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What did the sign on Jesus’ cross say?

Posted on Jan.15, 2009. Filed in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Average rating: 1.5 / 10 (Rate It).

When someone was crucified by the Romans, a sign would be affixed above them giving the reason for their execution. Each of the gospels gives a different account of what the sign above Jesus said.

In Mark’s version of the events, the sign read simply, “The King of the Jews”:

The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’ [Mark: 15:26 (NRSV)]

Luke’s version of the sign is slightly longer, but is basically the same:

There was also an inscription over him, ‘This is the King of the Jews.’ [Luke: 23:38 (NRSV)]

Matthew says that the sign over Jesus also gave his name:

Over his head they put the charge against him, which read, ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.’ [Matthew 27:37 (NRSV)]

John’s sign is different again, including the detail that Jesus was from Nazareth:

Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.’ [John: 19:19 (NRSV)]

So what exactly did the sign over Jesus say?

N.B. All posts are written in a style sympathetic to the claim of Biblical error, even in cases where the author ("Errancy") disagrees with the claim. See the About page for the site's philosophy.

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Inerrantist Responses

  • Modern standards for direct quotation do not apply: <p>What has to be the case for a statement to be true depends on the statement's meaning. Meaning is determined by more than just the words used; this is why "the door's over there" can be an instruction to leave rather than just information about the location of the door. (Among the factors that affect meaning are context and convention.) You can't always tell what would have to be the case for a statement to be true just by looking at the words that it contains.</p><p>Literary conventions about precision in direct quotation have varied over time. Although now we'd say that "Friends, Romans, countrymen, listen up!" is a misquotation, by other standards (e.g. by biblical standards) it would be fine because it accurately captures the meaning. The same quotation can thus be either accurate or inaccurate depending on what conventions are in play.</p><p>If we read the biblical verses above bearing in mind that they were written before there was a literary convention that direct quotations should be word-perfect, they don't make any claims about the precise wording of the sign over Jesus. All they make claims about is the meaning of the sign. All four descriptions of the sign agree about its meaning, even if they use slightly different words to express it. This is enough for us to judge that the gospels agree as to what the sign said; the minor differences aren't a problem for inerrancy.</p>
  • The sign said ‘This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’: <p>Quotations don't have to be complete to be accurate. To quote Shakespeare accurately, it isn't necessary to quote an entire play, a couple of lines will do. Similarly, to quote the sign over Jesus accurately, it isn't necessary to quote the whole thing. Each of the authors of the gospels gives us part of the text on the sign. By combining their quotations, we can see that the whole thing read "This is Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews".</p>
  • There were three inscriptions in three languages, each worded differently: <p>John tells us that the sign over Jesus was written in three languages: "Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek." [John 19:20] In each language, the wording of the sign was slightly different.</p> <p>Matthew gives the wording of the sign in one language; Mark and Luke give it in a second language (with Mark omiting "This is", but accurately preserving the sign's substance); John gives it in a third. All four accounts thus accurately describe the wording of the sign, despite the differences between them.</p>

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Comments

  1. 1
    Errancy
    January 16th, 2009 on 12:12 am

    I don’t see this as a contradiction; to apply modern standards for precision of direct quotations to the Bible is an anachronism. The authors of the gospels didn’t intend to give the precise wording of the sign, and their readers would have understood this. For all of the relevant verses to be true, the sign would just have to say something that would make them an accurate paraphrase of at least part of it, e.g. “Jesus, King of the Jews”.

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