Should we attempt to harmonise apparent inconsistencies in the Gospels’ resurrection accounts?
This text is from an article written by David Gooding in 1986.
Some people seem to think that attempts to harmonise accounts of the resurrection that contain apparent inconsistencies are intellectually unworthy or dishonest. But that is not necessarily so at all.
If we have reasons for thinking that Scripture is 'God-breathed' (2 Tim. 3:16), then both reason and morality force on us the presupposition that apparent inconsistencies in his inspired word are only apparent; and that if only we had sufficient additional information, we could explain the apparent inconsistencies.
In putting forward tentative harmonisations in the absence of such fuller information, all we have to do, to demonstrate that the apparent difficulty is not an absolute and insoluble difficulty, is to suggest a possible harmonisation. One does not have to prove that this harmonisation is necessarily the true explanation. Whether it is, or whether some other explanation should be preferred, is a question that only the possession of the complete facts could settle.
In relation to the specific question of the resurrection narratives, see John Wenham's book The Easter Enigma, Paternoster Press. It may not be 100% convincing; but it is a good example of point 2 above.
Useful in a general way is C. S. Lewis's article Obstinacy in Belief.
