A Staff or No Staff? A New Solution to an Alleged Gospel Contradiction
1. The Problem
In this work, we will discuss an alleged contradiction in the Synoptic Gospels that some skeptics argue cannot be plausibly explained. It arises from the Gospels’ description of the beginning of the “miniature commission,” where Jesus first dispatches His twelve Apostles to spread the Good News to various villages in the Holy Land. Describing that event, the Gospel of Matthew, in Matthew 10:5–11, appears to have Jesus telling His Apostles not to take anything with them, not even a staff or sandals. And the Gospel of Luke, in Luke 9:1–4, also appears to have Jesus telling His Apostles not to take a staff with them. By contrast, in Mark 6:7–11, Jesus seems to tell His Apostles the opposite: namely, that they should take a staff and sandals with them. Thus, at first glance, we do seem to have a contradiction between these three Gospels.
Now, to ensure that we are correctly articulating this alleged contradiction, let us refer to the way in which self-described skeptics bring up this specific scriptural problem. Consider, for instance, a 1995 article from Infidels.org titled “New Testament Contradictions”; in the article, author Paul Carlson articulates this particular scriptural difficulty in the following manner:
When Jesus summons the twelve disciples to send them out to proclaim the kingdom of God, he lists the things the disciples should not take with them. In Matthew 10:9–10 and Luke 9:3–5, a staff is included in the list of things not to take. In contradiction to Matthew and Luke, Mark 6:8 makes a specific exception — the disciples may take a staff. [1]
And the author of The Skeptic’s Annotated Bible also articulates this alleged contradiction by noting that in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus tells His disciples (the twelve Apostles) to go barefoot and take no staff, whereas in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus tells His disciples to wear sandals and carry a staff. [2]
So, this alleged contradiction is indeed one that skeptics challenge Christians with, and given that it seems genuine, it is worth addressing. Consequently, for the Christian, the question is: Can a plausible explanation (or explanations) be offered to account for this seeming contradiction — one which is in some way based on the Gospel texts and which also reflects real-life situations — thereby allowing a reasonable person to reject the genuineness of this alleged contradiction?
2. Old Explanations
As with most alleged scriptural contradictions, this one has had its share of past responses. Some Christians tackle this problem by dealing with the specific language found in each of the Gospels. For example, the Apologetics Press notes the following about the difference between Matthew and Mark:
The differences between Matthew and Mark are explained easily when one acknowledges that the writers used different Greek verbs to express different meanings. … In Matthew, Jesus is saying: “Do not acquire anything in addition to what you already have that may tempt you or stand in your way. Just go as you are.” As Mark indicated, the apostles were to “take”…what they had, and go. The apostles were not to waste precious time gathering supplies (extra apparel, staffs, shoes, etc.) or making preparations for their trip, but instead were instructed to trust in God’s providence for additional needs. Jesus did not mean for the apostles to discard the staffs and sandals they already had; rather, they were not to go and acquire more. [3]
The Apologetics Press then notes that an alleged contradiction still exists between Mark and Luke. In response, they add the following:
Just as [the Greek word for “provide”] did not mean the same for Luke and Matthew, the Greek word [for “take”] (…in both Mark 6:8 and Luke 9:3) often did not mean the same for Luke and Mark. (Understanding this simple fact eliminates the “contradiction” completely, for unless the skeptic can be certain that Mark and Luke were using the word in the same sense, he cannot prove that the accounts contradict each other.) … Without going any further with these language comparisons, one simply must understand that the Greek language (like most languages) is flexible enough so that sometimes two writers can use the same word to mean different things, and sometimes they can use different words to mean the same thing. [4]
Thus, the Apologetics Press solves the difference between Mark and Luke by arguing that though they use the same word, it is plausible that they do so with different meanings in mind, thereby resolving the contradiction between them.
Another Christian website called Contradicting Bible Contradictions argues that the word for “staff” in Matthew and Luke should actually be translated as a “stick.” [5] If that is true, then the alleged contradiction dissipates, because in Matthew and Luke, Jesus would be telling His Apostles not to bring a stick on which to hang their belongings, but that they could bring a staff for walking, as per the instructions in Mark.
