I was praying last night, and God quickened to me a Scripture passage in John 10. In the first half of that chapter, the author contrasts the differences between the Good Shepherd and others in their relationship to the sheep. There are two rather innocuous verses sitting in the middle that I seemed to have missed in my six months of memorizing because they are surrounded by a short inclusio of two very important verses.
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
Sitting right there in the middle are two verses that talk about how a hired hand sees a wolf coming and flees, protecting himself. What I failed to catch was that the reverse is also true: Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, sees the wolf coming and DOES NOT flee. Instead, he stays and fights for his sheep so that they do not scatter.
This concept flows right into verses 27-29, which talks about the enemy's inability to snatch anyone out of the Father's hands:
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
I realize, of course, that in context Jesus is talking about how he is going to die for humanity, thereby establishing the kingdom of God. So like all passages related to the kingdom, there is definitely a "not yet" (eternal) aspect to these verses. What I failed to see is that there is also a "now" aspect to the chapter. "Now" that Jesus is raised from the dead and sitting at the right hand of the throne of God, we have the ability through the Holy Spirit to recognize who is the Shepherd and who is the wolf. "Now," when we see the wolf coming, we can call on Jesus to defend us, because he is the Good Shepherd who does not flee. "Now" when we feel like God has abandoned us, we can set our hope on the truth that the enemy, no matter how strong he seems at the time, cannot snatch us out of the Father's hands.
I guess it comes down to what you mean by infallible. Some people, unfortunately, believe that the Bible is without mistake (i.e., inerrancy). Even a casual foray into biblical interpretation will show that there are many, many scribal errors and post-biblical corrections in the ancient manuscripts. Indeed, given the writing conditions for many of these manuscripts, it is not unsurprising that there are over 200,000 spelling and word errors alone (F.F. Bruce addresses many of these in his books, most notably in "The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?"). The true definition of infallibility is that the Bible is useful for all matters of Christian faith and practice. A document can have errors in it and still overall be trustworthy. Every historical document has errors in it (especially if it has ever been copied) but we still trust their historical narratives today. [As a side note for those concerned with the above revelation, none of these errors or additions add or remove doctrines that do not already exist in the Bible. One can (and should) trust that the text of the Bible we read today is within 98% accurate to the oldest copies of the manuscripts known to exist.]
Frankly, the fact that there are differing opinions about this story points to the fact that the story actually occurred. In other words, if the early Church made up the gospels as some people surmise, one would expect these annoying little differences to be adjusted in the final product. The presence of these differences shows that real people wrote these accounts, but they just happened to remember them differently. Given that the first gospels began to show up 20-30 years after the events described, this is also not unsurprising.
Joosep, your determination about first hand vs. second hand accounts is probably the cause of this discrepancy. Or perhaps the two authors just remembered the details differently. The brain has a way of changing the little details we remember over time. I saw a documentary about people who had experienced 9/11 in the same house as it was happening live on TV. They brought them together years later, and the producers found that people in the same room watching the same broadcasts had widely different remembrances of the events that occurred. None of them, however, disputed that 9/11 happened. Perhaps it is the same thing here.