Contridictions in the bible

Why has there been soo many contridictions in the NKV of the bible? is it because of the translations of language to language over the ages,or is it for someone selfish goal?

-STJames

the contradiction lies in what jesus spoke and what people added, read some of his parables, it will definately open some eyes...

the bible was written as you know by many different people and therefore through many different viewpoints on judaism/christianity the books of the bible themselves were hotly contested by many groups prior to 300AD when constantine legalized christianity and ordered 50 copies of the bible....right then the books were canonized because of the cost involved to produce 50 hand written copies they could not go back and just change it so from that point on the apocypha, dead sea scrolls, etc. were excluded also as you mentioned there have been many different translations since the original writings to the current versions meaning has been lost and even added through translation for example the name lucifer was not originally in the bible it is a latin word and the bible was not translated into latin until many years later latin wasnt even spoken at the time and in the area the original hebrew verse which contains this name mentions nothing of lucifer, satan, or the devil but rather to an earthly king who was dethroned but i suppose its more dramatic now maybe it helped win some converts to answer your question there are many reasons for the contradictions perhaps the biggest is that much of it does not represent history

Interesting,Another question.If anyone wanted to ,lets say find the "earliest writings" of jesus' sayings etc,where would thay look,who would thay ask?

-STJames

You would look at Mathew and Mark. Luke is a good look at the life of jesus too. It has most of his sayings and works.

Other than that, I got nothing man

paul wrote the first gospel and the rest were to follow afterwards at different dates however the other 3 are almost identical in many ways which makes it appear as if each gospel were basically written off the ones before it Luke was written by a friend/follower of paul there are many that believe that paul fabricated christianity and is almost soley responsible for its current status many argue that jesus himself didnt claim to be what the gospels claim

The Gospel of Thomas is believed by some quarters to predate the "official" gospels.

reluctant-messenger.com...

My impression is that the moment a person kills another with respect the religious belief we are addressing a contradiction.

This may have not applied 2000 years ago, but today to say differently, bespeaks of a twilight zone episode gone terribly wrong.

Any thoughts?

Hi all,

Lets face it people, the prophets of God came down for one reason!!

In a nutshell they all said the same thing right?

"Worship God, Do good deeds to one another and love eachother"

Right?

In no time did they ever say "Im God, worship me"

The Gospel has been twisted and people have added stuff to it, by those Historians!
None even knows there surname's for cying out loud!!
If i were to go to a bank and withdrawl money and only said my first name, would they let me take money out??

NO!!

The Gospel has been destroyed by Man!!
It isnt Jesus(pbuh) true words!!

Good bye

Guerilla

Did you even bother to look more closely at the Gospel of Thomas? Then you would have seen that it was still on papyrus, and that there couldn't been put additional information on it, or added to a book or something.

You are talking about the publishing of a book which is available for all persons, which has been translated so it is a bit readable for the normal person... the papyrus texts however are still the same, and the Gospel of Thomas is such a scroll.

There hasn't been added any information to it, it is a papyrus scroll, not some written book made for everybody in the 20th. century.

that paul/saul was a supposed cointelpro agent for the roman empire and the faction of jews known as the pharocees...

Im just saying,if we know theres contridictions in the bible,why doesnt anyone try to fix them?

I have read the original Gospel of St. Thomas, and it is not "truth" as one might say.
While I do love some ideals mentioned within it, I look at it in the same way I view "Sun Zi's" Art of War. Great knowledge, great principles, not 100%.

It has been dismissed as heresy by the Vatican, this was in the sixties...
One of the few points I agree on with the Roman Catholic Church.

What controversies are there? You haven't presented any yet?
There are false translations, or, to be politically correct..."inaccurate".

- Tass

[Edited on 4-11-2003 by Tassadar]

Well,,,its almost like the telephone game...The "word" is passed down through generation to generation,,,by the time it gets to present,,it's not the same message anymore,,,if you believe that sort of thing. I personally don't believe everything I read. The bible may be the oldest form of the national enquirer!

Here's a few for you to ponder.

