Entering or Exiting Jericho: a contradiction in the gospels?

[PappaBear]

Take your time, B.

I'm surprised no one else has offered some sort of defense for a harmonization.  The options (none good) are 2 separate healings, 1 elongated healing while entering then exiting, 2 different Jerichoes, "near" doesn't mean "near"...

There is too much detail given, for any question that these are two separate incidents.  The account of heading into Jericho, heading out of Jericho, and going to Jerusalem are included in both passages.  One unnamed blind man is healed, one named blind man is healed, and many others are healed, who aren't mentioned.
  Dig this:  Bartimeus, being blind, would hear everything.  He heard how this man had been healed entreating the 'Son Of David'  , so he used the same words...haven't we all done that (Jabez)?  Jesus also heals Blind Bart, but tells him, instead of 'thy faith hath saved thee', 'thy faith hath made thee whole.'  Maybe his faith was in the prayer, not the person?
  Food for thought.

Anishinabe

So you think it might be 2 different blind men w/ the same exact scenario and statements???  I think that is pushing plausibility.  They were clearly borrowing from the same tradition of the same story.  Your scenario is concocting a story that the text does not validate.  It sounds good, but the text, read individually, sees these as the same thing from different perspectives.

Noting the similarities in the parallel passages as "borrowing from the same tradition of the same story" you ignore the third witness of the synoptics in Matthew which indeed indicates there were TWO blind men. 

Matthew 20:
29 ¶  And as they departed from Jericho, a great multitude followed him.
30  And, behold, two blind men sitting by the way side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David.
31  And the multitude rebuked them, because they should hold their peace: but they cried the more, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou Son of David.
32  And Jesus stood still, and called them, and said, What will ye that I shall do unto you?
33  They say unto him, Lord, that our eyes may be opened.
34  So Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes: and immediately their eyes received sight, and they followed him.

So, we see that there are 2.  One on the way in, one on the way out.  The similarities combined in the Matthew account and summarized there.  Mark with the greatest detail focusing on the last ONE healed, giving his name Bartimaeus.  Luke speaks more generally, and as an orderly historian, begins with the first healing on the way IN, and quite possibly aware of the other synoptic accounts, does not duplicate the same miracle.  One in Mark, plus one in Luke equals two in Matthew.  Both blind, both using the phrase "thou son of David;" both by the road.  One on the way in, one on the way out, kind of a parenthesis statement regarding Jericho.

 

[Timotheos]

I didn't ignore it.  In fact, Matthew's 2 persons being healed throws a monkey in the wrench of your harmonization b/c all three are clearly coming from the same tradition and it puts Matthew in conflict with the account that only mentions one.  I speculate that since Matthew does this frequently mentioning 2 rather than 1, he is theologically motivated in doing so.

Anyways, FSSL, I don't know if you saw it, but I am still interested in the formal debate with CU. 

 

[PappaBear]

I don't see that it makes any conflict or even so much as throws a cat into the chow mein.  All 3 are synoptic.  Matthew combines the 2 events, emphasizing blindness in Jericho.  Mark, with his emphasis on brevity & Christ as Servant, picks out the last healing on the way out and gives the name of the last one.  Luke, the synoptic writer most likely to have read Matt & Mark's accounts and coming from an historian's point of view, writes about the first one entering the city.

But I'll let you have your peace with your formal debate.  Hope it goes well.  Meanwhile, reading the verbally inspired, preserved, and authoritative words of God is a better exercise for me.  *Hat tip </)