the accounts and he would also state the historical methodology Licona claims to be using does not deliberate on miracles as likely possibilities.
Ehrman would say Christians changed their stories to try and convince people into the faith.
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Hadith of Aisha is ( WEAK)!
However, why didn’t you tell the exact story in that narration? Kaab asked Aisha if her understanding is based on something she heard from the prophet? She didn’t ! She kept silent.
Again, that IF we assumed that narration is sahih to begin which is not the case.
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If you have a point to make or a question, can you keep it to one sentence? Bombarding a combox doesn’t make you win an argument.
What I said it completely relevant. It seems you are unaware of the huge literature around defining inerrancy and inspiration, so to ask whether someone thinks X is inspired requires a definitive sentence first.
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@Why is Crucifixion or resurrection important? Where did Jesus tell you to believe in his death or resurrection to be saved?
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He didn’t!
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RM
Why do you keep repeating the same asinine argument over and over despite having had it explianed to you several times over?
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@Graham: Because you don’t have answer to it from lips of Jesus? Do you? Honest answer to this one question alone will guide you to truth of ministry and message of Jesus.
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Silly. Christian scripture incorporates all of the New Testament.
Your argument would be akin to me asking you to show me shahada from the Quran (I.e lips of Allah). You can’t do it. You are hardly a “rational” muslim.
You can’t limit Christian soteriology merely to the canonical gospels. We won’t fall for such a dumb argument.
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The problem here is you are using 2 unreliable and demonstrably fraudulent texts to derive from them and arrive at some sort of factual conclusion therein. With the Geneology vastly differing in the bible and all of its sequel’s it is a futile exercise.
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According to the quran jesus’ mother was the sister of moses and aaron – both of whom lived hundreds of years before she did.
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@Grahama: LOL: So when you call God “Father” it must be literal!
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Graham, that’s a missionary misconception from Christian polemicists. It’s my hope that the more sincere Christians like Richard will help us to dispel misconceptions amongst Christians. It’s awfully tiring having to go through the same discussions and it is just a hindrance to more meaningful dialogue with humble Christians seeking to learn and understand.
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Yahya
Aisha thought that mohammed was teaching that mary was the literal brother of moses.
She was his wife and had to be supposedly told by some other guy that her own husband had not clarified what he had meant. I’ll trust the wife of mohammed.
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Graham, the PROPHET explained it to be an idiom. And the missionary appeal to Aisha’s misunderstanding is fallacious too as the Hadith indicates she accepted her mistake.
I’ve written on this subject. Here are the relevant excerpts.
The problem for the critics is that this has already been explained by Muhammed as an idiom (a figure of speech). Muhammed explained this Quranic reference by saying “the (people of the old age) used to give names (to their persons) after the names of apostles and pious persons who had gone before them.”
Bizarrely some missionaries are attempting to pad their claim by utlizing the misunderstanding of Aisha concerning this issue as “evidence” for their claim.
Aisha’s misunderstanding of the issue is only due to the fact that Muhammed nor her fellow companions (students of Muhammad) had yet explained this issue to her. So Aisha took the verse literally as she had not yet heard of Muhammad’s explanation of it to be an idiom.
The fact is, in this reference, Ka’b confirms Muhammed did not think Mary was the (literal) sister of Aaron is enough to pour cold water on the critics baseless claims. Thus we further realise that the Quran is not claiming Mary to be the literal sister of the brother of Moses (Aaron).
Moreover, this tradition also shows that Ka’b himself knew there was a huge difference of years between Mary and Aaron prior to Muhammad’s explanation.
In addition we also note that Aisha’s silence points to her acknowledgement of her error (misunderstanding), her misunderstanding was only due to the fact that at this instance Aisha had not had the verse explained to her by the Prophet or any student of the Prophet but once the verse was explained to her by Ka’b (using the teachings of Muhammad) she accepted the explanation and acknowledged her error (inferred by her silence).
It is hardly scholarly to jump on the misunderstanding of one Muslim (Aisha) and try to build a case of “Quranic error” based on this despite Muhammad’s explanation of the verse to be an idiom. Such is the desperation of some critics, sadly the critics who have gone to this length are the Christian missionaries. Hardly the most Christian or honest method of reason!