IN GENESIS are two contradictory stories of creation. In Genesis 1:20 & 21, "every living creature" is brought forth from the waters, including every winged fowl." But in 2:19 God brings forth "every beast of the field and every fowl of the air" from dry ground.
In Genesis 1:2, earth comes into existence on the first day, completely underwater. Only by the 3rd day were waters of the deep collected, and dry land formed. But in Genesis 2:4, 5, & 6, earth on the first day was dry land, unwatered.
The first story has trees made on the 3rd day and man formed 3 days later (1:12-13 and 26-31). In the second version man was made before trees (2:7, 9). If chapter 1 is true, then fowls were created before man. If chapter 2 is true, then they were created after man.
Version one teaches man was created after all beasts. The second is clear, Adam was created before beasts. (1:25,27 versus 2:7,19).
In version one, man and woman are created simultaneously (1:27) while in version two (2:7,20-22), man and woman are separate acts of creation.
..
IN GENESIS, the long discredited description of the heavens as a "firmament" is a fundamental contradiction in the Bible of the known realities of astronomy today. Biblical stars, sun and moon are all embedded "in" this firmament. (The meaning, during biblical times, of the word "firmament," was a "solid" body or orb, or the solid concentric domes holding the heavenly bodies ~ Webster's Third International Dictionary.) We are told there are waters below the firmament, and told waters are "above" it, too (1:7). Really!!


