How Apologists for Inerrancy Operate

 To rework something Eric Svendsen wrote about Catholic apologists and papal infallibility in light of Zosimus, Honorious, et al:

 

It is abundantly clear by reading the Evangelical Protestant apologists that they will not accept any evidence that overturns biblical inerrancy. No matter how badly a text has erred - historically, chronological or otherwise - no charge against biblical inerrancy will ever stick. It would save us a lot of time if Evangelical apologists will simply admit this. In reality, this is nothing short of historical gymnastics and wishful reconstructions at best - and blatant dishonesty at worst, especially as they would never apply the same standards to other works such as the Book of Mormon and the Qur’an, and the additional books of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox canon (e.g,. 1-2 Maccabees).

 

Here is a recent example of this which I watched today:

 

The ABCs of Apparent Biblical Contradictions | Robert Bowman (cf. "The Bible Has Problems, and It's a Good Thing, Too!" | Robert M. Bowman, Jr.)

Another example of this comes from the apologist's article Was Mary Magdalene Far from or Near the Cross? A Case Study in Gospel Differences:

Might the Synoptics or John Have Made an Error?

Before concluding that this harmonization of the accounts should be accepted, however, we should ask whether a better type of explanation is available. The simplest alternative explanation is that either the Synoptics or John made a mistake. Perhaps the Synoptics are right about the women standing at a distance, whereas John mistakenly thought they were standing near the cross. Or perhaps it was John who got it right and the Synoptics who got it wrong (though it is rare to find anyone taking this view). Why not just admit that someone erred?

It is, of course, possible that one or more of the Gospels is mistaken in this matter. However, just as we ought to scrutinize a proposed harmonization to see if it accounts well for the evidence, we also ought to scrutinize the proposal that one or more of the Gospels made an error. That is, for both proposed harmonizations and proposed errors, we should ask what evidence there is to support these proposals.

With regard to the location of the women relative to the cross, the evidence of an “error” is nothing more than the verbal difference between John and the Synoptics taken out of context. In order to substantiate the alleged error, we would need to show that the passage of six hours is irrelevant and that even during such a protracted period of time it is unlikely that the women would have moved. There does not appear to be any rational way to make such a case. By contrast, we were able to adduce three distinct pieces of evidence that form the basis of a converging argument for the proposal that the women moved locations.

If one’s goal is to show that a contradiction may be present, this is a low bar that is easily navigated. However, if one’s goal is to show that a particular difference is best explained as a contradiction, the bar is higher and the difficulty of making the case increases. Here, there is really no contest: the case for harmonization is much better than the case for error.

Elsewhere, the same Protestant apologist abuses some sources he uses to make his case  with respect to who spoke to the women at the tomb, wrote the following:

Who spoke to the women at the tomb? The Gospels identify one or two figures whom the women found at the tomb, giving verbally different descriptions:

·       “an angel of the Lord” whose “appearance was as lightning, and his clothing as white as snow” (Matt. 28:2, 5-6)

·       “a young man . . . dressed in a white robe” (Mark 16:5)

·       “two men . . . in dazzling apparel” (Luke 24:4)

·       “two angels in white” (John 20:12)

Only by looking in a superficial way at the words in these passages one might suppose that they disagree about whether the messengers were human or angelic beings. Let’s start with the Gospel of Mark, which describes the young man at the tomb as wearing “a white robe.” This detail itself suggests something unusual about the figure. The only other use of the term “white” (leukos) in Mark is in his description of Jesus’ garments in his transfiguration (Mark 9:3), in which Jesus’ true status as a person of heavenly glory was temporarily revealed. Adela Yarbro Collins, in her academic commentary on Mark, explains: “The motif of white or shining clothing typically characterizes angels and other heavenly beings. In Second Temple Jewish texts, it was a widespread convention to speak of angels as ‘men’ or ‘young men’” (Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007], 795). The women encounter this “young man,” they are “amazed” when they see him, he delivers a message from God, and he is not heard from again (Mark 16:5-7). Ancient readers, especially those steeped in Jewish culture, would have had no trouble at all recognizing the “young man” of Mark’s account as an angel. (Robert M. Bowman Jr., Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions: Examining the Foundations of Christianity and Mormonism [Tampa, Fla.: DeWard Publishing Company, 2020], 88-89)

It is true that Collins, in her commentary on Mark, argues that in the Second Temple period, “[young] man” was often used of an “angel.” As she notes:

