Somebody challenged me in a prior posting to provide an alternative to the resurrection of Jesus:
I devote this OP to just the subject of whether and to what extent the gospel of Matthew contributes toward the evidence in favor of the resurrection of Jesus. Matthew is the chronologically first gospel in the modern NT, so it makes sense to start at the beginning. I will create new OPs in the future, dedicated to other NT books and accounts, after I have determined that I've answered the best objections that you have been able to post here.
Before you can use a gospel to establish the resurrection of Jesus, you must be able to defend its having been written by a resurrection eyewitness, or defend the reliability of the author's reliance on hearsay. But that requires that you first establish who the real author is.
The only way you could possibly know that Matthew authored that gospel is either because a) the gospel says he did, or includes evidence that Matthew is the author, or b) other sources, sufficiently reliable to withstand scrutiny, claim he wrote it. If you think atheists are stupid for denying that Jesus rose from the dead, then you aren't just saying you can prove that there is eyewitness testimony to it, you are saying that eyewitness testimony survives criticism so well that only willful ignorance and love of sin can explain the informed persons continued rejection of it.
That's the consequences when you overstate your case. Yet you probably know perfectly well the disagreements among scholars on the subject of Matthew's authorship. You aren't significant enough to obligate an atheist with kids, a job and life to devote his free time to studying this complex subject sufficiently just to make sure you don't accuse him of running away. Like you, I've done my research. Like you, I've decided how much time to devote to it and how much to devote to my family and life outside of the computer. Like you, I've reached conclusions about these scholarly disagreements which laymen have no hope of resolving. And like you, since I am confident my conclusions are correct, I correspondingly cease putting these matters at issue in my life. They are too complex and unresolvable to rationally justify the average adult man with a life outside his computer to constantly discuss to death, as is the procedure at tweb. I will reply to those who attempt rebuttal, but I will not "live at the computer" they way you do. Unfortunately for you, I've found that talking to Christians in real life face to face is a far easier way to get them to honestly admit their fundie faith isn't quite as certain as they wish.
The internal evidence for Matthian authorship is so scanty that not even conservative evangelical scholars, who have the greatest motivation to derive traditional authorship out of every last bit of evidence they can come up with, find it significant enough to even mention. Craig Blomberg was the scholar who wrote the Matthew commentary for the conservative evangelical "New American Commentary", (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers), and he never argues that some text in Matthew points to Matthian authorship. What are the odds that Blomberg thinks any such texts do that, but he just "forgot" about then while composing his commentary? If you think you'll make a convert due to Matthew's unique words that suggest a tax-collector wrote them, you are sadly mistaken.
And the synoptic problem, for which most scholars say Matthew copied from Mark, raises the thorny question of how likely it is that a divinely inspired eyewitness (Matthew) would be to depend so heavily on the account written by a non-eyewitness (Mark). The fact that you can dream up exceptions only establishes the general rule that you still need to overcome: Those with personal first-hand knowledge of the events may be safely assumed when testifying to not depend on non-eyewitness accounts, and that will carry the day until you establish that this was an exceptional case. And your belief that Matthew was divinely inspired cuts off any opportunity for you to raise concerns about Matthew's memory failing him.
So that leaves you solely with external evidence, and in that case, you are left with the only two testimonies that are considered the major players in scholarly treatments of the subject, the earliest of the evidence: Eusebius and Papias.
Eusebius of Caesarea was the secretary to 4th century Constantine, and wrote the first major history of the church, creatively titled "History of the Church". Therein he quotes second-century church father Papias for the proposition that Matthew wrote a gospel:
Even limiting this OP to just Matthew might not have been enough narrowing, since the questions raised by this Papias-quotation are also legion:
1 - Eusebius gives no context to allow the reader to more accurately understand Papias. If Eusebius was being honest (i.e, nothing in the immediate context of Papias' statement within the "Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord" would have helped the reader draw more definite conclusions), then Papias was simply providing an anecdote, which likely means he wasn't writing for those who might challenge him, but for those who would readily agree with him, which thus makes the quote useless for those who differ from his intended audience and need to know more before they can decide whether he is credible or not. Or is this the part where you suddenly discover, contrary to everything you've ever believed, that "context doesn't matter"?
2 - Eusebius' credibility is questioned due to his quotation of Papias without context. If Papias said something more in the context of what Eusebius quoted, which relate to what Papias meant or where he got his information, Eusebius can be accused of dishonesty for the same exact reason you accuse any atheist of dishonesty who doesn't provide relevant context when making a quotation.