BABYLONIAN ASTRONOMERS envisaged earth as a hollow mountain surrounded by a vast sea. Inside the earth lay the dark, dusty realm of the dead. Arching over earth is the "circle of the earth" (Isa. 40:22) or the solid firmament (Greek: solid body; firm foundation) on which moved sun, moon, planets, and stars, somehow. Held above the firmament was water (for rain, to come through "windows"), and the firmament domes were supported by a ring of raised earth set in the midst of the sea. [In later times, astronomy saw the addition of more firmaments to better account for the separate motions of the moon, sun, and planets. The firmaments were seen as complex rotating solid concentric domes, one within another.]
..
Why was the firmament formed in the "midst" of earth's "waters"(1:6)? Clearly, this is an image of a dome-like firmament over flat waters of a flat earth. Had earth commonly been known to be round then, the writers wouldn't need to have God set the domes in the sea, a notion likely conceived to keep seas from draining off over the "edges" or "ends" of the earth.
The Bible's scribes exactly copied the ignorant inventions of Babylonian firmament astronomy of that time, including its words and concepts of windows and doors in the firmament for rain!
"Above the firmament" (Gen. 1:7) is where the huge supply of water needed for the Flood was stored -- more than all earth's clouds could ever provide. As we read in the account of the Flood, God ended the rains using Babylonian astronomy again (Gen. 8:2): "the WINDOWS of heaven were stopped and the rain...restrained." (My emphasis)
Did God speak thus, to be understood and not confuse or mentally upset those living then? Could it really upset people then to deal with truthful astronomy -- the same people who were ready to believe in a virgin birth or that a woman could be born from a man's rib-bone?
(NOTE: Christian scholar Saint Augustine [354-430 A.D.] and Father Lactantius, etc., continued the traditional denial of the earth's roundness, claiming rain would "fall upward" in places and that even if upside-down people could live on a globe's bottom, then they couldn't see the Savior's return in glory.)
..
TWO contrary Genesis versions suggests at least two writers, both ignorant or unmindful of each other, and ignorant of the facts of nature and astronomy, not to mention the age of the earth.
Let any secular writer pen a book with so many contradictions (more of which will follow), on science, geology, morals or anything, and the world would plunge, as a vulture on carrion, to heap monumental scorn over the work.
As "history," the Bible is unique. In First Kings 16:6,8 the king of Israel, Baasha, dies, replaced by his son Elah during the 26th year of Asa's (King of Judah) reign. But in Second Chronicles l6:1 we read that Baasha, king of Israel, goes against Judah during Asa's 36th year.
A King dies, is buried, his son becomes King, but after a decade, the dead king leads a military adventure!
In truthful historical chronicles, dead kings stay dead, but in the Bible when a king dies, he's merely planning to pick a fight!
In Genesis 9:3: "Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat" for Noah. But Deuteronomy (14:7-21) later gives a list of animals, birds and fish that must not be eaten.
Circumcision is required (Gen.17:10), and useless (Gal. 5:2).
Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac (Gen.16:15 & 21:3) but Isaac was Abraham's "only" son? (Gen. 22:2,12 & Heb. 11:17).
In Exodus 33:20, says God, "Thou canst not see my face; for there shall be no man see me and live." God must have been mistaken, or changed: For in Genesis 32:30 Jacob sees God "face to face" and lives. The same for Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and 70 elders, who saw God, and ate and drank with him (Exodus 24:9-11). But not so, says First John 1:18: "No man hath seen God at any time."
How decide? Well, I agree with John.
God dwells "in the light which no man can approach" (1 Tim. 6:16). But this is not true, as in First Kings 8:12 it says: "The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness."
Would literalists say I shouldn't be so "literal"? Is the "light" in which Jesus dwells "en(light)enment?" Does God remain in thick darkness but keeps this "light" of enlightenment?
But aren't we opening a Pandora's box of endless "interpretation" here? Where do we draw the line if we do that?
When the cry (Josh.10:12-13) "Sun, stand thou still" (and moon too) was uttered and carried out, the sun "stood still" in the sky, not setting.
But of course, as we all now know about astronomy, a 'setting sun' is an inaccurate archaic and figurative phrase reflecting only the illusion of a moving sun. It's created by the actual motion of a rotating earth around its own axis. In the solar system, the sun is, of course, already "still" (while the moon isn't). But, I guess God knew what Joshua "meant," and instead of quibbling over astronomical facts, He allowed the Bible writings to describe it inaccurately (using the primitive terminology of the knowledge of the time). So God magically stilled both the earth and moon (and did it without cataclysmically throwing our land and continents off into space). But then, there's that "interpretation" thing again, because the "word of God" definitely does say the sun "stood still" (implying incorrectly that it had been in motion) and not that it "appeared" to, or that the "Earth stood still." Is the Bible literal or figurative? (See also Eccl. 1:5, about "the Sun also riseth...." and Chron 16:30; Psalms 93:1 [Earth is already immovable])
..
MATTHEW quotes Jesus (19:26), "with God all things are possible." Did Matthew or Jesus forget something? In the Book of Judges (1:19) God is not almighty, as he helped rid Judah of inhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive out those in the valley "because they had chariots of iron."
This God of miracles apparently can move the largest body in the solar system, the Sun (or at least stop planet earth), in order to prolong daylight for Joshua's military revenge (or to move the sun's shadow 10 degrees backward [2 Kings 20:10-11 or Isaiah 38:7- 8]). Yet this same mover of heavens is cowed by mere horses & buggies made of iron?
I wonder what would happen if God decided to attack a "modern" 1950 Buick?
Exodus 31:I7: Like a man, God rests and can be "refreshed." Isaiah scorns such contemptible weakness.
In 40:28 he insists God, creator of the "ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary." An infinite God cannot tire, nor needs to be - nor can be -- "refreshed."
Again on astronomy, the spectre of "interpretation" rises, asking us: 'what are these "ends" of the earth' quoted above? A spherical planet has no "ends." Even a flat plate or the line of a circle is "endless." The phrase "ends of the earth" then, was not figurative: We know the common belief then was that earth, very literally, did have "ends." Nowhere in the Bible is the earth described as "spherical." (See also Rev. 7:1: "...four angels standing on the four corners of the earth" & Daniel 4:10-11. Daniel's words here make little sense for a spherical earth)
..
GOD does not change. James 1:17 says God has "no variableness..." but then, in Jonah 3:10, God "repented" and changed his mind about smiting Nineveh's people. So what are we to think of assurances given in Numbers 23:19, which states, "God is not a man...neither the son of man, that he should repent." Yet this tireless omnipotent God himself volunteers the striking thought in Jeremiah 15:6, "I am weary with repenting."
How human that confession sounds by a presumably unchanging God who 'cannot weary' (as Isaiah wrote above), nor repent.
In Deuteronomy 4:24 "God is a consuming fire, but in John 4:1 "God is love." He's "the God of Peace" in Romans 15:33 but in Exodus 15:3, "the Lord is a man of war." (Called a "man" here? Yet not called a man in Numbers 23:19?)
God is "just and right" (Deut.32:4) yet in a mercenary manner he advises, in the dietary restrictions, that what you can't eat as unclean may be given "unto the stranger...or thou mayest sell it unto an alien." Gee, has the Better Business Bureau heard of this "just and right" commercial behavior? (Deut.l4:21)
