Con­tra­dic­tions On Jesus’ (Alleged) Tri­als, Death And Resurrection

The Chris­tians are fond of cel­e­brat­ing the death of their man-god (whom they claim to be Jesus, peace be upon him) every year, although it does bog­gle the mind as to why would some­one accept the fact that their god can actu­al­ly ​“die”. How­ev­er as Mus­lims, we believe that the claim con­cern­ing Jesus (P) is false and full of con­jec­tures. A mighty Prophet of God (as we believe Jesus cer­tain­ly is) would nev­er had to bear the agony of being cru­ci­fied at the hands of his enemies.

As it stands, we would also like to note that to sub­stan­ti­ate our claims, there are var­i­ous con­tra­dic­tions regard­ing the accounts on Jesus’ tri­als, death and res­ur­rec­tion which appear through­out the New Tes­ta­ment. The fol­low­ing list of Bible con­tra­dic­tions con­cern­ing the tri­als, the cru­ci­fix­ion and the res­ur­rec­tion are list­ed below along with the rel­e­vant Bible references.

A. THE TRIALS

1. Where was Jesus tak­en imme­di­ate­ly after his arrest ?
a. Matthew, Mark and Luke say that Jesus was tak­en direct­ly to the high priest (Matthew 26:57, Mark 14:53 and Luke 22:54).
b. John says that Jesus was tak­en first to Annas, the father-in-law of the high priest (John 18:13) who, after an inde­ter­mi­nate peri­od of time, sent Jesus to the high priest (John 18:24).

2. When did the priests and scribes gath­er togeth­er to ques­tion Jesus ?
a. Matthew 26:57 says that on the night Jesus was arrest­ed the priests and scribes were gath­ered togeth­er pri­or to Jesus being brought to the high priest.
b. Mark 14:53 says the priests and scribes gath­ered togeth­er on the night of Jesus’ arrest after Jesus was brought to the high priest.
c. Luke 22:66 says the priests and scribes assem­bled the day after Jesus was arrested.
d. John men­tions only the high priest — no oth­er priests or scribes play a role in ques­tion­ing Jesus.

3. Was Jesus ques­tioned by Herod ?
a. Luke says that Pilate sent Jesus to Herod who ques­tioned Jesus at length and then returned Jesus to Pilate (Luke 23:7 – 11).
b. Matthew, Mark and John make no men­tion of Herod. This, in itself, means noth­ing, but it brings about anoth­er con­tra­dic­tion later.

4. Who was respon­si­ble for Jesus’ death, Pilate or the Jews ?
The Bib­li­cal account of Pilate’s offer to release Jesus but the Jews demand­ing the release of Barab­bas con­tains both con­tra­dic­tions and his­tor­i­cal inaccuracies.

a. What had Barab­bas done ?
1. Mark 15:7 and Luke 23:19 say that Barab­bas was guilty of insur­rec­tion and murder.
2. John 18:40 says that Barab­bas was a robber.

b. Pilate’s ​“cus­tom” of releas­ing a pris­on­er at Passover.
This is a his­tor­i­cal inac­cu­ra­cy -– the only author­i­ty giv­en by Rome to a Roman gov­er­nor in sit­u­a­tions like this was post­pone­ment of exe­cu­tion until after the reli­gious fes­ti­val. Release was out of the ques­tion. It is includ­ed in the gospels for the sole pur­pose of fur­ther remov­ing blame for Jesus’ death from Pilate and plac­ing it on the Jews.

c. Pilate gives in to the mob.
The gospels have Pilate giv­ing in to an unruly mob. This is ridicu­lous in light of Pilate’s pre­vi­ous and sub­se­quent his­to­ry. Jose­phus tells us that Pilate’s method of crowd con­trol was to send his sol­diers into the mob and beat them (often killing them) into sub­mis­sion. Pilate was even­tu­al­ly recalled to Rome because of his brutality.

