Have you tried reading the NT in the correct order?

[jeremyp]

Why are you quoting something which is not part of Mark's gospel?

It wasn't Squeaky Voice quoting it, it was me to explain to you Squeaky's reference to poison and snakes which you were having trouble understanding.

Have you forgotten that that part was not part of the original gospel?

And yet, there it is in the Bible. If that bit is erroneous, how do you know any of it is trustworthy?

[Andy]

What has this got to do with anything? Could this god raise you from the dead or not?

Yes. Whether he would is a separate question though.

So we're back to you volunteering yourself in order to find out.

And the circularity comes from you claiming that for someone to come back to life it takes a god to do it, therefore god exists, but your only example of it happening is an invocation that it was the son of god it happened to.

Since he came back to life, having been dead, it demonstrates that God exists. That is not circular. You may disagree with it as a conclusion, but it is not circular.

If it's believed that Jesus was the son of a god before the resurrection or that it takes you to be the son of a god in order to have the foreknowledge that you would come back from the dead, then you have already concluded that a god exists pre-resurrection.

Like I've said before, you can come across as very "us and them". They're not "my friends" or "my lot". We're all trying to get along here, aren't we?

Is "your fellow atheists" OK?

How about treating everyone on an individual basis based solely on what they say, instead of trying to second guess what their position is on a specific issue by basing your assumption on what other people say who just happen to agree with them on another issue?

Would you please explain the position you hold on this if you don't think he wasn't really dead. You have probably done so before, but humour me.

I don't know and I couldn't care less. I simply don't believe the claims that someone died and came back to life.

Fair enough. You won't be taking part in the discussion any more then since you couldn't care less?

Yes, I'll be taking part in any discussion I feel like, and everyone else is at liberty to respond or not respond as they see fit.
Thing is, I do care that people do hold beliefs on this. Just because I do not care what is true doesn't mean I don't care whether something is true. That you fail so abysmally and being able to put forward any means of determining whether what you believe is true actually is true, then I no more care about the significance of what you believe than I do about someone's belief in the existence of the Loch Ness monster. It's a nothingness. I think you care too much about the story of Jesus being true, and that can cloud your judgement.

[Spud]

They are independent to an extent, though. Mark, Luke and John add to Matthew details supplied by other eyewitnesses

Firstly, Mark is the earliest gospel that the others copied.

So far you have not given much evidence to show this. Things like 'Mark would have included the Lord's prayer if he was quoting Matthew' doesn't count. There might be reasons why he didn't.

Secondly, you do not know if the sources for any of the gospels were eye witnesses.

We are told the names of the principle eyewitnesses, who were the twelve apostles.

We have been over this so many times, you should really stop spouting your nonsense.

[Alien]

So you think that the resurrection appearances recorded in the above are not independent of each other? If so, why, please?

You have three narratives that are all different so they are obviously independent but since they are all different, they don't provide corroboration of each other.

So if they are the same, they are independent and not worth trusting, but if they are different they don't corroborate each other and are not worth trusting. Do you see the problem with your line of argument.

You will have noticed that I was not arguing that they corroborated each other, but just pointing out that this part of each of the synoptics are, as best we can tell, independent of each other. Do you agree with that?

As to them corroborating each other, they do not corroborate the individual details in each Synoptic, but they do agree that Jesus was raised from the dead, that women went to the tomb and found it empty, that Jesus appeared to his disciples over a period of time and so on. Do you agree with that?

Not only that, but you don't know who their sources were, or if they even had sources (i.e. the gospel authors made them up).

Papias tells us that Peter was Mark's (main) source. As for whether the gospels (four) are based on eye-witness accounts, I suggest, if you are truly interested, that you listen (again?) to the Crossley/Bauckham discussions (two) on Premier Christian Radio's "Unbelievable?" or read Bauckham's book "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses".

[Alien]

What has this got to do with anything? Could this god raise you from the dead or not?

Yes. Whether he would is a separate question though.

So we're back to you volunteering yourself in order to find out.

Nope. I have never made a claim that God would raise me from the dead. However, atheists have made a claim that Jesus was not dead. If, repeat if, that is your position, you need to back it up. Is it your position? It isn't, is it? Yours is that you aren't interested what happened (though you keep discussing it).

Please correct me if I've not got the above right. Ta.

And the circularity comes from you claiming that for someone to come back to life it takes a god to do it, therefore god exists, but your only example of it happening is an invocation that it was the son of god it happened to.

Since he came back to life, having been dead, it demonstrates that God exists. That is not circular. You may disagree with it as a conclusion, but it is not circular.

If it's believed that Jesus was the son of a god before the resurrection or that it takes you to be the son of a god in order to have the foreknowledge that you would come back from the dead, then you have already concluded that a god exists pre-resurrection.

