If Jesus Is God

[MathGeek]

I am unsure if Jesus did or didn't exist. Richard Carrier said as much in "Not The Impossible Faith". It is likely that if Jesus Christ did exist, then his life became a giant game of telephone, not so much the trilemma that Lewis put forth in "Mere Christianity".

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

 

Funguyrye,

Please reconcile this...

 

Matthew 27 : 1 - 7, NIV.

Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed.

² So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.

³ When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders.

⁴ “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”

“What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”

⁵ So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

⁶ The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.”

⁷ So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. ⁸ That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

 

with this...

 

Acts 1 : 18 & 19, NIV.

¹⁸ (With the payment he received for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out.

¹⁹ Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

 

...using only logic.

 

Relevant questions

 

1.

How did the money Judas threw into the temple get back into his hands after the Chief Priests had picked it up - seeing as he needed that money to buy the field where he hung himself there?

The Pharisees could not take the money and had no ownership of the silver.  So technically, it was still Judas's money when Judas's silver bought Akeldema.  So technically, the property was bought in his name as the Pharisees would not take ownership of the blood money.  It would not make good optics if they used the money in the treasury as they stated it was blood money, similar to how some organizations or charities won't do business with say drug dealers as the money was earned in dishonest ways.    

 

 

Sorry, funguy, but your answer earns the mark of Fail.  You do not deal with the subject and verb, "Judas bought a field," in Acts.  The text does not say that the priests bought the field with Judas' money, nor is vagueness introduced with some passive construction as "a field was bought."  The subject and verb are singular.  I think the translation BAA used tries to make things a little clearer than the Greek original, in which Peter is represented as saying the following:  "And so this man [i.e. Judas, already the subject of the previous sentence] acquired for himself a piece of ground (εκτήσατο χωρίον) from the wages of injustice and headlong" etc.  

 

"This man" (ούτος) does not equal "they" or "the priests."  εκτήσατο (singular) does not equal εκτήσαντο (plural) nor εκτήθη (passive voice;  sorry, my font doesn't write breathing marks).

 

When the Christian apologist has to go to such lengths as to maintain that "this man bought/acquired" really means "the priests bought" or "the field was bought", the confirmation bias and moving of goalposts is so obvious that the postulate of literal biblical inerrancy falls of its own weight.  If "this man" and "not this man but someone else" both describe the same entity under the same set of relations, then all statements are true, because you've violated the principle of non-contradiction.

 

It won't help to pull back the trenches and claim that the inerrant element of Acts I 18 is only that it accurately reports the statement of Peter, and that the inerrancy doesn't extend to the content of what Peter says.  If THAT expedient is adopted here, the apologist has to open up all scriptural quotations of privileged characters to the same principle.  You'd have to allow that quotations of Jesus in Matthew, for example, are inerrant only in that they accurately report what Jesus said, not that the theological content of the statements is inerrant.  In that case, kiss the bible goodbye as a revelation of truth about faith and morals.

 

Note, incidentally, that it is not the Pharisees who take the money and buy the field in Matthew.  Judas throws it down before the chief priests.  The crowd that controlled the temple and the Pharisees were two opposed, sometimes antagonistic groups.  It's sad that your mistake reveals how little you know about the NT and about Judaism of the early centuries CE.  It's a fascinating topic that deserves study from an informed, historical perspective.

 

Edited to add:  it also won't help to claim that there were two sums of money and two sales, i.e. that Judas' "injustice" was that he took money from the common purse and bought a field with that, and after his death the priests took the 30 pieces of silver, which he had thrown back to them, and bought the same field with this second sum.  No one would construe Acts in this way except as special pleading to save the preconception that the bible is inerrant.  The verses before the one that BAA quoted say that Judas "became the guide for those who arrested Jesus" and that "he got the allotment of this ministry."  "This ministry" refers to membership in the Twelve, for it is to fill Judas' place that Peter has convened the disciples.  The phrase "wages of injustice" has to refer to payment for doing a job.  The job has to be the betrayal.  It wouldn't work to claim that the job is management of the disciples' common purse, because it is not conceivable that Judas would have been paid for that, and Peter would not call embezzled money "wages."  There's no reasonable way to construe Peter's words except that the money is that paid to Judas for being "guide for those who arrested Jesus."  So there are not two sums of money in any viable reconstruction of the events. Therefore not two sales. 

[bornagainathiest]

On re-reading FGR's reply Ficino, I don't accept it either.

