3. From General Theory to Specific Details
Sep 26, 2026I don't know all the reasons why paying attention to the actual details of the Gospels is so off-putting to some, but that seems to be the case. It appears that when the details of the Gospel texts don't quite support the theories about them, some readers are bent on defending the theories more than letting the texts say what they say.
If there ever were a case of "the emperor has no clothes" relating to the Bible—where people refuse to see what is right in front of them—this would be it. For the fact is, there are numerous instances where the exact details of the Gospels do not square with one another—sometimes they might even clash—especially when the parallel stories are making different theological points from each other.
Jairus’ Daughter
In Mark, when Jairus approaches Jesus, his daughter is still alive; word of her death comes only later while Jesus is on the way.
Matthew edits this so that Jairus says up front, “My daughter has just died.”[1] The change looks small enough, but the theological effect is real. Although Mark can move his story with immediacy, his tendency is to allow understanding and faith to emerge (rather than just to appear) and to do so through tension, delay, fear, misunderstanding, and unfolding events. Matthew, on the other hand, often compresses Mark's stories, sharpens his points, and presents faith and theological meaning more directly up front.[2]
And then there’s Luke, who keeps Mark’s basic sequence but reshapes the story to emphasize salvation and restoration (these are prominent in Luke), here by highlighting Jairus’ only daughter, linking the two healings through saving/healing language, and stressing that her spirit returned.
And John? He doesn't even tell the story.
So the point here is not that the Gospels contradict each other. Nor is it that each Gospel simply adds more details. Both of those head in the wrong direction, asking the wrong questions. They are more concerned with reading theory onto texts than with carefully accounting for the details of the texts.
Furthermore, to conflate the stories into a single, remade 5th Gospel story is effectively to wipe out any distinctive voices telling the story.
So, the differences we encounter in each of these Gospels are important: they are in line with the broader story-telling tendencies of each one. And those differences are what reveal the theological effects—the Gospels are telling the stories differently for reasons important to each one.
Cleansing the Temple
Mark, Matthew, and Luke all place this story during Jesus’ final visit to Jerusalem, shortly before his death.[3] But John places it near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.[4]
This one is especially interesting since a large number of Christians have merely accepted that no disagreement of any kind can be admitted among Gospel texts. So, a standard solution traced all the way back to perhaps the mid 3rd century is that there must have been two such historical events—a conclusion that no Gospel claims or even suggests.
As a matter of fact, surviving interpretations of this story tend to show some early difference of opinion about how to understand these Gospel texts.
Tatian’s Diatessaron (ca. 160–175) appears to combine John and the Synoptics into a single temple incident.[5]
Origen (ca. 230–250) explicitly pointed out the chronological problem and rejected the notion that historical conflation was appropriate (implying, apparently, that some were taking that route). He wrote pointedly:
As for these accounts, I consider it impossible for those who admit nothing beyond the historical account (τοῖς μηδὲν πέρα τῆς ἱστορίας ἐν τούτοις ἐκδεχομένοις, tois mēden pera tēs historias en toutois ekdechomenois) in their interpretation to demonstrate that the apparent discrepancies are in harmony with one another.[6]
As an admirer of Philo's allegorical interpretations, and himself the prime example of the Alexandrian school among early Christian interpreters, Origen had already given his rationale for a spiritual interpretation of the Gospels rather than a merely historical one.[7]
[I]f someone carefully examines the Gospels with regard to their disagreement at the level of what actually happened (κατὰ τὴν ἱστορίαν, kata tēn historian) … he will become bewildered and either cease to affirm that the Gospels are true … or … he will say that their truth is not in their bodily features (σωματικοῖς χαρακτῆρσιν, sōmatikois charaktērsin)…
He continued that "to someone who supposes that their writing is only what actually happened (ἱστορία historia)" that it would then seem impossible that all four speak the truth. Instead, once we understand that the meaning is communicated through "the historical forms (τῶν ἱστορικῶν σχημάτων tōn historikōn schēmatōn)," that's when the apparent disagreements among the four disappear. When we realize the many things said and done, it is understandable that "they sometimes transpose historical things" (κατὰ τὴν ἱστορίαν, kata tēn historian)—so that they speak of something that happened in one place as though it happened in another, or of something that happened at one time as though it happened at another, and present something reported in a certain way with some alteration.
