OK, that’s definitely not the same word, which pretty much kills that argument.
I’m almost certain that I saw them described as “sisters” somewhere, but I guess it must not have been in a standard translation, because looking down that list, I’m seeing a lot of “relative” and “cousin”, a few “kinswoman”, a couple of “aunt”, and a “krovah” (whatever that is), but no “sister”.
Notre Dame de Lourdes Catholic School was a long time ago, but I distinctly remember being taught that Elizabeth was Mary’s “kinswoman,” with no other description attached.
There is an ancient tradition that the first version of Matthew was written in Aramaic and was older than Mark. But I believe it’s very much a minority position, today.
You would think so, and most Christian traditions interpret it that way, but Roman Catholics are aware of that passage and don’t believe that it implies the couple “knew” each other after Jesus’ birth; it only confirms that they didn’t do it before he was born. I had an RC explain it to me once and they could probably do better justice to the argument, but to me it sounded implausible.
In fact, punctuation wasnt commonly used until the 7th thru 15th centuries.
Even Caesar wrote in long run on sentences.
Even John, who most modern scholars think was responsible for the Gospel bearing his name, very likely dictated that Gospel to his followers, who also edited it.
The authorship of the Gospel of Matthew comes from tradition that begins with Papias of Hierapolis (c. AD 100–140), an early bishop and Apostolic Father. I consider it possible that Matthew had a hand in it. If so, I very much doubt he wrote it by hand himself. If anything Matthew might have had a hand in compiling the Q source, which was used for Mark, which Matthew cribbed from. In other words, Matthew might have written down some of Q, gave it to Mark, and then later used his name for his version, which was not actually written by Matthew.
Actually, very few ancients wrote letters and such themselves. Caesar was a known exception. Most used scribes or secretaries.
The Meaning of Brother
The first thing to understand is that the term brother (Gk. adelphos) has a broader meaning than uterine brothers. It can mean a biological brother, but it can also mean an extended relative, or even a spiritual brother.
Is it a minority position today? (I really want to know.) According to the sources I checked (Here’s one.) the Catholic Church says it was written in Hebrew originally:
Papias, 90 CE:
Iranaeus, 160 CE:
And the historian Eusebius wrote,
Is that enough to give credence to Matthew being written in Hebrew? Is the Catholic Church in the minority among Biblical scholars?
Now my curiosity is piqued. I don’t recall ever encountering the theory that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic before this thread. But I’m not Catholic and have not heard/read any specifically Catholic teachings on the subject.
Wikipedia’s article on the Gospel of Matthew doesn’t say anything about it having possibly been originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, beyond “a few scholars hold that some of [the author’s sources] may have been Greek translations of older Hebrew or Aramaic sources.”
But then I found that this page had a “See also” link to an article about the “Hebrew Gospel hypothesis”:
ETA: Posted before I saw DrDeth’s post above with the same link.
I thought she was her cousin, but religion class was a very long time ago.
In other words, Matthew may have written a gospel in Hebrew or Aramaic, but the canonical text we know as the “Gospel of Matthew” is not a translation of that gospel, and that gospel (if it ever existed) is now lost. And (wildly speculative) it’s possible that it might be the same now-lost text that we identify as “Q”, which underlies (canonical) Matthew and Luke.
there are many contemporary historians who question the accuracy of Josephus
Yes, but not in places such as this, where the mention of Jesus is merely an aside.
Name them.
By “contemporary” you mean contemporary with Josephus? Or Modern?
Because Josephus is about all we have and Tacticus.
Here’s the wiki article on Josephus:
Note the lack of anyone criticizing his accuracy. That is very common, so not seeing it here would indicate that in general, Josephus is considered pretty solid.
I googled Josephus & accuracy and came up with:
Which generally says he is, but he is a man of his times.
and then here:
*The most obvious data for examination, it would seem to us, is archaeological material. In many instances, numerous details provided by Josephus can be checked, including architechural data, and their accuracy confirmed. Such precision, where it can be established, is surprising, especially since the information was set down in writing years after Josephus had left Palestine…In Josephus’s War, much of the data can be proved accurate and much of the rest reliably assumed to be soThe Source of Josephus’ Accurate Data:
The Commentaries
Undoubtedly, the source of much of Josephus’s accurate data was the Roman imperial commentaries, the hupomnemata, specifically mentioned by him three times in his later works. *
However, yes, it does go on to say that : "Josephus’ tendency grossly to exaggerate population figures is well known. "
So by no means is Josephus 100% reliable, but in general, he is considered accurate.
Wow. Someone actually went with a cite to Answers in Genesis as a supposedly reliable reference on the Dope? In a Comments thread at that.
Google is all well and good, but it does sometimes throw up shite sites as cites. Do you usually otherwise rely on open creationist apologetics in arguments?
I just gave you the first two cites. Attacking other peoples cites without coming up with your own is basically saying that you dont have any.
Do you disagree also with the 2nd cite?
Even if the Gospel of Matthew (as we know it today) was originally written in Greek, the author’s first language was probably Aramaic. So he might have been using some words differently than a native Greek speaker would have.
Note the the New Testament as a whole is written in a language that is, to classical Greek, roughly what Indian English is to Oxford-University English. And Matthew, especially, exhibits a number of Hebraicisms, as well.
To simply Google a question and then blithely accept the first return without being able to recognise that as the most prominent Creationist organisation on the Web is an appalling way to go about anything.
The specific details of the matter at issue are then rather incidental. And no defence for such incompetence.