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Countering Bible Contradictions

If you read the Bible in context and in the literal sense that it is supposed to be read(obviously their are figures of speech, but except for those few, the Bible is to be taken in a lteral sense) then you would know that the Bible does notontradict itself. Now, you can sit their and argue with this till your blue in the face, i don't care, but if you are truly a believer you would pray out this. I'm not here to argue, just here to help. :)


In Christ,
Andrew
 
I went through two years of Bible college and read the entire Bible from cover to cover a few times. I've been Studying the Bible since 91'. I have not found a proven contradiction yet. Sure we can twist meanings and make our own conclusions, but in the end it's still not a proven contradiction.

My $0.02
 
And Muslims will find no proven contradiction in their holy book. Yet when Muslims look at Christian Holy Book, they see all kinds of errors. When Christians looks at Muslim Holy Book, they see all the errors.

I think it is hard to see the problems from the inside.

I think the problems come down to a reasonable interpretation of the story. So say there is a story where a person says "There was one angel at the scene." Another version of the story says "There were two angels at the scene." To someone outside the religion, this looks like a contradiction because if the first person knew there were two angels, he should have mentioned both. It is not a pure logical error since logically they could both be true. However, from an understanding of how people tell stories, it comes across as a contradiction. Multiply this by the 30 to 100 times it happens, and there is a lot of doubt.

But lets look at a simple problem where Jesus rides a donkey into town. To a non-Christian scholar, Matthew appears to have messed up and misread Zechariah 9:9, where it says that Jesus will ride on a donkey, on a colt. The Hebrews meant it as a singular animal. Mark, Luke and John interpret it as a singular animals as well. However, Matthew seems to interpret this as two animals and gives the story with Jesus riding both animals in Matthew 21:1-7 when he says "on them he sat."

I have debated this passage before with Christians. While it appears completely obvious that Matthew misinterpreted a prophecy and tried to make the story fit the prophecy, most Christians can not see it. I think it oges against their belief too much to accept. So instead, look at a simplier problem. What did Jesus say then?

According to Matthew, Jesus said the following words: Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the Lord needs them, and he will send them right away.

According to Mark, Jesus said the following words: Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.'

Does anyone think that Jesus said both things? Or do people think that Mark and Matthew couldn't remember fully and they put down what they remembered and made some mistakes?

If you believe the first thing, you kind of show how far you will go to try to make the Bible literally true. You push credibility very far. If you accept the latter, you have to accept the idea that the Bible may have mistakes because imprefect people wrote it.
 
I disagree, and I would ask any Muslim to open the Bible and show me where there is a proven Bible contradiction.


2Ti 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
 
I have been reading the Bible and following Jesus. I don't understand everything of course but the joy and peace I get from the Bible is real. As days and years go by, my faith is becoming stronger and unshakeable. I will not give it up.

peace :D
 
But lets look at a simple problem where Jesus rides a donkey into town. To a non-Christian scholar, Matthew appears to have messed up and misread Zechariah 9:9, where it says that Jesus will ride on a donkey, on a colt. The Hebrews meant it as a singular animal. Mark, Luke and John interpret it as a singular animals as well. However, Matthew seems to interpret this as two animals and gives the story with Jesus riding both animals in Matthew 21:1-7 when he says "on them he sat."
Click to expand...
There is no discrepancy here at all.

9 ¶ Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King comes to you! He is righteous and being victorious, humble, and riding on an ass, even on a colt, the son of an ass. (LITV)

Where is the contradiction here and where does it suggest one animal only?

9Rejoice exceedingly, O daughter of Zion, Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem, Lo, thy King doth come to thee, Righteous -- and saved is He, Afflicted -- and riding on an ass, And on a colt -- a son of she-asses. (YLT)

The words even and And suggest plural.
 
The discrepancy that Quath is talking about here is the NUMBER of donkey/colt/ass that Jesus asked to bring.

According to Matthew, Jesus said the following words: ...bring them to me ...the Lord needs them

According to Mark, Jesus said the following words: ...bring it here ...'The Lord needs it

Now that is the contradiction since both of them can't be right, either Jesus asked for singular or plural of the animals as recorded by two different people.

Assuming that's what Quath meant. :roll:
 
Disciple88 said:
If you read the Bible in context and in the literal sense that it is supposed to be read(obviously their are figures of speech, but except for those few, the Bible is to be taken in a lteral sense) then you would know that the Bible does notontradict itself. Now, you can sit their and argue with this till your blue in the face, i don't care, but if you are truly a believer you would pray out this. I'm not here to argue, just here to help. :)


In Christ,
Andrew
Click to expand...

EDITED for offensive content

That's what they get! :D


Edit made by Atonement @ 8:15pm PT Sept. 13th 2006
 
StoveBolts said:
I was just browsing the forum this morning, ya know, stretching, drinking some coffee, trying to wake up... Decided to look at the links that Lewis and you left.

Wow... Hey Lewis, why don't we just read our bibles? You know, actually read them, then study them in thier entirety?

