Matt, are you a troll?

I don't think that's quite fair. Not everybody has the opportunity (or inclination) to post once or twice a day, or even once or twice a month. Matt may simply have lost track of this thread, since Ebon puts up a new one every other day.

This has happened to me. I suppose it's possible for it to happen to a Christian.

The comments on the other atheist blogs/sites-of-commentary that I've seen
~ oh, only about half a dozen, during times of nearly obsessive link-following ~
would've quickly devolved to ranting and frothing and ad hominem antics,
from the theist side or the atheist side or both at once.

Yet here's an ongoing, calm, and reasoned (and damned expert, it seems like)
discussion of faith and belief and (this is what I mean by expert) Biblical minutiae and the interpretations thereof.

Huh, as I say: cool.

^_^

I don't think they were in competition so much as were written at different times to different people. Each writer emphasized things that were important to the target audience.

I dug out my copy of Ehrman, because he says it better than I.

Luke has changed the account...The point is that Luke changed the tradition he inherited. Readers completely misinterpret Luke if they fail to realize this - as happens, for example, when they assume that Mark and Luke are in fact saying the same thing about Jesus.

[From pg. 213-214, Misquoting Jesus, 1st ed. paperback]
I originally commented because you said this:

Given that the story of guards at the tomb appears only in Matthew, who adds a number of historically implausible details (an earthquake, dead people coming out of their tombs) that are found only in Matthew, it's hard for historians to take Matthew's word without even the corroboration of the other gospels.

I guess I'm being a little pedantic here, since you seem to agree with the sentiment that I'm expressing, but I'm simply pointing out that there is no corroboration of the other gospels, nor are they meant to corroborate each other. If historians are looking to the four books as independent stories that can corroborate each other, then they are not being good historians.

BTW, where is Matt? I'd expect him to comment on the discussion. Ebonmuse, I think you've been trolled. Matt was just wanting to ruffle some feathers and he obviously did so.

That's a good point. I may have misunderstood the earlier comment. There was competition between what became orthodox Christianity and other groups, but I don't think there was competition within what became the four canonical gospels.

A good example of a gospel in competition with another one is the Gospel of John, written in a place where the Syriac Tradition of Thomas had apparently a very strong influence. Thomas is mentioned several times in John, always emphasizing his cynical qualities, until the climactic scene where the Risen Christ confronts him with indisputable evidence of his resurrection. This speculation is my own, but the exiatence of two Christian communities with competing apostolic traditions explains John's disdain for Thomas very well.

I apologize if I gave the impression that I thought they were. I was simply replying to Matt's premise: Given an empty tomb, how could we explain it without a resurrection? The simplest explanation would be, someone stole the body.

Most Christian apologists try to rebut this with two claims: 1) There were guards at the tomb, and 2) All the apostles were martyred for their faith. However, these two claims do not hold up to even the most basic test of historicity: multiple attestation. The empty tomb, at least, is mentioned in all four gospels. The guards appear only in one; two Christian martyrs are mentioned in Acts, but only one of these is one of the original apostles.

They are meant to be competing stories where the authors are trying to emphasize their version of Jesus over the other versions.

I don't think they were in competition so much as were written at different times to different people. Each writer emphasized things that were important to the target audience.

Martin-
Faith is belief without evidence, so it's just believing whatever you want.

That's one way to define it. Marcus Borg has identified four types of faith, which he labels with the Latin terms assensus, fiducia, fidelitas, and visio. These can be roughly translated belief, trust, fidelity, and vision - a way of seeing the world.

The first type, assensus, corresponds to what we think. This is the type of faith that enables Kurt Wise to say that he would embrace creationism despite a complete lack of evidence. I don't have much of that kind of faith. I can't just accept the notion that, "The Bible says it, I believe it." Not at face value.

The other three kinds of faith relate to who we are. These kinds of faith are much more valuable than the first: To find someone or something that we can trust, to be faithful, and to see things as they could be, rather than as they are -- these are the ground of a genuine faith, and these are what make sense of the assensus statements. (Actually, probably none of that makes sense, but I'm not sure at the moment how to explain it any more clearly.)

Anyway, I think many Christians today portray faith as assensus and nothing more. I think that's sad, because that has given us a world where it is OK to discriminate against people of different beliefs, gender, skin color, ethnic origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, and who knows what they'll come up with next.

Yes, many people let themselves be deluded by such "faith". But that's not faith as I understand it. It's not just believing what I want, without evidence.