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Some critics of the gospels today claim they are full of contradictions and so can’t be trusted as real history. An example that is often brought up are the accounts of Peter’s denial of Christ and the roosters crowing. All four gospels contain this account. In Matthew, Luke, and John, Jesus seems to be telling Peter that before the cock (rooster) crows once the next morning, Peter will deny Him three times, but in Mark, Jesus tells Peter that he will deny Him before the cock crows twice. So some say since the accounts disagree, they can’t be trusted.
But is this fair? First of all, in that time period the use of paraphrase, even for memorization of sayings, was considered acceptable in recounting an event. Rather than the exact quotations required today, they could vary the wording and detail level, as long as the essence of the account was preserved. In the Greek and Hebrew, quotation marks did not even exist.
In this case, Mark may be giving more detail, while the others are speaking more generally. “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times” is less detailed than “before the rooster crows twice you will deny me three times”, yet both convey the same event to historians, namely that after Peter denied Jesus three times, the cock would crow. They would not let such a minor discrepancy keep them from taking this account as historical. Indeed, other ancient literature that historians give credibility to has much more significant differences than this one. So it was the practice of the writers of that day to vary wording and amount of detail, and it is not fair to judge their writing by modern standards.
The critics also don’t seem to fairly consider possible reconciling explanations. For example, there was a certain time early in the morning known as the “cockcrow” or “cockcrowing”, when most of the roosters would be in full voice (If you grew up on a farm, you might be remembering that natural alarm clock!) This term is used as such in Mark 13:35: ‘At even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning.” So when in Matthew and the other gospels, Jesus says, “before the cock crow”, He could very well mean that before the time in the morning when the usual cockcrowing takes place, Peter will have made three denials. Mark simply adds more detail by informing us that a rooster or two crowed right after Peter’s first denial as well. How long was the time gap in between this early rooster crow and the normal “cockcrowing?” Luke gives the information that the time between Peter’s first and second denials was “about the space of one hour” ( Luke 22:59). So we see that rather than the gospels contradicting each other, all of the accounts blended together give a fully picture of what went on that evening.
So when these discrepancies are used to call the historical reliability of the gospels into question, I am tempted to cry: “Fowl!”
2 Comments for Fair or Fowl?-bible contradiction about crowing roosters
Sorry but your claims are eliertny false!!There is not one single mention of Jesus in the entire Roman record that is right not one!!! At the same time as he was supposed to have been around there were a number of Jews claiming to be the messiah all of whom are well recorded!!There is not a single contemporary record from any source and even the bible mentions of him like all other references were not written until many years after his supposed death!!He was supposed to have been a huge problem to the Romans and produced wonderful miracles but still not one contemporary record?Even the bible mentions of him like all other references were not written until many years after his supposed death!!Pilate is recorded in the Roman record as a somewhat lack luster man but no mention of a Jesus, a trial or crucifixion that would surely have been used to make him look brighter!!At best he was an amalgam of those others!!There are no such thing as contemporary records of any kind from any where!!so come on genius The first person to provide a shred of verifiable evidence for God or Jesus will become world famous and mega rich!! So step forward, shwo the world your evidence and all those riches and fame will allow you to show the world!!!Ain’t happened yet and it never will!!so why bother making claims thathow how rediculous they are?!!!
You say that there is “not one single mention of Jesus in the entire Roman record”. That is actually quite false. He is mentioned first of all by Josephus the Roman historian in Jewish Antiquities “…Ananus convened the judges of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James,the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ…” Scholars believe this passage is as authentic as any passage of Josephus. Josephus also wrote a more explicit passage about Christ, called the Testimonium, of which certain parts were probably interpolated later by over-zealous Christians. However, an Arabic manuscript of the Testimonium has been found which does not contain these interpolations and many scholars believe that it has the original wording: “At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus…Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And his disciples…reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah…”. In this passage, even without the interpolations, we can see that it is reported that Jesus was crucified, had disciples, was said to be alive three days after his execution, and was thought to be the Messiah. Another Roman historian that mentions Jesus is Cornelius Tacitus, who talks about the leader of the Christians, called Christus (Latin) being given the extreme penalty (which is what crucifixion was referred to) and also talked about the martyrdom of these Christians. Overall there is probably nine or more extra-biblical sources that mention Jesus. For a good book on this subject, see Habermas,The Historical Jesus, 1996.
Now, it is true that all of these wrote later than the time of Jesus. Josephus wroteJewish Antiquities in about 93 A.D.. But people, including yourself, take these records to be reliable when referring to other individuals that claimed to be Messiah that lived during the time of Jesus. You see, the “well recorded” writings of the other Messiah claimants, such as Judas son of Hezekiah (4 BCE), Simon of Perea (4 BCE), Athronges the Shepherd (4BCE), Judas the Galilean (6CE), or Theudas (45 CE), are in fact the writings of this same Josephus, most written also in the 90’s CE, at the earliest 78 CE! Yet you apply a double standard when you trust this same author to produce reliable records about these other Messianic pretenders, yet deny that there is even one mention of Jesus, much less that this same writer Josephus wrote reliable history about Jesus. The gospel writers wrote a few decades after the time of Jesus, but even 25-30 years is not much of a gap considering the strong oral tradition that preceded these writings (see my article ) And most of of us can remember events such as the assassination of Martin Luther King, even though it happened decades ago.
Another point to bring up is that there are good reasons why we don’t have more records about Jesus from this time period. Roman attention tended to be given to military and insurrectionist threats, not what they would consider minor religious disputes. All the other Messianic pretenders were violent revolutionaries and unlike Jesus, led people into battle. In the book of Acts, it give a hint of just how minor an issue they made of Jesus, when they referred to him as ” a certain dead man, whom Paul claimed was alive.” ( Acts 25:19)
In the first century we have a very very small sample of ancient Roman and Greek writings that have survived, period. About half of what Tacitus wrote has been lost, for example. Livy, another Roman historian, has only excerpts of his books surviving. Records about Julius Caesar are fragmentary and written long after his time, yet we do not doubt the great influence he had on Rome. Within 150 years after his death, there are only five sources that report on his military conquests, including Caesar’s own writings (The Gallic Wars). Yet within 150 years of Jesus’s death, over 42 authors, at least nine of them Non-Christian, mention Jesus. Scholar F.F. Bruce reports also that no offical record of Pontius Pilate’s or any other Roman governor’s reports about anything have been preserved. But interestingly, Justin Martyr wrote in about 150 A.D. about a document that existed in his time and could be checked out, called the”Acts of Pilate”, now lost to us, that referred to the crucifixion of Jesus. And besides, absence of evidence does not necessarily mean evidence of absence. Arguments from silence are notoriously weak.
Which brings me to my next point, that we can’t just dismiss the Gospels records or Paul’s letters as historical sources for Jesus. Taken as historical documents, apart from any question of inerrancy or divine inspiration, they are the best sources we have about Jesus, as Caesar’s writings are about himself. Contemporary letters such as Pauls are the strongest kind of historical evidence. Parts of them such as the 15th Chapter of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians are considered very strong by most scholars in terms of historical reliability. The Book of Acts and the Gospels history has been abundantly verified archaeologically. And remember that most of these writers and their followers received no “riches and fame” for this, but instead persecution and death. They died to bring you and I this information, so that we might turn from our sins and trust Christ for eternal life. And no one dies for what they know is a lie!