I recently read an article at the web page titled The Synoptic Gospels, recommended by my Sunday School teacher and probably written by a secular scholar named Diogenes the Cynic, indubitably not the philosopher of 412 BC, which highlights some of the errors and discrepancies found in and amongst the four canonical gospels. As a layman to history, I am not able to comment and rebuke all of them but by common sense I opine that the ground for his assertion is rather weak. I use two examples to illustrate my point of view.
According to Mr. Diogenes, Matthew claims that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (4-5BC) while Luke claims that Jesus was born during the Censes of Quirinius (AD6-7 according to the account of Josephus), which is nearly 10 years after Herod the Great died in 4BC. And, Judea did not become a Roman province until AD6 and hence was not subject to a census in 4BC. Moreover, the census was only applied to Roman citizens, not to the peasants residing in client kingdoms. The problem is that his assertion seems merely to serve his predetermined surmise, as we Christians always do. Although Judea was not officially announced as a Roman province during the time of Jesus birth, the area had already been under the reign of Roman Empire for half a century then and an earlier census under a prior governorship of Quirinius was not implausible. Lastly, the purpose of the census includes creation of ranks and collection of tax, and those who voluntarily absent themselves from census, i.e. incensus, are subject to severe punishment. Therefore, it is dubious that peasants are not included in the census. Even peasants were not inlcuded, the Bible has never mentioned that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem because of registration.
Another irreconcilable discrepancy claimed by Mr. Diogenes, found between Matthew and Luke is the anecdotes of Jesus immediately after His birth. Matthew says that Jesus' family fled to Egypt after Jesus was born and then moved to Nazarath 'only' after they had returned from Egypt and an angel told them to move to Galilee. On the other hand, Luke explicitly states that Jesus went to Jerusalem to be circumcised eight days after he was born and then immediately returned to Nazareth. No reporter in the world, even today, is able to know the whole picture of an event but he can only look at it from a particular angle. Either, whether the two different narratives are irreconcilable is questionable. Matthew had never implied that Jesus was moved to Nazareth 'only' after they had returned from Egypt and he just said that 'they returned to their country by another route' after the birth of Jesus. (Mt 2:12). It is not an anachronic problem and it is not uncommon for two consecutively written historical events recorded in Bible happened with a time gap in between, and many other events happened during this time gap could be omitted by the author. It is plausible that the circumcision could take place between the birth of Jesus and his family exile to Egypt.
Last but not least, I am not going to use the above examples to defend for the sake of apologetics for biblical inerrancy. The main point is that different standpoints come up with different point of view and even the commonly employed criteria used by secular and non-secular scholars, such as discontinuity, multiple attestation, embarrassment, etc, are unverifiable even by the most rational method, and can just provide hints on historical plausibility only. I guess any argument will just be at large or in vain.
According to Mr. Diogenes, Matthew claims that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (4-5BC) while Luke claims that Jesus was born during the Censes of Quirinius (AD6-7 according to the account of Josephus), which is nearly 10 years after Herod the Great died in 4BC. And, Judea did not become a Roman province until AD6 and hence was not subject to a census in 4BC. Moreover, the census was only applied to Roman citizens, not to the peasants residing in client kingdoms. The problem is that his assertion seems merely to serve his predetermined surmise, as we Christians always do. Although Judea was not officially announced as a Roman province during the time of Jesus birth, the area had already been under the reign of Roman Empire for half a century then and an earlier census under a prior governorship of Quirinius was not implausible. Lastly, the purpose of the census includes creation of ranks and collection of tax, and those who voluntarily absent themselves from census, i.e. incensus, are subject to severe punishment. Therefore, it is dubious that peasants are not included in the census. Even peasants were not inlcuded, the Bible has never mentioned that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem because of registration.
Another irreconcilable discrepancy claimed by Mr. Diogenes, found between Matthew and Luke is the anecdotes of Jesus immediately after His birth. Matthew says that Jesus' family fled to Egypt after Jesus was born and then moved to Nazarath 'only' after they had returned from Egypt and an angel told them to move to Galilee. On the other hand, Luke explicitly states that Jesus went to Jerusalem to be circumcised eight days after he was born and then immediately returned to Nazareth. No reporter in the world, even today, is able to know the whole picture of an event but he can only look at it from a particular angle. Either, whether the two different narratives are irreconcilable is questionable. Matthew had never implied that Jesus was moved to Nazareth 'only' after they had returned from Egypt and he just said that 'they returned to their country by another route' after the birth of Jesus. (Mt 2:12). It is not an anachronic problem and it is not uncommon for two consecutively written historical events recorded in Bible happened with a time gap in between, and many other events happened during this time gap could be omitted by the author. It is plausible that the circumcision could take place between the birth of Jesus and his family exile to Egypt.
Last but not least, I am not going to use the above examples to defend for the sake of apologetics for biblical inerrancy. The main point is that different standpoints come up with different point of view and even the commonly employed criteria used by secular and non-secular scholars, such as discontinuity, multiple attestation, embarrassment, etc, are unverifiable even by the most rational method, and can just provide hints on historical plausibility only. I guess any argument will just be at large or in vain.
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