I am talking about how I came to understand and appreciate the Bible once I realized that there were widely different perspectives presented in one author or another – even when talking about the same thing.  The example I’m using is the Gospel portrayals of Jesus’ death.  In my previous post I laid out how Mark depicts it; here I will discuss how Luke does.  What I came to see (back when I was a graduate student, still a committed Christian but no longer a fundamentalist) was that it was both fruitless and impoverished to think the two Gospels were both trying to say the same thing.   Each of them is rich in meaning, but they meaning they ascribe to the event is very different.  Failing to appreciate the difference means failing to understand each author and the point that he is trying to make.

Here is what I say about Jesus’ death in Luke, in contrast to Mark, in my book Jesus Interrupted.

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Luke’s account is also very interesting, thoughtful, and moving.  But it is very different from Mark’s (Luke 23:26-49).  It is not just that there are discrepancies between the accounts in some of their details; the differences are bigger than that.  They affect the very way the story is told and, as a result, the way the story is to be interpreted.

As in Mark, Jesus is betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter, rejected by the Jewish leaders, and condemned by Pontius Pilate.  He is not, however,…

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