Are the four gospels consistent ?

[polonius]

There are four gospels supposedly named after their authors: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

They are supposed to have been dictated by God. Do they contain any contradictions? If so, does this show that God contradicts himself?

[brunumb]

The man is holding a green apple
The man is holding a red apple
The man is holding two apples

If all three statements can be TRUE dispite not being exhaustive, they are not contradictory.

The colour is merely a distraction. You left out the statement which is clearly a contradiction to the man is holding two apples:
The man is holding one apple.

[JehovahsWitness]

The gospels rarely uses natural or counting numbers in the ABSOLUTE, when refering to a events. Thus it would be a mistake to assume that "an angel" or "a man" in singular means there is only one present rather than only one is being refered to .

• Is he holding two apple? Yes

• Is he holding one apple (which is green)? Yes

• Is he holding a green apple ? Yes

[brunumb]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #12]

Is he holding one apple?
No.

All else is word play used to sweep the contradiction under the rug.

[Miles]

Contradiction in number: demon-possessed men, blind men, and angels


Two demon-possessed men (Matt. 8:28) vs. one (Mk. 5:2)
Two blind men (Matt. 20:30) vs. one (Mk. 10:46)
Two angels at the tomb (Lk. 24:4) vs. one (Mk. 16:5)

Contradiction in number : A misnomer if ever there was one. Any number over one can include any other. In other words if someone refers to two individuals the "one" of someone else's account would be covered.

OMG not this old justification again. Not to be snide, but is this something that's taught in JW class? Of course it is. But let's take each contradiction by itself and see how reasonable it is.

Assuming two of each is the actual total in all three events, in the first Matthew 8:28 tells us

28 Jesus arrived at the other side of the lake in the country of the Gadarene people. There, two men who had demons inside them came to him. They lived in the burial caves and were so dangerous that no one could use the road by those caves.

How reasonable is it to leave out the other when both are equally important as Mark 5:2 says?

2 When Jesus got out of the boat, a man came to him from the caves where the dead are buried. This man had an evil spirit living inside him.

In my opinion it isn't reasonable to ignore the other man at all. Knowing the true number of men is two, it's no more difficult to say "two men" than it is to say "a man," which would be the intelligent thing to do. Is the writer of Mark a little less than intelligent?

____________________________________________


Assuming two of each is the actual total Matthew 20:30 says

30 There were two blind men sitting by the road. They heard that Jesus was coming by. So they shouted, “Lord, Son of David, please help us!”

How reasonable is it to ignore one of the blind men when both are equally afflicted as Mark 10:46 says?

46 Then they came to the town of Jericho. When Jesus left there with his followers, a large crowd was with them. A blind man named Bartimaeus (meaning “son of Timaeus”) was sitting by the road. He was always begging for money.

In my opinion it isn't reasonable to ignore the other man at all, so why do it? The writer of Mark is beginning to sound like a dummy.


______________________________________________

Assuming two of each is the actual total Luke 24:4 says

4 They did not understand this. While they were wondering about it, two men in shining clothes stood beside them.

In such an important event as the resurrection why would anyone purposely ignore such a significant detail as the number of "angels" who sat at the opening to the tomb as Mark 16:5 says?

5 The women walked into the tomb and saw a young man there wearing a white robe. He was sitting on the right side of the tomb. The women were afraid.

They wouldn't. Mark 16:5 is a blatant error that contradicts the true story.



But looking at the JW's excuse for dismissing contradictory numbers as "Any number over one can include any other. In other words if someone refers to two individuals the "one" of someone else's account would be covered." let's take a look at some of the other contradictory numbers in the Bible.


Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. —2 Kings 24:8
Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem… —2 Chronicles 36:9

Yeah, the writer of 2 Chronicles knew full well that Jehoiachin was eighteen years old, but was simply too tired to add "een" to the "eight."


Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign. —2 Kings 8:26
Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign. —2 Chronicles 22:2

Ah, here the writer of 2 Chronicles puts down the correct number, but it's the writer of 2 Kings who's too tired to write the correct number because, what the heck 22 is included in the number 42 anyway.


And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart… —Matthew 17:1
And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. —Luke 9:28

No problem, 6 is included in 8.

.

[Miles]

Contradiction in the nature of events: The Temptation of Jesus

Luke 4:9-11. After the Spirit led Jesus into the desert the devil puts Jesus on a high place at the edge of the Temple and tells him to jump off if he's really the son of god

VS

Matthew 4:8-11. After the Spirit led Jesus into the desert the devil takes Jesus to the top of a very high mountain and shows him all the kingdoms of the world and all the wonderful things in them.

Can you explain why you think the above represents a contradiction?

OOPS I missed this post, and should have been clearer in my presentation of the contradiction, which is: each are given as the last temptation by the devil in the temptation story.

[JehovahsWitness]

each are given as the last temptation by the devil in the temptation story.

They may have been be "given" (presented) as the last but neither writer SAYS which was the last:

LUKE 4:13
So the Devil, having finished all the temptation, departed from him until another convenient time.

