Contradictory or complementary? · 2:43am Aug 1st, 2020
Matthew 8:6-13 and Luke 7:1-10 tell the story of a sick-Centurion's slave (or servant) being healed by Jesus without Him even seeing the sick person.
There are some differences in how Matthew and Luke tell the story, however. In Matthew's account, the Centurion asks Jesus directly to heal the boy (Matt. 8:5), while in Luke, he sends first Jewish elders from the synagogue, and then personal friends (Luke 7:3, 6), to speak to Jesus instead of coming himself. So... what happened? Are these events contradictory, or are they separate events? Did somebody get the details wrong?
No.
It's important to recognize that Matthew often compressed narratives. This means that his account does not contradict Luke. Matthew simply seems to have taken the words of the friends and elders as if they had come from the Centurion himself instead of from the delegation. This would hardly have been a unique circumstance. In ancient Egypt, there was an official called the "Mouth of the Pharaoh," whose job was to listen to Pharaoh's words and then speak them, without any changes at all, to the people. In this kind of context, Matthew took the words of the delegation as being those of the Centurion, and cut the middlemen out of the story.
If this seems odd, we should remember that when conversations between two ambassadors and/or national leaders happen, the account of the conversations usually cuts out the translators and just mentions what the leaders said. This also happens earlier in the Bible in Genesis, when Joseph speaks to his brothers - except for one verse that mentions a translator for context (Gen. 42:23), the translator is left completely out of the picture, as is the more lengthy back and forth that the translation (from Hebrew to Egyptian, then Egyptian to Hebrew again) would have produced.
Matthew compressed Bible narratives and gives us the short story; Luke gives the fuller account of the same incident. As such, the two accounts are complementary, not contradictory.
It's the same with the story of the Gerasene demoniacs (Matt. 8:28-34, Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-39). Matthew tells us of two different people possessed by demons, while Mark and Luke mention one. However, there isn't a contradiction. While Matthew mentions two men, and Mark and Luke one, the latter two don't deny the possible existence of another man present as well. Mark and Luke seem to have focused upon the person who suffered more and was used as a spokesman for the demons.
One could make a similar case over the fact that Matthew mentions two blind men at Jericho asking for Jesus to heal them, and Mark and Luke mention one (Matthew 20:29-34, Mark 10:46-52, Luke 18:35-43). There's no denial in the latter two accounts of a second man being present.
In the end, these were different witnesses giving details of Jesus' life and works, and who chose to present them in different but complementary ways, not contradictory. The four Gospels provide different witness accounts, but they tell the story of Jesus while He walked this earth, and these accounts should not be seen as separate from one another, but as interlinked with one another. Jesus healed the servant of a Roman officer, expelled demons from afflicted men, and healed the blind, among many others. These are all part of one overarching story.
May the Lord Jesus save, keep, and watch over you all.
Sources;
https://godfromthemachine.blog/2015/03/17/the-joy-angst-of-four-gospels-part-6-narrative-creativity-telescoping-compressing/#_ftn4
https://answersingenesis.org/contradictions-in-the-bible/centurion-contradiction/
https://iblp.org/questions/how-did-centurions-insights-about-authority-impress-jesus
https://biblehub.com/genesis/42-23.htm