3 - Eusebius' Greek, the word "language" in the phrase "Hebrew language" is dialektos, and scholars disagree on whether this means Matthew wrote in Hebrew style, or with Hebrew lettering. If Hebrew lettering, there is a "gospel to the Hebrews" that Eusebius mentions immediately after his quotation of Papias (I included that part in the above quote too), and 4th century church fathers admit this "gospel to Hebrews" was believed by many in the church as being authentically from Matthew, which is a problem since the extant scraps of that gospel indicate it was heretical, which raises the nasty question of how a heretical document could have been mistaken for gospel truth by so many for so long:
Eusebius stated that the Gospel to the Hebrews was the one with which the Jewish Christians were "especially delighted", which creates fatal problems for today's apologists who say the early Christians had a correct view of which books were inspired:
4 - The majority scholarly opinion is that canonical Greek Matthew doesn't appear to be translation Greek. Conservative Evangelical scholar Craig Blomberg admits this just before his attempt to refute the scholarly majority:
5 - Papias allegedly said that the Hebrew Matthew gospel was "interpreted" (Greek: hermeneuo) by "every one". If it means "interpreted" as appears in most renderings of Eusebius, then nothing is stated about anybody doing translation. But if it means "translated", then this cements the original Matthew having been in Hebrew lettering, and the canonical Greek is the work of anonymous others whose credibility and honesty cannot be properly evaluated.
I think that is quite enough. Papias' own credibility problems would justify a separate OP.
This uncertainty in the scholarly world (Blomberg concludes that Matthew is strictly anonymous, ibid) makes it nearly certain that the gospel of Matthew can provide only the weakest of historical evidence. If you agree with most apologists that Matthew's testimony is unnecessary to use to make a strong case for the resurrection of Jesus, say so, and I'll move on to Mark.
Which will be a rather short OP given that, under the scholarly majority opinion that the long-ending of Mark 16 is not original, Mark's gospel never says any human being ever saw the risen Jesus.
Originally posted by Christianbookworm
Before you can use a gospel to establish the resurrection of Jesus, you must be able to defend its having been written by a resurrection eyewitness, or defend the reliability of the author's reliance on hearsay. But that requires that you first establish who the real author is.
The only way you could possibly know that Matthew authored that gospel is either because a) the gospel says he did, or includes evidence that Matthew is the author, or b) other sources, sufficiently reliable to withstand scrutiny, claim he wrote it. If you think atheists are stupid for denying that Jesus rose from the dead, then you aren't just saying you can prove that there is eyewitness testimony to it, you are saying that eyewitness testimony survives criticism so well that only willful ignorance and love of sin can explain the informed persons continued rejection of it.
That's the consequences when you overstate your case. Yet you probably know perfectly well the disagreements among scholars on the subject of Matthew's authorship. You aren't significant enough to obligate an atheist with kids, a job and life to devote his free time to studying this complex subject sufficiently just to make sure you don't accuse him of running away. Like you, I've done my research. Like you, I've decided how much time to devote to it and how much to devote to my family and life outside of the computer. Like you, I've reached conclusions about these scholarly disagreements which laymen have no hope of resolving. And like you, since I am confident my conclusions are correct, I correspondingly cease putting these matters at issue in my life. They are too complex and unresolvable to rationally justify the average adult man with a life outside his computer to constantly discuss to death, as is the procedure at tweb. I will reply to those who attempt rebuttal, but I will not "live at the computer" they way you do. Unfortunately for you, I've found that talking to Christians in real life face to face is a far easier way to get them to honestly admit their fundie faith isn't quite as certain as they wish.
The internal evidence for Matthian authorship is so scanty that not even conservative evangelical scholars, who have the greatest motivation to derive traditional authorship out of every last bit of evidence they can come up with, find it significant enough to even mention. Craig Blomberg was the scholar who wrote the Matthew commentary for the conservative evangelical "New American Commentary", (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers), and he never argues that some text in Matthew points to Matthian authorship. What are the odds that Blomberg thinks any such texts do that, but he just "forgot" about then while composing his commentary? If you think you'll make a convert due to Matthew's unique words that suggest a tax-collector wrote them, you are sadly mistaken.
And the synoptic problem, for which most scholars say Matthew copied from Mark, raises the thorny question of how likely it is that a divinely inspired eyewitness (Matthew) would be to depend so heavily on the account written by a non-eyewitness (Mark). The fact that you can dream up exceptions only establishes the general rule that you still need to overcome: Those with personal first-hand knowledge of the events may be safely assumed when testifying to not depend on non-eyewitness accounts, and that will carry the day until you establish that this was an exceptional case. And your belief that Matthew was divinely inspired cuts off any opportunity for you to raise concerns about Matthew's memory failing him.
