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The reader will know that with the best will in the world a complete harmony of the
four Gospels is impossible. There are gaps in the narrative that anyone who had passed
through the experience of the time could easily fill, but which remain unexplained and
inexplicable to us at this later period. It is common knowledge that John wrote his
Gospel last of all, but instead of seizing the opportunity to harmonize the accounts of the
Resurrection given by Matthew, Mark and Luke, he supplies items of information that
add further problems rather than reducing their number.
Neither we at a later date, nor the primitive church at the beginning, based their belief
in the resurrection of the Lord on the Gospels, they based it squarely upon the accredited
testimony of eyewitnesses, who in some cases suffered imprisonment for their faith, and
in some cases sealed it with their blood. Instead of this being a disturbing factor, it
should be an assurance that there was in the writing of these Gospels no collusion to
deceive, and no attempt to produce an harmony by arrangement. The very so-called
discrepancies show how innocent each evangelist must be held in this respect. It will
further be observed that Luke actually tells us that his Gospel was:
"Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses"
(Luke 1: 2),
and the reader will remember that in I Cor. 15:, that great chapter on the Resurrection,
the Apostle's opening testimony is to review the witness of Cephas, the twelve, above
five hundred brethren at once, James, all the apostles, and last of all his own personal
testimony. Whatever difficulties therefore, that there may be in the Gospel narratives, the
fact of the resurrection is entirely unquestioned. We quote some helpful words from
Appendix 156 of The Companion Bible:
"That the first day of each of the three feasts, Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles
was `a holy convocation', a `sabbath' on which no servile work was to be done. `That
sabbath' and `The High Day' of John 19:31 was the `holy convocation', the first day of
the feast, which quite overshadowed the ordinary weekly sabbath. It was called by the
Jews yom tov (Good day) and this is the greeting on that day throughout Jewry down to
the present time. This great sabbath, having been mistaken from the earliest times for the
weekly sabbath, has led to all the confusion."
To this we may add the failure to realize that John uses Gentile time instead of Jewish;
and the failure to remember that a Jewish day ends at sunset, has added to the confusion.
We who read the four Gospels today, are already in possession of the history of the Acts
of the Apostles, and of all the epistles, and our faith can no more be shaken by the
inability to make a harmony of the four Gospels, than was the faith of the members of the
early church. Many believe and teach that Paul borrowed from Luke when he wrote of
the institution of the Lord's supper in I Cor. 11: 23-26 but the truth appears to be just the
opposite. Luke had no first hand knowledge, he did not partake of the last supper, he
wrote of that which had been "delivered" by "eye-witnesses". Paul, likewise, did not
make one of the company that partook of that last supper, but he did not depend on the
witness of others, he claimed that he had:
"Received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you."