Loading...To celebrate our 10th year anniversary from April 18, I’m reposting all my previous (ten) April 18 blog posts. Now I’m up to 2019. In that year I agreed to do a blog debate with a fellow named Matthew Firth, an Anglican rector who studied theology at Oxford University. Firth had challenged me to a debate on whether the Gospels contain contradictions, and offered to donate $1000 to the blog if I managed to convince him. That, of course, was a bit of a joke, since there’s no way on God’s green earth that someone with his mind made up (so much that he wants to debate) is going to change his mind. But it was an interesting ploy and so I said, Why not?
The debate involved a back and forth that spanned part of April including our celebratory anniversary. Here was my opening gambit; I will go ahead and post his response to it and my reply to his response, in the two posts that follow (to which he replied and then I replied to his reply: but I won’t provide the entire season of reruns here….)
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This is the opening gambit in my debate with Rev. Matthew Firth on whether there are contradictions in the Gospels. I believe there are many. He believes there are none whatsoever. So who is right? I would strongly recommend that, if you are really interested in the matter, you actually look up the passages in question and see for yourself.
I will need to be brief on each one, since space is highly restricted. I ended up requiring 1300 words, and so obviously Rev. Firth can follow suit.
- I start with one that may seem completely unimportant, but is, to me, a clear contradiction. In Mark 5:21-24 a man named Jairus approaches Jesus in distress. His daughter is “very ill.” He wants Jesus to come heal her so she doesn’t die. Jesus agrees to go, but before he can get to Jairus’s home, he is delayed by a woman who herself desperately needs to be healed (5:25-34). While Jesus is dealing with her – it takes a while – someone comes from Jairus’s house to tell him that it is too late, the girl has now died (5:35). Jesus comforts Jairus, goes, and raises her from the dead. Matthew also tells the story (Matthew 9:18-26). But in this case Jairus comes to Jesus to tell him that “My daughter has just now died” (9:18). He wants him to raise her from the dead. Jesus goes and do so.
So the contradiction: when Jairus comes to Jesus: does he want him to heal his sick daughter, who unfortunately dies before Jesus can get there? Or does Jairus come only after the girl is dead, wanting Jesus to raise her from the dead? The ones I cite next are on more important matters. If you’d like to read on, join the blog! Click here for membership options
Re: #4
Why do you think the gospel writers made it an either/or proposition? Surely Mark knew about the Jerusalem Church? And Luke knew from Mark the tradition that the disciples went back to Galilee? Why do you suppose they didn’t just record what apparently happened historically, that the disciples went back to Galilee and some of them returned to Jerusalem?
Good questions! I wish I knew.
Maybe in order to fulfil so-called Old Testament prophecy. Theological reasons basically.
Probably Luke did not know the tradition of the disciples going back to Galilee. That might suggest he used a proto-Mark as a source, a version that did not yet include this tradition.
The minor discrepancies can be explained away by simply contending that details were not important to the gospel writers who were trying to convey who and what Jesus was. Artistic license if you will, not contradictions. OK. The real problems for me are 1) the birth narratives are clearly at odds with each other, showing that the writers took great liberties when writing their versions, and that’s a big problem for the integrity of the books. 2} The Gospel of John is clearly at odds with the Synoptics on many points, mainly on the teachings of Jesus. That’s a big problem, as it shows that the writer’s theology is being infused into the story as opposed to a factual account (either John added a lot, or the other 3 omitted a lot of critical teachings!). 3) As Paul says, the resurrection is the most important doctrine of Christianity, yet none of the four gospels agree on what happened after the resurrection. The most important point in the whole story of Jesus and it’s not clear what happened? That’s the last and heaviest straw on my camel’s back.
Is there an understanding as to why the scribes, as they were copying the texts over the years, didn’t resolve the inconsistencies between the texts?
They often did. Textual scholars call such changes “harmonizations,” and you’ll find them all over the map in our surviving manuscripts of the Gospels. Usually, though, these harmonizatons are small matters of wording, not major differences between Gospepsl. That’s because scribes understood themselves to be copying someone else’s work, not creating their own. (Even though with even small changes they *were* in a sense creating their own.)
Bart, as someone who is employed in a secular university, what can you say about major Catholic or religious universities, like Notre Dame or Georgetown… Is their research, scholarship etc. also top level as far as you know?
Ah yes, absolutely. I was actually offered a position at Notre Dame the day before I was offered one at UNC (1988), and Notre Dame had by far the better research faculty in NT/Early Christian studies.