Thus, certain Christians resolve this “staff” contradiction using what we might call “linguistic means,” arguing that some critical words used in the staff-related sections of the Synoptic Gospels plausibly have different meanings. And, if true, then such linguistic differences would plausibly address this particular scriptural difficulty.
Now, there is significant merit to this linguistic approach, as it is both plausible and may even solve this gospel problem completely. Nevertheless, this work aims to provide a novel solution to this alleged contradiction, one based on a portion of the Gospel of Mark that is almost always overlooked when discussing this specific scriptural difficulty. In so doing, this new solution will also offer some support for the claim that the Synoptic Gospels are independent accounts based on eyewitness testimony, for it will show that the type of discrepancy that this alleged contradiction generates, and the plausible solution that can be mounted against it, demonstrates the type of synergy that often arises from multiple eyewitness accounts.
3. The New Solution
To understand the new solution to this alleged “staff” contradiction, it is necessary to carefully read Mark 6:6–9, which, in the Disciples’ Literal New Testament translation, says the following:
And He [Jesus] was going-around the villages in a circle, teaching. And He summons the twelve, and began to send them out two by two. And He was giving them authority over the unclean spirits. And He instructed them that they should be taking nothing for the journey except a staff only — no bread, no [traveler’s] bag, no money for the [money] belt — but should go having [merely] tied-on sandals. “And do not put on two tunics”. (emphasis added)
For our purposes, the key section of the above passage is the claim that after calling His twelve Apostles, Jesus sent them out in pairs (two by two). This is the small nugget that provides the grounds to reasonably address this alleged Gospel contradiction in several new ways, all of which differ from the linguistic approach.
3.1. Separate Instructions to Each Pair
For our first new option, consider that if Jesus sent out His Apostles two by two, then it is plausible that Jesus did not give one set of instructions to the whole group, but rather gave each pair of Apostles individual instructions before He sent them out. And while the instructions could have been similar in each case, they did not need to be identical. Thus, Matthew, in writing his Gospel, could have directly received the specific instructions that he records and/or he could have obtained those instructions from another Apostle (or Apostles) who had received them. And Luke — in alignment with Luke 1:1–4 — could have received the particular instructions that he records from an Apostle (or Apostles) who had been told not to take a staff. By contrast, Mark could have received his information from an Apostle (or Apostles) who had been explicitly allowed to take a staff and sandals with them.
And while there is nothing explicit in the Gospels to indicate that there was some reason which may have required some pair of Apostles have a staff and/or sandals, while others did not need them, the fact is that plausible reasons can be given for why this might have been the case. For example, perhaps a few of the Apostles were mildly sick or slightly injured at the time, thus requiring them to use a staff and/or sandals. Perhaps some were older, thus leading Jesus to allow those to use a staff and/or sandals. Perhaps a pair of the Apostles were dispatched to an area with very harsh terrain, and so sandals and/or a staff would be required to get around. Perhaps a pair (or more) of the Apostles asked permission to take a staff, and they were allowed to do so. And perhaps some of the Apostles simply had a staff and/or sandals with them, and so they were given permission to keep the belongings that they already had at the time (an option that will be discussed in more detail later). All these reasons are not only eminently plausible, but we encounter them in daily life as well. Indeed, in our daily lives, we routinely provide similar-but-slightly-different instructions to different people (or groups of people) depending on their specific circumstances, and there is no reason that the same could not have occurred in the case of Jesus and His Apostles during this specific event.
Note as well that this idea — that Jesus gave similar-but-individualized instructions to each pair of Apostles that He sent out — obtains some support from the fact that the Gospel of Mark indicates that Jesus was sending out the Apostles in pairs before He gave them instructions on what to bring with them. And since Mark could be reasonably interpreted in this way, this means that it is at least plausible that Jesus gave each pair of Apostles specific and slightly modified instructions as He was sending them out separately.
