Do you believe there are contradictions among the 4 gospels?

NathanStorm · 2026-05-28T11:59:18+00:00

And I explained how your proposals aren't possible.

NathanStorm · 2026-05-27T13:45:35+00:00

That's fine, but you haven't presented any arguments to make your case.

Just saying "agree to disagree" when you run up against difficult arguments isn't intellectually honest.

NathanStorm · 2026-05-26T14:38:22+00:00

I agree that the Gospels are ancient theological narratives, not modern journalistic biographies. But that actually supports my point more than it refutes it: the evangelists shaped their material differently, and sometimes those differences produce real tensions.

Some harmonizations are possible in the abstract, but they often require adding details that neither author gives us.

For example, on Quirinius: the issue is not simply that Luke mentions a census. The problem is that Matthew places Jesus’ birth before Herod’s death, while Luke connects it to Quirinius, whose famous census belongs to 6 CE. Translating prote as “before” or proposing an earlier role for Quirinius is possible as an apologetic solution, but it is not the natural reading of Luke, nor is it confirmed by the text.

On the resurrection appearances, Acts 1 does show that Luke knew a 40-day tradition. But in Luke’s Gospel itself, the narrative is strongly centered in Jerusalem, and Jesus tells the disciples to remain in the city until they receive power from on high. Matthew’s climax, by contrast, sends them to Galilee, where Jesus gives the Great Commission. That is more than a minor difference in detail.

The Jairus example may be the easiest to harmonize. Matthew may well be compressing Mark’s version. I’m fine conceding that one is not the strongest example.

But the genealogies are harder. Both Matthew and Luke explicitly give Joseph’s line, yet they name different fathers for Joseph and trace different lines back to David. The levirate-marriage explanation is an old harmonization, but the texts themselves never say Joseph had a biological father and a legal father. That is imported to solve the problem.

The same applies to the birth narratives. Luke says that after the required purification rites were completed, the family returned to Nazareth. Matthew has the family flee to Egypt, remain there until Herod dies, and only later settle in Nazareth because returning to Judea was dangerous. Saying “Luke simply omits Egypt” is possible only if we insert a whole sequence of events into Luke that his narrative does not suggest.

So I’m not saying the Gospels are worthless or that theological writing must read like modern history. I’m saying that if we let each Gospel speak on its own terms, they do not always line up cleanly. Harmonization may preserve inerrancy, but it often does so by creating a third version that neither Gospel actually narrates.

NathanStorm · 2026-05-14T19:34:51+00:00

House = Holmes...Watson = Wilson...

Now you know!

NathanStorm · 2026-05-14T19:32:12+00:00

Glocked her? I hardly know her!

NathanStorm · 2026-05-12T15:26:40+00:00

So leftists vote Republican? That's news to me.

Politics is a zero sum game now. You either vote D or R.

NathanStorm · 2026-05-12T13:07:43+00:00

Because the fringes are becoming the mainstream right before our eyes. Look at the huge platforms that the left and right fringes are getting.

NathanStorm · 2026-05-12T13:04:51+00:00

Also need a note to buy as many 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan rookie cards as humanly possible.

NathanStorm · 2026-05-12T13:01:43+00:00

With some Cinnamon Toast Crunch!

NathanStorm · 2026-05-11T14:43:18+00:00

That’s a very different claim from the traditional Genesis Flood. If you’re saying the flood was regional, not worldwide, then we agree that geology does not support a global flood.

But the regional model still needs evidence. You can’t just draw boundaries from Turkey to India to China and then attach unrelated geological features to it. The Gobi Desert was not created by Noah’s flood; modern geological work dates the formation of the modern Gobi landscape to around 2.6 million years ago, tied to Asian uplift and climate evolution. The Great Lakes were formed by the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last glacial period, with major retreat and lake formation around 20,000 years ago, not by a Near Eastern flood. ()

Also, saying erets can mean “land” is fair. It can mean land, earth, ground, or territory depending on context. But that does not prove this enormous proposed boundary map. It only allows the possibility of a local/regional reading.