I’ve been interested in No 3 for decades, finding the same issues as you mention. I once talked with a minister about this, and I saw some TV documentaries about it. Based on this, one could make some arguments which at least seem to resolve some of the inconsistensies (although not the one about Egypt). I don’t believe in them, but they can be made:
Mary was from Nazareth, but Joseph was from Bethlehem (Luke doesn’t say he was from Nazareth). That’s why he had to go to Bethlehem to enroll, not because he had an ancestor who lived there 1000 years earlier. But Bethlehem was still a home for the Davidian family, that’s why Joseph lived there.
Joseph stayed in Nazareth just temporarily, until the wedding. They may not have decided whether they should live in Nazareth or Bethlehem after the wedding. When he had to go Bethlehem to enroll, he brought his bethrothed, so that they would be enrolled at the same place.
Joseph had been married before and had older children, who lived in Bethlehem, and there was not room for Mary and the child in Joseph’s old Bethlehem home, hence they had to stay with the animals.
But there’s no independent record of such a census, and such a census, requiring a return to one’s ancestral homeland, would have been unprecedented in the empire’s history. Pure invention. Of course, that falls into another category: the blatantly fictional rather than mere contradiction or inconsistency.
I think you är right that the census is fictional. My post is just as mind game, more of less. But the idea is that Joseph should enroll in Bethlehem because he lived there, of had lived there intill recently, not because an ancestor of him used to live there 1000 Tears berör.
Here’s the deal dr E, and you know this: NOBODY in church reads the Bible. At best, they connect the dots between their favorite doctrines and memorize a few verses here and there as if the Bible contained one contiguous systematic… anything… that stretched from Genesis to Revelation. Of course it doesn’t. As you and every serious student of the Bible knows, books that share common material were written by different authors in different places at different times to different people for different reasons.
I dont know why exactly Mark thinks the spirit drove jesus into the wilderness and Matt and luke think it led him, etc. The writers chose to arrange the material in the way that best made their point, whatever that point might be. All good writing is done that way. Your books are a case in point.
The gospels aren’t history. The deuteronomistic history is not history either. Neither is Chronicles. They are all meant to illustrate a point, sometimes these points fly in the face of one another.
Here’s my question: who in antiquity is a writer of history, for history’s sake? Within the literary conventions they were constricted by, who wrote better “history” than the gospels?
THere were, of course, a large number of historians from antiquity whose works we still have: Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, Jospehus and others. Starting with Thucydides esp. historians started developing methods of more accurate reporting and would usually be considered better historians than the Gospel writers. On the other hand, the Gospels are really more like biographies than histories, and that too was an important genre, leading figures of which would be considered Suetonius and Plutarch, e.g.
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yes! and every time i put my Nike tennis shoes i smile and think of Pheidippides… after all grandpa Joe Herodotus Friday is as historically actuate as the day is long. Just the facts, thats all he wrote. We all know now, if you want to lift huge stones and build pyramids all you gotta do is have a beautiful daughter and offer that everybody who helps lift one of them gets to… uh… no. Not remotely historically reliable
These guys didnt write what actually *happened*, they took far more liberties than the gospel writers did. Philo for example in his life of Moses could reverse overturn row v wade because according to his *history* Moses’ parents were so sorry they didnt kill wee beebie Moses before he was a newborn old because everybody knows – according to him – babies weren’t real humans until after they had began to eat solid food. Is that more historically reliable than the gospels?. Indicting them with being historically unreliable is post enlightenment. I argue that our concept of writing history, for the sake of history is also.
Are any ancient *historians* more faithful to actual events than the gospel writers?
Yes. Most. As I said. Have you read any roughly contemporary with them, e.g., Livy or Josephus, or Tacitus? They aren’t completely reliable, but they are far more accurate as a rule.
Continuing my previous post. A far fetched attempt to solve the Egypt contradiction (I don’t believe this at all, but it’s fun to speculate):
After they made the sacrifices in the Jerusalem Temple, Joseph and Mary returned to Nazareth for the wedding. Joseph may have tried to acquire a residence for himself, Mary and the child while in Bethlehem, but failed thus far – thus, they had to live in Nazareth for a while. Some time later (at most two years), Joseph finally succeeded in acquiring a residence i Bethlehem, and they moved there. Not until then, the astrologers/wise men showed up. It is often pointed out that Herod asked the atrologers how long the star had been visible, and later ordered the murders of all boys in Bethlehem up to two years of age, not just the newborns, indicating that some time had elapsed since the birth of Jesus.
Joseph, Mary and the child had to flee to Egypt. They returned after Herod’s death, but not to Bethlehem and Judaea, fearing Archelaus, but to Nazareth, where Jesus grew up.
