Bible Contradictions 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.
Why do trained theologians differ? Why do
educated translators disagree
over Greek and Hebrew meanings? Why all the
confusion? Shouldn't a
document that was "divinely inspired"
by an omniscient and omnipotent
deity be as clear as possible?
"If the trumpet give an uncertain
sound," Paul wrote in I Corinthians
14:8, "who shall prepare himself to the
battle? So likewise ye, except
ye utter by the tongue words easy to be
understood, how shall it be
known what is spoken? for ye shall speak into
the air." Exactly! Paul
should have practiced what he preached. For
almost two millennia, the
bible has been producing a most "uncertain
sound."
The problem is not with human limitations, as
some claim. The problem is
the bible itself. People who are free of
theological bias notice that
the bible contains hundreds of discrepancies.
Should it surprise us when
such a literary and moral mish-mash, taken
seriously, causes so much
discord? Here is a brief sampling of biblical
contradictions.
Should we kill? Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not kill."
Leviticus 24:17 "And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to
death." vs. Exodus 32:27 "Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, Put every man
his sword
by his side, . . . and slay every man his brother, . . . companion, . . . neighbor." I Samuel 6:19
" . . . and the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great
slaughter." I Samuel
15:2,3,7,8 "Thus saith the Lord . . . Now go and smite Amalek, 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. . . . And Saul smote the
Amalekites . . . and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the
sword." Numbers 15:36 "And all the congregation brought him without the
camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses." Hosea
13:16 "they
shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces,
and their women with children shall be
ripped up."
Should we tell lies?
Exodus 20:16 "Thou shalt not
bear false witness." Proverbs 12:22 "Lying lips are an abomination to the
Lord." vs.
I Kings 22:23 "The Lord hath
put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil
concerning thee." II Thessalonians 2:11 "And for this cause God shall
send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." Also, compare Joshua 2:4-6 with James 2:25.
Should we steal?
Exodus 20:15 "Thou shalt not
steal." Leviticus 19:13 "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him."
vs. Exodus 3:22 "And ye shall spoil the
Egyptians." Exodus 12:35-36 "And they spoiled [plundered, NRSV] the Egyptians."
Luke 19:29-34 "[Jesus] sent two of his disciples, Saying, Go ye into the
village . . . ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him
hither. And if any man ask you, Why do
ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of him. . . . And
as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the
colt? And they said, The Lord hath need
of him." I was
taught as a child that when you take something without asking for
it, that is stealing.
Shall we keep the sabbath?
Exodus 20:8 "Remember the
sabbath day to keep it holy." Exodus 31:15 "Whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he
shall surely be put to death." Numbers 15:32,36 "And while the children of Israel were
in the wilderness,
they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. . . . And all the congregation brought him without the
camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."
vs. Isaiah 1:13 "The new moons and sabbaths,
the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity." John
5:16 "And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay him, because
he had done these things on the sabbath day." Colossians 2:16 "Let no man
therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new
moon, or of the sabbath
days."
Shall we make graven images?
Exodus 20:4 "Thou shalt not
make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven . . . earth . .
. water." Leviticus 26:1 "Ye shall make ye no idols nor graven image, neither
rear you up
a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone."
Deuteronomy 27:15 "Cursed be the
man that maketh any graven or molten image." vs. Exodus 25:18 "And thou shalt make two
cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them." I Kings
7:15,16,23,25 "For he [Solomon] cast two pillars of brass . . . and two chapiters of molten
brass . . . And he made a molten sea . . . it stood upon twelve oxen . . . [and so on]"
Are we saved through works?
Ephesians 2:8,9 "For by grace
are ye saved through faith . . . not of works." Romans 3:20,28 "Therefore by
the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight."
Galatians 2:16 "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the
faith of Jesus Christ." vs. James 2:24 "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and
not by
faith only." Matthew 19:16-21 "And, behold, one came and said unto
him, Good Master, what good thing shall
I do, that I may have eternal life? And he [Jesus] said unto him . . . keep the
commandments. . . . The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth
up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto
him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and
thou shalt have treasure in heaven." The common defense here is that "we are saved by faith and works."
But
Paul- [laanati allahi]real founder of
christianity) said "not of works."
Should good works be seen?
Matthew 5:16 "Let your light
so shine before men that they may see your good works." I Peter 2:12 "Having your
conversation honest among the Gentiles: that . . . they may by your good works,
which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation."
vs. Matthew 6:1-4 "Take heed that ye do not
your alms before men, to be seen of them . . . that thine alms may be in secret." Matthew
23:3,5 "Do
not ye after their [Pharisees'] works. . . . all their works they do
for to be seen of men."
