005. If the Bible is verbally inspired, why do not the Gospel writers give Jesus’ and other ...

If the Bible is verbally inspired, why do not the Gospel writers give Jesus’ and other persons’ words exactly? I can understand how their accounts of acts may differ, but His words cannot properly be rendered one way by Matthew and another way by Luke if verbal inspiration, as applied for instance to Galatians 3:16 ("seeds” or “seed"), is correct. The Gospel writers do give “persons’ words” exactly when it claims to give them exactly. When they only claim to give the substance of what they said they may not be given exactly. But while they give Jesus’ words exactly they do not always claim to give all that He said, so Matthew may give part of what He said, and Luke another part of what He said, and to get all that He said both accounts must be taken. Matthew gives the part that was adapted to his purpose, and Luke the part that was adapted to his. It is well that they are given in just this way, for it is one of the many incidental proofs that the Gospels are independent of one another and not composed in collusion with one another.

Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that the words of Jesus given by Matthew and Luke were spoken in Aramaic and translated by Matthew and Luke into Greek. There is reason to suppose that the utterances recorded by Matthew, Mark and Luke were largely utterances that Jesus gave in Aramaic, while those recorded by John were largely those that Jesus spoke in Greek, for it must be remembered that in the time of Jesus the people in Palestine were a bilingual people.