hundreds of years assailants of the Bible have dwelt upon this and other similar
differences between different Gospels, and yet we have never changed a single word to
endeavour to bring the accounts into complete accordance with one another.
48. M. Again, it is hard to reconcile with one another the varying accounts of
Christ's appearances after His Resurrection. Moreover, we have two contradictory accounts
of the death of the traitor Judas, and differences as to the number of the angels seen at
the sepulchre.
C. The difficulty in each case arises from our want of full knowledge of all the
circumstances. It is easy to show theoretically that the varying accounts are not really
contradictory. But the important point is that the very divergencies in the different
narratives prevent the suspicion of collusion 1, and that our retaining them in
the text of the Gospels proves that we have not ventured to change the text in order to
get rid of difficulties 2.
49. M. Again, the Gospel of St. Matthew tells us that Herod died when Jesus was
still an infant in Egypt (ii. 19), while St. Luke (xxiii. 8) assures us that Herod was
alive more than thirty years later,