Was Jesus Christ Perfect?

[the_bob_delusion]

What do you think? Was everything he did or said moral/ethical and a reflection of a perfect person?

What would a perfect person entail?

If he really was human, then was he born in sin like everyone else?

[godsandmen]

I thought that Matthew was written before any others

It's almost universally agreed by scholars that Mark was first. This is because both Matthew and Luke used Mark's gospel as one of their primary sources. I won't go into the details, but this fact is undeniable. Almost the entire gospel of Mark is incorporated into Matthew, and most of it is incorporated into Luke, both often quoting Mark verbatim. There is no doubt among the vast majority of scholars that Matthew and Luke were dependent upon Mark. Plus Mark is obviously the most primitive version. Both Matthew and Luke probably wrote their gospels because they wanted to improve on Mark's original - adding their own theological twists.

[rabbitearbandicoot]

http://agards-bible-timeline.com/bible_questions/q1_bible_who_wrote/

[godsandmen]

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark-prior.html

[godsandmen]

Sorry, but that chart on the dating and authorship of the books of the Bible is total nonsense.Hardly anything on there is true. This was clearly created by some fundamentalist nut. The scholarly consensus TOTALLY disagrees with this.

[rabbitearbandicoot]

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark-prior.html

I have a head-ache. 

Why is it so hard for 3 people to have written about the same events and have included more or less detail about that group of events??? 

You get 3 newspaper stories about the same event and all 3 will have the same basic story (man killed after fall from roof), but all three will tell it in a different way, with different emphasis on different parts of the event. One will follow the 'was he pushed' thread, the next will give a background of the man's family, the other will tell of the man's problems in his workplace.

It certainly doesn't mean that any one of them copied any one of the others.

[godsandmen]

The differences between the gospel accounts go far beyond anything that can be explained by "independent witnesses". We're not talking about the different impressions about, say, the color of the getaway car. We're talking about different dates (separated by weeks), different locations, etc., These inconsistencies cannot be explained by appealing to different version of the same event as described by eyewitnesses. The NT itself agrees with me on this:

This being the case, even the NT

Mark 14:55-56

Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, and they were not finding any. For many were giving false testimony against Him, but their testimony was not consistent.

And the various gospel writers were the same. Their testimonies disagreed, not in just the minor details, but also in the major things.

[rabbitearbandicoot]

The differences between the gospel accounts go far beyond anything that can be explained by "independent witnesses". We're not talking about the different impressions about, say, the color of the getaway car. We're talking about different dates (separated by weeks), different locations, etc., These inconsistencies cannot be explained by appealing to different version of the same event as described by eyewitnesses. The NT itself agrees with me on this:

This being the case, even the NT

Mark 14:55-56

Now the chief priests and the whole Council kept trying to obtain testimony against Jesus to put Him to death, and they were not finding any. For many were giving false testimony against Him, but their testimony was not consistent.

And the various gospel writers were the same. Their testimonies disagreed, not in just the minor details, but also in the major things.

The Pharisees were LYING. The Bible writers were NOT.

I am interested in seeing even just ONE example of where the Bible writers disagree - not where they just express different opinions, or include different emphasis in telling of an event,  but where one says black and the other says white.

[the_bob_delusion]

Hey Gosandman, I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable about the bible as you but I'm studying it at the moment starting from the historicity of the bible. 

It's interesting to see how the words in the bible have evolved. They're many verses altered and added. Writers even made the effort of changing the story to make Jesus more a man much later on compare with early scripture otherwise it means if Jesus was divine he could not have served his purpose. 

Have you read Bart Erhman's books Godsman?

[godsandmen]

Bart Ehrman's book "Jesus Interrupted" was the most important book that I read leading to my deconversion. It's a great book, and it opened my eyes! I've read many books since, and my eyes continue to be opened! Bart Ehrman was my introduction to "the other side of the story".

[godsandmen]

Evangelicals won't read Bart's stuff. Instead, they will go to their favorite apologetic websites who tell them that Bart is full of crap. That's good enough for them. If only they would actually READ Bart's books. But they wouldn't dare!