Before Thomas saw the risen Christ, he would not believe the report of the other disciples who said they saw Him alive. But then Jesus appeared to Thomas as well, and he believed. Jesus told Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29)
It’s important to note that “believed” is in the aorist tense. Contrary to popular interpretation, Jesus is not referring to those in the future who would believe He rose from the dead without having seen Him alive, but to those in the past who believed He rose from the dead without having seen Him alive. This is important to the discussion we have had on this blog about why the disciples waited so long to proclaim Jesus’ resurrection. For Jesus to say there were people in the past who believed in His resurrection without having seen Him alive requires that the apostles/disciples were proclaiming the resurrection prior to Pentecost! If they had not been proclaiming the resurrection, no one except for those to whom Jesus had appeared to would believe in His resurrection. Of course, we don’t know how many people the disciples told about the risen Christ, or who they told (only previous followers of Jesus, or unbelievers as well), but this passage is evidence that the disciples did not wait until after Pentecost to begin proclaiming the resurrection. That proclamation only intensified and widened after Pentecost.
While the direct object of Jesus’ words were past believers, the principle is equally applicable to future believers. It’s as though John is using Jesus’ words to Thomas to speak to skeptics who argue, “It was all very well for Thomas to believe given His experience with the risen Christ, but you can’t expect me to imitate that kind of faith unless I have the same kind of experience/evidence Thomas had.” John counters this argument by pointing out that there were individuals before Thomas who believed without experiencing what Thomas experienced, and Jesus considered them blessed for having done so. Empirical evidence is not necessary for faith in Christ’s resurrection.
This passage is often used by those who oppose apologetic arguments for the resurrection of Christ. They argue that if God’s blessing is given to those who believe in Jesus’ resurrection without seeing, then not only are apologetic arguments in behalf of Christ’s resurrection unnecessary for evangelism, they actually rob people of the blessing that comes through faith. This is a misinterpretation of the passage. Jesus did not say, “Blessed are those who believe without evidence,” but rather, “Blessed are those who have not seen me and yet believe.” He is not pronouncing a blessing on those who believed in His resurrection without any reason to do so, but those who believed without actually seeing Him alive in the flesh; He is not pronouncing a blessing on those who believe without any evidence for believing, but those who believe without empirical evidence like Thomas had. While we have many reasons to believe Jesus rose from the dead, we are doing so without having actually seen Jesus, and thus we are blessed.
Skeptics make much to do of differences in details between the Gospel accounts, claiming they prove the Bible is full of contradictions, and thus can’t be the Word of God. One popular example is the number of angels at the tomb of Jesus. Was there one angel (Mt 28:2; Mk 16:5) or two (Lk 24:4, 23; Jn 20:12)? Other differences include the discoverers of the tomb. Was Mary Magdalene the lone discoverer of the empty tomb (Jn 20:1) or were there others (Mt 28:1; Mk 16:1; Lk 24:1, 10)? How many others, and who were they (each account gives a different number and grouping of names)? And then there’s the demoniac of the Gadarenes. Was there one demoniac (Mk 5:1-2; Lk 8:26) or two (Mt 8:28)?
It’s important to note that none of these examples are contradictions; they are mere differences. A contradiction is to say something is both A and not A at the same time and in the same way. That’s not what’s going on here. We simply have one author providing more details than another author. Adding details someone else left out is not a contradiction. If I hit a 2 base run and a home run during a baseball game, it’s not a contradiction for sports writer A to say I hit a home run and sportwriter B to say I hit a homerun and a 2 base run. One is providing more details than the other, but neither is contradicting the other. One provides more details, but neither has conflicting details.
Other passages aren’t so easy to explain, however. Consider Jesus’ healing of the centurion’s servant. Who came to Jesus asking Him to heal the child? Was it the centurion (Mt 8:5), or elders of the Jews (Lk 7:3)? This seems to be a genuine contradiction. Or is it?
We tend to force modern writing standards on the Biblical writers. We expect them to be as concerned about including every little detail as we are. When a big news story breaks we spend hours exploring and reporting on every (almost meaningless) facet of it. Every detail must be included, and everything said must be quoted exactly as spoken/written. Not so in the ancient near eastern world. They were more interested in the big picture, not the details; the gist, not the minutae.
I was reading the Gospel of John recently when I noticed something that illustrates my point beautifully. John 3:22 says, “After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.” Baptized is in the third person singular, the antecedent singular subject being “Jesus.” And yet in John 4:1-2 we read, “When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, (though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)….” Same author. Same book. Same context. Clealry John did not see any contradiction between these two statements. Notice how similar this is to the story of the centurion. Who came to Jesus? One person: the centurion? Multiple persons: the elders of the Jews? I think the answer to who came to Jesus is the same as who was doing the baptizing. Jesus’ disciples were doing the baptizing, but John could say it was Jesus because His disciples were doing so in His behalf. Likewise, the elders of the Jews came to Jesus, but Matthew can say it was the centurion because the Jewish elders represented him.
Or consider John 20:1 again. John only mentioned Mary Magdalene as a witness to Jesus’ resurrection, and yet in the very next verse he records Mary as saying to the apostles, “We do not know where they have laid him.” While John only reports Mary as a witness, he is clearly aware of the fact that there were more present than Mary.
My point is not to try to answer every kind of apparent contradiction in Scripture, but only to point out that what we think is a contradiction in Scripture would not have been viewed as such by the authors of Scripture. We are guilty of imposing modern standards of historiography and discourse on the apostles; they are not guilty of contradictions.
Thinking to Believe 