This solution also plausibly accounts for why each Synoptic Gospel is slightly different in what it claims Jesus said before sending the Apostles out. After all, we know how humans speak in situations like the one posited above: namely, a situation where one person is repeating broadly similar instructions to many different groups of people in a relatively short period of time. In such a situation, it is normal that each time the instructions are repeated, slight variations in what is being said are generated, not only to the portions that are different on purpose (obviously), but also to the portions that are supposed to be the same. Indeed, unless a person is reading verbatim from a script, then in such a situation it is routine that the words that a person uses will vary slightly from one repetition of the instructions to the next. Or the order of how some things are presented will change. Or some portion of the instructions that were mentioned with one group are not mentioned when speaking to another group. Or any combination thereof. Such variations are natural and expected in such a situation. Thus, if Jesus did give individualized instructions to each pair of Apostles, then variations in each account — not only variations that included overt differences (like between Mark and Matthew/Luke), but also variations in the sections that were addressing essentially identical issues — would not be unexpected in that case. And that is precisely what we find in the three Synoptic Gospels concerning this event.
Of course, against this proposed solution, it could be objected that in Mark 6:8–10, the term “them” is used, which seems to indicate that Jesus was referring to all the Apostles as one group when He was issuing them His instructions. But the term “them” is ambiguous and flexible. It could be referring to all the Apostles together as one large group being spoken to at the same time, but it could also be referring to all the Apostles as a group of individualized pairs who were spoken to separately but sequentially. In fact, it could even be referring to just one pair of Apostles who were sent out individually — after all, a pair can be legitimately referred to as a “them” given that it is composed of multiple individuals.
As an example of how the term “them” could be used to describe a whole group of individualized pairs, consider that if I were giving instructions to, say, a platoon of soldiers doing an obstacle course or attending a close-quarter shooting range, I might give “them” the instructions, even though what I actually did was give each pair of soldiers similar-but-individualized instructions right before each pair separately started the course or the range. And this might be done for a variety of reasons, such as safety — in order to ensure that the instructions were fresh in each soldier’s mind right before they started the course or range — or because I wanted to give each pair of soldiers individually tailored challenges that the other soldiers would not receive. But now note that if I were to subsequently write a report or an e-mail concerning the platoon’s daily activities, I could nevertheless still truthfully write that I gave “them,” meaning the whole platoon, the obstacle course or range instructions, even if I only did so to each pair. Moreover, given that such a detail — that I just spoke to pairs of soldiers rather than to the whole platoon at the same time — might be superfluous to a broad report or e-mail not focused on the minutiae of the platoon’s activities, then it would be entirely plausible that I would only write that I gave “them” the instructions without adding further details to that description (and I speak from personal experience when I give such examples). And if someone was not at the obstacle course or the range and only learned of the event from my general report, such a person might be uncertain about what precisely I meant when I used the term “them.”
The above example illustrates two points. First, that Mark’s use of the term “them” does not mean that the Apostles had to be gathered together as one large group when Jesus gave them His instructions; rather, Mark could be using “them” to refer to the Apostles as a group of individualized pairs. The second point is that for many events, we should not expect every minute fact to be recorded, for providing a detailed account of every minor occurrence is often not the point of describing an event. And such an unobjectionable lack of detail can create plausible flexibility concerning the meaning of terms like “them” when used in such contexts.
It is also noteworthy that if one pair of Apostles were given one set of instructions from Jesus, they may have assumed that the same sort of instructions were told to the other pairs of Apostles as well. This could further explain Mark’s use of the term “them,” because the Apostles who served as the source for the Gospel of Mark could have assumed — or later learned — that what Jesus told them was very similar to what Jesus told every other pair of Apostles, thus leading to the use of the term “them,” even though they were given the instructions as pairs rather than as a whole group. This approach would also explain why Matthew and Luke likewise imply that Jesus gave His instructions to all the Apostles, because He did, but He could have done so in the sense of telling all the Apostles as a group of separate pairs, rather than telling them as one whole group.