 

The Acts narrative is totally contradicted by his work round - as you've pointed out.  His response is contrived and establishes a precedent that generates ludicrous results when it's logic is applied elsewhere in scripture.  If dead people can own and handle money (Not the realty or estate listed in their will, but physical monies in the form of silver coins) and if they can also purchase land (Not have land purchased on their behalf by others) then this is the bizarre result.

 

Joshua 24: 32, NIV.

 

^"32 And Joseph’s bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. This became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants."

 

The text clearly says that Jacob bought the land.  Yet, if we apply FGR's logic, then what the text should read is this...

 

"And Joseph's bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem, in the tract of land that Joseph himself, bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.  This became the inheritance of Joseph's descendants."

 

Do you agree with the logic I've used, Ficino?

In both examples land is purchased using silver.  In the OT it's 100 pieces of silver.  In the NT it's 30 pieces of silver.  In both examples, other people do the actual purchasing.  Jacob in the OT and the Chief Priests in NT. 

 

Now, according to FGR, Judas' money was [technically] still his, even though he was dead.

Therefore, even though the text says that Jacob purchased the land, since [technically] the dead can own and handle money and also purchase land, Joshua 24:32 should read that Joseph bought the land himself, even though he'd been dead for over forty years!

 

If the recently-dead Judas can have a field bought on his behalf (with money that he no longer owned and couldn't use) yet scripture says that HE did the buying with HIS money, then why can't the long-dead Joseph do the same? What does it matter if scripture doesn't tell us if the 100 silver pieces were Jacob's or Joseph's?

 

Let's just take FGR's 'logic' and apply it elsewhere - for comical results!

 

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

 

 

 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

So Judas hung himself, then bought a field, then fell from the tree in which he had hung himself into the field that he bought after hanging himself and his belly burst open into the field which he purchased with the money he gave back to the pharisees before hanging himself?

 

This is what is meant by the word "fuckity".  This is fuckity.

[Guest end3]

So Judas hung himself, then bought a field, then fell from the tree in which he had hung himself into the field that he bought after hanging himself and his belly burst open into the field which he purchased with the money he gave back to the pharisees before hanging himself?

 

This is what is meant by the word "fuckity".  This is fuckity.

When your belly bursts, it's fuckity...

[♦ ficino ♦]

On re-reading FGR's reply Ficino, I don't accept it either.

 

The Acts narrative is totally contradicted by his work round - as you've pointed out.  His response is contrived and establishes a precedent that generates ludicrous results when it's logic is applied elsewhere in scripture.  If dead people can own and handle money (Not the realty or estate listed in their will, but physical monies in the form of silver coins) and if they can also purchase land (Not have land purchased on their behalf by others) then this is the bizarre result.

 

Joshua 24: 32, NIV.

 

^"32 And Joseph’s bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the tract of land that Jacob bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem. This became the inheritance of Joseph’s descendants."

 

The text clearly says that Jacob bought the land.  Yet, if we apply FGR's logic, then what the text should read is this...

 

"And Joseph's bones, which the Israelites had brought up from Egypt, were buried at Shechem, in the tract of land that Joseph himself, bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.  This became the inheritance of Joseph's descendants."

 

Do you agree with the logic I've used, Ficino?

In both examples land is purchased using silver.  In the OT it's 100 pieces of silver.  In the NT it's 30 pieces of silver.  In both examples, other people do the actual purchasing.  Jacob in the OT and the Chief Priests in NT. 

 

Now, according to FGR, Judas' money was [technically] still his, even though he was dead.

Therefore, even though the text says that Jacob purchased the land, since [technically] the dead can own and handle money and also purchase land, Joshua 24:32 should read that Joseph bought the land himself, even though he'd been dead for over forty years!

 

If the recently-dead Judas can have a field bought on his behalf (with money that he no longer owned and couldn't use) yet scripture says that HE did the buying with HIS money, then why can't the long-dead Joseph do the same? What does it matter if scripture doesn't tell us if the 100 silver pieces were Jacob's or Joseph's?

 

Let's just take FGR's 'logic' and apply it elsewhere - for comical results!

 

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

Funguy says in #729 that the writers of Matthew and Acts write from different perspectives. I agree.  There is no justification for attributing to Peter in Acts the legal theory that Funguy attributes to the "Pharisees" [sic], i.e. that the 30 pieces of silver were  technically Judas' so that "this man acquired for himself a piece of ground" just means "other people acquired for (?? themselves??) a piece of ground using money that technically belonged to this man."  Peter is not talking about anyone other than Judas in his discourse, in which he explains why the disciples need to choose a successor to Judas.

