The Mirror or the Mask, 6 of 7: Gospel Differences and the Reportage Model

In my recent book, The Mirror or the Mask: Liberating the Gospels from Literary Devices, I argue that the Gospels are historical reportage. This argument involves both positive evidence for literal accuracy and arguments against the views of Michael Licona, Craig Evans, and others that the evangelists felt free to make historical changes due to the literary conventions of their time. Dr. Licona has recently released a video series in which he claims to refute my work in The Mirror or the Mask. In this series, I respond. If you're interested in more information on these issues, please see the accompanying blog posts and, most importantly, The Mirror or the Mask itself.  In this episode, I discuss the way that the reportage model--which is just the view that the Gospel authors were trying to report with literal historical truthfulness and were highly successful--deals with some specific Gospel differences. I also discuss how that differs from the way that the compositional device model deals with them.  My deepest thanks to Immanuel Fellowship Church for their studio facilities and hard work in helping me to put together this video series. This episode was originally published on Jul 24, 2020 on YouTube.

Associated blog post: https://lydiaswebpage.blogspot.com/2020/07/new-licona-series-gospel-differences.html  The Mirror or the Mask: https://www.amazon.com/Mirror-Mask-Liberating-Gospels-Literary/dp/1947929070  Michael Licona, Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? https://www.amazon.com/Why-Are-There-Differences-Gospels/dp/0190264268  Lydia McGrew on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lydia.mcgrew.5    Mike Licona's video series on my work: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpPGCP1zKznR06Jxb5RaQYrNIiH7xR7ZR