"Human Fingerprints" in the Gospels

Great Debates
1

I’m looking for good evidence for purely human authorship/composition/editing of the gospels.

A while ago, someone brought up examples of NT events constructed on the basis of OT passages (infancy narratives, Matthew’s account of the Triumphal entry). I’m looking for more examples of this, and any other features in the text that show that the gospels were not “dictated by God” but are very human human documents.

I’m very enthused about how redaction criticism (assuming Markan priority) can reveal Matthew’s and Luke’s tendencies in their editing of Mark, but I don’t have a large number of examples.

I am also familiar with a few grammatical errors and stylistic deficiencies in the Gospel of Mark. Can any one give me a more comprehensive list, or at least point me in the direction of a large number of examples?

I’m also looking for some of the best examples of inconsistencies/contradictions in the Gospels that even the best evangelicals cannot harmonize. It seems as though for every proposed contradiction, inerrantists are able to find something to say that harmonizes the difficulty, at least, to their own satisfaction. What are the best examples that an honest inerrantist would admit as insoluble?

What are some of the best websites that discuss these issues?

2

Sounds like you need to speak to the Pope. :smiley:

IANABS but I did study some parts of the New Testament in the original Greek and learnt that seemingly minor words can have major impacts depending upon how they’re translated (q.v. δια) and unless you’re fluent in both Aramaic and classical Greek, I suggest you cease your enquiries until you are.

3

I didn’t quite get the reference to the Pope.

Yes, I am fairly proficent in Koine Greek, and I just finished reading the four gospels (although I had to look up many words). I read them separately and over a long period of time. I just now got Aland’s Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum, so I can compare the Gospels side-by side quite easily. There is a lot of ground to cover, and I wanted to see if anyone else has helpful suggestions.

4

I just took a basic class on New Testament, and the professor was very well versed in what you’re looking for - language edits and the like that show human editing of the Bible.

Here are some examples from my notes:

  • Differences among the Gospels: assuming the Markan priority theory (which almost all Biblical scholars hold) Mark was written first, and almost all of Mark can be found (albeit in re-arranged order) in Matthew and Luke - Matthew and Luke’s extra content come from a source named “Q” that is shared between them, as well as content found only in Matthew and Luke.

Here’s a crappy ASCII picture of that:



        Q     Mark
         | \   /  |
         |  \ /   |
         |  / \   | 
         | /   \  |
         v        v
M->Matt     Luke<--L

Hopefully that makes sense.

-The fourth gospel (John) can be added to the mix, and several differences can be seen between the gospels relating to the ideas of the natire of Jesus’ divinity: Mark and Q seem to indicate that Jesus became divine at his baptism; Matt and Luke indicate that Jesus was divine from conception, and John states that Jesus has always existed as a part of God and thus was divine at Creation. Either God is confused, or this smacks of human authors/editors placing their own interpretation of Christ in their work.

Some other differences:

  1. Luke 9 vs. Matthew 10: Matthew indicates mission is only towards Israelites, whereas Luke is interested more into a mission to the Gentiles. Considered that Matthew is Jewish and Luke is a Roman Gentile, this is likely influenced by the authorship.

  2. Luke 6:17 vs. Matthew 5:1: Sermon on the mount vs. sermon on the plain

  3. Matthew 2 vs. Luke: Matthew mentions persecution of Joseph/Mary/Jesus, Luke mentions none. This can easily be reconciled, but you would think something this important would be in Luke. (Of course, there’s also the archeological evidence that King Herod was dead by Jesus’ birth, and thus, couldn’t be around to be worried about the Messiah and order the death of newborn children).

  4. John appears to have a “revised ending” - as it contains two endings (John 20, John 21)

I remember something about the Passover, and how many of them occurred during Jesus’ ministry (I believe it’s three in one gospel, one in another) but can’t remember exactly which passages this is in.

5

Stupid forum autospacing.

Anyways, here’s what I was trying to do:

http://antiochforever.com/files/members/Blitz/qsource.JPG

6

Isn’t the very notion the gospels were dictated direct from God something that didn’t exist until long after they were written? They come across as being written by human witnesses.

7

One very important article is Goodacre’s “Fatigue in the Synoptics”:

He gives some examples of editorial inconsistencies in Matthew and Luke due to fatigue in the way they altered Mark.

8

Aren’t the letters from Paul pretty much accepted to be written by Paul?

9

Not all of them. The ones that a majority of modern scholars consider authentic are:

* Romans
* First Corinthians
* Second Corinthians
* Galatians
* Philippians
* First Thessalonians
* Philemon

See the wiki on Authorship of the Pauline Epistles for a good summary.

10

Here is a qick schematic showing some of the relationships among the Synoptics:
Arrangement of texts, comparing Mark to Luke:



Mark                    Luke

A  1:1-15           A  3:1--4:15
________            J  4:16-30
B  1:16-20          ________
C  1:21-39          C  4:31-44
________            B  5:1-11
D  1:40--3:6        D  5:12--6:11
E  3:7-12           F  6:12-16
F  3:13-19          E  6:17-19
G  3:31-55          ________
H  4:1-25           H  8:4-18
________            G  8:19-21
I  4:31--5:43       I  8:22-56
J  6:1-6            ________

Comparing Mark to Matthew:



Mark                    Matthew

A  1:1-20           A  3:1--4:22
B  1:29-34          ________
C  1:39             C  4:23-25
D  1:40-45          D  8:1-4
________            B  8:14-17
________            I  8:23-34
E  2:1-22           E  9:1-17
________            J  9:18-26
________            G  10:1-4
F  2:23--3:12       F  12:1-21
G  3:13-19          ________
H  3:22--4:34       H  12:22--13:35
I  4:35--5:20       ________
J  5:21-43          ________
K  6:1-6            K  13:53-58

Comparison of Luke to Matthew, showing shared material not common to Mark:
(A trailing asterisk indicates that the material occurs in the same
relative order in both Gospels; a trailing backslash indicates that
the texts are not in the same order–although the related passages often
still appear in the same relative order within each Gospel.)



