Loading...There is a difference between a difference and a contradiction. A difference can be reconciled; a contradiction cannot. The trick is figuring out which is which.
That’s obviously a big issue when it comes to reading the Gospels of the New Testament. There are many, many differences, and there are also contradictions. Some readers claim that all the contradictions are merely differences – that everything can be reconciled in one way or another. These readers are almost always committed Christians who simply do not think there can be any actual contradictions, since that would mean that one of the writers (or more than one) made a bona fide mistake. Given these readers’ particular doctrine of inspiration, well, that just ain’t right.
On the other hand there are skeptical readers of the New Testament who find contradictions simply everywhere. And, somewhat more surprising to me over the years, there are a lot of critical scholars who assume there is a contradiction in a place where in fact there is simply a difference. I know this because I sometimes ask friends in the field: what do you think is an intriguing contradiction? And they’ll name something that, so far as I can see, isn’t a contradiction at *all*. My sense is that since these scholars aren’t much bothered by contradictions, they don’t spend a lot of time thinking about them.
But some of us do. And the problem is determining which differences are reconcilable and which aren’t (so that these differences are contradictions), and different people have different sensitivities. My personal perspective is
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I agree completely that (1) is a contradiction and that (3) is not. I have a problem with saying that (2) is a contradiction, however. The point is that, assuming that the narratives in Mark and Luke are roughly correct, there is no way for anyone in antiquity to tell them apart. For that you would need to have two observers with modern stop watches, one of them observing the death of Jesus and the other one observing the curtain. Notice that the second observer has to know ahead of time that there is anything at all to be observed. Now all of this is not just anachronistic but ridiculous.
So I read Mark and Luke as saying: someone in the temple noticed that the curtain was torn, no one knew why or how, and all of this happened in the same afternoon when Jesus was crucified. Christians decided that the curtain episode was yet another miracle and filled in some details, such as the exact time the curtain was torn. So, no contradiction. There are only differences in interpretation of the alleged miracle among Christians.
,,,but even though,,,and to a greater and greater extent, I still think it contains a revelation to those who could or can not read a letter, a revelation way beside the litteralists understanding,,,a revelation of unconditional devine love.
Can you please explain what you mean? Your comment does not make sense to me. Are you simply saying that they are all such good stories that it’s irrelevant if they’re true or not?
I don’t find them irrelevant, but I might have difficulty establishing a firm belief that some of them were literally accurate. Some of them may well be “showing the way” stories, parables, symbols or analogies of a deeper messages on a spiritual level. At least that’s how they present themselves to me when I read it.
My position and beliefs have developed in the direction that I give it meaning also on a deeper level of understanding, on another level of our being, not just the here and now visible and physical. You can vaguely find parallels in ideas from non-canonized texts as well, such as the Gospel of Thomas which (in my mind) spiritually “ploughs” a little deeper. You find many such examples throughout history, with a different and also inclusive approach, such as theologians such as Meister Echards, the anchoress Julian of Norwich (the Revelations of the Divine) etc etc.
Another example is the Book of Revelation, which from a literal point of view can have conflicting views on what is found in parts of Paul’s epistle and the Gospels. This particular text presents itself to me, each time I read it, as symbolic of our own human self-transcendence. It is very much about the return of the “prodigal son”, and we are indeed the “prodigal son”, from a unity and a return to this unity. Meister Eckhard provides a proper paradigm in his imagined “ground” of being and unity. The text presents itself to me as a “way to Christ”.
To your question whether I, from my non-scholar view, find it irrelevant whether they are true or not, I would say “no”, but it does not have to be literally true in the sense that it is exactly recorded as written to be true to me.
Both statements about the women seem to be about their states of mind. While they are contradictory, it’s not difficult to imagine the women in a state of fear in which they were both afraid to tell others and desiring to do so simultaneously. Especially upon experiencing an event perceived as supernatural, emotions would be all over the place. Trauma is often like this.
The passages may include the women’s states of mind; but they also include what the women, explicitly, “did”. It is their actions that are contradictory, and their actions are not simply illustrations of their states of mind.
The zombies in Matthew are a difference, but could they also be a contradiction by omission?
