In his recorded conversation with Peter Williams, Ehrman brought up the familiar discrepancy between the two stories of the death of Judas Iscariot. Now, since the later chapters of Matthew’s gospel seem to have a lot of detail indicating a source in the priestly circles, I go along with Matthew and take the Acts account to be Luke repeating a tale he was told, with an element of truth (about a purchase of a field) but also some inaccuracies. It’s a matter of judgement, and concerns what is certainly a peripheral topic of no great importance to the Gospel message.
Colin Humphreys’ book “The Mystery of the Last Supper” gives a very thorough analysis of these issues and can be strongly recommended. He straightens everything out quite well by examining the different calendars in use.
I don’t know if “God showed up in Jesus” or if God showed up “as” Jesus. Or maybe another explanation.
Either way, or another way, equating the work of people, the writing of documents, with the perfection of God is an elevation of the documents not supported by or claimed in the documents themselves.
Jesus was the Word of God. The Bible never claims to be, in its entirety, the Word of God. The Savior and the writings of people are quite different and we should not confuse them.
Klax
(The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)
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Aye Vance, but 400 years after the Enlightenment, people here are still trapped by words.
[Jesus Himself erred in healing the guy with no eyes; it took Him two goes!]
There is an alternative view of that story, which is one of my favorite miracles.
Instead of revealing an error by Jesus, it is more likely to be a revelation to us of the process of bringing something whole.
It reminds me of my trip to the eye doctor in the USAF back around 1974. The doctor held a lens in front of my eye and said “how does this look?” Then he held another and asked if it was better.
The miracle, and the process Jesus took, revealed that Jesus was altering the man’s physical attributes.
I don’t see that as an error at all, but as a generous revelation so that we might better understand the power and methods of God.
To relate this to the topic of the thread, we should note that God did not write the scriptures. People, fallible people, wrote the scriptures. They are not inerrant. They are not infallible. Yet they are valuable.
Bruce Metzger described it well:
“In short, the Scriptures, according to the early Fathers, are indeed inspired, but that is not the reason they are authoritative. They are authoritative, and hence canonical, because they are the extant literary deposit of the direct and indirect apostolic witness on which the later witness of the Church depends.”
Excerpt From
The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance
Bruce M Metzger
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By the way, isn’t this process Jesus took to bring the man’s eyes to functionality something like the process that God used in evolution? Different things were tried. Some failed and died. Others succeeded and thrived.