Inconsistencies

[luvthelight]

i recently visited a website that raised objections i didnt entirely know how to answer on slightly different stories in teh bible - if anyone could help me out here it would be greatly appreciated

1. • why in matthew is there one angel in Jesus’s tomb, but in Luke there are two?
2. • why in the gospels does Judas hang himself - but in Acts die on a field - and the gospels the priests buy the Field of Blood, but in Acts Judas does?
3. • why doesn’t John mention Simon?

i no that in the overall story these differences matter little - i jus don’t understand why there would be ANY discrepancies - can someone please offer an explanation?

 

[davidv]

luvthelight:

i recently visited a website that raised objections i didnt entirely know how to answer on slightly different stories in teh bible - if anyone could help me out here it would be greatly appreciated

1. • why in matthew is there one angel in Jesus’s tomb, but in Luke there are two?
2. • why in the gospels does Judas hang himself - but in Acts die on a field - and the gospels the priests buy the Field of Blood, but in Acts Judas does?
3. • why doesn’t John mention Simon?

i no that in the overall story these differences matter little - i jus don’t understand why there would be ANY discrepancies - can someone please offer an explanation?

I have been taught and have found that whenever I see what looks like a contradiction or inconsistency, it is because I have failed to understand one, or more, of the following: the conditions of the time, the culture, the literary genre, modes of feeling, speaking, narrating, or the initial audience. The Catholic Catechism, articles 101-119, has a much more complete explanation of this.

 

[Benadam]

i recently visited a website that raised objections i didnt entirely know how to answer on slightly different stories in teh bible - if anyone could help me out here it would be greatly appreciated

there are various reasons and possibilities

1. • why in matthew is there one angel in Jesus’s tomb, but in Luke there are two?

One has to keep in mind that heavenly realities aren’t beheld as earthly ones. These angels were experienced rather than seen. It’s likely that what one witness experienced differed from another witnesses experience. The Gospel writers were probably more familiar with the experience of the event they conveyed.

1. • why in the gospels does Judas hang himself - but in Acts die on a field - and the gospels the priests buy the Field of Blood, but in Acts Judas does?

actually in the Gospels and Acts Judas is mentioned as hanging himself. In Acts he hangs himself and his body burst entrails in the field. In a
Acts it say’s he possessed the field and doesn’t specify how he came to possess it. It may be that the priests bought it but it was lawfully or otherwise in his possession.

1. • why doesn’t John mention Simon?

John’s Gospel isn’t one of the synoptic Gospels. His intent was to show Jesus in a more mystical light. His rendition differs in timeline and in fact may be more accurate in that it’s timing reveals the hypostatic union. John’s Gospel is late and perhaps there was freedom from having to express the foundational dynamics of the Church.

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

You might find this quote useful. And I suggest going to the link for a great explaination covering your question and many more. Very good.
Some have replied that our Jewish man living fifty years before Christ couldn’t infallibly know that Isaiah and 2 Chronicles were Scripture. And yet, as we have seen, Jesus held men responsible for the Scriptures and their teachings (Matthew 22:31). To say that such a person did not need to have an infallible knowledge, but only a sufficient knowledge–based upon the overall acceptance of God’s people and the internal consistency and integrity of the Scriptures as a body–is to say nothing more than what Protestants say about all the Bible. It admits there is no need for the ‘golden index’ in this case, or any other.

But we don’t accept the Bible because of “the internal consistency and integrity of the Scriptures as a body,” rather we accept it in spite of the apparent lack of such internal consistency. I have a book several inches thick devoted entirely to attempting to explain all of the apparent conflicts and inconsistencies in the Bible. As the International Bible Commentary again says,

Only those books can be judged canonical that are free from contradictions, inaccuracies, inconsistencies, peculiar practices, etc. . . . [But] had the question of [the Hebrew Bible’s] canonicity rested purely upon standards such as this it is impossible to see how the Jews could ever have come to accept the OT books as being of divine authority.4

