Why are there so many contradictions in the bible?

Question

In the gospels it is claimed that Jesus is in the different places at the same time. The gospels also give conflicting accounts of Jesus' descendency from david. Which is needed to fulfill a prophecy.

Answer 1

It was written in a time when literacy was very poor, and it has been translated and re-translated so many times it's a wonder it's even still readable.  

Answer 2

Because it was written by so many different authors and no one went through it to correct the discrepancies.

Answer 3

It was written by a number of different people over a considerable period of time.  There are numerous references to these contradictions, such as:

Answer 4

YAHOSHUA doesn't force people.  There is adequate information, if you are seeking the truth.

Answer 5

Because it was passed down as oral tradition for centuries, then cobbled together into a book by fallible human scribes.

Answer 6

Because it was written over hundreds, if not thousands of years by different people at different times and in different situations.

Answer 7

People say there are contradictions but what actually are they? Please say and i'll explain them.

EDIT: The Bible gives a clear family line all the way from Jesse to Jesus. I dont know of this being contradicted anywhere. Please state these scriptures so i can have a look. Also, i dont think Jesus is ever said to be in 2 places at once.

P.S - I have read the Bible and not picked up on these.

Answer 8

Phil the Great.

The two differing lines of decendancy from David to Jesus are here

Matthew 1:6-16  Luke 3:21-31  

They also differ in the number of generations. Hope this helps.

Answer 9

It's mostly because you're reading it in a modern English viewpoint with no regard to the original culture or context.

please sign:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/feature...

Answer 10

It's not even a good story.  :C

People told and retold and mistranslated... some people change wording for their own benefit.... etc.

Answer 11

It was written by men, and translated many time.

Christians will just blindly deny the contradictions without any true knowledge of them, or claim "misinterpretation" or some c**p.

They are just too deluded.

Answer 12

1. It was poorly written by men a long time ago.

2. Most of it was plagiarized and "engineered" to fit a certain groups own agendas.

3. Mistranslations (tons of em)

Answer 13

fireball needs to look at the numeral contradictions, as well as youtube.com/user/forbibletruth

the contradictions are there because it's from man. the alleged quran contradictions are false, and that's frickin coming from an atheist

Answer 14

One thing the bible does teach and that is morals.  The morals taught throughout the bible are perfect.

Answer 15

Too many uneducated writers making up the fables.

Answer 16

In your NEXT question please post what you consider to be a contradiction, and I guarantee some fundie will shoot you down !

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Answer 17

The short answer is: because the scribes of the Middle Ages, the people who divided the Bible into "chapters", and people like Jerome who wrote the Septuagint made so many mistakes, some of them intentional, that it only SEEMS like the Bible contradicts itself.

I'm sure someone could teach a whole course on the supposed contradictions of the Bible.  But if you read it in the original Hebrew or Greek, it would not contradict itself.

Answer 18

Such as? What some perceive as a contradiction is either because they have misread it, taken it out of context, don't understand it or because of an error in translation or in copying- later copying, not the original copying.. All so-called contradictions are easily cleared up in this light and none have any effect on the doctrines it teaches.

Answer 19

The Bible is a compilation of many different works written by many different authors, created over a span of a couple of centuries.  Few, if any, of these writers collaborated or consulted with each other until the New Testament texts were written.

These works were collected into an anthology that was called the Bible in AD 325 in Nicea.  They were voted on, from a much larger existing corpus of early Christian writings, as being the writings truest in message to what early Christianity was trying to standardie in itself.

Thus, there are many contradictrions and non sequiturs in the Bible.

Answer 20

There aren't.  There are people who mis-interpret the bible, unintentionally, or willfully out of ignorance or because they have an alterior motive.

The most common issues I see are:

Cultural relativism - people take current Western cultural norms and apply it biblical times. Negating the prevalent cultural nroms or the time, historical events.

Literalist verses Literal interpretation. - A literalist is a person who only takes into account the actual words on the page. NOT the intent of the writer (over all message), the audience it was being written for, nor any common idioms or figures of speach of that time.  A Literal interpretation, on the other hand, takes all these into account, plus cultural norms and historical events BEFORE rendering a final interpretation.

Mistakening the Bible for a scientific document - The bible is not

deisnged to render scientific information. The scientific method was not even formalized during that time. This goes back to Literalist interpretations.. non of the books of the bible were written to convey scientific information.  Looking at the bible for such info is not taking into account its central purpose.

Mistakening the Bible for a book of Social Reform - The bible is not about social reform or changing the over all laws of society or of the government. It is about changing the hearts and souls of humankind..from the inside out.  The bible does try to change certain societal norms like slavery. Certain norms were instituted before the bible and it would cause consider chaos and uphival to change them. The bible focusses on changing the individuals heart.

Mistakening defining things and condoning things - because the bible mentions certain topics or relays certain historic events, is not the same as condoning them. This is obvious in how the bible deals with slavery. - Setting some laws or limits is not the same as condoning it. Slavery was in practice before the OT was written down.  If other guidelines are adhered to, slavery wouldn't be an issue. Again, the bible isn't about over arching social change and over throwing the established order.

There are other common errors but these are the biggees which most people who claim the bible is in error tend to make.  

Answer 21

If it's infallible, why should there be even one?

For PHIL THE GREAT: It's infallible? That means that no one part can contradict what another part says, right?

if you're talking historical accuracy, here's a point that needs to be considered...in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), Jesus and the disciples have a Last Supper during the Passover meal...we are specifically told it is the Passover meal in all three books...but in the Gospel of John, Jesus is crucified at the moment the Passover lambs are killed - the Passover lambs that are to be eaten at the Passover meal that will happen later that day/evening...so, in other words, Jesus is crucified a day earlier in the Gospel of John than He is crucified in the synoptic gospels...

