Hello, my friend! Hope you are doing well!
Maybe the one that’s most obvious to you?
(No gish, please.)
I have an account about a cold-case homicide detective who was initially a skeptic, but then was encouraged to examine the Gospels on his own:
“Jim Warner Wallace
J Warner Wallace is not a Bible scholar by training. Wallace spent his career pouring over transcripts of old court cases and eyewitness interviews, interrogating suspects years after the events, and generally hearing accounts of crimes second or third hand from both the suspicious and sincere.
Wallace was a sceptic and unbeliever when he first read the Gospels, so was not the kind of person one would expect to read contradictions charitably. Surprisingly, Wallace found the Gospels to bear all of the hallmarks of the eyewitness testimonies he had spent his life reading. In fact, they read so similar to eyewitness accounts, he began to believe that they were true, and became a believer.
But what did a trained detective and sceptic like Wallace do about the contradictions he saw? Believe it or not, the contradictions made the accounts seem all the more credible to Wallace. Eyewitnesses don’t always notice the same things, remember the events in an identical way, and sometimes they contradict one another. In fact, Wallace was more inclined to be suspicious if the eyewitnesses did not tell their stories without any contradictions. Why? Because if the eyewitnesses all told the same story with the same details and no disagreements, it’s likely that they intentionally coordinated their tales, and their recounting was not sincerely from their own recollection, but was influenced by others who remember differently. Or worse, it was a collaboration to make up a story.
Perfectly coordinated accounts sound more like fiction to Wallace than do accounts which remember a different number of angels at the tomb, or remember Jesus saying different final words on the STAKE (cross). This is the way in which people recall things they witnessed, and made Wallace more comfortable with the accounts in the long run.
Wallace is convinced of the accuracy of the Gospel accounts because of what he calls undesigned coincidences: small details in each Gospel which clarify small details in another. For instance, one Gospel has Jesus first invite a group of fishermen to join his ministry while they are making repairs to their fishing nets. Another Gospel mentions that immediately prior to him calling them, they had made a large catch of fish which had torn their nets, but omits the detail of them making repairs.
One Gospel says that, as Jesus fed the 5,000, they were seated on green grass – an extreme rarity in the arid region in which the event happened. Another Gospel does not mention the fresh grass, but does say that the event happened in the springtime, which is the only season in which the grass is green in this geographic region.
These numerous small details are scattered across all four Gospels and are exactly, Wallace says, what one sees in eyewitness accounts. “
Take care of yourself, old badger.
You think so? Then could you post one?
Maybe the one that’s most obvious to you?
(No gish, please.)
I have an account about a cold-case homicide detective who was initially a skeptic, but then was encouraged to examine the Gospels on his own:
“Jim Warner Wallace
J Warner Wallace is not a Bible scholar by training. Wallace spent his career pouring over transcripts of old court cases and eyewitness interviews, interrogating suspects years after the events, and generally hearing accounts of crimes second or third hand from both the suspicious and sincere.
Wallace was a sceptic and unbeliever when he first read the Gospels, so was not the kind of person one would expect to read contradictions charitably. Surprisingly, Wallace found the Gospels to bear all of the hallmarks of the eyewitness testimonies he had spent his life reading. In fact, they read so similar to eyewitness accounts, he began to believe that they were true, and became a believer.
But what did a trained detective and sceptic like Wallace do about the contradictions he saw? Believe it or not, the contradictions made the accounts seem all the more credible to Wallace. Eyewitnesses don’t always notice the same things, remember the events in an identical way, and sometimes they contradict one another. In fact, Wallace was more inclined to be suspicious if the eyewitnesses did not tell their stories without any contradictions. Why? Because if the eyewitnesses all told the same story with the same details and no disagreements, it’s likely that they intentionally coordinated their tales, and their recounting was not sincerely from their own recollection, but was influenced by others who remember differently. Or worse, it was a collaboration to make up a story.
Perfectly coordinated accounts sound more like fiction to Wallace than do accounts which remember a different number of angels at the tomb, or remember Jesus saying different final words on the STAKE (cross). This is the way in which people recall things they witnessed, and made Wallace more comfortable with the accounts in the long run.
Wallace is convinced of the accuracy of the Gospel accounts because of what he calls undesigned coincidences: small details in each Gospel which clarify small details in another. For instance, one Gospel has Jesus first invite a group of fishermen to join his ministry while they are making repairs to their fishing nets. Another Gospel mentions that immediately prior to him calling them, they had made a large catch of fish which had torn their nets, but omits the detail of them making repairs.
One Gospel says that, as Jesus fed the 5,000, they were seated on green grass – an extreme rarity in the arid region in which the event happened. Another Gospel does not mention the fresh grass, but does say that the event happened in the springtime, which is the only season in which the grass is green in this geographic region.
These numerous small details are scattered across all four Gospels and are exactly, Wallace says, what one sees in eyewitness accounts. “
Take care of yourself, old badger.
