(February 27, 2015 at 12:12 pm)YGninja Wrote: The differences are natural and demonstrate that there wasn't a conspiracy to invent the entire story.
The differences don't preclude the stories having been invented. They might also reflect evolving theological positions, faith traditions current in different communities of believers for whom the Gospels were written, or spin added to shore up what the authors might have perceived as problems with earlier narratives.
For example, what of the nature of Jesus' relationship to John the Baptist? Are the differences in the way the Gospels portray their relationship differences in the way "witnesses" perceived this or that event, or are the differences a result of successive Gospel authors deciding for theological reasons to gloss over the potentially embarrassing 'fact' that Jesus might originally have been a follower of John's ministry -- a successor after John's arrest -- and not clearly John's superior?
