Abraham
was ordained to be the father of the faithful,—that is, he was ordained to come
forth at a certain period; and when he had proved himself faithful to his God,
and would resist the worship of idols, and trample them under his feet in the
presence of their king, and set up the worship of the true God, he obtained the
appellation of "father of the faithful." "For whom he did
foreknow he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his
Son." He knew, millions of years before this world was framed, that
Pharaoh would be a wicked man. He saw—he understood; his work was before him,
and he could see it from the beginning to the end. And so scrutinizing,
penetrating, and expanded are his visions and knowledge, that not even a hair
of our head can fall to the ground unnoticed by him. He foreknow what Joseph,
who was sold into Egypt, would do. Joseph was foreordained to be the temporal
Saviour of his father's house, and the seed of Joseph are ordained to be the
spiritual and temporal saviours of all the house of Israel in the latter days.
Joseph's seed has mixed itself with all the seed of man upon the face of the
whole earth. The great majority of those who are now before me are the
descendants of that Joseph who was sold. Joseph Smith, junior, was foreordained
to come through the loins of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and so on down
through the Prophets and Apostles; and thus he came forth in the last days to
be a minister of salvation, and to hold the keys of the last dispensation of
the fulness of times (JOD 7:290 | October 9, 1859)
In a sermon dated March 2, 1879, John
Taylor was recorded as saying the following wherein he seems to limit the
command to build temples was not part of the New Testament era, but only this,
the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times (cf. D&C 128:18). This would
explain why we find hints in the New Testament and later texts of temple
practices but no evidence that the early Christians built temples:
Now then,
we have got a priesthood organized here upon the earth, as there was one
organized in the days of Jesus, only with this distinctive difference,—that
that was a dispensation of God to them; this we live in is the dispensation of
the fulness of times, embracing all other dispensations and times and powers
and authorities that have existed upon the face of the earth, in the various
ages, from the commencement to the present time. Herein it differs from others.
Hence we are requested to gather together, something which they were not
commanded to do. We are told to build Temples: they were not. We are told to
administer for the living and the dead, which ordinances were only performed
then to a very limited extent. We are called upon to build up not only the
Church, but the kingdom of God, and to introduce the rule and government of God
upon the earth. (JOD 2:257-58)
Now, on
another subject. There is a God who lives, and who framed and fashioned this
earth, and who brought forth that which is on the face thereof. He has laws,
Everything is controlled by law. The actions of men, however, are left free;
they are agents to themselvesand must
act freely on that agency, or else how could they be judged for their actions?
But God reserves the right to himself to control the results of their acts, and
this no man can hinder. Who of the Christian divines know anything about the
God we serve? I never saw any one, until I met Joseph Smith, who could tell me
anything about the character personality and dwelling-place of God, or anything
satisfactory about angels, or the relationship of man to his Maker. Yet I was
as diligent as any man need to be to try and find out these things. We know
more about God and the heavens than we care to tell. And if we introduce a
principle and try to reduce it to the comprehension of the people, there will
be some even among the Latter-day Saints who would be hard to understand. Where
is the divine who knows the least thing about that Being who is the Father of
our Spirits and the author of our bodies? If we know something about him is
there any harm in it? Not a bit. The world of mankind are infidels. We should
all be infidel to every false principle. I am infidel in regard to many things,
but to the truth, wherever found, I am no infidel. The Christian world is
infidel to the truth in a great degree. Why? Because they know so little of the
mind and will of God. Step outside of this kingdom, and who can tell us the
first process towards covering the earth with the knowledge of God? Who is
there that can tell us anything about that angel whom John saw coming with the
everlasting Gospel as recorded in John's Revelations? I never found any one who
could till I saw Joseph Smith. He could tell me what I had so much desired to
learn. What do the Christian divines know about it even at the present day? If
they do know anything about it I wish they would tell us. But if they do not
know, and will not receive the things of God from those who do know, does not
this make them infidels to the truth? (JOD 16:45-46 | May 18, 1873)
I am
self-determined (I suppose many would call it self-willed and perhaps this is
correct,) . . . (JOD 10:310 | June 11, 1864)
Brigham Young, in a sermon dated May 18,
1873, said the following negative comments about the Fall and Eve’s
actions:
The
teaching of grown people is the same as teaching the children. We receive
impressions when very young, and grow up to further knowledge; it is the same
in receiving the Gospel. When we talk to persons who have not previously heard
the Gospel, we have to reason with them on the propriety of receiving the
truth. We also have to reason with and persuade the Latter-day Saints, and it
is to them I wish principally to talk this afternoon. When the Gospel is
preached to the honest in heart they receive it by faith, but when they obey it
labor is required. To practice the Gospel requires time, faith, the heart's
affections and a great deal of labor. Here many stop. They hear and believe,
but before they go on to practice they begin to think that they were mistaken,
and unbelief enters into their hearts. There has been unbelief since the
beginning of the world. Have you not read the sayings of Moses in regard to our
mother Eve? She had heard the voice of the Lord and understood it, saying
concerning the fruit of a certain tree, "in the day that thou eatest
thereof thou shalt surely die." When her husband was in another part of
the garden, a certain character came along and commenced to reason with her.
