New Evidence the Gospels were Based on Eyewitness Accounts

[Nearly Sane]

You wrote:

" the key purported events of the gospels are entirely implausible and remain so even if the gospels were actually written by eye witnesses (not that that is plausible in itself)".


As an aside, I note that Tertullian's purported statements have been claimed by a pundit of Zen Buddhism, the venerable and unutterably boring Deisetz Teitaro Suzuki:

Where's wiggi? Does he think there is wisdom in this?

There is something in it that I feel some admiration for. There's a sort of blind honesty in it. It feels to me better than people like William Lane Craig who create a set of 'reasons' for their beliefs that never seem to acknowledge that those are post hoc attempts to give a respectable glaze to their doughnut of belief.

[Dicky Underpants]

'Young man' seems to be a literary device in Mark, as with the words 'linen cloth' and 'white'. These each occur 2 or 3 times only.

The question is, did Mark think the personage was an angel? We know the words attributed to him are almost exactly the same as in Matthew 28: 5-7 (though the 'young man' spoke them from the inside of the tomb on the right side, where he already was, whereas Matthew's angel, as we know was 'sitting on the stone' when he spoke them )

And according to your theory of the priority of Matthew, why the complete toning down of the language in Mark?

More understandable to think that Matthew read Mark and thought: "Oh this is all a bit prosaic, let's have a bit of melodrama - that'll get the hoi polloi worked up and ready to believe all the more quickly!"

American evangelists have been cashing in on this melodramatic technique to impress the gullible right to this day.

[jeremyp]

What about to the young man in the white robe?

Are you claiming he was Jesus?

[Spud]

And according to your theory of the priority of Matthew, why the complete toning down of the language in Mark?

If you mean Mark's toning down the language in Matthew and Luke, I'm not sure why Mark would change angel to young man. I can think of several possible reasons, but wouldn't want to say for sure before thinking through it properly. What does stand out to me as evidence against Markan priority is this: where in Matthew and Luke the angel says, 'He is not here, he has risen', it would be more likely for Mark to reverse the order if he was using the other two as sources, than for both Matthew and Luke to reverse Mark's order if they were using Mark.

[Spud]

Are you claiming he was Jesus?

No, just that he is an eyewitness of the resurrection.

[ProfessorDavey]

What does stand out to me as evidence against Markan priority is this: where in Matthew and Luke the angel says, 'He is not here, he has risen', it would be more likely for Mark to reverse the order if he was using the other two as sources, than for both Matthew and Luke to reverse Mark's order if they were using Mark.

Eh - don't understand the logic.

Why on earth do you think the reverse order in Mark is evidence that he wrote later than Matthew and Luke rather than vice versa. Frankly the ordering seems irrelevant as it doesn't change the meaning of the purported claim. However if there was anything to support order of writing it is surely the other way around - a later writer would be less likely to revere the order of two earlier writers as the order had become more fixed by then.

[Spud]

Eh - don't understand the logic.

Why on earth do you think the reverse order in Mark is evidence that he wrote later than Matthew and Luke rather than vice versa.

Because the likelihood of two deciding, probably independently, to make the same alteration to their source seems quite low.

[Spud]

The question is, did Mark think the personage was an angel?

Acts 1:10, 10:30 both contain angels which are called men. So I think yes, but because the angel looked like a man he described him as one.

[Spud]

More understandable to think that Matthew read Mark and thought: "Oh this is all a bit prosaic, let's have a bit of melodrama - that'll get the hoi polloi worked up and ready to believe all the more quickly!"

American evangelists have been cashing in on this melodramatic technique to impress the gullible right to this day.

I prefer to believe the authors were not being so dishonest. Try reading it from the perspective that Mark took his material from both Matthew and Luke, and filled it out with testimony from other eyewitnesses. You may be surprised!

[Spud]

References to angels as 'young men' in Jewish literature:

Josephus (Antiquities Book 5 Chapter 8:2,3) describes the angel who appeared to the parents of Samson as a young man.

2 Maccabees 3:26,33
Tobit 5:5-10

From Tobit 5:4 it appears possible that the women in Mark 16 did not recognize the young man as an angel.

"So Tobias went out to look for a man to go with him to Media, someone who was acquainted with the way. He went out and found the angel Raphael standing in front of him; but he did not perceive that he was an angel of God."

[ProfessorDavey]

Because the likelihood of two deciding, probably independently, to make the same alteration to their source seems quite low.

