Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!gatech!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!geneva.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@garage.att.com (Joseph H. Buehler) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Inerrancy Message-ID: Date: 31 Jul 89 01:54:45 GMT Sender: hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Labs (Liberty Corner) Lines: 88 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I am rather puzzled by one of the examples our moderator gave of supposed errors in Sacred Scripture. As a Catholic, I am required to believe in the inerrancy of Scripture in a very strong sense. (The details are perhaps too complicated to go into at the moment.) The particular example of the Resurrection passages must be a standard exercise in the harmonization of the Gospels by now. This was brought up in t.r.m some time back, though I didn't have a harmonization at hand. Well, now I do, so here's a harmonization of the four Gospels for Easter Sunday morning, from the Catholic Encyclopedia article on the Resurrection. (Scripture references ommitted for brevity's sake.) -------- 1. The holy women carrying the spices previously prepared start out for the sepulchre before dawn, and reach it after sunrise; they are anxious about the heavy stone, but know nothing of the official guard of the sepulchre. 2. The angel frightened the guards by his brightness, put them to flight, rolled away the stone, and seated himself above the stone. 3. Mary Magdalene, Mary the Mother of James, and Salome approach the sepulchre, and see the stone rolled back, whereupon Mary Magdalene immediately returns to inform the Apostles. 4. The other two holy women enter the sepulchre, find an angel seated in the vestibule, who shows them the empty sepulchre, announces the Resurrection, and commissions them to tell the disciples and Peter that they shall see Jesus in Galilee. 5. A second group of holy women, consisting of Joanna and her companions, arrive at the sepulchre, where they have probably agreed to meet the first group, enter the empty interior, and are admonished by two angels that Jesus has risen according to His prediction. 6. Not long after, Peter and John, who were notified by Mary Magdalene, arrive at the sepulchre and find the linen cloth in such a position as to exclude the supposition that the body was stolen; for they lay simply flat on the ground, showing that the sacred body had vanished out of them without touching them. When John notices this, he believes. 7. Mary Magdalene returns to the sepulchre, sees first two angels within, and then Jesus Himself. 8. The two groups of pious women, who probably met on their return to the city, are favoured with the sight of Christ arisen, who commissions them to tell his brethren that they will see Him in Galilee. 9. The holy women relate their experiences to the Apostles, but find no belief. 10. Jesus appears to the disciples at Emmaus, and they return to Jerusalem; the Apostles appear to waver between doubt and belief. 11. Christ appears to Peter, and therefore Peter and John firmly believe in the Resurrection. 12. After the return of the disciples from Emmaus, Jesus appears to all the Apostles excepting Thomas. -------- If you haven't seen the like before, now you know how harmonization attempts work. Any particular Evangelist doesn't always relate everything that happened. To get the whole picture, you sometimes have to look at all four. You also have to be careful about people, etc., that at first appear to be identical in the various passages but in fact may not be. [Of course I've seen harmonization before. Some of the details can in fact be handled that way. However not all can. Mat. says that the two Marys went to the tomb. I suppose Salome could be a "detail", but I think that stretches things a bit. Your harmonization isn't clear about whether the women were present when the angel rolled away the stone. Mark says clearly that when they arrived it had already happened. Mat says clearly that they saw it happen. What bothers me about harmonization is that it leads people to adopt unlikely interpretations of the text in order to avoid these problems. --clh]