Multiple Independent Plagiarists: Luke, the Compiler

Welcome to Part 3 of my series "Multiple Independent Plagiarists" (if you want to start from Part 1, you can find it here).

As we established in Parts 1 and 2, Mark's gospel was far from being an eyewitness account of remembered history. It was in fact, a fictional drama set in a pseudo-historical landscape, by a Greek author who had probably never set foot in the region. From there we determined that Matthew's gospel too was not an eyewitness account, but had simply taken Mark's drama, blatantly plagiarized from it, and attempted to historicize Mark's work, in an effort to create a new religion (If Joseph Smith and L. Ron Hubbard could do it in a world that was primarily literate, then just about anybody could do it in a time where access to information and fact-checking was sparse and - depending on your region - literacy rates were anywhere from 3-20%).

Now that we have that brief refresher, let's take a look at Luke - the third canonical gospel to have been written - and see if he holds up as an eyewitness of Jesus.

Political Reform and Compulsory Voting

Once upon a time in an Introduction to U.S. Politics class, my Professor was making an argument that may or may not be familiar to many people: he was arguing that voting should be compulsory. He argued that democracy only works when everyone is involved, and therefore everyone should have to vote on penalty of a fine. At the time, I was very much opposed to this idea for a variety of reasons, and truth be told I'm still very leery of the idea of making voting compulsory.

Let's face it, the current Democrat incumbent's drone policy has set new lows for dehumanizing brown people, Republicans are the gun-toting "patriotic" types who love the military beyond all reason (as Bill Maher once said "They're the religious party, worship is in their DNA"), and voting third party is about as useful as voting for Mickey Mouse. If you're seriously anti-war - or even just think that maybe wholesale slaughtering people should be a last resort and not the immediate "go to" plan every time the U.S. has a problem - you really don't have a good option when it comes time for an election. I personally refuse to cast a vote for president because I know that I have no option that does not result in the election of a war-monger, and I refuse to take any action that could be seen as an endorsement of a war-monger rising to a position of power. That said, I think that - with a couple of modifications - this whole "compulsory voting" idea could be a pretty good idea. First let's look at what's wrong, and then we'll look at how to fix it.

Multiple Independent Plagiarists: Matthew's Mighty Makeover

Welcome to the Part 2 of my series "Multiple Independent Plagiarists" (if you missed Part 1, you can find it here).

As we established in Part 1, Mark's gospel was far from being an eyewitness account of remembered history. It was in fact, a fictional drama set in a pseudo-historical landscape, by a Greek author who had probably never set foot in the region. Now that we have that brief refresher, let's move on to Matthew - the second canonical gospel to have been written - and see if he holds up as an eyewitness of Jesus.

Multiple Independent Plagiarists: Mark, the Playwright.

Perhaps my favorite claims from Biblical apologists, is that the gospels are four, independent, eyewitness accounts that all agree with each other perfectly. Of course if you point out all the obvious contradictions in the gospels (for example, when the one, two, three, or five or more women went to Jesus' tomb, were they greeted by one young man who was seated inside the tomb, one angel who was standing outside the tomb, two men who were standing inside the tomb, or two angels who were seated inside the tomb?) they typically backpedal pretty quickly and assert that there are "differences" (being very careful never to say the word "contradictions") but the stories are reliable in that they all tell a more or less similar story, just from different points of view. They further tend to argue that these differences actually increase the reliability of the gospel story because the slight discrepancies prove that the gospel authors were independent eyewitnesses who didn't collaborate or conspire with each other in writing their testimony.

This is a lovely story, but does it hold up to scrutiny?

House M.D. on Near-Death Experiences

House (talking about himself and visions he had): "The patient was technically dead for over a minute."
Wilson: "Do you think he was dead? Do you think those experiences were real?"
House: "Define real. They were real experiences. What they meant... Personally, I choose to believe that the white light people sometimes see, visions, this patient saw: they're all just chemical reactions that take place when the brain shuts down."
Foreman: "You choose to believe that?"
House: "There's no conclusive science. My choice has no practical relevance to my life, I choose the outcome I find more comforting."
Cameron: "You find it more comforting to believe that this is it?"
House: "I find it more comforting to believe that this isn't simply a test."
~ House MD, Season 1, Episode 21