The fact is, Protestants accept the Bible without question, in spite of its apparent contradictions and inconsistencies, because that is their Tradition, and it’s a Tradition they inherited from us.

catholicoutlook.com/white1.php
And happy Easter to all, in advance.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon7.gif

 

[Liberian]

Most supposed inconsistencies in the Bible can be explained by a little effort. The question of Matthew reporting one angel at the tomb while Luke reported two is easy: if there are two angels, there is also one angel. Matthew’s report of one simply doesn’t mention the second one. (Dorothy Sayers, in her excellent play cycle “Man Born To Be King,” mentions that every single event reported on Easter Sunday in the Gospels–and elsewhere in the Bible–can be explained by a trifling effort to imagine a bunch of very confused people wandering around Jerusalem on a Sunday morning.

Not to put too fine a point on the second question, Matthew says that Judas went and hanged himself and the chief priests bought the field with his 30 pieces of silver (Matt 27:5-7); Acts says that Judas bought the field, went out to look at it, and fell over and split open (Acts 1:18). Depending on your translation, though, the passage in Acts may be a quote from Peter, in which case Luke (writing in Acts) may simply be recording what Peter said rather than what actually happened. I must add that (unless you follow Sola Scriptura) the question of how Judas died doesn’t really affect faith or morals.

John’s Gospel not mentioning Simon of Cyrene again is an omission, not an inconsistency. End of problem.

Another inconsistency which I have never seen explained properly is between Mark 15:25, which says that Jesus was crucified at 9:00 AM, and John 19:14, which has Jesus appearing before Pilate around noon. Again, unless one is arguing Biblical inerrancy, the question has no bearing on faith or morals.

My own position on it is that the Bible, when properly interpreted, is totally without error. While I am sure that Mother Church when she doesn’t have anything more important to do will figure out the proper interpretation of these verses, she hasn’t done so yet to the best of my knowledge. In the meantime I have a life to get on with.

• Liberian

 

[Ann_Cheryl]

Liberian:

Another inconsistency which I have never seen explained properly is between Mark 15:25, which says that Jesus was crucified at 9:00 AM, and John 19:14, which has Jesus appearing before Pilate around noon. Again, unless one is arguing Biblical inerrancy, the question has no bearing on faith or morals.

.

• Liberian

Noon was once nine in the morning. How it got to mean 12 I don’t know. Time was not as percise as we have it today. I think the only clock they had was the sun dial.

from the commentary in the New American Bible.

10 [25] It was nine o’clock in the morning: literally, “the third hour,” thus between 9 a.m. and 12 noon. Cf Mark 15:33, 34, 42 for Mark’s chronological sequence, which may reflect liturgical or catechetical considerations rather than the precise historical sequence of events; contrast the different chronologies in the other gospels, especially

 

[Liberian]

Ann Cheryl:

Noon was once nine in the morning. How it got to mean 12 I don’t know. Time was not as percise as we have it today. I think the only clock they had was the sun dial.

from the commentary in the New American Bible.

10 [25] It was nine o’clock in the morning: literally, “the third hour,” thus between 9 a.m. and 12 noon. Cf Mark 15:33, 34, 42 for Mark’s chronological sequence, which may reflect liturgical or catechetical considerations rather than the precise historical sequence of events; contrast the different chronologies in the other gospels, especially

Ann Cheryl,

 Thank you for your reply.  My use of the terms 9:00 AM and noon were perhaps misnomers; I believe the Greek texts say "about the third hour" in Mark and "about the sixth hour" in John.  I have seen the explanation that John reckoned hours from midnight as the Romans did, but this is not the case because he uses the same term (the sixth hour) when describing Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman (John 4:6).

 I also appreciate that the reckoning of time was not as precise two thousand years ago.  Besides sundials they also had water clocks and, I think, candle clocks.  Neither of the latter will give you time to the minute.  But the difference between the third hour and the sixth hour is pretty hefty.  (I'm not saying that the explanation is incorrect, merely that it doesn't sound right to me.)

 - Liberian