This week's Correlated Post: Revisionist Writers of the Gospels?

Recently, a friend asked me for help in creating a lesson centered on Jesus. I decided to go back to the original source, the true and infallible Gospels, which were written by Christ's apostles during his ministry and therefore contain no errors. Or, at least, so I thought.

Now I don’t know about you but but if the writers of the Gospels were as infallible as I was taught, they should have been able to keep their stories straight. I went to the Gospel of Matthew, then the Gospel of Mark, followed by Luke and then John. I was shocked!

Matthew refers to Jesus as the Son of God. Luke calls him the Son of Man. John calls him the Word of God. And they can't even agree on when Jesus cleansed the temple. What kind of bizarre revisionism were the writers of the Gospel involved in? John's account clearly contradicts the other Gospel writers. I always thought that John was a little shady anyway, writing about himself in the third person and all that.

Frankly, there is no way to reconcile this. Which account, which will contradict other scripture no matter what, will become the standard? Are we uncomfortable with the idea that the names and dates that John used are now foreign to the other Gospels? Am I just straining at gnats and swallowing camels?

How do we handle John's clear contradictions with the other Gospels?

• Clark Goble answer: All the accounts are correct, in different parallel universes, based on the latest ideas in quantum mechanics.
• Kevin Barney answer: Look at how much I know about the original Greek texts! Here are a lot of big words that give context to the debate but otherwise don't actually answer the question!
• ECS Answer: Anyone who doesn't agree with me is evil!

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