Let me see if I have this right...

[Grace Seeker]

Grace Seeker if you look at one book it really isnt complete right i mean thats now fair to look at one book, when you are suppose to follow them all am i right?

I'm having a bit of trouble with the syntax, but as best I understand you, I would agree that you are right. Though I don't see how this relates to what I was discussing with Forced_In.

There are 27 books in the New Testament, this is accepted by all Christian denominations. OK SO IF all Christian FOLLOW THIS 27 books hmm tell me how do you deal with matthew not agreeing with luke or luke not agreeing with john or matthew not agreeing with john or mk vs lk mt or so on so on i mean out of the 27 we see alot of times contradictions and God is perfect we all agree there and the bible is to you the Word of God All Mighty yet did your God make a mistake in the new Testament ?
pls dont tell me there is none i can list more then 150 right now but wont waste my time

I won't tell you that there won't appear to be contradictions in the different Gospel accounts. I do think that some that at first glance appear to be contradictions are not any more so than some of the passages in the Qur'an that at first glance appear to be contradictions are explained away by people who have better understanding of it than I do. Most likely, if those who took the time to prepare those lists of contradictions spent as much time trying to understand the Bible as discrediting it their lists of contradictions would be incredibly shorter.

But that is only a small part of your point. As I read your post, the larger issue remains. It is probably not so important to you whether there are 150 contradictions or 100 or 50 or just 1 -- it isn't the number, but that there are contradictions is what is really important to you.

However, this is not as important to me as it is to you. Why not? Don't I think that a contradiction discredit's the Bible as God's word? Well, if I thought it was the dictated word of God it would. Certainly there are plenty of Christians who hold that view, none other than as great of a theologian as John Calvin held that Scripture is equivalent to an utterance of God given from heaven. But I am not of that persuasion. I do believe that the Bible was God's inspired word, meaning that he compelled the authors to write and to do so as best they understood the nature and character of God and how they understoon him to be active in the world around them. But I also think that they wrote in ways that showed their own particular point of view, a point of view that I believe was not always in complete concert with God's more perfect view. To that end, I do not believe the bible to be a perfect instrument at conveying God's word to us, for God's message is wearing the covering of human frailities and foilbles, the opinions, biases, prejuidices and presumptions of the biblical writers find their voice and are also give expression even as they write about God.

I suspect the same thing happens with all books that require men to put pen to paper.

 

[Grace Seeker]

And, I have already give up hope of knowing the surnames of Matthew, Mark, John and Luke.

Well, I can help you with a couple of those if it is that important to you.

Mark's surname name was actually Mark. His first name was John.

You will find that the rest did not have surname's in the way that people have them today. Rather, in first century Palestine people were generally known by their given name. We still see this practice in a few isolated places such as even modern day Turkey where people don't use their last name very much, and Mr. John Smith would be introduced to people not as Mr. Smith but as Mr. John. In the first century, about the only group of people to use surnames were the Romans. So, since Matthew, John, and Luke were not Romans we don't find them using their surnames, probably because they didn't even have one.

However, people still had to be able to distinguish people with common first names from others with the same given name. That is why you see people having their occupation or other family member mentioned as an attachment to their given name. Indeed this is where the whole idea of surnames comes from: John, the Miller, becomes John Miller; John, Stephen's son, becomes John Stephenson.

But this event had not yet generally happened in the first century, except, as I've already indicated among the Romans and in a few other isolated instances. Thus, it is believed that Mark was most likely a Roman by birth since he has and is known not by his given name, but by his surname, Mark.

As to the Gospel of John, there were a lot of Johns in first century Palestine. In the Bible alone we know of John, the Baptist; John, the Elder; John, the son of Caiaphas; and John, the Evangelist who would have been known in his time as John the son of Zebedee. If you really feel the need to have a surname for him, it would be quite permissible to simply refer to him as John Zebedeeson.

Using that same principal, Matthew would be Levi Alphaeusson. You might wonder where I get that from, but Matthew is the name he took after he became a Christian. We learn in Mark (and also Luke) that his original name is Levi and that he is the son of Alphaeus.

As for Luke, his given name is probably a shortening of Loukas. But as we don't know who his father is, one would use his occupation to cast his surname. Since Luke was reported to be a physician, I guess he would be Dr. Luke MD, though I really question adopting MD as a surname.

And one final thought, don't get hung up on the small stuff. If this is your biggest problem with the Christian gospels you are making mountains out of molehills, this is even tiny for molehills.