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This is an archive of past discussions about Gospel of Matthew. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

The New Scholarship

This article needs to be updated with the 21st scholarship.

(1) Early Attestations Our article states: "The Gospel of Matthew is anonymous: the author is not named within the text, nowhere does he claim to have been an eyewitness to events, and the superscription "according to Matthew" was not part of the first editions" This is accurate and properly sourced.

BUT

the following citation from the early MSS is omitted: "Here ends the Gospel of the Apostle Matthew. He wrote it in the land of Palestine, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in the Hebrew language." William Lane Craig & J. P. Moreland (Ed), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, John Wiley & Sons, 2009. p 602

This is a statement of fact which ALL scholars agree did exist in the early MSS. It also provides insight into how the Gospel of Matthew got its name. It has also been a subject of scholarly debate which has in turn given rise to other important issues. - Ret.Prof (talk) 16:27, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Good grief. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:11, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

I'll second that motion. This "fact" is a pious fiction. A note in an Arabic manuscript doesn't make it "true" any more than titling the gospel "according to Matthew" proves that Matthew wrote it. Based on what I could read of the article, its purpose is clearly apologetic. Imo, rather than reflecting the best 21st century scholarship, this is a time machine back to the 19th century. Ignocrates (talk) 03:04, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

You may indeed be correct. Do you have any reliable sources to support your position?? In any event I am not sure of what you are disputing. Are you denying the existence of these Early Attestations or are you saying that they are wrong OR not "true" OR "pious fiction". Look forward to hearing from you! Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 03:56, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I apologize for not being more precise with my words; I was thinking about the content as I was reading through it. There is no dispute that an Arabic manuscript exists with that statement. The problem is that the source interpreting the significance of that manuscript is a theological commentary; it is not academic scholarship. That's what I meant by a time machine back to the 19th century, when the distinction between scholarship and religious commentary was more ambiguous. The bit about calling it a "pious fiction" was just me being frustrated with your "statement of fact (upon) which ALL scholars agree", and I shouldn't have said it. Ignocrates (talk) 04:47, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the apology but it was not necessary as you raised some valid points. I am going to go to the library to see if I can find some reliable sources that address the concerns that have been raised. In case you have not noticed, I am once again enjoying Misplaced Pages thanks to your work! - Ret.Prof (talk) 05:21, 28 January 2014 (UTC) PS in the real world I will be watching the President. My greatest concern is the growing gap between rich and poor. Things like police in Detroit having their pensions cut keep me awake night while Justin Bieber and Mayor Rob Ford ... well... - Ret.Prof (talk) 05:21, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

"statement of fact (upon) which ALL scholars agree", to me says that RetProf has no hope of ever coming within the ballpark of reputable scholarship and a topic ban after all these years of incessantly trying to promote the "Hebrew Matthew" nonsense is the only solution. It's simply incredibly time-wasting to have to watch so many pages where RetProf has tried before to add this stuff. In ictu oculi (talk) 11:51, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

200 year old scholarship is irrelevant. BTW, the article RetProf refers to isn't by William Lane Craig (he's the editor),it's by Timothy and Lydia McGrew. I googled the Mcgrews. Do you speak crow? Crows say "Faaaaaaaaaaaak!" Lydia has a webpage, on which she says, "I am a homemaker and home schooling mom, and I do analytic philosophy in some of my spare time." Faaaaaaaaaaaaak! Timothy's a bit better, he's chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Western Michigan University, and writes articles on "the rational reconstruction of design inferences" - ID-lite, William Lane Criag style. Is America truly going down the intellectual plughole? PiCo (talk) 12:07, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally RetProf, your concern for the growing level of income inequality in the US is commendable, but the problem may be more deep-rooted than you image - see this article in the Economist. We live at the dawn of a new age, and it's not a pretty sight.PiCo (talk) 12:40, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

You have a point, In ictu oculi. Whatever happened to I ... will be voluntarily stepping back from this topic? Ignocrates (talk) 23:50, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I suggested a WP:RfC/U twice for Ret.Prof (e.g., see here), upon which he temporarily "retired" each time, only to resume the same behavior. I see no value in proposing an RfC again; it's all been said, here and on related talk pages. Ignocrates (talk) 23:58, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

