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On frivolous claims of contradiction

An excellent set of quotations taken from 19th-century lawyer Edmund Bennett, The Four Gospels From a Lawyer's Standpoint (1899)

Is the story of Barabbas a myth, merely because one evangelist (John) says he was a robber, and two others (Mark and Luke) call him a murderer? Was there no king of Tyre because in some places his name is spelled Hiram and in other Huram? Is there no true time of day, because all the clocks in your house strike at a different moment?... ...[H]ow vastly...improbable that four different persons, at different times and in different places, should deliberately sit down without any apparent motive to write four similar fictitious stories without any knowledge of each other's work; or, if they had such knowledge, that they did not make their stories agree better with each other! It is too absurd to be worthy of even denying. Here again we may learn from secular matters that the actual occurrence of some event is not to be doubted because of some discrepancy, or even some contradiction, in details between the different narrators thereof. For instance, some historians assert that Lord Stafford was condemned to be hanged for his alleged participation in the popish plot in 1680, while Burnett and other historians narrate that he was beheaded. But that he suffered death for the charge, though probably unjustly, no one doubts....Do not, therefore, I pray you, give up your Bible, your religion, or your God because of such flippant talk about the contradictions of the Gospels, come from whom it may! (pp. 35-55)

Comments (17)

The word "harmonizing" is often used as a slur against someone who sees (apparent) contradictions and refuses to come away with an indictment of the truthfulness of the canonical Four. Having read them all many times, in English and in Greek, I have never found anything to throw off the impression that they are partakers of shared events and of the person of Jesus, and that they play together harmoniously.

I do not get the same vibe from the non-canonical "gospels". I once had a chat-acquaintance with a woman who denigrated the Four at every opportunity and thought the Gospel of Thomas had fallen to earth from heavenly realms. Not sure of her orientation, but she was one of those who insisted on naming Jesus "Yeshua." It took just a few select quotes set before the chat room to compel her to say no more.

Absolutely. The non-canonical so-called "gospels" are quite different.

Why "harmonizing" should be a negative word I have no idea. It is a fascinating thing to see how often an alleged contradiction is resolved and both accounts turn out to be true or, at the most, the most trivial contradiction is all that is left. Apropos of which:

Lord Stafford was indeed condemned to be hung (and drawn and quartered). Charles II commuted it to beheading. So both reports mentioned by Bennett are true. "Harmonization" is wise in secular history as well and is by no means some sort of desperate expedient born of religious commitment.

The folks I know who use 'harmonizing' pejoratively are all exegetes, not apologists. Their concern is to understand the texts as God has actually given them, and their frustration is when pastors, for instance, in a sermon where they are supposed to be teaching the word of God, instead of explicating the texts as they stand, rush to substitute their own speculations about how to harmonize the details of an event narrated in Gospel A and Gospel B, when their harmonization is taught neither in Gospel A nor Gospel B, and therefore deserves no more respect than that of any other amateur historian's conjecture. But it's treated as if this is what God is teaching us. That does happen frequently and it's a real problem.

In an apologetic context, on the other hand, there is no pretense that the harmonization has any other purpose than to show that A and B are not necessarily contradictory, and for that it doesn't even need to be true, just possible (not implausible, given all the evidence). So this sort of harmonizing is perfectly appropriate.

If they actually say that "this is what God is teaching us," then that could be a problem if it is a conjecture. On the other hand, I reject a sharp distinction between exegesis and harmonization. Responsible harmonization is a legitimate part of exegesis for many reasons. Just one is that the claim of discrepancy can itself be a result of over-reading, argument from silence, etc., which are not good exegesis. Pointing out that a verse or phrase has multiple meanings, that the absence of x in a given account is not tantamount to the denial of x, and so forth, is part of "rightly dividing the word." Moreover, members of a pastor's flock may be interested in or concerned about alleged discrepancies, and preparing them to meet these questions is a legitimate function of the pastor.