The OG of Dan 8:15-16 refers to Gabriel and to another heavenly being, respectively, as ανθρωπος (“a man” or “a human being”); Θ uses the term ανηρ (“a man”) instead. Both versions refer to Gabriel as ανηρ in 9:21. A mighty angel, probably Gabriel, is referred to in 10:5 in the OG as ανθρωπος (“a man” or “a human being”) and in Θ as ανηρ (“a man”). Two heavenly messengers of God are referred to as νεανιαι (“young men”) in 2 Macc 3:26, 33. In rewriting Judges 13, Josephus said that “an apparition” (φαντασμα) appeared to the wife of Manoah, an angel or messenger of God (αγγελος του θεου), in the likeness of a young man (νεανιας) (Ant. 5.8.2 §277). In describing the heavenly being’s second visit, he refers to the angel as a νεανισκος (“young man”) (5.8.3 §279). (pp. 795-96 n. 222)

Notwithstanding, it should be noted, according to Collins, the “young man” (note the singular) was a literary invention by Mark (something Bowman does not [1] mention and [2] interact with):

John Dominic Crossan concluded more plausibly that Mark created the tradition of the empty tomb. Verses 1- 8 constitute a unified and effective composition. The author of Mark was heir to the astounding but terse proclamation that God had raised Jesus from the dead, an announcement supported by traditions that the risen Jesus had appeared at least to Peter and the Twelve. His aim in composing what we know as the Gospel according to Mark was to provide an extended narrative expressing the good news (ευαγγελιον [1:1, 14-15]) of God’s activity through Jesus, God’s eschatological agent. As the first to write such an extended account, Mark was faced with the challenge of expressing the proclamation of Jesus’ resurrection in narrative form. He chose to do so by narrating the discovery of the absence of Jesus’ body in the tomb because his understanding of resurrection, unlike Paul’s, involved the revival and transformation of Jesus’ earthly body, as well as the exaltation of his inner self. Thus, Paul’s idea of the provision of a new spiritual body is rendered superfluous. Since the absence of Jesus’ body could be explained in a variety of ways, Mark chose to express the significance of that absence by portraying a “young man” taking the role of an interpreting angel. This standard apocalyptic character makes clear that the women have come to the right tomb and that Jesus’ body has not been removed or stolen. Rather, the crucified one is risen (ηγερθη). (pp. 781-82)

And elsewhere she notes:

The young man of 14:51-52 is a character constructed in contrast to Jesus. The young man here is portrayed as symbolically similar to the risen Jesus. Just as the risen Jesus is enthroned at the right hand of God, as 12:35-37 implies (καθου εκ δεξιων μου), so this young man is described as “sitting on the right” (καθημενον εν τοις δεξιοις). Since this description has little or no realistic significance in the narrative, the audiences are led to reflect on its symbolic import and to recall the citation of Ps 110:1 (109:1 LXX) earlier in the narrative. The white robe worn by the young man here (στολη λευκη) recalls the clothing of Jesus during his transfiguration: “and his clothes became very white and they shone” (και τα ιματια αυτου εγενετο στιλβονα λευκα λιαν). One way of interpreting the transfiguration is to say that it anticipates Jesus’ glorified state after his death. The women do not see the risen Jesus, but the young man communicates to them his resurrected status, both in words and in his person.

Besides representing Jesus symbolically, the young man is a character in the narrative best defined as an angel. The motif of white or shining clothing typically characterizes angels and other heavenly beings. In Second Temple Jewish texts it was a widespread convention to speak of angels as “men” or “young men.” Certain characteristics of the narrative reinforce the impression that the “young man” is an angel. When the women see him, they are amazed (εξεθαμβηθησαν).

Awe, fear or being overwhelmed is a typical reaction ascribed to human beings in accounts of epiphanies of heavenly beings. In such cases, the heavenly being often strengthens or reassures the recipient of the epiphany, as the young man does here: “Do not be amazed” (μη εκθαμβεισθε).

As noted above, the young man is portrayed here as taking the role of the interpreting angel, a stock character in apocalypses and works influenced by them. This role sometimes involves the interpretation of a vision. In other texts, as here, it involves the explanation of a situation. In Acts 1:10-11, the same device is used to comment on the significance of Jesus’ ascension.

After comforting the women, the young man says “you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who has been crucified” ('Ιησουν ζητειτε τον Ναζαρηνον τον εσταυρωμενον). The angel thus reveals that he knows the motivation of the women for coming to the tomb. Indirectly, he also affirms that the tomb in which they find themselves is indeed the one in which Jesus was buried. Then comes the proclamation, in narrative context, of the resurrection of Jesus, “He is risen” (ηγερθη). The following two statements elaborate the proclamation: “he is not here. Look, the place where they put him” (ουκ εστιν ωδε ιδε ο τοπος οπου εθηκαν αυτον). They also may be understood as proofs of the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. (pp. 795-96)

I am sure if a Latter-day Saint scholar or apologist used Collins in this manner, Bowman would claim they were not being entirely honest with their use of sources.