Should we own slaves?
Leviticus 25:45-46 "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." Genesis 9:25
"And he
[Noah] said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto
his brethren." Exodus 21:2,7
"If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out
free for nothing. . . . And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go
out as the manservants do."
Joel 3:8 "And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah,
and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the Lord hath spoken
it." Luke 12:47,48 [Jesus
speaking] "And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did
according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did
commit things worthy of stripes, shall
be beaten with few stripes." Colossians 3:22 "Servants, obey in all things
your masters." vs. Isaiah 58:6 "Undo the heavy burdens . . . let the oppressed go free,
. . . break
every yoke." Matthew 23:10 "Neither be ye called Masters: for
one is your Master, even
Christ." Pro-slavery
bible verses were cited by many churches in the South during
the Civil War, and were used by some theologians
in the Dutch Reformed
Church to justify apartheid in South Africa.
There are more pro-slavery
verses than cited here.
Does God change his mind?
Malachi 3:6 "For I am the
Lord; I change not." Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man,
that he should repent." Ezekiel 24:14 "I the Lord have spoken it: it shall come
to pass,
and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent." James 1:17 " .
. . the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of
turning." vs. Exodus 32:14 "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to
do unto his
people." Genesis 6:6,7 "And it repented the Lord that he had
made man on the earth . . . And the Lord
said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth . . . for it
repenteth me that I have made him." Jonah 3:10 ". . . and God repented of the evil,
that he had
said that he would do unto them; and he did it not." See also II Kings 20:1-7, Numbers 16:20-35, Numbers
16:44-50.
See Genesis 18:23-33, where Abraham gets God to
change his mind about
the minimum number of righteous people in Sodom
required to avoid
destruction, bargaining down from fifty to ten.
(An omniscient God must
have known that he was playing with Abraham's
hopes for mercy--he
destroyed the city anyway.)
Are we punished for our parents'
sins? Exodus
20:5 "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." (Repeated in Deuteronomy 5:9)
Exodus 34:6-7 " . . . The Lord God, merciful and gracious, . . . that will by no
means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon
the children's children, unto the third
and to the fourth generation." I Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, . .
." vs.
Ezekiel 18:20 "The son shall
not bear the iniquity of the father." Deuteronomy 24:16 "The fathers shall not be put
to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers:
every man shall be put to death for his
own sin."
Is God good or evil? Psalm
145:9 "The Lord is good to all." Deuteronomy 32:4 "a God of
truth and without iniquity, just and
right is he." vs. Isaiah 45:7 "I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all
these things."
See "Out of Context" for more on Isaiah 45:7. Lamentations
3:38 "Out of the mouth of the most
High proceedeth not evil and good?" Jeremiah 18:11 "Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I
frame evil against you, and devise a device against you." Ezekiel 20:25,26 "I gave them
also statutes
that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.
And I polluted them in their own gifts,
in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them
desolate, to the end that they might
know that I am the Lord."
Does God tempt people?
James 1:13 "Let no man say .
. . I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any
man." vs.
Genesis 22:1 "And it came to
pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham."
Is God peaceable?
Romans 15:33 "The God of
peace." Isaiah 2:4 ". . . and they shall beat
their swords into plowshares, and their
spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more." vs. Exodus 15:3 "The Lord is a man of war." Joel 3:9-10
"Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:
Beat your plowshares into swords, and
your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong."
Was Jesus peaceable?
John 14:27 "Peace I leave
with you, my peace I give unto you." Acts 10:36 "The word which God sent unto the children
of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ." Luke 2:14 " . . . on earth peace, good
will toward
men." vs.
Matthew 10:34 "Think not that
I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a
man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the
daughter in law against her mother in
law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." Luke 22:36
"Then said he unto them, . . . he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and
buy one." Jesus also said "I came to set the earth on fire, and how i wish
that it
were already kindled." "Do you suppose that I came to bring
peace to
the world? NO, not peace but division" Luke 12:49 & 51
Was Jesus trustworthy?
John 8:14 "Though I bear
record of myself, yet my record is true." vs. John 5:31 "If I bear witness of myself, my
witness is not true." "Record" and "witness" in the above verses are the same
Greek word
(martyria).
Shall we call people names?
Matthew 5:22 "Whosoever shall
say Thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire." [Jesus speaking]
vs. Matthew 23:17 "Ye fools and blind."
[Jesus speaking] Psalm 14:1 "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no
God."
Has anyone seen God?
John 1:18 "No man hath seen
God at any time." Exodus 33:20 "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and
live." John 6:46 "Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God
[Jesus], he
hath seen the Father." I John 4:12 "No man hath seen God at any
time."
vs. Genesis 32:30 "For I have seen God face to
face." Exodus 33:11 "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man
speaketh unto his friend." Isaiah 6:1 "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw
also the Lord
sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the
temple." Job 42:5 "I
have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee."
