Matthew 14:22 Jesus walks on the water...

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get in the boat...


Should the author, if the author were actually an eyewitness, be using this approach?

Why would the author do this if it were not a story which had been told to him about the events?

One could surmise, if the author were an eyewitness to the event, he would have just written 'us' instead of 'the disciples'... would he not?

Thats stuff has been translated and retranslated so many times over the centuries no one really knows the exact wording used by the authors.

It's entirely possible that when it was first written that the language used meant "the disciples" and "us" in the same word. therefore it could be translated either way.

because it may have been based on something unusal but not a miracle like it says. like mirror said, after things get handed down by word of mouth until the time it actually was recorded... the whole bible could honestly be a story about a horny monkey for all we know.

i will agree its a good book to live by and it's values are true, but i would not base your life on the exact wording of something like that

Translation equals confusion, I agree Mirror, yet how could one mistake 'we' or 'us' for 'the disciples'?

It changes the context completely... from one who took an active part, to one who observed, but was not 'of' the disciples.

Of course there is the authenticity of authorship of the gospels being placed into doubt also...

Responsible scholars date Matthew to the late first century after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 C.E. So Matthew wasn't written by an eyewitness. Of the 666 verses in Mark, 600 of them appear in Matthew (most rewritten but in many cases the same words and order). Both Matthew and Luke share Mark as a source material though. However, this info. doesn't go over well with an orthodox, fundamentalist Christian audience.

whiteboy:

Yes I have been down that road before and the reliabililty of the source always is in question...

It seems the Muratorian Fragment is a 'last hope' to confirm authenticity of gospel content...

The Catholic 'record' admits 29 years of 'oral tradition'???

TO Creative:

I didn't know that. Interesting stuff.

I actually had a synoptic problem thread at one time... the opposing side refused to use the official Catholic church records as evidence...

It states Christianity is based on hearsay...'oral tradition'

Hijacked by overabundant apologetic statistics and personal judgement, or at least what seemed like judgement to me...

Refusal to consider anything opposing...????

Ah well...

The narrative tense argument brings about a view using the scripture itself, which is the only place proponents will look...

The King James has:

Mat 14:22 And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.

In Christ's day, it was considered inappropriate to talk about oneself personally when writing. Thus, when the apostle John speaks of himself, he says the disciple Jesus loved.

In that context, as a narrative it it absolutely normal for Matthew to say that that He constrained his disciples to get into a ship.

If you want to try to disprove Christianity, there are better arguments than this.

Art

I agree with that Art.

It was just a question.

Thank you for your answer.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I find that claim rather astonishing. Do you have any references? Thanks.

I miss you guys......

TO Feral:

ty cuz......awwwww made my day....even better then diamonds......When matchmaking thread slows a bit I will be back

The Author of Matthew.......The early church uniformly attributed this gospel to Matthew, and no tradition to the contrary ever emerged. This book was known early and accepted quickly. In his Ecclesiastical History (A.D. 323), Eusebius quoted a statement by Papias (c.A.D. 140) that Mattthew wrote logia ("sayings") in Aramaic. No Aramaic gospel of Matthew has been found, and it is evident that Matthew is not a Greek tanslation of an Aramaic original. Some beleive that Matthew wrote an abbreviates version of Jesus' sayings in Aramaic before writing his gospel in Greek a larger circle of readers. Matthew depended on Mark's gospel as a source, the date of Mark would determine the earliest date for Mathew. The likely time frame for this is is A.D. 58-68. Written in Palestine or Syrian Antioch.

Matthew's name was Levi... he was indeed an uneducated fisherman, and there is no reason to believe that he wrote that book...

Most uneducated people of the day could not read or write...


Mark was written first... nearly all who study this concur... on both sides of the debate...

Levi did not write that book...

And Papias has NO written testimony that has survived...NONE

Creative wrote:

Matthew's name was Levi... he was indeed an uneducated fisherman, and there is no reason to believe that he wrote that book...

ANSWER: Where did you get that Matthew was a fisherman.......He was the son of Alphaeus and a tax collector and a very intelligent man of his time.

Creative wrote:
Most uneducated people of the day could not read or write...


Mark was written first... nearly all who study this concur... on both sides of the debate...

Levi did not write that book...
And Papias has NO written testimony that has survived...NO

ANSWER: It was a statement written by Papias not on papias.....

My apologies on Levi being a fisherman... I believe he was indeed a tax collector... oops... Ya got me on that one!!


There was nothing written by Papias on papyrus that still exists.

Mark was still written first...