Matthew: "This is Jesus, the King of the Jews."
Mark: "The King of the Jews."
Luke: "This is the King of the Jews."
John: "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews."
Notwithstanding that we have four supposedly inspired witnesses, the exact wording of the short superscription remains unknown.
We are equally in the dark as to the last words of Jesus: "I thirst," and "It is finished," were his last words according to John.
"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit," are the words reported by Luke.
"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," were the last words according to Matthew and Mark.
When we consider the miracle of the resurrection, it can not escape notice that the documents which tell of it are nothing but a collection of popular rumors which, as usual, contradict one another at every point. There is, on the one hand, for instance, the emphatic and unqualified statement, "So shall the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Then follows an equally unqualified statement that Jesus was buried late Friday, and rose before or at sunrise, Sunday, thereby allowing only, at the utmost, one day and two nights for Jesus to remain in his grave. Again, if the four narrators of the events in Jesus' life were eye-witnesses of them, they would have surely agreed in the report of the place from which Jesus ascended. The writer of the Book of Acts tells us that Jesus ascended to heaven from the Mount of Olivet. The writer of the third Gospel says it was from Bethany that he went up to heaven. The author of the second Gospel intimates that it was from neither of these places that Jesus ascended, but that it was while they were all at dinner. Add to these conflicting reports, the important omission of John, the author of the fourth Gospel, who does not so much as even mention this wonderful finale in the earthly life of the Christian god, and an idea may be formed of the character of the events narrated in our Gospels.
According to one version of the miraculous conversion of Paul, who may be called the real founder of Christianity—at least, the man who was responsible for its introduction into Europe—the men who were with him when he saw his famous vision on the road to Damascus "stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man." This is as explicit as any statement can be. But according to another version the men who were with Paul "saw indeed the light... but they heard not the voice."