Cold-Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the GospelSample

The Reason We Have Four Gospels

Why do the New Testament gospels seem to differ from one another in places, if they’re all telling the story of the same person—Jesus? The field of detective work helps give an answer.

Unless you’ve worked a lot with eyewitnesses and have become familiar with the nature of apparent contradictions in eyewitness accounts, it’s easy to assume people are lying (or are mistaken) simply because they don’t agree on every detail or have ignored some facts in favor of others. So as we notice apparent contradictions among the four gospels, we must remember this: an eyewitness account can be reliable despite apparent contradictions.

While we might complain about two differing accounts, we would be even more suspicious if there were absolutely no peculiarities or differences. If this were the case with the gospels, I bet we would argue they were the result of some elaborate collusion.

As we examine the gospel accounts, we need to give the writers the same benefit of the doubt we would give other eyewitnesses. Human eyewitnesses produce human eyewitness accounts; they are often idiosyncratic and personal, but reliable, nonetheless.

As a Christian, I recognize the Bible is God’s Word, but I also recognize it was delivered to us through the observations and recollections of human eyewitnesses. They weren’t writing moral fiction. They were recording what they saw with their own eyes, heard with their own ears, and touched with their own hands.

Let’s recognize the importance of biblical reliability and help our skeptical friends recognize the nature of personal, reliable eyewitness testimony. Many of us have seen or heard something forever changing the way we thought about the world around us. That’s precisely what happened to the gospel writers. Their observations changed them forever, and their testimony can change the world we live in.

Prayer: Father, as I seek to know Your Son better, reveal Him to me in all the richness Your Word provides.