I’d think on the way to Jesus’ empty tomb that people would notice the many other empty graves. They might notice the moldy mob heading down to the local watering hole for a ‘stiff’ drink too. The other gospel accounts are silent on this amazing event, which surely signaled the day of judgement.
Omissions aren’t technically contradictions; they are a decision not to mention something.
Jean and I watched the first three of your lectures in the new, unedited release and are very impressed.
Your professionalism shines thru and they’re very educational.
Thanks.
Bart, I agree with your two cases of contradictions.
I imagine the one between Mark and John is the easiest for me to understand. That is, I suppose John took liberty with the death of Jesus during Passover week and deliberately changed the day Jesus died to focus on calling Jesus the Passover Lamb. This could have been a deliberate literary device without intending literal history. Or that view developed from an oral tradition. What are the most common views for this contradiction?
The reasons for the differences between Mark and Matthew on the resurrection are currently unclear to me.
It’s usually thought that John wanted to emphasize that Jesus really was the lamb, so he changed the date of his death.
What’s your take on the various last words of Jesus attributed to him in the gospels? Are those bona fide contradictions? In Mark and Matthew, it’s “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” In Luke Jesus says “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” And in John, he says “It is finished.” My sense is that even if moves can be made to try to reconcile them, it’s something of a misguided effort, because these “last statements” of Jesus reveal the artistic decisions that the authors made in how they chose to portray Jesus. Much of this “reconciling of differences” we see from apologists strikes me as an unfortunate tendency to see the authors as repositories of data rather than literary artists.
They’re only contradictions if they all can’t be historical. I don’t see any strict logical reason for saying that can’t be. THey are clear differences but not contradictions.
Looking at this again, I think there’s at least an implied contradiction here, because (at least in English), the text suggests an immediate temporal succession. Luke’s version says: “Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this he breathed his last” (23:46). The immediacy is strongly implied. Contrast this with John: “When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (1930). Here again, I think it’s strongly implied that these were Jesus’ last words; if Jesus had actually said “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” after saying “it is finished,” then John would be misleading readers by omitting this detail.
I agree that it’s implied. It think a strictly logical reconciler of texts would point out tht it doesn’t *say* it was his last words….
Sure, strictly speaking Jesus could have uttered all 3 statements. One after the other. But only one statement could have been his last. So I would say there is a clear contradiction in what the Gospels dramatically portray as his very final words on the verge of death.
I guess there are differences in how we determine contradictions.
P.1/2
Q; Mr Erman, I was just thinking about this. My question is in regard to Acts 9:7 (they heard a voice) & Acts 22:9 (they did not hear the voice) what’s happening here? 1 more if I may …
And did they see anything or not? And were they left standing or did they fall (see the account in ch. 26). And did Jesus tell him to go to Damascus to meet someont for instrutions or did he himself give instructions? Yup, these are at odds. In the same book!
P.2/2
cf Mk 11:1-27 & Matt 21:1-23.. Surrounding the cursing of the fig tree. The events in question spanned from the triumphal entry to the questioning of his authority. In mark -there’s more days-?
In Mark the action takes place over the course of three days; in Matthew it takes place over two.
I still struggle to see how believers who acknowledge errors in scripture still find the Bible “useful” or authoritative. I was a believer in inerrancy until a couple months ago. Now I’m not sure what I believe and have been doing a lot of research. I haven’t seen any convincing arguments from believers that acknowledge contradictions or errors.
Hello cmayfield33. I find the Bible extremely useful even though it has errors. I actually find I agree with Bart Ehrman on more New Testament issues than I do many conservative brothers and sisters in Christ. Try finding works by Pete Enns or reading Kenton Spark’s God’s Word in Human words. Though I am no biblical scholar (I teach physics) I put some articles up on my own site that are as much about me exploring faith as a deconstructed Christian as they are providing answers for others. Add a .com to my name (Vincent Sapone) with no spaces if you want to see some of them. Hope they help.
Ah! Kent was my student! A really terrific guy.
Thanks for the perspective and the suggestions!
As a believer who acknowledges many errors and contradictions, I still find great value in the Bible. I don’t think it’s value has ever been as a history book, a science text, or a set of infallable rules. It’s a collection of stories about people’s encounters with God and reading it helps me to learn more about my own relationships with God and others. It’s like having a conversation with a wise person who I don’t always agree with. It stretches me to make me more loving, faithful, truthful, and to work harder for justice.
