Sometimes Muslims wonder why we have four gospel records. This illustration may help to clarify the issue.
In one court case a judge heard four different witnesses so he could establish the truth about the case in hand.
This first witness tells his story taking fifteen minutes, the second witnesses tells the same story, word for word, also taking fifteen minutes.
The third and fourth witnesses tell the identical story. In another cases the judge also interrogates four witnesses but, her first one takes only ten minutes; the second takes twenty minutes with extra details; the third only takes five minutes and the fourty version takes fourteen minutes.
Each described the same incident in his own words.
How would you react if you were the judge in each of these cases? Surely you would be suspicious concerning the trustworthiness of the reports of the witnesses in the first case. What is the use of having four identical reports anyway?
In the second case we have four witnesses describing the truth in their own words from different angles. In the Bible God has given us four Gospel records- each account with its own emphasis. In each Gospel we see the truth presented from a different angle.