Chapter Ten  

Comparing Paul and Luke:  a detailed ‘contradiction’ case study

 

I have edited these passages to make the comparison clearer. You can read the full passages here:

Paul: Galatians 1:13 - 2:14 and 2 Cor 11:32-33

Luke: Acts 9:19-30, 11:1-3, 11:25-26

Paul was also called Saul (Acts 13:9)

 

 

 

Some of the detractors of the NT make much of the ‘contradictions’ between Paul and Luke which I have indicated in the table. They variously claim that these contradictions show some, or all, of the following:

• Acts was not written by Luke.
• Acts was written by someone who was not a companion of Paul on his journeys
• Acts was written by someone who never met Paul
• Acts is mostly made up and cannot be relied on as historical evidence.

What are the contradictions? Luke omits the three-year gap between Paul’s escape from Damascus and his visit to Jerusalem, and says that Paul met with ‘the apostles’. He doesn’t name James and Peter, as Paul does in his letter, and creates the impression that there were more than two apostles. Are these really contradictions? The omission of the three-year gap barely even qualifies as an omission, let alone a contradiction. What if I said to you that my father told me that the Isle of Harris in the Outer Hebrides is a beautiful place to visit, and then I told you that I went there and found that it was indeed so. If I didn’t mention the fact that there was a fifty-year gap between my father’s advice and my stay in Harris last year, that would not make my remark an untrue or misleading statement; and if Luke creates a different impression of Paul’s rather more famous visit to Jerusalem – so what? A different impression is not a contradiction.

This is a favourite example the detractors of Luke like to give of his supposed unreliability. For example, Paula Fredriksen says:

Unfortunately, however, the relationship between the letters [of Paul], and this later story about the apostles [Acts] is complicated. Paul sometimes offers no support for Acts’ claims and other times his letters actually contradict them … And the pattern of direct conflicts, and curious silences that marks Acts’ relationship with Paul’s letters more generally cannot but undermine a robust confidence in Luke’s materials. If Luke had access to Galatians or 1 Corinthians, for instance, he clearly does not use them (Fredriksen, 24-25).

Other supposed ‘contradictions’ she mentions include:

• Luke says that St Paul was educated In Jerusalem under the famous rabbi Gamaliel, but Paul doesn’t mention it.
• Luke says that Paul was present at the death of St Stephen the martyr, but Paul doesn’t mention this either
• At his conversion Paul says in this letters that he ‘saw the Lord’, but Luke in Acts ‘foregrounds an auditory experience to a blinded Saul’. (1 Cor 9:1; 15:8; Acts 9:3-5; 22:6-11; 26:9-18) (Fredriksen, 24-25, 129, 131, 144)

The response to the first two would be: ‘and your point is?’ As for the third, Luke does say that Paul was blinded physically by the light, and heard a voice, but he also describes Paul’s experience as a vision (26:16,19). It seems that he was blinded by the vision. Fredriksen choses her words carefully here, as you would expect from a university professor; not all the detractors of St Luke are so fastidious.  But notice that she is not claiming that there is a contradiction here as such, only a difference of emphasis. As she says, it’s complicated, but does this amount to a contradiction? To further complicate things, in Acts 9:27 Luke has Barnabas explicitly stating that Paul saw the Lord and also that the Lord spoke to him. You can make your own judgement.

There is another principle we can apply here. When people present an argument for something, you can safely assume that they are presenting what they consider to be their best argument. If they had a better argument they would use it. We can assume, then, that these are the strongest examples of ‘contradictions’ between Luke and Paul that the detractors of Luke can come up with - and they disappear like scotch mist in the bright sunlight of the evidence!

1. Howard Marshall says in his classic book on Luke:

That there are differences in the picture of Paul in Acts and that in his own letters no one will deny … [but] The general outline of Paul’s career in acts fit in well with what is disclosed in his letters (Marshall, 74-75).

We have considered the differences; now we need to consider the similarities. You can see from the table the Luke and Paul are clearly describing the same events and their accounts match up. Particularly striking is that fact that Paul says that afterwards he went to Syria and Cilicia, and Luke says Paul went to Tarsus, which is in Cilicia, and Antioch which is in Syria. Why are different names used for the same places? Because these are independent accounts. There is no sign in Acts that Luke is aware of the contents of Paul’s letters or copied from them. He didn’t get this story from Galatians or 1 Corinthians, as Fredriksen herself says, or 2 Corinthians for that matter; but it is not possible that he made it up. He must have got the story from some reliable source of information about Paul; but what was that source? Scholars have attempted to answer that question but with very limited success.

