 I want to spend a few minutes talking about discrepancies in the Christian scriptures. A bit of background for those of you not familiar with the Christian scriptures or what Christians call the New Testament. The first four books of the Christian scriptures, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are collectively known as the Gospels. It's these four books that contain the narratives of the birth, life, and death of Jesus. In my discussions with born-again evangelical missionaries about the Christian scriptures, I often point out the many discrepancies, inconsistencies, and contradictions in the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion, burial, and alleged resurrection of Jesus. According to Christianity, the story goes something like this. Jesus was executed during the day on a Friday, and his body was placed in a tomb before sunset. Early the following Sunday morning, a woman named Mary went to the tomb for the purposes of anointing Jesus' body. When Mary gets there, the tomb is empty. She runs to tell the disciples, the followers of Jesus, about what happened. The risen Jesus then appears to them and announces that he has come back from the grave. This is the general story that most Christians know. However, let's examine these accounts a bit more closely, because there are some inconsistencies in the Gospel accounts, discrepancies that are very troubling. When you consider that born-again Christian, staunchly consider the New Testament to be the inerrant Word of God. Who actually goes to the tomb? Well, it depends. In the book of Matthew, it is two women, Mary Magdalene and another woman named Mary. In Mark, it is three women, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and a woman named Solomon. In Luke, it's many women. Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, a woman named Johanna, and other women. In the book of John, it is Mary Magdalene alone. Whom do these women see? Again, it depends. In Matthew, they see an angel sitting outside the tomb. In Mark, they see a young man sitting inside the tomb. In Luke, they see two men standing inside the tomb, and according to the book of John, there's no mention of Mary seeing anyone at all. What happens then? Are you beginning to see a pattern here? In Matthew's account, the angel sitting outside the tomb announces that Jesus has risen from the dead and that Jesus' disciples are to meet him in Galilee. While Mark states, it's the young man sitting inside the tomb who says that. In Luke, the two men standing in the tomb say that Jesus has risen. In John, nothing happens at the empty tomb when Mary is first there. What happens after that? Well, we can't be certain because Matthew testifies that the two Mary's run with great joy to tell the disciples. Contrast this with Mark's account that the women leave troubled and in fear, and at first they don't tell anyone. In Luke, the women go tell the disciples. In John, Mary goes and tells Peter and the other disciples that someone has taken Jesus' body. To whom does Jesus first appear? It depends. In Matthew, Jesus appears to the two Mary's on the road as they are going to tell the disciples they are overjoyed. Jesus tells them to have the disciples meet him in Galilee. In Mark, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene. He later appears in a different form to two of his disciples out in the country. In Luke, Jesus first appears to the two disciples while they are on their way to the village of Amas. They do not recognize Jesus. Eventually, they do recognize Jesus, but he vanishes. Later, Jesus appears to the rest of the disciples. In John, Jesus appears to a grief-stricken Mary Magdalene, weeping at the tomb after the disciples have come and gone. She doesn't recognize him. She thinks it's the gardener. Where do Jesus and the disciples meet? It depends. In Matthew, they meet in Galilee. In Luke, they meet in Jerusalem. What do Christians say about these inconsistencies? Most Christians will say there are no conflicts. There are no contradictions. There are no discrepancies. There only appear to be conflicts. And it's at this point that the Christian usually gives the witnesses to a traffic accident analogy, and it goes something like this. There's a traffic accident at an intersection. There are four witnesses, one on each corner. Because of their different perspectives, they each have a slightly different view of the accident. The witness accounts don't actually conflict with each other, they say, because the witnesses are merely recording what they see from their individual perspective. Now, that explanation may be all well and good for some aspects of the story, but doesn't hold up for other discrepancies. I'm talking about major contradictions. Stories so different, they cannot simply be a matter of viewpoint. I'll give you two examples of what I mean by a major contradiction. One example in Matthew. Jesus appears to a joy-filled Mary on the road as she's on her way to tell the disciples that the tomb is empty. Mary is so overjoyed and runs to tell the disciples what just happened. In John, however, when she gets to the disciples, she tells them someone has taken Jesus's body. Afterwards, when Mary returns to the tomb with the disciples, she's weeping. She's heartbroken. She's freaking out. Why? Because the tomb is empty, Jesus's body is missing and she does not know what happened to Jesus's body. She doesn't know what happened to Jesus's body. How can that be? According to Matthew, Mary already knows what happens because Jesus himself told her before she even got to the disciples in the first place. It's one story or the other. Either the angel told Mary when she first arrived at the tomb and later Jesus himself tells her that he has risen from the dead. Therefore, she knew he was alive or the angel and Jesus did not tell her. And that's why she told the