Some significant gospel discrepancies are listed below.
Re: The Baptism
| Mark | Matthew | Luke | John | |
| Voice upon coming up | And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Mark 1:11 | And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Matthew 3:17 | “and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Luke 3:22 See Ehrman’s post here and in his book The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. “Today I have begotten you” – the text found in Codex Bezae | And John [the Baptist] testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ John 1:32-33 |
Re: The Crucifixion and Resurrection
| Mark | Matthew | Luke | John | |
| Who watched? | “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome.” Mark 15:40 | Many Women from Galilee including “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.” Matthew 27:56 | “But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.” Luke 23:49 | “his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” 27 Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” John 20:25 |
| What did the two crucified with him say? | No Report | “The bandits who were crucified with him also taunted him in the same way.” Matthew 27:44 | ______(1)______ | No Report |
| Who found the empty tomb? | “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome” Mark 16:1 | “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” … Matthew 28:1 | “Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them” … Luke 24:10 | “Mary Magdalene” – John 20:1 |
| Who was at the tomb? | “a young man, dressed in a white robe,” Mark 16:5 | “an angel of the Lord”… Matthew 28:2 | “suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them.” Luke 24:4 | “two angels in white” John 20:11 |
| Where will he meet the disciples? | “he is going ahead of you to Galilee” Mark 16:7 | [Jesus said] go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee…” Matthew 28:10 | Jesus said “stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:49 | No instructions were reported. He appeared in Jerusalem. |
| Who else was crucified with him? | “two bandits” – Mark 15:27 | “two bandits” Matthew 27:38 | “who were criminals” Luke 23:32 | “with him two others” John 19:18 |
| What were his final words? | “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:34 | “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46 | “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Luke 23:46 | “…he said, “It is finished.” John 19:30 |
| What did the disciples do? | In the original shorter ending there is no report. | Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Matthew 28:16 | Jesus told them – “49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:49 | “…the disciples returned to their homes.” John 20:10 |
(1) Luke 23 – 39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
From Bart Ehrman here.
One of my favorite apparent discrepancies—I read John for years without realizing how strange this one is—comes in Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” the last address that Jesus delivers to his disciples, at his last meal with them, which takes up all of chapters 13 to 17 in the Gospel according to John. In John 13:36, Peter says to Jesus, “Lord, where are you going?” A few verses later Thomas says, “Lord, we do not know where you are going” (John 14:5). And then, a few minutes later, at the same meal, Jesus upbraids his disciples, saying, “Now I am going to the one who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’” (John 16:5).
For example, in John’s Gospel, Jesus performs his first miracle in chapter 2, when he turns the water into wine (a favorite miracle story on college campuses), and we’re told that “this was the first sign that Jesus did” (John 2:11). Later in that chapter we’re told that Jesus did “many signs” in Jerusalem (John 2:23). And then, in chapter 4, he heals the son of a centurion, and the author says, “This was the second sign that Jesus did” (John 4:54). Huh? One sign, many signs, and then the second sign?
…the Gospel of Mark indicates that it was in the last week of his life that Jesus “cleansed the Temple” by overturning the tables of the money changers and saying, “This is to be a house of prayer…but you have made it a den of thieves” (Mark 11), whereas according to John this happened at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry (John 2). Some readers have thought that Jesus must have cleansed the Temple twice, once at the beginning of his ministry and once at the end. But that would mean that neither Mark nor John tells the “true” story, since in both accounts he cleanses the temple only once. Moreover, is this reconciliation of the two accounts historically plausible? If Jesus made a disruption in the temple at the beginning of his ministry, why wasn’t he arrested by the authorities then?
