"Literalist" Hermeneutics, John's Gospel & the Synoptics

***Videos 1 and 2 are both re-done***
I hesitate posting these videos...I find my own voice irritating. I hope these are somewhat helpful, though. You may come across unbelievers who accuse evangelicals of being "selectively" literal when they read the Bible. Perhaps you've read the Passion accounts and wondered how it is that Jesus could celebrate Passover on a Thursday night and then see John's record stating Jesus was crucified on the Preparation Day of Passover...isn't that the day they slaughter the lambs for Passover? How could Jesus partake of the Passover and then die before He partook?

These topics came up by way of a You Tuber going by the moniker "PropMTH". He gets thousands and thousands of views per vid. He basically regurgitated Bart Ehrman's observations (here's his vid), which seemed to add to the practicality of making a response...which turned into two videos. The first one primarily deals with the notion of "literalist" hermeneutics...the second deals with the the apparent contradiction between John and the synoptics. It's a total of twenty minutes worth of your time. If you were to choose one, and not the other, I'd recommend beginning with the second one even though it is a direct continuation from the first.

Many thanks go out to Turretin Fan for linking me up to a book called A Harmony of the Gospels edited by A.T. Robertson (that link is to google books...they have most of the book on there for free). Besides a helpful discussion of Preparation Day, this book addresses another difficulty with clarity I haven't seen anyone else use...why is it John seemed to think Jesus was crucified at a different time than Mark? I'll give you the answer, but I'd encourage you to read up on it. John wrote his Gospel to non-Jews well after the destruction of the temple...his audience followed the Roman way of keeping time...and A.T. Robertson doesn't pose this as a mere possibility, I'm convinced of it as John freely referred to evening as being part of the same day...and not the beginning of another day (remember, Jews followed a lunar calendar which means the evening marked the beginning of a new day)...that is to say, John converted the events to the Roman way of keeping time. Very interesting stuff, and it's amazing to think it takes current scholarship to muck everything up.

Here's Video 1...I did the video over again. It is shorter, easier to follow, and has different visuals:



Here's Video 2...this one is also easier to follow (in my opinion)...and it shows my mad photo "enhancing" skills: