approach is unhelpful, not to mention unfair to Matthew. For reasons of style or story, Matthew was doing what historians and biographers in his day were expected to do. Nobody would have accused him of falsehood back then. Nor should we. The proof of this is obvious and, I think, incontrovertible. Both Matthew and Mark were accepted as authoritative in the early church, even though the sayings of Jesus are usually worded differently in Matthew and Mark. The events of the Gospels don’t always come
Page 88