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Hello again, everybody, and welcome back to the Bible Difficulties and Answers podcast.
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I'm your host, Lance Smith. This is episode 314.
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Today, we're looking at a question from the Skeptics Annotated Bible under Matthew 26:17:
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Was Jesus crucified before or after the Passover meal?
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And this is one of those apparent contradictions where, at first glance,
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the problem looks pretty straightforward.
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Matthew, Mark, and Luke appear to say that Jesus ate the Passover meal with
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his disciples and was crucified the following day.
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But John seems to say that Jesus was crucified before the Passover meal.
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Did Jesus eat the Passover and then die the next day, or did he die before the
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Passover meal ever took place?
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And this is where things get a little awkward. We have Matthew,
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Mark, and Luke saying essentially, "Yes, this was the Passover meal."
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Then John comes along and seems to say, "Well, not so fast." So, congratulations.
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We have arrived at another one of those places where the Gospel writers apparently
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decided to give us a little homework.
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All right, those are all fair questions, so let's let the texts speak for themselves.
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Matthew 26:17 says: "On the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread,
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the disciples came to Jesus and asked, 'Where do you want us to prepare the Passover meal for you?'"
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Then in verses 18 and 19, Jesus tells them where to prepare it.
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And Matthew says: "So the disciples did as Jesus told them and prepared the Passover meal there.
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Mark says essentially the same thing. Mark 14:12 says this happened "on the first
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day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed."
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And Luke is even more explicit. Luke 22:7 and 8 says: "Now the Festival of Unleavened Bread arrived,
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when the Passover lamb is sacrificed. Jesus sent Peter and John ahead and said,
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'Go and prepare the Passover meal so we can eat it together.'"
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Then Jesus says in Luke 22:15: "I have been very eager to eat this Passover
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meal with you before my suffering begins."
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That's pretty hard to misunderstand. The natural reading of Matthew,
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Mark, and Luke is that Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples.
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Wayne Jackson, in his Christian Courier article, "Did Jesus Eat the Passover
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Supper?," puts it plainly: "The testimony of the Synoptics is clear and decisive
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that Jesus and his disciples observed the Passover."
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So far, so good. But then we come to John.
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John 18:28 says that the Jewish leaders took Jesus to Pilate early in the morning,
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but would not enter Pilate's headquarters:
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"because it would defile them and they wouldn't be allowed to celebrate the Passover."
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Then John 19:14 says: "It was now about noon on the day of preparation for the Passover."
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And that's where the apparent contradiction comes from. If the Jewish leaders
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were still concerned about eating the Passover on Friday morning,
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then how could Jesus have eaten the Passover with his disciples Thursday night?
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The skeptical argument here is not a foolish one.
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Elan Gilad, in his Haaretz article, "Was Jesus' Last Supper Truly a Passover
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Seder?", concludes that John and the Synoptics could not be both correct in their chronology.
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Jonathan Klawans, in the Biblical Archaeology Society article,
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"Was Jesus’ Last Supper a Seder?”
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likewise argues that there is a real difference between John and the Synoptic
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Gospels and favors John's chronology.
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So, let's give that argument its due.
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The simplest reading of John, according to this view, is that Jesus was crucified
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on Friday before the Passover meal that evening.
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John emphasizes Jesus' death at the time associated with the slaughter of the
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Passover lambs, while the Synoptics emphasize the Last Supper as a Passover meal.
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That's the problem. Now, here's where the apparent contradiction begins to loosen.
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There are three important things to understand about the language.
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First, "Passover" could refer to more than the opening Passover meal.
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Luke 22:1 says: "The Festival of the Unleavened Bread, which is also called the
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Passover, was approaching."
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In other words, Passover could refer to the specific meal, but it could also
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refer to the larger festival.
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Thomas Brewer, in his Ligonier article, "Does
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John's Last Supper Chronology Differ
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from the Other Gospels?", points out that the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened
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Bread could be used interchangeably.
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Barry Smith makes a similar argument in "The Chronology of the Last Supper,"
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published in the Westminster Theological Journal.
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He argues that some of the apparent difficulty comes from our unfamiliarity
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with first century festival terminology.
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That matters, because when John says the Jewish leaders wanted to "eat the Passover,"
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it does not automatically mean they were waiting for the exact same meal Matthew,
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Mark, and Luke had already described.
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And this is one of those places where English can make things sound simpler
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than they actually were.
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We tend to hear "Passover" and think, "One meal, one night, problem solved."
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But biblical usage can be broader than that.
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Sometimes "Passover" refers to the sacrifice, sometimes the meal,
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and sometimes the entire festival period.
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In other words, one word is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
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Second, "the day of preparation" normally refers to Friday.
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Mark 15:42 makes this explicit:
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"This all happened on Friday, the day of preparation, the day before the Sabbath."
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And John 19:31 says the Jewish leaders didn't want the bodies left on the cross,
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because the next day was the Sabbath, "and a very special Sabbath because it was the Passover."
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So, John can call Friday the preparation day during Passover week without necessarily
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saying that the entire Passover observance had not yet begun.
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Jimmy Akin makes this point in "Was the Last Supper a Passover Meal?"
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He argues that "the day of preparation" was a standard designation for Friday,
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the day of preparation for the Sabbath.
