In the first few centuries, those in educational leadership in the church tried to conflate or harmonize the Scriptures. In this past century Biblical scholars have been trying to untie those assumptions. So what does that really mean?

I was chatting with someone this week who asked why in the Gospel of John, John the Baptist pretended to not know Jesus, when we all know he was Jesus’ cousin. Interesting question, and takes a little bit to unpack. This blog post will only look at one of many characters than need attention, however, the first answer is no, the Scriptures are not lying to us.

The early church tried to line up all the Gospels, and where they did not line up well, they were forced to line up so the same story was assumed across all four Gospels. The problem is, all four Gospels were written by different people – unknown to us, and only given names because of this harmonizing process by the early church – and were written in different locations around Galilee and Israel in the first century of the Common Era (CE).

Mark was first, written around the time of the destruction of the second temple, so either just before or just after 70 CE (I am more convinced of the argument that it was just before). He was telling a narrative in the Greek tradition of playwriting that expected the audience to complete the final act either in their imagination or through action. If you look at the end of Mark you can see the story just stops, but at two different times others tried to add on endings, one to mirror Luke, and another that has confused scholars ever since.

Matthew came next, somewhere around 80 CE, and he was raised in the Hebrew tradition. No other Gospel has as many references to Hebrew Scriptures or practices as Matthew.

Luke followed around 90 CE. He was once considered to be a doctor because of all the healing stories included. Modern scholars have decided he was not a doctor, but was probably the earliest historian of Jesus, at a time when no one was really an historian like we understand them today, Luke just used better material to tell his story. Luke is written in the most elevated Greek, which suggests he might have been a convert to Christianity.

These three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are known as the Synoptic Gospels or storytelling Gospels. They have many stories in common, but each is told with differing details. Even the story of the nativity, which today is told as one story, is told differently in the Gospels. Mark doesn’t have it, Matthew had the wisemen and star, and Luke had the angels and shepherds.

The Gospel of John is completely different. While the Synoptic Gospels gradually reveal that Jesus was the Messiah, John comes out of the gate proclaiming this truth, and then spends the entirety of the Gospel proving it like Jesus was on trial. Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus is big and bold and never hides, unlike the Synoptics where Jesus is always trying to slip away or go unnoticed.

If we prioritize Luke, John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins. But that is the only Gospel that tells us they are related. In the Gospel of John, John the Baptist had never met Jesus but he did have a conversion experience and then became a messenger of God. Mark and Matthew have John the Baptist as the wild man living in the desert, a reference to Isaiah’s prophecy.

Same person, three different backstories, all telling us about a person who told others to prepare, Jesus was coming.

So are the Scriptures lying? No. We have to look at each Gospel as a stand alone story.