The Christian claim is that since Jesus was dead on the Friday and alive on the Sunday, something special must have happened. Jesus' own explanation was that God had raised him from the dead. It is for you and I to decide whether that is correct. I believe it is. What about you?

Like I've said before, you can come across as very "us and them". They're not "my friends" or "my lot". We're all trying to get along here, aren't we?

Is "your fellow atheists" OK?

How about treating everyone on an individual basis based solely on what they say, instead of trying to second guess what their position is on a specific issue by basing your assumption on what other people say who just happen to agree with them on another issue?

If you tell me what your position is (and I remember it!) I won't need to guess.

Why so touchy though?

Would you please explain the position you hold on this if you don't think he wasn't really dead. You have probably done so before, but humour me.

I don't know and I couldn't care less. I simply don't believe the claims that someone died and came back to life.

Fair enough. You won't be taking part in the discussion any more then since you couldn't care less?

Yes, I'll be taking part in any discussion I feel like, and everyone else is at liberty to respond or not respond as they see fit.
Thing is, I do care that people do hold beliefs on this. Just because I do not care what is true doesn't mean I don't care whether something is true. That you fail so abysmally and being able to put forward any means of determining whether what you believe is true actually is true, then I no more care about the significance of what you believe than I do about someone's belief in the existence of the Loch Ness monster. It's a nothingness. I think you care too much about the story of Jesus being true, and that can cloud your judgement.

That's fine, but if you refuse to state your position on something then it will be hard to discuss sensibly with you.

[Alien]

They are independent to an extent, though. Mark, Luke and John add to Matthew details supplied by other eyewitnesses

Firstly, Mark is the earliest gospel that the others copied.

So far you have not given much evidence to show this. Things like 'Mark would have included the Lord's prayer if he was quoting Matthew' doesn't count. There might be reasons why he didn't.

Secondly, you do not know if the sources for any of the gospels were eye witnesses.

We are told the names of the principle eyewitnesses, who were the twelve apostles.

We have been over this so many times, you should really stop spouting your nonsense.

Spud, the best explanation I know of (there may be others) on Markan priority is from Mark Goodacre. If you search on NTPod, he has about 75 short podcasts about Christian origins of about 12-15 minutes on loads of subjects as well as, I think, 6 extended ones. The first three of those extended ones are recordings of some of his classes at Duke University and cover the Synoptic Problem, inc. which gospel was written first and whether Q ever existed (he thinks it didn't). I wouldn't cross absolutely every "t" and dot absolutely every "i" of what he says, but would the vast majority. He is very easy to listen to - an excellent scholar and teacher. I've got his podcasts on a USB stick so I can listen to them again when I'm out in the car (which is not that often). I first listened to them as part of my Reader/Lay Minister training and still find them really helpful. He also has a downloadable book called, "The Synoptic Problem: A Way Through The Maze". See http://markgoodacre.org/ or http://markgoodacre.org/maze/. You can download it as PDF, read it online or download it for a Kindle.

[Andy]

What has this got to do with anything? Could this god raise you from the dead or not?

Yes. Whether he would is a separate question though.

So we're back to you volunteering yourself in order to find out.

Nope. I have never made a claim that God would raise me from the dead. However, atheists have made a claim that Jesus was not dead.

Then you're failing to see the parallel I am drawing when you play the silly charade of suggesting others volunteer themselves for a crucifixion to see if they stay alive. They're neither claiming to be Jesus nor claiming that all crucifixion have the same result, so stop doing it.

If, repeat if, that is your position, you need to back it up. Is it your position? It isn't, is it?

Yes, your goal is to shift the burden wherever you can because you yourself have jack all.

Yours is that you aren't interested what happened (though you keep discussing it).

No, I said I don't care, and by that I mean I don't care if it killed Jesus or if it didn't. You however, do care that it did as your beliefs are hinged on it.
I am interested in discovering what is factual, simply because I like to know more.

If it's believed that Jesus was the son of a god before the resurrection or that it takes you to be the son of a god in order to have the foreknowledge that you would come back from the dead, then you have already concluded that a god exists pre-resurrection.

The Christian claim is that since Jesus was dead on the Friday and alive on the Sunday, something special must have happened. Jesus' own explanation was that God had raised him from the dead. It is for you and I to decide whether that is correct. I believe it is. What about you?

This isn't following from my point. If it's already believed that Jesus is the son of a god before the resurrection or that it takes you to be the son of a god to have the foreknowledge that you would come back from the dead, then you've already concluded a god exists without the resurrection. You agree that it would be circular to conclude a god exists based on the resurrection if that was already believed, right?

How about treating everyone on an individual basis based solely on what they say, instead of trying to second guess what their position is on a specific issue by basing your assumption on what other people say who just happen to agree with them on another issue?

If you tell me what your position is (and I remember it!) I won't need to guess.

Why so touchy though?

Go and look back. You asked and immediately made a guess (based on the issue I'm highlighting) without giving me chance to respond.