Bart, since in all of the synoptic gospels Jesus claims to be the Son of Man, and Son of Man is a divine, heavenly being, would it not be accurate to say that in all the gospels, Jesus claims to be divine, not just in John?
When he identifies himself as the son of man in the Synoptics he does not do so in a way that indicates a divine status. He uses the phrase as a circumlocution for “I”. As you probably know, there are a lot of scholars who do not think the phrase “son of man” probably *is* a reference to a transcendant being per se. I think for many Jews it was, and for Jesus; but not necessarily for the Gospel writers.
Mark 14:62 Jesus says that he is the one and that Pilate will see “the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
Is this, for Mark, Jesus identifying himself as a divine being?
I think Mark wants his readers to associate Jesus with that Son of Man, and that’s why he portrays the high priest as crying out “blasphemy.” Of course there is no blasphemy in the statemet itself — it is simply indicating that the Son of Man predicted by Daniel would come before the high priest died. But for Mark Jesus himself is the Son of Man, and so within the flow of the narrative it would be a claim of divinity for himself. That would be the closest thing in Mark for Jesus making a divine claim, but it’s obviously very indirect and by inference.
Re: Day of Jesus’ Death
Do you think “John” had his own independent tradition as to what day Jesus died, or do you think the author knew the Synoptic tradition and deliberately changed it to make a theological point? Any way to tell?
Thanks
I think *someone* changed it deliberately and I have no trouble thinking it was the author of the Gospel of John himself.
So, in John’s Gospel, Jesus is eating a “meal” with his followers; in Mark, he is eating the “Passover Meal” with them. Who is telling the truth?
I suspect it really was a passover meal.
With these financially poor men just completing a weeks long journey to Jerusalem, how did they afford to purchase the meal and place to have the meal?
Historically they either begged or had assistance; according to Luke 8:1-3 there were some financial supporters.
Since it seems Luke wants to emphasize the importance of women in the ministry of Jesus by saying women are financially supporting the ministry and therefore that support is likely not historical, then it would seem that the men must have relied on begging.
If they had to beg for food, would it seem more likely that they ate and slept on the street rather than having a formal Last Supper in an Upper Room?
Even if Luke 8 itself is not historical, that does not necessarily mean that Jesus and his disciples could have had no support from others. We don’t know where they had their final meal together, but there’s nothing implausible about them doing it indoors.
1. If Luke 8 is not historical, then what evidence is there of any other financial support?
2. Since Jesus and his followers were poor and lived with poor people, where could they have found someone with so much money that they could finance his ministry?
3. My point about them likely being on the street is (without financial support of some kind) they have no money so they could not have been indoors unless someone let them be in their home for free.
1. That is the only passage that explicitly mentions it, but, just as important there aren’t *any* passages that says they begged. There are though lots of passages that indicate that Jesus was invited into people’s homes for meals and that a number of those attracted to his teachings often had private homes and were sometimes well off. So that would provide *some* support that the band was provided with resources by others. 2. They didn’t need much by way of resources. Food, mainly. And sharing food was a common social activity.
Is it likely that the gospels story of a formal “last supper” in an “upper room” is highly embellished?
Absolutely. I personally don’t think Jesus told his disciples to think of him in the future when they broke bread and drank wine, since they represented his broken body and shed blood.
What I find most interesting, and then frustrating as I think about it longer are the contradictions between Mark and the other synoptics. Do they represent explicit decisions to change Mark ? Casual errors? Or, could Mathew and Luke have had copies of Mark at odds with our surviving witnesses? The latter could conceivably someday be demonstrated by finding such a manuscript… the rest we’ll no doubt never know.
Regarding the additional verses added to the end of Mark’s gospel: When was it first proposed/discovered, that there were verses added?
I ask because I was talking with someone online (in a friendly way) and ended up referring to your New Testament textbook as a source, but I was curious as to the history of that particular discovery.
