This is the 30th Bible contradiction we refuted!
Today’s post will tackle another question that the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: Who put the robe on Jesus?
Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:
Herod’s soldiers
And Herod with his soldiers, after treating Him with contempt and mocking Him, dressed Him in a gorgeous robe and sent Him back to Pilate. (Luke 23:11)
Pilate’s soldiers
Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole Roman cohort around Him. 28 They stripped Him and put a scarlet robe on Him.(Matthew 27:27-28)
Wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus scourged, he handed Him over to be crucified. 16 The soldiers took Him away into the [a]palace (that is, the Praetorium), and they *called together the whole Roman [b]cohort. 17 They *dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on Him. (Mark 15:15-17)
Pilate then took Jesus and scourged Him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him. (John 19:1-2)
(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)
Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:
- When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction. A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time. To put it another way, the claims found in the Bible must be mutually exclusive in order for there to be a contradiction.
- Even looking merely at the two claims without further study of the passage we see that what we have here doesn’t necessarily have to be a contradiction since both the soldiers of Herod and the soldiers of Pilate could have hypothetically put on the robe on Jesus together.
- When we do examine the four passages cited by the skeptic we see that we do not have a contradiction because there were more than one instances in which different set of soldiers were putting a robe on Jesus. You can’t claim a logical contradiction when the passages are referring to different time and different referents involved with putting a robe on Jesus.
- Luke 23:11 was cited as proof that Herod’s soldiers were the ones who put a robe on Jesus and the skeptic extrapolated this truth correctly. But notice that this took place before Herod and his soldiers “sent Him back to Pilate.“
- Matthew 27:27-28, Mark 15:15-17 and John 19:1-2 were cited by the skeptic as proof that Pilate’s soldiers put a robe on Jesus and this is also true. Both Matthew 27:27 and Mark 15:16 indicated this took place at the “Praetorium” which was where Pilate was at. In terms of the chronological sequence of events both Matthew 27:27-28 and Mark 15:15-17 followed after Luke 23:11 when Jesus was sent back by King Herod to the Roman Governor Pilate. It is not necessarily a logical contradiction to claim that after King Herod put a robe on Jesus the soldiers of Pilate again put a robe back on Jesus at a later time.
- Also Matthew 27:26 and Mark 15:15 reveal why Jesus would have had to put a robe put back on Jesus again. Both passages mentioned that Jesus was scourged. In order to effectively scourged Jesus it would made sense for Pilate’s soldiers to take off Jesus’ robe. Then after scourging Jesus they put back the robe on Jesus as an act of mocking him. This resolves the alleged Bible contradiction.
- I want to also look at where John 19:1-2 fits in the timeline. Here we see that Pilate’s soldiers put a robe on Jesus before Pilate presented Him before the hostile Jewish crowd in verses 3-16. This took place before Pilate made the decision to crucify Jesus. Thus John 19:1-2 takes place after Herod’s soldiers put a robe on Jesus per Luke 23:11 yet before Matthew 27:26 and Mark 15:15 in which Jesus was finally sentenced to be crucified. Here in John 19:1-2 readers will detect that Pilate was trying to appeal to the Jewish crowd to not have Jesus crucified while at the same time making Jesus look pathetic with a sense of mockery.
Again this is not a Bible contradiction.
Excellent analysis, Jim! I’m not even aware of many of these “contradictions” as I read through the Word.
Thank you Tom for reading this post on another “contradiction.” I wasn’t aware how it could be a contradiction merely by reading the Word of God too, it’s probably a sign that the skeptics are trying too hard right?
RE: it’s probably a sign that the skeptics are trying too hard right?
Yes, no doubt. But I appreciate the efforts of yourself and other apologists to clarify these seeming contradictions.
Yet another good one, thanks. Can’t believe it’s been 30 of them!
Yeah, can’t believe its has been 30 of them too. Lord willing I hope to refute more of them from their website.
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
Thank you for reblogging this!
You’re very welcome Pastor Jim 😎
I really like these posts Jim and I think your explanation of this supposed contradiction is excellent. My hope is that a few people who read The Skeptics Annotated Bible will seek out other sources before they form an opinion.
Thank you James for reading this post and also for your comment. I do hope and pray that those who use the Skeptic Annotated Bible would do an online search to consider counter-arguments before they conclude the Bible is irrelevant…that is my intent and wishes in writing these posts as I’m sure you’re aware! So these comments helps along the way with search engines =)
Thanks for your work Jim, really appreciate what you are doing. But I would like to press this a little further with regard to the parallel accounts in Matthew and Mark. In both, Jesus is handed over to Roman soldiers for crucifixion, after being flogged in earlier verses, and then Mark refers to a purple robe while Matthew a scarlet one. Could the color be a matter of opinion, faded scarlet vs purplish? Thanks for your thoughts!
Thanks Shawn for mentioning that one; Lord willing I have a response sometime in the near future as a post.
I read this answer published by Answers in Genesis a while ago: https://answersingenesis.org/contradictions-in-the-bible/was-either-matthew-or-john-color-blind/
The crux of it is that ambiguity-type explanations don’t seem plausible because the words in question refer to both the colours and source of the dyes used to create those colours. However, it is entirely plausible to conclude that Pilate’s soldiers used two different robes to mock Jesus, one red and one purple.
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Excellent post…I need to carve out the time to go through as many of your posts as I can…thanks. .
Thanks for your comment and reading this and other posts. I’m much encouraged to hear that. Pray that Lord willing we would deal with more of them and that God would use it evangelistically and also to equip believers!
There’s quite a number of the posts on the Blog answering contradictions added the last few years you can read them here: https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2016/12/02/collection-of-posts-responding-to-bible-contradictions/
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You responded well
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And the skeptic say they are rational? LOL
[…] Who put the robe on Jesus? […]
“You can’t claim a logical contradiction when the passages are referring to different time and different referents involved with putting a robe on Jesus.
” And hence here there is no contradiction
Can you imagine being married to someone who looks for contradictions in what you say like the way the atheist looks at God’s Word? Needless fights and quarrels!
Loving my Savior even more from reading this
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[…] Who put the robe on Jesus? […]
[…] Who put the robe on Jesus? […]
[…] Who put the robe on Jesus? […]
[…] Who put the robe on Jesus? […]
Was Jesus stripped of his clothes first then scourged or was he scourged first Matthew seems to say he was scourged first then first was he doing this events in chronological order
I think there was two types of whipping that took place: https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/bible-contradiction-when-did-jesus-receive-his-beating/
So its seems reasonable that there was the first whipping and he was dressed back and the second form which is done leading up to a death penalty
Was Jesus scourged first then stripped Matthew says he was scourged then stripped were this events done in order
Was Jesus scourged with his clothes on
So when Jesus got back from herod they stripped him of his clothes then put on the Scarlett robe and before they beat him they took the robe off so what happened to his clothes I mean why would the soldiers want with his bloody clothes
so when Jesus got back from herod they took.off his clothes put a Scarlett robe on him then took the robe off to beat him so what happened to his clothes
Thank you