Dr. Ben Whitherington

Are the Gospel accounts contradictory and therefore unreliable?

This is a charge that come up many times. Dr. Whitherington gives a sound explanation as to why there are difference's in the gospel. If the gospel accounts all read the same, the skeptic would claim that there was tampering with the texts and they all copied from one another, kind of like if you were a teacher and two students turned in a paper and they were 99% identical you would conclude there was cheating.

However the fact that there are difference's within the gospel argue for its reliability and authenticity. For some good books dealing with "Bible Contradictions" I would highly recommend Dr. Norman Geisler's book called "When Critics Ask". Next Dr. Gleason Archers book of bible difficulties, and lastly "Hard Sayings of The Bible" by Dr. Walt Kaiser