Jesus, Contradicted: Why There are Gospel Differences (w/ Mike Licona) 

Amen

The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword…

When a secular reporter asked President Reagan about the one book he'd want to have, if stranded on an island, he answered, "the Bible." The reporter didn't like that answer and immediately fired back, "Why the Bible?" President Reagan responded, "Because every time I read it, I get something new out of it." Actually, that was a slight paraphrase but you get the point.

It reminds me of easter eggs in movies. The more you watch it you start to notice little hidden things in the background and the same with the Bible the more you read it more revelations begin to reveal themselves. TC

funny how you christians can't agree on what your silly bible even means. So much for "revelation".

Jim expected the gospel accounts to be different because different people tell the same story ... differently.

The biggest issue with simplifying as an argument, is that it is not clear at all that Luke was written before Matthew. Many scholars believe that Mark was written first, then Matthew then Luke. If you entertain this theory as being true, all of a sudden instead of simplification being a trivial literary device, we have Luke adding to the story, and ret conning things that didn't quite add up in the earlier account.

​@@ThespianGamrwhy does it matter what order they were written? Often times we only ever offer up the simplified version of something. Why would someone adding in the details later make any of the details untrue?

@@tonyabrown7796 While it doesn't inherently make them untrue, it certainly makes it less likely. Furthermore, if someone is using an argument that, "it is totally natural to simplify an account" it at least seems to me to be very unnatural to add details to an account particularly in this manner, where details are subtly changed. Unless, of course, they had a motive for doing so. Let's use the example in the video of the centurion going in himself, or sending someone else in. Would it not be reasonable, that if the first account had the centurion going in, and many people questioned, "Why is the centurion going in? He would have surely sent on of his men in instead." Then the later account leaving the centurion outside is a "trivially changed" but importantly now non-condradictory to what would have been expected in that time.

@@ThespianGamr my first instinctive response was to sort of agree with your point. I used to not like those seeming contradictions, and then I thought about it more and realised it was a simplistic and hypocritical way of looking at it. For example, I told my extended family that I couldn't make it to a lunch because I was going away for the weekend. I told my work that I couldn't work on Friday or Monday because I was travelling to a netball carnival. I told my husband and inlaws even more specific details so we could organise child care. In each account I added details and yet each account was true. In one account I had even contracted the time frame, just like in one of the examples from the video. With regards to simplicity, I told my netball team I was driving to Coffs Harbour....but actually I didn't. My husband drove. Yet when he gave an account to someone else he informed them that we drove up together to pick up a work vehicle and we each drove a car back. People actually make these technically untrue simplified statements all the time. In fact, I've just done another similar thing. We don't do it "all the time", we just know it means we do it often. So making technically untrue statements to communicate truth is a very common way of communicating. With regards to your point about the centurion regarding wouldn't they have asked about something like that. Maybe that was something they would have assumed and so your point is moot. Or maybe it was simplified according to the purpose as in my lunch/work example. Or maybe it was because it was a case of one person giving a more detailed account than the other. Their general consistency, together with the common use of those communication methods is why I ultimately accepted the accounts, even though I didn't want to. I don't think you have a case to say the timing of the accounts has any relevance to their veracity.

@@tonyabrown7796 For one, your "All the time" example isn't simplicity, it's hyperbole, and although in theory it should be able to he determined what writing is and is not hyperbole, for me, the mere fact that there is SO MUCH disagreement and staunch opinions about inerrency, and what is or is not literally true and what is hyperbole or metaphor etc. is what started to drive me from the faith in the first place. Inconsistencies are usually brought up to combat the claim of inerrency, and both imprecise writing that causes "trivial inconsistencies" and literally impossible to determine levels of symbolism vs literal account made inerrancy an impossible claim in my mind. Further the centurion example is one that makes sense for both accounts to be basically true, with it not mattering who went into the city, but there still examples where polar opposites are claimed, such as whether or not to take a staff, being declared absolutely do and do not in different books.

The problem with Sean is that he is bound to the modernist framework of scientific understandings and infusing them with a particular theology of Scripture. IMO, inspiration is a theolougmemon not not be tied to a specific "technology" which grounds the authority of Scripture.

Or, now hear me out, they were written one after the other, with the next writer being able to reference the earlier document.

If you read the Gospels many time, pay attention, form your own. I am not sure what contradictions he mean and explaining it away. Those so called contradictios are what makes me think it is so real. The best explanations are how eyewitnesses remember. When it no longer turns to contradictions but an important point being made. I do not believe that Mathew simplified and vice versa, there are glaring differences. Using Genres as an explanation is a cop out. @ThespianGamr

@@Logic807 Then I guess it just fascinates me that people can read the same document and one can say, "Wow this high percentage of harmony helps convince me it's real." While someone else goes, "wow, these subtle differences in perspectives of 'eye witness' accounts convince me it's real."

Christianity (and scripture) isn't dependent on proof but rather trust, and even then only as given thru revelation from the holy Spirit. I believe it is true but not because it has been proven historically, but because God has opened my heart to it's truth.

Love your answer!​@@maltucker1

Right. It actually adds to the evidence that the Bible is true.

@@learnenglishwithblaine9604 Try this on. I liked it immediately when I read it 25 years ago: "These stories aren't true because they're in the Bible. They're in the Bible because they are true." - Peter Gomes (I think, lol)

@@jaggedstarrPI Amen.

Yes to put it another way, it’s primarily a theological work rather than a biographical work.

Sounds like I’m in your head 😜. Glad you enjoyed it!

So if the gospels are no better than other literature of the time why take them more seriously than other literature of the time?