     Luke           description               Matthew
 1  3:7-9, 16f     Baptist's preaching      1  3:7-12         *
 2  4:2-13         Temptation of Jesus      2  4:2-11         *
 3  6:20-23,       Sermon on the Plain      3  5:3-6, 11f,    *
      27-30, 32-36                               39-42, 45-48
 4  6:37 f, 41-49  Sermon on the Plain II   7  7:1-5, 16-21,  *
                                                 24-27
 5  7:1-10         Capernaum Centurion      9  8:5-13         *
 6  7:18-35        Sayings of the Baptist  13 11:2-19         *
 7  9:57-60        On Discipleship         10  8:19-22        \
 8 10:1-12         Mission Discourse       11  9:37--10:15    \
 9 10:13-15, 21f   Woes and Joys           14 11:21-23, 25f   *
10 11:1-4          Lord's Prayer            5  6:9-13         \
11 11:9-13         On Prayer                8  7:7-11         \
12 11:14-23        Beelzebub controversy   15 12:22-30        *
13 11:24-26        Backsliding             17 12:43-45        *
14 11:29-32        Against asking for      16 12:38-42        \
                     miracles
15 11:33-35        Sayings on Light         4  5:15; 6:22 f   \
16 11:39-52        Against Pharisees       19 23:4, 23-25,    *
                                                 29-36
17 12:2-10         Summons to Confession   12 10:26-33        \
18 12:22-34        Cares and Treasures      6  6:25-33, 19-21 \
19 12:39-46        Watchfulness            22 24:43-51        \
20 13:18-21        Mustard Seed & Leaven   18 13:31-33        \
21 13:34 f         Jerusalem Predictions   20 23:37-39        *
22 17:22-37        Discourse on Parousia   21 24:26-28, 37-41 *
23 19:11-28        Parable of Talents      23 25:14-30        *

I’m not sure that your best bet for this information is the internet. While the basics have been established for many years, scholars continue to tinker with their opinions regarding specific details.

You can try the Jesus Seminar Forum for some information and links to other sites. You might also check out these two of the numerous threads we’ve had on these topics:
Were Barabbas & Jesus the same person? Your take-
The Q Gospel
(the discussions are intersting, but they refer to many of the print source for the current discussions, which is where you are going to find much more and better information).

I would also concur that the “written by the hand of God” position has never been strongly held by most Christians, and then only quite a bit later than the compilation of the canon, so I am not sure why that is really an issue (unless you find yourself in debate with one of its few adherants). There are a number of people who hold that Moses wrote the Torah/Pentateuch directly under God’s hand, but the Gospels have not generally attracted the same belief.

11

Famous inconsistencies/contradictions:

*The genealogy of Jesus: Luke says his paternal grandfather’s name was Heli, Matthew that it was Jacob; Luke says he was a descendant of King David’s son Nathan, Matthew that he was a descendant of David’s son Solomon, the number of generations and the names of most of the ancestors twixt David & Joseph are completely different, and both trace his ancestry through Joseph who, according to the same scriptures, wasn’t his father anyway. List

*The order of creation (Genesis 1 v Genesis 2)

*Was Goliath killed by David or by Elhanan, son of Jair? Both are cited as such.

*Genesis 4 describes Jabal as “the father of those who dwell in tents and have cattle” and his brother Jubal as “the father of those who play the harp”. Since all humanity was destroyed by the Flood a few generations later (but long before Genesis was recorded), and neither was an ancestor of Noah, how can this be true? (And if they were ancestors of Noah, then why not say “Noah was the ancestor of all who played harps, lived in tents, or did most anything else” as the ancestral lines would be very straight rather than polygenetic.

12

? Sampiro, you do realize that the OP has focused on the Gospels while your three last examples come from the Old Testament/Tanakh?

13

I never understood the “human authorship” of any part of the New Testament to be in any way disputed or in need of evidential support. Which human is certainly a matter of ongoing debate, but all the Gospels are attributed to human authors who were relating the accounts of purported witnesses of the events recorded; and some are even attributed firsthand-witness status to some of the events themselves, depending on who you ask. I never heard the idea that any of the Gospels were supposed to be a sort of transcription of the words of the Almighty Himself, à la Mohammed and the Qu’ran. I guess that sort of distinction might fit John’s Apocalypse, but that is an unusual book indeed, and made the cut only by a hair (in some versions, of course). I’ve heard from folks who know better than me that the Book of Revelations isn’t especially well-written (the author was probably not even fluent in Greek), and stands as a rather unimpressive piece of literature next to the Gospels or Paul’s epistles. That alone should speak to its very human authorship. It’s sort of the NT’s little trip into psychedelia, if you ask me, a very weird and imperfect addition that probably should never have been included.

14

Bah, “Revelation”, not “Revelations”. Sorry.

15

A little while ago I made a series of long posts on another message board which addressed, in detail, some specific errors and contradictions in the Gospels. I’ve modified them slightly for this board and I’ll offer them here in two separate posts - one for errors and one for contradictions. First up is errors.

The Gospels contain factual errors
It’s hard to know where to start with this one or how to categorize the errors so I guess I’ll just take the gospels one at a time starting with Mark.

Errors in Mark

Mark probably has the greatest number of factual inaccuracies. He makes mistakes of geography, custom and law. The trial before the Sanhedrin is Mark’s invention and is a catalogue of errors unto itself but let’s start with geography.

