# Synodical Conference Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1902_S46
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

46 Proceedings of the nineteenth convention

[that] both thieves had reviled him. As is well known, however, Luke relates that of the two murderers the one reviled him, the other believed in him. Taking this as correct, the statement in Matthew is only half true. If three murderers had been crucified with Christ, then, in case two of them had reviled him, Matthew's statement would still be inaccurate, but could at a pinch be defended by the principle a potiori fit denominatio [the name is given from the greater part]. With two murderers, however, it is not merely inaccurate but exactly as justified or unjustified as the opposite: The two murderers believed in him." ("Zeugniß v. d. Grundwahrh. d. Prot. geg. Dr. Hengſtenberg" [Testimony Concerning the Basic Truth of Protestantism, against Dr. Hengstenberg]. Leipzig, 1862, p. 76.) And in connection with this Kahnis has said: "The presupposition that the Gospels are free of all manner of inaccuracies and contradictions is incompatible with the eternal laws of truth which the Creator has laid in the knowing spirit." And immediately after he says: "It is an abuse of the obedience which divine mysteries demand to carry through, by rabulistic [quibbling] apologetics, in matters of this kind on which reason can decide, the postulate: The Gospels can contain no contradictions. If it is presumptuous to ask human understanding in matters of this kind, it is also presumptuous to defend them with grounds of human understanding."

But Kahnis had no need at all to get so excited here, as if one stood before one of the most difficult and delicate problems of gospel history. It is true, these different statements of Matthew and Mark as against Luke have already offended many a Bible reader somewhat, so that he thought: How can Matthew and Mark speak of both evildoers, while we read in Luke that the one thief on the right rather rebuked the one on the left and said: "Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?" But this knot really resolves quite easily.

It is not even necessary to assume that at the beginning, perhaps on the way out to the place of execution, the thief who afterward hung at the right of Jesus also still reviled, and that only afterward, when he had heard Jesus' first word on the cross, he came to the knowledge of Christ and changed his mind, although that would indeed also be possible. The speeches of Holy Scripture want to be understood just as one is accustomed to understand the speeches of men among one another. If out in the street an older man was mocked by a boy, two have watched it and tell it to you, the one says: There went the old man, and a boy of ten years mocked him in the open street, the other, however, says: How sorry I am for the old man! I know he has all sorts of misery at home and not much good, and now he must also be a laughingstock to the street urchins — then it does not occur to you to think: The two contradict each other, but you understand quite well how it