How many Gods are there?
Deuteronomy 6:4 "The Lord our
God is one Lord." vs. Genesis 1:26 "And God said, Let us make man in our image."
Genesis 3:22 "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us,
to know
good and evil." I John 5:7 "And there are three that bear witness
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost: and these three are one." It does no good to claim that "Let us" is
the magisterial "we." Such
usage implies inclusivity of all authorities
under a king's leadership.
Invoking the Trinity solves nothing because such
an idea is more
contradictory than the problem it attempts to
solve.
Are we all sinners?
Romans 3:23 "For all have
sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:10 "As it is written, There is
none righteous, no, not one." Psalm 14:3 "There is none that doeth good, no,
not one." vs. Job 1:1 "There was a man . . . who name was Job; and that man
was perfect
and upright." Genesis 7:1 "And the Lord said unto Noah, Come
thou and all thy house into the ark; for
thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." Luke 1:6 "And they were both
righteous before
God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord
blameless."
How old was Ahaziah?
II Kings 8:26 "Two and twenty
years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign." vs. II Chronicles 22:2 "Forty and two years old
was Ahaziah when he began to reign."
Should we swear an oath?
Numbers 30:2 "If a man vow a
vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath . . . he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of
his mouth." Genesis 21:22-24,31 " . . . swear unto me here by God
that thou wilt not deal falsely with me . . . And Abraham said, I will swear. . . . Wherefore he
called that place Beersheba ["well
of the oath"]; because there they sware both of them." Hebrews 6:13-17
"For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he
sware by himself . . . for men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to
them an end of all strife. Wherein God,
willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his
counsel, confirmed it by an oath." See also Genesis 22:15-19, Genesis 31:53, and Judges 11:30-39.
vs. *Matthew 5:34-37 "But I say unto you, swear not
at all; neither by heaven . . . nor by the earth . . . . Neither shalt thou swear by thy
head . . . . But let your communication
be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil." James 5:12 ". . .
swear not,
neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath:
but let your yea be yea; and your nay,
nay; lest ye fall into condemnation."
When was Jesus crucified?
Mark 15:25 "And it was the
third hour, and they crucified him." vs. John 19:14-15 "And about the sixth hour:
and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out . . . crucify him."
It is an ad hoc defense to claim that
there are two methods of reckoning time here. It has never been shown that this is the
case.
Shall we obey the law?
I Peter 2:13 "Submit yourself
to every ordinance of man . . . to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors."
Matthew 22:21 "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." See
also Romans 13:1,7 and Titus 3:1. vs. Acts 5:29 "We ought to obey God rather then men."
How many animals on the ark?
Genesis 6:19 "And of every
living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark." Genesis
7:8-9 "Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every
thing that creepeth
upon the earth, There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded
Noah." Genesis 7:15 "And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and
two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life." vs. Genesis 7:2 "Of every clean beast thou
shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not
clean by two, the male and his female."
Were women and men created equal?
Genesis 1:27 "So God created
man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created
them." vs.
Genesis 2:18,23 "And the Lord
God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
. . . And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be
called Woman, because she was taken out
of Man."
Were trees created before humans?
Genesis 1:12-31 "And the
earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit,
whose seed was in itself, after his kind: . . . And the evening and the morning were the
third day. . . . And God said, Let us
make man in our image . . . And the evening and the morning were the sixth
day." vs.
Genesis 2:5-9 "And every
plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the
Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the
ground. And the Lord God formed man of
the dust of the ground . . . And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden;
and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow
every tree that is pleasant to the
sight, and good for food."
Did Michal have children?
II Samuel 6:23 "Therefore
Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death."
vs. II Samuel 21:8 "But the king took the two
sons of Rizpah . . . and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul."
How many stalls did Solomon have?
I Kings 4:26 "And Solomon had
forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen."
vs. II Chronicles 9:25 "And Solomon had four
thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen."
Did Paul's men hear a voice?
Acts 9:7 "And the men which
journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man."
vs. Acts 22:9 "And they that were with me saw
indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me."
(For more detail on this contradiction,
with a linguistic analysis of the Greek words, see "Did Paul's Men Hear A
Voice?" by Dan Barker, published in the The Skeptical Review, 1994 #1)
Is God omnipotent?
Jeremiah 32:27 "Behold, I am
the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?
Matthew 19:26 "But Jesus
beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are
possible."
vs. Judges 1:19 "And the Lord was with Judah;
and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of
the valley, because they had chariots of
iron."