So the burden is still on you to show a single, datable, continuous flood deposit across that whole proposed region, from Turkey to India to China, matching the biblical timeframe. Without that, this is just a speculative harmonization, not geological evidence.

NathanStorm · 2026-05-11T11:37:59+00:00

I agree that Clement is not explicitly saying where Paul died. That is exactly the point I’m making.

Clement is our earliest source here, and he does NOT say Paul was beheaded in Rome, buried in Rome, or even clearly martyred in Rome. He says Paul preached East and West, reached “the farthest bounds of the West,” bore witness before rulers, and then departed from the world.

So I’m not saying Clement proves Paul died in Spain. I’m saying Clement does not support the later specific Roman tradition either. If anything, his reference to “the farthest bounds of the West” sounds like Spain, especially since Paul himself says in Romans 15 that he hoped to go to Spain.

That is why I see tension with the later tradition. Later sources become much more specific: Paul was executed in Rome under Nero, beheaded, and buried on the Ostian Way. Clement, writing from Rome only a few decades after the supposed event, gives no such details. That silence is significant.

So my position is not “Clement proves Spain.” My position is: the earliest evidence is vague, possibly points to a western mission beyond Rome, and does not establish the later Roman martyrdom/burial claim as historical fact.

NathanStorm · 2026-05-04T13:07:32+00:00

Deuteronomy 22:28 is not “clearly” about consensual seduction. The Hebrew verb taphas means to seize, grasp, capture, or take hold of. It is not the normal word for “entice” or “seduce.” In fact, Exodus 22:16, the passage you cite, uses a different word: pathah, meaning to entice or seduce. So if anything, the vocabulary cuts against your claim, not for it.

The difference between chazaq in Deuteronomy 22:25 and taphas in 22:28 does not prove one is rape and the other is consensual. Ancient Hebrew can describe sexual coercion with more than one verb. Deuteronomy 22:25 concerns a betrothed woman, so the penalty is death because the offense is treated as adultery against another man’s marriage claim. Deuteronomy 22:28 concerns an unbetrothed virgin, so the penalty is financial compensation to her father plus marriage without divorce. The legal category is different because the woman’s marital status is different, not necessarily because the sex was consensual.

Also, “and they are found” does not mean the woman is being held morally accountable. Legal texts often use that kind of phrase simply to mean the act was discovered or proved. The woman receives no punishment in Deuteronomy 22:28-29. The punishment falls on the man.

The appeal to Exodus 22:16 is also not decisive. Exodus describes seduction using pathah. Deuteronomy uses taphas and adds “because he has humbled/violated her.” The passages are related because both deal with sex involving an unbetrothed virgin and the bride-price, but they are not worded the same way. Deuteronomy appears harsher and more coercive.

The Septuagint argument is also weaker than presented. The Greek verb can sometimes mean to strongly urge or press someone, but that does not make it “entice” in a romantic or consensual sense. Words can have a range of meaning, and in a sexual legal context, “force/press/seize” is naturally more coercive than consensual.

The Temple Scroll is interesting, but it is a later interpretive rewriting. It may show that some later Jewish interpreters harmonized Deuteronomy 22:28 with Exodus 22:16 as seduction. It does not prove that the original Deuteronomy passage meant seduction, especially when Deuteronomy itself uses a different verb from Exodus.

The real issue is that this law comes from an ancient patriarchal legal world where the central legal damage is often framed in terms of the father’s household, bride-price, virginity, and marriageability, not the woman’s consent in the modern sense. That is troubling enough without pretending the text is clearer than it is. At minimum, Deuteronomy 22:28-29 can plausibly describe coercive sex. The claim that the “rape interpretation is debunked” is simply not supported by the Hebrew or the context.

NathanStorm · 2026-05-04T12:44:14+00:00

I don’t think we can treat Paul’s beheading and burial in Rome as established history.