 

The text in Matthew does not articulate the legal principle that Funguy says it does.  And against the notion that there were two sales of the same field -- i.e. first Judas bought it with money he embezzled, then the priests bought it with the 30 pieces of silver - Matthew says that the priests bought "the potter's field," not "Judas' field."

 

As you point out, BAA, funguy's argument is special pleading that makes mockery of the texts.  Fail.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

So Judas hung himself, then bought a field, then fell from the tree in which he had hung himself into the field that he bought after hanging himself and his belly burst open into the field which he purchased with the money he gave back to the pharisees before hanging himself?

 

This is what is meant by the word "fuckity".  This is fuckity.

When your belly bursts, it's fuckity...

 

The word of the day is "fuckity".  Use it in a sentence.

[pawn]

Trying to justify all the contradictions in the bible is an impossible task, because the bible is not infallible, the bible is fuckity.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

^^^LOL!  Good one Pawn!

[RogueScholar]

It's pretty easy to over look any biblical plot hole/contradiction/false prediction: It's magic and you lack faith if you cannot accept that answer. I fail to understand why smart people like you all continue to fail to appreciate this unbreakable line of logic?

[centauri]

Matthew and Luke differ on several issues (birth narratives, genealogy, resurrection events), so I don't find it surprising that they differ on the Judas issue as well.

In one case we have a field being bought prior to the death of Judas and in the other the field is bought after the death of Judas.

It's not even established that it's the same field, that has to be assumed.

The money must also be assumed to end up in the hands of the priests so they can buy the field, even though one cannot glean such a conclusion from Luke.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Matthew and Luke differ on several issues (birth narratives, genealogy, resurrection events), so I don't find it surprising that they differ on the Judas issue as well.

In one case we have a field being bought prior to the death of Judas and in the other the field is bought after the death of Judas.

It's not even established that it's the same field, that has to be assumed.

The money must also be assumed to end up in the hands of the priests so they can buy the field, even though one cannot glean such a conclusion from Luke.

That's a lot of assumption for a book that is infallibly and innerrantly the inspired word of god.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Matthew and Luke differ on several issues (birth narratives, genealogy, resurrection events), so I don't find it surprising that they differ on the Judas issue as well.

In one case we have a field being bought prior to the death of Judas and in the other the field is bought after the death of Judas.

It's not even established that it's the same field, that has to be assumed.

The money must also be assumed to end up in the hands of the priests so they can buy the field, even though one cannot glean such a conclusion from Luke.

I think the name "Akeldama," Field of Blood, and the effort made in each narrative to explain the name and connect it to Judas, make it a strong assumption that each narrative gives a different version of the same story.  The very different details that go into explaining the name draw back the curtain on disagreement about this story among early members of the Jesus cult.

 

Centauri, would you agree that the attempt in Matthew to connect its version of the story to what it presents as Jewish law is consistent with Matthew's general tendency to throw in lots of (not always accurate) explanations about Judaism?  Seems so to me, anyway.

 

Edited to add:  I notice that many apologists have used the explanation that Funguy gives, i.e. that the 30 pieces of silver remained Judas' money, so that when the priests bought the field, it also means that Judas bought the field.  It is only by bringing in ad hoc assumptions that such a reading can be pulled out of the text of Acts.

 

I also noticed an attempt to say that there were two fields, the "agros haimatos" of Matthew and the "chorion haimatos" of Acts.  Most apologists do not double the fields, though doubling is a favored maneuver of some apologists.  It is more economical to posit two accounts that vary in details than to posit two areas, each well known to inhabitants as "X of Blood," with no recognition in the texts that there are two areas of very similar name.  

 

The apology is still a fail.

[centauri]

 

Matthew and Luke differ on several issues (birth narratives, genealogy, resurrection events), so I don't find it surprising that they differ on the Judas issue as well.

In one case we have a field being bought prior to the death of Judas and in the other the field is bought after the death of Judas.

It's not even established that it's the same field, that has to be assumed.

The money must also be assumed to end up in the hands of the priests so they can buy the field, even though one cannot glean such a conclusion from Luke.