"That is very fine fruit: I understand the Lord says you must not partake
of it." "Yes, for in the day we eat of it he says we shall die."
"Well," says he, "that is not so. You must not believe all that
is told you, but think for yourself. Now I will tell you something. If you eat
of that fruit your eyes will be opened, and you will see as the Gods." He
hands her a little of the fruit, just to try,—no matter whether it was an
apple, a grape, or what it was,—she tastes of it, and does not die, and likes
it so well that when Adam comes along she says, "Husband, this fruit is
delightful; I have tasted it, and it is desirable to make one wise; take
some." "No," says he, "I shall not, the Lord has commanded
us not to eat of it." But just as it is with other husbands, she coaxes
and persuades, and finally he gives way and partakes of the forbidden fruit.
Now do you see how unbelief entered into the world in the beginning? (JOD
16:40-41)
Of course, Brigham did not hold to a
totally negative view of the fall, but instead a felix culpa like that
of Irenaeus of Lyons. Elsewhere, he said the following about the sin (not
merely “transgression”) of Adam and Eve:
Some may
regret that our first parents sinned. This is nonsense. If we had been there,
and they had not sinned, we should have sinned. I will not blame Adam or Eve,
why? Because it was necessary that sin should enter into the world; no man
could ever understand the principle of exaltation without its opposite; no one
could ever receive an exaltation without being acquainted with its opposite.
How did Adam and Eve sin? Did they come out in direct opposition to God and to
His government? No. But they transgressed a command of the Lord, and through
that transgression sin came into the world. The Lord knew they would do this,
and He had designed that they should. Then came the curse upon the fruit, upon
the vegetables, and upon our mother earth; and it came upon the creeping
things, upon the grain in the field, the fish in the sea, and upon all things
pertaining to this earth, through man's transgression. This washer through an
angel. Now then what have we to do? We have to labor to remove the curse from
the earth, from the vegetation, from every creeping thing, and from ourselves,
by the help of God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Is not
this a great work? Yes, and it is something we have to take an active part in.
If it had been left for us, we should have brought sin into the world just as
mother Eve did; and inasmuch as this is done, we have to go to work, by the
power of God, and restore all things according to the revelations that have
been given in former and in modern times. We have to remove the curse; but
remember, we shall never be able to save ourselves without help, but with that
help which the Almighty has promised we can accomplish all things. We cannot
receive the things of God, except through the order that he has ordained. (JOD
10:312 | June 11, 1864)
John Gee, “Hypocephali as Astronomical Documents,” in Aegyptus et Pannonia V: Acta Symposii anno 2008, ed. Hedvig Györy and Ádám Szabó (Budapest: The Ancient Egyptian Committee of the Hungarian-Egyptian Friendship Society, 2016), 59–71.
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:
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, probablyGabriel, 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).