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Hadith of Aisha is ( WEAK)!
However, why didn’t you tell the exact story in that narration? Kaab asked Aisha if her understanding is based on something she heard from the prophet? She didn’t ! She kept silent.
Again, that IF we assumed that narration is sahih to begin which is not the case.
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Papias’ comment that Dan Wallace mentioned was about the logia (sayings, speeches) ( 5 extended sermons/ speeches in Matthew), not about the whole Gospel according to Matthew.
“Therefore Matthew put the logia in an ordered arrangement in the Hebrew language, but each person interpreted them as best he could.”
Eusebius, “History of the Church” 3.39.14-17, c. 325 CE, Greek text 16: “ταῦτα μὲν οὖν ἱστόρηται τῷ Παπίᾳ περὶ τοῦ Μάρκου· περὶ δὲ τοῦ Ματθαῖου ταῦτ’ εἴρηται· Ματθαῖος μὲν οὖν Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ τὰ λόγια συνετάξατο, ἡρμήνευσεν δ’ αὐτὰ ὡς ἧν δυνατὸς ἕκαστος. Various English translations published, standard reference translation by Philip Schaff at CCEL: “[C]oncerning Matthew he [Papias] writes as follows: ‘So then(963) Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able.'(964)” (Online version includes footnotes 963 and 964 by Schaff).
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It’s awfully tiring having to go through the same discussions and it is just a hindrance to more meaningful dialogue with humble Christians seeking to learn and understand.
The feeling is mutual – we have explained many theological points over and over and you guys just ignore our own definitions of our own theology and constantly read your own Islamic presuppositions back into things already established before Islam came along 600 years too late; or you use liberal anti-supernaturalist theology to dismiss the gospel of John or Paul’s letters, or even a verse in Mark like Mark 10:45, because it doesn’t fit in with your 600 year old late false religion.
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Ken.
I think Muslims dialoguing with you are trying to show you the Trinity is a later invention being read back into the NT texts. They are also trying to point out the NT is not reliable. Jesus never sanctioned those works in the NT and they were sanctioned by the later Church to be inspired through debates, discussions and councils so is there really any issue if those works are not seen as reliable or authoritative…
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Jesus Himself laid the foundations for the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity.
Matthew 28:19 – “baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit”
John 8:24 – “Unless you believe that I am (claim to be Yahweh), you will die in your sins.”
John 14, 15:26, 16 – “when the Spirit of truth comes”, etc. – foundational to the Deity of the Holy Spirit.
The harmonization of all the texts show the Deity of the Father, the Deity of Jesus, the Deity of the H. S.; and the Oneness of God, and the texts that point to personal relations between the persons (the Father loves the Son, sends the Son, the Spirit testifies of the Son, etc.) – some texts show there is only One God. Some texts speak of the Deity of each of the persons. Other texts show the personal relations between the persons. So, there is only God by nature/substance who exists from all eternity as three persons within the one being/essense of God.
Mark 10:45 – The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many”.
proves the substitutionary atonement nature of the cross.
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And Ken, what is your view on the guard story? Do you think it was an invention?
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No; it is true and completely historical. I was very disappointed in William Lane Craig’s statement to John Ankerberg and I have written to him on that (I sent some Tweets linking to your video; I dont’ know if he will ever see that.) I may even write a formal letter to him, asking him to clarify and explain himself.
I have never heard anyone who is a true believer deny that that was historical. Only liberals do that.
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no it is not true. the guards are only found in matthews version. the guards are unknown in all of the other writings. even “historian” luke did not accept matthews invention.
the women in the other accounts are worried about how to remove the stone (funny, if they had faith they could move mountains and raise jesus back to life ) . the guard story is the biggest lie made up by matthew. “angel of the lord” FLOORED guards and the guards were not worried that “angel of the lord” could appear AS THEY ARE SPREADING LIES?
who heard this secret conversation about RELIGIOUS JEWS giving guards MONEY to spread lies? holy ghost? matthews unknown informant?
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