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>>Ankerberg: Tonight we’re going to be examining the questions, “Are the New Testament documents
reliable? Who wrote them and when? Did the Gospel writers contradict each other in describing
the different places that Jesus appeared to His disciples after His Resurrection?
Now, for the skeptic to disprove Christianity, he must supply proof that, first, the Gospels
were not written by the men who claimed to have written them–this, in spite of the
fact that the Christian church in its first 300 years overwhelming attested that these
men did write them. Second, the skeptic must prove that the authors
did contradict each other in their writings. It will not be enough for the skeptic to say,
“It seems the writers contradicted each other,” when a plausible idea can easily
harmonize the accounts. Let me illustrate. Picture your family going to Grandma’s house
for an entire day to meet with all of the relatives in order to celebrate someone’s
birthday. A few days after this big event your mother, grandmother, and sister all write
letters to your brother at college who wasn’t able to come home for the party. Now suppose
that someone at the college read all three letters and told your brother that in his
opinion, the three writers of the letters shouldn’t be believed since they all contradicted
each other. Although the three writers claimed to be at the same party, they each wrote about
different people and different events that took place. And such contradictions prove
that the three letter writers weren’t at the same party. In fact, there never was a
party at all. Well, after reading the letters, your brother would laugh at such a ridiculous
conclusion. Why? Because it would be perfectly reasonable that his mother would describe
the health of Aunt Sally and Uncle Bill, and tell whether Uncle Charlie had gotten a job.
He also wouldn’t be surprised that Grandma had described the different kinds of food
that she had served and who gave presents to the children. And finally, he would expect
his sister to write in detail about which of the cousins brought a date to the party
and what they looked like. The brother at college would easily understand in reading
the letters that three different points of view were being expressed and easily harmonize
all of the events. He would not expect them to describe every
single person at the party, or for each of them to write about the same things the others
did. Rather, he would expect them to place the emphasis on what they thought was important
and because they did so, he would not think they contradicted each other.
Now apply this illustration to the writers of the four Gospels. The skeptics say that
if only one of the Gospel writers describes the guards at the tomb, namely Matthew, and
another is the only one who tells about a special message that the angels gave to Peter,
namely Mark, and a third writer is the only one who gives a full account of the men who
buried Jesus, namely John, then these three writers have irreconcilably contradicted themselves.
Well, such thinking is ridiculous. Each of the writers was free to record what he thought
was important of the events surrounding Jesus’ Resurrection. And because each writer includes
bits and pieces of information which the others do not, there is nothing wrong with that.
It is an indication of truthful, independent reporting.
We must also keep in mind that when one of the four authors emphasizes some specific
person or group, he seldom says that is the only person who was there and no one else
was present. These writers usually do not say that Jesus appeared at one place and not
other. Yet the critic constantly puts words into the disciples’ mouths like, “This
was the only person mentioned,” or “This was the first appearance Jesus made to the
disciples.” But if the disciples do not say “Only this person was present,” or
“This was the first appearance of Jesus,” then they should not be forced by the critic
to say so.