Repeated stories in the bible

[Sagen]

I was reading the bible a few days ago and I noticed that in the first four books of the new testament that some of the stories are repeated with different details. I was wondering why that is so, I sometimes get confused trying to read the new testament because of it. :confused2:

[Richard Amiel McGough]

I was reading the bible a few days ago and I noticed that in the first four books of the new testament that some of the stories are repeated with different details. I was wondering why that is so, I sometimes get confused trying to read the new testament because of it. :confused2:
Hi Sagen,

First, let me say Welcome to our Forum!

:welcome:

Your question is really important ... and very old. Folks have been trying to "harmonize" the Gospels ever since they were first collected together by the early Church. Folks back then were just as smart as anyone today - the only difference was the culture and the accumulation of knowledge. But their brains were as good as ours and so this old problem of the differences and similarities between the Gospels - each of which purports to tell the "story of Christ" - vexed them as much as it does some of us modern folk.

The usual scholastic solution is to assume that the parts they have in common were copied from one to the other, and the places they differ were invented by the human authors to suit their own purposes. In all this intellecualism, God as the ultimate Author is usually lost altogether. But don't get me wrong, I do believe that much of the scholastic efforts to understand the formation of the Gospels is valuable. Its just that their final conclusions will be false if they forget that God is the ultimate Author.

Most comparisons are between the first three Gospels because they describe the life of Christ pretty much from the "same point of view." Hence they are called the "Synoptic Gospels." Attempts to explain their formation in entirely natural terms has occupied many biblical scholars in the last century. It is called "The Synoptic Problem."

As it turns out, the Bible Wheel sheds a revolutionary floodlight onto this ancient question. To see this, let us begin with one of the most obvious differences between Matthew and Luke:

Matt 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Luke 12:31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.

What happened to the word "righteousness" in Luke? Did he make a mistake? Misquote Jesus? Or did Matthew add the word for his own purposes?

The answer is found in the Bible Wheel. God designed the Bible on the pattern of the 22 Hebrew letters. The 66 books form three cycles, or wheels within a Wheel of 22 Spokes. Each book therefore corresponds to a Hebrew letter. This Hebrew letter is the Key to understanding the differences between the Synoptic Gospels. If you are unfamiliar with the Bible Wheel, here is a short introduction (http://www.biblewheel.com/Book/Chapt01.asp).

God established the meanings of the Hebrew letters in the Alphabetic Verses, such as Psalm 119, in which each verse begins with an Alphabetic KeyWord, that is, a word that begins with that letter of the Alphabet and which exemplifies its symbolic meaning.

As a case in point, the Gospel of Matthew is on Spoke 18 which corresponds to the 18th Hebrew letter, Tzaddi. God established the primary symbolic meaning of this letter in its corresponding Alphabetic Verses, such as the first Tzaddi verse of Psalm 119 (if you have a KJV you can see the letter Tzaddi at the top of this section):

Psalm 119:137 TZADDI. Righteous (Tzaddiq) art thou, O LORD, and upright are thy judgments.

This is the primary symbolic meaning of Tzaddi. Indeed, the Jews often call the 18th letter "Tzaddiq." Now we see that the difference between Matthew 6:33 and Luke 12:31 is based on the symbolic meaning of the corresponding Hebrew letter. I did not "cherry-pick" this verse to prove my point. The pattern is consistent across all three Synoptic Gospels with unique Alphabetic KeyWords appearing in one and missing in the other two. I give a full proof with a mountain of evidence in my article called "The Solution of the Synoptic Problem (http://www.biblewheel.com/canon/SynopticSolution.asp)."

Take a look at the article and let me know what you think. I'm sure you will have many questions.

God bless you as you study His most excellent Word!

Richard

[Sagen]

So I get that there is a reason with different words linking up and making new meanings but I still don't understand the need for each of the differences like where in Luke with the story of Peter denying Christ and saying that the Lord looked at Peter only in the book of Luke. I still dont see the reasoning behind it? Richard could you please help me I think I have mental problems with this topic.
thanks :lol:

[Richard Amiel McGough]

So I get that there is a reason with different words linking up and making new meanings but I still don't understand the need for each of the differences like where in Luke with the story of Peter denying Christ and saying that the Lord looked at Peter only in the book of Luke. I still dont see the reasoning behind it? Richard could you please help me I think I have mental problems with this topic.
thanks :lol:
Ha! I doubt there are mental problems. Its just like math. You start with the basics and build from there.

