Is there information that the gospel writers would not have had access to? Some examples presented by skeptics are the conspiracy between the guards and the priest (Matthew 28:11-15) or the meeting between the the chief priests and Pharisees (Matthew 27:62-66). But if Joseph of Arimathea was on the council he could have know about what was said when the chief priests were involved, and later told Jesus followers about it. What do you think about this?
I remember Bart makes this point on a debate and he mentions the conversation between Jesus and Pilate in his headquarters as another example. I guess some servant could have been there who was a follower of Jesus? I don’t know.
Assuming we accept the mainstream attributions, the authors had direct access to none of the things they report.
There are lots of things it is unlikely they would have had access to, but it is hard to say that it is impossible that one of the people in the conversation later converted or reported the conversation to someone who might have relayed it.
If you are arguing with fundamentalists, they can always claim that God revealed details of private conversations to them.
Or, if you come to the conclusion I have, that the gospels are mostly literary compositions, well the omniscient narrator can be everywhere. Not that I’m tempted to mythicism at all. I think what Mark had were credos, like Paul had, or skeleton histories. But I suspect he invented most of the details of his stories.
It seems to me it is most likely the canonical gospel writers had no personal info about Jesus’ doings during his life. They most likely relied on unreliable traditions and molded them to their liking. And they probably invented some stuff from whole cloth, especially Mark and John.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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