MATTHEW 4:11
Then the Devil left him, and look! angels came and began to minister to him

Neither account uses the word "last" , they simply present the events in a different order and leave the question of which was chronology last unanswered.


JW

[JehovahsWitness]

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart… —Matthew 17:1

And it came to pass * about* an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. —Luke 9:28

Luke doesn't say "It was 8 days later" he says it was ""about" (Greek 'hosei') 8 days later"; he's clearly giving an approximation. I can't see anything problematic with the two comments much less contradictory. If one wrote "About a year later" (or even a month later) maybe that would be problematic .... but depending on how they were counting both statements can obviously be true.

So there is no contradiction,

JW

[Difflugia]

IMPORTANT : The gospels rarely uses natural or counting numbers in the ABSOLUTE, when refering to events. Thus it would be a mistake to assume that "an angel" or "a man" in singular means there is only one present rather than only one is being refered to -> "The man was holding one apple which was green" is a true statement even if the fact that he is ALSO holding one red apple (making an absolute total ow two) is omitted.

Can you provide either a source for this statement or a New Testament example? I'm pretty sure it's just plain wrong.

Koine has no indefinite article and many parts of speech indicate whether an associated noun is singular or plural. Greek (even Koine) usage rarely shows the kind of sloppiness that you suggest.

The young man account of Mark 16:5 looks like this:

And they entered [plural female] into the tomb (and) they saw [plural female] a young man that was sitting [single male] on the right side (and) clothed in [single male] a white robe and they were amazed [plural female].

Luke 24:4-5:

And it happened, while they were puzzling [plural female] about this, behold, two men [plural male] stood by [plural] them [plural female] in dazzling clothes. Having become terrified [plural female] and bowing [plural female] their faces into the ground, they said [plural] unto them [plural female], "Why do you look for [plural] the living [single male] among the dead [plural male]?

Neither of these is ambiguous. Greek is far more specific than English about who's doing what to whom when. Mark didn't write "a young man among the men" or something.

The apologetic explanation here is to conflate ambiguous constructions with ones that aren't.

• "I see an apple."
• "I see an apple sitting in the corner."
• "I looked over and saw an apple sitting in the corner."
• "I see one apple."
• "I looked over and saw one apple sitting in the corner."

Apologists would dearly love all of these to potentially refer to two apples, a bushel of apples, or perhaps even two oranges, but I don't think it should be a controversial assumption that the Gospel authors wanted their writing to be understood. It's eminently debatable which parts are allegory, embellishment, or inspired history, but in any case, the writers are expecting people to understand what they've written. Even without context, one should be able to see in the list above that the probability of two apples being involved drops precipitously.

Once we include context, very rarely do we have the sort of situation you're claiming is common. As an exercise, imagine the following conversations about two apples.

"I would like an apple. Is there an apple over there?"

"I see an apple."

This makes sense, even if there are two apples. Someone that answers the question that way is not trying to be confusing. This is the situation that apologists seem to want to conflate with most of the discrepancies in the Bible, but it's also a very poor analogy for most of them. Most look much more like this:

"What do you see in the room?"

"I see an apple sitting in the corner."

If there are two apples, that answer is either wrong or misleading. It's perhaps technically true, but anyone answering a question that way should expect to be misunderstood. The last case is uncommon, but it also exists in the Bible:

"What do you see in the room?"

"I see one apple sitting in the corner."

If there are two apples, this answer is false. "One apple" and "at least one apple" are rarely interchangeable, no matter how much apologists would like them to be.

[JehovahsWitness]

If there are two apples, this answer is false. "One apple" and "at least one apple" are rarely interchangeable ...

I can only recall a few occassions when the direct question of number ("How many ....? "), has occurred in the gospels. Otherwise, as I think I already pointed out, the gospel writers rarely employ whole numbers in describing surrounding detail.


Occasionally, as with the "ten" lepers or refering to "the twelve Apostles", the number is deemed important enough to be mentioned but in general the objects are simply associated with subjects and the subject spoken of in the plural or the singular. As you rightly point out there is no indefinite article in Greek and the gospel writers, favouring action over description, usually omit surrounding details. So if Jesus, for example was to perform a miracle for one woman in a crowd of 20 other women who came with her sister and mother... the narratives overwhelmingly read:

Jesus coming across (a) woman (singular), cured her of her illness.
rather than
Jesus coming across ONE woman (singular), cured her of her illness.

Thus were don't read whether the man that asked Jesus a question was with his wife at the time, how many people heard the question or whether there were one or two or more fig trees next to the one he cursed. That one or more gospel writers chose to depart from this trend merely highlights an omission and not one that cannot be harmonized.




JW

[Zzyzx]

I can only recall two occassions when the direct question of number ("How many ....? "), has occurred in scripture. Otherwise, as I think I already pointed out, the gospel writers rarely employ whole numbers

The number forty is mentioned 157 times in Scripture.
https://www.scripturerevealed.com/bible ... number-40/

The number 12 appears 187 times in the Bible.
www.quora.com

Perhaps it would be prudent to consult the Bible occasionally.