So that leaves you solely with external evidence, and in that case, you are left with the only two testimonies that are considered the major players in scholarly treatments of the subject, the earliest of the evidence: Eusebius and Papias.
Eusebius of Caesarea was the secretary to 4th century Constantine, and wrote the first major history of the church, creatively titled "History of the Church". Therein he quotes second-century church father Papias for the proposition that Matthew wrote a gospel:
These things are related by Papias concerning Mark. But concerning Matthew he writes as follows: "So then Matthew wrote the oracles in the Hebrew language, and every one interpreted them as he was able." And the same writer uses testimonies from the first Epistle of John and from that of Peter likewise. And he relates another story of a woman, who was accused of many sins before the Lord, which is contained in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. These things we have thought it necessary to observe in addition to what has been already stated.
Eusebius, Church History, Book 3, chapter 39
1 - Eusebius gives no context to allow the reader to more accurately understand Papias. If Eusebius was being honest (i.e, nothing in the immediate context of Papias' statement within the "Exposition of the Oracles of the Lord" would have helped the reader draw more definite conclusions), then Papias was simply providing an anecdote, which likely means he wasn't writing for those who might challenge him, but for those who would readily agree with him, which thus makes the quote useless for those who differ from his intended audience and need to know more before they can decide whether he is credible or not. Or is this the part where you suddenly discover, contrary to everything you've ever believed, that "context doesn't matter"?
2 - Eusebius' credibility is questioned due to his quotation of Papias without context. If Papias said something more in the context of what Eusebius quoted, which relate to what Papias meant or where he got his information, Eusebius can be accused of dishonesty for the same exact reason you accuse any atheist of dishonesty who doesn't provide relevant context when making a quotation.
3 - Eusebius' Greek, the word "language" in the phrase "Hebrew language" is dialektos, and scholars disagree on whether this means Matthew wrote in Hebrew style, or with Hebrew lettering. If Hebrew lettering, there is a "gospel to the Hebrews" that Eusebius mentions immediately after his quotation of Papias (I included that part in the above quote too), and 4th century church fathers admit this "gospel to Hebrews" was believed by many in the church as being authentically from Matthew, which is a problem since the extant scraps of that gospel indicate it was heretical, which raises the nasty question of how a heretical document could have been mistaken for gospel truth by so many for so long:
“There is a Gospel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites use, which I lately translated from the Hebrew tongue into Greek and which is called by many the authentic Gospel of Matthew" (Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 12:13).
“In the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is written in the Chaldee and Syrian language, but in Hebrew characters, and is used by the Nazarenes to this day (I mean the Gospel according to the Apostles, or, as is generally maintained, the Gospel according to Matthew, a copy of which is in the library at Caesarea), we find, "Behold, the mother of our Lord and His brethren said to Him, John Baptist baptizes for the remission of sins; let us go and be baptized by him. But He said to them, what sin have I committed that I should go and be baptized by him? Unless, haply, the very words which I have said are only ignorance."“ (Jerome, Against the Pelagians, 3:2)
“In the Gospel according to the Hebrews, which is written in the Chaldee and Syrian language, but in Hebrew characters, and is used by the Nazarenes to this day (I mean the Gospel according to the Apostles, or, as is generally maintained, the Gospel according to Matthew, a copy of which is in the library at Caesarea), we find, "Behold, the mother of our Lord and His brethren said to Him, John Baptist baptizes for the remission of sins; let us go and be baptized by him. But He said to them, what sin have I committed that I should go and be baptized by him? Unless, haply, the very words which I have said are only ignorance."“ (Jerome, Against the Pelagians, 3:2)
And among these some have placed also the Gospel according to the Hebrews, with which those of the Hebrews that have accepted Christ are especially delighted.
Eusebius, Ibid, Book 3, chapter 25.
Largely because canonical Matthew does not betray very much evidence of having been translated literally from a Semitic tongue, most modern scholarship is inclined to discount the value of Papias’s testimony however it is interpreted.
Blomberg, C. (2001, c1992). Vol. 22: Matthew (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 40). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 40). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.
I think that is quite enough. Papias' own credibility problems would justify a separate OP.
This uncertainty in the scholarly world (Blomberg concludes that Matthew is strictly anonymous, ibid) makes it nearly certain that the gospel of Matthew can provide only the weakest of historical evidence. If you agree with most apologists that Matthew's testimony is unnecessary to use to make a strong case for the resurrection of Jesus, say so, and I'll move on to Mark.
Which will be a rather short OP given that, under the scholarly majority opinion that the long-ending of Mark 16 is not original, Mark's gospel never says any human being ever saw the risen Jesus.
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