Geographical errors in Mark:

The Gerasene Demoniac:

In Mark 5:1, Jesus and company sail across the Sea of Galilee and come to “the land of the Gerasenes.” There they encounter a man possessed by unclean spirits. Jesus drives out the spirits, the spirits enter some pigs and the pigs run down a hill and jump into the lake.

If you look at map 1 below you can see that Gerasa is 30 miles south southeast of the lake. That’s a pretty big jump for those pigs. There is also no 30 mile long embankment running down from Gerasa to the lake. Note also that the pigs would have had to cross three different rivers before they would get to the sea.

Matthew reconized Mark’s blunder and tried to correct Gerasa to Gadara (the Matthew story also contains two demoniacs instead of one so Matthew’s version of the story contains two contradictions with Mark) but Gadara was still six miles from the lake. Luke retains Gerasa in his version indicating that Luke didn’t know much about Palestinian geography either.

Map 1
Tyre to the Sea of Galilee through Sidon:

In 7:31, Mark says the following:
“And again he [Jesus] went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through Sidon unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the borders of Decapolis.”
There is at least one clear error here and arguably two. Looking at the next map below we can see Tyre and Sidon on the coast of the Mediterranean sea, northwest of the Sea of Galilee. Mark says that Jesus went from Tyre through Sidon to get to the lake. But Sidon is north of Tyre. It’s exactly the wrong direction. You cannot go through Sidon to get to Galilee from Tyre.
Map 2

There also wasn’t any road from Sidon southeast to Galilee but that’s a minor point.

The other arguable error is that Mark seems to suggest that Jesus went through the Decapolis to get to the lake. The Decapolis was a cluster of ten Greek cities, most of which were located to the southeast of the Sea of Galilee. It is represented in the next map below.
Map 3

Mark’s meaning is a little awkward even in Greek. He says “…ana meson ton horion decapoleos,” literally, “…up through the middle of the borders of the Decapolis.”

Now the “up” part is somewhat debatable. The preposition ana denotes upward movement and with the accusative can indicate either “up through” or just “through.” In this case we find the construction ana meson which can mean “up through the middle of” or “into the middle of.” It would clearly be a boner for Mark to say that Jesus went from Sidon “up through” the Decapolis to get to the lake. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt and just translate it as “into the middle of” it still isn’t quite clear what he means. There seems to still be an inplication that Mark thinks the Decapolis is between Sidon and the lake. It’s possible that he means Jesus went to the lake first and then to the middle of the shores of the Decapolis but then we have a lake in the way (to get to middle of the shores of the Decapolis) and Mark says nothing about another lake crossing here. It is also possible that Mark is truncating a description of a journey which goes all the way around the lake to the south and then goes “up through” the Decapolis to get the middle of southeastern shore of the lake. If that’s what he means, he picks a very confusing way to convey it. This may or may not be an error but I mention it because it’s said directly in conjunction with another error and the entire verse gives an impression that Mark did not have an accurate understanding of the geography he was describing.
Crossing the Jordan into Judea

Mark 10:1 says that Jesus travelled down from Capernaum then crossed the Jordan into Judea. But crossing to the east bank of the river would have put him outside of Judea into Perea. Furthermore, travelling from Capernaum to Judea would have entailed going through Samaria, a hostile territory which Jews habitually avoided. Customarily, travellers from Galilee to Judea crossed the river north of Samaria, went south along the river in the Transjordan and then crossed back over to Judea. Mark seems to know that crossing the Jordan was part of the journey but doesn’t seem to quite grasp the mechanics of the trip.

Of course it is possible that Mark just elided the initial crossing from his description, however what is actually in the text provides a misleading picture of the route.

Bethsaida and Gennesaret

In Mark 6 we get the story of Jesus walking on water. This occurs immediately after Mark’s first loaves and fishes story:

(Mk. 6:45-53)
*Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.
47When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land. 48He saw the disciples straining at the oars, because the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night he went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, 49but when they saw him walking on the lake, they thought he was a ghost. They cried out, 50because they all saw him and were terrified.

Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” 51Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, 52for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened.

53When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there.*
Jesus tells the disciples to get in the boat and start heading across the lake to Bethsaida which was on the northeast shore. Jesus somehow gets rid of the crowd (usually this is accomplished by getting Elvis out of the building, not leaving him behind to clear the venue himself, but whatever) and then goes up a mountain to pray. That night the disciples get to the middle of the lake. Jesus sees them (somehow from the shore in the middle of the night) straining against the wind. He walks out to them on the surface of the water, the disciples freak, Jesus tells them to chill and he gets in the boat. Then they continue across the lake until they land in Gennesaret…which is on the northwest shore, the same side of the lake they presumably started on.
Bethpage and Bethany

(Ok, this one’s kind of minor but what the hey)

In Mark 11, Jesus and his posse are walking from Jericho to Jerusalem. Mark decribes their route as going through Bethpage the Bethany but they would have passed those towns in the opposite order coming from Jericho.
There are some other nitpicky things as well. Mark calls Bethsaida a “village” when it was actially a good sized city. He also names some towns that are unknown from any other literature from the time (Dalmanutha, Arimathea, even Nazareth) and may have been Mark’s own inventions (I think at least Aramathea probably was).

Legal and cultural errors in Mark

Mark doesn’t know Jewish divorce law.

In Mark 10:11-12, Jesus forbids divorce:
11He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."

Verse 12 implies that Mark believed women had a right of divorce in Jewish law. They did not.

Mark doesn’t know ritual purity laws.

Mark says this in 7:3-4:

3(The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. 4When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.
These laws only applied to priests, not to Pharisees and not to “all the Jews.”
The trial before the Sanhedrin

Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin contains a number of procedural and legal errors. each of the following details would have been in direct contradiction to Jewish law.