For their aim was, wherever possible, to speak truth both spiritually (πνευματικῶς, pneumatikōs) and bodily (σωματικῶς, sōmatikōs) at the same time; but where this was not possible in both ways, to prefer the spiritual (τὸ πνευματικόν, to pneumatikon) to the bodily (τὸ σωματικόν, to sōmatikon), what is spiritually true (τὸ ἀληθὲς πνευματικόν, to alēthes pneumatikon) often being preserved in a faulty bodily form (σωματικῷ … ψεύδει, sōmatikō … pseudei).
This allegorical/spiritual approach by Origen acknowledges that (1) certain discrepancies clearly exist among the Gospels and (2) the question is whether we seek to force a mere historical solution or understand the deeper spiritual purposes of those Gospels.
As to the view that there were "two-separate-events," the earliest surviving explicit assertion that I have been able to document[8] that Jesus cleansed the temple twice is John Chrysostom[9] followed by Augustine[10] who said that John’s different placement makes it evident that the action occurred “not on a single occasion, but twice over,” in which John tells of the first and the Synoptics the later event.
The Real Trouble
Now, I'll return next session to more historical developments of the concept of harmonism, but for now, the real "trouble with details" in the Gospels is that they often do not support some of the general harmonistic-apologetic theories that have been proposed for the Gospels. As to the cleansing of the temple, it is a simple fact that no Gospel writer claims or even hints at two events.
My point is not simply that the details differ, but that the differences themselves have a lot to teach us. When we stop ignoring the differences or explaining them away and begin asking why each Gospel tells its story as it does, details that once looked odd or troublesome can become some of our best clues to what each writer wants us to see. Learning to pay attention to those details is one of the best ways to get more from Bible study.
https://www.biblicalconversation.com/moreQuestions to Consider
- When the details of a Gospel story do not fit our theories about how the Gospels ought to agree, which should we trust more—the theory or the text?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ - What do the differences in the Jairus story suggest about the possibility that Gospel writers shaped inherited material for their own theological purposes?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ - If John places the cleansing of the temple near the beginning of Jesus’ ministry while the Synoptics place it near the end, what is gained—or lost—by insisting that there must have been two separate events?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ - Could the very details that seem troublesome at first actually be some of our best clues to what each Gospel writer wants us to see?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Next Week:
4. "From Witnesses to Car Wrecks"
How did centuries of Christian interpretation turn four distinctive Gospel voices into witnesses at an accident scene?
Series Note
This is Study Session #3 of the free, online, ten-session Bible study series: Beyond the 5th Gospel. It is best to begin with Study Session 1 and follow the entire study in the proper order, on a week-by-week schedule.
Because this is copyrighted material intended for personal or goup study, you are granted the right to freely use this material in Bible classes, small groups, private study, or similar settings—as long as you keep the material unchanged and intact, including this series note.
If you have come to this study session out of sequence, please go here for the beginning of the series:
https://www.biblicalconversation.com/blog/5th-gospel-prelude
Go here for all available PDF downloads:
https://www.biblicalconversation.com/studiesbc#section-1788376027032
Thank you.
Gary D. Collier
Footnotes
[1] Mt 9:18; Mk 5:22–23, 35; Lk 8:41–42, 49
[2] Mt 14:33 // Mk 6:51–52; Mt 16:16–17 // Mk 8:29–30; Mt 8:23–27 // Mk 4:35–41.
[3] Mk 11:15–19; Mt 21:12–17; Lk 19:45–48
[4] Jn 2:13–22
[5] Tatian, Diatessaron, although the original text is lost and the work survives only through later witnesses. More on Tatian next session.
[6] The following translations are my own: Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John 10.15, in Preuschen, Der Johanneskommentar, 189–90, [my italics, gdc], available at: https://archive.org/details/origenes-werke.-bd-4-1903/page/172/mode/2up. Refer to Excursus 1 for more info.
[7] This is my summary of comments by Origen, Commentary on the Gospel of John 10.18–20, in Preuschen, Der Johannes-kommentar, 173–76. For the full quote, see Excusus 1.
[8] Although remember from earlier that Origen responds to some who were apparently taking this view.
[9] John Chrysostom (ca. 390), Homilies on John 23.2; cf. Homilies on Matthew 67.1.
[10] Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum 2.67.129 (ca. 400–405 CE).
