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Are you sure about that. Here's Lapides himself on the subject.
http://www.growthtrac.com/artman/pub...essiah-631.php
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These are the only parts from that article that deals with my objection:
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But that objection didn't fly any further than the previous one. "In God's wisdom, he created checks and balances both inside and outside the Christian community," Lapides explained. "When the Gospels were being circulated, there were people living who had been around when all these things happened. Someone would have said to Matthew, ?You know it didn't happen that way. We're trying to communicate a life of righteousness and truth, so don't taint it with a lie.'
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First of all, he is appealing to God's wisdom which I find amusing. Secondly, this is assuming that those who were contemporaries of Jesus would know all the intricate details of his life and not of just certain isolated instances, which is much more likely. Would the people who were still alive from Jesus's time be witnesses to more than one or two events from his. It is also assuming that those who did have first hand knowledge of Jesus's life somehow were familiar with Mathew's work and were "proofreading" it.
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"Besides," he added, "why would Matthew have fabricated fulfilled prophecies and then be willing to be put to death for following someone who he secretly knew was really not the Messiah? That wouldn't make any sense.
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Seriously? Perhaps because he believed that the prophecies were irrelevant but that it might prevent people from believing in Jesus? If he believed that Jesus actually was the Messiah and that the prophecies weren't binding, why would he
not fabricate fulfilled prophecies?
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"What's more, the Jewish community would have jumped on any
opportunity to discredit the Gospels by pointing out falsehoods. They would have said, ?I was there, and Jesus' bones were broken by the Romans during the crucifixion,'" Lapides said. "But even though the Jewish Talmud refers to Jesus in derogatory ways, it never once makes the claim that the fulfillment of prophecies was falsified. Not one time."
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I'm fairly certain the Jewish community did try to discredit the Gospels. And this also goes back to the assumption that there would be enough people around who not only were first hand witnesses of Jesus's life, but that they had full memories of these events, they were aware of Matthew's writings, they believed it was important to discredit the Gospel, etc. etc.
Sorry if I'm not convinced, but your rebuttal is not very compelling.
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When I read Lapides I don't think he is appealing to God's wisdom, but referring to it. He is saying the circumstances, the internal societal checks and balances indicates God's will. The interpersonal, political and societal systems in place at a certain time are what anthropologists, archaeologists and historians study to arrive at what actually happened in an ancient group. They do have relevant cultures, beliefs and customs/traditions. So we can study them to arrive at theories/conclusions about them.
The 12 Disciples (Apostles) lived and travelled around the clock with Jesus for a couple of years. In a court of law til this day you only need 1 or 2 eyewitnesses to testify or substantiate the validity of an event. 2 is better than 1 because its less likely there is a lie and because you can get different perspectives and they either back each other up or they refute one another. The Disciples don't refute one another. They were handpicked by Jesus to study under him and deliver the Gospel. Jesus was the Living Word. He writes his words on the hearts of men and then they live his teachings while the Disciples did the actual physical act of recording the Word.
These Disciples were actually very humble men so I doubt it would even occur to them to trace back prophecies and record them if they hadn't personally experienced it. They would know the Hebrew religion and as Christ performed certain things they would have noticed it and remarked on it amongst themselves and said "hey isn't that like it says in the scriptures" to each other.
Today if you saw a miracle it would probably impress you to so great a degree that you would never forget it unless you got Alzheimers or a brain injury of some sort. If you and I and madnak and tame-deuces and Mendacious and Phil153 are sitting around a stone table in the park eating hamburgers and Phil153 starts to levitate. I guarantee you we will all find it remarkable and we wouldn't forget it and we're more than likely going to go tell people who are now going to follow Phil around to see what else he does.
quote: I'm fairly certain the Jewish community did try to discredit the Gospels.
You'd have to find proof of this then, but I think initially the Christians were so small a group, the society pressure the Jews were putting on other Jews to stay Jewish, the Hebrews preoccupation with the Sadducees and Pharisees conflict and their preoccupation with Roman hegemony is probably what they gave most of their attention to. God planted a tiny mustard seed among them and it took off to the Gentiles letting the Jews exist til this day as a separate people and that's God's purpose also. The Jews were suppose to exist until they re-establish as a nation which they did in 1948 with the rise of Israel.