I think the name "Akeldama," Field of Blood, and the effort made in each narrative to explain the name and connect it to Judas, make it a strong assumption that each narrative gives a different version of the same story.  The very different details that go into explaining the name draw back the curtain on disagreement about this story among early members of the Jesus cult.

 

Centauri, would you agree that the attempt in Matthew to connect its version of the story to what it presents as Jewish law is consistent with Matthew's general tendency to throw in lots of (not always accurate) explanations about Judaism?  Seems so to me, anyway.

 

Edited to add:  I notice that many apologists have used the explanation that Funguy gives, i.e. that the 30 pieces of silver remained Judas' money, so that when the priests bought the field, it also means that Judas bought the field.  It is only by bringing in ad hoc assumptions that such a reading can be pulled out of the text of Acts.

 

I also noticed an attempt to say that there were two fields, the "agros haimatos" of Matthew and the "chorion haimatos" of Acts.  Most apologists do not double the fields, though doubling is a favored maneuver of some apologists.  It is more economical to posit two accounts that vary in details than to posit two areas, each well known to inhabitants as "X of Blood," with no recognition in the texts that there are two areas of very similar name.  

 

The apology is still a fail.

 

Years ago, when I was first looking at this passage in Matthew, I ran across the misquote (and misreference)  that's used.

Matthew attempts to manufacture yet another prophecy fulfillment.

 

Matt 27:5-10

And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.

Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.

 

The problems are twofold.

First of all, Jeremiah didn't speak those words, Zechariah did.

Secondly, it's not even quoted properly.

 

Zech 11:13

And the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord.

 

This passage is laden with metaphors regarding the captivity of Judah, and there is no field involved.

The potter is the Lord, the creator, the maker of the pots (humans).

The passage has nothing to do with a field.

 

The priests would have bought the field after Judas had hung himself.

Luke gives no indication of any priests involved and the field was bought prior to the death of Judas.

The field of blood name is really the only common element that I can see.

The events don't line up any better than the cause of death.

I see the name "Field of Blood" sprouting two tales from different authors, that's about all.

The author of Matthew already dinged his credibility by misqouting and misreferencing the Old Testament.

At least Luke didn't make those mistakes.

Trying to combine the two stories into one story just doesn't work.

[mymistake]

 

 

Years ago, when I was first looking at this passage in Matthew, I ran across the misquote (and misreference)  that's used.

Matthew attempts to manufacture yet another prophecy fulfillment.

 

Matt 27:5-10

And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.

Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with all of your analysis but something jumped out at me when I read it just now.  Would we say "The planes struck the World Trade Center and that is why it is called ground zero unto this day?"  The phrase "unto this day" is used for things that are very old.  One doesn't use that phrase for recent events.

[Ravenstar]

Maybe Judas became one of those zombies that went through Jerusalem?  

 

Matthew 27:52-53

"and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."

 

Can a zombie buy things?

[♦ ficino ♦]

As a text geek, I get obsessed about texts with problems.  So here's more about the contradiction betw Matt and Acts.

 

One apologist I found (too lazy to go back and look up the dude) tried to harmonize the priests "bought" the field and Judas "acquired" the field/ground by saying that the money was Judas' (other apologists also say this), so the priests bought the ground and Judas may have had rights of using the ground/field.  

 

Fail.  The whole story in Matthew emphasizes that Judas rejected the priests' payment for his treachery.  That's the point of saying that he threw down the 30 pieces of silver.  Are we then to believe that later on, Judas went back on his remorse and worked out a real estate deal with the priests, which a clear reading of the texts excludes?  Judas cannot both reject the bribe (a rejection portrayed with great fanfare by Matthew) AND profit from it through having use of land that it bought (an ad hoc assumption only).

 

I also comment on the attempt by some other dude (sorry, too lazy to go back to look up the source) to say that there were two fields of Blood, one the agros haimatos and the other, the chorion haimatos.  Besides the general absurdity and turdity of this explanation, there is the problem of doubling entities, a technique favored by some apologists when they try to reconcile Matthew with other narratives.  An "agros" presumably can be cultivated.  A "chorion," not necessarily so.  Matthew claims that the "field" was the potter's field.  Apart from the lame attempt to concoct fulfillment of an OT prophecy, which Centauri has exposed above, there is also the problem that any piece of ground called the potter's field can hardly have been under cultivation.  You'd think it was an area where potsherds were dumped.  That's why it could become a burial ground for strangers;  no one would devote good, fertile land to such a purpose.  So, the economical hypothesis is that the locution in Acts "corrects" that in Matthew, removing the problem of arable land turned into a dump graveyard created by Matthew.

