What makes a story ‘true’?

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The recent screening on ITV of the four-part miniseries ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ has brought the plight of hundreds of sub postmasters and postmistresses who, over a period of some 20 years, have been subjected to a massive miscarriage of justice.

What I would like to mention here is not the story itself, gripping and alarming as it is.  Rather, I would like to focus on how the story has been told.  At the beginning of each episode comes the following statement:

‘This is a true story. …

Mk 6:8f; Mt 10:10; Lk 9:3 – Staff, or no staff?

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Mk 6:8 He instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—6:9 and to put on sandals but not to wear two tunics.

Mt 10:9f ‘”Do not take gold, silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for the journey, or an extra tunic, or sandals or staff, for the worker deserves his provisions.”‘

Lk 9:3 ‘He said to them, “Take nothing for your journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, and do not take an extra tunic.”‘…

Acts 9:7/22:9 – What did Paul’s companions see and hear?

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Acts 9:7 (Now the men who were traveling with him stood there speechless, because they heard the voice but saw no one.)

22:9 “Those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me.”

Acts 9:7 appears to be saying that Paul’s companions heard but did not see, whereas according to Acts 22:9 they saw but did not hear.

This apparent discrepancy is discussed as a ‘test case’ in Five Views on Biblical Inerrancy (Zondervan).…

All things new

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I was delighted by Jim Gordon’s New Year reflections, reproduced here in slightly abridged form.

New Creation

2 Corinthians 5.17 ‘If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away—look, what is new has come!’

‘To be in Christ and know Christ in us, is the core experience of Christian faith. Paul calls it new creation; Jesus calls it being born again. It’s what God does.’

New Teaching

Acts 17:19 ‘They took Paul and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are proclaiming?”‘…

Exodus 6:2 – When was the name ‘Yahweh’ first made known?

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Exodus 6:2 “I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.”

The Issue

Source critics point out that this (attributed to ‘P’) appears to contradict Gen 4:26 (attributed to ‘J’), which says that men called upon the name of the LORD as early as the days of Enosh (see also Gen 12:8; 28:13).

Steven DiMattei asks:

‘When was the name Yahweh first invoked: in the earliest generations of man OR not till Moses at Sinai?

…

1 Sam 34:1-4; 2 Sam 1:1-10 – How did King Saul die?

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According to 1 Samuel 34:1-14, Saul asked his armor-bearer to kill him, but the armor-bearer refused, and so Saul fell on his own sword and committed suicide.

However in 2 Samuel 1:1-10 an Amalekite claims to have killed Saul, at his (Saul’s) request.

What should we make of this discrepancy?

Some, such as Ackroyd, think that the two accounts represent two incompatible ‘traditions’ concerning Saul’s death.

Others, such as Brueggemann, are unwilling to adjudicate on the relative historicity of the two accounts.…

The silence of God

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If there is a God, why is his presence not more obvious?

This is a question that has worried believers and unbelievers alike.

We cry out with Job:

Job 23:3 O that I knew where I might find him!

Or with the Psalmist:

Psa 28:1 To you, O LORD, I cry out!
My protector, do not ignore me!
If you do not respond to me,
I will join those who are descending into the grave.

Answers based on unbelief

  1. The answer of the deist is that God has made the cosmos, but has now withdrawn to leave it running by itself. 
…

Exodus 3:1-3 – The burning bush

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3:1 Now Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. 3:2 The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire from within a bush. He looked—and the bush was ablaze with fire, but it was not being consumed! 3:3 So Moses thought, “I will turn aside to see this amazing sight.…

Mt 19:24; Mk 10:25; Lk 18:25 – ‘A camel…through the eye of a needle’

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Mark 10:25 “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

See also Mt 19:24; Lk 18:25.

It is occasionally claimed either that:

(a) kamelos (camel) should be read as kamilos (rope): the two words sounded the same in the days of koine Greek (Cole).  According to Garland, the words of ‘rope’ and ‘camel’ are also similar in Aramaic.…

Paul and the Pastorals: seven questions for doubters

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The Pauline authorship of the Pastoral Epistles (the letters to Timothy and Titus) is often doubted in scholarly circles.  Andrew Wilson notes some ‘probing questions’ from Gerald Bray:

1. Who would have been sufficiently motivated to impersonate Paul, and why?
2. Why did the pseudepigrapher(s) produce three letters when one would have been enough?
3. If (as many claim) the recipients of the Epistles were not deceived, why was their knowledge so easily lost in the next generation?…