It’s All in the Details!

Richard Loves Details

Details, details! I’m married to a detail person. When my husband, Richard, gets home, we have a cup of tea (he’s very British) and share our day. That is, I talk, and he listens. He may ask for clarification: who I spoke with (first and last name), where I went (store name at least), when I plan to go again (date and time), and what we’re having for dinner (proper and specific names only, please).

My sweet hubby finds it challenging when I say I spoke with the tall lady who is 65 years old, has three children and two grandchildren, wears long dresses, and is struggling with heart disease. Or that we are having food and it’ll be good. I often can’t give a name, much to his frustration. For me, the description is much more important. Perhaps because I spoke three languages as a child, my brain never learned to categorize by words. That explains us in a nutshell.

The Discrepancies

Now, what about the Bible? Last time, we saw that the general message of the four gospels is the same, just given by four different people for four distinct purposes. But what is the explanation for the many outright discrepancies we find in the gospels? For example, why is Luke’s genealogy of Jesus so very different from that of Matthew?

Who carried Jesus’ cross? The synoptic gospels say Simon of Cyrene helped; John does not. What were Jesus’ last words? All the gospels differ on those.

Who found the tomb empty? According to John, Mary Magdalene; according to Matthew, two Marys; according to Mark, three people; and according to Luke, the women and several others.

Once they were at the empty tomb, what did they see? One angel? Two angels? Jesus? These seem like pretty important details, so why the discrepancies?

Plutarch

Dr Mike Licona studies Greco-Roman biographies, with an emphasis on Plutarch, a Greek Platonist philosopher. Plutarch lived from 45 to 120 AD and wrote 60 biographies, of which 50 survive to this day. Nine of them are about the same event, but focus on a different character. This made it possible for Licona to compare the accounts, look for apparent contradictions, and thereby learn about writing conventions in Jesus’ day.

Not Like Today

At the GWW conference, Licona explained that he found that the standards and concentrations used in writing a biography then are not the same as those we utilize today.

Illuminate the Character

Ancient biographies were written with a primary goal in mind: to illuminate a character. The author would tell the story as seemed best for that purpose; a system for accomplishing this was taught to scribes. Our first reaction to the discrepancies may be to suspect sloppy workmanship, but they are more likely to be the result of the opposite. The gospel writers employed the literary conventions of their time to carefully craft their work and accurately convey Jesus to their readers.

In fact, 90% of the apparent discrepancies found between the gospel stories can be explained by the use of the following literary customs: adaptation, paraphrase, and simplification.

Adaptation

This is when one uses words to paint a word portrait, rather than take a word photograph, of the person. The story is composed to reveal the character of the person and accurately portray more truth about them than can be found in a “photograph.” Use of adaptation would explain, for example, the apparent discrepancies in Jesus’ genealogy. That is, only those ancestors that are germane to the author’s purpose would be included.

Jews for Jesus believes that Matthew wrote his genealogy, including both Gentile women and Jeconiah (Je 22), from the point of view of Joseph’s line. By doing this, Matthew shows that, through Joseph, Jesus was not qualified to be the Messiah. Matthew then goes on to talk about the virgin birth. Problem solved. It is thought by some that Luke, on the other hand, starts with the genealogy via Mary, thereby showing why Jesus not only could, but should, be King (Lk 1:30-33). 

Paraphrasing 

This was, and still is, another important compositional device. In Jesus’ day, it would have been considered not only acceptable but also laudable to create a written portrait by changing the order of the events. The stories and discourses related in John’s gospel are arranged to illustrate the truths he wishes to highlight. An analysis of John’s composition reveals an elegant structure that, in itself, provides considerable insight into Jesus. Luke does the same thing.

Changing the inflection, for example, making a singular into a plural or vice versa, was another common paraphrasing technique. The use of paraphrasing may explain why the four gospels differ on what was written at the top of the cross. We know that the inscription was written in four languages, but why do the various gospels give different reports of what was written? It may be that they were translating from a different language, or it may be that they were paraphrasing. In any case, the idea is the same, even if the exact original wording is unknown. Jesus is the King of the Jews.

Simplification

The final group of literary devices simplifies the narrative. Remember that, in Jesus’ day, there were no computers, word processors, photocopiers, or even typewriters. Short was good; shorter was better.

Spotlighting

So, the gospel writers used literary spotlighting, mentioning only those things that were important to their story. John only mentions Mary Magdalene going to the tomb (Jn 20:1). The fact that he knew others went, but didn’t bother to say it, can be seen in the very next verse, where Mary says, “we don’t know where they have laid Him.” Spotlighting.

Similarly, when the various gospels give different accounts of how many angels were present at the tomb, it may simply be because only one spoke. Matthew and Mark saw no reason to report that a second angel was there since it would add nothing to the portrait being painted.

Transferral

Another simplification technique was transferral. That is, it was acceptable to say one person performed an action when actually it was another, especially if doing so simplified the story. For example, Matthew’s gospel (Mt 8:5-13) tells the story of a centurion who went to Jesus and asked to have his servant healed. Jesus commends him for his faith and heals the servant. In Lk 7:1-10, we read that the centurion sends someone to ask Jesus to heal his servant, Jesus does, and commends him for his faith.

Matthew just gave the gist of the story; Luke gave us the whole enchilada. Was anything of significance changed? No. The story remains; only the unimportant details have been altered.

Compression 

The final simplification technique that Licona addressed was compression: telling a tale as if it took less time than it did. Use of this device may explain why the synoptic gospels seem to suggest that Jesus’ ministry lasted approximately one year. Luke details three. The length of time was unimportant; what He did was.

Similarly, in Mk 5, Jairus tells Jesus that his daughter is dying, Jesus sets out to go, and only later do Jairus’ servants tell him his daughter is dead. In Mt 9, Jairus immediately tells the Lord that his daughter is dead. Which is true? Does it matter? The point is that Jesus went, touched a possibly doubly unclean person (she was both an “adult” female and could have been menstruating, and she was dead), and showed He has power over death. (Note that I employed a simplification technique in retelling this story—I didn’t mention the interruption by a woman with a flow of blood.)

Do Details Matter? It Depends

So the details don’t matter? Tell that to my husband! He still doesn’t know what we are going to have for dinner. What we can know for sure is that the Scriptures teach us about a Savior who came, died for our sins, and rose again. And we can hang our lives on that truth.