Just the other day I spontaneously pointed out to my own children the "two blind men" in Matthew and the one blind man (whose name is given--Bartimeus) in Mark, healed near Jericho on Jesus' last journey to Jerusalem, and we discussed the very question of whether this is a contradiction between the two accounts. This is important work to do, and it shouldn't be artificially excluded to an "apologetics" box.

In fact, even putting it in a box labeled "apologetics" rather than "exegesis" could give the impression that it is an inherently biased or polemical activity rather than a rational way of approaching putatively historical texts. In fact, it is a rational way to approach non-sacred texts as well--news reports, for example.

And such claims to a objectivity by exegetes over against apologists goes like the vapors. By now, we should all recognize that no approach to the Text is untainted by hermeneutical bias--that of the preacher in the church owing (at least in part) to his institution's particular concerns, and that of the scholar in the academy bending to that institutions' concerns (or other philosophic predispositions). Joel Osteen might be no less surprised to find that Jesus thinks just like he does (shazzam and hallelujah!), than have many bushels full of academic scholars when making the like discovery relative to themselves (and in observing this I am validating none of their conclusions--as though all are right or one conclusion no better than any other, nor am I denying that the truth may be had by careful inquiry). The phenomenon is oft-repeated in which Jesus (or Paul), as the proud fruit of exegesis, is found to look amazingly like whichever exegete is at work. So where lies objectivity?

But a lively debate might pit the "hermeneutic of trust" (of a believing, faith-committed exegete) against the "hermeneutic of doubt" so over-deployed historically by academic exegesis. A scholar such as Richard B. Hays would insist that the fullest and deepest penetration of the biblical text is available only to a believing exegete. Not sure this can be resolved finally, but enough of the monkey business that has passed under the guise of "objective exegesis."

the claim of discrepancy can itself be a result of over-reading, argument from silence, etc., which are not good exegesis. Pointing out that a verse or phrase has multiple meanings, that the absence of x in a given account is not tantamount to the denial of x, and so forth, is part of "rightly dividing the word."

It is indeed, but I would not call that "harmonizing". Rather I would say no harmonizing is needed since there's nothing that needs to be done beyond what could just as well be done in the absence of any apparent discrepancies. Folks who object to harmonizing, I think, are objecting to a tactic specifically tailored to handling apparent discrepancies.

Harmonization, as I understand it, arises when the Bible says A which seems to conflict with B which either the Bible itself says elsewhere, or which we know (or think we know) to be true. We then come up with C which explains how A and B don't really conflict. But the Biblical text doesn't say C. Instead, C is our attempt to figure out something about the events beyond what the text(s) actually say about those events. And that really is something different from exegesis. Now, that doesn't prevent it from being ...

a rational way to approach non-sacred texts as well--news reports, for example.

But typically the only interest we have in the exegesis of news reports is subordinate to our interest in knowing about the events that they report. By contrast, when it's the word of God we are dealing with, we have a huge interest in what the text says because it is God Himself speaking to us. Therefore our most urgent and deepest question when approaching such a text is What is God telling us with these words? This supercedes any interest we might have in discovering something about the historical events behind the text, beyond whatever God is saying about them.

I'm not saying that it's wrong to approach the scriptures in the way a historian might. The Holy Scriptures are, like many non-sacred texts, sources for historical knowledge, and they can be mined for information about history that goes beyond what their authors intended to communicate. But for a Christian, and particularly for a pastor in the pulpit, such things must not overshadow or distort the exegetical task of submissively hearing what the text itself has to say.

It is indeed, but I would not call that "harmonizing". Rather I would say no harmonizing is needed since there's nothing that needs to be done beyond what could just as well be done in the absence of any apparent discrepancies.

