Differences in books

I think God did it because Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all wrote the gospel based on their respective professions and experience and they are ALL true accounts.

There's bound to be ONE of them that everyone can relate to and understand!

§ue

 

In writing against the mechanical dictation view of inspiration, Peter Ruckman wrote: "Do you realize that Peter, James and John and Matthew, Mark, Luke and Paul all believed everything that God revealed to them about the New Testament and agreed on what was to be said and what was not to be said, but there were not any two of them that even sounded alike. They didn't speak alike. ... The Holy Spirit never forces any man to talk like another man. When the Holy Spirit spoke through Peter, James, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, He did not lead any of them to say the same thing the same way. They kept their individual styles and wrote in their own individualistic ways" (THEOLOGICAL STUDIES: BOOK FIFTEEN, p. 10).

Why doesn't Ruckman apply his own reasoning to the Bible translation issue? Does he not want all translators to be forced to be just like the
styles of Church of England scholars in 1611?

 

Got to disagree with your ordering there. Peter, especially 2 Peter, is some of the hardest Greek in the NT. The easiest is John, then Mark, Then a good tie between Paul's prison epistles, Matthew, and Luke, then the harder letters, then Peter, then Hebrews, the toughest mama of all.

 

II Peter's Greek is one of the reasons why I think that Peter may have been dictating that letter instead of writing it himself. It's just too different from his first epistle. Still inspired, of course!

 

I've often commented about while as a cop i had to deal with many written accounts by "eyewitnesses" who wrote differing accounts about the same event. Defense lawyers try to destroy the case against their clients by placing these differences under a spotlight in court, while the prosecution is reminding people that Witness A was at the corner of 3rd and 8th while Witness B was across the street and couldn't possibly have seen the exact same things as Witness A, nor could A have seen what B saw, but that both accounts are true.

A&B had different writing styles and abilities also.

We know Paul often used a scribe to whom he dictated his letters, but we don't know whether the other apostles used scribes or not. It is a very real possibility, though.

However it was done, it was under the auspices of GOD, who preserved each of the writings for all future generations as He chose. The KJVO simply cannot accept the fact that God has, and will continue, to present His word to man as HE chooses, and not how WE may choose.

 

Robycop makes a good point. If 3 of us viewed the same incident...

Say there is an accident at 4th and Main. Dr. Charles Meadows is there. I'm there and a fella who is a body shop owner.

We all saw the same accident but Dr. Charles sees it as a physician and so might emphasize the severity of the injuries. I'm a mother and grandmother and might be more concerned about the children in the vehicle. The body shop owner might describe the damage to the vehicles. Even tho we all saw the exact same thing, we saw it from our own place in the order of things.

 

A preacher once gave me an illustration of why there are differences in the four Gospels. The illustration was of a large, tall mountain and four people at ground level looking up at it: one on its northern side, one on its eastern side, one on its western side, and one on its southern side.

You will get different descriptions from all four of them, yet all four of them are accurate descriptions--just from different perspectives.

Also, the emphasis (or purpose) of each Gospel writer was different. Matthew seems to emphasize the fact that Jesus was the promised King of the Jews, Mark focuses on Jesus being the Servant, Luke stresses the humanity of Jesus, while John centers on Christ's deity.

Since their purposes were different, they chose different events to include or omit from their narratives. The writer of John alludes to this fact in John 20:30-31.

The same would hold true for the epistles. Some people have supposed that there's a contradiction between the Apostle Paul's teaching of salvation by grace through faith and that which James discusses in his epistle. I see no contradiction, just different perspectives.

Even Paul says in Philippians 2:12 to "work out your own salvation." I take that to be similar to "working out" a garden in order for it to bear fruit....the kind of fruit to which James refers.