The problem was recognized already in antiquity. Jerome indicates that most of the Greek copies of Mark don’t have the ending (his Latin vulgate does!). A number of manuscripts that have the ending have a marginal note that indicates that older Greek copies are missing it; and in some manuscripts the passage is marked with an asterisk to indicate that it appears not to be original. As it turns out, in addition to manuscripts that end in v. 8 and those that include teh final twelve verses, some have a shorter but completely different ending; and the longer ending (of twelve verses) is found also in an expanded form. So there were *four* endings to the Gospel that were known, already in antiquity. The problem was recognized early on after the invention of printing. I don’t recall who the first to challenge the longer ending was in the modern period, but certainly the problem was well known by the early 18th century.
My approach to this kind of issue is that “Inspiration is not Dictation”. Biblical narrative is not the “Word of God”, but simply the words of whomever wrote them…since human beings are the authors and “to err is human”, “differences” and “contradictions” should be expected. The important issue is whether these are at odds with the basic message.
Mark has some solid literary features to me. The chiastic-like structure in 2:1-3:6, all the intercalations (e.g. Jairus and the bleeding woman, the fig tree and the temple), the irony of various statements, groups of threes, the messianic secret and the odd ending. It is a bit of an enigma at times.
Assuming there were women running away from an actual tomb, making their silence permanent is not inherently more believable than making it temporal to me. I think we often over-fill the gaps and connect dots we shouldn’t. Mark 14:28 seems to presuppose appearances of the risen Jesus in Galilee regardless of what we make of the silence at the end. He tells Peter: “But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.”
I think the Galilee/Jerusalem locales in Matthew and Luke are contradictory but would be hard pressed to see the women’s silence, which is probably another enigmatic Markan literary device, as contradictory. Assuming that these women are meant to be thought of as retaining this information until their dying day is a bridge built too far. We don’t know what Mark’s audience knew about these women (or didn’t).
It’s not necessary to assume the women were silent “until their dying day”, in order to find conflict in the texts. That’s an enormous overstatement.
Their silence hardly seems incidental. It’s how the original Mark ends. And it need only have lasted for the forty days preceding the ascension to be in conflict with Luke/Acts.
Since Mark was the earliest Gospel written, is it reasonable to think it was the most accurate? Still, when the appearances were added to Matthew, Luke, and John, someone retrofitted a similar ending to Mark to put it in sync with the others? I’ve read there are versions of Mark with the appearances added. Thank you, John
It would make sense on one level, but I think most scholars don’t think it’s a logical necessity. Ofteh early accounts are less accurate than later ones — as we often see in our own newspapers. But there are other reasons for thinking Mark has more historical material in it as a rule. The ending in Mark is not directly *based* on the other Gospels (since there are way more differences than similarities), but it is almost certainly based on the kind of information in circulation that later made it into the later Gospels.
Dr Ehrman,
You’ve said that Professor Metzger was a conservative NT scholar. Does this mean he believed that:
1. The New Testament has no contradictions?
2. The authors of all NT books were who the books claimed they were (at least for the ones that name their authors)?
1. He thought there could be contradictions, but he did not find many; 2. He thought 2 Peter was pseudonymous, but the rest he took to be authentic. He was conservative but would not have called himself an evangelical, and was no where near being a fundamentalist.
Dr Ehrman,
What percentage of your PhD students do you think are believers (an estimate of course 😅)?
Do you think there’s been a change in that number over the years? Has it been increasing? Decreasing?
That’s a great question. Maybe two-thirds? Possibly more? It almost never comes up!
Do you think that number has changed over time? Increasing? Or decreasing?
I guess I’m asking if you think the field of Bible scholarship (NT scholarship at least) is increasingly worked on by believers or atheists?
There aren’t too many atheist Bible scholars. I don’t have much reason to think there are more than before. Most people who are raised or have become atheist have intellectual interests other than the Bible.
Master, please proceed. This post was fantastic!
Things can get nuanced when we ask what counts as a reconciliation. If we presuppose that both accounts purport to be strictly factual, then reconciling them can only mean showing how they can both be strictly factual at the same time. But if the question is simply whether both accounts might have been written by accurately informed people with a devotion to truth, it opens up more possibilities for what a reconciliation can be. For example you can reconcile them by making the case that (in a given instance) one is figurative where the other is literal.
Does this count as reconciliation? I believe that most people, in most contexts, would say yes. But always it comes back to context, what you are trying to show.