But Christopher, surely you realize that "apparent" discrepancies may only seem to exist at all *because of* assuming that the text is saying x when it isn't necessarily saying x. And the very occurrence of some thought that this seems to conflict with y in some other text can alert one to the fact that the text didn't actually _say_ x. For example, take chronology. If one has the gospel of Mark, one realizes that either Mark or Matthew is not relating all the events in strict chronological order. One might otherwise think that Matthew is much more chronological than he is, because it comes naturally to us (and isn't a dumb thing) to assume that, without other evidence to the contrary. The different order of events in Mark is, however, evidence to the contrary. If one assumes that they are both chronological, this creates a discrepancy. Realizing that Matthew doesn't *actually say* (which he doesn't) that, say, the woes upon the cities occurred after the feeding of the five thousand (he merely relates it later in his gospel) is an occurrence motivated by what would otherwise seem (to some) to be a discrepancy.

Or take the number of angels at the tomb. One might assume that if a particular gospel says "a young man in white" or "an angel" that it is saying that there was one *as opposed to* two, but it doesn't actually say that. One notices this upon noting that a different gospel mentions two angels.

And so on ad infinitum.

So these are both cases of harmonization, as you define it (resolving what would otherwise seem to be conflicts) and also cases that I described as noting that the text doesn't actually say x, doesn't actually deny y, and so forth.

But typically the only interest we have in the exegesis of news reports is subordinate to our interest in knowing about the events that they report. By contrast, when it's the word of God we are dealing with, we have a huge interest in what the text says because it is God Himself speaking to us. Therefore our most urgent and deepest question when approaching such a text is What is God telling us with these words? This supercedes any interest we might have in discovering something about the historical events behind the text, beyond whatever God is saying about them.

I'm afraid we have a pretty deep disagreement here, which has been reflected in other dialogues we have had on other threads. I would say that, particularly in prima facie historical books, "what God is saying to us" *starts* with what the texts are saying about the events that they report. Hence getting a grip on the latter is crucial to the former, and thus will not "overshadow or distort the exegetical task of submissively hearing what the text itself has to say," because it is part of that task.

surely you realize ...
Oh yes, an apparent discrepency can be the occasion for noticing that we are misreading a text. And they are very useful for that. But if the reasoning that shows us we are misreading the text is available apart from the apparent discrepancy then I wouldn't call it harmonizing. (But if you want to call it that I won't cavil. Furthermore I'll agree that that kind of "harmonizing," as you call it, is good exegesis.)

But there's a way of saying that the text "doesn't actually say x" that is not good exegesis. If I ask for some water and you pour it into my hands, you've probably misinterpreted me, and I won't be impressed by the excuse, "you didn't actually say you wanted it in a glass." No, I didn't say it, expressly, but I implicated it. Utterances typically say more than they "actually say". Sometimes they say less. What good exegesis must aim at is discerning what the author intends to communicate.

Now, in the case of the angel(s) at the tomb, Matthew's gospel describes a single angel present, and it sure _looks like_ (to me at least) he tells it in a way that implies there was only one there. So simply to say, "Matthew doesn't actually say there wasn't another angel there too," doesn't really resolve the discrepancy. An exegetically satisfactory resolution would explain what is deficient in my reading of Matthew as a reading of Matthew.

(Epistemological aside: we don't always need to have an exegetically satisfactory resolution to a discrepancy in order to justifiably believe that both texts are true and even historically referential in detail, even in the very detail in which they seem to conflict.)

I'm afraid we have a pretty deep disagreement here...

Yes, but perhaps not quite as deep as you might be implying. I agree that Biblical texts tell us about historical events, and I agree that

getting a grip on [what the texts are saying about the events that they report] will not "overshadow or distort the exegetical task of submissively hearing what the text itself has to say," because it is part of that task.
But the point I'm making here is that, on anybody's account, there are things about how the historical events happened that the text doesn't tell us about. Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. And it's wrong to read a text as if it told us things about the events that it doesn't tell us, even if those things did happen that way: if the text doesn't say so, the text doesn't say so. And that point is independent of the question we've discussed elsewhere about what degree of historicity the authors of prima facie historical books intended to affirm.