There is nothing implausible about the above idea. For instance, a pair of soldiers who completed the aforementioned obstacle course or shooting range might, later on — perhaps for an article in the battalion newsletter or something similar — write down the instructions that had been given to them specifically. However, they might also extrapolate that similar instructions had been given to all the other pairs of soldiers as well, thus leading the original pair of soldiers to write that such instructions had been given to all of “them,” meaning the whole platoon, even though the instructions had only been given to them as pairs. Granted, such an extrapolation might be an assumption on the soldiers’ part, but it would be a natural and reasonable one given the circumstances. Or perhaps the soldiers made such an extrapolation after speaking to a few other pairs of soldiers and learning that they too had received similar instructions. Or perhaps such an extrapolation was done in the interests of saving written space and time, because it was not really that important to list the individual instructions that each pair of soldiers received. All these reasons serve as a plausible explanation for such an extrapolation. And, in the end, such an extrapolation would still be truthful, in the sense that every pair of soldiers doing the obstacle course or range did receive similar instructions, even though those instructions were also slightly individualized for each pair of soldiers. In the same way, a similar extrapolation, and for potentially similar reasons, could have been done on the part of the Gospel writers when they used the term “them” in this section of the Synoptic Gospels.
3.2. Special Instructions to a Pair
Although the above solution is entirely plausible, let us say, for the sake of argument, that it is questioned. Perhaps the skeptic contends that the most reasonable reading of the “staff”-related sections of the Synoptic Gospels is that Jesus issued His instructions to all the Apostles as one group at the same time. Such a reading would maintain the scriptural tension between Mark and Matthew/Luke. Consequently, given such an objection, could the aforementioned solution still be applied to it in some way? Indeed it could, and to see how, consider another analogy.
When I had birthday parties with my young son and his male friends, my son’s older sister — my eldest child — would also be there, usually with one of her older friends. Now, at such parties, there were times when I gathered all the children together, including my eldest daughter and her friend, and then clearly and forcefully told everyone the specific rules that they all had to follow, which included, for example, not being allowed to do a certain activity. However, as I then sent out teams of children to play at different spots, I also pulled aside my eldest daughter and her older friend and told them that they were allowed to do the very activity that I had just told everyone else not to do. Why did I make this exception? Because they were older and more mature than the rest of the other children, so they were permitted to do the very thing that the other children were not allowed to do. Thus, even though I told all the children as a group that they could not do that certain activity, in a more private setting, and because of the special circumstances surrounding them, I then told my daughter and her friend the opposite. But this is not a contradiction; rather, it is a natural way of dealing with such issues, in the sense that clear and unambiguous instructions are often provided to a group as a whole, and then, in order to avoid confusion or upset, a few exceptions are dealt with privately on the side. And again, it is worth reiterating that this is a perfectly normal way of interacting with people, especially in the context of giving orders and instructions, which is what Jesus did. For example, in the military, I might order my whole platoon of trainees to stay on-base for the whole weekend; but then, separately, I might pull Private Bloggins aside and tell him that of course he is allowed off-base given the fact that his father is seriously ill, a situation which I would have been aware of beforehand.
So, the point is that there is nothing unusual or implausible about giving broad and sweeping commands to a whole group, and then dealing with specific and potentially unique cases separately, even if those cases go against the commands that you just issued. And this is because, in most cases, broad and sweeping instructions issued to a whole group are not meant to be absolutes with no exceptions; rather, they are meant to convey the fact that no exception will be made unless there is a good reason for it. Thus, in the case of Jesus and the Apostles, the same could have been true. Jesus could have given broad and sweeping orders to all the Apostles, but then separately dealt with the one or two exceptions when He sent out the Apostles two by two. Such an explanation is eminently plausible.
Moreover — and as previously mentioned — although there is nothing explicit in the Synoptic Gospels to show that some special reason was present to necessitate some Apostles having a staff and/or sandals while others did not need them, the fact is that plausible reasons can be given for why this might have occurred. Again, some Apostles might have been sick or slightly injured, thereby necessitating the extra support. Some might have been older. Some might have been dispatched to a place with brutal terrain that required a staff and/or sandals for safety. And some Apostles might have had a staff and/or sandals with them, and so they were given permission to keep the belongings that they already had when they were sent out in pairs. All these reasons are not only plausible, but we encounter them in daily life as well. For example, blind people are allowed to bring their seeing-eye dogs into locations where animals are not normally allowed to go. Military soldiers with foot injuries are allowed to wear running shoes to work, even though they otherwise would be required to wear combat boots. And so on. Such exceptions are nothing special or surprising, because we recognize that certain situations require accommodation, and so it has always been. Thus, we allow concessions to otherwise firm rules all the time, and there is no reason that the same could not have occurred in the case of Jesus and His command about whether or not the Apostles could take a staff and/or sandals with them.