[ul][li]Mark’s trial is at night. The Sanhedrin was forbidden to hold trials at night.[/li]
[li]Mark’s trial happens at the home of the high priest. The Sanhedrin was permitted to hold trials only in the Gazith Hall at the Temple.[/li]
[li]Mark’s trial is held on Passover. This is perhaps the greatest implausibility of the story. Jewish law absolutely forbid any such activity on high holy days or on the sabbath.[/li]
[li]Jesus is given a death sentence immediately. Jewish law required that a death sentence could not be pronounced until 24 hours after the trial.[/li]
[li]Mark has Jesus being convicted of blasphemy for claiming to be the Messiah:[/li]
*Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”

I am,” said Jesus. “And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

The high priest tore his clothes. “Why do we need any more witnesses?” he asked. “You have heard the blasphemy. What do you think?”

They all condemned him as worthy of death*
(Mk 14:61-64)

Claiming to be the Messiah was in no way blasphemous nor any violation of Jewish law. The Jewish Messiah was (and is) not God. There is no way that a person claiming to be the Messiah could have been convicted of blasphemy.[/ul]
The death of John the Baptist

Arguably, Mark also makes one very notable historical error in that he places the execution of John the Baptist within the life of Jesus. According to Josephus, however, JBap was arrested and executed about 36 CE, several years after the crucifixion.

To be fair, there is no corroboration for Josephus’ date, so this may be better characterized as a conflict with Josephus than a proveable error but there is no corroboration for Mark’s dating either. Between Mark and Josephus, at least one of them is wrong and possibly both. I think It is also fair to say that Mark is more likely to be wrong than Josephus.
Errors in Matthew

A lot of Matthew’s innacuracies are just repetitions of Mark so I won’t mention them again. Most of Matthew’s personal inaccuracies (Independent of Mark) are in blatant misconstruals of passages from the Hebrew Bible as being Messianic prophecies. Here are a few of them.

[ul][li]Probably the most infamous one is in 1:23 where Matthew misquotes Isaiah 7:14. This is one I’m pretty sure that most anyone who frequents GD religious discussions already knows about so I won’t belabor it. Suffice it to say that the Isaiah quotation does not say “virgin” and is not a Messianic prophecy.[/li]
[li]In 2:15, (after Jesus’ fictional sojourn in Egypt is over) Matthew quotes Hosea 11:1 ("…out of Egypt I have called my son") but Matthew deceptively leaves out the first part of the verse which identifies “my son” as Israel. The verse, in it’s entirety, says:[/li]
When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

This is not a prophecy of any sort but a reference to the Exodus.

[li]In 2:17-18, Matthew tries to claim Herod’s slaughter of the innocents (a Matthean fiction which will be dealt with in the appropriate section) is a “fulfillment” of Jeremiah 31:15, which reads as follows:[/li]
*This is what the LORD says:

"A voice is heard in Ramah,    
 mourning and great weeping, 
 Rachel weeping for her children 
 and refusing to be comforted, 
 because her children are no more."*

This is not a prophecy and has nothing to do with Herod. In context it is about the Babylonian captivity.

[li]Matthew claims another fulfilled prophesy in 26:56:[/li]
55At that time Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. 56But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.

But he doesn’t say what prophecy he’s referring to and nothing similar exists in the Hebew Bible.

[li]27:9 contains an out and out screw up. Matthew claims a fulfilled prophesy from Jeremiah but the passage he quotes (or paraphrases) is actually from Zechariah (11:12-13). It’s also not a Messianic prophecy.[/ul][/li]
Errors in Luke-Acts

I will combine Luke-Acts since it is (presumably) the same author.

As with Matthew, a lot of Luke’s errors are imported from Mark but he has a few of his own.
(Lk 3:1-2)
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar–when Pontius Pilate was Procurator [Gr. Hegemon] of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene– 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas…

The first two verses of Luke 3 contain three factual errors.

  1. Pilate was a Prefect, not a procurator.
  2. Lysanias of Abilene died in 36 BCE
  3. Caiaphas was the only high priest at this time. Annas had been deposed years before. There was no tradition of dual high priests in any case. Annas and Caiaphas were never “co” high priests.

Luke’s description of the census of Quirinius, aside from contradictimg Matthew as to dating, is also flawed or at least highly implausible in its assertion that people were requred to return to their ancestral homes to register. No such condition existed and it would have been a logistical nightmare anyway.

Also, Quirinius’ census only applied to Judea, not Galilee, so Joseph (if he was a resident of Nazareth as Luke avers) would not have been bound by it.

In Acts 5:36-37, Luke has a character named Gamaliel talking about a revolt by Theudas which had not happened yet relative to the alleged setting of the story. “Gamaliel” is supposedly talking in the 30’s CE but the revolt he speaks of happened in the mid 40’s. Moreover, he claims the revolt of Judas the Galilean happened after the revolt of Theudas but it actually happened 40 years before.

In Acts 21:38, Luke has Roman commander ask him if he was the “Egyptian” who led a band of sicarii into the desert. Although Josephus does mention a “false prophet” called “the Egyptian” he does not associate him with the sicarii, who were assassins, not followers of prophets. In Jewish Wars, Josephus talks about the sicarii directly prior to talking about the “Egyptian” leading some followers to the Mount of Olives and Luke (who used Josephus as a source) probably conflated them.
Errors in John

Just a couple because this post is getting long enough as it is.

In 1:28, John says that John the Baptist was baptizing in “Bethany on the far side of the Jordan.” Bethany was on the western side of the Jordan in Judea and there is no known place which was called Bethany in the Transjordan.

