The tension: Matthew 13:10-11, Mark 4:10-11, and Luke 8:9-10 all have Jesus tell the disciples that the parables function as a deliberate esoteric/exoteric distinction: "un…
The tension: Mark 4:33-34 and the parallel in Matthew 13:34 make an absolute claim: "without a parable spake he not unto them" / "He never spoke to them without using parab…
The tension: Matthew 14:1-2 and Mark 6:14-16 report Herod Antipas concluding that Jesus is John the Baptist resurrected — "It is John, whom I beheaded: he is risen from the…
The tension: The Synoptic Gospels record Jesus making at least three explicit, detailed passion predictions to the disciples (Matt 16:21; 17:22-23; 20:18-19; Mark 8:31; 9:3…
The tension: John 2:19-21 has Jesus straightforwardly speak this saying as a public pronouncement at the temple cleansing, and the narrator helpfully tells us he meant the…
The tension: Matthew 27:6-7 has the chief priests buy the potter's field with the silver Judas threw back at them, because as blood money it can't go in the temple treasury.
The tension: John 5:31 has Jesus say, "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true." John 8:14 and 8:18 have Jesus say, "Though I bear record of myself, yet my reco…
The tension: Acts 1:1-2 opens with Luke telling Theophilus that his "former treatise" (the Gospel of Luke) covered "all that Jesus began both to do and teach" up to the asc…
The tension: Matthew 27:5 has Judas throw the thirty pieces of silver down in the temple and then hang himself; the priests use the money to buy the Potter's Field.
The tension: Matthew 28:19 has the risen Jesus command baptism "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" — a Trinitarian formula.
The tension: Hebrews 11:13 lists Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Sarah and says "these all died." Eight verses earlier the same chapter, Hebrews 11:5, explicitly says Enoch…