Continuing, Bowman writes the following (ask yourself the following: if a LDS apologist were to argue like this for the First Vision, would Bowman or any other Evangelical agree with the following?):

The other three accounts also draw specific attention to the bright or white garments of the messengers. This otherwise extraneous detail makes it quite clear in Luke, as we have just seen in Mark, that the “men” were in fact angels, heavenly beings. The women respond to seeing these two figures by being “frightened,” and they “bowed their heads to the ground” (Luke 24:5a). This response rather clearly indicates that the two figures are angels exhibiting a supernatural or numinous presence, not ordinary men. Indeed, later Luke explicitly quotes the two disciples on the road to Emmaus as referring to the messengers as “angels” (Luke 24:23). This one fact proves that Luke is not contradicting Matthew regarding what sort of being spoke to the women.

Whether one angel or two angels spoke to the women is a notorious question but does not involve contradiction or conflict among the accounts. Neither Matthew nor Mark says there was “one angel” or “one young man.” They simply do not mention that there was a second figure alongside the angel the texts do mention. The importance of the angel(s) in the logic of the narratives is unaffected by whether one or two angels appeared. It is entirely plausible that the women saw two angels but that only one of the angels actually spoke . . . None of the differences in the empty tomb accounts has any significance for whether the tomb was empty, or for whether Jesus rose from the dead, or for any theological issue. At worst they are minor discrepancies over incidental aspects of what happened (e.g., whether the women saw one angel or two). More likely, the differences are merely variations in perspective or the way the same events were reported from different sources. Such variations do not in any way undermine the historical reliability of the accounts. (Bowman, Jesus’ Resurrection and Joseph’s Visions, 89-90, emphasis added)

While one agrees with Bowman that, even allowing for some discrepancies in the gospel accounts does not detract from the historicity of the resurrection, do note that Bowman is at least open to the possibility that there were “minor discrepancies over incidental aspects” in the autographs of the Bible, a refutation of the inerrancy of scripture (unless Bowman thinks that such errors crept into the copies of the gospels, not the autographs thereof [though he favours there being differences due to perspectives, not true discrepancies]).

 

Fortunately, there are more intellectually honest apologists within Evangelical Protestantism who address this issue.

Lydia McGrew

In her book, The Mirror and the Mask, a response to the work of Michael Licona (Why Are There Differences in the Gospels?: What We Can Learn from Ancient Biography), Michael Burridge (What Are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography) and others, Protestant Lydia McGrew, while defending the historical reliability of the Gospels, unlike many of her co-religionists are willing to admit that there are genuine discrepancies and (albeit, very minor) mistakes in the Gospels, as opposed to engage in the mental masturbation inerrantists like Rob Bowman, Ron Rhodes, and others are wont to do (I will note, using standards and arguments they would never allow Latter-day Saints to use for purported contradictions and other issues in uniquely LDS texts). Consider some of the following examples:

 

Did the centurion personally come to Jesus?

 

And when he heard of Jesus, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they besought him instantly, saying, That he was worthy for whom he should do this: For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue. Then Jesus went with them. And when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself: for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof: Wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee: but say in a word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. (Luke 7:3-9)

 

And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. (Matt 8:6-13)

 

Commenting on this issue, McGrew writes:

 

There are, however, puzzles for the traditional harmonization of Matthew and Luke. Matthew’s narrative is quite unified in its appearance that the centurion personally present. The final statement that Jesus said, "Go, it shall be done for you as you have believed” to the centurion, where the command is in the singular, is particularly had to square with the Augustinian solution. If the centurion were back at his house sending the messengers to Jesus, he would not need to go anywhere. And if Jesus were speaking to the messengers, he would not have used the singular.

 

A slightly better harmonization is the theory that the centurion sent messengers at first but later came to join the crowd as they neared the house and that Jesus, knowing who he was, spoke just the very last words recorded in Matthew directly to him. As an interpretation of Matthew, however, this breaks up Matthew’s account in a way that seems quite artificial. The statement that Jesus said something to the centurion early in the passage would then mean something different from the final statement that Jesus said something to him.