God said (Isaiah 45:7) "I make peace and create evil," a contradiction in one holy breath!! (And we all thought, of our own evil, it was 'the devil made me do it.')
"Now go and smite Amelek and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass" (1 Sam. 15:3). That was Samuel's order for Saul originating from the Lord. Wrote one Bible commentator, M. J. Gauvin:
"Slay the old man with trembling hands and silvered hair; murder the mother who shields with her body the life of her child; rifle the cradle, and plunge the glittering sword of death through the frail form of the smiling babe ...and know, ye fiends of ruthless slaughter, ye but fulfil the command of the God whose 'mercy endureth forever'!"
"Love thy neighbor as thyself?" (Lev.l9:l8). Mass murder is again condoned in Exodus 32:27; in Deut. 2:15-16 and 34-36 and 3:2. No "just and right" God of true peace or love could command a massacre of innocents. These are the writings and contradictions in a religious human-inspired literature coming from the biases and values of an uncivilized warrior peoples. To call this the "inspired words" of a merciful, worthy Deity should be a base insult to even the meanest intelligence.
Sacrifices of helpless animals, even human sacrifices, such as of Isaac, offered by Abraham (but stopped), or of Jeptha's daughter, or the seven sons of David, are plentiful in the Bible, and are acceptable practices ordained by the Lord. See also Leviticus 27:28-29 about how humans, lands and beasts can be sacrificed. Yet elsewhere God condemns it as an abomination and is "weary to bear them." (Jer.7:22 & Is.1:11-16)
Speaking of abominations, there is the mere handling of pigskin (Lev.ll:7-8). Woe unto football players!
And woe unto those who curse their parents, for such deserve death (Lev.20:9). Yet they are enjoined to also hate mom and dad too, in order to become disciples (Luke 14:26).
Resurrections? Job 7:9 says who "goeth down to the grave shall come up no more." The Old Testament denies immortality in no uncertain terms. The New Testament proclaims it - but as an eternal agony for most of you.
All these contradictions make biblical words appear as if they are a departure from sanity - if they were the words of one consistent, unchanging being.
You'll read that children will suffer for the sins of the parents, yet elsewhere, read that no one will bear sins other than their own (Ex.20:5 vs Ezek.l8:20).
The Sabbath is required to be kept as holy, but -- each of us can make up our own minds (Ex.20:8 vs Rom.l4:5)
"Judge not, that ye be not judged' (Matt.7:l), yet others must be judged? (1Cor. 6:2-4).
There's but one allowed reason (adultery) to divorce your wife, but elsewhere, divorce can be for any reason (Matt.5:32 vs Deut.2l:l4 & 24:1-3). Note, in this Deuteronomy a divorced woman can safely and sinlessly marry again, but in Matthew, a divorced woman that remarries is guilty of adultery, which deserves death of both her and her new husband (Lev.20:10). Neat sense of fairness, eh?
If Eve was created merely from Adam's rib, it's no wonder that women are valued less than men, as in Leviticus 27:3-7, where a man's value in shekels is double that of a woman.
Or: "neither was man created for woman but woman for man" (lCor. 11:8-9).
This "Just and right" God in Exodus 21:20-21 approves a further double standard: Whereas adultery or just hitting your parents deserves death (Ex.2l:l5), a master beating a servant or maid to death with a rod shall only "be punished" in some non- lethal manner.
In Exodus 21:2I, the master can remain unpunished for beating servants daily because the servant "is his money." Similarly, throughout this chapter, is the sale and possession of human beings condoned (21:4,7).
'The Boss don't like no back-talk' is clear in Exodus 21:5-6: If a servant doesn't want to be sent away from his family (owned by the master) but says he loves them and will not leave, master can "bring him unto the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him forever."
"Just and right"? One believer wrote me the Old Testament's inspired words were meant to "mitigate or regulate" behavior and raise it to a "more humane level" than usually practiced. Gimme a break! If the Old testament isn't "static or forever," as he wrote, why doesn't he also take the stories of Genesis as equally not final nor literal factual truth? Why one and not the other?
Not only is slavery in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, too: First Timothy 6:1,8 states those "under the yoke" (i.e. slaves) shall give "all honour" to their masters, and suggests in its context we should be grateful for scraps and rags without critique nor envy.
Again in Ephesians 6:5, obedience to masters by servants is urged to be just like obedient worship given Christ. Worship the Boss?
However, this backward morality (which is excused as too entrenched in those times for even God to overthrow completely, God preferring to moderate it instead), was not too hard for a mere mortal, Spartacus, to challenge totally. How can a non-god espouse more advanced ideals of freedom, and oppose slavery completely, when the God of all the universe could only weakly compromise those principles among his subjects?
"No evil shall happen to the just" we're told (Prov.l2:21). Yet Job, about whom God said no one else on earth was nearly as good and upright, is nevertheless handed over, by God, to Satan for torture (Job 2:3-7). The fate, also in the modern world, of good Christians and innocents under the protection of God's proverb, is horrendous.
Moses is the meekest man in the world (Num.l2:3), yet he orders the butchery of women and children in cold blood and the taking of female children, who are still virgins, to keep alive "for yourselves" under the permission of God (Num.31:17)
The Bible speaks well of liquor and also condemns it (Deut. 14:226 vs Prov.20:l).
It says avoid temptation, but welcome it too (Matt.6:l3 vs James 1:12).
The same dichromatics appear for wealth as First Timothy preaches (6:10) "love of money is the root of all evil," added to by Luke 6:24, but denied by Proverbs 10:15, and elsewhere there.
Here's more "perfect harmony" of the Bible's words: According to Luke, Christ ascended in the flesh. Paul says "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven" (Luke 24:39-51 vs 1 Cor.15:50).
The evening of Christ's resurrection is the time of ascension for Luke, but Acts dates it 40 days after, (Luke 24:1-59 vs Acts 1:3 ). After resurrecting, Jesus was to meet the disciples, says Matthew, in Galilee; but says Luke, it was to be in Jerusalem -- merely 100 miles apart! (Matt.28:l6-17 vs Luke 24:33-36).
"I and my Father are One" (John 10:30). But, "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28) and "My God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Math. 27:46). The contradictions seem as infinite as God.
Let your good deeds shine before men "that they may see your good works." So much for modesty. Then Matthew has Jesus say "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men to be seen of them." (Matt. 5:l6 vs 6:1)
Many other details of the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension are disparate. This, of course, is normal when it's different human witnesses describing any traumatic event, committing errors such as misquoting, forgetting what was said exactly or reinterpreting meaning through the biased sieve of one's own prejudices. For example: Facing Pilate, Christ spoke only two words, said Matthew. John said Christ gave a speech! (Matt. 27:11 vs John 18:34-37).
We are told repeatedly, the marvelous works found in nature, or all the universe, "require" and prove a creator's existence. But in the ultimate logical inconstancy of the Bible, it says nothing about why the greatest marvel of all needs no creator.
If God does not need to be created, what did God do before the universe? Where did God exist? Nowhere in Genesis did God create "time." Why not? Because so ubiquitous is time to us, it's "only human" to lose awareness of such a constant sensation (much as we mask out the sound of an electric fan blowing in our room or the engine's hum when we drive). Thus its need to be created failed to be recorded by human scribes who really couldn't conceive (nor notice) that it even needed to be created.
Did God create himself out of nothingness?