The major error in John is the anachronistic placing of the expulsion of Christians from Jewish synagogues within the lifetime of Jesus. This is a howling mistake in john.

The above not a complete list of errors in the gospels but it’s a nice little sampler of some of the better ones.
Next up: contradictions in the gospels.

16

Anyway of combining :smack: with ;j .

Ah well, the Old Testament was New once… sorta.

17

(The hampsters told me I had to break this next post in two, so here’s part 1)

2. The Gospels contradict each other

There’s really a lot I could list here if I really wanted to include all the minor contradictions and seemingly self-contradictory statements of Jesus himself but I’m just going to stick with some of the more glaring, contradictory , factual claims about Jesus. Contradictions which I submit cannot be reconciled.

Let’s start with the genealogies for Jesus given in Matthew and Luke.

Matthew gives the following:
(Mtt. 1:1-16)
A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2Abraham was the father of Isaac,
Isaac the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
3Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar,
Perez the father of Hezron,
Hezron the father of Ram,
4Ram the father of Amminadab,
Amminadab the father of Nahshon,
Nahshon the father of Salmon,
5Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
6and Jesse the father of King David.
David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife,
7Solomon the father of Rehoboam,
Rehoboam the father of Abijah,
Abijah the father of Asa,
8Asa the father of Jehoshaphat,
Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram,
Jehoram the father of Uzziah,
9Uzziah the father of Jotham,
Jotham the father of Ahaz,
Ahaz the father of Hezekiah,
10Hezekiah the father of Manasseh,
Manasseh the father of Amon,
Amon the father of Josiah,
11and Josiah the father of Jeconiah[a] and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.
12After the exile to Babylon:
Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel,
Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,
13Zerubbabel the father of Abiud,
Abiud the father of Eliakim,
Eliakim the father of Azor,
14Azor the father of Zadok,
Zadok the father of Akim,
Akim the father of Eliud,
15Eliud the father of Eleazar,
Eleazar the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
16and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
Now let’s look at Luke.

(Lk. 3:23-38)
Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli, 24the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, the son of Melki,
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,
25the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos,
the son of Nahum, the son of Esli,
the son of Naggai, 26the son of Maath,
the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein,
the son of Josech, the son of Joda,
27the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa,
the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,
the son of Neri, 28the son of Melki,
the son of Addi, the son of Cosam,
the son of Elmadam, the son of Er,
29the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer,
the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat,
the son of Levi, 30the son of Simeon,
the son of Judah, the son of Joseph,
the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim,
31the son of Melea, the son of Menna,
the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan,
the son of David, 32the son of Jesse,
the son of Obed, the son of Boaz,
the son of Salmon,[d] the son of Nahshon,
33the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram,[e]
the son of Hezron, the son of Perez,
the son of Judah, 34the son of Jacob,
the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham,
the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,
35the son of Serug, the son of Reu,
the son of Peleg, the son of Eber,
the son of Shelah, 36the son of Cainan,
the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem,
the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,
37the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch,
the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel,
the son of Kenan, 38the son of Enosh,
the son of Seth, the son of Adam,
the son of God.
First of all let’s bear in mind that these are really geneologies for Joseph, not Jesus. If you believe that Jesus was born of a virgin as both Matthew and Luke assert, then it must be admitted that Jesus himself has no connection to either geneology. That makes them rather a moot point since the whole point of these things is to show Jesus’ descendancy from David. It’s a contradiction in itself to say that Jesus was born of a virgin and then try to prove a Davidic lineage through Joseph.

Looking at the genealogies themselves we see that Matthew starts with Abraham and counts down to Joseph, while Luke starts with Joseph and counts clear back to Adam (also note that Luke calls Adam “the son of God.”)

The parts I’ve bolded are the parts where the genealogies diverge. Matthew claims descendancy from David through Solomon, Luke through Nathan. They are completely different after that and claim different fathers for Joseph.

Typically, this disparity has been addressed by apologists by claiming that one of the genealogies goes through Mary. There is zero support for this in the texts, though, and a matrilineal connection to David would not have been sufficient to legitimize a claim to Davidic inheritance under Jewish law anyway. The genealogies clash and that’s that.
There is also a huge disparity between Matthew and Luke as to the date of birth. Matthew claims that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great but Luke claims that Jesus was born during the census of Quirinius (6-7 CE) which is ten years after Herod died in 4 BCE. This is an irreconcilable gap, although many apologists have tried to contrive an earlier census there is no evidentiary support for such an event and some significant evidence against it. More on this in the errors section.
Matthew’s and Luke’s Nativities are quite different and each mentions things not mentioned by the others. Not every difference is a necessary contradiction but some of the differences are and it might be useful to examine them side by side.

Synopsis of Matthew’s Nativity:

Joseph and Mary are engaged but they haven’t had sex yet. Mary turns up pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Joseph (understandably) wants to break up with her but then an angel comes to him in a dream and tells him that the Holy Ghost knocked her up and she’s still a virgin and Joseph should marry her anyway. Somehow Joseph buys all this and agrees to stay with Mary.

Jesus is born in Bethlehem (Matthew does not have anything about a census or an inn. He just says Jesus was born in Bethlehem with the implication that Joseph and Mary already lived there).

Some “astrologers (magoi) from the East” show up at Herod’s court and ask him where the new king of Judea is because they “saw his star in the East.” (note: Matthew does not call them kings and does not say how many there were. The “three kings” image is an extra Biblical popular tradition)Herod gets pissed and calls the priests to ask them where the “Annointed” is supposed to be born. The priests tell him Bethlehem and quote from Micah. Herod then tells the astrologers to go to Bethlehem and find the kid and then report back to him, ostensibly so he can “pay homage” to the kid but really so he can kill him.