I will lay out the basic ideas in a numbered format so you, and all the other folks who would like an intro from the first floor, can get real specific with your questions:

There are 22 letters in the Hebrew Alphabet.
God designed parts of His Word on the pattern of the Hebrew Alphabet. I call these sections the "Alphabetic Verses." The most famous is Psalm 119 which has 22 groups, each containing 8 verses. The first word of each of these verses starts with the corresponding Hebrew letter. For example, the first word of the Aleph section is Asher which mean "Blessed". In Hebrew, Asher starts with an Aleph. It is called an "Alphabetic KeyWord." God designed the Alphabetic Verses as a source of Alphabetic KeyWords.
The 22 Hebrew letters have symbolic meanings. We learn the meanings from their names, grammatical function, position in the alphabet, and Alphabetic KeyWords. For example, the second letter is called Bet. You will recognize it as the second element in the word "Alphabet." It means "house" as in Bethel, the "House of God."
God designed the entire Bible on the pattern of the 22 Hebrew letters. The 66 books form 3 wheels within a Wheel of 22 Spokes, corresponding to the 22 Hebrew letters. There are three books aligned on each Spoke.
God designed the Bible so that books aligned on each Spoke have profound links with each other and the corresponding Hebrew letter. The study of these links gives deep insight into the divine design of God's Word.So that's pretty much the basic idea of the Bible Wheel. Now let's apply it to your original question about the variations in the repeated stories in the Gospels.

As noted in my first post, the Alphabetic KeyWord corresponding to Tzaddi (the 18th letter) is Tzaddiq (Righteousness). Thus we saw that God designed the Gospel of Matthew (on Spoke 18) to display this theme. The frequency of the word "righteousness" is greatly maximized in Matthew as compared with the other Gospels and Acts. Here's a graph from page 323 of the Bible Wheel book (link (http://www.biblewheel.com/Wheel/Spokes/Tsaddi_Matt.asp)):

http://www.biblewheel.com/images/pg_323_righteousness.jpg

Many of these occurrences of "righteousness" are found in passages of Matthew that have parallels in Luke except for the "missing" word "righteousness." The correlation with the pre-existing structure of the Hebrew Alphabet shows that God used it as a "template" in the design of His Word. This is an amazing thing, because the variations between the synoptic Gospels is one of the primary weapons used by the enemies of the Bible to "prove" that it was all made up out of the imagination of first century scribes and so must be rejected as the Word of God. The Bible Wheel transforms their primary weapon against God's Word into a primary witness for its supernatural design.

Now in answer to your specific question concerning Luke's unique record of Peter's denial of the Lord - here are the four records from the four Evangelists:

Matt 26:74f Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew. And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.
Mark 14:71f But he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak. And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept.
Luke 22:60ff And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew. And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.
John 18:26f One of the servants of the high priest, being his kinsman whose ear Peter cut off, saith, Did not I see thee in the garden with him? Peter then denied again: and immediately the cock crew.Why is it significant that only Luke records the moment when the Lord "LOOKED" at Peter? It is significant because it is an example of God's design of the Bible according to the pattern and meaning of the Hebrew letters. Luke is on Spoke 20, corresponding to the 20th letter Resh. The primary Alphabetic KeyWord that God placed in the Alphabetic Verses corresponding to Resh is RA'AH which means to SEE, to BEHOLD, or to LOOK. Here are some examples from the Alphabetic Verses (signified by "AV"):

Look [Ra'ah] upon mine affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins. AV Ps 25:18
Behold [Ra'ah], O LORD; for I am in distress: my bowels are troubled; mine heart is turned within me; for I have grievously rebelled: AV Lam 1:20
Behold [Ra'ah], O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. AV Lam 2:20
O LORD, thou hast seen [Ra'ah] my wrong: judge thou my cause. AV Lam 3:59Thus, the design of the Gospels mimics the design of the Alphabetic Verses, which were designed a thousand years before Christ came to earth. Now ALL SCHOLARS know with perfect certainty that the humans God employed to produce His Word were utterly incapable of designing the overall structure of the Bible on the pattern of the Hebrew Alphabet because the ORDER of the NT books was established AFTER they were composed, but to compose them with the unique Alphabetic content required a knowledge of where they would later be placed in the canon.

Of course, mere proof that the Bible is from God is the least of the miracles seen here. The real purpose of hte Bible Wheel is to lead the believer ever deeper into the infinite Wisdom of God that He has put in the Bible to feed His children, for this is the purpose of it all - for "this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3).

And that's what its all about!

Don't be shy with any questions or comments. I know there is A LOT to absorb here, and there will be many questions.

