Com­par­i­son of the Texts in the Syn­op­tic Gospels Regard­ing Jesus

In this arti­cle, I have com­pared the accounts of one event as described in the first three Syn­op­tic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. The read­er should real­ize after com­par­i­son that the gospels were orig­i­nal­ly trans­mit­ted through oral tra­di­tion. In the process of writ­ing, the writ­ers of the gospels had changed the tra­di­tion accord­ing to their whims and fancies.

Com­par­ing The Texts

The fol­low­ing dis­cus­sion may prove that the authors of the gospels relied on oral tra­di­tion. This tra­di­tion, when it was writ­ten, was changed.

In the gospel of Mark, a man is report­ed to have asked Jesus,

“Good Teacher, what must I do to inher­it eter­nal life?” 

Jesus (P) sim­ply replied,

“Why do you call me good ? No one is good but God alone. You know the com­mand­ments : ​‘You shall not mur­der ; You shall not com­mit adul­tery ; You shall not steal ; You shall not bear false wit­ness ; You shall not defraud ; Hon­or your father and mother.’ ” 

This inci­dent is also report­ed in gospel of Matthew. Luke agrees with Mark, but in Matthew the con­ver­sa­tion is com­plete­ly changed. In Matthew, the man address­es Jesus (P) as ​“teacher,” and instead of ​“good teacher” is in Mark and Luke, in Matthew we see ​“good deed.” In Matthew, the man is report­ed to have said :

“Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eter­nal life?”

This changes the issue in Jesus’ reply from the good­ness of Jesus(P) to good­ness of deed :

“Why do you ask me about what is good ? There is only one who is good. …” (Matthew 19:16 – 17)

Mark and Luke give descrip­tions which agree with the Islam­ic con­cept of God and Jesus, that God alone is good and Jesus was His mes­sen­ger. But, Matthew could not think of Jesus(P) call­ing God ​“good,” and there­fore, he alters the ear­li­er tradition.

Imme­di­ate­ly, this also shows that Mark was using an ear­li­er tra­di­tion which did­n’t rec­og­nize Jesus as being Divine.

All the three Syn­op­tic gospels agree that Jesus (P) went to John to be bap­tized, so that Jesus’ sins would be for­giv­en. This is in agree­ment with what we have seen above : Jesus(P) con­sid­ered God alone to be good and did­n’t preach the Trinity.

Luke and Mark men­tions that Jesus (P) was bap­tized by John, but they did not men­tion any words between them. But to Matthew, this is incon­ceiv­able. Matthew could not even think of Jesus being bap­tized for the rea­son of his sins being for­giv­en. There­fore, he fab­ri­cates a con­ver­sa­tion between John and Jesus (P):

“John would have pre­vent­ed [Jesus from being bap­tized], say­ing, ​‘I need to be bap­tized by you, and do you come to me?’ But Jesus answered him, ​‘Let it be so now, for it is prop­er for us in this way to ful­fill all right­eous­ness.’ Then [John] consented.”

In Mark, we are told that :

“And they cru­ci­fied with him two ban­dits, one on his right and one on his left … . Those cru­ci­fied with him also taunt­ed him.” (Mark 15 : 27, 32)

This time Matthew agrees with Mark, both the ban­dits cru­ci­fied with ​“Jesus” taunt­ed him. But Luke could not even think that his ​“Sav­ior” was cru­ci­fied with­out any ​“sav­ing act.” There­fore, he fab­ri­cates a conversation :

“One of the crim­i­nals who were hanged there kept derid­ing him and say­ing, ​‘Are you not the Mes­si­ah ? Save your­self and us!’ But the oth­er rebuked him, say­ing, ​‘Do you not fear God… we are get­ting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done no wrong.’ Then he said, ​‘remem­ber me when you come into your king­dom. Tru­ly I tell you, today you will be with me in Par­adise’ ” (Luke 23:39 – 43)

Luke has changed the ban­dit who taunt­ed Jesus(P) as report­ed in Mark and Matthew into a ​“good guy.” Fur­ther­more, this is def­i­nite­ly a fab­ri­ca­tion because it says ​“Tru­ly I tell you, today you will be with me in Par­adise”. This means Jesus said that he would be in Par­adise ​“today,” i.e. the day of his cru­ci­fix­ion. But, in the gospels we are also told that Jesus(P) did­n’t go to Par­adise when he was cru­ci­fied accord­ing to his own words. Jesus said : ​“After three days I will rise again.” (Matthew 27:93)

Through the gospel of Mark, we got to know that he went to heav­en after the res­ur­rec­tion, after he was cru­ci­fied. (Mark 16:19)

This shows that Luke too thought like Matthew about Jesus(P). Both Matthew and Luke were cor­rupters of ear­li­er tra­di­tion. It was Mark who report­ed the ear­li­er tra­di­tion as it had reached him. And yes, an inter­est­ing ques­tion aris­es : If Jesus(P) did not go to heav­en on the day he was cru­ci­fied but he went to heav­en after his res­ur­rec­tion, does this mean that Jesus(P) was not telling the truth on the cross to the bandit ?

In Mark, the last words of Jesus (P) are : ​“My God, my God, why have you for­sak­en me?” (Mark 15:34)

Matthew agrees with Mark. But once again, Luke could not even think of Jesus (P) say­ing such words. There­fore, he com­plete­ly changes Jesus’ last words, and made him say :

“Father, into your hands I com­mend my spir­it.” (Luke 23:46)

All the three syn­op­tic gospels tell the sto­ry of Jesus(P) going to his own home­town and preach­ing in the syn­a­gogue there. The peo­ple reject him, to which Jesus(P) reacts by say­ing that no prophet is hon­ored or accept­ed except in his own hometown.

Mark says that :

“And he could do no deed of pow­er [mir­a­cle] there, except that he laid his hand on a few sick peo­ple and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbe­lief” (Mark 6:5 – 6)

Mark is clear, Jesus(P) could not do a mir­a­cle alone. But now, let’s see how both Matthew and Luke do not accept this. They could not even think that Jesus, ​“the son of God,” could not do any mir­a­cle. There­fore, Matthew changes ​“could not” to :

“And he did not do any deeds of pow­er there, because of their unbe­lief” (Matthew 13:58)

Please note, ​“could not” has been changed to ​“did not.” And Luke once again fab­ri­cates words and attrib­ut­es them to Jesus(P):

“But the truth is, there were many wid­ows in Israel [dur­ing famine] in the time of Eli­jah ; yet Eli­jah was sent to none of them except to a wid­ow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were many lep­ers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them were cleansed except Namaan the Syr­i­an.” (Luke 4:25 – 27) 

Thus, both Matthew and Luke had clear­ly changed ​“could not” to ​“did not.”

Con­clu­sions

After the above dis­cus­sion, does it mean that Mark’s gospel is the most authen­tic ? Most assured­ly not, because if it was high­ly authen­tic, then Matthew and Luke would not have need­ed to change the ear­li­er tra­di­tion. These are exam­ples of the cor­rup­tion of Scrip­tures. The above dis­cus­sion is enough to prove that the gospels is clear­ly of doubt­ful ori­gin. Should we then place our very ​“sal­va­tion” on these texts ?

And only God knows best.