 

So, the obvious explanation: 1)  two conflicting accounts of the same story.  The failed explanation:  2) obviously conflicting accounts that can only be harmonized if we make up enough extra shit about them.

 

What sort of job of revelation would be accomplished by a god who resorted to inspiring 2) when he could have seen to it that his writers produce a coherent account of fairly simple, factual stuff?

[centauri]

 

 

 

Years ago, when I was first looking at this passage in Matthew, I ran across the misquote (and misreference)  that's used.

Matthew attempts to manufacture yet another prophecy fulfillment.

 

Matt 27:5-10

And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.

Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

And gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me.

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with all of your analysis but something jumped out at me when I read it just now.  Would we say "The planes struck the World Trade Center and that is why it is called ground zero unto this day?"  The phrase "unto this day" is used for things that are very old.  One doesn't use that phrase for recent events.

 

Perhaps this is an example showing that the events surrounding Judas were being recalled decades after they were supposed to have happened.

The story teller attempts to assign his version of the story as the "real" reason for the field being named what it was known as.

After several decades, few would be able to refute it firsthand.

Just a guess on my part.

[pawn]

The Judas story is very fuckity.

[centauri]

 

As a text geek, I get obsessed about texts with problems.  So here's more about the contradiction betw Matt and Acts.

 

One apologist I found (too lazy to go back and look up the dude) tried to harmonize the priests "bought" the field and Judas "acquired" the field/ground by saying that the money was Judas' (other apologists also say this), so the priests bought the ground and Judas may have had rights of using the ground/field.  

 

Fail.  The whole story in Matthew emphasizes that Judas rejected the priests' payment for his treachery.  That's the point of saying that he threw down the 30 pieces of silver.  Are we then to believe that later on, Judas went back on his remorse and worked out a real estate deal with the priests, which a clear reading of the texts excludes?  Judas cannot both reject the bribe (a rejection portrayed with great fanfare by Matthew) AND profit from it through having use of land that it bought (an ad hoc assumption only).

I would think in the state of mind Judas was in, he would not have delayed killing himself for very long.

Waiting around for a land deal to transpire seems far fetched.

 

I also comment on the attempt by some other dude (sorry, too lazy to go back to look up the source) to say that there were two fields of Blood, one the agros haimatos and the other, the chorion haimatos.  Besides the general absurdity and turdity of this explanation, there is the problem of doubling entities, a technique favored by some apologists when they try to reconcile Matthew with other narratives.  An "agros" presumably can be cultivated.  A "chorion," not necessarily so.  Matthew claims that the "field" was the potter's field.  Apart from the lame attempt to concoct fulfillment of an OT prophecy, which Centauri has exposed above, there is also the problem that any piece of ground called the potter's field can hardly have been under cultivation.  You'd think it was an area where potsherds were dumped.  That's why it could become a burial ground for strangers;  no one would devote good, fertile land to such a purpose.  So, the economical hypothesis is that the locution in Acts "corrects" that in Matthew, removing the problem of arable land turned into a dump graveyard created by Matthew.

 

So, the obvious explanation: 1)  two conflicting accounts of the same story.  The failed explanation:  2) obviously conflicting accounts that can only be harmonized if we make up enough extra shit about them.

 

What sort of job of revelation would be accomplished by a god who resorted to inspiring 2) when he could have seen to it that his writers produce a coherent account of fairly simple, factual stuff?

Good point.

To top it off, Luke states in the preamble of his gospel that he is writing his history so that his reader will know with certainty things that happened.

He never once refers his reader to other texts for further explanation or clarification.

Luke is meant as a stand alone document, so the only way to attempt a rationalization is to inject a boatload of qualifiers that don't even hold up to scrutiny.

This mess is the work of an infallible God??? Hardly.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Sorry everyone, for the length.  I'm obsessed.  Feel free to skip as TLDR.

 

Two other attempts by apologists to reconcile Matthew and Acts are given here, quoting Fausset's Bible Dictionary: 

 

http://www.bible-history.com/links.php?cat=40&sub=492&cat_name=Bible+Cities&subcat_name=Aceldama

 

The first explanation:  Judas began negotiations to buy the field with the 30 pieces of silver to be a habitation for himself and his wife and children (Psalm 109:9, 69:25). "He did not pay the money, but had agreed to pay it..." Then he felt remorse, went back to the priests, and threw down that sum of money before them.  Then Judas went back to the field, hung himself, the cord broke, and his bowels gushed out.  The priests took the same sum of money and completed the purchase of the aforesaid field.  Someone named Bengel is quoted as adding the statement that "ubstantial unity among circumstantial variety is the strongest mark of truth, for it proves the absence of collusion in the writers."

