How it Was, My Brother's Women, a Life Story into Art Without Consequence: An Old friend Remembers Papa's Final Years Or How Gospels Work

I've always been a voracious reader. This is only a portion of my library. I have many more volumes downstairs and stored away. I pruned it a couple years back and gave almost a thousand volumes to the local library. It was difficult. I know I will never reread all those in my collection, I wouldn't have the time left to do it, but it is hard for me to part with a book. I lost several hundred to water damage over a decade and a half ago and still mourn them.

There are several hundred biographies included. Mostly political, historic and artistic personages. There are twenty people on whom I have multiple bios. Just to name a few by number of volumes: 

Four - Bob Dylan, Franklin Roosevelt, H. P. Lovecraft (includes one I wrote), Bill Clinton, J. Edgar Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, Elvis Presley

Five - Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hughes

Six - Harry Houdini

Eighteen - John F. Kennedy

Twenty-One - Richard M. Nixon.

There are many more studies on people I haven't read, some I don't even know about. Most of the people I just mentioned, they can't stop writing about.

The title of this post was a combination of some of the 13 biographies on Ernest Hemingway I have: How It Was, My Brother Ernest Hemingway, The Hemingway Women, Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story, Life into Art,  A Life Without Consequence, An Old Friend Remembers, Papa and The Final Years.  (How Gospels Work is not the title of a Hemingway life saga.)

But what does how or why the gospels work have to do with any of this? Only that people criticize the four gospels for not being totally alike. Three (Matthew, Mark and Luke) have a number of similarities, although they vary in numerous passages. "And now for something completely different", the gospel of John, which starts off with all this stuff about the words becoming flesh and the light in the darkness. How weird. Why couldn't these guys get their act together and write the same thing so we couldn't question the "discrepancies".

Nineteen biographies of JFK, twenty-one of Nixon, do you think each was exactly the same as the others? What would be the point of that? Wouldn't it be boring to read them? Yes, some are very similar in accounting for the events in these men's lives, but some include things other's don't. Some focus on specific occurrences in the men's lives, some on different aspects of their personalities. Look at the titles of those Hemingway tomes. Some looked at his life as it was lived, some in respect to how it influenced his writing, some on his end of life breakdown, some from the vantage point of a relative, others from the vantage point of a friend. Some with casual presentations, some scholarly. One focused on the women in his life, one was written by his last wife.

It is the same with the Gospels. Matthew's focus is Jesus as the Messiah, Mark's is on person and his teaching, Luke's to show him as human and savior, John to prove Jesus is who he says he is.  Matthew and John were Apostles, with Jesus almost from the very beginning of his ministry.  Mark was a later disciple, who learned much serving Peter and Paul. Luke was a physician, who traveled with Paul and wrote as a biographer to clarify the events. Some argue that Matthew and Luke used Mark as a reference for their own writing. So what? Luke admits he is pulling together information from various accounts. 

In truth, the Gospels are not biographies. Although cover both the birth and death of Jesus, they mostly concentrate on the three years of his ministry and the Passion with the purpose of presenting their theme. There are many things in Jesus's life left out.

As for "discrepancies", under fair examination they dissolve away, especially if we wisely apply  Occam's razor and we study each passage in context to the whole of Scripture. If you have the time, you can sit down with the four Gospels side by side and cut and paste them into a coherent narrative of Jesus's life without losing a word or fudging a sentence. Doing such an exercise clears up the so called conflicts. I chose to do the passage below because all four Gospels are included.

Christ Before Pilate

Matthew 27: 11-14

Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

  "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied.

When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer. Then Pilate asked him, "Don't you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?" But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor. 

Mark 15: 2-4

"Are you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate.

 "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied.

 The chief priests accused him of many things. So again Pilate asked him, "Aren't you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of." 

Luke 23: 2-3

 And they began to accuse him, saying, "We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king."

So Pilate asked Jesus, "Are you the king of the Jews?" 
     

"Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. 

John 18: 28-38

Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and asked, "What charges are you bringing against this man?"

 "If he were not a criminal," they replied, "we would not have handed him over to you."

 Pilate said, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own laws.”

"But we have no right to execute anyone," the Jews objected. This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.

 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?”

"Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?" 

 "Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you are accused of?”

Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

 "You are a king, then!" said Pilate. 
      

Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."  

"What is truth?" Pilate asked.

Now put these four exerpts together as a single narrative:

Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. So Pilate came out to them and asked, "What charges are you bringing against this man?"

 "If he were not a criminal," they replied," we would not have handed him over to you."

 Meanwhile Jesus stood before the governor. Pilate said, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own laws.”

"But we have no right to execute anyone," the Jews objected. This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.

And they began to accuse him, saying, "We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Christ, a king." The chief priests accused him of many things. When he was accused by the chief priests and the elders, he gave no answer.

Then Pilate asked him, "Aren't you going to answer? Don't you hear the testimony they are bringing against you?" But Jesus made no reply, not even to a single charge—to the great amazement of the governor.

Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

 Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. "Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?"

 "Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you are accused of?”

Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

 "You are a king, then!" said Pilate.

Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

"What is truth?" Pilate asked.

One truth is, the Gospels work in unison, not in conflict, just as many biographies of anyone's life need not be contradictory, but focus on the myriad pieces that make up each of us.

Note: If you want to put the four Gospels together, you don't have to do all the work. It's been done for you. Find Johnston M. Cheney's The Life of Christ in Stereo. It uses a different translation of the Bible than I used for the narrative on Christ before Pilate (New International Version), but that's all right, you can do it with any acceptable version.