Difflugia wrote:
Goose wrote:Trying to argue against an explicit logical contradiction (such as
A and ~A) I would consider as "out of bounds."
Are there any explicit logical contradictions in the Bible?
I discussed the birth narratives
here and mentioned the Petrine denials earlier in this thread. I think they're both logically contradictory.
Of course you
think they are contradictory, others disagree. But I asked if there are any
explicit logical contradictions (such as
A and ~A). Those I would consider beyond rational justification. If they are some kind of
implicit contradiction then the one arguing for the contradiction bears the burden to prove the contradiction. It's a lot harder to prove an implicit contradiction than one might think.
And that's what you’ve been arguing for at length in this thread (and others),
implied contradictions. For those arguments to hold as contradictions the underlying assumptions must necessarily be the case. And I think those assumptions are often highly questionable if not outright false in some cases. We can look at the birth narratives later but for now an example of you arguing for an implied contradiction was earlier in this thread when you argued the denials by Peter were contradictory. You claimed...
In post 6 Difflugia wrote:As an example, if one lines up Peter's denials of Jesus from all the Gospels, the second denial must be to someone that is both a woman and a man.
This assumes that Mark (and Matthew) necessarily meant a female
and only a female approached Peter the second time. It further assumes that Luke necessarily meant that a male
and only a male approached Peter the second time. Of course this in not necessarily the case at all. It is not the case the second denial
must be to someone who is both a woman and a man. It could also be the case that the second denial was to a woman (or women)
and a man (or men). And I think the evidence supports the latter especially when we consider all four Gospels have more than one male and more than one female at the scene in each respective narrative.
You provided a broad outline of the accounts in another thread...
Difflugia wrote:To whom did each Gospel writer say Peter addressed his three denials?
Mark: A servant girl, the same servant girl, the bystanders.
Matthew: A servant girl, a different servant girl, the bystanders.
Luke: A servant girl, a man, a different man.
John: A servant girl, "they," one of the servants.
If we drill down a bit more into the nuances of the text some important details emerge in the sequences that your outline fails to capture.
Mark: First denial – μι�α τῶν παιδισκῶν (first/one of the female servants). Second denial - ἡ παιδι�σκη (the female servant). Third denial - οἱ πα�εστῶτες ἔλεγον (they [masculine] who stood [masculine plural] said [plural]). What isn’t entirely clear in Mark is whether the second female servant is the same as the first or a different female servant. The definite article could mean either the specific aforementioned female servant or a female servant from the aforementioned group of female servants. That this was the same female servant is the more natural interpretation I think but the former can’t be ruled out entirely. It’s a minor point anyway and would hardly be a meaningful contradiction if Mark meant the same female servant as the first denial and Matthew meant a different female servant than the first.
Matthew: First denial - μι�α παιδι�σκη (first/one female servant). Second denial - ἄλλη (another/one singular, feminine). Third denial - οἱ ἑστῶτες εἶπον (the [plural, masculine] standing [plural, masculine] they said [plural, third person].
Luke: First denial – παιδισκη (a female servant). Notice how Luke has Peter address the female servant – γυναι (woman – vocative, singular). Second denial - ἕτε�ος ἰδὼν (one/another [singular, masculine] saw [singular, masculine]. Notice how Peter addresses the male the same way as the female servant – ανθ�ωπε (man – vocative, singular). From this we might infer this was a male servant. Third denial – αλλος (another/one singular, masculine). Notice once again Peter addresses the man directly as he did with the female servant – ανθ�ωπε (man – vocative, singular). Luke might be be implying another male servant.
John: First denial - ἡ παιδι�σκη (the female servant). Second denial – ειπον (said [third person, plural]). Notice here we translate ειπον into English as “they said� because it’s third person plural and our language demands the pronoun to make sense of the verb. But there is no “they� in the Greek text here because the verb is in the third person plural. John makes no commitment here to the specific gender, only that there was more than one who approached Peter. This is consistent with a tradition where there was indeed at least one female and a male who approached Peter at the second denial. Third denial - εἷς ἐκ τῶν δου�λων (one of the servants [masculine]).
So we can summarize the sequence of denials and the gender of those who approached Peter with the following chart.
[row][col][center]Denial 1[/center][col][center]Denial 2[/center][col][center]Denial 3[/center]
[row]Mark[col][center]female[/center][col][center]female[/center][col][center]male[/center]
[row]Matthew[col][center]female[/center][col][center]female[/center][col][center]male[/center]
[row]Luke[col][center]female[/center][col][center]male[/center][col][center]male[/center]
[row]John[col][center]female[/center][col][center]neutral, plural – “they�[/center][col][center]male[/center]
[row]Pattern[col][center]female[/center][col][center]male and female[/center][col][center]male[/center]
Here’s a viable solution. Peter is first approached by a female servant. Then, that same female servant influenced another female and male servant and “they� approached Peter for a second time. In the second denial Mark chooses to highlight the first servant girl, Matthew chooses to highlight the second servant girl, and Luke chooses to highlight the male who was possibly a servant as well. On the other hand John, an independent literary source, chooses to highlight no one in particular at the second denial and simply implies a neutral “they.� In the third denial it is more than one male servant who approaches Peter where Luke and John choose to highlight a male servant.
Furthermore, if you wish to argue for a contradiction here at the second denial you must explain why Luke would intentionally contradict Mark on the second denial when Luke’s tendency, when he reworked Mark, was to amend Mark for his own purposes and not outright contradict Mark. Why contradict Mark on this seemingly obscure and trivial detail?
Lastly, let’s assume this second denial example is a bonafide contradiction. What, exactly, do you think this implies let alone proves? Please don’t tell me all your effort amounts to an end game of merely attempting to take down the doctrine of inerrancy. Hopefully, you are going for some higher hanging fruit here?