Does God live in light?
I Timothy 6:15-16 " . . . the
King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no
man can approach . . ." James 1:17 " . . . the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of
turning." John 12:35 "Then Jesus saith unto them, . . . he that walketh in darkness knoweth
not wither he goeth." Job 18:18 "He [the wicked] shall be driven from light into
darkness, and chased out of the
world." Daniel 2:22 "He [God] knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with
him." See also Psalm 143:3, II Corinthians 6:14, and Hebrews 12:18-22.
vs. I Kings 8:12 "Then spake Solomon, The Lord
said that he would dwell in the thick darkness." (Repeated in II Chronicles 6:1)
II Samuel 22:12
"And he made darkness pavilions
round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies."
Psalm 18:11 "He made darkness
his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the
skies."
Psalm 97:1-2 "The Lord
reigneth; let the earth rejoice . . . clouds and darkness are round about him."
Does God accept human sacrifice?
Deuteronomy 12:31 "Thou shalt
not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have
they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in
the fire to their gods."
vs. Genesis 22:2 "And he said, Take now thy
son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and
offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee
of." Exodus 22:29 "For thou shalt not delay to
offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors; the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou
give unto me."
Judges 11:30-39 "And Jephthah
vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into
mine hand, Then it shall be, that
whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from
the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt
offering. So Jephthah passed over unto
the children of Ammon . . . and the Lord delivered them into his hands. . . . And
Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him
with timbrels and with dances: . . . And
it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did
with her according
to his vow which he had vowed." II Samuel 21:8-14 "But the
king [David] took the two sons of Rizpah
. . . and the five sons of Michal . . . and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and
they hanged them in the hill before the
Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days of harvest
. . . And after that God was intreated for the land." Hebrews 10:10-12 " . . . we are
sanctified through the offering of the
body of Jesus Christ . . . But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins
forever, sat down on the right hand of God." I Corinthians 5:7 " . . . For even
Christ our
passover is sacrificed for us."
Who was Joseph's father?
Matthew 1:16 "And Jacob begat
Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus." vs. Luke 3:23 "And Jesus himself began to be
about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of
Heli."
I have received numerous replies from
Christians who think that these
contradictions are either trivial or easily
explained. Yet not a single
"explanation" has been convincing.
Most of them do little homework,
inventing off-the-cuff defenses of what the
bible "could have meant," or
devising creative explanations that actually
make the problem worse. For
example, one Christian, agreeing with Eusebius,
explained that "Thou
shalt not bear false witness" does not
prohibit lies, and that God
actually wants us to tell falsehoods if it will
further the kingdom of
heaven.
Many of the defensive attempts are arguments
from silence. Some
apologists assert that since the writer of John
does not say that there
were not more women who visited the tomb with
Mary, then it is wrong to
accuse him of contradicting the other
evangelists who say it was a group
of women. But this is a non-argument. With this
kind of thinking, I
could claim that the people who accompanied Mary
to the tomb included
Mother Teresa, Elvis Presley, and Paul Bunyan.
Since the writer of John
does not specifically exclude these people, then
there is no way to
prove that this is not true--if such fragile
logic is valid.
All of the above contradictions have been
carefully studied, and when
necessary the original languages have been
consulted. Although it is
always scholarly to consider the original
languages, why should that be
necessary with the "word of God?" An
omnipotent, omniscient deity should
have made his all-important message unmistakably
clear to everyone,
everywhere, at all times. No one should have to
learn an extinct
language to get God's message, especially an
ancient language about
which there is much scholarly disagreement. If
the English translation
is flawed or imprecise, then God failed to get
his point across to
English speakers. A true fundamentalist should
consider the English
version of the bible to be just as inerrant as
the original because if
we admit that human error was possible in the
translation, then it was
equally possible in the original writing. (Some
fundamentalists do
assert that the King James Version is perfect.
One preacher reportedly
said, "If the King James Version was good
enough for the Apostle Paul,
then it's good enough for me.") If a
contradiction exists in English,
then the bible is contradictory.
The above list of thirty-three contradictions
is a very small portion of
the thousands of biblical discrepancies that
have been catalogued by
scholars. See "Leave No Stone
Unturned" for seventeen additional
contradictions specific to the resurrection of
Jesus.
Even if a defender of the bible were to
eliminate all of the
above (and no one has come close), we are still
only scratching the
surface. The bible is a flawed book.
DO THEY NOT CONSIDER THE
QURAN (WITH CARE) HAD IT BEEN ANY OTHER THAN ALLAH
THEY WOULD HAVE FOUND THEREIN MANY
A DISCREPANCY HOLY QURAN 4:8
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