The Strange Book I: Contradictions and Discrepancies

There is a certain book, with a rather peculiar history.

It has been around for quite a while, long enough for many people to take spikes at it once in a while. But like any good piece of literature, it rose to outlive generations of men, pallbearers, critics and expositors all alike.

But like many books of literature, its alleged "weaknesses" have appeared in criticisms again and again and again, one of which is the idea that it may contain a good many contradictions woven into its plot.

This, however, is a rather strange idea, because through my studies of it, I found none.

Now, a certain event in this book had 2 men recording it. In one man's account, a man named J spoke to 2 men about something while walking down a road, but the other account has no record of this. And for another event, one account had this same J spoke to 2 men about something, but in the second account, it was recorded that one man was spoken to.

People pounce on this and say, "AHA!" Very enlightening, but I think not so. Why? I would say that this is because there is a difference between "Contradiction" and "Discrepancy".

A contradiction would be that "J said this to A and B" and in the other account "J spoke to only A". This could be considered a contradiction, because the two accounts are in direct conflict. However, this might be attributed to mistaken information in one of the men, or something of the order. (And if you know the context of the book this is a very minor event, and does not really affect the credibility of the book)

A discrepancy on the other hand is that "J said to A and B" and in the other account "J said to A". The difference is that while no mention was made of B, the second account did not assert that B was not spoken to, while the contradiction did. B could have been spoken to in the same words, but on a separate occasion, or some other possibility.

Unfortunately, what was detailed in the book was definitely a case of the latter.



(Omission and Denial are not the same thing. If any would-be critic already guessed the book, I invite him/her to have a little chat with me on the comments page.)