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That's important because the New Living Translation's wording "the day of preparation
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for the Passover," naturally sounds like the Passover meal is still ahead.
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But that's an English translation. It doesn't settle everything the underlying Greek means.
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Third, "eating the Passover" could refer to other festival meals and sacrifices.
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Wayne Jackson points out that the Greek word pascha could refer to the Passover
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lamb, the Passover meal, or the larger festival.
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He suggests that the meal the Jewish leaders were concerned about in John 18:
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28, could have been a subsequent festival meal known as the chagigah.
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And I realize we're getting into some Hebrew and Greek vocabulary here,
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but the basic point is simple.
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Passover wasn't necessarily one meal and then everybody went home.
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It was a festival involving additional sacrifices and meals.
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So the Jewish leaders could have eaten the initial Passover meal Thursday night,
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and still had festival observances ahead of them Friday.
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That gives us a straightforward way to read John without requiring the Synoptics to be wrong.
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And there's another detail worth mentioning. John 13:1 says: "Before the Passover
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celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come..."
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Some readers take that as proof that the meal in the following verse could not have been Passover.
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But John doesn't actually say that. He says that Jesus knew his hour had come,
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"before the Passover celebration," and then introduces the supper.
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He doesn't explicitly tell us, "This supper was not the Passover meal."
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Barry Smith points to several details in John's account,
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The nighttime setting, the meal taking place in Jerusalem, the disciples reclining,
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and the fact that they don't return to Bethany as details consistent with a festival meal,
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So, John 13:1 doesn't settle the chronology by itself,
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Now, there is another possible solution that deserves at least a brief mention.
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Perhaps Jesus and the Jewish authorities were operating according to different calendar traditions.
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Now, I have to admit, once we start getting into ancient Jewish calendars,
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I begin to feel like I need a calendar to keep track of the calendars.
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But this is a serious proposal, and some scholars have argued for it.
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Leon Morris, quoted by Wayne Jackson, points out that the Synoptics naturally
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read as presenting the Last Supper as the Passover meal, while John appears
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to place Jesus' death at the same time the Passover lambs were being sacrificed.
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His solution is that the writers may be reflecting different
calendar reckonings.
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Ian Paul discusses this possibility in his Psephizo article,
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"Do the Gospel Accounts of Holy Week Make Sense?"
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Including Colin Humphrey's argument in "The Mystery of the Last Supper" for an earlier calendar.
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Humphreys even proposes Friday, April 3, AD 33 for the crucifixion.
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It's an interesting theory, but I wouldn't make it the foundation of the answer.
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Barry Smith reviews several calendar proposals and concludes that the historical
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evidence for them is not strong enough to settle the question.
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Wayne Jackson likewise notes that the two-calendar theory has relatively few supporters.
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So I think we can put that one in the "possible, but not necessary" category.
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And that now brings us back to the original question. Was Jesus crucified before
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or after the Passover meal?
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The strongest reading of Matthew, Mark, and Luke is that Jesus ate the Passover
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meal with his disciples and was crucified the following day.
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John creates a genuine difficulty because he says that the Jewish leaders were
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still concerned about eating the Passover and calls Friday the day of preparation for the Passover.
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But that does not necessarily mean they were waiting for the opening Passover
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meal. "Passover" could refer to the larger festival.
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"The day of preparation" could refer to Friday, the day of preparation for the
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Sabbath during Passover week.
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And the Jewish leaders could have been concerned about remaining ceremonially
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clean for the later festival observances. That's a legitimate reconciliation.
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Is it the only possible explanation? No.
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Some scholars believe John presents
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a different chronology, and I think we should be honest about that.
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The Skeptic's Annotated Bible has identified a real difficulty.
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What it has not demonstrated is a necessary contradiction. Those aren't the same thing.
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And that's an important distinction when we're dealing with difficult passages.
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We don't need to pretend John is easy.
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We don't need to pretend every scholar agrees. And we don't need to invent an
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elaborate calendar theory just to make the passages fit.
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There is a reasonable reading of the language that allows Matthew,
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Mark, Luke, and John to be telling the truth about the same events.
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Jesus ate the Passover meal with his disciples. He was arrested that night.
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He was crucified Friday. He was buried before the Sabbath.
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John emphasizes that Jesus is the Passover lamb who goes to the cross.
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The Synoptics emphasize the
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Passover meal in which Jesus gives new meaning to the bread and the cup.
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A different emphasis does not automatically mean contradictory chronology.
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So, here, the Skeptic's Annotated Bible has given us a good question.
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But a good question isn't automatically a good contradiction.
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Sometimes the best answer isn't, "There's no difficulty here."
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Sometimes it's, "Yes, there's a difficulty. Now, let's see whether the evidence
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actually requires a contradiction."
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In this case, I don't think it does.
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LanceSmith. As always, it's appreciated, but never expected.
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You can find every episode at BibleDifficultiesAndAnswers.Podbean.com.
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You can also find us on Facebook or email me anytime at BibleDifficultiesAndAnswers
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@gmail.com. I read every message and I genuinely enjoy hearing from you.
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This is Lance Smith wishing you good health, good study, and God's richest blessings.
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We'll see you next time. So long, everybody.