Marshall concludes that:

we are, therefore, left completely in the dark with regards to the [written] sources of Acts. (Marshall, 68)

But there is an obvious answer to the question ‘where did Luke get his information about Paul?’ He got it from Paul!  In various places in Acts, Luke indicates that he is travelling with Paul by using the pronoun ‘we’ (Acts 16:10-17, 20:5-21:18; 27:1-28:16). Luke’s description of his sea journey with Paul in Acts 27:1 – 28:7 is particularly remarkable in its detailed knowledge. The obvious explanation for this detailed knowledge is that Luke was indeed with Paul on this journey as Marshall says.

Various explanations of the use of ‘we’ in this area of Acts [chapters 13-28] have been offered, but only one makes sense, namely that of a source coming from a person who actually participated in the events being described is being used (Marshall, 68).

C.K. Barrett confirms this: ‘It is wildly improbable that this this is merely a device of fiction’.

Ehrman says, ‘it is now widely thought that the author was not Paul’s companion but that one of his sources was some kind of travel diary that he uncovered in his research and that used the first person plural’ (Ehrman, ‘Jesus int’ 288). So, even Ehrman et al. are admitting that the description of the sea journey and the others, is so accurate that it could only have come from some who made the journey, hence the ‘author found a travel diary written by someone else and then forgot to change “we” to “they” (whoops a daisy!)’ theory. I think it’s fair to call this theory contrived. Maybe not quite so contrived as the ‘multiple blind man healing’ theory, but it’s not far off. There is a much simpler theory. The person who actually participated in the events being described is Luke. Marshall does go on to state this rather obvious conclusion (Marshall, 76).

There is more to say about Luke’s detailed knowledge. Marshall states:

On matters of Hellenistic geography and politics, Roman law and provincial administration Luke can be demonstrated to be for the most part a reliable guide … there are to be sure a number of problems and difficulties in the narrative, such as questions of Quirinius and the census (Luke 2:1-2) but compared with other ancient historians Luke acquits himself very creditably. In matters of detail his historical status is high (Marshall, 69).

F.F. Bruce gives some examples (Bruce, 95-109). He gives a detailed description of Luke’s knowledge of the titles of Roman officials. Luke knows his proconsuls from his legates, and his praetors from his lictors and politarchs. In Acts 16:12ff he knows that the Duumvirs are too full of themselves to call themselves Duumvirs and instead insist on the title Praetor; a habit of Duumvirs noted by the Roman writer Cicero. In detailed matters of local languages, local deities and customs, Luke is also reliable.

It is sometimes asserted that the teaching that Paul gives in his speeches in Acts according to Luke is not the same as Paul’s teaching in his letters. There is much which could be said about that, but I will just mention three quotes:

Paul according to Luke: Be it known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man [Jesus] is proclaimed to you remission of sins, and by him everyone who believes is justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses (Acts 13:38-39).

Paul according to Luke: [Paul says that Jesus said to him] But arise, and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose: to appoint you a servant and a witness both of the things which you have seen, and of the things which I will reveal to you; delivering you from the people, and from the Gentiles, to whom I send you, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ (Acts 26:16-18)

Paul according to Paul: But I make known to you, brothers, concerning the Good News which was preached by me, that it is not according to man. For I didn’t receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ. (Gal 1:11-12)

Here we see Paul’s signature teaching: salvation comes through faith in Christ and not through works of the law, that is through following the laws of Moses found in the Old Testament, all 613 of them, 248 ‘dos’ and 365 ‘do nots’. That is exactly what we see set out in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, which we are looking at in this case study. This is the Good News he is referring to in the third quotation, which is from Galatians. In the context of Acts, the words which I have highlighted in bold really hit you in the face. This is Paul.

According to Luke, St Peter also confirms this, Paul’s most prominent teaching:

Now therefore why do you tempt God, that you should put a yoke on the neck of the disciples [the Old Testament rules] which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they are’. (Acts 15:10-11)

The ‘Quirinius problem’ has to do with the controversy surrounding the dating of the census mentioned in the Christmas story (Luke 2:2). The problem remains unsolved and is often cited as evidence of Luke’s lack of reliability, including inevitably by Professor Dawkins. Dawkins’ explanation that: ‘Luke screwed up his dating by tactlessly mentioning events that historians are capable of independently checking’ is, for a number of reasons, no more satisfactory that the many others that have been offered (Dawkins, 119). Quite apart from anything else, as you can see, Luke mentions a large number of things that historians are capable of independently checking, which tend to be correct. As Marshall remarks ‘only the discovery of new historical evidence can lead to a solution to the problem’ (Marshall, 69).