Non-sense - perfectly likely and more so, in my opinion, than someone deciding to reverse the order despite their being two previous examples with the opposite wording.

But in a big picture context this is all totally irrelevant - the ordering is irrelevant to the meaning. But the biggest picture, of course, is whether the claim is actually true and there is simply zero credible evidence that it is. Partial accounts (i.e written by believers with an agenda) written decades after the event (and we only actually have actual records of what they wrote hundreds of years after the purported event) and geographically distant from the purported events provide no credible evidence of the veracity of the claims whatsoever. And as the claim is, in itself, implausible makes the gospels no more credible that J K Rowling claiming that Harry Potter walked though a wall at Kings Cross station to get the Hogwarts Express.

[ProfessorDavey]

I prefer to believe the authors were not being so dishonest.

They don't have to be dishonest to be wrong. Merely relying on misinterpretations compounded by re-telling and exaggeration prior to reaching them.

And indeed to be dishonest implies they knew what they were saying was wrong. I have no reason to believe that they didn't themselves genuinely believe what they wrong was correct, but that doesn't mean it was. And as they themselves weren't first hand witnesses they couldn't actually know themselves as they necessarily relied on second, third, fourth etc etc hand retelling.

And frankly I'm less interested in the honesty of the writers than the objective evidence that their claims are correct - and on that count they are solely lacking as there is no credible evidence that the miraculous claims in the gospels are correct, regardless of how many people then and now believe.

[Spud]

Non-sense - perfectly likely and more so, in my opinion, than someone deciding to reverse the order despite their being two previous examples with the opposite wording.

Fair enough. As I mentioned in the matthean priority thread, Mark's pericope order is always supported by either Matthew or Luke.
Some periscopes in Mark seem to be a conflation of the other two's versions. So for the women at the tomb pericope: Matt and Luke write "he is not here, he has risen". Mark writes, "He has risen, he is not here". When placed in the context of "you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified", and "why do you look for the living among the dead?" it is clear that Matthew and Luke flow smoothly, as they say, "you are looking for....he is not here". Mark's "you are looking for....he has risen" is less smooth, since "he has risen" is not related to where Jesus is. This suggests that Mark has taken the part of the message to the disciples ("tell them he has risen") from Matthew and put it in the slightly awkward position, ahead of, "he is not here".
If Mark were using Matthew and Luke, we would expect this kind of disjointedness. And if Matthew was writing directly from an eyewitness, he would compose his sentences so that the ideas flowed smoothly, as here.

[ProfessorDavey]

Fair enough. As I mentioned in the matthean priority thread, Mark's pericope order is always supported by either Matthew or Luke.
Some periscopes in Mark seem to be a conflation of the other two's versions. So for the women at the tomb pericope: Matt and Luke write "he is not here, he has risen". Mark writes, "He has risen, he is not here". When placed in the context of "you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified", and "why do you look for the living among the dead?" it is clear that Matthew and Luke flow smoothly, as they say, "you are looking for....he is not here". Mark's "you are looking for....he has risen" is less smooth, since "he has risen" is not related to where Jesus is. This suggests that Mark has taken the part of the message to the disciples ("tell them he has risen") from Matthew and put it in the slightly awkward position, ahead of, "he is not here".
If Mark were using Matthew and Luke, we would expect this kind of disjointedness. And if Matthew was writing directly from an eyewitness, he would compose his sentences so that the ideas flowed smoothly, as here.

But you are basing the order of the two phrases not on necessarily what Mark or Matthew or Luke actually wrote, but on evidence from fragments of the gospels and then whole versions from hundreds of years later.

Noting that the fragments we have were produced by individuals hand copying an earlier version we can presume that a version written in 200-300 is perhaps a third, fourth, fifth (or even more) copied version. So rather than tying yourself up in knots about what they actually wrote (which we have no evidence for) and what this means (which we can say nothing about as we don't know what they actually wrote) surely a far more logical explanation is a scrambling of the order during copying with that error being replicated in later copies.

[ProfessorDavey]

And if Matthew was writing directly from an eyewitness, he would compose his sentences so that the ideas flowed smoothly, as here.

J K Rowling's writing about Harry Potter accessing Platform 9 and 3/4 at Kings Cross flows smoothly too - presumably you think that means she was writing directly from an eye witness too.