 

This is therefore one of the places where . . . I am inclined to think that the best explanation is simple memory variation among witnesses . . . The differences between the accounts in Luke and in Matthew are evidence of some degree of testimonial independence between them—in other words, that they are ultimately relying on different human sources for the story. (Lydia McGrew, The Mirror and the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices [Tampa, Fla: DeWard Publishing Company Limited, 2019], 379-80)

 

On what day in Passion Week were Jesus’ feet anointed?

 

Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him, Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein. Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always. Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead. But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death; Because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away, and believed on Jesus. On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, (John 12:1-12)

 

After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death. But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people. And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head. (Mark 14:1-3)

 

McGrew comments:

 

Ultimately, though, I am not fully convinced by the achronological suggestion. If Mark were narrating achronologically in verse 3, I would have expected him to put more content concerning Wednesday prior to that, in verses 1-2, after stating that the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread were two days away. Mark narrates almost nothing immediately after that careful time designation and before the dinner at Bethany and the anointing. Mark says that the chief priests were trying to figure out how to destroy Jesus but feared the people. But he already told us that much in 12.12, with the apparent reference to Monday. The only additional information here, apparently on Wednesday, is that they explicitly decided that they would put off trying to seize Jesus during the feast, lest there be a riot. This resolution seems to have changed abruptly when Judas came to them in 14.10 with the offer to betray Jesus. Since Mark introduces the day in 14.1, he presumably intends to narrate some substantial events that happened on that day. Why would he make such an explicit time reference in 14.1, narrate only the decision of the Jewish leaders on that day, break off abruptly when Judas came to them in 14.10 with the offer to betray Jesus. Since Mark introduces the day in 14.1, he presumably intends to narrate some substantial events that happened on that day. Why would he make such an explicit time reference in 14.1, narrate only the decision of the Jewish leaders on that day, break off abruptly to tell about something that happened several days earlier, and then return in verse 10 to the narrative of events on Wednesday? This would be an extremely choppy composition process indeed, almost as if he did not even read what he had last written when he began narrating the dinner at Bethany. And even if that were the case, why would he not make some better time indicator when returning to Wednesday in verse 10? Mark has been indicating the days in his narrative of Passion Week from Sunday to Wednesday fairly clearly (Mark 11.11-12, 19-20, 13.1-3, 14.1). It would be surprising if he suddenly began narrating achronologically in 14.3, even as an artifact of breaking off and d resuming writing. It is far simpler to take it that Mark intends all of the events at the beginning of Chapter 14 to occur on Wednesday.

 

For this reason, though I have presented the achronological options as worthy consideration, I am inclined to think that this is an instance in which either Mark or John has simply made a minor, good-faith chronological error, and one that should be quite easy to make. (p. 391; on the “achronological” reading, see, for example, Steve Hays, “Projecting Contradictions”)

 

How many male disciples were present at Jesus’ first appearance?

 

Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe. (John 20:19-25)

 

And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. (Luke 24:33-36)

 

Instead of engage in all sorts of gymnastics and special-pleading, McGrew admits that the best explanation is that Luke was simply unaware of Thomas’ absence on the first occasion:

 

Here I must bring up an option that Licona should certainly consider far more probable than John's inventing doubting Thomas—namely, that Luke just didn't know that Thomas was absent on the first occasion. I have often refrained from mentioning, as I've gone through these alleged discrepancies, that honest, minor error, is always an option or consideration by historians and usually a much simpler theory than wholesale invention. Certainly it is simpler in the case of the Gospel authors, when we have plenty of independent evidence of their historical intention and when the trivial differences in question would be quite easy for an honest witness to misremember or for an honest historian not to get precisely correct. In most cases, the literary device theorists ought to consider good-faith error more probably than the more complex idea that the author deliberately wrote falsely. The falsehood is there either way, even though they do not wish to admit that it is a falsehood when they call it a “device.” Adding deliberateness to a false statement makes it no less false and merely contradicts much other evidence concerning the literal honesty of these authors.

 

In this case it would be a serious omission if I did not mention the obvious. Perhaps nobody told Luke about Thomas’s absence from Jesus’ first appearance or about the subsequent scene recorded in John. Luke was a very careful historian, but he was not told everything. Perhaps he honestly thought that all eleven main disciples were present when Jesus first appeared to them. If this theory makes Luke’s reference to “the eleven” count as an error, that does not change the face that such an error is a far simpler explanation of his using “the eleven” than his knowing that Thomas was absent on this first occasion and writing in a deliberately misleading way to make it look like he was present. And it is orders of magnitude simpler than the idea that John made up the entire doubting Thomas sequence.

