The Differences in the Gospels

[spiritletter]

Dear Forum: I'm rediscovering Christianity at age 65 and rereading the gospels. A priest from Madagascar told me that when he read John, he thought, "If this isn't true, nothing is." I found John deeply moving, full of mystery, and decided I would read all four of the gospels, beginning with Matthew. I was somewhat shocked at how harsh and militant Matthew seemed compared to John. The voice is entirely different. It feels like theology, and not the insightful and poetic wisdom offered by John. In places, I find it downright spiteful: Christ shrivels a fig tree simply because there were no figs on it when he was hungry. This is not the Christ of John. I'm beginning Mark, today, and look forward to other comparisons.

I'll say right off that I don't think the Bible was dictated by God, but I do believe that it offers insights about the original spirit of Christ, however transformed by language and culture. I am not a scholar, so working my way through this is difficult. I'm interested in hearing from those with greater knowledge. I'm not interested in hearing from fanatics or extremists.

Thanks, and blessings.

SL

[Goat]

I am fascinated with Origen because he presents interpretations of scripture that are multi-leveled, do not negate the literal dimension, but offer alternatives to the more apparently irreconcilable passages.

You might be interested in reading the Jewish translation of the OT, with the commentaries from Rashi (a 10th century Rabbi).

You can either have an older Jewish translation straight, or one that has the commentary from Rashi right after the specific passages.

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo ... -Rashi.htm

[spiritletter]

Mere Christian: I realize that this thread, which was about the gospels, has strayed somewhat to include the Old Testament. My original intent was to explore the differences in tone and not to point out contradictions. I think I "took the bait" offered by one respondent and went off course.

By "tone" I mean the author's content toward the material. For example, I found John most convincing because he offers less moralizing and more mystery. I found Matthew and Mark to present Christ as a more combative person, and I'm just now beginning Luke, so I don't really have an opinion.

It's not enough to agree upon what happened; it is also important for us to examine the perceptual abilities of the witnesses. I'm told that Matthew wrote about three generations after the death of Christ, and that Mark was perhaps the one who lived closest to the life of Christ, and may actually have known him. And yet, I find that Matthew and Mark are both terse in tone, and feel something more authentic in John. I think I mentioned earlier that a Priest once said to me that when he read John, he said to himself, "If this is not true, nothing is." John had the same effect on me.

One of the issues I have with contemporary Christianity is that I feel that the more people moralize, the farther they are from Christ. Christ, especially in his parables, blasted apart such hypocrisy. I am drawn to the Christ of love, and not the Christ of Judgment. Those passages in the Gospels that depict Christ as threatening people with damnation, if taken in a literal sense, turn me off. Not because I am afraid of Hell, but because I think these passages were interpolations of the author. The early church got pretty heavy-handed with its conversion rhetoric and I suspect that the spirit of Christ is not always with them.

[Goat]

Mere Christian: I realize that this thread, which was about the gospels, has strayed somewhat to include the Old Testament. My original intent was to explore the differences in tone and not to point out contradictions. I think I "took the bait" offered by one respondent and went off course.

By "tone" I mean the author's content toward the material. For example, I found John most convincing because he offers less moralizing and more mystery. I found Matthew and Mark to present Christ as a more combative person, and I'm just now beginning Luke, so I don't really have an opinion.

It's not enough to agree upon what happened; it is also important for us to examine the perceptual abilities of the witnesses. I'm told that Matthew wrote about three generations after the death of Christ, and that Mark was perhaps the one who lived closest to the life of Christ, and may actually have known him. And yet, I find that Matthew and Mark are both terse in tone, and feel something more authentic in John. I think I mentioned earlier that a Priest once said to me that when he read John, he said to himself, "If this is not true, nothing is." John had the same effect on me.

One of the issues I have with contemporary Christianity is that I feel that the more people moralize, the farther they are from Christ. Christ, especially in his parables, blasted apart such hypocrisy. I am drawn to the Christ of love, and not the Christ of Judgment. Those passages in the Gospels that depict Christ as threatening people with damnation, if taken in a literal sense, turn me off. Not because I am afraid of Hell, but because I think these passages were interpolations of the author. The early church got pretty heavy-handed with its conversion rhetoric and I suspect that the spirit of Christ is not always with them.

If you are interested specifically in the Gospel of John, a source that you might find interesting because it introduces many concepts brought up in the Gospel of John but reinvented by mainstream Christianity would be the
writings of Philo of Alexandria. You might want to look at this link and see
who Philo used the concept of Logos, and compare it with the GOJ.

http://www.socinian.org/philo.html

[spiritletter]

Mere Christian: I realize that this thread, which was about the gospels, has strayed somewhat to include the Old Testament. My original intent was to explore the differences in tone and not to point out contradictions. I think I "took the bait" offered by one respondent and went off course.

By "tone" I mean the author's content toward the material. For example, I found John most convincing because he offers less moralizing and more mystery. I found Matthew and Mark to present Christ as a more combative person, and I'm just now beginning Luke, so I don't really have an opinion.

It's not enough to agree upon what happened; it is also important for us to examine the perceptual abilities of the witnesses. I'm told that Matthew wrote about three generations after the death of Christ, and that Mark was perhaps the one who lived closest to the life of Christ, and may actually have known him. And yet, I find that Matthew and Mark are both terse in tone, and feel something more authentic in John. I think I mentioned earlier that a Priest once said to me that when he read John, he said to himself, "If this is not true, nothing is." John had the same effect on me.