I know this is but surface-scratching the tip of the iceberg about Bible errors and conflicts, and it already proves it a fallible human document of many inaccuracies, failures of logic, with biases and mixed motives shown by petty witnesses and superstitious folks.

Since the above post is a direct cut and paste of the following web page:

www.webster.sk.ca...

We will assume that the above poster is the original author of the article (Bob Fink) or is the creator of the web page listed above (and forgot to give credit to Bob Fink in his above post). Otherwise we might have to assume that the above post is a simple act of plagiarism. Either way we will study and respond.

Yes it is a cut and paste. Something I saved from another religion debate. Thanks for posting the url. I would have posted it myself, if I'd known where it came from. I didn't claim to be the author, so it's surely not plagiarism. Nice try at discrediting me, though. Feel free to look them all up. The references to the scriptures are all there just for that reason. The author makes some very valid observations, IMO. Observations that most believers don't even begin to consider, since it doesn't support what they want to believe. Don't forget to pray before you look them up. Pray some more afterward.

[Edited on 11-4-2003 by Satyr]

im no agent...

as long as the just of the argument was recieved why does it matter who the source is?

technicalities will not sway men in the tide of this battle...

Wow Satyr, heh, long post. I like 'em short.

I don't believe the bible (as we commonly refer to the king james version) is intentionally contradicting itself as much as the people who put it together are.

Short version is: Bible is an incredibly accurate historical and educational document hobbled together to harness the extreme power of the followers of jesus, contrary to their previous romanic paganistic followings, which were summarily incorporated into the religion witness easter and christmas.

'Satyr' I have never seen so many verses used out of context. You will find that the 'contradictions' in your previous post hold no merit when understood in the context it was written in.

I challenge you to pick three of your favourite or most convincing 'contradictions' and I bet I can explain them in context and show that they do not contradict.

I'll look forward to your post