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After 16 years, B.D. Ehrman<\/strong> changes his mind: the contradictions in the Gospels<\/strong> are discrepancies, they are few and not that important. Yet they were his trump card<\/strong> against the Gospels.<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So, in the end, the contradictions in the Gospels<\/strong><\/mark> are not that important.<\/p>\n It took 16 years to admit it, but finally even Bart D. Ehrman<\/strong>, a famous (skeptical) New Testament scholar and bestselling author, has reached the point where his numerous critics had been waiting for him<\/strong> for a long time.<\/p>\n \u00a0 It was 2009 when B.D. Ehrman (University of North Carolina) published “Jesus, Interrupted”<\/i> (HarperCollins 2009), in which he revealed the differences between the evangelists<\/strong>, presenting them as central elements against the reliability<\/strong> of the Gospel narratives and sparking great debate in the academic and religious world.<\/p>\n As Michael Kruger<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (Reformed Theological Seminary) already commented<\/strong> at the time, Ehrman\u2019s rather \u201cconspiratorial\u201d<\/i> concern was that priests were keeping hidden<\/strong> from the public the results of modern historical criticism of the Bible, so that \u201cEhrman can present himself as a liberator\u201d<\/i>.<\/p>\n \u00a7<\/p>\n Obviously, contradictions in the Gospels have been discussed for centuries, long before Ehrman, but, Kruger ironically commented, \u201csubtitles like \u2018Uncovering the problems of the Bible that everyone already knows\u2019 would have sold far fewer books<\/strong>\u201d<\/i>.<\/p>\n Michael Kruger\u2019s scathing<\/strong> review had the merit of exposing B.D. Ehrman\u2019s clickbait<\/i> tendency<\/strong>, namely creating books and multimedia content with a huge ability to attract attention through catchy, purpose-built titles, subtitles, and images (precisely what 99% of serious scholars cannot do), but then \u201cfailing\u201d in the content by presenting theses that were already known, discussed, and not very compromising.<\/p>\n \u00a0 It is therefore significant that today, after so much time, the same skeptical scholar, in an episode of his podcast, admits that contradictions exist, but he greatly downplays<\/strong> their significance.<\/p>\n The talk begins according to Ehrman\u2019s standard script<\/strong>: first he was an evangelical Christian and a bit gullible<\/strong>, then, by studying the texts, he \u201cdiscovered the truth\u201d and became agnostic (in other talks there are other variations, namely that he left the faith not because of his studies but because he was scandalized by the problem of evil).<\/p>\n Then finally comes the surprising part.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that every verse is in contradiction \u2014 he explains \u2014 there are some, but you can\u2019t say<\/strong> that the Gospels are \u2018filled to the brim\u2019 with inconsistencies\u201d<\/i>. Ehrman distinguishes<\/strong> in fact between \u201cdifferences\u201d and actual \u201ccontradictions,\u201d emphasizing that many discrepancies can be explained or harmonized<\/strong> without difficulty.<\/p>\n Strange, because he himself at the time abhorred any harmonization<\/strong> between the evangelists, since that would \u201ccreate one\u2019s own version of the Gospel, different from both of those being read\u201d<\/i>1<\/a><\/sup>B.D. Ehrman, “Jesus, Interrupted”<\/i>, HarperCollins 2009, p. 22<\/span>.<\/p>\n Yet ancient historiography<\/strong> is notoriously limited in what it can record, and a writer could not say everything about a particular event. Therefore, when considering multiple historical sources, one obviously tries to combine them. It is inevitable for any historical account.<\/p>\n The historian\u2019s task<\/strong> is precisely to reconstruct \u201cwhat really happened\u201d from the documents available, and B.D. Ehrman<\/strong> refused to do so only with the Gospel accounts.<\/p>\n Welcome, then, to the change in perspective<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u00a0 Another interesting point concerns the usual examples<\/strong> of contradictions in the Gospels that he has been citing for decades.<\/p>\n For example, the number of women present at the tomb, the place of the appearance of the Risen One (Galilee in Matthew, Jerusalem in Luke), or the date of the crucifixion (Passover Eve in John, the day after the Passover meal in Mark). While, for him, these still remain real cases of contradiction, they are no longer considered<\/strong> the heart of the matter, nor an obstacle to reading and understanding the Gospel text.<\/p>\n \u201cThese differences are not a problem for faith<\/strong>, only for fundamentalism\u201d<\/i>, he says at one point in the video.<\/p>\n And yet, adds the man who made contradictions between the Gospels the pivot of unreliability, \u201cI would say that there are not too many contradictions<\/strong> in what Jesus says, in the sense that it\u2019s not that in one Gospel he says \u2018love your enemies\u2019 and in another he says \u2018no, don\u2019t love your enemies.\u2019 It\u2019s not like that; there really aren\u2019t contradictions of that kind\u201d<\/i>.<\/p>\n If anything, the American scholar concludes, \u201ccertainly the texts report major differences<\/strong> and sometimes these differences, even when they are not contradictory, are really marked and important\u201d<\/i>.<\/p>\n \u00a0 But what is the problem with the differences between the evangelists?<\/p>\n It is precisely the proof that they are independent sources<\/strong> from one another, and these differences are normal<\/strong> in ancient texts, which were not written like modern legal transcripts.<\/p>\n Even today, on a daily basis, the same event is reported very differently by various newspapers<\/strong>. Yet no one doubts the reality of the event.<\/p>\n The example of scholar Michael R. Licona<\/strong> (Houston Christian University) is well known regarding the sinking of the Titanic<\/strong> and the contradictions among the survivors2<\/a><\/sup>M.R. Licona<\/b>, in Ehrman\u2013Licona Dialogue on the Historical Reliability of the New Testament<\/i>, The Best Schools 2016<\/span>.<\/p>\n
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\n <\/p>\nB.D. Ehrman and the contradictions in the Gospels<\/h2>\n
\n <\/p>\nThe discrepancies can be harmonized<\/h2>\n
\n <\/p>\n\u201cThe contradictions in the Gospels are few\u201d<\/h2>\n
\n <\/p>\nThe Gospel contradictions, a dangerous argument<\/h2>\n