@In ictu oculi, your statement "It's simply incredibly time-wasting to have to watch so many pages where RetProf has tried before to add this stuff." I believe is mistaken. We have spent little time discussing the "attestations" on any talk page before. Rather than personal attacks or threats, reliable sources denying the existence of the "Attestations" would be helpful. Finally, discussing the references on a topic is NOT "incredibly time-wasting". It is what we should be doing rather than edit warring. That is why I have stepped back from editing this topic. In other words let's examine the published scholarship on the "attestations" in good faith. Look forward to working with you! - Ret.Prof (talk) 00:07, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

@PiCo Your scholarly argument "Do you speak crow? Crows say 'Faaaaaaaaaaaak!' " is interesting but needs to be backed up by reliable sources. Blackwell 2009 is a vetted reliable source and the the editors can be trusted not allow the attestation if it did not exist. Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 00:09, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

The point is not the existence of the "attestation" (the mysterious Arabic manuscript?) but the credentials of the Blackwells contributors - a home-schooling amateur analytic philosopher and an academic from another discipline who wants to involve himself in biblical studies. It's frankly appalling. PiCo (talk) 01:18, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Agree with PiCo above, and shame on Blackwells, used to be a decent publisher. But even without knowing this RetProf a basic minimal level of knowledge of the subject of the articles you keep returning to edit would have let you know that this was nonsense. As "why I have stepped back from editing this topic." - your edit history shows again and again and again nothing else but constantly returning to this topic and no other topic. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:55, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Clarification re Early Attestations

First I agree that we should not get bogged down Mathei authenticum. We all need a break.

My concern is very narrow. PiCo made the following edit. The edit was not sourced. Edits at Misplaced Pages must be supported by reliable sources.

Statement of fact

Here I apologize for causing some confusion. By "statement of fact" I simply meant "Did the Early Attestations exist?" or were the early MSS blank as the PiCo edit implies. The first 15 pages of the Gospel Parallels (All editions from 1957 to present) tell where these early manuscripts are now located. The subscriptions of many early MSS bear the same testimony. Several important early Greek copies of Matthew close with this statement: "Matthew wrote in Hebrew". The Syriac and Arabic versions are simular. For example the subscription of the Second Century Syriac Gospel of Matthew (Peschito version) states, "Finished is the holy Gospel of the preaching of Matthew, which he preached in Hebrew in the land of Palestine." An early Arabic version reads as follows: "Here ends the copy of the Gospel of the apostle Matthew. He wrote it in the land of Palestine, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, in the Hebrew language, eight years after the bodily ascension of Jesus the Messiah into heaven, and in the first year of the Roman Emperor, Claudius Csesar." Sabine Baring Gould, "The lost and hostile gospels" 1874, Oxford University, Digitized 2006. p 122 See also Zuurmond 1989 p 31 In addition to Blackwell 2009, Zuurmond 1989 & Gould 1874, I can add other references. Note WP policy states that for a fact such as the "existence of the attestations", all three of the above are considered reliable sources, regardless of age. Even the primary source doc would be acceptable!

Since PiCo has failed to provide any sources disputing the existence of the Attestations I believe his edit should be reverted. Note, I am no longer editing this article therefore somebody else will have to do the revert or revision. Now, back to the Oral gospel traditions. Cheers Ret.Prof (talk) 00:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Speaking strictly for myself, I don't think The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, John Wiley & Sons, 2009 is in dispute as a reliable source, per WP:RS. It is a question of WP:WEIGHT, and how it is used depends on whether (or not) this source is considered to be a scholarly publication. Fwiw, I think it is an apology rather than scholarship. Ignocrates (talk) 00:31, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Agree with Ignocrates - the Blackwell's article is Christian apologetics, not biblical scholarship, and the authors (the McGrews) lack the qualifications to write authoritatively on the subject. This is evident in the way they "cite" their sources (sort of cite - there's no indication what this Arabic mss actually is, and their source is a 200 year old encyclopedia that's now thoroughly outdated). Stick with modern scholarship from people qualified in the relevant field. PiCo (talk) 01:24, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

The McGrews' article: an analysis

I thought I'd better read the McGrew's article in Blackwell's. It turns out to be quite strange. It's titled "The Argument from Miracles: A Cumulative Case for the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth" - so quite upfront about being a work of Christian apologetics, and no fault with that, but in a book on natural theology?