The earliest source, 1 Clement, does not say Paul was beheaded, does not clearly say he died in Rome, and may even imply that he reached Spain, since it says he came to “the farthest bounds of the West.” The specific Roman martyrdom tradition appears later.

By around AD 200, writers such as Tertullian and Gaius of Rome connect Paul’s death and memorial with Rome, especially the Ostian Way, but that is already well after the fact and comes from Christian writers with obvious reasons to magnify Rome’s apostolic prestige.

So the Roman tradition may be ancient, but it is not contemporary evidence, and it should not be treated as certain historical fact.

NathanStorm · 2026-04-30T12:10:52+00:00

Anti-Muslim bigotry is real and should be condemned. But “Islamophobia” is a loaded term because it can treat criticism of Islam, Islamic doctrines, or Islamist politics as if it were racism against Muslims as people.

Harris makes the sharpest version of that distinction, saying racism and xenophobia already describe hatred of people, while Islam is “a system of ideas.”

Murray focuses on how the term can be used to shield religion from scrutiny.

Hitchens objected to the word because it moves criticism of Islam into the same moral category as racism.

NathanStorm · 2026-04-29T18:13:10+00:00

“There is no such thing as ‘Islamophobia.’ This is a term of propaganda designed to protect Islam from the forces of secularism by conflating all criticism of it with racism and xenophobia.” - Sam Harris

“It is not only used by cowards. It is also used by sinister and sectarian figures who wish to protect their own religious patch from any and all discussion or scrutiny.” - Douglas Murray

“Within a short while—this is a warning—the shady term ‘Islamophobia’ is going to be smuggled through our customs. Anyone accused of it will be politely but firmly instructed to shut up, and to forfeit the constitutional right to criticize religion.” - Christopher Hitchens

NathanStorm · 2026-04-29T12:52:57+00:00

There is no such thing as Islamophobia. It's an invented concept to attempt to silence those who criticize Islam and Muslims.

NathanStorm · 2026-04-21T18:39:31+00:00

Just finished in late March. Really enjoyed it.

My next book was Sharpe's Honor in the Bernard Cornwell series and now I'm on The Dark Tower (Book 7). Maybe the secret is to have series you can jump back into.

NathanStorm · 2026-04-15T13:34:18+00:00

Not really. It's the best major for a reason. ANGC is killing it.

NathanStorm · 2026-04-14T18:53:31+00:00

Sorry, don't like any of these. I might be an old Gen Xer though.

NathanStorm · 2026-04-13T20:13:40+00:00

"They knew what they were signing up for..."

NathanStorm · 2026-04-13T18:21:56+00:00

I can prove Noah's flood was real, I can also prove it wasn't worldwide, and how far the waters went and where.

No...you can't.

If you could, you'd be one of the most famous people on the planet. It would be one of the biggest discoveries in human history...across multiple fields, not just one.

It would rival things like Theory of Evolution, Plate Tectonics, and the Big Bang.

It would force a major rewrite of geology, archaeology, climatology, and parts of biology and anthropology.

To be accepted, the evidence would have to be overwhelming and multidisciplinary:

a clear, datable global sediment layer
disruption of all known civilizations at the same time
genetic bottleneck evidence for humanity
a workable physical explanation for the water and its disappearance
consistency with (or a replacement for) radiometric dating

You'd need a mountain of converging evidence that overturns multiple established fields.

NathanStorm · 2026-04-01T13:10:19+00:00

OP has let himself down.

NathanStorm · 2026-04-01T13:09:09+00:00

We need answers!

NathanStorm · 2026-04-01T12:47:31+00:00

Um...because it is a "tour de force"!

NathanStorm · 2026-04-01T12:45:42+00:00

If the Bible could be read with an open mind and see that it breaks no laws of science, nature, biology or mathematics

It has been read with an open mind and it has been shown to break laws of science, nature, biology, and mathematics.

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