Nevertheless, a skeptic might continue to object to this solution by emphasizing that there is nothing in the Gospels that specifically indicates any reason for any exception to the main command that Jesus seems to have given to all the Apostles before they were sent out on their miniature commission. The skeptic might thus claim that we are reading things into the text that are not there. And this is technically true, but it is not nearly as strong of an objection as the skeptic might think. This is because, again, the Gospels are obviously not a detailed record of every minute fact and occurrence that happened to Jesus or each individual Apostle, nor are they meant to be — as such passages like John 20:30 and John 21:25 allude to. They are not a court-transcript meant to record every grunt, hum, and word that Jesus and/or each Apostle made. Thus, we should not expect that every single detail would be recorded in the Gospels. But this is not necessarily a worry, as most human records — apart from such things as court-transcripts — are not meant to record every tiny detail of an event (even police records — such as police officer notes or witness statements, of which I wrote many — are not meant to record every single detail of an occurrence, nor would they be able to do so). And this is especially the case in a context where the main point is to illustrate the general thrust and urgency of the miniature commission that Jesus first sent His Apostles on, not to record the exact details of each Apostles’ dress, provisions, etc. Furthermore, it is also plausible that in a text like the Gospels, a lack of details concerning an event like the mini-commission could have occurred for administrative-type reasons, such a lack of space or even time to write in more specificity about minor details. After all, the Gospel writers were not using computers while penning their works, and so their leaving out of certain details for space reasons or even time concerns — details that were likely perceived as being of little relative importance — is a plausible explanation of why such details might be lacking. Thus, even if certain explanatory details are lacking within the Gospels texts, using reasonable conjecture and allowing for plausible explanations is a perfectly rational course of action to take to resolve alleged contradictions, especially when such plausible explanations largely align with our experience of how real people actually record events that occurred to them. Consequently, the skeptic’s objection that this solution is not overtly stated in detail in the Gospels is largely impotent in undermining the plausibility of this solution. And this is especially the case given that this proposed solution does stem from a clearly recorded Gospel detail — namely, that Jesus sent out the Apostles in pairs — and we would not necessarily expect much more detail than this, and maybe not even that much (in the sense that this detail is superfluous to the overall account, which is a critical point that will be discussed shortly).
Now, to reinforce the above solution, consider this final analogy. While serving as a police officer, my fellow officers and I often had to police certain events that required us to be fully standardized in our dress and appearance. Thus, when the officer-in-charge of the event briefed the dozens of other officers who would be policing the event, that officer-in-charge would tell all of us that we were, for example, required to wear our police forge caps — a type of dress hat — while policing the event. Furthermore, on the official documents for the event, it would be noted that the official dress for the event was a forge cap, and that all officers had to wear that hat. However, during one such event, I saw an officer in her police toque instead of her forge cap. So, what explained this apparent contradiction between all the officers being ordered to wear their forge caps and one wearing her toque? Well, that particular officer would sometimes suffer from migraines, which the forge cap made worse, and so that officer had medical permission not to wear her forge cap. Thus, when that officer was being sent out individually for the event, the officer-in-charge already knew, or was made aware of the officer’s condition and he then told her that she did not have to wear her forge cap and could, instead, wear her toque.
Remember that this toque-wearing officer was present when all the police officers, including her, were told to wear their forge caps, but that did not negate the fact that later, in her specific case, she was allowed to wear her toque instead. And this was either because the officer-in-charge knew of her medical condition and thus specifically pulled her aside and made an exception for her before she was sent out, or because everyone already knew of her condition and they just assumed that she would not wear her forge cap. But this is exactly the point: even though a general order was given to everyone, an exception was still made for a specific person later on — an occurrence which is not rare in daily life.