If you regard those passages as authentic, then it's a matter of modern scholars simply being wrong in their assessment (though the latter is found in most Bibles).

It is helpful to distinguish between inerrancy and preservation. Inerrancy applies to the original text not to modern reconstructed copies (or to paraphrases, bad translations and commentaries). It is however also true that the text has been preserved well enough that we know with high certainty what the originals said and what was changed or added later, which is why you know that the story of the woman caught in adultery was probably not in the original text. The fact that you know it does not undermine inerrancy. Similarly one could argue that everything that Jesus said was inerrant, but most of it is lost to time (no preservation). If you're interested in preservation perhaps look up the work of Dan Wallace. I would also recommend the work of James White for a broader understanding of how this should impact our theology.

"Inspiration" is a gift of a human-divine partnership through the Spirit. We have a process in place which allows us to get back reliably to the inerrant original, to which we don't have access. The Bible is true, trustworthy, and without error 'in everything that it teaches.' Anything the Bible claims to be true -- is true.

"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you." John 14:26 - Licona probably doesn't take this as being either something Jesus said and/or that there is a Holy Sprit who did exactly this.

Matthew 11:25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants." @dannylgriffin I think what you understand is all that's needed. Sometimes intelligence is a stumbling block.

It was debate between Howe and Licona on inerrancy

Thinking about what you wrote -- and applying it to the Bible -- the Bible is true, trustworthy, and without error in everything that it teaches. Anything the Bible claims to be true -- is true. Am I understanding your example?

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Define "God-breathed." You'll probably need to dig into the Greek, in order to respond.

@@IndianaJoe0321 2315 theopneustos Theo- God Pneo- breathed out Also translated God inspired, but that’s lacking color… John 19:11 says Jesus answered, “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above. Therefore the one who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” Also John 3:27 says John answered and said, "A man is able to receive not one thing if it is not given to him from heaven.

@@IndianaJoe0321 the revelations they received after Christ ascended were given to them. Knowledge and wisdom comes from our creator. The enemy copies what is already there and defiles it. He twists and bends. He is the father of all lies. For there is nothing new under the sun.

@@IndianaJoe0321 there is also ore than one heaven according to the Bible. So though something comes from heaven, we must use the gifts that God has enabled us to receive to discern that which is of Him and that which is dark.

@@josephberndt6907 wrote, "the revelations they received after Christ ascended were given to them." The Hebrew Bible was compiled long before Messiah arrived, so what is your view of the Hebrew Bible? Do you not consider that to be inspired Scripture?

It's in a later Roman account, also check out the shroud of Turin research especially the 2022 paper on mdpi

@@hevanderdacosta3211 This, to me, is hardly persuasive when you consider the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ is supposed to be the most important event in all human history.

@@bobloblaw4102 `This, to me, is hardly persuasive` I would suggest this is an un-objective measure since it may predicated on you're own biases conscious or not, implicit/explicit goal post moving, or paradigm inflexibility to the particular case's evidence. The answer(evidence) should answer the question beyond a "reasonable doubt" that can be delineated by an alternative hypothesis. So a far as current historiographical methods of evidence, the death birth and a resurrection like event would pass. As for the resurrection itself the shroud of Turin study would seem to confirm that a highly anomalous event did occur (high energy radiation from a man's body). It would of course be worth doing more testing on the shroud phenomenon for multiple independent attestation.

@@hevanderdacosta3211 Thank you for the reply but you’ve corroborated nothing about the most important person and events in human history. You simply expanded what was previously posted. Your points about being “unobjective,” goal post moving, biases, etc, are the precise things Christians use to keep their facade propped up.

@@bobloblaw4102 "Your points about being ....", Right, it's something we're all liable to and doesn't get anyone objective answers. As far a corroboration. We're on RU-vid so I have the presumption that anyone would just search it up if curious enough. But here's a list to get you started (non-christian sources) Celsus 177 AD, (search up voices of the past True word, its a good reading of the manuscript) Pliny the Younger 112 AD to Emperor Tragen, Babylonian Talmud, Josephus Jewish Antiquities 93 AD, Lucian of Samosata 170 AD, Mara Bar-Serapion in 73 A.D, Thallus in 52 A.D, Suetonius in 121 A.D, Tacitus in 116 A.D

If someone of a different religion used this same logic and just said “I’ve always done it this way, and when it gets hard just believe harder” I’d be saddened for them. Knowing they can never be show truth. I’d just caution you from this type of logic. Have a blessed day and if you will it a long life.

An extended family-group; a clan/tribe.

What is the issue?

There is a YT video of Sean McDowell and Dr. Titus Kennedy discussing this among other things called The Archaeological Evidence for Jesus: A Conversation with Dr. Titus Kennedy.

"These writings?" To what are you referring? Are you referencing the historical writings to which Licona refers?

I've had issues with some of Licona's ideas for a while. He seems to do mental gymnastics on this subject. That's not to say that he's wrong on every example, but certainly his idea of inerrancy is foreign to me.

@@sorenpx At one point in this episode, Licona does this double speak of using part of John then later he says, discard this other part. He basically said that one of the gospels is made up. Did I misunderstand?

Licona is saying we shouldn't read the Gospels as if they were written in the 21st century [style]. Licona claims the Bible is true, trustworthy, and without error in everything that it teaches. Anything the Bible claims to be true -- is true. Thus, Licona says 21st-century believers should rather read the Gospels through a 1st-century lens, in the same way/style in which 1st-century people wrote.

@@IndianaJoe0321 I get that, but that isn’t what he said here. I’ve listened again and I understand more what he was saying.. such as the, “I am”statement in John. He’s saying Jesus implied but John made the statement explicit.