So what's natural theology anyway? It's essentially a branch of metaphysics: “that branch of theology that seeks to provide warrant for belief in God’s existence apart from the resources of authoritative, propositional revelation.” In other words, it's proving the existence of God by reason and logic, rather than by relying on the direct revelation provided in the bible. Which makes one wonder why the McGrews are relying on the bible and the accounts of miracles, let alone why they're identifying Christianity with belief in God (no other concepts of God count, apparently).

Anyway, the McGrews try to build a case for the God-ness of Jesus based on the reality of the miracles described in the NT. They've got a problem: they have to prove that the gospels are accurate. That's hard. They also have to prove that the gospel miracle stories are true but other miracle stories aren't, otherwise there'd be an awful lot of Gods in the world. To take a personal example, a few months ago I visited a lady in Cambodia who receives divine revelations through Nandi, the vehicle of the God Shiva (Cambodians have found space for the Hindu Gods inside Buddhism). I actually met Nandi - he has a this-world incarnation, a big black bull that lives with this lady. He sat there chewing bananas (he loves bananas) while I talked to her through an interpreter. He delivers his messages while she's in a state of trance, and they often predict the future. He predicted the 2004 tsunami, but unfortunately there was no way this lady in a provincial Cambodian town could warn anyone, for which we're all very sorry. The point is, of course, that I've seen with my own eyes living proof of the reality of the god Shiva and his vehicle Nandi, and I've seen miraculous proof. You might scoff and say that the report of the tsunami came after the event, but consider: so do the gospel stories come after the event. I repeat, my eye-witness Cambodian story is as good as anything the bible can provide if we want proof via miracles - rather better, since my eyes have beheld the god.

Back to the McGrew article. He says he doesn't intend to argue specifically for the existence of the God of Christianity (page 594). This is disingenuous - he spends the rest of the article arguing that Jesus is God, which is about as Christian as you can get. McGrew is either blind to his prejudices, or dishonest. He's probably blind - he argues that "if Jesus of Nazareth died and then rose again bodily three days later, the probability of T (i.e., that God exists) is approximately equal to 1." Really? Only a convinced Christian could write that. Or, "if my lady's sacred bull predicted the 2004 tsunami, the probability of S (i.e, that Shiva is God) is approximately equal to 1." The argument is identical, but McGrew isn't aware of it.

So is the gospel evidence of miracles any more convincing than my eye-witness evidence of the miraculous bull? It turns out he has no evidence at all, only assertions - "the testimony of the disciples to having seen Christ alive and their willingness to die for this testimony, and the testimony of the women to the empty tomb and their sight of the resurrected Christ" (p.595). The testimony of the disciples and the women is no better than my testimony to having seen the bull. (It's not only me who's seen it - it's a famous bull in Cambodia). Even better, I've seen the newspaper reports of the bull's warning - the lady has them framed on her wall. Newspapers never lie.

The point is, what tools does McGrew have for assessing this testimony? After all, when I consider the bull Nandi, I assess how reliable all this is. The bull is real, the lady appears sincere, and there are the framed newspaper reports on the wall. BUT: the newspaper reports are from AFTER the tsunami. Uh-oh. DSo all I've got is a tame bull that eats bananas and a lady who appears sincere but might easily be delusional. Sorry, but although I greatly respect the beliefs of my Cambodian friends, I don't buy this story.

But wait, I have another story. One day many years ago, in a market-place in southern Iraq (yes, I live a varied and much-travelled life), I fell into conversation with a butcher. He was very interested to meet a Christian (this was before the US Marines came), but was I aware that I was following the wrong prophet? M-d is the last and best of prphets, and Allah is the true God. How,I asked, could he be sure? Ah, there was a sign, inscribed on the heart of every creature created by Allah, for Allah has signed there his own name. And he showed me, and it's true: on the heart of every animal in the butcher's shop is written the name of Allah, in Arabic script. I'm not joking, it's absolutely true: the word Allah, in blue letters, quite clear. (To be a little more precise, the word is formed by blood vessels on the outer wall of the heart - but it's really there).

This is a miracle that anyone can observe at any time. The gospel miracles, in contrast, exist only in documents of uncertain authorship from several decades after the events. How can McGrew be sure he can trust them? The answer should be that he assesses them using the tools of biblical scholarship. Except he doesn't. He doesn't because he can't, because he isn't a biblical scholar and lacks those tools. He's a philosopher, and his field is metaphysics. As a result, he writes some very silly things. Like saying that Paul's conversion "provides additional evidence for Christianity" (p.595 - he's already forgotten that he's not equating God with Christianity) because ... it was a heavenly vision. Well... it could also be proof that Paul was a hysteric, exactly like my Cambodian lady - she also has heavenly visions, except that hers are of the bull Nandi.

