The gyrations of apologetics are there, Monahans, sure.
But in fact John plainly says,in paraphrase, "before passover," and the others plainly say, in paraphrase, "after passover." The different days for Jesus' trial and death are made exceedingly clear from the plain language of the texts, absent external apologetics.
The thing is, the Bible is purported to be "holy" -- the word of god written by human hands divinely inspired. Some believers say god himself actually guided the hands of the original scribes.
The book itself is theoretically directed at two audiences. First, to believers. To reinforce their faith. Second, to non-believers. To persuade them to believe.
Why, then, the need for apologetics? We are here focusing on just one obvious contradiction: the trial and death of Jesus. Seems simple. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are clear: After passover. John is clear: Before passover.
Why is such an all-knowing perfect god so confusing in his "perfect book"? I mean, does the guy really want to save the souls of non-believers or not? Why can't some god who is supposedly perfect say what he means and mean what he says? Why can't a perfect god get his message consistent from tract to tract in the Bible? Why the confusion? Why does god apparently delight in sowing seeds of doubt in his perfect book?
Either god is duplicitous or god is make-believe. Those are the obvious conclusions one must draw from reading the bible, given the huge number of contradictions, and some really bad examples of hateful morality contained therein (bad ideas like god has previously commanded men to commit genocide, to murder babies, and so forth).
Again, why would this all-knowing powerful god create a book with so many obvious contradictions that require believers to come and say, "not really, what it really means is [insert apology here]"? If god is perfect but cannot write a clear, understandable, consistent message (later compiled into a book), doesn't it make sense that god is make-believe?
Well, believers are perfectly fine doing their gyrations, puzzling though those gyrations are to non-believers. Most non-believers are totally bemused when the bible clearly says "A", believers come and tell us the bible actually means "B", and "A" does not equal "B". To non-believers the contradictions of the Bible simply demonstrate that it is merely a compilation of several little tracts written by men at different times and places for different purposes.
Take John, for example. the majority view says it was written years after Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and for a different audience. Most scholars say John was written no earlier than year 90, and others say as late as the year 100. The concerns of the church were much different in year 90 than they were during and shortly after the Jewish rebellion during the years 67-70, around which time it is generally thought Mark appeared.
Truth is, given the obvious contradiction in the trial and death of Jesus, John should have been thrown out of the Bible along with, say, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, which was once part of the liturgy of many sects of Christianity. But John wasn't thrown out, and now there is a very real problem, apologetics notwithstanding, with exactly when Jesus was tried and when he died.
So now Christians have to make excuses for what is clearly an irreconcilable contradiction: John says Jesus' trial and death occurred before the passover dinner, and the other gospels say after the passover dinner.
This is, I realize, a dumb question, but Monahans, do you really believe the reasoning you posted upthread in spite of the plain language of the four gospels with respect to Jesus trial and death? It's certainly okay that you do, but I suggest to you that non-believers have a whole lot of hesitation accepting the apologetics that says to the world, in effect, ignore what the gospels actually say and believe this external interpretation of what we want you to believe the gospels really mean.
Yet you insist your god is perfect. The need for apologetics does not equate with perfection to most non-believers. Apologetics suggest "make-believe" to most non-believers.
Admiral: I completely agree with your point about events being confusing, and recorded history sometimes being contradictory. Take the death of bin Laden this week, for example -- his wife was shielding him, his wife was not shielding him, etc.
But you miss the whole point of the bible.
Is the bible divinely inspired or not? Is it perfect or not? If god is *really* the author of the bible (through human instrumentality), then you don't get the excuse of "the memorialization of events can contain conflicting information." Does god know exactly what he's writing about or not?
We know today that Obama had imperfect command of the facts regarding the exact circumstances of bin Laden's death when Obama made his speech Sunday night. Does god get confused, too, like mere humans do?
Is the bible inerrant -- is it perfect, consistent, harmonious -- or not? If the bible is not inerrant -- no Christian can afford to concede this point -- then all of Christian theology crumbles.
Take the apology cited by Monahans above with respect to "confusing calenders." What a silly excuse. It's very simple really: Did Jesus break bread at the passover and say, "This is my body . . . ," etc., or not? If Jesus' trial and death occurred on the "day of preparation of the passover", as John maintains, then you don't get to have Jesus' passover comments.
The John gospel wanted to make Jesus a "sacrificial lamb," and wasn't much concerned with the "body and blood" imagery of the other gospels. Remember, a lamb is used during the Jew's passover meal to this very day because it was lamb's blood that the Jews smeared on their houses to cause the angel of death to ignore Jewish homes when the Egyptians' first-born sons had to die (by god's hands, by the way -- innocent boy children killed by god).
The imagery of making Jesus a "sacrificial lamb" was so important to the author of John that he just changed the day for Jesus trial and death. John obviously thought it would be very neat for Jesus to be sacrificed for the sins of the world on the same day the Jews sacrificed their lambs to avoid the death of their first-born in the days of Moses. So John's author just changed the day of death to make it coincide with the day the Jews kill the lambs in preparation for the passover meal. It's that simple.
I mean, seriously, think it through. Is it more likely that god decided to confuse the world as to the day of god's (Jesus') own death, or is it more likely that the human author of John thought it would be really neat to change the day of Jesus' sacrificial death to match up with the day the Jews sacrificed the lambs to fool the angel of death on the passover? Surely god knows the day god died on, right? So why the confusion?
If John was divinely inspired (or written by god guiding men's hands), would god really create such an obvious contradiction (or certainly confusion) regarding such a key day as the day of the trial and death of Jesus? You think "obviously." I think "no."
Ergo, for me, the Christian god is make-believe.