Michael Licona on ancient biography and harmonizing Bible contradictions

Brian Auten posted the latest lecture by Dr. Michael Licona at Apologetics 315. Brian’s site has the MP3 file (48 minutes, 44.5 Mb). I can make a smaller version for anyone who wants it.

Here is the video and my point-form summary.

The topic:

• Contradictions do not affect the minimum facts case for the resurrection, although they are troubling
• Most people respond to alleged contradictions by trying to harmonize them
• Most verses that appear contradictory can be harmonized successfully
• Some verses cannot be harmonized successfully without really damaging the texts
• Christians should not gloss over these few real contradictions nor pretend that they don’t exist
• How should we respond to the verses that cannot easily be harmonized?

Genre considerations:

• The genre of the gospels is “ancient biography”
• Ancient biography is not the same genre as modern biography

Insignificant differences

1. Contradictions vs. Differences:

• In ancient biography, if a source mentions one person’s name, it does not mean that other people were not present
• Example: one woman versus two women at the tomb, an account may only mention one woman when there are two
• That is a difference, not a contradiction

2. Time compression:

• in ancient biography, writers are allowed to leave out events in order to compress time
• Some gospels omit details (guy version) and other gospels give more details (girl version)
• For example, the cursing of the fig tree in Mark and Matthew

3. Narrative flow:

• the ancient biographer’s style was to link together events into a narrative, even if they are slightly out of order
• This means that the ordering matters less to ancient biographers than forming a coherent narrative
• For example, the prediction by Jesus that Peter would deny him

Significant differences:

1. Biography allows for portrait painting

• When people paint portraits, they sometimes use illustrations or imagery to convey the person’s character
• For example, Shakespeare adds things to his history of Julius Caesar to make it more dramatic
• For example, the genealogies in Matthew, the portrait of Jesus in the garden in John

2. Even if there are contradictions in an account it doesn’t mean that the basic facts are undermined

• For example, even if we don’t know for sure if one thief or two thieves cursed Jesus, no one doubts that he was crucified
• The basic details of the story are not affected by apparent contradictions

Then there is a period of Questions and Answers.