One way of harmonizing the story of Bartimaeus in Mark with the similar passage in Matthew is to say that on one occasion Jesus healed Bartimaeus alone, and on another occasion he healed two other blind men, and these two events just happened to be very similar in how they went down for some reason. A different harmonization would say that when Jesus healed Bartimaeus there was another fellow that Jesus healed at the same time, although Mark doesn't mention him. But neither Mark nor Matthew say that either of these things is the case. One of these may be a more reasonable historical conjecture than the other, but they are both _our_ conjectures and not something _God_ has said in either text.

Assuming arguendo that events narrated are intended as historically accurate in every detail, it's still the case that what _God_ is telling us about those events is infinitely more authoritative than any conjectures _we_ make about those events, no matter how reasonable, that go beyond what God has said. And if we read into God's word our own conjectures (even if they happen to be true) that is a distortion.

Now, in the case of the angel(s) at the tomb, Matthew's gospel describes a single angel present, and it sure _looks like_ (to me at least) he tells it in a way that implies there was only one there.

In Matthew, it doesn't look like that to me. In Matthew, the most I would say is, "Angels are not to be multiplied without necessity." So of course if all I had were Matthew, I wouldn't hypothesize two angels (or more) because I wouldn't have the slightest reason to do so! But that's different from saying that Matthew's rendition looks like or seems to imply that there is only one there.

In Mark, I am more inclined to grant that it "sounds like" the women *saw* only one "young man," whereas in Luke it quite definitely indicates that they saw two. It may be that in fact this is a genuine conflict between Luke and Mark (more so than between Luke and Matthew), but it may also be that my admittedly vague impression that Mark "sounds like" they saw only one does not mean, in fact, that the women told Peter or that Peter told Mark or that Mark meant to say that they saw only one. Yet another possibility is that the women (there seems to have been quite a group) left the tomb in sections and that some saw one angel and some saw two. This *definitely* seems to have been the case for Mary Magdalene, who seems to have run off precipitately the first time upon noticing the empty tomb and before even hearing the hopeful message (one infers this from John) and then to have gone back later and seen two angels when she was by herself. Luke lists the women but does not separate out Mary Magdalene's experience and may not have been aware of it at all. He just says that it was this list of women who were "telling these things" to the disciples.

In any event, I do not want either to say that "seems like" judgements are totally subjective and irrelevant nor that they are absolutely controlling. I would guess that yours and mine might differ rather often, as it happens.

Should reading the Gospels, in a truly responsible way, yield a Bart Ehrman? There are those who mountain the molehills to characterize the Four as though they fundamentally fail to connect on actual underlying historical events, so that at best one of them is reliable. Or perhaps they are all suspect, might say Jesus Seminarians. However, are we dealing with accounts as disparate as those that were earliest to emerge from Ferguson, Missouri--accounts so much at odds that one side or the other, when the true facts are out, would be shown to be factually empty? Or are we dealing with accounts that fall, like an unfolding news story that achieved full disclosure only over time, so that later accounts fit as a template over the earlier, to at last provide missing details and helpful explanation of aspects that were unsettled in an earlier telling? I am willing to wear the stigma as a "harmonizer" because I have seen in the Four sufficient "harmony" to see meaning in the "unintended correspondences" that emerge in a canonical reading.

Much of Biblical studies have proudly worn the name "criticism", and it is from this perspective that harmonizing becomes epithet. And like other faith-members of the academy, I have accepted "criticism" as providing useful angles to explore the phenomenon of Biblical text. But I have never accepted a monopoly for these "critical" approaches. There is no shame in reading with a believing heart.

And as a rampaging evidentialist, I would add that, as it turns out, a rational mind only tends to support a believing heart. The Ehrman-esque manufacture of contradictions where no contradiction exists and the hyper-critical approach *is not reasonable*. It would not be reasonable in a secular context either.

In undergraduate school we studied the faith vs. knowledge question, asking to what degree faith had to be evidenced. I still remember having Pascal's Wager to one side (no evidence needed) and William Clifford's essay to the other (total evidence required) and Francis Schaeffer to the center (sufficient, but less than total evidence required). I've come to understand Biblical faith only to a small degree in the epistemological sense, and much more as a relational dynamic of covenant. Even so, I relish evidence as much as you do.

