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Tanstaafl ~

I, too, would laugh if the stakes were not so high. For you are committing the very "circular" error of which you accuse me: building your premises on your conclusions. For isn't your objection in this case nothing more or less than the assumption that God did not do it? And is this not as unproven as my belief that God did it? You have your belief and I have mine. But one of us has Matthew's testimony on his side, namely me. Whose first-century testimony do you have to the effect that this event did not occur?

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock

Tanstaafl ~

T: ... "I would of thought though, that you would realise at a skeptic's message board the burden of proof lies with you."

Not the way I see it. I'm playing defense. I'm not trying to prove the veracity of the Bible. I grant, and have been granting for some time, that many statements in the Bible cannot be proven to be true.

T: "My primary objection is that as an apology it stinks. How god did it was because god did it."

Huh? When it comes to miracles, we're talking about things which by definition cannot be explained by solely natural cause and effect. "God did it" is the only way to account for a genuine miracle. I'm not trying to explain the miracle in step-by-step terms; I'm just saying that it's not absurd to believe that miracles can occur.

WR: "But one of us has Matthew's testimony on his side, namely me. Whose first-century testimony do you have to the effect that this event did not occur?"

T: "Whoa! You mean you have an original testament written by Matthew, untranslated, unculled by religious orders or otherwise edited."

(You did not say whose first-century testimony you have, y'know.) I was using a handy translation, but now that you mention it, there on the bookshelf is a Greek text of the Gospel of Matthew, with a thorough textual apparatus. Pick any manuscript or any combination of textual variations in the manuscripts, and you will still have an account of a miracle here in Matthew 17.

T: "It more likely you have something that is most likely written after Matthews death, copied errently, translated errently, copied again errently et al, edited by people with more than pure motives, and much more before your mass produced and annotated book is next to you."

Those are all red herrings, Tanstaafl. No variants in the manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew make the sort of differences that you seem to imagine that they make. And a word-for-word translation will bear out the meaning of the Greek text here in Matthew 17.

As for "editing," it's an easy claim to make about anything. (The Packers lost? No way; the newpaper-editors are obviously Eagles fans.) I am curious about what extant evidence you wish to submit to the effect that the text of Matthew 17:24-27 has been edited. You don't actually have any such evidence, do you.

Maybe you've just been making unfounded accusations against the text to excuse your failure to pay attention to its demands upon your life. There's certainly no /scientific/ basis to your make-believe insinuations of editing and such. But my point here is simply that the account in Matthew 17:24-27 is not absurd, because it is not absurd to believe that God can perform miracles.

Yours in Christ,

Waterrock