Also note that if someone were to look back on the written records for that event, they would see, in certain records, that all the police officers were told to wear their forge caps for the event. But if, say, they looked into the police notes of the specific officer who wore her toque, they might find that her notes stated that she was told to wear a toque rather than a forge cap (or that her dress for the event included a toque, not a forge cap). Now, would these two written records be contradictory? Not obviously. In fact, not even reasonably. Again, this is because we would not expect every minute detail to be recorded about the event, and because we know, from experience, that there are many entirely plausible explanations for why such a difference in testimony might exist. Indeed, as stated, perhaps all the senior officers already knew about that specific officer’s inability to wear a forge cap, and so no one felt the need to write down that detail in an official document, even though the actual officer did mention that point in her own notes. Or perhaps no one felt the need to write down every single detail that occurred concerning the planning of the event because that was not the primary reason for writing a report about the event in the first place. Thus, there could be numerous plausible and natural reasons why such details might not be fully recorded. And the exact same thing could be true for the alleged “staff” contradiction in the Synoptic Gospels.
3.3 Combining Both Options
A final alternative to consider against the alleged “staff” contradiction is to combine the two options above. This would mean that Jesus gave His initial instructions to all the Apostles as one large group, but that He also reiterated similar-but-not-identical instructions to many or all the pairs of Apostles as they individually left on their evangelical mission.
To picture this idea in a different setting, consider again the example of a platoon of soldiers doing an obstacle course or a close-quarters shooting range. Often, instructions will be issued to the whole platoon at one time, but then similar-but-not-identical instructions will be provided to each pair (or squad) of soldiers as they are about to start the course or the range. And again, there could be multiple plausible reasons for such duplication. For instance, the instructions might be repeated for safety reasons, as it might have been some time since some pairs of soldiers heard the instructions as a group. Or maybe the platoon commander, knowing that his soldiers differed in ability and training, wanted to issue slightly unique training instructions to each pair of soldiers, and so, along with his general instructions to the whole group, the platoon commander also provided broadly similar but still somewhat different instructions to each pair of soldiers right before the course or range. Or maybe giving the instructions to the whole group and then to each pair is just how the platoon commander liked to operate — because he wanted to emphasize his instructions and make sure they were followed. Or any combination thereof. And the point, once again, is that a situation like the one articulated above could have plausibly occurred with Jesus and the Apostles, especially since Jesus was sending the Apostles to different places that may have necessitated or at least encouraged the issuing of both generalized instructions to the whole group along with individualized and slightly unique instructions to some or all the pairs of Apostles.
Also remember that, even apart from voluntarily changes to each set of individualized instructions, involuntarily variations in the common elements of those instructions would naturally arise during their repetition, thus generating minor differences in every rendition.
Consequently, just as with the other options, the above alternative would account for the differences in the Synoptic Gospels concerning the alleged “staff” contradiction. It would also plausibly explain why the Gospels use the term “them” to describe the Apostles in that event, for all the Apostles were initially given Jesus’s instructions as a group, but they were also given individualized instructions as pairs. And again, since the recording of minute details would not be expected in the Gospels for such an event, then the fact that this alternative is not explicitly described in the Gospels does not undermine its plausibility or reasonableness as a potential solution to the “staff” contradiction.
3.4. One More Point
Another point worthy of consideration in reference to this alleged contradiction is that we know that there is flexibility and a lack of literalness in the Gospel accounts concerning this incident. For instance, in Luke 9:3, Jesus tells the Apostles to take nothing for their journey. But obviously, this was neither a literal order nor a comprehensive one. After all, the Apostles did not drop all their cloths and carry out their mission naked. Instead, what is clearly implied by Jesus’s instructions to the Apostles is that they should take nothing extra on the journey — that they should not plan for the journey, but just leave right away. This is supported by Matthew 10:9, where the Apostles are told not to acquire or procure sandals or a staff, among other things, for the journey — as in, do not go and get such items before the journey begins, but just go now. However, just as Jesus did not make the Apostles leave behind the cloths that they were wearing, it is plausible that Jesus would not make the Apostles discard other things that they might have had with them.
