“The Scripture cannot be broken.”

Jesus

The following analysis was first written in May of 2015 for a group of dear friends with whom I was working through some questions related to the Christian faith of my childhood and early adult years. Beginning in my early-mid 30s, for the first time in my life I began to seriously question the veracity and authority of the Bible. This analysis was an output of that process of questioning. (DL, Sept. 6, 2021)

Bart Ehrman’s arguments about who Jesus actually was and how he came to be thought of as he is now among Christians all take as their starting place a conviction that the four gospels which describe Jesus were not supernaturally delivered and are not literally, word-for-word true and error-free.

In order to enter into Ehrman’s arguments, one must be able to entertain the possibility that the four gospels are not 100% true and reliable guides to history. This is the key leap for a person like Ehrman who moved from evangelical faith to agnosticism. At one point he believed that the gospels are 100% historically reliable; at a later point he did not.

The parts of Ehrman that I’ve read so far delve briefly into the question of the gospels’ reliability, but mostly take it as an assumption that they are not 100% reliable. But for those in our position, the question needs more detailed attention.

What follows are seven passages in the gospels that seem to me to indicate that they cannot be taken as word-for-word reliable. These passages indicate to me that the four gospels contain entirely human errors—or wording—in them, that regardless of whether the man who’s story they tell was supernatural or not, the books themselves are deeply human compositions arising from normal human methods.

Note: My working assumption in what follows (and it’s a good assumption based on lots of evidence, although that’s another discussion) is that the texts of the New and Old Testaments as we have them are reliable records of what the original texts were.

Seven Places the Literal Words of the Gospels are Not 100% Reliable

Jesus was crucified the day after the Passover meal was eaten	Jesus was crucified the day the Passover meal was prepared
The synagogue official asked Jesus to raise his daughter from the dead	The synagogue official, thinking his daughter was still alive, asked Jesus to heal her
The centurion himself came and spoke to Jesus	The centurion sent Jewish representatives to speak to Jesus on his behalf
Arphaxad begat Cainan	Arpachshad begat Shelah
Abiathar was the high priest	Ahimelech was the high priest
Fourteen generations from David to the deportation to Babylon	Seventeen generations from David to the deportation to Babylon
Peter’s denials before the rooster crows	Peter’s denials before the rooster crows twice

1.       The Timing of the Crucifixion in Relationship to the Passover

Ehrman himself introduced this discrepancy to me. For full details, I recommend pp 32-35 in Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium. The gist of the difficulty is this: the synoptic gospels say that Jesus was crucified on the Passover day, after the Passover meal had been eaten the night before. John says that Jesus was crucified on the Day of Preparation for the

Passover as the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in preparation for the Passover meals to be eaten that night.

Luke 22:7-14 describes the preparations for the Last Supper

Then came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed. And Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, so that we may eat it.” They said to Him, “Where do You want us to prepare it?” And He said to them, “When you have entered the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him into the house that he enters. “And you shall say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, “Where is the guest room in which I may eat the Passover with My disciples?”’ “And he will show you a large, furnished upper room; prepare it there.” And they left and found everything just as He had told them; and they prepared the Passover. When the hour had come, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him. And He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer;”

Of course, after the meal Jesus goes out to Gethsemane with his disciples, is arrested, tried in the night, and crucified the next day—Passover Day (which began at sunset the previous evening before the Passover meal was consumed.)

In John, however, the situation is different. The Last Supper is explicitly positioned “before the Feast of the Passover” had begun (John 13:1), and the crucifixion itself is placed on the Day of Preparation for the Passover at the same time when throughout Jerusalem the Passover lambs were being sacrificed in preparation for the Passover meals that evening.

John 19:13-15

Therefore when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Pavement, but in Hebrew, Gabbatha. Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, “Behold, your King!” So they cried out, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”

From a theological point-of-view, John’s timing is quite beautiful. It is in John that Jesus is called “the Lamb of God”, and the picture of him on the cross at the moment when thousands of lambs are being sacrificed for the Passover is moving. But it doesn’t align with the other gospels.

2.       What miracle did the synagogue official ask for?

The conversation and miracle in view here are the episode that surrounds the moment when the woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus. An official came to Jesus and asked for a miracle; Jesus went with him; while they were going a woman in the crowd touched Jesus; after that they arrived at the official’s house and Jesus raised his daughter from the dead. The discrepancy between the gospel accounts is in regards to what the official said and what miracle in particular he was asking for.

In Matthew, the official tells Jesus his daughter is dead and asks him to raise her.

While He was saying these things to them, a synagogue official came and bowed down before Him, and said, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.” Matthew 9:18

In Mark, the official is unaware his daughter has died. He asks Jesus to heal his daughter, and only learns of her death later when people come from his house and inform him.