Much of Biblical studies have proudly worn the name "criticism", and it is from this perspective that harmonizing becomes epithet.

John, I agree. And it seems to me that embracing the word "criticism" as a model of study could only come from a prior position, an assumption, that we are to poke more at this, be harsher on, be less forgiving of, the Bible than of other works. That we can only accept that which can be accounted for in no other way possible, and nothing else. Which, frankly, is neither honest history nor honest science.

In undergraduate school we studied the faith vs. knowledge question, asking to what degree faith had to be evidenced.

This is a very important part of becoming an educated person. You cannot be well rounded without having at least considered the interaction of faith and reason. As a Catholic, and a Thomist, by both inclination and training I place a lot of emphasis on reason, but never in place of faith, nor faith in place of reason. I would say that they are like the two sides of a ladder, neither much help without the other. Reason supplies the basic capacity for understanding the meaning and content of the statements that we embrace with faith, and the grace of faith in things unseen is the motive power behind the firm acceptance of those statements that cannot be known but are believed for salvation. "Faith seeking understanding" reflects that while we DO accept without seeing clearly, we don't rest there, we continually strive toward the Truth to see more clearly. And in heaven faith passes away, because we will see clearly, not through a glass darkly. So the lack of seeing clearly, of itself, is not desirable for its own sake, it is only the best we can do until God delivers something better for us.

Lydia, I prefer to allow the smallest room possible for the notion that faith is what we have (what we must have) when evidence is in short supply. At that point, it seems to me, belief in God seems to be on foot with something like belief in UFO's, bigfoot, or leprechauns. (And, to be fair, that comparison is not truly good because enthusiasts of bigfoot and UFO's would claim to have some evidence). In this model, faith would (have to) increase where (evidenced) knowledge was growing scarce. It seems that Biblical faith grows with, rather than supplies a lack in evidence. We know AND we believe, rather than we believe because we cannot know.

I know that Jesus said, "Those who believe without seeing are blessed." However, His words fall in a context in which His listeners had ample reason to believe His claims and identity, even short of a resurrection appearance. And while need to approach the Bible truth-claims through "evidences" (including the hard stuff from, say, history and archaeology, and also the soft stuff from intellectual reasoning) has its place, I have found the real anchor to be in the "faith" that is a dynamic that God and I share in our covenant relationship. He is the object of my faith; and I am the object of His. That dynamic is so powerful! And it all pops with energy in the newer trend to see the peculiar Greek phrase traditionally translated as "faith IN Jesus" now better rendered as the "faith(fullness) OF Jesus." And His faith is then seen as an expression of the faithfulness of God. Usually (at this phase of my faith-walk) my claim to believe says more about my relationship with God than about the now substantial pile of evidence that, to varying degrees, justifies my faith as "knowledge."

Of course, the biggest obstacle to seeing through such things is the limitations of our English language, which forces the word "faith" to cover so much lexical ground. And part of that lexical confusion is that many of the words that have epistemological connotations (faith, belief, truth, knowledge) have a corresponding sense in the context of relationship. A man may "know" his wife, may "believe" in her, may keep "faith" with her, and they may be "true" to one another. The same dynamics that apply to marriage covenant also have home in the New Covenant. Rarely in Scripture, outside of one expression in Hebrews 11:6, does faith move outside of its home in relationship to something that passes scientific tests of proof. Which, of course, is why so little effort is applied in the Sacred Writings to "prove" that God exists. That is easily assumed, and the demands of relationship with Him come to the front.

My bad, assumed the post above mine was Lydia's. Tony, building on our agreement, the above post is for you.

Thank you, Lydia. To date, this is the second lingering prayer of mine that has been answered--here, by one of your posts.

(God is not always speedy (not by my impatient standards), but He is always precise.)

Thank you, Lauran. That is very encouraging.

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