Commenting on an answer to a question on Quora:
Phantom Contradictions in the Bible
This was hard for my formerly fundamental KJV-Only Baptist self to admit. But as I read the gospels in harmony format, I have to concede that the gospel writers were more like NIV translators than like Berean Literal Bible translators.
Anybody who picks on the exact wording of quotes in the Bible is applying grammatical rules that do not seem to have existed anywhere when the Bible was written.
I have seen passages that disagree in inconsequential ways. For example, in parallel accounts, Matthew has Jesus saying “kingdom of heaven” whereas other gospel writers have Him saying “kingdom of God.”
(You may have to open the graphic in a separate window to make it large enough to read.)
Whether it is the kingdom of God’s heaven or the kingdom of heaven’s God makes no difference.
Other examples happen when one writer says Jesus spoke a sentence one way and another writer says says Jesus used the same phrases but in an opposite order.
However, the sense of the quotes are always the same. Reportedly, that was adequate by the standards of the day. Before the 1500s, quotes were merely indicated by multi-use marks in the margins; and I couldn’t find any reference to that practice before the third century. Quotation marks that set off direct quotes weren’t invented until the 1500’s. Clear rules for distinguishing between direct, word-for-word quotation and indirect, paraphrased quotation seem to have come even more recently.
And I have never seen a substantial contradiction.
People who see “contradictions” invariably have jumped to that conclusion. They want contradictions to exist. They are willing to ignore not only logical explanations, but also the logical rule that, if a discrepancy can be rationalized, then persisting in calling it a contradiction crosses into intellectual dishonesty.
Copyrights 2020 Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for non-remunerated use, and please give credit where credit is due.
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