• afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      No. Neither one of them were eyewitnesses.

      Matthew would have been an illiterate Aramaic speaker and yet the Gospel is written in highly educated Greek, contains events that hadn’t happened yet, contains attributions of events that hadn’t happened yet, contains events that the apostle wouldn’t have seen, has mistakes about geography and Jewish culture that no Palestinian Jewish person would have made, contains direct word for word quotes from Mark, contains deliberately altered quotes from Mark to get certain results.

      John is even in a worse position because he not only makes all the mistakes Matthew made he shows a theology that had not even been developed in the first century.

      Luke is not a second hand account. He even admits as much when he talks about various sources. Luke borrowed from everywhere. Josphius, Mark, Matthew, the Letters, probably the Q and L source, and who knows how many oral traditions. He is a second hand account in the sense that if you heard me describe a Wikipedia article I had read 8 years ago would be.

      As for Paul sure he had a vision. Dehydration, some bad figs, late onset schizophrenia. Take your pick really.

        • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          He was literally a tax collector. He would have been well educated.

          Please demonstrate that this was a job requirement.

          Where

          The Gospels. Or did you mean “please give me an example”?

          Or Mark was quoting Matthew before he wrote it down. It’s not that deep. Oral tradition exists.

          Sigh. No. Matthew is longer than Mark and contains fables that Mark didn’t have. Also word for word quotes are not preserved of that length orally. They stole and copied from each other. Not complicated.

          Matthew was a first-hand source

          No it was a copy of Mark which was a copy of Paul which was a copy of some grifts that James was telling.

          o something already happened that caused an oral tradition, which would have led back to first hand accounts.

          Those are written traditions.

          His blindness was cured when he was baptised, though. Again, you’d argue that it was a placebo, but the Holy Spirit acted in many people and still does to this day.

          Odd how he never mentioned this even when it would have served him. Why can’t your god write a better book?