Can religion and philosophy exist independently?

[Philawallafox]

Matthew's account of the nativity includes Jesus and his family living in Egypt until the death of Herod the Great.  We know that this occurred in 4 BC.

Luke's nativity story has Joseph and the pregnant Mary traveling to Bethlehem in response to a census ordered by Augustus, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.  The census (such as it was) administered by Quirinius was around 6 AD.

That's a difference of at least 10 years between the two accounts as far as when Jesus was born.  Again, using historically verifiable data, as you seem want to do.  The two accounts directly contradict each other.  Jesus cannot have been born both before the death of Herod the Great and after the census of Quirinius.

Ok. It's possible that Quirinius was consul in syria in about 7BC and Luke uses the word for governor broadly. But i dunno about this one. I'll have to ask about it. I'll get back to you.

Luke is actually prety widely regarded as a very accurate historian, so I don't think he would get the date wrong by 10 years. It seems more likely to me that there's just something that history lost. People used to discount John because he mentioned a pool that supposedly didn't exist. They found it mid to late (I think it could have been in the seventies) last century.

Which gospel is it again that got geographics wrong, i.e. the author was writing about an area he didn't actually know?

rumborak

can you be more specific?

[hefdaddy42]

Ok. It's possible that Quirinius was consul in syria in about 7BC and Luke uses the word for governor broadly. But i dunno about this one. I'll have to ask about it. I'll get back to you.

Luke is actually prety widely regarded as a very accurate historian, so I don't think he would get the date wrong by 10 years. It seems more likely to me that there's just something that history lost. People used to discount John because he mentioned a pool that supposedly didn't exist. They found it mid to late (I think it could have been in the seventies) last century.

Luke is widely regarded as a very accurate historian by believing Christians, primarily because certain things (like this) are dated very precisely for the time (in the days of such and such, when so and so was in office).  The problem here is that Matthew is also being precise.  They're just completely different.  It's a contradiction, and there are no two ways about it.

[Philawallafox]

Ok. It's possible that Quirinius was consul in syria in about 7BC and Luke uses the word for governor broadly. But i dunno about this one. I'll have to ask about it. I'll get back to you.

Luke is actually prety widely regarded as a very accurate historian, so I don't think he would get the date wrong by 10 years. It seems more likely to me that there's just something that history lost. People used to discount John because he mentioned a pool that supposedly didn't exist. They found it mid to late (I think it could have been in the seventies) last century.

Luke is widely regarded as a very accurate historian by believing Christians, primarily because certain things (like this) are dated very precisely for the time (in the days of such and such, when so and so was in office).  The problem here is that Matthew is also being precise.  They're just completely different.  It's a contradiction, and there are no two ways about it.

I wouldn't be so quick to disregard it. Luke and Matthew both wrote their gospels within one generation of Jesus passing (they had to matthew was one of the 12 and Luke was probably one of the 120 you find in Acts 1) an historical discrepancy would have been obvious to the people of the time. If there is an apparent contradiction then it's much more likely that there's something we don't know than something he doesn't know.

[GuineaPig]

Except there was this city state called Rome, and they liked to keep records and stuff.

[Philawallafox]

Except there was this city state called Rome, and they liked to keep records and stuff.

Yeah there was. So why would Luke have contradicted the Roman records if he was writing to a Roman official We don't have all of rome's records and there is already evidence to suggest that Luke was right anyway. Why is it so unlikely that he knew what he was talking about? He was a doctor, not some knucklehead.

EDIT:
noo fred!
https://www.dreamtheaterforums.org/boards/index.php?topic=17894.0

[Vivace]

My answer to this question is no based entirely on historical evidence. Philosophy and religion WERE placed under the same unbrella and it was only in the last few hundred years that people have decided to separate out philosophy and religion when philosophy is used to help us define the terms that are part of the "divine knowing". There are independent philosophical stances yes, but philosophy as a discipline and religion are most certainly homogenious. Religion reveals the divine world in human and divine terms while philosophy can reveal the divine world only in human terms.