The astrologers go to Bethlehem and then follow the star until it stops over a house (not a stable) with Jesus in it. The astrologers give mad props to Baby Jesus and give him gold and frankincense and myrhh. Then an angel comes to them in a dream and warns them not to go back to Herod so they secretly split back to their own countries instead.

Then an angel comes to Joseph in a dream (in Matthew’s Nativity it seems like everybody is constantly getting hounded by angels in their dreams) and tells him to haul ass to Egypt and bring Jesus with him. Joseph packs up his family and blows.

When Herod gets stood up by the astrologers he loses his shit and orders all male children under two years of age in and around Bethlehem to be killed.

Herod dies and Joseph gets the message (yep, you guessed it) from an angel in a dream and returns to Israel. He finds out that Herod’s son, Archelaus is king of Judea so he’s afraid. Joseph gets visited by an angel in yet another dream and is told to go to Galilee (which, incidentally was being ruled by another of Herod’s sons, Herod Antipas, so it’s not clear why Galilee would have been any safer…but to be fair, Archelaus sucked much harder than Antipas. He was so bad, in fact, that he was forcibly removed in 6 CE by the Romans, Judea was made part of the province of Syria and Quirinius was put in charge. As a matter of fact, the annexation of Judea as a Roman province was the very reason that Quirinius was required to commission a census). So Joseph drags the family to Galilee and settles down in Nazareth.
Synopsis of Luke’s Nativity

There is a long, boring story about the conception of John the Baptist. During the pregnancy of JBap’s mother, Elizabeth, an angel come to Mary (who is already living in Nazareth) and tells her that she’s going to get knocked up by the Holy Spirit. Mary goes to visit Elizabeth and Elizabeth gets all excited and there’s some more boring stuff and then JBap is born.

Jump to a pregnant Mary travelling to Bethlehem with Joseph to register for Quirinius’ census. Jesus is born in a stable (and Luke actually intimates that it is for privacy, not because there was no room inside the inn. Inns back then did not have private rooms. Everyone just kind of sacked out together). Cut to a bunch of shepherds tending their flocks at night. An angel comes down and scares the crap out of them. The angel tells them to chill and informs them that the Messiah has been born and is lying in a manger in Bethlehem. Then a whole bunch more angels come down and start singing at the shepherds. Then all the angels disappear and the shepherds rush off to Bethlehem and find Baby Jesus and give him mad props.

Then, eight days later, Joseph and Mary take Jesus to Jerusalem to the Temple to be circumcised. While they’re at the Temple an old guy named Simeon comes up to them because the holy spirit told him all about Jesus. Simeon gives Baby Jesus mad props and then predicts doom and gloom for Israel. Then an old lady “prophetess” named Anna happens by and sees this and she starts telling everybody else all about it.

Then after Jesus is properly snipped, Joseph and Mary and Jesus all go back to Nazareth. There is nothing about a flight to Egypt. They go straight to Nazareth and Jesus commences to growing up “strong and wise.”

It’s pretty easy to see that with the exception of the place of birth and the defense of Mary’s virtue these stories have virtually no relationship to each other. as I said above, not every detail in Luke is necessarily in contradiction to Matthew but whatever is not directly contradicted is pretty much incidental in contrast to the details that clash. Let’s add some of them up:

Matthew implies that Mary and Joseph were living in Bethlehem when Jesus was born and the magi visit them in a house. Luke says they lived in Nazareth and were only in Bethlehem to register for a census.

Matthew says that Jesus’ family fled to Egypt after Jesus was born and then moved to Nazareth only after they had returned from Egypt and an angel told them to move to Galilee.

Luke says nothing about Herod’s slaughter of the innocents or a flight to Egypt. He explicitly states that Jesus went to Jerusalem to be circumcised eight days after he was born and then immediately returned to Nazareth.

Luke also says nothing about the magi, or about a star or about the house where the magi visited Jesus in Bethlehem.

These are completely different stories and it seems that neither author has any awareness of the other.

To recap the most intractable contradictions between the Nativities, we have

  1. Two completely different genealogies for Joseph.
  2. Luke places the date of Jesus’ birth ten years later than Matthew.
  3. Matthew has Mary and Joseph living in a house in Bethlehem when Jesus was born while Luke says they were living in Nazareth and travelling to Bethlehem for a census.
  4. Matthew says that Jesus’ family fled to Egypt after the birth and moved to Nazareth only after the death of Herod. Luke says they were living in Nazareth all along and returned there immediately after Jesus was circumcised.
  5. Luke knows nothing of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents or of a flight to Egypt. In fact, by Luke’s chronology, Herod was already dead when Jesus was born.
    Moving past the Nativities and into the ministry of Jesus we have some more agreement, at least in the snoptics, since Matthew and Luke now have Mark to copy from and also share Q but there are still some contradictions. For instance, remember the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew? (5:12)

Luke says it happened on a plain (6:17)

John also omits that whole 40 days in the wilderness bit from the synoptics and just has Jesus start immediately hanging out with the disciples a couple of days after his baptism.

There is much that can be made of the seeming contradictions in Jesus’ own words and rhetoric but I’m going to skip past all that and go on to some more interesting contradictions in the Passion and Resurrection narratives.

The synoptics disagree with John on the timing of the last supper and the crucifixion as they pertain to the Passover. The synoptics say that the last supper was a Passover seder (hence on the eve of the Passover) while John says that it was the night before the seder. This can get a little confusing because it uses the Jewish demarcation of days starting and ending at sunset but maybe I can make it easier saying it like this. John and the synoptics agree that Jesus was arrested on a thursday night and crucified on friday. The difference is that the synoptics say the Passover started on thursday night (making the last supper a seder) and ended on friday night. John says the passover started on friday night (after Jesus had already been crucified) and ended on saturday night.

