Dissecting the Harmony
This is a series of posts to start a discussion about the alleged harmony of the gospels. Growing up Mormon, the idea that the four gospels could disagree with each other was never presented to me. Even thought mormons teach that the bible is only as accurate as its translated correctly, in practice they do not actually teach that or believe that. All of scripture is read literally.
Before we dig too deep into this, it is important to note that the way we have the new testament today is not how the documents were presented and written in their time. If you do not know the history of the world around scripture and you read it from a modern lense, you take it out of context. None of the books in the bible were written in the form we have them now. The books of the new testament disagree with each other often and on a variety of subjects.
After Jesus died, and his apostles taught his words abroad, the different groups all had their own writings and stories they told about Christ. Many had letters written by Paul. Different factions in the early church formed valuing one book of scripture over another.
The first man to organize a canon of scripture was Marcion of Sinope. Later deemed a heretic for believing in God the wrong way. After centuries of theological debate over what was and was not to be included in the canon, the first instance of a canon of scripture as we have it today was in 367 c.e. by bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, Athanasius.
That’s enough history let’s dig into the topic.
Preparation for the Messianic Ministry
1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,
2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;
3 It seemed good to me also, having
4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Comparison
Only one of the referenced scriptures mentions anything about Jesus in a divine sense before he was born. The Mormon understanding of the premortal life presupposes that Jesus was chosen to atone before he was born. Only in John is there any mention of Jesus existing before birth. Matthew and Luke begin with genealogy and Mark begins by saying this is the beginning. If you read the text clearly, each gospel tells a different story about a pre-earth existence.
This presentation seems odd. Why would they cite Mark 1:1 as having anything to do with a premortal existence? The only scripture that actually coincides with Mormon theology is John. Now all four gospels thought of Jesus as a God, but each of them explain it a little differently.
I did not touch the elephant in the room about the authorship of these gospels. In a later post I’ll go deeper on that. Think of these posts as a primer on the subject. Do your own research. Question everything I say and make your own decisions. If you find something that contradicts what I’ve said, please let me know so we can discuss it and learn together.
Pre-Earth Existence
Matthew
Jesus was conceived of God to Mary, but did not exist before that, according to Matthew.
Mark
No mention of a pre-earth existence. Becomes Son of God post baptism.
Luke
Jesus was conceived of God to Mary, but did not exist before that, according to Luke.
John
Jesus existed from the beginning.
I want to be clear, this has nothing to do with belief. Everyone is allowed to come to their own conclusions and I don’t intend to sway anyone in any direction. I simply want to present the scriptures in a historical context. It is impossible to understand a text without the context of the world around it.
The next subject of discussion will be the genealogy of Jesus. I need to do a bit of research on the matrilineal genealogy jews from his day to get ready for this.
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