The New Testament contains four accounts of the life of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; these writings are commonly called “gospels.” Each features some material not found in the other gospels, but also includes accounts of the same incidents in the life of Jesus – especially Mattthew, Mark, and Luke (the three of which are often called the “Synoptic Gospels”). However, a comparison of these parallel accounts reveals that some details may vary. What are we to make of this and do with these differences?
This recognition of differences between the gospels is not a recent discovery by scholars but something noticed by people ever since the gospels were collected together almost 2,000 years ago. While some people try to argue that the differences between these accounts mean that they are not historically reliable documents since they contain contradictions and embellishments, this is not the conclusion that all people have as they have read the four Gospels. In fact, these differences could point to the exact opposite conclusion: they represent multiple eyewitness testimonies of the same historical realities. That is, the differences in the accounts are within the variation that we might expect from different individuals recounting the same events, and the presence of these differences reveals that the Christian message was not a cleverly devised myth created by the apostles but a proclamation of what actually occurred.
I think it is important not to minimize or ignore these differences, but also not to exaggerate or overstate these differences. We do that by seeing how the differences don’t stand in contradiction to each other (seeing how they can be harmonized) but also by recognizing that we are called to examine and study the accounts given to us by the inspired gospel writers rather than other historical reconstructions (so we shouldn’t harmonize them too quickly).
The Differences Can Be Harmonized
When people say that the differences between the gospels contradict each other, it is always wise for them to point to the specific differences they are referring to and explain why they believe there is no logical or reasonable explanation for the difference.
For example, in Mark 10:35-45 we read that James and John approached Jesus with a request, but Matthew 20:20-28 states it was their mother who approached Jesus. Is this a contradiction? James and John could send their mother with their request, in which case it comes from them through their mother; Mark is not denying that they asked, he is just cutting out the middleman. A similar thing occurs in Matthew 8:5-13 which describes a centurion coming to Jesus for healing; however, Luke 7:1-10 tells us that the centurion sent a group of elders to Jesus.
Another kind of difference appears in the parallel account in Matthew 8:28-24, Mark 5:1-20, and Luke 8:26-39. Mark and Luke talk about a group of demons being cast out of a man, but Matthew 8:28-34 says there were two men (a similar difference appears in Matthew 20:29-34 and Mark 10:46-52 and Luke 18:35-43, where Matthew has two blind men and Mark and Luke just one). Mark and Luke do not say it was one and only one; they might hone in on one figure while Matthew looks at them together. Another disparity in the accounts of Jesus casting out the legions of demons is a small difference in the name of the location – Matthew says “Gadarenes” while Mark and Luke say “Gerasenes.” This difference can be harmonized with some historical background, as both words could derive from transliterating Khersa, or one could refer to a region rather than a city.
At times you will find different wording in speeches, and there are two major factors to keep in mind when discussing these. First, the speeches of Jesus are probably translations of what he said because he most likely spoke in Aramaic but the New Testament is written in Greek. There are various ways to translate something from one language to another that are accurate to what was being said; the fact that these would be translations is also a reminder that speeches recorded in the ancient world were not necessarily a verbatim record, but faithfully recording the essence of what was said. Second, we should also remember that Jesus probably spoke similar things in various places and on different occasions; his words may have been similar but varied in different contexts. Thus, slightly different wording may be used on different occasions. For example, Jesus might have told similar but slightly different parables about a banquet (Matthew 22:1-14 and Luke 14:16-24) or about servants entrusted with financial resources (Matthew 25:14-20; Luke 19:11-27).
When comparing stories that sound similar, it is also good to keep in mind that they could be recording similar but different events. For example, scholars differ on whether John 2:14-22 and Matthew 21:10-17, Mark 11:15-17, and Luke 19:45-46 are the same event or whether it refers to two different incidents that are similar. The fact that John records this at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry while Matthew, Mark, and Luke record it at the end does not necessarily rule it out as being the same incident, as historians did not always need to record things in chronological order. This is a good principle to also remember as it shows that a difference in order is not a historical contradiction. For example, Luke puts Jesus’s rejection in the synagogue much earlier in his narrative than Matthew and Mark (Luke 4:16-30; Matthew 13:53-58; Mark 6:1-6), but a close reading of Luke 4 indicates that more ministry happens before this incident that Luke has recorded. It is a “flash-forward” to help the reader understand dynamics of Jesus’s ministry before it happens. That is not a contradiction, but thoughtful writing! This recognition of the ability of a writer to rearrange events in their telling of history helps to explain other differences, such as the order of the temptations in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13.
In many ways, this discussion of harmonization reveals the importance of the posture one takes when reading the Gospels. One may approach them already believing or suspecting them to be unreliable and contradictory, or approach them believing that we should accept them as eyewitness testimony unless the authors are shown to be unreliable witnesses. I find the apostles to be credible witnesses in that they seemed to have nothing to gain and everything to lose as they told these accounts, as they gained not power but persecution and not mansions but martyrdom. They do not seem to have gathered together to make sure their “stories all matched,” but rather told the same basic story but within the bounds of the differences one would expect.
The Differences Should Be Not Harmonized Too Quickly
While I firmly believe the differences found in the Gospels can be harmonized through reasonable explanations – and that this work is helpful to do from the angle of history – I think it is also good for us not to seek to harmonize the Gospels accounts when we are reading and studying them. What I mean is that when we are reading an account that is recorded in multiple gospels, we should focus on studying how that particular gospel writer has written it rather than compare it to the other accounts so we can reconstruct exactly what happened or find further details about it. There is a reason that particular gospel writers – who Christians believe were inspired by the Holy Spirit – included these particular details and not those particular details. There is a reason they placed the particular account before or after these other accounts. There is a reason the church has used these four gospels to guide its life and teaching, not a harmony of them. God did not inspire the historian, pastor, or reader “historical reconstruction of the event,” but rather the testimony that we have in the New Testament. Therefore, our focus should be on the text itself rather than one event.
When we seek to harmonize the accounts too quickly, we end up actually losing the harmony that we have in the New Testament, essentially making the different voices all sound the same note instead of notes that complement each other but are also differentiated from each other. So, I would encourage you to read each Gospel on its own rather than going through the life of Jesus through comparing the different gospels. For example, don’t study the feeding of the 5,000 in each Gospel, but whichever account you have in front of you. Or when reading Mark 10:35-45, there is no need to say that the request actually came through their mother, as Mark did not tell us that. Of course, comparing one account to the others might help you notice unique and distinct elements within it (which might help you discover an emphasis you might otherwise overlook), but the goal in doing so when reading the Bible as the authority for life and practice is to find out what a particular text is teaching us, not seeking to understand all the details of the historical event. God didn’t call us to write new gospels but to listen to the four that He gave us.
The Gospel Message is a Beautiful “Harmony” Sung by Four Voices
In essence, we should remember that while we talk about having four “Gospels,” we actually have one gospel relayed to us through four individuals; we have the gospel according to Matthew/Mark/Luke/John. Let us remember both the singular message they reflect and the individual and personal emphases in recounting its importance and significance back in the first century as well as today in the twenty-first century. Let us listen to the beautiful “harmony” that is found through the four gospels playing together!
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