Q: In Matthew 27:37, Matthew says that the inscription written above Jesus head was This is Jesus the King of the Jews. But Mark 15:26 says that the inscription was The King of the Jews, and Luke 23:38 says that the inscription was This is the King of the Jews, and John 19:19-20 says that it was Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. John also mentions that it was written in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. All four cannot be entirely, literally, letter-for-letter correct.
A: One could argue that the three languages in which the inscription was written themselves contained some variations, and these differences are echoed in the differences in the Gospels accounts (with John providing a full summary of the inscription). An example of this approach can be found at www.christiananswers.net/...-t001.html . (I hesitate to use material from ChristianAnswers, but in this case, as an example of this approach, their answer is practically archetypical.)
My solution, though, is to point out that letter-for-letter correctness was not the aim of the writers; their aim was the conveyance of the same message that the inscription conveyed. After all, a truly verbatim representation would require the quotation of the actual Hebrew and Latin words along with the Greek words, which would be redundant and would tend to disrupt the flow of the narrative. John probably gives us the closest thing to a verbatim citation of the Greek words in the inscription, but it remains perfectly obvious to readers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that Jesus of Nazareth was the person being crucified, and that Jesus was the person to whom the inscription referred to as King of the Jews.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
A: One could argue that the three languages in which the inscription was written themselves contained some variations, and these differences are echoed in the differences in the Gospels accounts (with John providing a full summary of the inscription). An example of this approach can be found at www.christiananswers.net/...-t001.html . (I hesitate to use material from ChristianAnswers, but in this case, as an example of this approach, their answer is practically archetypical.)
My solution, though, is to point out that letter-for-letter correctness was not the aim of the writers; their aim was the conveyance of the same message that the inscription conveyed. After all, a truly verbatim representation would require the quotation of the actual Hebrew and Latin words along with the Greek words, which would be redundant and would tend to disrupt the flow of the narrative. John probably gives us the closest thing to a verbatim citation of the Greek words in the inscription, but it remains perfectly obvious to readers of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that Jesus of Nazareth was the person being crucified, and that Jesus was the person to whom the inscription referred to as King of the Jews.
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