 

The twin brother of the contradiction: the undesigned coincidence

Here’s another quote from 2 Corinthians chapter 11, which we have been discussing:

• Paul: Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself that you might be exalted, because I preached to you God’s Good News free of charge? I robbed other assemblies, taking wages from them that I might serve you. When I was present with you and was in need, I wasn’t a burden on anyone, for the brothers, when they came from Macedonia, supplied the measure of my need. In everything I kept myself from being burdensome to you, and I will continue to do so. (2 Cor 11:7-9)

 

• Luke: After this, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them. Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks. When Silas and Timothy came from Macedonia, Paul devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah. (Acts 18:1-6)

Paul preached to the Corinthians free of charge. To begin with, according to Luke, he worked as a tentmaker with Priscilla and Aquilla to pay his way, but when Silas and Timothy arrived he stopped.  Why? Luke doesn’t explain. Paul explains, though, in his letter to the Corinthians. He didn’t need to work anymore. The churches in Macedonia sent money through Silas and Timothy for his living expenses. When one book explains something in another, as happens here, in a way which is unlikely to be planned or intentional, this is called an undesigned coincidence. There are quite a lot of these in the NT. If you want to find out more, see Lydia McGrew’s book: ‘Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts’. This coincidence is easy to explain if Luke was a companion of Paul on his journeys, and got his information about Paul from Paul. If he wasn’t and didn’t, then it’s rather more difficult to see how this coincidence happened. Much of the original work on undesigned coincidences was done by none other than William Paley in his book Horae Paulinae, or, The truth of the scripture history of St. Paul evinced by a comparison of the epistles which bear his name with the Acts of the apostles, and with one another. Not the most concise of titles, but like all good names, it says what it is. In chapter four we discussed Paley’s views on the apparent design of the human eye. Now we are discussing his work on the apparent lack of design in these coincidences between the NT books. It’s a funny old world.

Let’s summarise this case study. We have independent corroborative evidence for the story told about the early church in Acts, at least in those things which concern Paul. We also have evidence that Luke, the companion of Paul, is the author of Acts. This has far reaching implications. If Luke is the author of Acts, then he is the author of the gospel that bears his name. Almost no one disputes that the two books they were written by the same person. If Luke is the author of the gospel, then the early church got that much right. Does that mean that the early church got the authorship of the other gospels right too? Is Matthew, tax collector and apostle, the man behind the gospel named after him; is Mark, interpreter of Peter, the author of the second gospel; and is the ‘beloved disciple’ the eyewitness behind the fourth? Could be!

To sum up. Detractors of the NT love to talk about the supposed ‘contradictions’ found therein. But like so many things, these forge a two-edged sword. If there are differences between the NT documents, then there are also similarities, which are far more numerous. The ‘it’s all made up’ theory and the ’Chinese whispers’ theories do not account for the similarities; so perhaps we should consider the ‘maybe it’s actually true’ theory too.

 

Do the gospels contradict known facts?

• Is the background information in the NT books, including geography, layout of buildings and cities, named people, titles of officials, local religious beliefs, local languages, dates and events from secular history and specialised terminology, correct as far as it is possible to know?

As we have noted, ‘on matters of Hellenistic geography and politics, Roman law and provincial administration Luke can be demonstrated to be for the most part a reliable guide.’ Since Luke tells us this information incidentally, it has a particular value. This does not prove that the story told by Luke is true, but it does show us that he was in the habit of taking care over details. When it comes to checking historical or geographical details, it is inevitable that the focus will be in Luke since, unlike the other gospel writers, he wrote two books, the second of which by its very nature will contain much more in the way of information that kind. However, there is also incidental information in the other gospels: the names of places, towns, and cities but also small villages; bodies of water, local routes, people’s names, the names of local officials and rulers, the layout of cities and buildings, local flora, unusual local customs and so on. The gospels contain accurate and detailed information about all these matters (Williams, 51-86). There are three general features in particular to note. Firstly, the gospels contain detailed and accurate knowledge of the geography of first century Palestine, and of the buildings and the layout of ancient Jerusalem. Highlights, that appeal to me, include the fact that when Jesus and his disciples are described as going up to a certain place, they really were going up; and when he is described as going down, he really was going down, just as surely and the grand old Duke of York and his men. You go down from Jerusalem to Jericho; in fact, Jericho is the lowest city on earth. You go up to Jerusalem from Galilee for the festivals, and down from Cana to Capernaum after turning water into wine.

The gospels mention some truly obscure places (Luke 10:31-15). Chorazin is a couple of miles north of Capernaum. If you know where Chewton Bunny is, which is near where I live, then the chances are that you have been there or you live nearby. The same would be true of Chorazin. However, you could Google Chewton Bunny if you really wanted to know where it is; but in the ancient world there was no Google. In the ancient world, knowing about a place like Chorazin implies detailed local knowledge. There are also details about buildings which can be confirmed by archaeology. The gospel of John speaks about places in Jerusalem in the present tense; the pool of Bethesda, for example, the ruins of which were only discovered recently. It is exactly as John describes it, with its five porticos (John 5:1-8). It was discovered in the 19th century German archaeologist Conrad Schick and there have been various archaeological investigations of the site subsequently. Okay, you might consider the nineteenth century to be not very recent, but this is ancient history we are talking about!

None of this shows that the stories told about Jesus in the gospels are true. However, it does tell us, incidentally, that the stories originated in the place where Jesus lived and travelled and taught i.e. the land of Israel. If the stories are invented, then they cannot have been invented elsewhere. Could a clever faker, living in Egypt, Greece or Rome have inserted these local facts into a fake account in order to make it seem more credible? It’s not likely. You couldn’t Google ‘Chorazin’, ‘land of Israel’, or look in a world atlas, or look in all up in an encyclopaedia. Such things did not exist. Local knowledge implies a local origin of the stories. This might not seem much, but it is significant.

 

What’s in a name?

If you want an example of information given away unconsciously, you can consider the matter of personal names. A native of Britain could tell you straight away exactly where Seamus O’ Reilly, Gwyneth Jones, Hamish McAlister, Jack Hardcastle and Thomas Pengelly come from; they could also tell you that Peregrin Smythe and Peter Smith come from very different social backgrounds, in spite of the similarity of their names. A French or German person might have more difficulty. However, even a local couldn’t tell you, for example, what proportion of women in Scotland are called Mary or Sarah. Thanks to extensive surveys of ancient literature, we know the proportions of names of men and women in first century Israel. These proportions were quite different in other parts of the Roman world, even amongst Jewish communities. The personal names in the gospels match these proportions. In fact, you can tell which names are the most popular by the way they are written. Here is the list of twelve apostles again:

Now the names of the twelve apostles are these. The first, Simon, who is called Peter; Andrew, his brother; James the son of Zebedee; John, his brother; Philip; Bartholomew; Thomas; Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus; Lebbaeus, who was also called Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot; and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. (Matt 10:2-4)

As you can see, people in the gospels who have common names such as Simon, James, Judas are given a disambiguation to distinguish them from others with the same name. Philip, Bartholomew and Thomas do not need a disambiguation since they have unusual names. Jesus was the sixth or seventh most popular name in Israel at the time. When the gospel writers are narrating stories, they just call him Jesus, but when characters in the gospels speak, they call him Jesus of Nazareth or they use some other way of distinguishing him from all the other Jesuses, as would have been necessary during Jesus’ ministry. This disambiguation would have been unnecessary in other parts of the world.

This is further evidence that the stories originate in that area. It is difficult to see how even a genius level faker could have inserted this information into invented stories. This can be contrasted with the fake gospels which we discuss in the next chapter, which mention almost no geographical or other local information, and apart from the really well-known names from the real gospels, get the people’s names wrong (Williams, p64-78).

 

How not to make things up

There is another question we can add at this point which is: Why make that up? When people make things up, they attempt to make their stories sound reasonable. They try to make themselves look good. They do not make up things which undermine their own case, or cause embarrassment to themselves. Why would they? So, when people do say something which is surprising, embarrassing to themselves, or detrimental to their own cause, this is an indication, although not a proof, that what they are saying is true.