John also disagrees with the synoptics as to the time of day that Jesus was crucifed. According to the synoptics, Jesus was nailed up at the third hour (9 AM), darkness came over the land around the 6th hour (noon) and Jesus kicked the bucket around the 9th hour (3 PM). John says that Pilate ordered Jesus taken away to be crucified at noon. The significance of John’s chronology is that Pilate orders Jesus to be crucified at the same time the Pashal lambs are being slaughtered in the Temple (something which had occurred the day before according to the synoptic chronologies).
Now let’s examine Jesus’ alleged last words on the cross:

(Matt.27:46-50)
*45From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 46About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi,[c] lama sabachthani?”–which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”[d]
47When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”

48Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 49The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

50And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.*

(Mark says almost the same thing but renders the Psalm quote in Aramaic rather than Hebrew)

(Luke23:46)
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, “Father, unto thy hands I commend my spirit:” and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

(John19:30)
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished:” and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
These are three distinctly contradictory claims for the last words of Jesus on the cross. No one gospel mentions the quotes from the other gospels and all of them assert their own lines as Jesus’ very last words.

Irreconcilable.

Before we get to the resurrection narratives, let’s look at Judas. I’m going to go outside the gospels for this one and compare Matthew to Acts, but since Acts was written by Luke it should still serve to show a contradiction between authors of the gospels.

Matthew first:
(Matt. 27:1-10)
*Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people came to the decision to put Jesus to death. They bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate, the governor.

When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus was condemned, he was seized with remorse and returned the thirty silver coins to the chief priests and the elders. “I have sinned,” he said, “for I have betrayed innocent blood.”

“What is that to us?” they replied. “That’s your responsibility.”

So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

The chief priests picked up the coins and said, “It is against the law to put this into the treasury, since it is blood money.” So they decided to use the money to buy the potter’s field as a burial place for foreigners. That is why it has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled: “They took the thirty silver coins, the price set on him by the people of Israel, and they used them to buy the potter’s field, as the Lord commanded me.” *
Now Acts:

(Acts 1:18-19)
(With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

In Matthew, Judas throws the money back at the priests, then goes and hangs himself (Matt doesn’t say where), then the priests take the money and buy a field.
In Acts, Judas buys a field himself and then he falls headlong and his guts explode.
Irreconcilable.
Now for the resurrection.

18

(part 2)

The resurrection/appearance narratives are really a mess of contradictions so I’ll just write a brief synopsis of each account and then pick out the contradictions.
Synopsis of Mark’s Resurrection

Scene: Sunday Morning

Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James and Salome are walking to the tomb. As they’re walking they’re talking and worrying about how they can get somebody to help them move the rock. They get to the tomb and see the rock has been rolled away. They go inside and see an angel sitting in the tomb. The angel shows them that Jesus’ body is gone and tells them to inform Cephas and the rest of the disciples that Jesus is risen and that they should all go to Galilee where they will be able to see him. The women run away from the tomb but they don’t tell anybody because they’re terrified.

Mark cuts off right there with no further visits to the tomb and no appearance narratives,
Synopsis of Matthew’s Resurrection

Scene: Sunday Morning

Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” go to the tomb (no mention of Salome this time). Right when they get to the tomb, there’s an earthquake, an angel comes down from the sky, rolls away the rock and sits down on it. This time there are guards at the tomb and they get scared. The angel then tells the women pretty much the same thing the other angel said in Mark. he shows them that Jesus is gone and tells them to tell the disciples that Jesus wants to holler at them in Galilee. The women run away but this time they run bang into Jesus. They freak out some and Jesus tells them to chill and then tells the women to let the disciples know he would holler at them in Galilee.

At this point, there’s an interjection in which the guards run to the priests and tell them what they saw, so then the priests bribe the guards to say that the disciples stole Jesus’ body.

Back to the disciples. The eleven of them go to a mountain in Galilee and Jesus appears. They give Jesus mad props but some are still doubtful. Jesus tells them to go out and preach the message and baptize people and that he will always be with them.

And that’s it for Matthew.

Synopsis of Luke’s Resurrection

Scene: Sunday Morning

Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, Joanna and “the rest of the women” go to the tomb. As in Mark, they find the stone already rolled away. They peep inside the tomb. What? No Jesus! As they’re standing there trying to figure out what’s going on, all of a sudden TWO angels appear out of thin air. The women freak, the angels tell them to chill and tell them that Jesus has risen. The women run to tell the disciples (but Luke’s angels do not explicitly instruct them to do so this time). The disciples don’t believe them but then Peter jumps up and runs to the tomb. He peeps in and sees that Jesus is gone. He goes home “marvelling.”

Cut to “two of them” (one named Cleopas, the other unnamed) walking to Emmaus. They meet Jesus but they don’t recognize him. They tell him all about Jesus and the women and the empty tomb. Jesus tells them how dumb they are for not knowing the prophecies (which didn’t actually exist but that’s another can of worms). They stop to have some grub and when they break bread, they recognize Jesus, then he vanishes.

Cleopas and the other dude run back to Jerusalem and find the rest of the disciples. The rets of the disciples tell them that Jesus had risen and appeared to “Simon” (who may or may not be the “Peter” who Luke says had seen the empty tomb but does not say had seen the risen Jesus. I mention this because Luke actually uses the name “Peter” in the former case and “Simon” in the latter, so this may indicate two different people).

