Religion & Ethics: Content from Across the ABC




Date/Time 29 Dec 2014 2:47:34pm

“May I suggest you are overstating the differences and contradicting yourself in the process?”

Let 0 mean no answer, and the other numbers mean how many DIFFERENT answers are given in the five accounts.

Who went to the tomb? (0+4); What did they see? (0+2); Were any guards there? (0+2); What did they then see and do? ((0+4); How did they leave? (0+4); To whom did Jesus first appear? (4); Where and how? (0+4); With what result? (00+3); To whom did Jesus second appear? (5); Where and how? (00+3); With what result? (0+4); Third (00+3), fourth (000+2) and fifth (0000+1) appear? Did Jesus ascend to heaven? (000+2); From Galilee or from Bethany? (000+2)

“Accounts given by eyewitnesses are bound to differ from each other.”


“Can you suggest a contradiction that is irreconcilable?”

All of them. The very assumption that they can be reconciled means inventing a sixth account that contradicts the other five. John says Mary Magdalene went to the tomb. That’s John’s account. You can’t assert that therefore Mary mother of Jesus, Joanna, Salome, Tom, Dick, Harry, Kylie and Wayne were all there too because John doesn’t say that they weren’t.

“After alleging contradictions in the NT, you then suggest Luke copies Mark. Aren’t you contradicting yourself?”

No. I said Luke’s author should have said, “I’m copying this from Mark, amending his theology when I disagree with it, and adding some other bits I’ve heard.”

“John claims to be an eyewitness.”

No he doesn’t. He mentions an eyewitness at one stage, but he doesn’t say who the eyewitness was, what he claimed to have seen, nor the words in which he made his report. Besides, the author of John is writing some 67 years after the traditional date of the purported crucifixion - and of course his account contradicts the other four.