 

Saying that Luke is (deliberately) “conflating” two meetings does not explain what we have in any useful way, since Luke does not tell anything else that sounds much like John’s description of the second meeting. There is, for example, no confrontation with a specific skeptic, nor any invitation to anyone to thrust a hand into Jesus’ side. Luke 24 records an invitation to touch Jesus and verify that he is not a spirit, but this is similar to Jesus’ showing the disciples his wounds in the first meeting in John (Luke 24.39, John 20.20). Conversely, John does not happen to mention in either meeting that Jesus ate at this time. So what does it even mean to say that Luke has conflated two meetings other than to say in a less explicit way that he wrote deliberately misleadingly about how many people were present, knowing that Thomas was absent? (pp. 446-47)

 

Robert Hutchinson

In his (rather good) book defending the historical Jesus and related issues, Robert Hutchinson wrote:

 

True Contradictions

 

Finally, some of the discrepancies in the Gospels do involve what appear to be actual contradictions, not merely differences in details. For example, in Mark 16:8, the evangelist writes that after the women fled from the empty tomb in terror, “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” (NRSV). Yet in Matthew 28:8, it says the opposite: “They left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples” (NRSV). So which was it? Did the women report the empty tomb to other people or not? Another example is the date of the Last Supper. The Synoptics say that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper on the eve of Passover and that he was crucified on the first day of Passover. In John, on the other hand, Jesus is crucified on the day of preparation for Passover (John 19:14). Many scholars think only one of these alternatives can be correct.

 

Of course, for the average Christian in the pew, these discrepancies don’t threaten their faith nearly as much as some critical scholars seem to think they should. If anything, they strengthen their conviction that the Gospels describe real events—events about which we have divergent eyewitness reports—and are not simply fictions created out of whole cloth or, as scholars such as Robert Price claim, fictionalized retellings of stories from the Hebrew Bible (known as midrash). As one British barrister says in his book on the resurrection, testimony that never contradicts itself is inherently suspect (Charles Foster, The Jesus Inquest [Nashville, T: Thomas Nelson, 2010]). It means the witnesses got together to make sure they told the same story. It’s when the witnesses disagree that you know you are closer to the truth! (Robert J. Hutchinson, Searching for Jesus: New Discoveries in the Quest for Jesus of Nazareth and How They Confirm the Gospel Accounts [Nashville, Tenn.: Nelson Books, 2015], 17-18, emphasis in bold added)

 

With respect to the text I have put in bold, one should compare something similar John A. Tvedtnes once wrote in a short article on differences in the canonical gospels:

 

Those who believe the Bible to be inerrant and to contain all the things God revealed to mankind may be disappointed by the fact that variants exist among the gospels. For my part, it is the variants in detail that demonstrate the essential historical nature of the Bible. (Gospel Variants)

 

Elsewhere, Hutchinson chastises some of his fellow co-religionists who engage in a lot of special pleading to avoid admitting to their being true contradictions and historical issues vis-à-vis the inerrancy of the autographs of the biblical texts:

 

Christian apologists often go to elaborate lengths to harmonize these factual divergences in order to maintain the doctrine that the Bible in inerrant down to the last detail. For example, some apologists contend that Quirinius may have had two periods as a governor in Syria and, if so, Luke could be referring to the earlier period. “Being the meticulous historian that he was, Luke demonstrated his awareness of a separate provincial census during Quirinius’ governorship beginning in A.D. 6 (Acts 5:37,” writs David Miller. “In view of this familiarity, he surely would not have confused this census with one taken two or more years earlier. Hence, Luke claimed that a prior census was, indeed, taken at the command of Caesar Augustus sometime prior to 4 B.C. He flagged this earlier census by using the expression prote egento (“first took place”)—which assumes a later one (cf. Nicoll, n.d., 1:471). To question the authenticity of this claim, simply because no explicit reference has yet been found, is unwarranted and prejudicial.” David Miller, “Luke, Quirinius, and the Census,” available online at: https://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=907. However, other Christian scholars, even those who, like Daniel Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary, affirm the inerrancy of the Bible, find these arguments based on Greek grammar unconvincing or a variety of reasons. They simply insist that the difficulty has yet to be resolved. See Daniel Wallace, “The Problem of Luke 2:2: ‘This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria,’” available online at: https://bible.org/article/problem-luke-22-ithis-was-first-census-taken-when-quirinius-was-governor-syriai. Still other New Testament scholars, such as Raymond Brown, say that Luke simply made a minor mistake in chronology and concludes that “this information is dubious on almost every score, despite the elaborate attempts by scholars to defend Lucan accuracy.” See Raymond Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 413. (Ibid., 288-89 n. 12).