Cleopas and the other dude start telling the disciples about seeing Jesus on the road to Emmaus and then Jesus suddenly appears while they’re talking. (please note that they are still in Jerusalem and have not yet gone to Galilee) They freak, Jesus tells them to chill and he shows them all the rad holes in his hands and feet. Then Jesus asks them if they have anything to eat (I guess he hadn’t eaten in three days). They give him some fish and he eats it. Then he preaches at them for a while before leading them to Bethany where he ascends into the sky. The disciples go happily back to Jerusalem, and that’s the end for Luke.
Synopsis of John’s Resurrection

Scene: Sunday Morning

Mary Magdalene (alone) goes to the tomb. The stone has already been rolled away. She runs and finds Simon Peter along with the “Beloved Disciple” (who will henceforth be referred to as “BD”). Mary Magdalene tells them that the body has been “taken.” Peter and BD go running to the tomb. BD outruns Peter and gets there first and sees some strips of burial linens lying utside the tomb. Peter gets there and goes inside the tomb. Peter sees that Jesus is gone. BD then goes in and sees it too. Peter and BD go back home.

Mary Magdalene is left crying outside the tomb. She peeps inside the tomb and sees two angels. Then Jesus comes up behind her and she sees him but doesn’t recognize him. She thinks he’s the gardener and asks him if he moved the body and could he tell her where it was. Then Jesus says her name, “Mary,” and she recognizes him. He tells her not to touch him but to go tell the disciples about him. She goes and finds the disciples and tells them (John doesn’t say where they are). Later that night, Jesus appears to the disciples and shows them all his rad wounds. Then he breathes on them and says he’s giving them some Holy Spirit and tells them that he’s giving them the power to forgive sins.

Then we get the Doubting Thomas story. Thomas doubts. Thomas sticks fingers in rad nail holes. Thomas believes. Then Jesus says that people who believe without proof are more blessed than those annoying skeptics.

John really ends there. There’s another emended chapter which I won’t bring into the contradictions argument but just to be thorough, the emended chapter tells a weird story about Jesus appearing to the disciples in Galilee and helping them catch some fish, then he keeps asking Peter if he loves him and gives him his evangelical marching order and hints that he’s going to come to a rough end. Then Peter sees the BD following them and asks Jesus about him. Jesus tells Peter it’s not his business if Jesus wants to BD to hang around until he returns. Then the author says there was a rumor that the BD wasn’t supposed to die before Jesus came back but Jesus didn’t actually say tthat he just said “what business is it of yours if I DO want him to stay?”

End of emended John.
So how many women went to the tomb? was it Mary Madalene by herself? was she with the other Mary? The other Mary and Salome? The other Mary and Joanna and the “rest of the women?” Was it Peter (or Simon) or Cleopas and the other guy?

Was the stone already rolled away when they got there or did they see an angel come down and do it?

How many angels were there, one or two? Where were they? Were they in the tomb or sitting on the stone or did they appear out of thin air or did they descend from the sky?

Who was the first person to see Jesus? was it Mary Magdalene? If so, when did she see him? Did she crash into Jesus on her way to tell the disciples or did he come up behind her after she had returned to the tomb and was peeping in at the angels?

Where and when did Jesus appear to the disciples? Was it in Jerusalem or was it Galilee.

I would challenge anyone to resolve these stories without leaving anything out. I say they’re irreconcilable.
I’m going to leave my contradictions post right here. This is by no means a complete list and I haven’t even mentioned contradiction with Paul but I think I’ve made my case that the Gospels contradict each other.

19

Paul’s letters also contain numerous inconsistencies, most added in or created by future editors of his letters, though since Paul’s letters are, for the most part, accepted to be written by Paul and not divinely inspired by God, this is less of an issue.

20

Not an error or a contradiction, but Paul never mentions the virgin birth of Jesus, which seems an odd omission considering he was attempting to convince people of the divinity of the man.

A minor error, but an error nonetheless: Matthew 14:3 and Mark 6: 17 refer to Herod Antipas’s wife, Herodias, as previously having been the wife of his brother Philip. Josephus, who was of a priestly caste and a distant relative of the Herodian family, chronicles their marriages and progeny in great detail and lists the children of Herod as follows (omitting the names of daughters due to the many names about to follow):

-by Doris: 1 son (Antipater)
-by Mariamne: 2 sons (Aristobulus [who was the father of Herodias] and Alexander) and 2 daughters*
-by Mariamne #2: 1 son (Herod)
-by Malthace the Samaritan: 2 sons (Archelaus and Antipas) and 1 daughter
-by Cleopatra: 2 sons (Herod and Philip)
-by Pallas: 1 son (Phasaelus)
-by Phedra: 1 daughter
-by Elpis: 1 daughter
(Herod was also married to two of his nieces but had no children with either.)

According to Josephus, Herodias, daughter of Aristobulus, was the wife of her uncle Herod, Jr., the son of Mariamne #2 (who was, like the first [and ill fated] Mariamne, of a priestly family), not of Philip (the Tetrarch of Trachonitis). That she could not have been married to her Uncle Philip is echoed by the fact that her daughter, Salome (Shelomith, one of many women in the family to have that name) later married Philip the Tetrarch herself. That Philip was the half-brother of her father and her maternal grandfather, didn’t matter as uncle-niece marriage was permissible under Jewish law of the time (and occurred constantly in the Herodian family), but father-daughter marriage was incestuous and illegal, thus Salome could not have been Philip’s wife had Herodias been his wife before.
Some genealogies of the Herodian family refer to Herod, Jr., as “Herod-Philip”, though this is not reflected in Josephus and is strictly to make the historical genealogy provided by Josephus coincide with the account given in the Bible. (His name is also given as Philip Beothus in some sources, though I’m not sure why.)

Anyway, a minor error, but an error no less.

And if I’m not mistaken, the town of Nazareth did not exist until more than a century after the life of Jesus (and may be the result of a translation error of “Jesus the Nazarene” for "Jesus the Nazarite).