Apparent Contradictions in the Bible - Part 2

Apparent Contradiction #3

A concern regarding the time of Jesus crucifixion:

In Mark 15:25 we read that Jesus was crucified at the third hour of the day. But in John 19:14 we read that Jesus was crucified around the sixth hour. There is an obvious contradiction isn’t there?

            

Let’s examine these two verses carefully.

First of all we need to determine the audience the writers were addressing. Mark was writing to a Jewish audience. For the Jews a day begins at 6:00 am. So, the third hour of the day would have been 9:00 am for them; the time when Jesus was crucified.               

When John wrote his gospel, he was not residing in Israel. He was in the city of Ephesus; a city in Asia Minor – a Roman province. The Romans are on a different time system than the Israelites. A Roman day begins at 12:00 midnight like our days here in America. So for those residing in Roman colonies, the sixth hour of the day would be 6:00 am when Jesus was crucified. But on the Hebrew time system, it was 9:00 am. There is no contradiction at all. All we are dealing with are different time zones between these two accounts. Mark is on Israeli time, and John being to the west of Israel was on Roman time which was six hours ahead.

Apparent Contradiction #4

Regarding Jesus Resurrection and the Angels at the tomb

We read in Matthew 28:2 that an angel of the Lord came from heaven and rolled away the stone and sat upon it.

However in John’s gospel we read that two angels were inside the tomb of Jesus asking Mary Magdalene “why are you weeping?” (John 19:12-13).

So in the first account one angel is mentioned, and in the second account there are two angels.

Critics and skeptics of the Bible would say that these accounts contradict one another but they do not.

Just because one author mentions something the other one does not is no reason to discredit the entire account.

For example, if I say to my wife I’m going to the store and afterward I say to my mother I’m going to buy milk, did I lie to either one of them? No. I simply gave one account to my wife and another account to my mother of what I was going to do. Obviously I went to the store to buy milk. This is the same thing the gospel writers did. Matthew focused on the one angel who rolled away the stone of the tomb and sat on it, whereas John omits the first angel and focuses on the two angels inside the tomb who spoke with Mary Magdalene. There were three angels total.

As I said on the first article these different accounts do not contradict one another, rather they complement one another.

Think about, if all four gospels were exactly the same word for word, the authors would be suspect, accused of collusion and plagiarism.

The Spirit of God knew exactly what He was doing when He inspired the gospel writers.