ContradictionsReading order 384Bible context 2 min read
Did Jesus preach his first sermon on a mountain or a plain?
Comparable blessings open teachings delivered after an ascent in Matthew and after a descent onto a plain in Luke.
- Textual conflict
- Weak tension
- The alleged conflict needs substantial assumptions, such as treating an omission as a denial or figurative language as literal.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
Similar teaching is staged on a mountain and a plain, but the excerpts do not establish one unique sermon or incompatible geographic boundaries.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Matthew places Jesus' teaching on a mountain
And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:1-3
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Matthew 5
Luke places Jesus' teaching on a plain
And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases;
Luke 6:17
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
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