Dr. Ehrman: Here is a question set forth no one seems to ask or have concern over! In your view, if the four Gospel writers assembled together in a room, opened up their Gospels, read them to one another, discussed it, what do you think would happen? Would they agree with each others point of view, or snarl at one another and accuse each other for fabricating the TRUTH? (I often ponder this question to myself when I read the four accounts.)
My sense is that they would find a lot of common ground — especially Matthew, Mark, and Luke; but they all would have key differences, some of them very important to them (did Jesus keep is identity secret? was Jesus’ death an atonement for sins; did Jesus call himself God?) — and if there were bound and determined to stick by their guns on the details, then they would be at each others throats.
Eusebius had a good go at reconciling some of these contradictions. He is often very creative and sometimes even funny, like when he explains why Jesus outdid himself by rising from the dead before the three days were up! The Greek texts and English translations are available free online as a PDF in an edition by Roger Pearse.
https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2015/12/12/eusebius-of-caesarea-gospel-problems-and-solutions-now-online-in-english/
I think the disciples fled to Galilee immediately after Jesus’ crucifixion or even after he was arrested. They would have feared for their lives.
Bart, using the criteria you use for the gospels, do you believe there is any historian who wrote enough in the ancient world, whom you would call reliable?
I think there are historians who did a lot of research and did a very good job, given their limited resources, yet. Thucydides, Polybius, Livy, etc.
So, take #3 due to its importance. Would these texts be what are considered the M and L sources? If so, were the authors likely working from oral traditions rather than extant text? They were writing some 50 to 60 years after the events and pushing individual points of view so…. maybe its surprising they are as close as they are.
Yes, the infancy narratives would belong to “M” (Matthew’s special source of informaton) and “L” (Luke’s). There is no way to know if M and L were simply one written source each, or a number of written sources each, or oral traditions each author heard, or a combination of written and oral sources. The striking thing about these infancy narratives is that they agree that Jesus’ parents were Joseph and Mary, that his mother was a virgin, that he was born in Bethlehem, but that he came from Nazareth. By the 80s, this kind of basic tradition could well have been around in different communities. But on every detail the two accounts differ, showing they didn’t come from the same source. And they are at odds precisely at all the key points: how did it happen? So I think both the similarities and the contradictions are easily explaine. But it is extrmely hard to maintains there aren’t any contradictions, since the contradictions are up and down the line.
Hi Bart. May I ask an unrelated question ?
Numbers 5 11-31 : Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou asserts that this passage presents an ancient abortion ritual, commanded by God, and performed by a priest. Do you agree ?
https://twitter.com/ProfFrancesca/status/1540422206177660931?cxt=HHwWhsC-tbj11uAqAAAA
Thank you.
It does appear to be that, yes.
Thank you.
Looking forward to reading her new book! God: An Anatomy
Bart – why and when did the idea of biblical inerrancy come into the Christian tradition? It seems like early Christians we’re sometimes open to multiple interpretations of recorded events and had a higher tolerance of discrepancy than modern fundamentalists, or medieval Church fathers, say. And as you point out, ancient Christian scribes seemed ready to “harmonize” texts without too much anguish. Were first century Jews also committed to the absolute inerrancy of their Old Testament scriptures, or did strict inerrancy come along as a later Christian concept? Seems Christians could just as easily have said “You know what? Man can’t be expected to transcribe the word of God without an error. We don’t have the skill even when led by the Holy Spirit. The message of Christ in summary is all that matters”. I know you’ve written extensively on the actual contradictions in the scriptures, but have you ever thought of writing a book on the very doctrine of inerrancy itself? It’s such a destructive idea and one that’s so easy to attack and so hard to defend.
The modern idea that every word is exactly right rose at the end of the nineteenth century when scientists started realizing how old the earth was and how natural selection/evolution worked. Biblical theologians doubled down and insisted the world was created in six days and Adam did not derive from other forms of primates. In America this took off with the Niagara Conferences in the 1890s. For a good history see Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism.
Regarding #1 and #3, “Its all Greek to Me” (lol).
My main comment is regarding #2
I am the product of an unmarried couples sexual activities and was put up for adoption the day of my birth. I spent 10 weeks with a foster parent then legally adopted to two of the most loving parents and extended families any child could have. I grew up knowing I was adopted and that no matter how much I “wanted”, I was not biologically related to that family. I was fully accepted by those parents and families and very much felt an equal “member” of those families, but I was not an “ancester” in the “lineage” of those families.
My point is that my “legal” (adoptive) status in a family does not insert me into the “ancestrial” lineage of a family. I am “not” a descendant of my adoptive father or mother.
After 67 years, a DNA test and two years of searching I finally found my true Maternal and Paternal lineage. To pass off a contradiction of the lineage of Jesus affecting either 27 grandfathers or 4O grandfathers Luke vs Matt) based on “Legal” is perposterous in real life.
