Why do the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John differ??

Question

According to the book, "Case for Christ"(this book sets out to prove that the NT factual) the four books of the gospel are 80% compatible. That is, all four books agree with each other 80% of the time. The author mantains that this goes to prove that the writers of the gospel did not conspire together and come up with a exact identical story. Here is my question, If the entire NT is God-breathed, why do the authors disagree with each other 20% of the time? If it is God-breathed, it should be perfect, it has to be perfect. Why don't the gospels match perfectly??

TiBarbie, the authors disagree on details. Its not a different perspective, its different accounts of reality. Most are minor details, but there shouldn't be any variance if God is involved in the writing of the books.

Answer 1

They DON'T. In fact they agree! Your lack of understanding is your problem. Then you WEAKLY try to blame God. Nothing new.

Answer 2

Ever consider how the bible got to be? It was not like God send the bible from heaven, all nice and typed and bound and say "Hey, here you go. My words."

To begin with the gospels are stories that are (1) written by people who was there to witness the life of Jesus Christ. If 4 people watch a movie and then, you ask the same 4 people to tell you what was the movie about, you will get 4 different stories. They will be hopefully 80% the same but they will be differences. The quotes may differ a little, points of interest in the movie may differ a little.
Consider also that (3) the stories are written years after the fact. These stories are not written when Jesus was alive. It was written later. Years may blur the memories.
And then (3) these stories are written down. And if anyone wanted a copy, someone else have to write it down by hand. Wonder is someone make a mistake there.
After all that, (4) they translate it from Aramaic to Hebrew or Greek and then to English. Maybe someone make a mistake there too. Hmmm.

Answer 3

They shouldn't be perfect, they're written by human beings, believe it or not those 4 gospels were chosen by the catholic church because they were the ones that were the most compatible to each other and to set the church standards.

But as you know, there are 12 discipules of Christ, and thus 12 total gospels, as well as the gospel of mary magadalene.
One pope decided to eliminate the rest of the gospels and call them "gnostic gospels" as they are more similar to gnostic beliefs.

The church is an institution and like any institution it set its own parameters, the church wasn't created by christ, it was created by the popes through centuries, and its teachings have changed throughout history.

That's why I became gnostic, to find the truth by myself and not let people dictate me what I should believe.

Thus the gnostic gospels are real since by logic there were 12 disciples of christ, some of these gnostic gospels have been found, and their teachings are deeper, as if the 4 catholic gospels are the kindergartten level compared to the gnostic ones.

And that's why the gnostic gospels are banned from the church because they mention stuff such as women being equal to men, and that we ourselves are a temple and god can be found anywhere and not just inside a physical temple/church. And that basically anyone can go to heaven if you're good, it doesn't matter if you are budhist or something else.

Answer 4

If 80% of the gospels are compatible, it doesn't mean that the other 20% disagree with each other.

It is just that the some parts of the gospel of St. John are not found in the other books, and so with the other books contains parts that are not in the others. Mostly are on the part on the childhood of Jesus. Which is the time non of the apostles have grown with Jesus during their childhood.

Answer 5

The time wherein they have been written. Mark became written approximately 50 advert. Then Matthew and Luke have been written from Mark approximately 60-sixty 5 advert. Then there became a concern in 70 advert whilst the Roman beat up on the Jews. Then, approximately ninety-one hundred advert, John became written. It has a plenty distinctive tone via fact of what had occurred a pair of many years before. @Ideo.. the "Q" or "Quelle" checklist is an engaging hypthesis. If it exited, and any copies ought to ever be got here across, the historic previous in the "Q" may be awesome.

Answer 6

They are all written by different people. When the preist reads it he may sometimes say, "The gospel according to Mark" This just goes to prove that the 80% that they agree on is 100% true. Yes, God is perfect but they are going to disagree because they themselves are human and are not perfect.

Answer 7

Basically they differ for the same reason 10 people at the same crime scene will give 10 different versions of what happened. Personal perspective.

This 20 percent you mention is not in disagreement.... but rather where one thing is in one and not found in another and vise-versa. This doesn't necessarily mean they're in opposition, only that there are slightly differing details. If all 4 Gospels "matched perfectly"...if they all said exactly, word for word the same thing, what would be the point of having 4?

Answer 8

I give you one example:
To begin with Like never was a disciple of Jesus'. He was a physician, and wrote the Gospel from what he heard.
Now to Matthew, Mark and John.
These are the 3 eyewitnesses.
Suppose you and 2 of your friends witnessed an accident. The police will ask all three of you separately what you saw. You are all going to give the same basic account, but each ones report will have a variation of the same thing.
The Bible is still God breathed....
This is the simplest explanation.

Answer 9

They are not "disagreeing" the other 20% of the time. They are simply offering facts unique to that gospel. Think of the 20% as the gospel writer's point of view coming across, or just the different things they noticed particularly during an event.

It is perfect the way it is.

Answer 10

It's important to understand that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. Those guys were illiterate peasants. The gospels we know were written generations later by people who never personally knew Jesus or Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They were written from oral tradition which had been passed from person to person. And we don't even have the original manuscripts, only copies. Such stories will vary with time.

Answer 11

They don't match perfectly because they were all different people, they may have been present for different things, or viewed things differently, or been told things or just written it down differently. Basically, it's like if you got four people together and had them all go out for a night, and then the next day went to each one individually and asked what ha happened and their stories will be similar in evens and places and times, but they will be varied in many other aspects in the way they tell it, or what they saw or heard ect.