The article gets tedious very quickly, largely because McGrew never makes any argument - he never comes to grips with the nature of the gospel traditions, he never discusses Jewish belief and society (he never discusses 2nd temple Judaism), he seems ignorant of the major scholarship. In short, he's out of his depth. You could believe in the God Nandi, or in Allah, on the arguments he makes.PiCo (talk) 03:02, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Warning: The McGrews are living persons. Scholarly debate is fine but we should take care to avoid personal attacks or mockery. Also I do not believe they would falsify data. If they cite the "Atteastations" in MSS then they are there. Please do not take this the wrong way. I also disagree with some of positions put forward by the McGrews. However extra care is required when dealing with living scholars. - Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 15:16, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Request for Arbitration

On the surface this dispute seems simple. I had some concerns about the following edit and requested some references. The response was "good grief" and that I was a "time waster". I went to the library and got the following references.

• Throckmorton's the Gospel Parallels pp 1-15 (All editions from 1957 to present)
• William Lane Craig & J. P. Moreland (Ed), The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology, John Wiley & Sons, 2009. p 602
• Rochus Zuurmond, Novum Testamentum Aethiopice: The Synoptic Gospels, Franz Steiner Pub., 1989. p 31
• Sabine Baring Gould, "The lost and hostile gospels" 1874, Oxford University, Digitized 2006. p 122

I offered to provide further references if required. This would be no problem as every Biblical scholar is aware of the attestations to the early MSS (ie Matthew "wrote his Gospel in Hebrew in Palestine"). NOTE I did not revert the unsourced edit for I have voluntarily stepped back from editing this article. Of course this gave rise to even more serious time wasting allegations (ie disruptive behavior) requiring a topic ban.

However there is much more to this issue than my asking for reliable sources and I am making a formal request for Arbitration. - Ret.Prof (talk) 18:49, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

RetProf, since that specific edit is giving you so much concern, and since I did the revert, I'll answer you. What was reverted was an addition, made by you, to the effect that although the gospel itself doesn't name its author, early manuscripts have a superscription saying that Matthew wrote it. Yes, they do. But the opinion of modern scholars is that no weight can be attached to this - see Davies and Allison (1988), p. 129. If you can find a modern and authoritative source that says the scholarly opinion is otherwise, fine, but an undated and unidentified primary source quoted in a work from 1801 (!) isn't what we want. PiCo (talk) 22:25, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. As always I enjoy scholarly debate. I do have some sources to back my position. However I am about to be banned from Misplaced Pages as a "time waster"! Anything I say can and will be used against me. Once I am vindicated at arbitration, then we will debate your edit. You do have some good points. If you prevail I certainly will not hold a grudge. Ignocrates has "one upped" me on several occasions. He has got a fine mind. Indeed I have learned a great deal from him. I hope you will support me in taking this to arbitration. Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 00:16, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Effectively this is a content dispute - across several years and several articles, but the actual content issue has been previously settled repeatedly. You could contribute to Misplaced Pages in ways that don't involve adding claims that there's a lost Hebrew Matthew to articles. This is the main disruptive behaviour, so the topic ban could be narrow. In ictu oculi (talk) 05:51, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. This is about bullying, intimidation, Reliable Sources and NPOV. This is about User:Davidbena and Bruce Grubb. A few days ago, I had some concerns an unsourced edit. I asked for some references in a civil tone. Rather than a Reliable source I got a abuse, was told I was time-waster, disruptive and was to be banned. No editor should be treated like this! Ultimately this is about Wiki-gangs and the heart Misplaced Pages. I truly believe this needs to go to arbitration. Surly we can agree on that! - Ret.Prof (talk) 13:31, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Ret.Prof, a decision to file an arbitration case is not something that requires a discussion or a consensus. If you are going to proceed with a case, just get on with it. I will be interested to see who you decide to include as involved parties. Ignocrates (talk) 13:56, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

True but discussion and consensus never hurt. Please see your talk page. Cheers - Ret.Prof (talk) 14:33, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Please find my detailed response to your question on my talk page. Ignocrates (talk) 17:46, 1 February 2014 (UTC)