The Case For Christ

had to raise up legal heirs through various Old Testament
practices.
"The problem is made greater because some names are omitted,
which was perfectly acceptable by standards of the ancient world.
And there are textual variants-names, being translated from one
language into another, often took on different spellings and were
then easily confused for the name of a different individual."
Blomberg had made his point: there are at least some rational
explanations. Even if they might not be airtight, at least they
provide a reasonable harmonization of the gospel accounts.
Not wanting our conversation to degenerate into a stump-thescholar
game, I decided to move on. In the meantime Blomberg and
I agreed that the best overall approach would be to study each
issue individually to see whether there's a rational way to
resolve the apparent conflict among the gospels. Certainly
there's no shortage of authoritative books that thoroughly
examine, sometimes in excruciating detail, how these differences
might be reconciled.
"And," said Blomberg, "there are occasions when we may need to
hold judgment in abeyance and simply say that since we've made
sense out of the vast majority of the texts and determined them
to be trustworthy, we can then give them the benefit of the doubt
when we're not sure on some of the other details."
5. THE BIAS TEST
This test analyzes whether the gospel writers had any biases that
would have colored their work. Did they have any vested interest
in skewing the material they were reporting on?
"We can't underestimate the fact that these people loved Jesus,"
I pointed out. "They were not neutral observers; they were his
devoted followers. Wouldn't that make it likely that they would
change things to make him look good?"
"Well, I'll concede this much," Blomberg replied, "it creates the
potential for this to happen. But on the other hand, people can
so honor and respect someone that it prompts them to record his
life with great integrity. That's the way they would show their
love for him. And I think that's what happened here.
"Besides, these disciples had nothing to gain except criticism,
ostracism, and martyrdom. They certainly had nothing to win
financially. If anything, this would have provided pressure to
keep quiet, to deny Jesus, to downplay him, even to forget they