How do you answer someone who points out seeming discrepancies in the four accounts?
For many years the art of color printing presented serious difficulties, and good results were obtainable only by means of a costly and tedious process. At last, however, a method was developed known as the “four-color process” which made color printing simpler while giving much more satisfactory results.
By using a series of filters (the process is now done by laser scans, ed.) three basic colors—yellow, blue, and red—plus black, are extracted from the original picture. This appeared in a series of overlapping dots of larger or smaller size. When these four dots were printed side by side, the eye “mixed” the colors, seeing orange, for example, when a medium yellow and red dot were printed side-by-side.
Each color printer thus contributes that which the other could not possibly supply, and the combination of all four makes a picture which could never be produced by only one color. This is just the case with the accounts by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
In order to give us a perfect picture of Christ, each writer furnishes an impression, so to speak, in his own color. Matthew tells us of the King, Mark speaks of the Servant, Luke sketches for us the perfect Man, and John shows us the Son of God. In some parts of the picture their colors are combined to give us a united testimony, while on the other hand each of the records contains particulars which are not found in any of the others. We can only have a perfect impression when these testimonies are imprinted, one after another, on our hearts. To show this principle is well founded, we will place under our magnifier the superscription that Pilate put up over the head of our Saviour on the Cross.
Some have contended that the differing descriptions given of this superscription prove that the Gospels are inaccurate. A few words are given as being inscribed as His “accusation”; here at least we should find absolute accuracy, but the versions given do not agree.
Matthew records the words: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” Mark has simply: “The King of the Jews.” Luke: “This is the King of the Jews”; and John: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
There is no difficulty with Mark’s record; it harmonizes with the others as far as it goes. He wrote his Gospel for Romans, and uses the simplest and most direct language, making his account the shortest. He mentions only the gist of why Pilate had Jesus crucified, nothing more.
It is noteworthy that the inscription was written, as Luke tells us, in three languages: “Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.” John also says it was written in three, but in a different order: “Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.” Why? It is likely that they give preeminence to the language they understood best.
Luke, a physician, doubtless studied with the help of Greek textbooks, and had spent considerable time in Europe. As well, he is mentioned apart from Paul’s fellow-workers who were “of the circumcision” (Col. 4:11); and his Gospel bears evidence of an accurate knowledge of that tongue. It is probable that Luke gave the inscription as it appeared in Greek.
John, however, was a Galilean fisherman and better acquainted with the Aramaic dialect of Hebrew, while Matthew, a tax collector under the Romans, would have rendered his accounts in Latin. So it seems exceedingly probable that Matthew gives the inscription that appeared in Latin, Luke gave that which was in Greek, and John the Hebrew. Interestingly, when the inscriptions are written in their native characters (the Latin has 22 characters; Hebrew and Greek, 20), they take almost exactly the same amount of space. The full sentence in Greek and Latin could not have been made to fit.
Seeing how easily and naturally this “difficulty” is explained, how many other difficulties in the Bible could be explained in an equally satisfactory way if only we had a little more knowledge?