5. Who put the robe on Jesus ?
a. Matthew 27:28, Mark 15:17 and John 19:2 say that after Pilate had Jesus scourged and turned over to his sol­diers to be cru­ci­fied, the sol­diers placed a scar­let or pur­ple robe on Jesus as well as a crown of thorns.
b. Luke 23:11, in con­tra­dic­tion to Matthew, Mark and John, says that the robe was placed on Jesus much ear­li­er by Herod and his sol­diers. Luke men­tions no crown of thorns.

B. THE CRUCIFIXION

1. Cru­ci­fied between two robbers
Matthew 27:38 and Mark 15:27 say that Jesus was cru­ci­fied between two rob­bers (Luke just calls them crim­i­nals ; John sim­ply calls them men). It is a his­tor­i­cal fact that the Romans did not cru­ci­fy rob­bers. Cru­ci­fix­ion was reserved for insur­rec­tion­ists and rebel­lious slaves.

2. Peter and Mary near the cross
When the gospel writ­ers men­tion Jesus talk­ing to his moth­er and to Peter from the cross, they run afoul of anoth­er his­tor­i­cal fact – the Roman sol­diers close­ly guard­ed the places of exe­cu­tion, and nobody was allowed near (least of all friends and fam­i­ly who might attempt to help the con­demned person).

3. The opened tombs
Accord­ing to Matthew 27:51 – 53, at the moment Jesus died there was an earth­quake that opened tombs and many peo­ple were raised from the dead. For some rea­son they stayed in their tombs until after Jesus was res­ur­rect­ed, at which time they went into Jerusalem and were seen by many people.

Here Matthew gets too dra­mat­ic for his own good. If many peo­ple came back to life and were seen by many peo­ple, it must have cre­at­ed quite a stir (even if the corpses were in pret­ty good shape!). Yet Matthew seems to be the only per­son aware of this hap­pen­ing — his­to­ri­ans of that time cer­tain­ly know noth­ing of it — nei­ther do the oth­er gospel writers.

C. THE RESURRECTION

1. Who found the emp­ty tomb ?
a. Accord­ing to Matthew 28:1, only ​“Mary Mag­da­lene and the oth­er Mary.”
b. Accord­ing to Mark 16:1, ​“Mary Mag­da­lene, and Mary the moth­er of James, and Salome.”
c. Accord­ing to Luke 23:55, 24:1 and 24:10, ​“the women who had come with him out of Galilee.” Among these women were ​“Mary Mag­da­lene and Joan­na and Mary the moth­er of James.” Luke indi­cates in verse 24:10 that there were at least two others.
d. Accord­ing to John 20:1 – 4, Mary Mag­da­lene went to the tomb alone, saw the stone removed, ran to find Peter, and returned to the tomb with Peter and anoth­er disciple.

2. Who did they find at the tomb ?
a. Accord­ing to Matthew 28:2 – 4, an angel of the Lord with an appear­ance like light­ning was sit­ting on the stone that had been rolled away. Also present were the guards that Pilate had con­tributed. On the way back from the tomb the women meet Jesus (Matthew 28:9).
b. Accord­ing to Mark 16:5, a young man in a white robe was sit­ting inside the tomb.
c. Accord­ing to Luke 24:4, two men in daz­zling appar­el. It is not clear if the men were inside the tomb or out­side of it.
d. Accord­ing to John 20:4 – 14, Mary and Peter and the oth­er dis­ci­ple ini­tial­ly find just an emp­ty tomb. Peter and the oth­er dis­ci­ple enter the tomb and find only the wrap­pings. Then Peter and the oth­er dis­ci­ple leave and Mary looks in the tomb to find two angels in white. After a short con­ver­sa­tion with the angels, Mary turns around to find Jesus.

3. Who did the women tell about the emp­ty tomb ?
a. Accord­ing to Mark 16:8, ​“they said noth­ing to anyone.”
b. Accord­ing to Matthew 28:8, they ​“ran to report it to His disciples.”
c. Accord­ing to Luke 24:9, ​“they report­ed these things to the eleven and to all the rest.”
d. Accord­ing to John 20:18, Mary Mag­da­lene announces to the dis­ci­ples that she has seen the Lord.