American Vision – October 25, 2010
Why “Contradictions” Authenticate the Bible
By Gary DeMar

The Bible (as well as the Constitution, Art 3, sec. 3) requires two witnesses to substantiate that an event has taken place (Deut. 17:6). The two-witness requirement is a safeguard for those accused of a crime. When an accusation is made and there is not a second witness, the single witness is investigated to see if he or she is telling the truth (Deut. 19:16-20). What’s true in cases related to criminal actions is also true in cases related to factuality. The Bible applies its own two-witness standard to itself. This can be seen when the issue of harmonizing seemingly contradictory events is raised by skeptics. Here’s an email I received:

      “I am struggling with a few things and would greatly appreciate your input. I have read the book by Mr. DeMar and am so grateful for his courage and insight. I still have questions though. One in particular. You state that the gospel had been preached to the entire world before the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 [Matt. 24:14]. The Scripture says that Paul, in Romans 15:20, had expressed wishes to the Romans “to come to you whenever I journey to Spain.” This was after the temple had been destroyed so how is it possible for your assumption to be correct if the gospel had not been preached in Spain after the temples demise? Please help me understand.”

Actually, it’s Paul who says that the gospel had been preached “in all the world” (Col. 1:6), “in all creation under heaven” (1:23). In Romans, he wrote that the faith of the Roman Christians “is being proclaimed throughout the whole world” (Rom. 1:8). Later he quotes from the OT stating that “their voice has gone out into all the earth and their words to the ends of the world” (Rom. 10:18). Luke writes, at Pentecost, that “there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5). Certainly some of these took the gospel back to their homeland, to the “world.”

According to Paul, he was planning to go to Spain (Rom. 15:24, 28) on his way through Rome. There is nothing in these texts that says that the Gospel had not been preached in Spain but only that Paul did not want to “build upon another man’s foundation” (Rom. 15:20). The book of Romans was written around A.D. 57, 13 years before the destruction of Jerusalem. Paul was martyred at least six years before the temple was destroyed. Writing of Paul’s missionary work before A.D. 70, Clement of Rome wrote (A.D. 30–70): “Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity, compelled to flee, and stoned. After preaching both in the east and west, he gained the illustrious reputation due to his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and come to the extreme limit of the west, and suffered martyrdom under the prefects.”

Many supposed contradictions are explained by harmonizing different accounts of the same event. Two eyewitnesses most likely will describe the same event in different ways leaving out details that the other will include. Liberals have always complained that the gospel accounts were late-date compilations designed to give theological meaning to the story of a wise man who called himself Jesus whose followers considered Him to be the promised Messiah. If this is the case, then why don’t the four gospel accounts tell the same story in the same way? Why circulate four different versions of the same story with apparent contradictions?

Otto Scott, a journalist, editor, historian, and author of ten books, who coined the phrase “the silent majority,” was attracted to the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life because they didn’t agree on every point. Scott recounts how he became a Christian after reading the gospels. Here’s how he tells it:

      Well, my wife was Christian and took our daughter to church all the time. I would attend out of courtesy. One night I was reading late and my little girl came out of the bedroom and wanted to know about this business of turning the other cheek. I had no idea where that idea came from but I thought it might be the Bible. I had a Bible in the house, of course, and I picked it up and read the Gospels – all four in one swoop. It was the contradictions in the testimony of these four different men that convinced me. As a reporter I had interviewed a lot of men, and I was on the crime beat at one point. I knew that if you get four men who tell you the same story they probably are colluding because no four men see the same thing the same way. One sees one significant element; one sees another. Although there was a close resemblance in the reporting of certain incidents in the Gospels, they were not identical. I was instantly convinced. I don’t think a person could have convinced me, but those varying contemporary histories did.[1]

Read the complete article here.