http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=1372
Perspectives Matter
Twice
a year for the past few years I have visited the offices of a certified
public accountant in Montgomery, Alabama. Since I rarely went to his
place of business (or even the area in which his business is located), I
had a difficult time remembering exactly what side of the road it was
on. When I expected to see it on my right, it would strangely appear on
my left. Then, just as sure as I thought it might be on my left, I would
find it on my right. Maybe I was just confused. Perhaps my memory was
failing me. For whatever reason, I never took the time to figure out why
I had the distinct impression that sometimes this building should be on
the opposite side of the road. Whenever the time came for me to see the
CPA, I simply headed in the direction of his office, confident that I
could find it, but unsure on which side of the road it would appear.
Recently, I finally learned why sometimes the building was on my left
and other times it was on my right: I had not realized that the street
on which this office is located is a long, slow-curving semi-circle.
Both ends of the street eventually meet up at the same road, just one
intersection apart from each other. Since the two intersections look
very similar, I (like many men who are rather unobservant) never
realized that I sometimes turned left at one intersection and other
times turned left at the next intersection. When I took the first left,
the office building always appeared on my right. When I took the second
left, the building was always on my left. For whatever reason, I had
never paid close enough attention. I had failed to consider that the
apparent contradiction was merely the result of two different
perspectives: one from the North, and one from the South.
Sadly, many people approach a study of the Bible as carelessly as I
approached the CPA’s office building: they fail to consider the various
perspectives at play. Approximately 40 different inspired men from all
walks of life wrote the Bible over a period of 1,600 years. These men
lived at different times in different places among different people in
different cultures. They wrote in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and the
original recipients of their writings varied greatly—from Jewish, to
Greek, to Roman, to all men. Sometimes the Bible writers wrote
chronologically (e.g., Genesis 1; Matthew 4:1-11); at other times they
wrote thematically (e.g., Genesis 2; Luke 4:1-13). Sometimes they
focused on a group of people (e.g., Matthew 28:1; Luke 23:55-24:1); at
other times they targeted a particular person within the group (e.g.,
John 20:1).
Oftentimes when two or more Bible writers differ in their description
of a certain event, skeptics cry “contradiction.” In reality, however,
the skeptics have merely overlooked or dismissed the fact that the
inspired penmen wrote from different perspectives. One question I
continually get asked and hear skeptics frequently repeat is, “How did
Judas die?” “Did he hang himself as Matthew wrote (27:5), or, as Luke
indicated (Acts 1:18), did he fall headlong and ‘burst open in the
middle’ and all his entrails gush out?” The answer: Judas hanged
himself,
and later his body fell (from wherever it was
hanging), burst open, and his entrails spilled. Are Matthew and Luke’s
accounts different? Yes. Are they contradictory? No. They simply wrote
about two different, specific moments during the same general event.
If we fail to recognize the logical reasons for differences in life, we
will continually find ourselves dazed and confused. Just as I was
perplexed for years over the exact location of a particular office
building, because I had not taken the time to consider the exact
direction from which I approached the building, skeptics and others will
never come to a proper understanding of Scripture until they recognize
that perspectives play a major role.
