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I was at a conference several years ago and heard a well-known author and scholar speaking on the book of John. This speaker said John’s accounts were written from political and spiritual motivations and that John or whoever the author was invented the details to fit his “motif.”

He pointed out that, in the Gospel of John, Andrew introduces Peter to Jesus. In the other Gospels the disciples are called from their fishermen’s nets by Jesus, and they immediately go off with Him. He also cited the two different accounts of Jesus cleansing the temple. “See,” he said, “so many contradictions!” He implied that we can’t believe this is real history.

Because this man was a well-known scholar and teacher, I’m sure many accepted his analysis of John’s Gospel without question. But in this case a little questioning provides another explanation for the “contradictions.” Now, as we said before, most scholars of the Gospels agree that the Gospel writers did not necessarily follow chronological order when they described certain events but grouped certain events together to suit what things about Jesus they were trying to emphasize. But it does not follow that because they sometimes did this they made up stories. Rather they were fitting together in a particular way oral (and possibly earlier written) traditions of real historical events about Jesus.[1]

So how do we explain the cleansing of the temple “contradictions”?

If John and the others both intended to be chronological here, there would have been two cleansings of the temple. The wording is very different in John’s account from the other Gospels (compare John 2:16 with Matthew 21:13). This makes it likely that the writers did not copy from each other. And even if there was only one cleansing it is possible that John, not being necessarily chronological, put it at the beginning of his Gospel for thematic reasons. This does not in any way prove the writers invented the event.

How about the “contradictions” in the accounts of the calling of the first disciples of Christ?

According to F. F. Bruce, John’s Gospel fills in material not covered in the synoptic Gospels, covering the early Judean ministry of Jesus (before the imprisonment of John the Baptist). This material on the Judean ministry of Jesus is not covered in the synoptic Gospels.[2] During that time the disciples such as Peter and Andrew met Jesus but were not called until a later time. Notice that it says in John’s account, “They. . .abode with Him that day” but afterward likely went back to their jobs as fishermen (John 1:35-43). Then they were called into full–time service as apostles (Matthew 4:18–22) and gave up their former occupations at this time. This would better explain their willingness to leave their jobs immediately when Jesus called them to follow Him, because they had met Jesus previously. So, again, plausible explanations can be brought forth, and there is no need to mandate a lack of reliability because of these so-called “contradictions.”

[1] Haley, Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, 9-11.