There are a number of places in the NT where this principle can be applied, but undoubtedly, everybody’s favourite example occurs in the stories of the resurrection of Jesus. In all four gospels it is women who are the first witnesses to Jesus’ empty tomb. In all four gospels, the resurrection is announced first to women by the angel/angels. Mark does not include any resurrection appearance of Christ. According to Matthew and John, it is Mary Magdalene and the other women to whom the risen Jesus appears, and they are the first witnesses to the resurrection. This is why Mary Magdalene is known as ‘the apostle to the apostles’. In a world where the testimony of a woman was not valued, this is striking indeed.

The fact that women played such an important role as eye witnesses to the resurrection was used against the early Christians by their opponents. Take for example anti-Christian writer Celsus who wrote around AD170. I find Celsus laugh out loud funny. This is partly because many of the most common anti-Christian arguments that you hear today are identical to those found in Celsus. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. His memorable phrases can also raise a chuckle. This is his description of Christians:

In private homes, we also encounter wool-workers, cobblers, laundry-workers, and the most uneducated and rustic individuals, who wouldn’t dare speak in the presence of their elders and more knowledgeable masters.

Origen, Against Celsus iii 55 (adapted from Stevenson, p135).

Ouch! You can almost see them chewing on straws and drinking scrumpy. It’s worth pointing out that we only know about Celsus because his writings were preserved by the Christian writer, Origen of Alexandria, one of the outstanding scholars of the age – we shall meet him again. Origen was not, as far as we know, particularly ‘rustic’.

This is Celsus’ comment on the resurrection:

While he was alive, he did not aid himself, but after his death, he rose again, displaying the marks of his punishment and the piercings in his hands. But who witnessed this? A hysterical woman, as you say [Mary Magdalene], and perhaps another person, one of those deceived by the same sorcery, who either dreamt in a certain state of mind and hallucinated due to wishful thinking (an experience that has happened to thousands), or, more likely, wanted to impress others by telling this fantastic tale and thus provide an opportunity for other beggars with this cock and bull story.

Origen, Against Celsus ii 55 (adapted from Stevenson, 133).

The fact that Jesus chose women as the first witnesses to his resurrection is completely in keeping with what we know about Jesus, but in the context of the first century Roman world, it is really quite astonishing. Many at the time would not have seen women as credible witnesses, not just Celsus, but also the male disciples (Luke 24:11). So, why make this up?

This brings us neatly to our next topic: made up Gospels!

Summary

A comparison of Luke’s history of the early church in Acts with the corresponding descriptions found the letters of Paul gives us reason to believe that Acts and Paul’s letters were written independently. It also shows that the claim that Luke and Paul’s accounts are riddled with contradictions is weak. We can see that the two independent accounts tell essentially the same story – strong evidence that the story is reliable.

When one book explains something in another in a way which is unlikely to be planned or intentional, this is called an undesigned coincidence. There are a number of clear examples of this happening between Luke and Paul. These coincidences also confirm the reliability of the story.

A comparison of the historical background details in Acts with non-Christian sources shows that Luke took care to get his facts right in these matters. This gives us a reason to believe that he took care to get his facts right in other matters too.

Likewise, in the other New Testament books, background information including geography, layout of buildings and cities, named people, titles of officials, local religious beliefs, local languages, dates and events from secular history and specialised terminology are, on the whole, consistent with other sources.

Thanks to extensive surveys of ancient literature, we know the proportions of names of men and women in first century Israel. These proportions were quite different in other parts of the Roman world, even amongst Jewish communities. The personal names in the gospels match these proportions confirming that the stories originate in Israel.

The fact that Jesus chose women as the first witnesses to his resurrection is completely in keeping with what we know about Jesus, but in the context of the first century Roman world, it is really quite astonishing. Many at the time would not have seen women as credible witnesses, not just the opponents of Christianity, but also the male disciples. So, why make this up?

 

Works Cited

Bruce F.F. The New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable? 6^th ed., IVP 2000

Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. 10^th Anniversary Ed., Transworld Publishers 2016

Ehrman, Bart D, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them.) HarperOne, 2009.

Fredriksen, Paula. When Christians were Jews. Yale University Press, 2018

Marshall, I Howard. Luke: Historian and Theologian. third ed., The Paternoster Press, 1988.

Stevenson, J. A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church to AD337. 2^nd ed., revised by W.H.C. Frend, SPCK, 1987.

Williams, Peter J. Can we Trust the Gospels? Crossway, 2018.