In Matthew 27:3-8, Judas returned the 30 pieces of silver to the priests, and they purchased a field with it. But in Acts 1:18 Judas himself bought a field with the money he had been paid. Sure, he died by two different methods in Matthew and Acts, and some Christians try to reconcile the two different deaths — but what about the money? Did he keep it or give it back? He kept the money in Acts, but gave it back in Matthew. That, to me, seems to be a contradiction.
Yup!
both Mk 15: 42 & Jn 19:31 have Jesus coming off the cross on a day called preparation day before a Sabbath how can this be if they have him crucified on different days ?
In Mark the Passover is on Friday (so it is the day of Preapration for Sabbath but not Preparation for Passover) and in John it is on Saturday (So that JEsus is killed on the preparation for the Passover — Friday — which is ALSo the day of preparatoin for Sabbath)
Do I follow you correctly Dr. in Mark jesus is crucified on passover Friday and in John jesus is crucified on passover preparation day Friday. And also thank you
Yup!
I’m looking at John’s gospel in light of the synopsics and John puts the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of Jesus Ministry, in the synoptics it’s during the last week, Some say that it happened twice ,is that probable? Or is John just reworking the sequence of events because also the anointing at Bethany by a woman with a jar of costly perfume took place six days before the Passover john 12:1-8 before the triumphal entry and in the synopsics the anointing at Bethany took place two days before the Passover after the triumphal entry. what are your thoughts, is it a source problem? or is he looking at any of the synoptics?
i’m just wondering what scholars think about John’s sequence of events? thank you Mr Ehrman!
It’s almost always though that John changed the sequence for purposes of his own, to set up the conflict of Jesus and the Jews to the very outset of the Gospel. Historically it almost certainlly could not have happened twice. Jesus would have been arrested on the spot. It also couldn’t happen in the way it’s described in the Gospels where it is place at the end of his life; it has to be exaggerated significantly. Again, they wouldn’t have let him get away with it since the Roman troops were in town precisely to prevent this kind of thing.
thank you Dr. Ehrman.. if I may continue with a few more questions concerning John’s gospel! so I began looking at the gospels, as you have suggested reading them across and boy oh boy. I’ve been camped out here for a little while in Mark at the garden where mark gives us this prayer of agony and the subsequent arrest were Judas steps forward and betrays him with a kiss but John seems to take out this prayer where Jesus repeatedly asked for the cup to pass and inserts the high priestly prayer found in John 17 by the time John gets to the garden scene judas doesn’t betray Jesus but Jesus instead steps forward and asked him who they seek and they say Jesus Nazareth and they all fall to the ground when he says I am he. Obviously we need to let John be John and Mark Be mark. question which of these would you say are more historical or more likely to have happened? It seems there’s no way really to conflate the two whithout destroying them!
Could there have been the high priestly prayer and the prayer agony ? seems unlikely
Yup. It’s a real problem. My sense is that there is no way to know what Jesus told his disciples at his last meal (no one was taking notes and the peole who record it were not only not there but almost certainly didn’t know anyone who was there and were writing 40-60 years after the event. Who can remember the exact words — an entire speech — 30 years later? Let alone someone who wasn’t there). So too with the arrest in the garden. Something happened. And we can probably know the basics of what happened (Jewish was arrested by Jewish authorities in Jerusalem around the Passover and his followrs were massively upset). But the Gospel stories are *stories* (at odds withe each other) not *history* as we normally think of it. Keep reading!
continuing thoughts from the question I just posted, I’m working through the last week of Jesus life in the little small group that I’m over on Sunday mornings For the purpose of showing that these gospels are better read without pretending they’re saying the same thing everywhere all the time… i’ve been telling them the reason John’s gospel is different is because he has a high crystology and Mark’s gospel contains a low christology, is that a fair assessment? the gospels are far more fascinating when you begin to understand them It seems to me….. i’m looking forward to your course on mark haven’t purchased it yet but I’m going to there’s only a few of them that I haven’t purchased yet
That’s definitely one f the very key differences.
thank you for all your feedback Mr Ehrman over the past couple comments I posted about John your feedback and your time it takes to respond to everybody’s questions is much appreciated!
Looking forward to the course on Mark!
i’m not sure if feedback is the right word LOL Just wanna thank you for your response with your years of expertise and scholarship in the New Testament! much appreciated!