Frankly, I seriously doubt that.
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errors in the New Testament
- Thread starter syo
- Start date
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
Why do you doubt that? It would make posting so much easier. Literalism is due to an inability to reason logically, usually self imposed.
Inside what? Ahh never mind
And you use a cereal box for a mirror? Could explain a lot.
Earthling
David Henson
No, silly. You use the mirror on the cereal box to read the backwards words. It's like a game or an Aerosmith album.
If Jesus was 30 years old in the fifteenth year of Tiberius(Luke 3:1-2;23), when Jesus began his ministry, and if Tiberius began his reign in 14 AD, then Jesus would have turned 16 years old in 14 AD. How then was he born in 6 AD?
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
You do not seem to realize that the author of Luke has Jesus born in both roughly 4 BCE, he was born when Herod the Great was still alive, and born in 6 CE, the year of the Census of Quirinius. That is a ten year span. Of course the whole story is a bit bogus. When a census is taken it is done for tax purposes. People are taxed according to where they live and earn their money. It would be pointless and counterproductive to tax them based on where they were from. Even with today's technology we do the same. Immigrants do not go back to their country of origin, or even city or state of origin in censuses.
A little thought and many of the Bible stories fall apart.
My point is that if that's what Luke was saying, then how also did he say all those things about Jesus' age in the fifteenth year of Tiberius? Obviously then you can't tell me what he was saying.
In Wikipedia: Census of Quirinius one can find the sentence:
exegetical acrobatics - what a wonderfully descriptive term!
These arguments have been rejected by mainline scholarship as "exegetical acrobatics" and most have concluded that the author of Luke's gospel made an error.
exegetical acrobatics - what a wonderfully descriptive term!
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
You are not following the conversation. It is an example of an obvious error in the book of Luke, who probably was not "Luke". In case you did not know the Gospels were almost certainly not written by the people that they were named for. There is a slight chance that the author of Luke was Paul's friend Luke. Of course none of them were written by eyewitnesses nor are they eyewitness accounts by any definition.
I think that you may be the confused one here. Are you familiar with his version of the nativity myth?
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
What!? The author of Luke made an error?? I guess we can close this thread now. . . . Oh wait, the title of the thread is errors in the New Testament. I guess we need at least one more
The more interesting question might be: So what?Oh wait, the title of the thread is errors in the New Testament. I guess we need at least one more
I dabble in genealogy. One of the rather frustrating facts is that date errors are fairly common. I'm not a big Luke fan, but I'm tempted to give him a pass on this. The alternative approach, i.e., gloating over this discovery of such an error, strikes me as a bit mean spirited and sophomoric.
What!? The author of Luke made an error?? I guess we can close this thread now. . . . Oh wait, the title of the thread is errors in the New Testament. I guess we need at least one more
You may find this interesting
https://outreachjudaism.org/400000-variants-in-the-nt-greek-manuscript/
Here's the question
You stated that there are almost 6,000 Greek NT manuscript (around 5778 copies). Among them are 400,000 variants of differences, while there are only 139,000 words in the NT. However, Prof. Bruce Metzger wrote that the NT is 95% reliable when compared to the original manuscript of the New Testament.
And part of the answer
The most important thing to keep in mind is that 90% of the contradictions in the NT manuscripts are not important. In other words, 360,000 errors in the manuscripts in the NT are unimportant. However, 40,000 errors are significant. Even if we reduce this number by 50%, we are left with 20,000 mistakes that are very important! 20,000 mistakes that are very critical and have significant theological implications!
Remembering there are less than 140,000 words in the NT even 20000 significant errors is "significant"
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
I get a bit frustrated with those that deny any errors in the New Testament. It seemed that the person that we were responding to was one such. Again, I would not mind if they could at least limit their claims to no substantive errors. Of course I can see why they are a bit defensive. It becomes rather obvious if one reads the Gospels that the writers tried to incorporate as many different prophecies, real and mistaken, as possible from the Old Testament. They got caught fudging the facts in promoting the virgin birth myth, based upon a mistranslation in the Septuagint in the first place.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
The virgin birth myth had its apparent origins in the supposed prophecy of Isaiah 7 14. The problem is that this fails on several levels. First the word "almah" was translated into Greek into "virgin" where "young woman" would have been a more accurate translation. Second the supposed prophecy was taken out of context and when read in context clearly does not apply to Jesus.
Here is just one article out of many that goes into more detail on the matter:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2016/12/07/debunking-nativity-mistranslation-virgin/
EDIT: And I probably should not have spiked the ball in my earlier post.
True, but you wrote:
Just who is this "they" you condemn/ridicule for "fudging the facts"? Those who "mistranslated" Isaiah 7:14?
OK, but note that
- this translation antedates Christianity, so the "they" would have been diaspora Jews, not Christians trying to fabricate prooftext, and
- for whom translating almah as parthenos would have been very reasonable. See the rather good discussion of parthenos found in
The Hebrew Isaiah 7:14 was misunderstood, but there was no sinister "fudging the facts."
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
The author of Luke was caught, not the translators of the Septuagint.
Caught doing what?