How to Face Apparent Contradictions in the Gospels

“It is clear to me that the writings of the Christians are a lie.”

Such were the words of the pagan philosopher Celsus, written around AD 170. This was just the beginning. His full-scale assault was something to behold. Jesus was a bastard child born of an adulterous relationship. Mary was a poor Jewish spinster with no significant lineage. Jesus was a magician/sorcerer (due to his time in Egypt) who tricked and deceived people. His disciples were a band of depraved, uneducated robbers. Jesus was a poor teacher who stole material from Plato.

While such provocative claims filled Celsus’s On the True Doctrine, his core complaint was always centered on the Gospels themselves. They were “fables”—a “monstrous fiction” filled with “contradictions.”

His attacks disturbed the growing Christian movement. They were so influential that the third-century intellectual giant Origen felt compelled to write a line-by-line rebuttal. Origen was clear about what was at stake: “If the discrepancy between the Gospels is not solved, we must give up our trust in the Gospels, as being true and written by a divine spirit, or as records worthy of credence, for both these characters are held to belong to these works.”

One can almost feel Origen’s “anxiety” over this issue. For him, and for later theologians like Augustine, the fate of the Christian religion seemed to hang on our ability to resolve these apparent contradictions.

The fate of the Christian religion seemed to hang on our ability to resolve these apparent contradictions.

Such anxiety hasn’t dissipated after 2,000 years. The ghost of Celsus lives on as critics seem as fervent as ever about problems in the Gospels. The subtitle of Bart Ehrman’s 2009 book Jesus Interrupted [my review] hardly seems designed to quell people’s concerns: “Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them).”

So how should Christians handle this sort of “contradiction anxiety”? Are we able to trust the Gospels even if there are unresolved challenges? Here are a few principles to consider, followed by a specific (and recent) example.

Honesty About the Problem

We should begin where many Christians probably don’t want to: acknowledging the problem. There are places in the Gospels (and other parts of Scripture) that present sticky issues. It doesn’t help the discussion when Christians act like they don’t exist. To be overly dismissive of tough passages is to look like we’re not taking them seriously.

This sort of “nothing to see here” approach not only makes evangelicals seem uninterested in academic matters but also implies anyone raising questions about the Bible must be engaged in an evil plot to undermine it. After all, if problem passages are always easily solvable, then anyone who finds them difficult must be operating with bad intentions. We’re forced to assume the worst about every person with doubts.

As I discuss in my book Surviving Religion 101, and in my recent talk at TGC23, there’s a better way. We need to learn how to be less defensive, more welcoming to those with questions, and more willing to walk with them through the hard issues. Some people truly struggle with these passages. And some of these passages are genuinely difficult.

We need to learn how to be less defensive, more welcoming to those with questions, and more willing to walk with them through the hard issues.

Of course, this doesn’t mean all questions are born out of honest inquiry. Some critics of the Gospels seem to be professional cynics, unable (or unwilling) to give the other side a fair hearing. They put much energy into pointing out the problems but little toward finding a solution. They’re happy to ask questions but less than thrilled to receive answers.

If evangelicals need to be more open to exploring the problems, critics should likewise be more open to exploring possible solutions.

Ancient Historiography

A second way to address our “contradiction anxiety” is to understand how ancient historiography was different than modern historiography. Our default is to assume the way we do history now is the way they should’ve done history then. If an ancient writer fails to live up to our modern standards, we declare him mistaken.

But the more we learn about ancient historians (Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius), and about Greco-Roman biographies (of which the Gospels are likely an example), the more we learn how ancient practices were different from our own. In the ancient world, for instance, it was common to tell stories out of order (for thematic reasons), paraphrase and reword quotations, conflate and abridge material, streamline the timeline of events, and so on.

As a classic example, consider the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. In the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Jesus cleanses the temple at the end of his ministry (Matt. 21:12–17; Mark 11:15–19; Luke 19:45–48), but in John, he cleanses it at the beginning of his ministry (2:13–22). Sure, Jesus could’ve cleansed the temple twice, but it’s more likely John moved the account to the beginning of his Gospel for thematic reasons—namely, his desire to focus on Jesus as the new temple.

Once these sorts of techniques are taken into consideration, many apparent contradictions can quickly be resolved.

What We Don’t Know

But understanding ancient historiography doesn’t solve every challenge. Sometimes sticky passages require more sustained historical analysis.

This leads to a third observation. Even if some passages are more difficult to resolve, we have to remember there’s a lot we simply don’t know. Rather than declaring we must have discovered an irresolvable contradiction (as some critics seem quick to do), we can acknowledge there may be factors or considerations we’re unaware of.

For example, let’s consider the classic objection about the census of Quirinius described in Luke’s Gospel. Luke tells us Quirinius was “governor of Syria” when Jesus was born (2:2) and that the census required Joseph to return to his hometown of Bethlehem (vv. 4–5). For years, scholars have noted a twofold problem here.

First, Jesus was born sometime before the death of Herod in 4 BC, whereas Quirinius wasn’t governor until AD 6 (a date that comes from Josephus). This suggests Luke’s dates are off by more than a decade. Second, we have no evidence any ancient census required a person to return to his or her “hometown.” Critics argue Luke just made this up as a way to get Jesus born in Bethlehem.