Richard

[Sagen]

Ok I get it finally:thumb:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!
The thing that still eludes me is the fact that why would God only use the four gospels this way and not any of the others books, of course it might be before my eyes but since I can't read Hebrew I wouldn't know it. Is there any other correlations in other books of the bible, in this sense, that relate to the alphabetic verses?

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Ok I get it finally:thumb:!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!
The thing that still eludes me is the fact that why would God only use the four gospels this way and not any of the others books, of course it might be before my eyes but since I can't read Hebrew I wouldn't know it. Is there any other correlations in other books of the bible, in this sense, that relate to the alphabetic verses?
Hey Sagen,

Glad you got it! And I'm glad you didn't get it at first, because that gave me a chance to explain it to all the other folks who also didn't get it on the first shot.

Now as for "why would God only use the four gospels this way and not any of the others books" - who ever said that? I focused on the Gospels just to make it simple, and because they have a special feature of repeating the same stories so it makes comparisions very easy. And besides, you started this conversation by asking about the Gospels!

So what about the other books? This is where the power of the Bible Wheel really begins to shine. Another group of books with "repeated stories" is found in Kings versus Chronicles. The pattern is particularly obvious in 2 Chronicles which aligns with Hebrews on Spoke 14. Now the book of Hebrews is the "priestly" book of the New Testament that teaches us all about Christ as our High Priest "after the order of Melchizedek" and how His eternal priesthood supercedes the Old Testament Levitical priesthood. A similar "priestly" emphasis is found in 2 Chronicles. And just like the synoptics, the parallel passages between Kings and 2 Chronicles shows that God specially designed 2 Chronicles with the priestly theme that He carefully omitted from Kings. I explain this in this Spoke 14 (http://www.biblewheel.com/Wheel/Spokes/Nun_2Chronicles.asp) article.

Another example of carefully designed variations between parallel passages is seen in the Ten Commandments as presented in Exodus and Deuteronomy (see this Spoke 5 (http://www.biblewheel.com/Wheel/Spokes/Heh_Deut.asp) article which also links to other articles that show how other parallels are explained by the Bible Wheel).

And again, don't be shy if you have any more questions. I love explaining things, and its good for other folks who might need more explanation.

God bless!

Richard

[rota]

Hi guys!

Thanks for pointing those fascinating details out, Richard.

Let me add that I have the suspicion that the symbolism of biblical stories is carried in the nouns used to tell a story...

Michael

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Hi guys!

Thanks for pointing those fascinating details out, Richard.

Let me add that I have the suspicion that the symbolism of biblical stories is carried in the nouns used to tell a story...

Michael
Hey there Michael,

That sounds interesting. Could you tell us more?

Did you mean only nouns? What about the verbs like "lovest" and "offer" in the Genesis of the Gospel (http://www.biblewheel.com/InnerWheels/Genesis/Genesis22.asp) (Gen 22)?

Genesis 22:2 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
Richard

[rota]

Hey there Richard!

Good to be back again, have been to my other home for a couple of days without much internet...

I haven't studied Spoke 22 yet, I will let you know.

As regards "only", I don't think that I want to limit the glorious wonders of God's Word to anything. I'm convinced that there are more and more levels of deep beauty in His Word that we don't see currently.

But I think I have an idea about a kind of "code" that is carried in the nouns...

Agape,


Michael

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Hey there Richard!

Good to be back again, have been to my other home for a couple of days without much internet...

I haven't studied Spoke 22 yet, I will let you know.

As regards "only", I don't think that I want to limit the glorious wonders of God's Word to anything. I'm convinced that there are more and more levels of deep beauty in His Word that we don't see currently.

But I think I have an idea about a kind of "code" that is carried in the nouns...

Agape,


Michael
Hey there Michael,

Yeah, we certainly don't want to close our eyes to any of the possibilities. God's Word is endless in glory. When I asked about "only" I was really fishing for more info on the nature of the "code" you were hinting at. Do you have something ready to share, or is this idea still in the "embryonic" stage?

Richard

PS: In my studies of Gematria, I focused almost entirely on nouns to discern the primary relations with numbers because the verbs are always inflected and so have lots of different values associated with each one of them. I'm sure there is a pattern to it all, but its beyond my meager abilities to trace it all out, and even if I could, very few people would be able to appreciate it. The proper choice of "what to simplify" has often been the key to great scientific discoveries.

[rota]

Hi Richard!

Aren't we all in an "embryonic" stage? :rolleyes:

What do we really know about the glory and wisdom of God...

But as regards this kind of "code", well we did quite a lot of work already on it and we have some understanding on the technical make up. Having said this, I have to admit that applying it successfully to derive deeper meanings is another story...

Agape,


Michael