Today is a good time to talk about the contrast among details in the different Gospels. For instance, Mark described James and John as coming to Jesus to ask the blessing of sitting on His right and left in His kingdom. Matthew said it was their mother who made the approach. Is this a contradiction?
Or, in another scene, Luke describes an anonymous blind man asking Jesus for his sight. Mark says his name was Bartimaeus. But Matthew says there were two blind men together at the side of that road. Clearly this might be a contradiction. Hmmmm.
If one subscribes to the theory that the Holy Spirit mechanically dictated the Scriptures, then surely He wouldn't contradict Himself. However, if "Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit…" (2 Peter 1:21) and God led them as they wrote within their own limited vocabulary, their own limited knowledge of the events and their own limited sources, then it's not contradiction, but the God-inpired recording of history.
Mark was written first, but he wasn't there; his source was Peter. Luke was the consummate historian, but he wasn't there; his most likely source was Jesus' mother Mary. Matthew, the tax collector, was there from the time he was called. John, the beloved, was there. Matthew was surely educated; John was not. But John was "the disciple whom Jesus loved" and was very close to Jesus from the beginning.
Not contradictions. Contrast. Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the "synoptic Gospels". The word means that we see the whole together through them. They tell most of the same events from different perspectives.
I hope I didn't bore you today, but this is critical in your understanding of Scripture.
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