But even if this is what an eye witness actually said that doesn't mean it it true. If someone slides on they bike commuting this morning in the wet snow and I grab some eye witnesses later in the morning and ask them what happened, guess what, I'd get a range of accounts - likely they wouldn't agree on the colour of the bike or what the cyclist said as he hit the ground, or how many people stopped to check whether he was OK etc etc. Eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable.

Ask the same questions, not 3 hours after the event but 60 years and the likelihood of getting anything remotely reliable is close to zero.

[Roses]

So called 'eye witnesses' who claim to have seen events, which are much less than credible like the resurrection of Jesus, have to be treated with the utmost scepticism, as do most of the gospel accounts of what Jesus is supposed to have said and done.

[jeremyp]

No, just that he is an eyewitness of the resurrection.

The statement was that Jesus makes no appearances in Mark’s gospel after being put in the tomb.

Not that the young man claimed to have seen him.

[jeremyp]

Because the likelihood of two deciding, probably independently, to make the same alteration to their source seems quite low.

The gospel accounts of the resurrection are not independent.

[ProfessorDavey]

The statement was that Jesus makes no appearances in Mark’s gospel after being put in the tomb.

Not that the young man claimed to have seen him.

Mark is very interesting in terms of the reliability of the gospels as it is well accepted that it was doctored later to include additional material that made his original, rather unconvincing, claim of resurrection (an empty tomb and no other evidence) more 'compelling' in the partial eyes of people who wanted to convince others to believe.

So if we know that Mark has clearly been doctored in that manner how much of the rest of the gospels is similarly doctored - effectively to make the 'evidence' (i.e. what is written in the gospels, which isn't really evidence at all) fit the beliefs rather than allowing beliefs to be genuinely informed by the evidence.

[Spud]

The statement was that Jesus makes no appearances in Mark’s gospel after being put in the tomb.

Not that the young man claimed to have seen him.

We can assume the young man has seen him because he knows about the arrangement Jesus had made to meet them in Galilee.

[Spud]

The gospel accounts of the resurrection are not independent.

There is independent material, such as the guards (Matthew), Jesus explaining the scriptures, Peter running to the tomb (Luke).

[Spud]

J K Rowling's writing about Harry Potter accessing Platform 9 and 3/4 at Kings Cross flows smoothly too - presumably you think that means she was writing directly from an eye witness too.

But even if this is what an eye witness actually said that doesn't mean it it true. If someone slides on they bike commuting this morning in the wet snow and I grab some eye witnesses later in the morning and ask them what happened, guess what, I'd get a range of accounts - likely they wouldn't agree on the colour of the bike or what the cyclist said as he hit the ground, or how many people stopped to check whether he was OK etc etc. Eye witnesses are notoriously unreliable.

Ask the same questions, not 3 hours after the event but 60 years and the likelihood of getting anything remotely reliable is close to zero.

But they'd agree that the cyclist hit the ground, right?
The disagreements about the number and locations of angels are what we could expect from different eyewitnesses, but they would agree on the key facts, such as the empty tomb.

[Spud]

J K Rowling's writing about Harry Potter accessing Platform 9 and 3/4 at Kings Cross flows smoothly too - presumably you think that means she was writing directly from an eye witness too.

The point is that the original author would have been writing so that each clause is linked in some way with the previous one. A later copier [edit: I mean someone using the original as a source for his gospel], wanting to emphasize a particular detail or shorten the material, would look disjointed in places where he had rearranged or omitted stuff.

[Roses]

We can assume the young man has seen him because he knows about the arrangement Jesus had made to meet them in Galilee.

You make too many assumptions, instead of questioning the credibility of things you believe to be factual.

[ProfessorDavey]

But they'd agree that the cyclist hit the ground, right?

Not necessarily - it depends on their level of engagement with the events. It is perfectly likely that someone walking past at the time looking at their phone with headphones on would be blissfully unaware that a cyclist had even slipped.

The disagreements about the number and locations of angels are what we could expect from different eyewitnesses,

err before even engaging on the notion of angels you'll need to provide evidence that they even exist. The equivalent in my analogy would be an eye witness claiming that the cyclist didn't in fact slip on the ice, but was tripped by a unicorn.

but they would agree on the key facts, such as the empty tomb.

They might do, but an empty grave provides no meaningful evidence for a resurrection as there are huge numbers of plausible reasons why people might find a grave empty, none of which involve resurrection.