I have question related to No 3.
Matthew 2:22 reads, according to NRSV:
“But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee.”
My question is about the little word “go”. In the modern Swedish translation (Bibel 2000), the word used in the corresponding place is “återvända”, which means “return”. If this translation is correct, or at least possible, this, IMHO, strengthens the interpretation that Joesph and Mary used to live in Judea permanently before, thus not in Galilee.
But is this Swedish translation correct? What is the original Greek word, and what does it mean? Can it mean “return”, or does it just mean “go”?
It’s a weird statement in Greek, actually, The word is APERXOMAI which definitely does not mean to “go *back*” to a place (i.e, “return”). It meand to “go *away*” from a place. So the question is what the “there” means. It seems like it must mean “Egypt” — he did not want to leave Egypt because Archelaus was ruling Judea. That must mean that he thought Judea was his only choice until he had a revelation in a dream that he could relocate in Nazareth. I’ve never noticed this before, and to my knowledge never heard any discussion about it among scholars. But I’m sure there’s some out there!
Thanks for the reply. Interesting! So you mean that the Greek text means: “He was afraid to leave [Egypt]”?
Both an older Swedish version (1917) and King James Version say clearly that he wanted go TO a place (although not necessarily RETURN to a place). This is what the archaic phrase “go thither” in KJV means, right?
The early Latin translation, the Vulgate, reads:
“audiens autem quod Archelaus regnaret in Iudaea pro Herode patre suo timuit illo ire et admonitus in somnis secessit in partes Galilaeae”.
I don’t understand Latin, but by using Google Translate to translate this to both English and Swedish, we see that the relevant phrase translates to phrases meaning “go TO a place”.
Now, I think that most older translations of the Bible into most languages are based upon the Vulgate, possibly via other languages, because most Medieval and Early Modern scholars knew Latin but not Greek, right?
So, perhaps the 5th Century translator who wrote the Vulgate made a mistake, and thougt that the original meaning in Greek was “go TO a place”, while it in fact meant “go FROM a place”, and that this mistake passed into many translations to other languages during more than 1000 years!
It seems to be what it’s saying, yes. Wierdly. It is decidedly not a reference of going “to” a place, at least in normal usage.s
What about the Latin text? Does it, which I suspect, mean “go TO”? (For in your reply, you meant the Greek text, right?)
The later Latin rendition of the passage simply has “to go” (ire) And yes, when dealing with what the author wrote, I stick with the Greek.
I realise that this post offers an opportunity to put a question that has long puzzled me; it follows on from problem 4; whether the Jesus appears to the disciples in Galillee (so, Matthew) or in Jerusalem (so, Mark (as we have it), Luke and John)?
I seem to recall your saying that you believe Matthew’s account is the more reliable – and it does seem more likely that Galilee appearances have been relocated to Jerusalem than the other way round.
But then we have Paul’s statement: “.. he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”
So Paul appears to have been told, and certainly believed, that something amounting to a resurrection happened “on the third day”. So did Paul believe that this occurrence “on the third day” happened in Jerusalem or Galilee? Galilee is a bit too far to get from Jerusalem in three days, I would think. Or is Paul not counting from the Crucifixion, simply saying that Jesus was raised on a Tuesday? If so, how would he know?
Great question. I’m not sure whwere or when Paul thought Jesus appeared to Cephas. He doesn’t say it was three days later. When he includes himself as someone Jesus appeared to, he uses the same language but is referring to an event that must have been three years later or so.
One supposition might be, that the event that Paul believed occurred on the third day was the women finding the empty tomb?
But I don’t buy that; partly because it is just too neat and congenial, but mainly because the empty tomb traditions are unanimous in dating that on the “first day”.
Or maybe the ” third day” resurrection could be entirely hypothesised from the OT sources; and not correspond to any witnessed occurrence? But I read Paul here as listing what he understood to be public events?
My sense is that Paul thinks Jesus was raised on the third day and that’s all that matters; that doesn’t mean he thought anyone *knew* about it on the third day. “The third day” is — as you suggest — probably based on messianic necessities (Hosea 6:2; Jonah?) not on witnesses. And of course there’s nothing to suggest that Paul knows about the women discovering the tomb, either then or any other time.
Hi Bart,
Aren’t the contradictions made worse or more intriguing by the fact Matthew bases his Jairus story on Mark? So, then the question becomes why did Matthew change it and what was his theological perspective for doing so?
Yup, he intentionally changes Mark’s stories, and in every case one has to ask why. Sometimes it’s to improve or change the meaning; sometimes he is just condensing; sometimes he’s heard another version that he prefers; etc.