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Post by CoolJGS☺ on Dec 7, 2017 18:49:37 GMT
The “Penitent Thief” brings up a good point about the Bible in general and the Gospels in particular: when Bible stories appear in different places, there are often significant differences between the versions. The Penitent Thief only appears in one of the four Gospels. Luke 23:39-43 tells the story that is being discussed on this thread. Matthew 27:38 simply says that two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Matthew adds that the robbers were mocked by passers-by the same as Jesus. Mark 15:27 says the same thing (most scholars believe that Matthew used Mark as a source), but leaves out the comment about the robbers also being mocked. In Mark only Jesus gets the crowd’s rebuke. John 19:18 also just mentions the robbers in passing, but later in the chapter says that they had their legs broken by the Romans (to induce shock and then death), but that Jesus was already dead so did not have his legs broken. This detail is found only in John. The takeaway then is that the author we call “Luke” created the story to make a theological point. Whatever historical (as opposed to theological) truth is contained in the Passion narrative, it is probably that the others executed with Jesus played no other part in the event except to be there and die. Another little known aspect is that although the Gospels may contain history, they are documents of faith, not biography. There was no concept of writing history as we think of it. The stories within them demonstrate to their first readers what to believe and how to act in their own lives. Most of the Gospels do not repeat each other. So it's not an odd thing that the story of the penitent thief is in only one Gospel. There weren;t meant to mimic each other. It's better to view them as different perspectives of similar events. Individual people will think of different aspects and especially from different locales (Luke was likely not even there...& that isn;t an issue either).
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Post by mikef6 on Dec 7, 2017 19:17:25 GMT
Most of the Gospels do not repeat each other. So it's not an odd thing that the story of the penitent thief is in only one Gospel. There weren;t meant to mimic each other. It's better to view them as different perspectives of similar events. Individual people will think of different aspects and especially from different locales (Luke was likely not even there...& that isn;t an issue either). That the Gospels have different takes on events IS an odd thing to say. Most Christians, even those from “liberal” churches (i.e. churches that do not combine Christianity with a modern extreme right-wing political agenda), tend to conflate all versions of an event into a continuous narrative. Even when accounts are wildly divergent, as in the Birth Narratives of Matthew and Luke, no one seems to notice, for example, that Luke has the family returning straight back home to Nazareth with no mention of Matthew’s story of the Slaughter of the Innocents and the trip to Egypt. To most Christians, there is just one continuous story of Jesus’ birth in spite of such glaring inconsistencies. None of the Gospel writers where there to write down their own perspectives. Except, perhaps, for Mark, the other two synoptic Gospels and John were composed in the second or third generations of Christians – maybe later as some scholars place the Gospel of John early in the second century. The so-called authors are not self identified in the Gospels themselves. Those titles were assigned by later generations.
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Post by CoolJGS☺ on Dec 7, 2017 19:45:28 GMT
Most of the Gospels do not repeat each other. So it's not an odd thing that the story of the penitent thief is in only one Gospel. There weren;t meant to mimic each other. It's better to view them as different perspectives of similar events. Individual people will think of different aspects and especially from different locales (Luke was likely not even there...& that isn;t an issue either). That the Gospels have different takes on events IS an odd thing to say. Most Christians, even those from “liberal” churches (i.e. churches that do not combine Christianity with a modern extreme right-wing political agenda), tend to conflate all versions of an event into a continuous narrative. Even when accounts are wildly divergent, as in the Birth Narratives of Matthew and Luke, no one seems to notice, for example, that Luke has the family returning straight back home to Nazareth with no mention of Matthew’s story of the Slaughter of the Innocents and the trip to Egypt. To most Christians, there is just one continuous story of Jesus’ birth in spite of such glaring inconsistencies. None of the Gospel writers where there to write down their own perspectives. Except, perhaps, for Mark, the other two synoptic Gospels and John were composed in the second or third generations of Christians – maybe later as some scholars place the Gospel of John early in the second century. The so-called authors are not self identified in the Gospels themselves. Those titles were assigned by later generations. There's nothing wrong with merging the Gospels into a narrative. For example, the parts you highlighted don;t contradict one another despite them not stating the same thing. The point is the separate books of the Gospels themselves do not constitute a narrative. They are pretty clearly distinct from one another and based both on the view of the writer as well as the audience it's directed to. None of your history of the Gospels has any basis of accuracy so there's no need to comment on it since it's simply a matter of opinion and irrelevant to what I said anyway.
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Post by clusium on Dec 8, 2017 1:25:12 GMT
While Catholic Bibles have more Books than Protestant Bibles, different Orthodox Bibles have more Books than Catholic Bibles.
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Post by clusium on Dec 8, 2017 1:25:51 GMT
St. Joan of Arc is far more well known, than some of the Saints who commanded her to save France from the onslaughts of the British.
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Post by cupcakes on Dec 8, 2017 1:58:31 GMT
tpfkar The original source text was "the cleansing of the Masonic temple". Temples
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