And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
They cancel out one another. God actually changes his mind? For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. So God made a deal with the Hebrews that had faults in it? God is imperfect? Long after I stopped being a Christian, I started realizing there were other things about The Bible that made no sense, whether logically or emotionally. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
I now have a son. Also: If Adam and Eve were the original humans, how did the world populate itself without incest? For your edification and enlightenment, here are 30 more pairs of Bible verses that contradict one another:. Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side.
The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing , neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.
The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee. And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month…Nebuzaradan…came…unto Jerusalem… —2 Kings Ye see then how that by works a man is justified , and not by faith only. Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months.
Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem… —2 Chronicles Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy…and they shall be your possession…they shall be your bondmen forever.
Undo the heavy burdens… let the oppressed go free,…break every yoke. And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.
For all have sinned , and come short of the glory of God. There was a man…who name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright.
Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign. Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign. Submit yourself to every ordinance of man …to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors. The Church through the ages has acknowledged this status by referring to the Bible as its canon, which means that the Bible is the written standard for its faith and practice.
I can think of five common objections that I have heard over the years:. Having thought about these issues over the years that I have been a biblical scholar, I would like to offer the following responses to these objections. Is Abijah a good king 2 Chronicles 13 or a bad one 1 Kings ? Were humans created last Gen. Of course, these are just samples from countless others that people like to bring up.
The Gospels are not meant to be simply factual reports, but bring out the theological significance of real events for their intended contemporary audience. Namely, Jesus speaking on a mountain about the law would remind them how God gave Moses the law on Mount Sinai Exodus : Luke, written primarily for Hellenistic Christians, would not pick up on that connection so readily.
The same is true concerning the account of Abijah in Kings and Chronicles. The two histories are using the history of Israel and Judah to answer questions relevant to their time. The author of Kings writes to those who survived the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians to explain why they are in exile.
Chronicles, on the other hand, was written to the post-exilic community and, among other matters, is interested in choosing events in the life of their kings that show their devotion to God. As for the two accounts of creation : While they both are interested in telling us who created everything, neither are interested in telling us how he did it. Neither one is telling us the actual sequence of creation, but describes creation in figurative language.
We can turn to science and ask the questions how God did it. In my forty-plus years as a professional biblical scholar, I have yet to hear such a claim that really sticks once I do a little digging. I suggest that others do as well. Yes, the Bible is full of prejudice, violence, attempted genocide, and injustice. The Bible, after all, gives us the brutal truth about sinful human beings. But, while it is hard to get our 21st century Western minds around it, these are stories of justice, bad people receiving the judgment that they deserve.
God brings the Flood against violent humanity Gen. The hard truth of the Bible is that people who reject God and harm other people will eventually receive punishment for them. And this battle develops as time goes on. This battle is won with spiritual truth, righteousness, peace, faith, the word of God , not physical weapons.
Any use of violence today to further or even defend the gospel is sinful. Even so, this move from physical to spiritual warfare in the Old Testament does not carry with it a critique or rejection of what went on the in the Old Testament.
As a matter of fact, the warfare against evil humans and dark spiritual powers come together in the picture the Bible gives us of the final judgment for instance, in Rev. That said, I have to admit that there are matters in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, that I too find hard to understand.
Perhaps, as others suggest, Jericho at this time is a military garrison with few, if any, children, but even if one child died, it is still troubling. Perhaps—and this view is most likely, in my opinion—Canaanite culture was so thoroughly corrupt that it needed to be totally eradicated. In the final analysis, I find myself, like Job at the end of the book of Job, bowing before God in spite of his unexplained suffering.
For others, the picture of God killing or allowing the death particularly of non-combatants will continue to be an obstacle, but I believe we should resist the temptation to explain it away.
Those who wish to discredit the Bible will sometimes come up with lists of contradictions in order to try to discomfit those who believe it. In response, many Christians will perform extraordinary mental gymnastics to attempt to prove that there are no contradictions in the book. But if we study the Bible carefully and deeply, and are honest about what we find, we have to conclude otherwise.
Does the Bible contain contradictions? Now, we need to understand what this means. It is not denying that it is the revealed truth of God, the word of God. But, nonetheless, it contains contradictions. The thing is this: the Bible was written by many people over a long period of time. And so they bring their interests, their priorities, their concerns and their perspectives to what they write.
And those perspectives are often different. It can be argued that this makes the Bible stronger and more valuable than if it were some sort of direct download from heaven. There are a number of different types of contradiction, and we need to think about them separately. First, there are minor contradictions that probably result from damage to the texts. What we do have is a large number of ancient copies — some relatively complete, and some very fragmentary.
We know that occasionally small errors creep in in the copying process. So, an example of such a contradiction would be:. Saul was one year old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel. The biblical story that goes along with this verse clearly tells how Saul was a grown man when he was anointed king, and reigned for many years. Biblical scholars are almost unanimous that this contradiction is a simple case of text corruption through scribal error.
Sometimes there are minor contradictions because of multiple witnesses to an event. All four of the gospel accounts testify clearly to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. But they disagree over minor details. For example: who arrived first at the tomb? The few believers in Jesus Christ in those days were scared, scattered and bewildered; their recollection of the most important fact is seared on their memories, but minor details are remembered differently by different witnesses.
There is no reason for this to lessen our confidence in the truth of the resurrection. It is well known that when multiple witnesses stand up in court and give absolutely identical accounts of an event, they have probably fabricated it.
The minor divergences serve to authenticate the testimony about the main fact. Sometimes different accounts arise because different authors have different theological concerns, and the way they tell the story is crafted to reflect that priority.
A good example is when Jesus enters the Temple in Jerusalem to cleanse it. The gospel writers differ in where they place this event in the ministry ofJesus — at the beginning, or the end. It is possible that Jesus did the action twice. But it is more likely that this event, rich in symbolic meaning, is being interpreted in different ways by the writers, who then shape their narrative to highlight that particular element of the rich meaning.
For them, they want to show us that Jesus is the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies that one day God would visit and judge the Temple. So, although the writers differ in their chronology, what they are really doing is expressing different facets of this richly symbolic action. One of the main reasons that we find apparent contradictions in the Bible is because they are there deliberately.
There are two main reasons why this might happen. The first is to show us that a character in the story is an unfaithful witness.
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