Okay, I will just take the position that the gospel's of Mark and John originally did include the virgin birth story, but these stories have been deleted by later scribes who purposefully tried to diminish from Yeshua's birth so as to make people disbelieve the story is authentic.
How would you prove that notion wrong?
You seem to be skipping right over some of my points. I have moved past the argument that the story may have been "added" more than once, and I am willing to stipulate to the fact that the "virgin birth" may be an original thought of Matthew's and Luke's gospel. So, there is no need to keep defending the interpolation argument.
I don't need to prove the story was "added" to provide valid evidence of it's lack of accuracy. But I want to address your reverse scenario.
It would be possible to prove it wrong if there was enough historical surrounding evidence to validate such a claim. For instance:
If we have evidence that all Yisrael believed in a "virgin birth" up until around the period that Mark and Yochanon were written.
If we had evidence that opposition to "virgin birth" teaching was popular in the period Mark and Yochanon were written and this teaching was the drving religious force of the government.
If we had evidence that most other gospels had the story in there BEFORE Mark and Yochanon were written, then suddenly, after 3 to 5 decades, Mark and Yochanon's gospels appear without it.
If we had a religious council commissioned by the pagan government to determine the authenticity of conflicting gospels, and which would be included in the official, government sactioned Scriptures.
These would all be events to raise VALID questions and speculations. You reverse scenario could be addressed the same way if all of the events surrounding it were equally reversed.
We can get into a discussion about the canon of Scripture if you'd like. I definitely do not believe the council of Nicea (325 A.D.) decided the NT canon.
I don't know how to answer that except to say that maybe we need to discuss it, possibly as a separate discussion. I don't know. But if you don't believe that this council had a HUGE influence on the NT canon, you'd be grossly mistaken.
This is the only subject I've ever seen you discuss that you bring up these type of arguments. In all other issues you do an excellent job of explaining your position using Scripture, understanding contexts, looking at Hebrew and Greek words, etc. Even on the issues I disagree with you you still do a great job of presenting your position and rebuttaling other positions. I do not understand why you bring in the "history" argument as well as the "false writings" argument on this particular issue.
I understand what you mean. I guess these types of issues weren't relevant in other discussions. I am still doing an "excellent" job!
. Pay excellent attention! I'm kidding... But let me add this..
Interpreting Scripture and discovering facts and truth can be two separate operations!
We can learn to determine what the Scriptures are actually trying to communicate. Once we do that, we can go about the business of supporting the Scripture with the facts of history, science, geology, etc... if they don't match, we need to find out where the error is... Pen of the scribes? Translators? History books? Paganism?
Isn't it comforting to know that when we look at history and science, etc., it actually corresponds to what the Scriptures say? Personally, that strengthens my faith in the Scriptures.
As I said before, what you claim here for Matthew 1, I could claim for Matthew 12:40. Matthew is the only gospel that records the time element, so I could just argue against the 72 hour proponents that the verse is interpolated and the discussion is closed. I'm sorry Brother, that's extremely weak argumentation, and you know this for I've seen you point it out to others before on other subjects.
I don't believe your comparisons are the same. We don't need to look beyond the words in Matthew to argue against the 72 hour theory. The events of history would not be needed or relevant to defeat that argument. Yours is a "straw man" argument.
Brother, did you actually read my previosu post? I told you that "interpolation" is NOT the only argument relevant to this debate... It's not even the most prevelant argument I am making. I "insinuated" this as a possibility and you have clamped onto it like a pit bull. You are still "beating the drum" of interpolation... I have presented other strong points we have yet to address.
This is the mindset I have and let me humbly say that I do not feel bad about it. I thought this was your mindset when you presented the "precept teaching" that time. You mentioned that some of us had probably heard people claim that the Scriptures were tainted and had been tampered with, etc. but you didn't accept that.
Again, learning to properly interpret the words of Scripture and researching historical facts are two separate things.
The MOST important thing is to learn what Scripture actually says. THEN, if a person wishes to debate it's authenticity against the backdrop of historical facts and/or science, we should not be afraid to engage in such a debate.
Not that we "interpret" Scripture by the history books. We interpret Scripture inductively FIRST, and then see what history says. If there is a conflict, we can research where the error is. History can be wrongly interpreted too!
What I am against, are people who use the "Scripture tampering" excuse as a
convenient cop-out when the Scripture teaches something against their beliefs. I assure you, I do not do this. You know I don't.
You may think so because you don't agree with me on this issue. But be assured, my good friend, if I am presenting arguments related to Scripture authenticity, I have
excellent reasons to do so!
I believe in the books of Matthew and Luke, just like I believe in the book of Romans. There are those out there though who will throw out Romans and every thing else Paul wrote because they believe that they are looking at the big picture and that Paul does not line up with the rest of the Scriptures.
I fully accept Paul's writings because Paul DOES "line up" with the rest of Scripture, so that isn't a valid reason to dismiss the writings of Paul. Again, don't give me "straw man" arguments.
IF there WERE good reasons to question the writings of Paul (even if they were reasons other than "interpolations") I would not be as willing to accept them. You continue to keep suggesting that my questioning the "virgin birth" story is some "mindless", "baseless" decision I am making without any support.
You have just barely scratched the surface of my position. Don't answer a matter before you hear it. Give the debate a chance to unfold a little.