That the Gospels do not maintain exact harmony in their chronological proceedings regarding the life and ministry of Jesus Christ concerns many today; however, there is relatively no documented information of the early Church feeling the same unease. If one examines what a Gospel is, one will note that it is not akin to a biographical account. Their credibility and significance do not lie solely in their chronological veracity, but rather, they lie in extent to which they testify to the truth of God’s will and grace. The early Church’s lack of criticism toward the Gospel authors and their claims demonstrates that the people understood a different factor as supreme for gauging the credibility of the Gospels; that the purpose of their authorship was to make arguments for Jesus being the Christ. Nevertheless, the discrepancies which initiate the searches for the “Historical Jesus” are a stumbling block to the faith of many.
The noticeable contradictions found in comparing the Gospels do appear disconcerting at first. How could one claim a harmony among the four separate books in this literary genre which claim to testify to the same truth and explain much of what Jesus said during his ministry – though saying little else about his life – while at the same time not account for the their inconsistent details? Jesus would not purposefully intend to mislead his followers, would he? Would God orchestrate mistakes into the writing of His divinely-inspired word?
This problem of discord becomes much less of a problem when one understands why the early Church valued the Gospel accounts. In order to look back on history accurately, we cannot assume that, historically, those individuals had the same perceptions we do, nor that they valued things parallel to our own valuations. Thus, one cannot assume that the early Christians saw it necessary to construct a biographical sketch of Jesus’ life in order to “believe.” They accepted his life as a given (many had known and seen him), and so their focus was on determining whether or not he was who he said he was, the Messiah. The disagreement among some Gospel details illustrates that trying to build a comprehensively accurate sketch of his life from our position would be fruitless from the start, because there are no other corroborative sources with which to compare for almost all of the material about Jesus outside of the Gospels themselves.
It is possible that mistakes do exist in the Gospel accounts regarding chronology, but these occurrences would not strip the Gospels of their force, importance, or truth. What we do know should not be immediately discounted because of something we do not know. It is also possible that the “apparent” mistakes were delicately-placed details, and are not out of order, but rather they were organized in the best non-chronological literary structure through which the answer to the question, “Is Jesus the awaited for Messiah?” could be determined.
It is impossible to reconstruct a historically detailed biography of Jesus’ life with so little information. The Gospel authors never intended to produce chronologically harmonious accounts of Jesus’ life. They intended to tell what they knew of what had happened, and they did. They cannot be faulted for not sharing details they may not have known or had forgotten; this would not diminish their accuracy in recounting what they did know. Trying to reconstruct a biography of Jesus’ life, therefore, ought not to be pursued with nearly the same vigor as determining the Gospel authors’ intentions in writing their Gospels and exploring the text from there. In fact more so than anything else, the existence of discrepancies ought to encourage this pursuit above all others when engaging the Gospels. Those closest to Jesus didn’t think having a biography was of the utmost importance for believing Jesus nor fulfilling his commands, what makes us think that the lack of historical understanding will make or break our own faith?
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