The Bible and Wisdom II

If one sticks purely to the letter of the matter, one need only compare, for example, the first Gospel, that is, the Gospel of Matthew, with the Gospel of Luke. one need only compare the genealogies given in these two Gospels to indicate the ancestry of Jesus of Nazareth, and one will find that already in the first chapters the first and third Gospels contradict each other. Not only are the ancestors listed differently in Luke than in Matthew, but the names do not match either. And if one compares the individual facts relating to the life of Jesus of Nazareth on this basis, one can find contradictions everywhere. In particular, it becomes apparent to people how blatantly the first three evangelists, the writers of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke on the one hand, and the writer of the fourth, the so-called Gospel of John, on the other, contradict each other. As a result, attempts were made to establish at least some degree of consistency between the first three Gospels, and it was believed that these first three evangelists, even though they differ from each other in many details, they nevertheless agree in a certain way in that they present an image of Jesus of Nazareth that appeals to the entire conception and all habits of thought of a more recent era, at least for many personalities of our more recent era.