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How Should We Think About Apparent Contradictions in the Gospels?
Most Studied Books in History
For years now, one of my favorite classes to teach in a seminary context is one on the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These are interesting for students and all Christians for the obvious reason that these are the only four documents we have that tell us about the actual earthly life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus.
We spent a lot of time, and rightly so, in these four books, and people often have a favorite. You ask them what their favorite Gospel is, and a lot of people will say John. Some like Matthew, Luke, or Mark. But in the middle of reading these four accounts, it becomes quickly apparent to the average reader that, yes, they tell the story of Jesus, but they tell the story of Jesus in different ways. And they do it in such a manner that it looks like there may be a contradiction or there may be some sort of discrepancy, where one Gospel author says one thing and another Gospel author says another thing.
A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament
Michael J. Kruger
This introduction to the New Testament orients readers to each book’s theology, key themes, and overall message from a Reformed, covenantal, and redemptive-historical perspective—equipping readers to study and teach the New Testament with clarity.
One of the most common objections to the Gospels—and one of the most common objections to the Bible as a whole—is that it contradicts itself, and in particular, the Gospels contradict themselves. They say one thing in one place, and they say another thing in another place, and these things can’t be reconciled, so skeptics say. Upon closer examination, you’ll quickly discover that a lot of these apparent contradictions evaporate quickly when you understand a number of things. So, let me just mention a few of those.
First, you have to realize that when you approach history in the ancient world, you don’t always do it exactly like we do history in the modern world. We tend to think that if you’re going to tell a historical story in the modern world, you always have to say it in chronological order. You always have to quote people exactly verbatim. In the ancient world, that’s not how history was done. Sometimes stories were rearranged in a certain order for thematic reasons. Sometimes, when people would say something, you would summarize what they said or reword it so that your audience would understand. You would paraphrase it or rework it to make it more understandable to your audience. Once you understand that, you realize very quickly that a lot of these so-called contradictions evaporate rather quickly.
These may be the most studied books in the history of the world. That’s not an exaggeration.
The other thing to realize about these apparent contradictions in the Gospels is that leaving out a story is not the same as a contradiction. Some people think, Well, one Gospel account has this story, but the other Gospel doesn’t have it. Well, that’s not a contradiction. You have to remember that a historian can’t say everything. They have a limited amount of space in which to tell their story of Jesus, and so they’re going to be selective for their own context and their own reasons.
Some stories they’ll include, some stories they won’t. But at the end of the day, when you realize you can’t say it all, simply omitting a story is not the same thing as saying there’s an actual contradiction. And so what I usually encourage people to do when they see something that looks like a discrepancy is to recognize that they’re not the first ones to ever read these Gospels.
People have studied these books for 2,000 years. These may be the most studied books in the history of the world. That’s not an exaggeration. There are probably no books in the history of the world that have been more picked apart and more examined than the Gospels. I think it’s reassuring to know that they’ve stood the test of time. When you look at the details, when you do the historical work and you’re careful with the text, you’ll quickly discover that what looks like apparent contradictions actually have answers, and they’ve had answers for a very long time.
Michael J. Kruger is the author of A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the New Testament: The Gospel Realized.
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