 

The second explanation:  Peter in Acts speaks ironically;  all Judas purchased with the reward of iniquity was a place where his own blood spilled.

 

As to the first explanation:

 1. it's an ingenious solution, but like others, it undermines the meaning of "this man acquired" in Acts.  You don't use forms of the verb κτάομαι unless the item becomes a possession.  To acquire or procure something for oneself is the meaning of this word; this explanation denies that Judas acquired anything.  

 2. given what else is known about this piece of ground, it is a bizarre place to seek out as a habitation for oneself and one's wife and children. (Against Easton's Bible Dictionary, also quoted on the website linked above, only Matthew mentions the potter's field; it is absent from Acts.) 

  3. it simply makes things up.  How many conflicting accounts can I harmonize by making up enough stuff?  The more an explanation relies on ad hoc assumptions and postulated entities or actions, the weaker it becomes.  Ockham's Razor.  Simpler, as Centauri and I suggest, to suppose that Acts "corrects" details in Matthew.

  4.  Bengel's dictum disguises a fallacious move from "the authors don't collude" to "the authors write the truth."  Absence of collusion does not guarantee truth;  all the accounts could be fictional.

 

Against explanation 2:  

  1. I don't know a method by which to demonstrate that details in a passage are "irony," i.e. don't mean what they say but something else.  It's too easy to make unfalsifiable claims about a passage, esp. to insist on non-standard meanings of words (as one of our chums a while ago insisted that "nature" means "custom" at I Cor. 11:14).

  2. in this case, though, the words "this man acquired a piece of ground (χωρίον)" are explicit and pedestrian.  There is no clue that the audience is to take them as irony. 

 

Along the lines that both accounts are fiction -- Centauri has already shown strong reason to believe this about the account in Matthew (mymistake added how the words "to this day" are consistent with that view).  The fictionality of the passage in Acts is strongly suggested by Peter's giving the explanation that the piece of ground is known "in their own dialect" as Akeldama, etc.  Peter would not say this in the occasion portrayed in those verses.  The incorporation of explanations for later, non-Jerusalemite readers into Peter's discourse is a glaring instance of authorial intrusion, and therefore, of the fact that the text intermingles author's and characters' voices.  It is not a transcript of Peter's purported words;  it's what we would consider fiction.

 

Some commentators and recent translations try to get around this problem by detaching verses 18 through 19 or 20 from Peter's speech, treating them instead as the author's parenthetical insertion.  In other words, they think it is in his authorial voice that the author explains Judas' death and the meaning of Field of Blood to readers not familiar with these things.  This conclusion comes from the unlikelihood that Peter in the narrative situation would be explaining the meaning of Akeldama to an audience of native Jerusalemites.

 

 This conclusion is not accepted by all moderns (e.g. the current edition of the Catholic vulgate makes the whole passage Peter's speech, in quotation marks).  Against it:

 

--Peter opens his speech by saying that it was necessary that scripture be fulfilled about Judas.  His speech therefore needs to establish the fulfillment.  That fulfillment is "established" in verse 20.

-- The explanation of the meaning of Field of Blood has to be of a piece with verse 20, because that verse, immediately following the explanation, begins with γάρ.  γάρ is a word that gives the reason for a preceding statement, translated as "for."  Here, it offers quotations from Psalms as evidence that Judas' death, described in verses 18-19, fulfills scripture.  If one were to take verses 18-19 out of Peter's speech and assign them to the author, then Peter's speech would go straight from v. 17, "he gained a share in this ministry," to v. 20, "For it has been written in the book of Psalms, 'let his sheep/cattle fold become desolate..." etc.  Under this reading, the γάρ in v. 20 would present the quotations from Psalms as the scriptures fulfilled by Judas' holding "a share in this ministry."  No good.  You need verses 18-19 to show Judas' disappearance, thus making sense of verse 20, and you need verse 20 to be part of Peter's speech, offering the scriptures that he said foretold the fate of Judas. 

