This was supposed to be Bart’s go-to and it’s pretty weak sauce
When asked on his blog if there was a “slam-dunk” contradiction that would be impossible to defend, Bart’s reply was this: “I don’t have one that is a slam-dunk. But there are dozens that are pretty good. Here’s one: Jairus came to Jesus to ask him to help his daughter: was the girl dead already and he wanted Jesus to do something about it? Or was she very sick and he wanted him to heal her before she died? (See Mark 5:21-43 and Matthew 9:18-26) I don’t see how it could be both!”
If you read those passages side-by-side, Bart looks like he has a point. But if we look deeper at Matthew’s account compared to Mark’s, we notice that it’s a lot shorter. Matthew tells us the story in just 8 verses, Mark takes 22. Here’s a list of omissions in Matthew’s version:
Jairus is a ruler of the synagogue. Matthew calls him a ‘ruler’.
The crowd following Jesus and pressing him.
The second stage of the story where someone comes and tells him that his daughter is dead.
Jesus takes Peter, James, and John with him.
Jesus takes the girls’ parents into the room with him to raise her.
Jesus’ direction to give her something to eat.
Jesus’ command to keep silent.
That’s a lot of details left out, but Matthew does include the most important parts of the story: Jairus’ daughter died, Jesus said she was sleeping, people laughed Jesus to scorn, and Jesus raised her.
Reducing a piece of literature in terms of time or length to include only its necessary elements is a literary device called compression. Ancient writers used it all the time. As do many modern authors. Matthew has to intimate somewhere that the daughter is dead and not just sick. He shows this in the short summary of Jairus’ interaction with Jesus’ intentions rather using his exact words.
Furthermore, according to Bible commentator G.A. Chadwick, Matthew’s phrase “has died even now” (ἄρτι ἐτελεύτησεν) is very close in meaning to Mark’s “at the point of death” (ἐσχάτως ἔχει).
A worried dad of a sick daughter might say “she’s dead by now” and mean what we’d convey by saying “she’s at the point of death.” Jairus knew that his daughter was at death’s door when he went looking for Jesus. He may have used words to express that his worst fears already came to pass. Both explanations are plausible.
So after taking a deeper look, this isn’t a hopeless contradiction at all. This was supposed to be Bart’s go-to and it’s pretty weak sauce.
