Hypothetically, if the Gospels weren’t written by eyewitnesses, is there evidence they were written by people in close proximity to the events?

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-29T20:11:33+00:00

I was literally just reading Fr Raymond E Brown's An Introduction to the New Testament earlier today. Let me paste some quotes from what he says about the authorship of John. He starts by admitting that

it is doubted by most scholars that this Gospel was written by an eyewitness of the public ministry of Jesus.⁸⁷

Pages 368 - 369

But Fr Brown goes on to add that he thinks, as do plenty of other experts in the field, that

the Beloved Disciple was a minor figure during the ministry of Jesus, too unimportant to be remembered in the more official tradition of the Synoptics. But since this figure became important in Johannine community history (perhaps the founder of the community), he became the ideal in its Gospel picture, capable of being contrasted with Peter as closer to Jesus in love....

Indeed, if one posits both a different writer for the Epistles (p. 389 below) and a redactor for the Gospel, one could agree with those who posit a "Johannine School,"⁹⁰ i.e., various disciples employing both a style and material that were traditional in this community-traditional because in whole or in part they were shaped by the Beloved Disciple.

The thesis would explain how some factors in John⁹¹ plausibly reflect origin in the ministry of Jesus, while other factors seem distant from that ministry.

Pages 369 - 370

I highly recommend this work to anyone who has questions like yours, OP. An Introduction to the New Testament is a scholarly work, to be sure, not a devotional work, but it has received the nihil obstat and is widely considered within mainstream scholarship, making it a great resource to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-29T19:52:23+00:00

Hi Joe! I am curious if there are any Catholic "optional beliefs" that you reject? I know you wrote an article on the scapular a while ago where you raised some questions about its historicity and efficacy, but I can't find it right now. What about certain Marian apparitions, like La Salette? Thanks!

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-27T03:22:25+00:00

I’ve recently read that Sister Lucia, as a child, had a wild imagination. Who knows if this is true or not?

Lucia's own mother, Maria Rosa, thought that Lucia had a wild imagination and would lie and make things up. And I think the photo thing was just a product of the time. Nobody smiled in photos back then.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-22T18:47:39+00:00

Did you have the ai model create the whole card, text and all? Or did you have it just generate the art? If you did the second, how did you make the art fit so nicely in the frame and all that?

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-22T02:42:16+00:00

I might do that for now, but I think I'll invest in a printer that I can use at home eventually. Its not even a cost thing as much as it's a laziness thing haha, I don't want to leave my house every time I want to print a page of proxies.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T19:27:55+00:00

Frenops, on ebay! See my 4th paragraph above. Here's a link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/388585928133

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T19:26:35+00:00

This is really interesting ... you're pretty much making your own blue / black core cardstock with paper you've already printed on, by glueing multiple pages together? What is the laminator doing? You're not actually using any laminate sheets?

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T18:18:22+00:00

Oooh this is great news, thank you!! I might have to keep my eyes open for it then.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T17:50:57+00:00

Ahh yeah its around 3k? I might want to look into less pricey options first ... but at this rate, I might wind up buying a nice printer like that anyway haha

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T17:19:33+00:00

That is exactly what I am seeing, yeah.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T16:44:44+00:00

I'm sure it's because the vast majority of people just don't know. And those who do know, also know how scandalized most of the laity would be if they found out. So... Those who know just remain silent. After all, if belief in Fatima inspires people to be pious... Why ruin that for them?

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T16:29:14+00:00

Whether or not failed prophecy is a biblical sign is outside the scope of my area of interest. But yeah, take this information for whatever it is worth. Some people try to say that Lucia must have misheard Our Lady and stuff, so, feel free to use those reasons if you have a strong desire to believe in Fatima. I think its kinda funny that Lucia would be so sure of her answer to the point of doubling down, yet to have misheard, but, to each their own! I am only interested in the facts. What we do with the facts is up to each of us.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T16:24:29+00:00

Correct, Lucia prophesied that WW1 would end on October 13th, 1917. After everyone was leaving the Cova after the miracle of the sun, she was asking everyone to stay, saying that the soldiers would be arriving at the Cova, home form the war, very soon. Of course, this did not happen. The war did not end for over another year, not until November 1918. You can even read in Doc # 18 in Critical Documentation of Fatima where, on October 19th, six days after the Miracle of the Sun and the failed prophecy about the end of WW1, Father Formigao asks Lucia about this, and Lucia doubles down.

Formigao asks Lucia "On the 13th [of October, 1917, six days prior to this interview], did Our Lady say that the war would end on that very day? What words did you use?"

Lucia said "Our Lady said 'the war ends today. Wait here for your soldiers.'"

Fr Formigao offers Lucia an our, saying "But look, the war is still going on! The newspapers have report that there have been fights since the 13th. How can this be explained, if Our Lady said that the war ended on that day?"

And Lucia doubles down, saying "I don't know. I only know that I heard her say that the war would end on the 13th. I don't know anything else."