For instance, if one or more of the Apostles had a staff and/or sandals with him as Jesus was issuing His instructions, it is quite plausible that Jesus would allow those items to be kept by the individual or individuals in question. This idea, moreover, is at least partially supported by the statement in Mark 6:9, which, in the Disciples’ Literal New Testament translation, states that Jesus told the Apostles that they “should go having merely tied-on sandals,” which indicates that they should leave with the items that they already possessed. This therefore lends further plausibility to the idea that Jesus may have given the Apostles somewhat flexible instructions, in that if some of them had a staff and/or sandals with them at the time, then those particular Apostles may have been allowed to keep those items for their journey. Moreover, if some of the Apostles had different items with them at the time — a completely plausible possibility given that there was twelve of them — then that very fact may have prompted Jesus to issue some or all the Apostles (or pairs of Apostles) with additional individualized instructions (especially if the Apostles subsequently asked Jesus about whether they could take the staff and/or sandals they had with them, which is also quite plausible). And this alternative would obviously account for why some Apostles were told that they could take a staff and/or sandals with them, while others were not.
And again, we know that such things routinely happen in real-life. A mother who is in a rush might tell her five children to get in the car right away and not go to collect any toys before they do; but, as the mother is checking her children one-by-one before sending them to the car, if one or more of the children already has a toy in hand, the mother would not necessarily tell those children to drop the toy or leave it behind. They could take the toy because they already had it, whereas the other children did not. And such examples could be multiplied endlessly. Thus, such a plausible course of action could have occurred with Jesus and the Apostles in this case, and the subtle points in the text make such a conjecture quite reasonable.
4. Evidence of Testimony
Another noteworthy aspect of this discussion is that the very part of the scriptural text that allows the alleged “staff” contradiction to be plausibly addressed — the small note in Mark that speaks of Jesus sending out the Apostles in pairs — also serves as some evidence for the claim that the Gospels are based on eyewitness testimony. And there are two reasons why this is the case.
First, as someone who has worked extensively with human testimony (both as a police officer and in other professions), I can tell you that the inclusion of superfluous details in an account — such as noting that the Apostles were sent out in pairs — is a sign that the account is based on testimony, and that it is truthful testimony. A superfluous detail is one that is unnecessary to describe the event being relayed, and its peripheral nature means that nothing significant in the main account would be lost without including it. For instance, if a store-clerk is describing a robbery that allegedly occurred to him, and he mentions that half-way through the robbery, the radio announced that his favorite football team just won their game, then that would be a superfluous detail, for it is unnecessary to describe the robbery and nothing significant in his account would be lost without its inclusion. Now, the reason such details are a sign of both testimony and truthfulness, is that peripheral occurrences happen in real-life when a main event is occurring, and since human memory often recalls such side-details, then their inclusion in an account is a sign that the account is being drawn from genuine memories of the event being described. Thus, the inclusion in the Gospel of Mark of the unnecessary detail that Jesus sent out the Apostles in pairs is some evidence of that Gospel’s testimonial nature (and that detail is superfluous because it is not needed to explain the main event — which was Jesus sending out His Apostles as they were — and nothing significant to that main event would have been lost if the detail was not included, which may account for why it was not included in Matthew or Luke).