One of the issues I have with contemporary Christianity is that I feel that the more people moralize, the farther they are from Christ. Christ, especially in his parables, blasted apart such hypocrisy. I am drawn to the Christ of love, and not the Christ of Judgment. Those passages in the Gospels that depict Christ as threatening people with damnation, if taken in a literal sense, turn me off. Not because I am afraid of Hell, but because I think these passages were interpolations of the author. The early church got pretty heavy-handed with its conversion rhetoric and I suspect that the spirit of Christ is not always with them.

If you are interested specifically in the Gospel of John, a source that you might find interesting because it introduces many concepts brought up in the Gospel of John but reinvented by mainstream Christianity would be the
writings of Philo of Alexandria. You might want to look at this link and see
who Philo used the concept of Logos, and compare it with the GOJ.

http://www.socinian.org/philo.html

Thanks for the website. Wow.

[Mr. Fess]

Uno mas: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/ordorise.html

The significance of different details in the accounts (from the standpoint of evidence)

No one disputes that the surface structure of the Easter narratives contains a large number of differences in details. The narratives themselves are not complete, of course, since each author selected only the details relevant to his literary purpose; so we would expect SOME LEVEL of complementary information (which is sometimes interpreted as 'contradiction'!), but the amount of these surface differences has historically been quite a discomfort to the casual reader or beginning student.


In actual fact, however, these differences serve both to (1) 'tip us off' to the author's intended purpose (e.g. what facts from a shared body of information did the author SELECT to include)--VERY important to exegesis; and to (2) lend additional weight to the credibility of the accounts! While it might seem odd to a reader to say that the apparent discrepancies between the narratives ENHANCES THE CREDIBILITY of those narratives(!), this is exactly what experts in evidence say.


So, retired judge and lawyer/solicitor/barrister Herbert C. Casteel (Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, College Press: 1992, 2nd rev.; p. 211ff):

"The internal evidence of the resurrection accounts: Each of the four Gospels gives an account of that first Easter Sunday when Jesus arose from the tomb. When we first read these accounts it appears they are in hopeless contradiction. Matthew says it was Mary Magdalene and the other Mary who went out to the tomb. Mark says it was Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome. Luke says it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them, and John mentions only Mary Magdalene. Furthermore, they all mention different people to whom Jesus appeared on that day.

Does this mean that these are false reports, made-up by dishonest men to deceive us? On the contrary, this is good evidence that these are truthful accounts, because people who conspire to testify to a falsehood rehearse carefully to avoid contradictions. False testimony appears on the surface to be in harmony, but discrepancies appear when you dig deeper. True accounts may appear on the surface to be contradictory, but are found to be in harmony when you dig deeper."

Indeed, legal writer Clifford, in discussing the "minor variations test" for authenticity of evidence, notes that differences are EXPECTED from witnesses (Leading Lawyers' Case for the Resurrection Canadian Institute for Law, Theology, and Public Policy, Inc: 1991, 1996; p. 61):
"The minor variations test. ... Whilst truthful witnesses complement each other, a judge would not expect them to describe the same incidents in precisely the same way. If they did, that would point to conspiracy. Sometimes there may not be total uniformity in the order of events. One anticipates variations when two or more people testify about the same incident."
It is interesting that the most in-depth recent work on these events, by John Wenham, a biblical scholar (Easter Enigma, Baker: 1992, rev. ed.) describes a SIMILAR pattern. So, pp.10-11:
"I first became interested in the subject in 1945 when living in Jerusalem not far from the old walled city. I got to know the sites in and around the city intimately. I had no real doubts that the gospel writers were honest and well informed people, providentially equipped by God to give the church a sound account of these events, but I was by no means committed to the view that the accounts were correct in every detail. Indeed I was impressed in my early studies of the resurrection stories by the seemingly intractable nature of the discrepancies.

It is by no means easy to see how these things can be fitted together while remaining strictly faithful to what the writers say. But an insatiable curiosity made me want to know who did what and why each writer put things so. Reading all I could and studying the Greek text carefully, I gradually found many of the pieces of the jigsaw coming together. It now seems to me that these resurrection stories exhibit in a remarkable way the well-known characteristics of accurate and independent reporting, for superficially they show great disharmony, but on close examination the details gradually fall into place."

Finally, consider the comment by German classical historian Hans Stier:
"the sources for the resurrection of Jesus, with their relatively big contradictions over details, present for the historian for this very reason a criterion of extraordinary credibility."

(Cited in BLOM:103, who points out that we would 'prefer' to add the word "apparent" in front of his word choice of "contradictions"...)



The point should be clear--the surface structure IS puzzling; but instead of casting doubt on the passages, this structure actually turns out to be a reason to accord the narratives higher credibility. Now, this credibility can only 'last so long' as the accounts can still be reasonably and honestly synchronized. And Wenham, who is a biblical scholar and NOT a legal practitioner, is aware of the patterns of credible reporting.


Thus, the the differences in the accounts are very IMPORTANT to us--they give us additional reason to trust the testimony of these men who died to get this message of Jesus to us, and they give us important assistance in helping us understand this message!

////

MereChristian,
I like you. Great response!