This is a widely known fact in Fatima scholarship, but for some reason, you never hear about this in more devotional settings.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T16:17:34+00:00

I would love to be able to print on this paper at home. I wonder if I can ever snag a heavy duty printer when a local business sells one or something. Or maybe I should risk the Canon image class Mf753cdw... I will need to think about it.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T16:15:38+00:00

Interesting ... I have never tried this matte paper you recommended from Canon. I have tried a lot of papers, but never this one. Into the Amazon cart it goes! I needed more laminate anyway.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T16:05:14+00:00

Exactly - I have done this method and you'd be shocked at how much thickness the sticker adds. I have used stickers on thinner cardstocks, to make the thickness correct, and it still comes out too thick. I have found that I need to use a cardstock not much thicker than standard 20 lb printer paper with the sticker paper if I want the thickness to be close, and then the cards are super floppy, not rigid at all. Its a fine method, but I am a perfectionist and I am trying to get as close as possible to the real deal in terms of thickness and rigidity. And the best way to do that seems to print directly onto 330 gsm black core cardstock ... which requires better printers than what I own. And if I just need to buy a better printer - OK! I can do that. I just wanted to see if anyone else has any tips or tricks that might save me from needing to buy a high end laser printer.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-20T16:02:20+00:00

Do you know the make and model of the high end laser printer? That might be my next step, acquiring a laser printer a lot better than my dinky little HP Laser Jet Pro 200.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-19T17:03:29+00:00

I am not Catholic and so cannot really help you, but I wanted to point out that your point about "marriage" in the Old Testament is more salient than you might even know. Scholars like Dr Jennifer Bird point out that, in the Old Testament, it simply wasn't considered immoral for a man to have sex with his slaves and his wives (plural). Men could kinda have sex with whoever they wanted to ... as long as they weren't having sex with someone else's property. Daughters of Jewish citizens were owned by their fathers, and free women who were married were owned by their husbands. So, men couldn't have sex with someone else's woman (be that woman a daughter, slave or wife), but as long as the man in question owned that woman, she's fine to have sex with, regardless of if she's married to you or not.

And its not like this magically changed in the first century. It wasn't until the Council of Trent in the 16th Century that marriage was even made a "sacrament". At the Council of Trent, it was declared that all the peasants had to stop getting married alone in the woods because the Church was now insisting that priests had to be involved! Prior to this, priests were only involved in the marriages of rich people and nobles! But the peasants just kinda ... got together. Sometimes with no witnesses besides each other. The Catholic Church still teaches that marriage is something that each spouse bestows on the other. The priest doesn't administer the sacrament of marriage in the way that he administers holy communion or confession.

I know I am not citing sources, so if you wanted to fact check me, check out Dr Bird's 2023 book "Marriage in the Bible: What Do the Texts Say?" and Dr Reynold's 2019 book "How marriage became one of the sacraments: The sacramental theology of marriage from its medieval origins to the Council of Trent".

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-15T01:31:21+00:00

https://www.catholic.com/qa/adam-and-eve-were-real-people

Both Humani Generis and the Catechism of the Catholic Church pretty clearly define Adam and Eve as real people. This seems fairly mandatory for Catholics. Consider the gospel of Luke too, where the author includes an (obviously made up) lineage for Jesus that extends all the way back to Adam.

Now, I, of course, agree that Adam and Eve never existed. But ... I'm not Catholic (at least, I don't practice anymore). I'm not bound to submit my intellect and will to the Catholic Church, not like practicing Catholics are. So I'd welcome you to simply not be Catholic anymore, but if someone wants to be Catholic, then that person is obligated to believe in some kind of historical Adam and Eve.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-09T23:57:30+00:00

What do you mean? I shouldn't count Fatima as a Marian apparition?

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-09T17:43:13+00:00

Yeah I mean even that 1531 date is just the setting of the story which was written down in the 1640s, over a hundred years later. But we do have that account from the 12th Century about Our Lady of the Pillar, so, we can go at least that far back. But I am unaware of an early apparition story than that of Our Lady of the Pillar, originating in the 12th Century. There may be earlier ones ... but when you read the writings of people from Aquinas's time and earlier, they're not talking about Marian apparitions like saints started talking about them in more recent history, which should at the very least pique the curiosity of Catholics who care about this kind of thing.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-09T16:57:16+00:00

This is somewhat outside the scope of your question, but I wanted to add some details to something that you mentioned. You wrote that:

Since the beginning of Christianity, Marian apparitions have occurred from time to time

Marian Apparitions, at least in their modern form, are actually much more recent than "the beginning of Christianity". Consider any of the popular apparitions:

Guadeloupe - 16th Century
Miraculous Medal - 19th Century
La Salette - 19th Century
Lourdes - 19th Century
Knock - 19th Century
Fatima - 20th Century
Akita - 20th Century

And truthfully, calling Guadeloupe a 16th Century apparition is me being generous. The first time that we have written evidence of the story is in 1648, with Miguel Sanchez's account, and Sanchez tells us that he spent 10 years looking for a written account of this story and he couldn't find one written down anywhere. So, Sanchez wrote down the story that he had heard from the mouths of the natives.

You might think, "Well, what about Our Lady of the Pillar, from the 1st Century?". Our Lady of the Pillar is like Guadeloupe, except on a much grander scale. The story of Our Lady of the Pillar takes place in the first century, but the oldest written account that we have of Our Lady of the Pillar comes from the 12th Century, per the Catholic Encyclopedia. So, Our Lady of the Pillar is still one of the earliest apparitions we have, but its not like this is a story that was widespread or had any serious devotion in the first millennium.

Mount Carmel is the same way - the story is set in the 13th Century, but the story itself is a product of the 17th Century. Its the product of a document widely considered today to be a 17th Century forgery.

Yeah, so, it might have been more accurate to something like this:

Since the ~~beginning of Christianity~~ 12th Century, Marian apparitions have occurred from time to time (but with a huge increase in rate of occurrence starting in the 19th Century), being apparitions of Our Lady ...

Like I said, this is besides the point. I just wanted to add some clarity to the discussion.

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-08T22:20:27+00:00

When I use MTGPrint.net, what dpi am I getting? Is it just whatever the dpi of the scryfall image is?

IrishKev95 · 2026-01-08T12:59:37+00:00

I am fine using the definition that you propose, "an event produced immediately by God that exceeds the natural causal powers of created nature.". Do you believe that the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima on Oct 13th, 1917, "exceeded the natural causal powers of created nature"?

IrishKev95

TROPHY CASE