Unify or divide

Are you a splitter or joiner?

I remember the events of 9/11 distinctly. I watched as much of the television coverage as I could. I read through dozens of accounts of the awful tragedy. Each one was filled with eyewitness testimony that recalled how planes rammed the towers of the World Trade Center and the pandemonium that ensued when the skyscrapers collapsed. Hundreds of newspapers would recount the tragic stories of lost loved one and life-or-death heroism.

And yet, despite the fact that the world’s attention was riveted on the attack, no two accounts of the events of those stories are the same. They all differ on the details. The reason is obvious. Each eyewitness recollects specific things. The fact that none of the stories agree does not mean in principle that any of them are wrong. They are simply different.

How strange it is that people so often say that disagreements between biblical stories told more than once shows the Bible is unreliable. For example, there are instances in the Gospels where one gospel writer has two people in a scene with Jesus, but another has one or less. People scream contradiction! Not exactly. In most cases, harmonizing disagreements between stories is not difficult or unreasonable. And because of the familiarity we have with being exposed to multiple reports of the same even, the impulse to put them together is quite normal

The issue of harmonizing passages that disagree is actually of profound theological importance

There are many descriptions of the second coming of Jesus in the New Testament, as well as the Old Testament passages about the arrival of the Messiah at the end of the age. They do not agree on all the details. For example,

1 Thessalonians 4:17 LEB

Then we who are alive, who remain, will be snatched away at the same time together with them in the clouds for a meeting with the Lord in the air, and thus we will be together with the Lord always.

has the Lord meeting believers in the air when he comes back.

Zechariah 14:4–5 LEB

On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in half, from east to west, by a very great valley; and half of the mountain will withdraw toward the north, and the other half toward the south. And you will flee by the valley of my mountains, because the valley of the mountains will reach to Azal, and you will flee like you fled from the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah. And Yahweh my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.

, however, has the Messiah returning to earth and setting foot on the Mount of Olives. The same passage in 1st Thessalonians has believers being caught up to be with the Lord in the air.

Revelation 19:11–16 LEB

And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and the one seated on it was called “Faithful” and “True,” and with justice he judges and makes war. Now his eyes were a flame of fire, and on his head were many royal headbands having a name written that no one except he himself knows. And he was dressed in an outer garment dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies that are in heaven, dressed in clean, white fine linen, were following him on white horses. And out of his mouth came a sharp sword, so that with it he could strike the nations. And he will shepherd them with an iron rod, and he stomps the winepress of the wine of the furious wrath of God, the All-Powerful. And he has a name written on his outer garment and on his thigh: “King of kings and Lord of lords.”

has Jesus returning on a white horse with an army.

Christians over the centuries have disagreed on how to approach these disagreements. Many opt to harmonize the accounts, to join them together into a grand portrayal of a single event: the second coming. Others, however, prefer to keep them separate. Splitting up the descriptions of the Lord’s return into two events – the removal of believers (living and dead) from the earth and the second coming after that.

Whether you are a splitter, or a joiner depends on the interpretive decision you make.