WAS JAIRUS' DAUGHTER DEAD OR DYING? (MATTHEW 9:18 vs MARK 5:22-23)

I came across a blog site called "Counter Apologetics" by Emerson Green the other day. He has come up with what he feels are the ten most unanswerable contradictions found in the Bible. Most of them have already been dealt with rather easily in my earlier posts. However, I will now try to counter his counter-apologetics on three new ones he brings up. Today I would like to briefly examine the question as to whether Jairus' daughter was already dead when Jairus first approached Jesus for help.

There are three parallel accounts of this miracle of resurrection, cf. Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8. The apparent problem comes in when we look at Matthew's narrative in comparison with the other two. As Jairus first approaches Jesus, he says that his daughter “is even now dead” (Matthew 9:18), “is at the point of death” (Mark 5:23), or “is dying” (Luke 8:41). Note how Matthew appears to contradict the other two versions which actually only have a messenger come to Jairus with the news of his daughter's actual death slightly later as Jesus is going to her.

It turns out that rather than being an unanswerable, black-and-white contradiction, there are in fact several ways to resolve this issue adequately.

1. In all three accounts, there is actually another miracle sandwiched in between the start and end of the resurrection. And if you compare the lengths of each version with one another, it turns out that Matthew covers the miracles in only nine verses compared to seventeen in Luke and twenty-three in Mark. Thus, several commentators note that Matthew's appears to be a greatly condensed version of the whole story. As Hill says, “According to Mark, the girl was 'at the point of death', and a message came later that she had died. Matthew abbreviates the narrative.” And Blomberg states, “Matthew abbreviates Mark, this time to such an extent that he seems to contradict the parallel accounts.”

Thus, as Barbieri says, “This apparent discrepancy is explained by the fact that while Jesus was speaking to Jairus, someone came from his house to tell him the girl had died. Matthew did not mention that detail, and therefore included the report of the girl's death in Jairus' request.”

2. “If Matthew and Luke represent severely condensed versions, carefully honed to essentials over the years, Mark must evidently have found – in his own sources – that he could add life and detail and so fleshed out what he found.” (Mann)

Note that Approach #1 assumes that Mark's was the earliest account while #2 assumes that it was composed later than Matthew's and Luke's Gospels.

3. The next possibility lies in the different wording in the three accounts in relation to the girl's death. Nixon says, “It would appear that Jairus meant [in Matthew's version] that his daughter was already good as dead, and that actual occurrence of death was shortly confirmed.”

And Blomberg goes into a little more detail regarding the Greek wording, explaining that “there is not nearly so much difference between Matthew's arti eteleutesen in v. 18 (which could fairly be translated 'just came to the point of death'[; cf. Heb 11:22) and eschatos echei in Mark 5:2-3 (which could be rendered 'is dying').

4. Finally, there are two more aspects to take into account, both described by Blomberg, who first states that “to call this a contradiction is anachronistically to impose on an ancient text modern standards of precision in story telling.” This is a common ploy used by Bible critics, who tend to require the early narrators to have a thorough grasp of modern notions and terminology for all natural phenomena.

5. Blomberg goes on to say, “What is more, in a world without modern medical monitors to establish the precise moment of expiry...what is important is not the precise moment of death but Jairus's astonishing faith.” I know that either my wife and I or a nurse were constantly at my aunt's bedside as she lay dying. For hour after hour she showed absolutely no sign of life except the slight amount of brain activity indicated by her monitors. Her breathing was too shallow to detect and her pulse was so weak, it was barely detectable. Without a precise brain-activity monitor, we would have had no idea when over a several-hour period was her exact time of death.