The Inscription on the Cross

7/29/2019 The Inscription on the Cross

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The Inscription on the Cross (I.N.R.I.)

What was written on the inscription above Jesus on the cross? Matthew wrote,

"This is Jesus, the king of the Jews (27:37)."; Mark wrote, "The king of the

Jews (15:26)."; Luke wrote, "This is the king of the Jews (23:38)."; and John

wrote, "Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews." The difference betweenMatthew and Mark's account is that Mark did not bother to write, "This is

Jesus" before "king of the Jews." There is no contradiction here, just an

elimination of part of the phrase Matthew quoted. There does seem to be a

contradiction, however, between Matthew, Luke, and John's account. The only

element common to all is "King of the Jews."

This is not the only occurrence of this type of "contradiction." When the four

writers of the gospels tell the same story, many times each will record Jesus'

words a little differently. The ways in which they quote Jesus are almost

identical, containing only slight variations. This is easily explained by

understanding the fact that Jesus most likely spoke in Aramaic (a form of

Hebrew) as His regular dialect of speech, while the New Testament was

inspired in Greek. It is impossible to give a word-for-word translation whenyou translate from one language to another. There are even different ways in

which one can translate the language. There are different words that one

translator could use to explain the foreign words, while another translator

might use different words to convey the same basic meaning. Both would be

understood nearly the same, and when combining the two translations

together, one will get a more precise meaning of what the original speaker

meant when he said what he said in his native language. This is what the

authors of the Bible did. Each used the word order and word choice they

thought accurately conveyed the meaning and intentions of Jesus' words.1


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It is also helpful to understand that each gospel was directed toward a certain

group of people. Matthew was written mainly for Jewish believers; Mark for

the Romans; Luke for the Greeks; and John for Gentiles in general (John

20:31). We know the accusation on the cross was written in three different

languages: Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Each reading, then, because they were

in different languages, would read slightly different because of the differentword choices and grammar of each language. Not only this, but it might also

be considered that when Pilate wrote the three versions, he would have made

each a little different so that the length of the phrases would be similar, or so

that all three translations would fit on the place of transcription.

It is plausible then, that since Matthew wrote to Jews, he would have chosen

to translate the Hebrew wording into the Greek language because that would

have been the phrase the Jews would have read when they saw Jesus on the

cross. Mark might have chosen to translate the Latin phrase into Greek since

he was writing to those who would have read the Latin version of Jesus'

accusation on the cross. Since Luke wrote his gospel to the Greeks, he might

have written the Greek version of Jesus' accusation. John did not seem to

focus on any certain ethnic group, but rather wrote his gospel so that all menwould believe that Jesus was the Son of God. The rendering he chose might

have been a paraphrase of all three, or one of the versions.


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Even if none of the gospels recorded the exact wording of what was written

over the cross, it really does not matter. The gospel writers were not

concerned with the exact wording, but were concerned with the exact

meaning. We must not impose modern standards of recording history, or

quotations, and apply them to the ancient world. They simply were not so

much concerned with an exact account or account, but were more concerned

with the exact meaning. Whatever the wording on the cross was, we can beassured that the gospel writers have preserved the meaning for us today.

Footnotes

1. Remember that although the Holy Ghost divinely inspired the Scriptures, it

was not at the expense of overriding the author's literary style, vocabulary,

etc.

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The Inscription on the Cross