Quath,
I also checked out your site. Got about half way down the list and just shook my head. One thing I found interesting (and contridicting) is the fact that the guy uses the traditions of the communitites around the israelites while totally failing to recognize the traditions of the Isrealites. Talk about bias and one sided saturated in total subjectivity... Reminds me of those anti catholic hate sites. :lol: You'd have to be pretty niave to get sucked into believeing that garbage.

But before we go any further, we've already got a thread going... so lets finish one thing before we start another huh? :roll:
Click to expand...

How about you actually respond to the contradictions point-by-point instead of badmouthing the author? Also, when determining whether or not there are contradictions in the bible, it helps not to start with the conviction that the Bible is inerrant and proceed from there.

Try again http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... tions.html
 
Hey Lewis.
I'm stuck working late tonight and was just browsing around and saw your post. Man, it's been a busy day! Glad it's almost over.. whew...

Anyway, here's what I meant. Maybe it's more of a confessional, I don't really know. Does it matter? I'll just ramble as my thoughts come out unededited ok?

Often, we seek to have all the answers the quick way. In other words, we look for the answers that others have found. (i.e. all those sites mentioned). They just seem so.. well, textual without any real substance.

Sometimes we thread scripture together to plea our cause, and we totally miss what the scripture was trying to tell us to begin with. How many people here have read their entire bibles? Me? I havn't. I'm close, but just not there yet. Sure, I've read the NT a few times, even studied it. But the OT is a whole different story. What I've found is that the NT really comes to life the more I read the OT.

When I was debating an athiest in another thread, it was easy to sit back and see his errors without really having to put any forethought into it. Perhaps that showed (my lack of forethought :oops: ), but it was hard to not spell it out for him (he needs to do his own homework). Anyway, I remember a year or so ago when it was hard to keep up with em. But I didn't get that way by reading sites in how to defend the faith against an athiest. I got that way by digging deep into the OT for no other reason than I just wanted to.

For instance, I've listened to Leviticus twice in the past year and recently I read it twice. The second time through I studied it just letting myself ask and seek questions as they arose. Most of it without commentary. Same thing with most of the OT that I've gone through. Currently I'm on Eziekiel. Pretty soon, I'll move into the minor prophets. Once this is done, I plan on doing Hebrews again, then maybe I'll go into revelation. who knows??

I guess my point is this. Those sites can help, but they can also be misleading because it's our nature to take the short cut. Those sites are not a substitute for studying the Bible. I guess I just kind of think that when we defend our faith, a certain part of it has to be from the work that we've already put into our walk with God. Does that make any sense? I guess what I'm afraid of, is that we start tossing these scriptures around not fully understanding their original purpose.

For example, We need to ask WHO wrote the book. Yes, the bible is BIAS, and so are WE and so are THEY. Bias is not a bad word, it just means that you come into something with a presupposistion. The authors of the books in the bible are no different.
Once we realize WHO wrote the book, we have to know WHO the book was written to.After that, we need to know what occured in the first place for the book to be written. In other words, WHAT EVENT spurred the writing? What part of history prevoked the other to write what he wrote, and what bias was his motivating factor for writing it? Here's an example that jumps out of the wood work, it's Lametations. Wow.

I'm starting to see some of my previous errors here and there because I didn't take some of those factore into account. Instead, I searched for the quick and easy way to be smart. Because I took the shortcut, it's easy to put things together that don't belong together. It has been asked, why are there so many denominations? Maybe one answer might be realized within a shortcut.

Learning your bible is hard work. It's something that I know I'll be doing the rest of my life.
 
LemonFresh,
You can't just cut and paste scripture. In other words, it's not about Sola Scripture strictly as a Biblical Theology, it has to encompass the entiretly of all of the critisizm.

But for starters, if you can get behind the texts, they are easily dismissed for what they are. Some Christians use scripture the same way... and I've been guilty. An Athiest uses Sola Scripture to create their own Biblical Theology, but it lacks the background work that needs to accompany his exegesis. Thus, exegsis against exegesis would be the test, not simply batting scripture around.
 
TanNinety said:
The discrepancy that Quath is talking about here is the NUMBER of donkey/colt/ass that Jesus asked to bring.

According to Matthew, Jesus said the following words: ...bring them to me ...the Lord needs them

According to Mark, Jesus said the following words: ...bring it here ...'The Lord needs it

Now that is the contradiction since both of them can't be right, either Jesus asked for singular or plural of the animals as recorded by two different people.

Assuming that's what Quath meant. :roll:
Click to expand...
Yeah, I guess I wasn't as clear as I hoped. There is a discrepancy in the wording that I don't think that people can easily disagree with.

Then there is a discrepancy with the actions that people do disagree with. Matthew seems to clearly state that Jesus rode on two animals: They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. However to a literalist, you can play around with the meaning of words to get the interpretation you desire.

So I was trying to show the two examples as contradictions. One I think is clear and one is something that a non-Christian easily sees.

If you opened the Quran, you would likewise find such contradictions, but to a Muslim they can play with the words and ideas to come up with the interpretation they desire. And they will say there are no contradictions.
 
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