"Apparent Contradictions" and the Historical Reliability of the Gospels, Pt 8
In this article, we review and briefly explain the remaining 5 categories under which critics and skeptics bring up accusations of contradictions, discrepancies, or errors against the Gospel writers. And then we will examine three or four difficult cases that are often touted as undeniable proof of contradictions or errors in the Synoptic Gospels.
3. Chronological Problems. In part, we have already addressed this problem in a previous article, where we pointed out that all three Synoptic Gospels follow a general geographical/chronological order, within which stories, discourses, and sayings of Jesus are brought together because of common themes or topics--without violating the Greco-Roman historiographical conventions of the first century. We must remember that from the time of St. Agustine, it was recognized that the Gospel writers did not intend to write a detailed itinerary of Jesus' ministry with every event in its strict chronological order, but at different points in the narrative arrange material under common themes or topics so as to make certain points about Jesus' identity or the true meaning and significance of Jesus' teaching. "Apart from the infancy and passion/resurrection narratives, the gospels simply do not provide enough information about the time and place of the incidents recorded to enable them to be fitted together with confidence chronologically precise harmony...But if one applies the principle of assuming a chronological connection between two portions of the Synoptics only when the text explicitly presents one, then the apparent contradictions of sequence vanish" (Blomberg, "Contradictions in the Synoptics?" The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, p. 127).
4. Omissions. As to why the Gospel writers omit various stories or sayings of Jesus that were found in the sources they used is quite impossible to say; every scholarly attempt to explain these omissions is at best an educated guess based on available evidence. The omissions fall into one of two categories a) omissions of entire passages or b) omissions of various details within passages. For instance, Luke, in his portrayal of Jesus and his ministry, follows a geographical outline that traces Jesus as he travels through Galilee, Samaria, Judaea, Peraea; but he omits what Mark describes as Jesus' "withdrawal from Galilee" (Mk. 6:45-8:26). And in the second category, there is Jesus' well-known teaching on divorce and remarriage. As worded in Mark and Luke (Mk. 10:11-12; Lk. 16:18), it appears that under no circumstances does Jesus ever permit divorce and remarriage; but as it is worded in Matthew, Jesus prohibits divorce and remarriage, "except for porneia (i.e., "sexual immorality, marital unfaithfulness, adultery"). Some critics charge that Matthew has changed Jesus' absolute command as reflected in Mark and Luke because the church, in Matthew's time, found it too severe or impractical. "Yet although the exegesis of these passages is complicated by a number of ambiguous grammatical features, the most convincing solution still remains the one which sees Matthew as simply spelling out what Mark and Luke leave implicit. The debate about divorce in Jewish circles in Jesus' day pitted the followers of the famous teacher, Hillel, against those of his rival, Shammai. The former took a more liberal view, permitting divorce in a wide variety of circumstances; the latter, only in the case of adultery. In other words, both sides agreed on the exception which Matthew adds, so Jesus could have safely presupposed it without fear of misunderstanding" (Ibid., pp. 131-132).
5. Composite Speeches. Matthew, who in part presents Jesus "as the Prophet like Moses" predicted in Deut. 18:14-18, punctuates his narrative of Jesus' life with five major discourses or "sermons" (chs. 5-7, 10, 13, 18, 24-25). These discourses are unparalleled in Mark's book, while having several partial parallels which are scattered throughout in Luke's work but having a different context than the ones in which they have been placed by Matthew. As a result, some critics believe Matthew took scattered sayings and then creatively "wove them together" into the five major discourses, filling them in with material of his own making. However, since rabbis in Jesus' time not only gave memorable proverbial sayings, but also regularly spoke in coherent, organized discourse on various themes or topics, many short discourses by Jesus on various topics were either memorized or written down. Therefore, it is more likely that Matthew took these short but complete discourses of Jesus and added related material from other sources that helped round out the five major discourses. This was an acceptable practice in ancient historiography. And in some sections of Luke where similar discourses appear to be given in different locales, we may have examples of itinerant repetition.
6. Apparent "Doublets." This category applies to what appears as repeated incidents common to all the Gospels or just to those within one of the Gospels. This involves records of Jesus doing similar miracles, healings, and feeding the poor that appear in slightly differing contexts, such as Jesus feeding of the 5,000 and of the 4,000 in Matthew and Mark. However, the different contexts and the difference in details indicates that though similar in many ways, these incidents are separate and may have been done for different reasons, which have to be discerned from the context in which they have been placed by the Gospel writers. But they are not, as some think, "fabricated fillers" designed merely to make Jesus look greater than he actually was.
7. Variations in Names and Numbers. This last category involves apparent discrepancies between Gospel parallels that seem to be a confusion of names and numbers. These are often compounded by textual variants where there are variant spellings, or where letters and symbols similar in appearance were often used to represent different numerals. For example, in the story where Jesus heals the demoniac "Legion," Mark and Luke say he did so in the region of the Gerasenes (Mk. 5:1; Lk. 8:26), while Matthew says he did so in the region of the Gadarenes. Apparently, there were two cities across the lake from Galilee, Khersa and Gerasa, the one close to the shore and the other 35 mi. inland; yet both were commonly referred to as Gerasa. Matthew, sensing the ambiguity, gives the name of the province in which Jesus performed the miracle. And then there the complex variations of the names found in the family genealogies of Jesus in Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38. Several explanations have been given, but the best explanation is that Matthew is giving the legal succession list for Joseph as a descendant of David, while Luke's genealogy refers to Joseph's actual parents and their family tree. And as for confusing numbers, Matthew 21:7 has often been read as though Jesus straddled two animals as he rode in triumph into Jerusalem, contrary to what the other Gospels say. However, ambiguous grammar is the problem; most commentators state that the second "them" in the sentence refers to the garments placed on the donkey's colt and that Jesus sat on them, not on two animals at the same time.
Well, though I've only touched the highlights, I think I've shown that there are reasonable explanations and solutions to many so-called "discrepancies" or "contradictions." And so, as far as I am concerned, the overall historical reliability of the Gospels remains intact, and the certainty of what they record of Jesus' life, words, and deeds still stands.