One of the synagogue officials named Jairus came up, and on seeing Him, fell at His feet and implored Him earnestly, saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death; please come and lay Your hands on her, so that she will get well and live.” Mark 5:22

While He was still speaking, they came from the house of the synagogue official, saying, “Your daughter has died; why trouble the Teacher anymore?” Mark 5:35

3.       Did the centurion speak?

In the episode where Jesus heals the centurion’s servant (the one where the centurion tells Jesus that as a man with authority, he knows Jesus doesn’t need to even come but just give the word), the gospel accounts differ as to whether Jesus spoke directly with the centurion or not.

In Matthew, the centurion comes himself to Jesus and speaks directly to him.

And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. “For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. “I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed that very moment. Matthew 8:5-13

In Luke, the centurion never speaks directly to Jesus but only through intermediaries.

And a centurion’s slave, who was highly regarded by him, was sick and about to die. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders asking Him to come and save the life of his slave. When they came to

Jesus, they earnestly implored Him, saying, “He is worthy for You to grant this to him; for he loves our nation and it was he who built us our synagogue.” Now Jesus started on His way with them; and when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to Him, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof; for this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled at him, and turned and said to the crowd that was following Him, “I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith.” When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health. Luke 7:2-10

In this place in particular one’s sense of verbal, historical accuracy in Matthew does not fare well in the comparison. Compared to Luke, Matthew reads like a campfire retelling of a story. When you tell a story at the campfire, nobody expects every word you say to be measured and exacting. What counts is the flow of the story, the gist of it. The gist of this story—the money quote if you will—is clearly the Centurion’s faith as expressed in his confidence that Jesus has powers under his authority that can effect the healing from a distance. Matthew captures that; but the specific details of the dialogue are basically just the narrative frame.

This episode in particular raises the clear sense to me that the four gospels do not speak as one voice from one source. They are four different voices with different approaches and effects, with differing concerns for exacting accuracy in service of different goals. And once you open that door, it seems to me you’ve opened the door to the whole discussion of the gospels as individual documents—of their sourcing, composition, the whole synoptic problem and Q, and all the rest. It’s a significant first step away from a simple trust in the verbal infallibility of the gospels as God-breathed documents, and it seems to me that in light of the differences between Luke and Matthew here, it’s an unavoidable step.

4.       An extra name in the genealogy in Luke

In chapter 3, Luke traces the genealogy of Jesus all the way back to Adam. All the parts of that genealogy from David back to Adam are not unique to Luke. That part of the genealogy is traced for us in the Old Testament as well (the whole of it not being found in a single place, but spread over several different places in Genesis and in Ruth). It is to be expected that many, many people besides Luke would have known their Old Testament and have known the genealogy from Adam through Noah and Abraham to David.

The problem is that Luke adds a name to that genealogy that is not found in the Old Testament. David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Heber, the son of Shelah, the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Luke 3:31b-38

The relevant Old Testament passages that contain this particular section of the genealogy are in Genesis chapters 10 and 11.

Also to Shem, the father of all the children of Eber, and the older brother of Japheth, children were born. The sons of Shem were Elam and Asshur and Arpachshad and Lud and Aram. The sons of Aram were Uz and Hul and Gether and Mash. Arpachshad became the father of Shelah; and Shelah became the father of Eber.

Two sons were born to Eber; the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided; and his brother’s name was Joktan. Joktan became the father of Almodad and Sheleph and Hazarmaveth and Jerah and Hadoram and Uzal and Diklah and Obal and Abimael and Sheba and Ophir and Havilah and Jobab; all these were the sons of Joktan. Now their settlement extended from Mesha as you go toward Sephar, the hill country of the east. These are the sons of Shem, according to their families, according to their languages, by their lands, according to their nations. Genesis 10:21-31

These are the records of the generations of Shem. Shem was one hundred years old, and became the father of Arpachshad two years after the flood; and Shem lived five hundred years after he became the father of Arpachshad, and he had other sons and daughters. Arpachshad lived thirty-five years, and became the father of Shelah; and Arpachshad lived four hundred and three years after he became the father of Shelah, and he had other sons and daughters. Shelah lived thirty years, and became the father of Eber; and Shelah lived four hundred and three years after he became the father of Eber, and he had other sons and daughters. Eber lived thirty-four years, and became the father of Peleg; and Eber lived four hundred and thirty years after he became the father of Peleg, and he had other sons and daughters. Peleg lived thirty years, and became the father of Reu; and Peleg lived two hundred and nine years after he became the father of Reu,

and he had other sons and daughters. Reu lived thirty-two years, and became the father of Serug; and Reu lived two hundred and seven years after he became the father of Serug, and he had other sons and daughters. Serug lived thirty years, and became the father of Nahor; and Serug lived two hundred years after he became the father of Nahor, and he had other sons and daughters. Nahor lived twenty-nine years, and became the father of Terah; and Nahor lived one hundred and nineteen years after he became the father of Terah, and he had other sons and daughters. Terah lived seventy years, and became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. Genesis 11:10-26

In Genesis, there is nobody between Arpachshad and Shelah; there is no Cainan. In Luke, there is. Obviously from the point of view of the overall message of Luke, this slight difference has no bearing. It has nothing really to do with the life and work of Jesus; it has no direct relevance to the Gospel message.