The second way that Mark’s off-hand comment supports the Gospels’ testimonial nature is by serving as an undesigned coincidence between the three Gospels. An undesigned coincidence is when a detail or aspect of one person’s account of an event explains a confusing, vague, or seemingly contradictory aspect of another person’s account for the same event, and it is unlikely that the two (or more) individuals coordinated their accounts. For instance, a storeowner who was robbed mentions to the police that in addition to money, the robber took extra time to steal a significant amount of New England Patriots paraphernalia. Then, in an interview with a friend of the suspected robber, the friend mentions — in an off-hand way and without knowing about the robbery — that the robber’s girlfriend loves the Patriots football team. Thus, the friend’s comment serves as an undesigned coincidence to explain the robber’s strange behavior during the robbery. In the same way, the detail in Mark about Jesus sending out the Apostles in pairs serves as an undesigned coincidence between the three Gospels for two reasons. First, given the detail’s off-hand and unnecessary nature, its inclusion in Mark but its absence in Matthew/Luke appears unplanned and uncoordinated; moreover, the three narratives in the Synoptic Gospels about the miniature commission also appear uncoordinated given their different and even seemingly contradictory description of events. Second, that unnecessary detail provides us with a way to plausibly answer the alleged “staff” contradiction between the Synoptic Gospels and to plausibly explain why there are variations between the three accounts. Thus, the detail in Mark counts as an undesigned coincidence between the Synoptic Gospels. And given that such unplanned coincidences routinely occur in genuine testimonial accounts, then this one’s inclusion in Mark and the Synoptics is some evidence in favor of the claim that those three Gospels are based on the testimony of actual witnesses.
Additionally, the differences in the Gospel accounts concerning the “staff” issue also serve as some evidence for the independence of the Synoptic Gospels from each other. Matthew and Luke are not merely copying Mark concerning that event, for they are explicitly different from Mark in that area — so different that they generate an apparent contradiction. At the same time, Luke and Matthew are not identical either, neither in the way they phrase the event nor in the exact details that they record.
All these are indications of eyewitness testimony, whether directly experienced or recorded from the reporting of an eyewitness. And if the pairs of Apostles were each given broadly similar but still individualized instructions, then such differences would be expected. Moreover, we would expect witnesses interested in the truth to record such differences, no matter what someone else recorded. And even if the Apostles were given the instructions as a whole group, differences would still be expected. Why? Because when collecting eyewitness testimony about a singular event, it is routine to find different people remembering and/or emphasizing different aspects of the event, and/or not remembering the exact words used during an exchange but nevertheless remembering enough to accurately paraphrase what occurred. Such legitimate paraphrasing naturally generates differences in the details of accounts, just as we see in this case. And such differences would be all the more expected if Jesus not only provided instructions to all the Apostles as a group, but also gave individualized instructions to each pair.
Again, think of a real-life example of this, such as the soldiers at the obstacle course or the shooting range. If I briefed each pair of soldiers before they started the course or range, and sometime later three or more of them were asked to recall those instructions — perhaps for an article in the battalion’s newsletter — then minor differences, and even seeming contradictions, would be expected in their accounts given the way the instructions were given and the way human memory works. The same would also be true — perhaps even more so — if I first briefed all the soldiers as a group, and then provided some individualized instructions to one or more or all the pairs of soldiers just before they started the course or range.
In fact, in both the above cases, if all the accounts from all three (or more) soldiers matched perfectly, that would actually be a sign that something was amiss, whether collusion or fraud. This is because we know, from experience, that given the way people relay information, as well as the way people perceive and remember things, and also given the different personal, environmental, and situational conditions of genuine witnesses — some are closer to the event, some further, some have hearing problems, etc. — we would expect three (or more) eyewitness accounts to vary in their details. Consequently, the “staff” related variations in the three Synoptic Gospels are not only consistent with those Gospels being testimonial in nature, those variations also serve as some evidence of those Gospel’s eyewitness nature and independence, for such variations would be expected if various witnesses were testifying to the event and because the alleged contradiction between them can be plausibly accounted for.
5. Conclusion
While the linguistic solution to the so-called “staff” contradiction in the Synoptic Gospels is solid, the alternative solution offered in this work — namely, that Jesus sent out His Apostles in pairs and thus could have given one or more pairs of the Apostles individualized instructions as they left — is also a plausible explanation for this problem and a reasonable defense against this alleged contradiction. This solution, moreover, utilizes the type of explanation that is routinely seen in real-life, thus reinforcing its plausibility and demonstrating that it is neither forced nor ad hoc. And the fact that it also supports the claim that the Gospels are based on genuine first-hand testimony is an added benefit to this solution.
References:
[1] https://infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html
[2] http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/barefoot.html
[3] http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=295
[4] http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=295
