CONTRADICTIONS: Wait a Minute! Did Jesus Lie to His Brothers?
(FIVE-MINUTE READ) — Jesus committed no sin during His 33 years on this earth, according to the Bible at, for example, II Corinthians 5:21 and Hebrews 4:15. He had to be the perfect man, the sinless sacrifice, in order to cover all the sins of those who accept Him as Lord and Savior.
But hold on there, cry skeptics, who reject the authority of the Bible because “it’s full of contradictions,” such as at John 7:8-10 where we are told Jesus declared:
“You go up to the feast. I am not going up to this feast, for my time has not yet fully come.” After saying this, he remained in Galilee. But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.”
Uh oh, that’s pretty clearly a contradiction, either by Jesus in consecutive sentences or by the author, John. So how could Jesus be sinless, demands Bible skeptics like *Dennis McKinsey, if He pulled this little fast one on His brothers about His presence at the Feast of the Booths?
In fact, according to Eric Lyons of the Apologetics Press, in the third volume of his superb series “The Anvil Rings: Answers to Alleged Bible Discrepancies,” the fact that Jesus spoke in this manner is no more a contradiction than stuff we commonly say these days.
“Even if Jesus did say at one point to His brothers “I do not go up to this feast,” but later He went, that still does not mean that He lied. Suppose a co-worker saw me leaving the office at 2:00 pm and asked me ‘are you going home?’ and I said ‘No.”
“But then later went home at 5:00 pm, have I lied? Not at all. When I left the office at 2 pm, I went to run a quick errand — I did not go home. When I departed the office at 5:00 pm, however, I went home. ‘No’ is used in a time-sensitive manner … My ‘no’ meant ‘I am not going home at the present.'”
In addition to that common sense explanation, Lyons notes that there are discrepancies in several of the translations of this passage. Some translations, including the ASV, the NASB and the RSV leave out the key word “yet,” which the KJV, the NKJV and the NIV do not.
As Lyons further points out, the context in which verses 8-10 occur is crucially important. Jesus was responding to His brothers’ taunting, which we read in verses 2-6 in which John explains:
“Now the Jews’ Feast of Booths was at hand. So his brothers said to him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.’ For not even his brothers believed in him.”
In other words, Jesus was saying He was not going to the feast in the public manner in which His brothers encouraged Him to do, but rather that He would go in private because the time for His being arrested, tried, crucified and resurrected had not yet come.
- As cited by Lyons from “Biblical Errancy” (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, p. 787).