WHAT HAPPENED ON EASTER SUNDAY?

Last Sunday, I took my Bible to Pablo's on 6th, where I drank a strawberry Italian soda and pored over the Resurrection accounts according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, looking for contradictions. I did this for you, you ungrateful bastard, so that the next time you debate the inerrancy of the Bible with some fundamentalist, you'll be able to point out errors in the story that lies at the heart of the Christian faith.

I followed these two principles while searching for contradictions:

• Fundamentalists always say you should read the Bible for its plain meaning ("Obviously homosexuality is a perversion -- just read Romans 1:27.") So I read plainly. Back atcha, fundies.
  
• I did not expect the Gospel writers to match each other detail for detail. For example, Matthew says that "Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome" went to Jesus' tomb, while John only mentions Mary Magdalene. I did not count this sort of thing as contradictory -- Matthew adds detail to John's account but does not contradict it. I looked for details that could not be true simultaneously.

I found three ironclad contradictions. That doesn't seem like many, I suppose, but keep in mind that I did this in an hour at a coffee shop while using my peripheral vision to study a very attractive girl at the next table. Certainly others have found more and more egregious errors. You should also remember that one contradiction suffices to sink the fundamentalist claim for Biblical inerrancy. Anyway, here they are:

1. John states that when Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene, she was standing at the tomb crying. But Matthew says she (and the other women) were running away from the tomb when Jesus stopped them.
   
   
2. Luke states that the angels appeared to the women before the disciples ran to the tomb. But John records that the angels appeared to the women after the disciples had seen the empty tomb.
   
   
3. Matthew says Jesus first appeared to the disciples on a mountain in Galilee. We know this was his first appearance because a plain reading of Matthew leaves no room for other appearances: Jesus appeared to the women, instructed them to tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee, and then appeared to them in Galilee. We also know Jesus did not previously appear to the disciples because some of them doubted. If Jesus had appeared to them before, why would any of them doubt?
   
   But Luke says Jesus first appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem. We know this was his first appearance because "they were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost," and "they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement." Again, if they had seen Jesus before, why did they doubt?

BONUS CONTRADICTION!

When was the Last Supper? Matthew, Mark, and Luke plainly agree that the Last Supper was a Passover meal. In John's account, however, the Jews arrest Jesus after the Last Supper and take him before Pilate, where, we are told, "to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover." (Emphasis mine.) According to John, then, the Last Supper took place before the Passover, contradicting the other Gospels.

Christians have known about this contradiction for a long time and have proposed many solutions to resolve it. These solutions all violate a plain reading of the text, which makes me wonder why biblical fundamentalists, so blindly dedicated to the truths plainly revealed in their holy book, can become so deeply concerned with historical trivia, cultural context, and linguistic subtleties when a plain reading challenges their notions of what they want the Bible to say.

+posted by Lawrence @ 5/11/2004 11:50:00 PM