C.C. Torrey (1863-1956), at the time of
writing, Professor of Semitic Languages in Yale University, argued that the Gospels
were originally written, not in Greek, but Aramaic (except for Luke 1-2, which
he believed was written in Hebrew). While I believe the texts were written in
Greek originally, I am sympathetic to such a view. Here are excerpts from his
works which were interesting.
Matt 5:32, 19:9, and parallels
The saying attributed
to Jesus in the Grk. of Mt. 5:32a is a very strange utterance indeed. The
husband divorces his wife, without any flagrant infidelity on her part, and the
result is, that she commits adultery. Whether the husband incurs similar
guilt, is not stated. Hebrew law, and Jewish public opinion, in such cases gave
one wife a clean slate, and in this decision, the opinion of our own day would
doubtless concur. Will Jesus now reverse this judgment, pronouncing the
dissolved union adulterous, and with such emphasis that only the guilt of the
woman is mentioned? This seems incredible, and it is not a view which interpreters
of the passage have thought reasonable.
He ”makes her commit
adultery.” In what way? Montefiore, Syn. Gospels, II, 66, gives the
accepted explanation: “by marrying another man.” But the woman was under no obligation
to marry again—and she might well think that one trial was quite enough.
However, she probably would marry, say the commentators, and the second
marriage would be adulterous. But this is mere quibbling. The plain fact is,
that the declaration attributed to Jesus, if made without qualification, is
not true. The divorcing husband does not compel the divorced wife to
commit adultery. If she chooses to marry again, it is her former husband who
makes her do so. It is hardly necessary to add, that the saying, “he puts her
in the way of committing” the sin, would be a very weak conclusion after the impressive
introduction.
This difficulty disappears
as soon as the original language is called in to help. The translator saw
before him the derived stem of the verb, and rendered it as causative, for the
reason which will presently appear; but he was mistaken. In each of the several
verbs, Heb. and Aram., which have this signification, “commit adultery,” the
simple stem and the derived (intensive) stem are interchangeable, with no
difference in meaning. Moreover, the noun or pronoun designating the person
with whom the adultery is committed is very likely to be appended to the verb
as (or in the manner of) the direct object. These facts are set forth in every
lexicon, and may be seen illustrated in Jer. 29;23 (Heb. and Targ.), Lev.
20:10, Prov. 6:32, Targ. Hos. 4:12, and especially Targ. Job 36:20, an exact
parallel to the phrase in Mt. The true rendering here is, “he commits adultery
with her.” But with whom?
The real source of the
difficulty with the passage is now brought plainly to light. The verse is
defective, with two words missing. The phrase, “and marries another,”
which is found in 19:9, and in the parallels in Mk. and Lk., is indispensable
to the sense, and must have been omitted by accident from the Aram. text of
5:32. The fact of the omission gave the Grk. translator the best of reasons
for his rendering. (Charles Cutler Torrey, Our Translated Gospels: Some of
the Evidence [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1936], 18-19)
On Matt 2:23
The alleged citation
of “the prophets” has been the subject of endless discussion from the first
Christian centuries onwards, but the riddle has remained unsolved. And indeed,
it is perfectly insoluble on the supposition of a gospel composed in Greek.
There is no such prediction on the O.T., nor anything that could justify the evangelist’s
(apparent) assertion. Interpreters in a long succession, beginning with St.
Jerome, have wished to find here some legitimate connection with the Neser,
“Branch,” of Is. 11:1, but without success. This is, nevertheless, the
scripture to which Mt. refers; and inasmuch as the Messiah is also styled “Branch”
in Jer. 23:5 and 33:15 (though another Hebrew word is employed), the evangelist’s
plural, “prophets,” has a fair excuse.
Just as soon as the
phrase, “he shall be called Neser,” is written in Aramaic letters,
the long-existing puzzle is explained. Because of the statement immediately
preceding, that Jesus dwelt in Nazareth in fulfilment of scripture, the
copyist or translator would be certain to regard the yodh following the
name as the ending of the gentilic adjective, forming the word “Nazarene.” The
scribe would write the letter twice, the reader would see it double, and
certainly neither could be supposed to “look up” the reference in whatever
scrolls of the Hebrew prophets it might be possible to acquire! (Ibid., 154)