Of course, solutions have been proposed to this conundrum. Some argue that Josephus, not Luke, could’ve been mistaken about the date of Quirinius. Others suggest Quirinius might have been governor twice, once in 4 BC and again in AD 6. N. T. Wright recently suggested a simple solution: the preposition protos in Luke 2:2 is best translated “before” rather than “first,” making the translation read, “This census took place before the time when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”

Each of these proposed solutions has strengths and weaknesses and a differing level of plausibility. But, recent academic work has opened up new (and intriguing) possibilities on how to understand this passage.

Help from the Papyri

There’s so much about the ancient world we don’t know, in part because the records of that world—largely kept on parchment or papyrus—are mostly lost. Only a fraction of a fraction have survived. This means every new manuscript discovery holds remarkable potential. It could contain the piece of information we need to unlock certain mysteries or solve certain conundrums.

The historical relevance of ancient manuscripts has been highlighted in Sabine R. Huebner’s recent Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament. While historical knowledge typically comes through the discovery of literary works—histories, anthologies, formal treatises—Huebner points out there’s an entire world of often overlooked material known as documentary papyri.

Rather than formal works of literature, documentary papyri are what we might call everyday documents—letters, tax receipts, leases, contracts, bills of sale, wills, and more. They reveal what life would’ve looked like for a common person in the Greco-Roman world. Among such documents, Huebner observes, are census declarations. These papyri not only record a remarkable level of detail about the family being registered—age, sex, occupation, number of children, possessions, and so on—but also provide clues about how such a census might have been carried out.

One manuscript, known as P. Lond. 3.904, provides this fascinating description of a Roman census: “It is necessary that all persons who are not resident at home for one reason or another at this time return to their homeplaces in order to undergo the usual registration formalities and to attend to the cultivation of the land which is their concern.”

Here we see, contrary to the critics of Luke 2:2, that there were times when an individual had to register in his hometown—namely, when he owned property in that town and was temporarily living elsewhere. This squares well with the Gospel of Luke, where it appears Joseph was only living in Nazareth temporarily. He was originally from Bethlehem, where he likely owned a family plot (as one of David’s descendants). Under this scenario, Luke’s description of Joseph returning to his hometown of Bethlehem proves plausible.

Help from the Church Fathers

Even if ancient papyri can help explain why Joseph had to return to his hometown, there’s still the question of the census’s date. Why does it seem like Luke’s dating is off by more than a decade?

Here we can find help from two church fathers, Justin Martyr and Tertullian.

Justin, writing in Rome in the middle of the second century, refers to this census under Quirinius, whom he calls the “procurator” (epitropos) in Judea. He even challenges his readers to check out the census archives for themselves (something one could’ve easily done, as census record-keeping was meticulous). Such a challenge would be risky if there were no such records.

Huebner points out an often missed detail: Justin doesn’t call Quirinius a “governor” but a “procurator” (epitropos)—a different office entirely. (Another term often used to refer to a procurator is hegemon.) A procurator was a lower office, typically involved in administering and implementing a census. Curiously, Luke appears to confirm this fact. He doesn’t describe Quirinius with the typical Greek word for “governor” but instead uses the participle hegemoneuon (“to be a hegemon”). In other words, a procurator.

Tertullian (AD 160–240) further illuminates Luke’s census. He too says anyone can check out the records of the census Joseph participated in (again, risky if the records weren’t there). Then he adds a remarkable detail: the census took place under governor Saturninus.

With the help of Justin and Tertullian, a picture begins to emerge. Apparently, Quirinius wasn’t the governor during the birth of Jesus but the procurator who executed the census under Saturninus. If so, then why does Luke even mention Quirinius? Why not just mention Saturninus?

The answer is simple: Quirinius would later become governor in AD 6 and would implement a better-known census. Luke knew his audience would be familiar with this later census and wanted to distinguish it from the earlier one Joseph participated in. Thus, Luke tells his audience this was the “first” census associated with Quirinius.

With this additional information, it seems Luke wasn’t incorrect about the date of the census after all. One happened when Jesus was born, sometime before 4 BC, and one happened more than a decade later, around AD 6. Both were associated with Quirinius.

Take a Deep Breath

This article has been about the anxiety we all feel when faced with what seems an insurmountable contradiction in the Gospels. I’ve offered three considerations to help manage that anxiety.

First, we shouldn’t duck the problem, pretending every passage is easy and clean. Some passages are tough; owning that is important. Second, we need to remember ancient historiography was different from modern historiography—sometimes very different. Grasping this reality can solve many apparent contradictions. Third, and perhaps most important, we need to recognize there’s a lot we don’t know. Before we bang the gavel, declaring we’ve found an assured contradiction, we need to reckon with the limits of our knowledge.

When faced with an apparent contradiction, sometimes we just need to take a deep breath.

The census under Quirinius in Luke’s Gospel highlights precisely this point. Imagine if we didn’t have P.Lond. 3.904. Imagine if we didn’t have the writings of Justin and Tertullian to help us. We’d never know there’s a plausible explanation for the confusion around Luke’s census.

When faced with an apparent contradiction, sometimes we need to take a deep breath. Even if we don’t have an answer, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. Sometimes we just have to wait. Sometimes we have to do the hard historical work. And sometimes (really, all the time) we have to trust.