And touchy? No, I'm simply trying to help us both out here so you don't make the same mistake in the future. I mean you do want to base any assessment of me based on what I say and not others, right?

Yes, I'll be taking part in any discussion I feel like, and everyone else is at liberty to respond or not respond as they see fit.
Thing is, I do care that people do hold beliefs on this. Just because I do not care what is true doesn't mean I don't care whether something is true. That you fail so abysmally and being able to put forward any means of determining whether what you believe is true actually is true, then I no more care about the significance of what you believe than I do about someone's belief in the existence of the Loch Ness monster. It's a nothingness. I think you care too much about the story of Jesus being true, and that can cloud your judgement.

That's fine, but if you refuse to state your position on something then it will be hard to discuss sensibly with you.

It's hard to discuss sensibly with you if you just blurt out what you think I think instead of giving me the time to actually tell you myself.

And I haven't refused anything. I've made myself perfectly clear on more than one occasion. Again, just go and look back at this exchange and you will see that I've said I don't believe the claims that someone died and came back to life.

[jeremyp]

They are independent to an extent, though. Mark, Luke and John add to Matthew details supplied by other eyewitnesses

Firstly, Mark is the earliest gospel that the others copied.

So far you have not given much evidence to show this. Things like 'Mark would have included the Lord's prayer if he was quoting Matthew' doesn't count. There might be reasons why he didn't.

Like the fact that he didn't know of it. The same applies to the Sermon on the Mount. Do you honestly think Mark would have left these things out if he had known of them? Furthermore, there are places where Mark seems to have extras compared with the other gospels such as the story of the exorcism at Gerasa (the one where the demons move to a herd of pigs). However his extra bits tend to are more mundane. So you have to ask if Mark had a thing against the Beatitudes but liked pigs. It's much more likely that the revisions went the other way.

Secondly, you do not know if the sources for any of the gospels were eye witnesses.

We are told the names of the principle eyewitnesses, who were the twelve apostles.

I asked Hope this question once but he failed to answer it: what are the names of the twelve apostles?

Even if you can give me an unambiguous list using each of the four gospels, you still don't know if any of them were the sources of any of the gospels.

[jeremyp]

So if they are the same, they are independent and not worth trusting, but if they are different they don't corroborate each other and are not worth trusting. Do you see the problem with your line of argument.

No I don't because you are deliberately misrepresenting the point.

What you need is independent sources for the same event, not independent sources for different events.

Not only that, the independent sources have to be traceable back to different contemporary witnesses. It's no good claiming Bob and Carol are independent if they both got the story off Alice.

You will have noticed that I was not arguing that they corroborated each other, but just pointing out that this part of each of the synoptics are, as best we can tell, independent of each other. Do you agree with that?

Yes they are, but it doesn't help your position, because you can't even show that the "sources" are not the authors of the accounts.

[jeremyp]

[Spud, the best explanation I know of (there may be others) on Markan priority is from Mark Goodacre.

I would endorse this. It was him who came up with the Geresene pigs point. He put it more memorably than I did: "If Mark was editing Matthew would he really think the gospel needed more pigs and less theology".

[Spud]

Like the fact that he didn't know of it.

The possibility that he did know about it seems no less valid. Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy suggests that Peter, supervising Mark, says to him, "Cut this out. This will do. Enough has been said".

The same applies to the Sermon on the Mount. Do you honestly think Mark would have left these things out if he had known of them? Furthermore, there are places where Mark seems to have extras compared with the other gospels

And this could rather indicate that Mark was using Matthew plus another eyewitness who could add more detail.

such as the story of the exorcism at Gerasa (the one where the demons move to a herd of pigs). However his extra bits tend to are more mundane. So you have to ask if Mark had a thing against the Beatitudes but liked pigs. It's much more likely that the revisions went the other way.

Well I think the reason for that is that Matthew wrote soon after the church was born. Compare with the birth of the nation of Israel. Not long after the Exodus they were given instructions on how to live as God's people, by Moses. Matthew was doing a similar thing. Mark is written as a fast-moving drama, so it cannot include long sermons.
I'm afraid I'm utterly convinced Matthew wrote first.

I asked Hope this question once but he failed to answer it: what are the names of the twelve apostles?

Simon, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot, Judas Iscariot.

Even if you can give me an unambiguous list using each of the four gospels, you still don't know if any of them were the sources of any of the gospels.

That's approaching the question from the pov of someone outside the church.

If you wanted to know how a horse behaves when someone climbs onto its back, who would you ask: a person who has studied horse anatomy and physiology and can name all their bones, or a person who has looked after horses since they were young? It's like that with the gospels. If you don't ask someone who is connected to them through the church, you won't get the truth.

At least we are back on topic though 

[Spud]

Spud, the best explanation I know of (there may be others) on Markan priority is from Mark Goodacre.

Cheers Alan, I may try that some time.