It's easy enough to look up, and it's there in black & white...I'm not referencing anything except the Bible, and it's not going to matter what translation you use, either...so the meaning of Jesus's death is enhanced by John's gospel - becoming directly equated with the old Jewish sacrificial system and therefore replacing it by becoming "the Lamb of God" - but either John's gospel or else the synoptic gospels must be wrong about WHEN Jesus was crucified - they can't both be correct in an historical sense...hense, historically, it is not infallible...

So, Phil,  the Bible is not really about something that "happened"...it's about something that "happens" to you when you encounter it as a spiritual text - not a scientific one, and not an historical one...so the "truth" of the Bible is really going to be a subjective experience...if you find that it's lessons will lead you to be a better person, than I would encourage a person to become a Christian and enjoy the positive benefits that fellowship in that religion will bring you...but not everybody that becomes a Christian does become a better person - some people invest themselves into a darkness and anger and paranoia that they not only embrace, but insist others embrace too...those people probably shouldn't be anywhere around Christianity...not only do they tend to make the religion look bad, but on a personal level the darkness in them only gets blacker with time....

Sorry Monkey Man for taking up so much of your space...

Answer 22

For the same reason that, in almost any police investigation, or reporter's investigation, there are contradictions among the witnesses.  Not every witness perceives God's word in the same way.  So there are many contradictions of fact.

And also for the same reason two doctors might give two different diagnoses, or two historians two different conclusions, or two commentators two different analyses, from the same set of facts: personal beliefs and personal commitments get in the way of what God is saying.  So there are many contradictions of doctrine.

The real question is: why didn't God fully possess the minds and hearts of the biblical writers, to prevent them from making any mistakes at all?  I think the answer is twofold: 1) God will not violate anyone's free will to that extent; and 2) the bible isn't and never was God's project. Humankind invented it as a tool to unify teaching.  (In which task, it hasn't really succeeded.)

Answer 23

There are none. The problem is that humans are not able to rightly divide the word. Much of what is thought of a contradictions are misinterpretations.

Answer 24

I'm not sure this is the right way to answer your Q but I believe that the writings in the Bible are the same as if there was an incident say for instance a car accident ten people some standing right next to each other see the incident though from different angles and all give the police a statement of events, it is possible when reading the statements to think some are lying about what they saw, some people will actually see things differently because they see it from their own eyes some add a bit, some leave things out to me this is what takes place in the stories in the Bible.  At the end of the day the accident did happen and most of the witnesses will report the same thing even though some changes may differ. .

The truths contained in the Bible are all fact it is just sometimes those witnessing may differ in their  reports. One fact is irrefutable God sent His only begotten Son to die on a cross to save sinners such as you and me, All we have to do is ask Him to be our Saviour and to follow Him and we will stand before Him on the Day of Judgement sanctified by the blood shed for us by Jesus Christ.

To God be the Glory

Answer 25

I don't think the Bible claims this at all.

The reason, as far as I am aware, for any 'discrepancy' in the genealogies is because although God was Jesus' true Father it was thought by men that Joseph was his father. Therefore we have the lines of both Mary and Joseph.

Answer 26

Some people here claim that the bible is poorly written. But how can this be if the bible is the perfect word of a perfect god? So either god isn't perfect, or the bible isn't really the word of god. In which case, what is the point of christianity?

Answer 27

Because the writers of the various parts of it knew little, and read even less. Then, the editors of it, later on, blinded by their own faiths, found that if they were to acknowledge those errors, and deal with them, that they would be conflicted in their faith, so they did what most religious people do: Ignore it and hope that it goes away. At a time when literacy and writing was rare, this might have worked. Now that books are plentiful and literacy is near total, this methods fails in a very large way.

As for the numbnuts who don't know about the biblical contradictions, well, they display their own ignorance of their holy book. Its funny yet true that atheists tend to have a MUCH better education in the bible than do believers. And, theres hundreds of such contradictions.

The Bible is riddled with repetitions and contradictions, things that the Bible bangers would be quick to point out in anything that they want to criticize. For instance, Genesis 1 and 2 disagree about the order in which things are created, and how satisfied God is about the results of his labors. The flood story is really two interwoven stories that contradict each other on how many of each kind of animal are to be brought into the Ark--is it one pair each or seven pairs each of the "clean" ones? The Gospel of John disagrees with the other three Gospels on the activities of Jesus Christ (how long had he stayed in Jerusalem--a couple of days or a whole year?) and all four Gospels contradict each other on the details of Jesus Christ's last moments and resurrection. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke contradict each other on the genealogy of Jesus Christ's father; though both agree that Joseph was not his real father. Repetitions and contradictions are understandable for a hodgepodge collection of documents, but not for some carefully constructed treatise, reflecting a well-thought-out plan.

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PAUL SAID, "God is not the author of confusion," (I Corinthians 14:33), yet never has a book produced more confusion than the bible! There are hundreds of denominations and sects, all using the "inspired Scriptures" to prove their conflicting doctrines.

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The bible: The worst edited book ever.

Answer 28

Because Loads of different people at loads of different times wrote parts of it, taking bits and pieces from other religions while they did it. For some reason the ones who were alive at the same time forgot to check with each other about what they'd written.

Answer 29

Because the slack-jawed goat-herders that wrote it weren't smart enough to notice them. And the slack-jawed politicians, clerics and translators that edited it weren't smart enough to remove them.

Answer 30

It was written by man, who is imperfect. It was also translated from language to language, and errors and contradictions may has crept in.

And the current order of the "books" of the4 Bible are not in chronological order, which also confuses things.

Answer 31

God witnesses to its truth.

Those who hate God will call Him a liar and strengthen themselves with foolish objections.

If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.

He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.

And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.