Now if it is true that He had been there three or four times after His baptism, as John testifies, it is false that He lived but three months after His baptism, and that He was crucified the first time He went to Jerusalem.

If it is said that these first three Evangelists really mean but one year, but that they do not indicate distinctly the others which elapsed since His baptism; or that John understood that there was but one Easter, although he speaks of several, and that he only anticipated the time when he repeatedly tells us that the Easter feast of the Jews was near at hand, and that Jesus went to Jerusalem, and, consequently, that there is but an apparent contradiction upon this subject between the Evangelists, I am willing to accept this; but it is certain that this apparent contradiction springs from the fact, that they do not explain themselves in all the circumstances that are noted in the narration which they make.  Be that as it may, there will always be this inference made, that they were not inspired by God when they wrote their biographies of Christ.

Here is another contradiction in regard to the first thing which Jesus

Christ did immediately after His baptism; for the first three Evangelists state, that He was transported immediately by the Spirit into the desert, where He fasted forty days and forty nights, and where He was several times tempted by the Devil; and, according to what John says, He departed two days after His baptism to go into Galilee, where He performed His first miracle by changing water into wine at the wedding of Cana, where He found Himself three days after His arrival in Galilee, more than thirty leagues from the place in which He had been.

In regard to the place of His first retreat after His departure from the desert, Matthew says that He returned to Galilee, and that leaving the city of Nazareth, He went to live at Capernaum, a maritime city; and Luke says, that He came at first to Nazareth, and afterward went to Capernaum.

They contradict each other in regard to the time and manner in which the apostles followed Him; for the first three say that Jesus, passing on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, saw Simon and Andrew his brother, and that He saw at a little distance James and his brother John with their father, Zebedee.  John, on the contrary, says that it was Andrew, brother of Simon Peter, who first followed Jesus with another disciple of John the Baptist, having seen Him pass before them, when they were with their Master on the shores of the Jordan.

In regard to the Lord’s Supper, the first three Evangelists note that Jesus Christ instituted the Sacrament of His body and His blood, in the form of bread and wine, the same as our Roman Christ-worshipers say; and John does not mention this mysterious sacrament.  John says that after this supper, Jesus washed His apostles’ feet, and commanded them to do the same thing to each other, and relates a long discourse