Well, this is an interesting question. When you ask which is the most serious I suppose that depends on ones standards.
Certainly the myth that Joseph and Mary were fleeing to avoid the killing of male Jewish babies by Herod is a myth. This was built upon the fact that Herod had married a Jew and in fact had her and eventually her offspring killed. This is a midrashing of the tale of Moses being secreted away as an infant to escape Pharaoh's killing of all male Jewish babies, another myth. It presents the same image/lessons with modern characters and places as the Old Testament.
What occurred was that the writers of the Gospels used people and places from a period of about 100 years after the supposed times of Jesus and used them to weave tales that had lessons to their given communities spiritual needs. Geography is mistaken, times and dates are wrong in general and of course the whole clothe of the passion was formulated from common themes and myths of that era and joined with the "Christian Beliefs" of the time. At this time these stories were not taken literally. It was over a period of another 100 plus years that the case for an historical Jesus was put together.
db
In a message dated 4/21/02 11:17:37 PM !!!First Boot!!!, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Of all the alleged historical errors in the Gospels, which would you say
is the most serious?
POC
