CORRESPONDENCE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 64, Issue 4544, 4 March 1942, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE

■.t,:: ft" ?*' - vUETTERS TO THE EDITOR

*■ 4 ; \ • ■ *“THE RESURRECTION AND > ■ AFTER” * ..-W •» • !■«»,■.. v-.< -’t?- . ■ S»r ‘.''Roland ” compares the Bible Cto an old fiddle, for, says he, “ you •can play any sort of tune on. it.” His -simile is not'very apt, and.hardly very X complimentary, .to the Bible, to make out thatmays any old tune. We don’t want any old trine—we want th> truth: and there is only, one, way of telling the truth not any old way. Incidentally, “Roland ” confides to us that he is a master musician who brihgs -sweet music, while ■“ Oliver ” is only an amateur, and his music hard .to bear; “Roland” seems to be under -the delusion that- all- you have to do to settle the Ascension is to quote Xfrtyn Buke (not John, as he gives) and the Acts that Christ was received up into heaven from Bethany, and that is ;final. He wriFes: “ Neither records ■that Christ ascended from Jerusalem,” no evidently he does'not know about Mark, chapter 16, verse 19: “So then Rafter the Lord had spoken unto them He, was received up into Heaven?’ That- goes before all that took place 3n Jerusalem with the eleven as they sat at meat. “ Roland's ” simple -method fails to take account of all the other information in the New Testainent that has ,a.direct bearing on the subject in hand, and the explanation ■is not so simple as he would have us .believe. The whole question is very much involved, and he has failed to grasp the possibilities of the situation and the fundamentals of the argument. The simple fact is- “ Roland ” Jias fallen into a trap of his own devising, because he is only a superficial reader of the Bible. Sb I pass hack his' own advice: “ I suggest that our .critic read a little more closely ■before he rushes, into print.”, Roland ” professes to be able to majce a good symphony out ef a mass ot discords, so I will give him a chance for his wonderful old fiddle. Surely the jnaster can play the following contradiction into harmony, and the opportunity is specially for “Rolarnf” to ■demonstrate-his skiH ?• In the genealogy of Jesus, Matthew gives twentybi<’ht "genefiatidfis and ,Luke fortythree generations from Jesus to David, and only Joseph and David are ialike in the two records,. Why two -genealogies ’ Why the difference in generations ? And why the different lines ? Surely both, of them cannot he right ? The solution will certainly tax the old fiddle—the G string is hound to go.- Now, four men might differ in the manner of telling a story, ■but when they differ on a matter of fact the case is altered entirely. espetiajly as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were supposed to have been in Jerusalem at , the very time. alLthSse, Wonderful things happened, and If so

they, were right on the spot to verify everything-they wrote. But. the numerous contradictions on point offaqt are so much in favour of the argument that actually they are not contemporary, but lived and wrote long after, and what they wrote is under suspicion. The events as given after the Resurrection -are so bewildering ; that it is not easy to get a connected tale. Matthew stands out on his own, and makes all the other accounts impossible, although from inference a glimmer can be seen of a slight agreement with John, but again they differ about locality. Mark toys with two theories, but decides'on 'the second after all, and gives us an immediate ascension from Jerusalem. Luke is very similar in his record $0 Mark’s, and also giv.es us an immediate ascension from Bethanv. John’s record, like Matthew’s, makes the records of Mark and Luke impossible, and also, like Matthew, he does licit give ug an ascension. The account in the Acts makes all the others impossible on the matter of time, and although supposed to have been written by Luke, it contradicts Luke. Now, contradiction does not just mean telling what is obviously the same story differently from another, but also consists of telling other stones which happen at the same time, but they make the first story impossible. If the one really did happen, then the other just could not have happened. Did Christ.ascend into heaven on the day He rose from the dead, or did he do so weeks after or forty days after ? John says Jesus appeared to His Disciples three times (really four times), and He probably spent two or three weeks with themThe Acts say: “ Jesus was seen for forty days after His passion by His chosen Disciples.” Even these three do not agree, but they all make the story of Mark and Luke impossible and bar an immediate ascension. Jesus and the eleven Apostles just, could not be in two places at the samd time. Now see Matthew, Chapter 28, verse 16: “Then the eleven Disciples went away into Galilee into a mountain, where Jesus hack .appointed,, them?* Now vCrse 17: “ And whbrt th6y saw 1 Him they worshipped Him.” It is'obvious that Jesus and the eleven could not be in the yicinity of Jerusalem and in Galilee at the same tiine.—l am,-etc.> ■ ■ '. OLIVER. 1