But if one’s profession is that every word and letter of the gospels is a 100% reliable utterance of God, then even this small difference is important. How do we explain it? And what does that explanation mean as far as what we believe about the gospels?

Well, actually there’s an easy explanation. Luke’s version of the genealogy exactly follows the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures. The Septuagint translation of Genesis 10:24 reads as follows:

καὶ ᾿Αρφαξὰδ ἐγέννησε τὸν Καϊνᾶν, καὶ Καϊνᾶν ἐγέννησε τὸν Σαλά, Σαλὰ δὲ ἐγέννησε τὸν ῞Εβερ.

You don’t have to read Greek to see the Kainan sitting there between Arphaxad and Sala. The same is true of Genesis 11:12-13 in the Septuagint. Cainan appears.

Καὶ ἔζησεν ᾿Αρφαξὰδ ἑκατὸν τριάκοντα πέντε ἔτη καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Καϊνᾶν. καὶ ἔζησεν ᾿Αρφαξὰδ μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τὸν Καϊνᾶν ἔτη τετρακόσια καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας καὶ ἀπέθανε. Καὶ ἔζησε

Καϊνᾶν ἑκατὸν καὶ τριάκοντα ἔτη καὶ ἐγέννησε τὸν Σαλά. καὶ ἔζησε Καϊνᾶν μετὰ τὸ γεννῆσαι αὐτὸν τόν Σαλὰ ἔτη τριακόσια τριάκοντα καὶ ἐγέννησεν υἱοὺς καὶ θυγατέρας καὶ ἀπέθανε.

It seems to me that the unmistakable takeaway here—and by extension potentially every time the gospel writers quote the Old Testament—is that the gospel writers followed the tools they had available, as any human writer would do, and they were subject to the same inaccuracies and limitations of those tools as any writer would be.

Their knowledge of the Old Testament was not the perfect and supernatural knowledge of God, but the natural knowledge of men who study and rely on the potentially imperfect books and translations of other men. And I suppose one final takeaway must be that the entirety of the genealogy in Luke—especially those parts for which we have no other source but Luke—are only as reliable as the sources Luke was using when he wrote it, which means not necessarily 100% reliable. Luke’s genealogy becomes A source, not THE source.

5.       Misidentifying an Old Testament Character

In Mark chapter 2 we have the story of Jesus walking the grain fields with his disciples and plucking heads of grain, only to come under fire for breaking the Sabbath. Jesus’ response is to refer back to an Old Testament story:

And He said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?” Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” Mark 2:25-28

The problem here is that the high priest at that time wasn’t Abiathar. It was his father Ahimelech. Abiathar didn’t become high priest until later.

Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest; and Ahimelech came trembling to meet David and said to him, “Why are you alone and no one with you?” David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commissioned me with a matter and has said to me, ‘Let no one know anything about the matter on which I am sending you and with which I have commissioned you; and I have directed the young men to a certain place.’ “Now therefore, what do you have on hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever can be found.” 1 Samuel 21:1-3

Then the king sent someone to summon Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father’s household, the priests who were in Nob; and all of them came to the king. Saul said, “Listen now, son of Ahitub.” And he answered, “Here I am, my lord.” Saul then said to him, “Why have you and the son of Jesse conspired against me, in that you have given him bread and a sword and have inquired of God for him, so

that he would rise up against me by lying in ambush as it is this day?” . . . And he struck Nob the city of the priests with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and infants; also oxen, donkeys, and sheep he struck with the edge of the sword. But one son of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. 1 Samuel 22:11-13; 19-20

Again, in the big scheme of things this is hardly a big deal. Some might even say, “Well, Abiathar wasn’t high priest yet, but he was there, so it was technically ‘in his time.’” And yes, you can say that if you want to. The problem is, each time you do that you’re putting strain on the plain meaning of the text (which you would clearly take to mean Abiathar was the high priest at the time if you had no other context) to support the belief in 100% verbal accuracy.

Conservative Jews actually have a word for this process of explaining away all apparent contradictions in a text by using sometimes convoluted logic and explanations: pilpul. You can read a great description of it in action in Chaim Potok’s The Chosen. If my faith in the 100% verbal reliability of the gospels has to defend on pilpul to survive, it probably shouldn’t survive.

