The story of Jesus stands or falls on the trustworthiness of the Gospels. That's why skeptics pay so much attention to the Gospels' apparent contradictions. Christianity's critics cast doubt on the New Testament's reliability by pointing out disparities in the Gospels. This puts well-meaning--but often unprepared--Christians in a difficult position of trying to reconcile these potential inconsistencies.

So how do we account for apparent discrepancies in the Gospel accounts? A lot of the problem stems from our expectations. If we expect a level of historical precision that the Gospels didn't intend to provide, we're going to run into problems. The truth is that it's completely normal for ancient (and modern) historical accounts to summarize, paraphrase, omit details, and explain events in a way that highlights their specific points and perspectives.

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