Do Luke and Matthew contradict each other or are they just different?

Answer 1

A:Yes, definitely. They do agree moderately well on the material both sourced from Mark's Gospel and the hypothetical 'Q' document, but material unique to Matthew disagrees strongly with material unique to Luke's Gospel.

We only have to look at the two nativity accounts which Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament) says are "massively different" and virtually irreconcilable. In Matthew's infancy narrative, Bethlehem was the home town of Mary and Joseph. There is no suggestion in Matthew of a census or of a journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. The wise men found the young family in their house, not in a stable; they fled from Bethlehem to Egypt and after ther death of Herod began the journey back to Bethlehem but, being warned in a dream, turned aside and travelled to a city called Nazareth instead. In Luke's infancy narrative, Mary and Joseph lived in Nazareth in Galilee and travelled to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born, for a census controlled by the Syrian governor Quirinius; a few weeks after the birth of Jesus, the young family travelled to Jerusalem to present Jesus at the Temple, then returned peacefully to their home in Nazareth.

Another example is in the story of the empty tomb. Matthew chapter 28 says that just two women, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, came to see the sepulchre. There was a great earthuake and an angel came down from heaven and rolled back the stone from the tomb and sat upon it. He told them that Jesus was risen, so they did not go into the tomb, but went quickly to tell the disciples. Luke chapter 24 says that Mary Magdalene, Mary mother of James and a number of other women brought spices to anoint Jesus. Finding the stone already rolled away, they went in and found the body of Jesus missing. Two men in shining gamrents told them that Jesus had risen.

In Matthew's Gospel, Jesus appeared only once to the disciples, in Galilee. Here, he told them to travle the world and spread the gospel. In Luke's Gospel, he met the disciples in Jerusalem on the evening of his resurrection and took them out on the road to Bethany, where he was taken bodily up to heaven. Once again, the disagreement here is total.

Answer 2

Matthew and Luke clearly contradict each other in so many places it's difficult to list them all. There have been thousands of books written about the thousands of places they contradict each other.

Beginning in chapter 1, Matthew claims an extensive genealogy for Jesus while Luke claims an entirely different one. Matthew claims some 14 generations between King David and Jesus, while Luke claims 18 or twenty, with only two names in common.

It goes from there. Everything Matthew claims happened, Luke enhances, changes or denies. There are literally hundreds of contradictions. The most entertaining one is where Matthew (chap 2: 16) claims that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great who died in 4 BC, while Luke (chapter 2:2) claims Jesus was born during the reign of Quirinius as governor of Syria, who began governing Syria in AD 6, some ten years after Herod died.

Answer 3

Sometimes they contradict each other. Contrary to tradition, we do not know who actually wrote either of these gospels, but we do know that they were eventually attributed to the men whose names they now bear, later in the second century. We can also determine from the text that neither evangelist knew what the other had written.

There are similarities between Matthew and Luke, because they are both substantially based on the Gospel of Mark, with further sayings material attributed to Jesus coming from the hypothetical 'Q' document. However, Q does not provide any context for the sayings of Jesus, so the two authors had to create their own context: thus, for example, Matthew gives us the beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount, while Luke does not have a Sermon on the Mount, but gives us four beatitudes in the Sermon on the Plain.

Although pious Christians believe the two different nativity stories, in Matthew and Luke, can be harmonised, it is not really possible because they are too contradictory. Joseph and Mary could not flee from Bethlehem to Egypt (Matthew 2:14) if the young family had already departed peacefully to Jerusalem on their way to their home in Nazareth in Galilee (Luke 2:22). Matthew also says that Bethlehem, not Nazareth, was the home town of Joseph and Mary and that they were returning there from Egypt when they turned aside and travelled to Galilee and settled in a town called Nazareth (Matthew 2:22-23).

The two stories of the resurrection of Jesus could not be more different or more contradictory:

• In Matthew's Gospel, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to the tomb, where they saw an angel outside the sepulchre and were told to send the disciples to Galilee where they would meet the risen Jesus; the two women met Jesus as they returned with the good news, and he affirmed that the disciples were to meet him in Galilee. Jesus met the disciples in a mountain in Galilee and instructed them to depart and preach to all nations.
• In Luke's Gospel, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, another Mary and some other women went to the tomb and entered it, seeing Jesus gone and two men standing by in shining garments. They did not meet Jesus on the way back and did not tell the disciples to go to Galilee; instead Jesus met the disciples at a meal in an upper room in Jerusalem and then took them on the road to Bethany, where he rose up to heaven on the same evening as his resurrection.