disciples that someone had taken Jesus's body. And that's why she was weeping at the tomb because she didn't know what happened to the body. It's one set of circumstances or the other. Either Mary knew Jesus was alive when she went to tell the disciples or she didn't know when she met the disciples and still didn't know when she returned with the disciples. These two contradictory accounts cannot both be true. Put yourself in the position of a judge in a court of law where he's trying to determine the facts of a traffic accident. One witness says he sees the driver's best friend at the scene of the accident right after it happens. And the best friend is overjoyed because her friend, the driver, walked away from the accident without a scratch. Another witness says that half an hour after the accident when the ambulance arrives, this same friend is crying and upset because she doesn't know if her friend is alive or dead. It's one or the other. They cannot both be true. One more example. According to the the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus was crucified on the first day of Passover, the last supper being a Passover Seder. In John, however, Jesus is executed on the day before Passover. This is not a matter of two people seeing things from a different viewpoint. It's either on one day or the other, continuing with the traffic accident analogy. Imagine that you were a judge or a member of the jury sitting in a court and three witnesses testify that the accident occurred at noon on New Year's Day. But the other witness swears under oath that it happened at noon on New Year's Eve. They cannot both be true. As the one who has to determine the facts of the case, how do you know for certain what happened? Whom do you believe? Can you come to a definite conclusion as to what occurred? Christians are in denial when it comes to these major contradictions. We as Jews, however, are left with a question of how to deal with conflicting and contradictory evidence. Let's go a little further with the traffic accident analogy and put ourselves in the place of jury members trying to figure out the facts of the trial where there are discrepancies and contradictions in the evidence. Before we begin, I'll remind you of an important verse from the Bible's book of Proverbs. The first person to speak in court sounds right until he is cross-examined. Let's keep this in mind as we proceed. A witness testifies under oath. He promises to tell the truth. Sometimes during cross-examination, the lawyer for the other side catches the witness in inconsistencies and contradictions that lawyer then pokes holes in the witness's story. How does a jury deal with a situation where there are inconsistencies and contradictions in the evidence? Is the witness reliable? Is the witness lying? Is she wrong? How do you handle such a case? What do you do? Act trial. The judge will instruct the jury with respect to contradictions and witnesses testimony as follows. You have three choices. One, you can accept all the evidence. Two, you can pick and choose around the problem area, accepting the evidence you trust and rejecting the rest. Or three, you can reject all of the evidence. In Canada, coffee shops are virtually everywhere. They're practically a national institution. Imagine yourself at the local coffee shop and you buy a nice big muffin to enjoy with your coffee. One of the first things most people do is break open the top of the muffin. Now imagine you've removed the top of your muffin and inside you see a huge, ugly cockroach. And it's in the middle of your muffin. It's part of the muffin. It didn't just crawl up there a second ago. It's baked into the muffin. What do you do? Well, you have three choices. One, you can eat the whole muffin. Two, you can pick and choose around the problem area, eating the parts of the muffin you like and rejecting the rest. Or three, you can reject it all and send the whole muffin back. So now let's go back to the traffic accident scenario. You can stay to me wait a minute. There are four witnesses. Why don't we just believe some and not the others? Why can't we say, for example, that we will believe the Synoptic Gospels Matthew, Mark and Luke, but reject the Gospel of John? After all, it was written like 70 or so years after Jesus' death. What's the problem with that? That's an interesting question and one that takes us to a deeper and more highly important point. While we've been speaking up until now, in terms of four witnesses to the incident, it's absolutely vital to remember that to the Christian, there are not really four witnesses. To the born again evangelical fundamentalist Christian, there is only one witness. Why? Because to the Bible believe in the Christian, every word of the Gospels, regardless of the supposed author is in fact the inerrant word of God. To the Christian, it's not four witnesses giving the testimony. It's one witness. It's God himself who they say is giving the testimony through four different people. So for our purposes, we're not dealing with inconsistencies and contradictions among four different people anymore. We're dealing with inconsistencies and contradictions from the same source, the same witness. We're not picking and choosing between four different muffins as a word. It's the same muffin. A witnesses who says ABC during one part of the testimony, secondly says XYZ and gives evidence that contradicts his own previous testimony. What do we do with this evidence? The inconsistencies and contradictions we've pointed out the irreconcilable differences in dates and the inexplicable inconsistency in speech and behavior from one account to the other. That's the cockroach in the gospel muffin. That's the muffin that the Christian is offering us. That's what the Christian wants us to swallow. I suggest that you do the only sensible thing in such a situation and reject it all.