6.       There weren’t fourteen generations from David to the deportation to Babylon

In Matthew chapter 1 we have another genealogy of Jesus. In this one many of the names are different from those in Luke (which is its own discussion), but the important thing about it under this point is that it neatly divides into three sets of fourteen generations: fourteen from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian deportation, and fourteen from the Babylonian deportation to Christ. It’s a neat way of highlighting the importance and timeliness of Jesus in Jewish history. He is the son of David, the long-expected Messiah.

The problem is, there were more than fourteen generations between David and the deportation to Babylon. There were seventeen. Matthew has left some out.

David was the father of Solomon by Bathsheba who had been the wife of Uriah. Solomon was the father of Rehoboam, Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa. Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah. Uzziah was the father of Jotham, Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah. Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh, Manasseh the father of Amon, and Amon the father of Josiah. Josiah became the father of Jeconiah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon…………………….. So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen

generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations. Matthew 1:6b-11; 17

What Matthew has omitted are the three generations between Joram and Uzziah: Ahaziah, Jehoash, and Amaziah. You can read about them in 2 Chronicles 22-25 and in 2 Kings 8:24-14:22.

In light of these obvious omissions, it’s difficult to see in what sense Matthew 1:17 can be understood as true—or even useful. It’s simply a fabrication, a seemingly irrelevant and inaccurate numerical symmetry based on incomplete generations.

7.       Peter’s denials

Peter’s denials are difficult. All four gospels recount them, all four gospels recount three of them, and all four gospels position them in relationship to the crowing of a rooster.

The problem is that the four gospels don’t exactly align on to whom and when Peter made his denials and whether they were complete before the rooster’s first crow or its second. The situation is such that several defenders of the 100% word-for-word reliability of the gospels have quite seriously proposed and believe that there were in fact six denials, three before the first crowing and three before the second. They believe this apparently without being bothered by the fact that what they profess is now different from what any of the actual gospels says happened.

Here is a table (which I’ve freely stolen from an online article here: Chong) that summarizes the denials in each Gospel.

Gospel	First Denial	Second Denial	Third Denial
Matthew	A servant girl (26:69)	Another girl (26:71)	Some standing people (26:73)
Mark	A servant girl (14:66)	The same servant girl (14:69)	Some standing people (14:70)
Luke	A servant girl (22:56)	A man (22:58)	Another man (22:59)
John	A girl at door (18:17)	Anonymous person(s) (18:25)	High priest’s servant (18:26)

You can study the passages yourself to see the difficulty. Note in particular Jesus’ reference to the rooster when he initially warns Peter in Mark 14:30 versus the parallels in Matthew 26:34, Luke 22:34, and John 13:38.

And I would say keep in mind as your reconcile these passages what we’ve seen when comparing parallel gospel accounts in numbers 2 and 3 above. If not every Gospel was word-for- word accurate in those cases, on what basis can we insist upon the same here?

Conclusion:

Even writing this document casts a certain sulfurous weight of emotion on me. I have so long confidently built my life on the 100% verbal reliability and authority of the Bible—and the gospels in particular—that even now thinking these thoughts smacks of hellfire and damnation to me. And yet I must be honest with myself and the Scriptures. I must be.

My preliminary takeaway from these seven items (And these are only seven. This is not an exhaustive accounting.) is that the gospel writers appear to be doing things that normal writers do. They’re telling stories without an expectation of 100% verbal reliability; they’re using the sources they have available to them; they’re shaping their material to emphasize the overall point they’re trying to make. What they aren’t doing is writing with 100% verbal reliability.

These are not writings that spring from the pen of an infallible God. They are the writings of fallible men who believed in Him.

But if we grant that—if we grant the fallibility of these authors—if we accept that we are reading men’s accounts of things they believe, then it seems to me that we cannot simply take their writings at face value as the utterance of God. We have to examine the grounds of their belief to see if they were wise to believe what they believed. What were their sources? Did they use them and trust them rightly? Should we also trust what they have to say? How do we even know who wrote these books?

Is the hand of God at work in these books, and if so, where?

And of course, in the background of all of this are all the same questions as applied to the Old Testament, the historicity of Genesis and so on. What did these writers believe about the Old Testament? And on what basis? And can we reasonably share their belief?

Bart Ehrman finds answers to these questions in purely natural terms, and the case he builds seems to make for a consistent whole. As far as I’ve read, it feels like a consistent, single whole narrative of how these books came to be, and it’s by a man who realizes the stakes of the question and has spent a lot of time looking at the available data.

I would ask you to seriously consider whether he might be right. Is it possible that we have believed a lie? Is it possible that our interior experience of the consolation of Christ is a construct of our own making rooted in our need for meaning and peace in the midst of pain?