-- Peter's discourse needs some reference to Judas' disappearance from the scene

-- The Greek words μέν ούν, which begin verse 18, often mark a transition to something that follows from the previous statement, but they do not of themselves signal that the author is interrupting a speech of a character.  These two words appear in the middle of the speech by Paul to philosophers in Athens in 17.30.

[centauri]

 

Two other attempts by apologists to reconcile Matthew and Acts are given here, quoting Fausset's Bible Dictionary: 

 

http://www.bible-history.com/links.php?cat=40&sub=492&cat_name=Bible+Cities&subcat_name=Aceldama

 

The first explanation:  Judas began negotiations to buy the field with the 30 pieces of silver to be a habitation for himself and his wife and children (Psalm 109:9, 69:25). "He did not pay the money, but had agreed to pay it..." Then he felt remorse, went back to the priests, and threw down that sum of money before them.  Then Judas went back to the field, hung himself, the cord broke, and his bowels gushed out.  The priests took the same sum of money and completed the purchase of the aforesaid field.  Someone named Bengel is quoted as adding the statement that "ubstantial unity among circumstantial variety is the strongest mark of truth, for it proves the absence of collusion in the writers."

Very inventive.

I don't recall the New Testament ever mentioning anything about Judas having a wife and children.

The apologist further confirms bias by using snippets of Psa 109 and Psa 69 as validation for their musings.

Those verses are about the enemies of David, it has nothing to do with Judas.

The apologist simply grabs on to a bit of cherry-picked OT scripture and then uses (abuses) it to confirm what they want to believe.

Apparently Judas also told the priests which land he was going to buy before he changed his mind.

Talk about making things up!

These types of obtuse apologetics only drove me further away from Christianity.

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

Very inventive.

I don't recall the New Testament ever mentioning anything about Judas having a wife and children.

The apologist further confirms bias by using snippets of Psa 109 and Psa 69 as validation for their musings.

Those verses are about the enemies of David, it has nothing to do with Judas.

The apologist simply grabs on to a bit of cherry-picked OT scripture and then uses (abuses) it to confirm what they want to believe.

Apparently Judas also told the priests which land he was going to buy before he changed his mind.

Talk about making things up!

These types of obtuse apologetics only drove me further away from Christianity.

 

Exactly.  Just one point:  the snippets from Psalm 69 and 109 are just those used in Acts 1:20.

[centauri]

 

 

Very inventive.

I don't recall the New Testament ever mentioning anything about Judas having a wife and children.

The apologist further confirms bias by using snippets of Psa 109 and Psa 69 as validation for their musings.

Those verses are about the enemies of David, it has nothing to do with Judas.

The apologist simply grabs on to a bit of cherry-picked OT scripture and then uses (abuses) it to confirm what they want to believe.

Apparently Judas also told the priests which land he was going to buy before he changed his mind.

Talk about making things up!

These types of obtuse apologetics only drove me further away from Christianity.

Exactly.  Just one point:  the snippets from Psalm 69 and 109 are just those used in Acts 1:20.

 

Yes, I was aware of that.

The actual invention was on the part of Peter.

It's a case of monkey-see, monkey-do on the part of the apologist.

They just go right along with the out of context verses ripped out of the OT and used as validation for the event.

They simply accept the out of context quotes from the OT, and proceed from there.

So much of the NT is comprised of themes based on out of context scripture.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Biblical scholars who have commitments to their churches but who are not literalistic fundamentalists may well say that narratives such as these do not intend to present actions and speeches exactly as they occurred. They may say that many such narratives intend instead to offer theological meditations. So here, we get, not two contradictory "factual" accounts, one of which must be false, but two different meditations to sink our teeth into. The theme is the old one of the righteous man who is betrayed by a friend to suffer at the hands of his enemies, and the betrayer in turn comes to a bad end, while the righteous man is vindicated. This is already a topos in the story of David betrayed by Ahitophel, and it goes back at least to the ancient tale of the Assyrian sage, Ahikar (which also is replicated in Job).

 

So, for this sort of biblical scholar, accusations of historical inaccuracy are irrelevant, since they hold that much of the gospels and Acts is not "history" in the usual, modern sense but serves various rhetorical strategies motivated by the forming theology of the early church.

 

As Centauri and I have suggested, we think this approach undermines the Christian message and the Bible's authority, rather than saves it as these scholars think it does. Only by "moving the goalposts," "special pleading," etc. can these scholars defend the historicity of the stuff they want to hold onto, like the bodily resurrection (some of them don't even think they need this).