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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.
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. These lists are meant to identify possible problems in the Bible, especially problems which are inherent in a literalist or fundamentalist interpretation. Some of the selections may be resolvable on certain interpretations--after all, almost any problem can be eliminated with suitable rationalizations--but it is the reader's obligation to test this possibility and to decide whether it really makes appropriate sense to do this. To help readers in this task, these lists are aimed at presenting examples where problems may exist given certain allowable (but not always obligatory) assumptions. |
Our special thanks to
1.This is Bible, by P. Jainul Abdeen
2.http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html#*
[1] Henry M. Morris, Many Infallible Proofs (El Cajon, CA: Creation-Life Publisher, Inc., 1974), Chapters II and V.
[2] Ibid., Appendix A.
[3] There are dozens of excellent sources for the purpose. Two recent ones are the following: C. Dennis McKinsey, The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1995) and A. J. Mattill, Jr. The Seven Mighty Blows to Traditional Beliefs, Second Edition (Gordo, AL: The Flatwoods Free Press, 1995).
[4] Shmuel Golding, The Light of Reason, volume II (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Institute of Biblical Polemics, 1989), p. 36.
[13] The theory that Jesus was not really dead when he was taken down from the cross has been prevalent. See, e.g., Hugh J. Schonfield, The Passover Plot (New York: Bantam Books, 1966). It should also be noted that Muslims deny that Jesus was crucified, mainly on the basis of a passage in the Qur'an (Surah IV:157). They usually conjecture that someone else was crucified in his place.
[14] 1Kings 17:21-22; 2Ki 4:32-35, 13:21; Mathew 9:18-25; Luke 7:12-15; John 11:43-44.
[15] See Theodore M. Drange, "Biblical Contradictions Regarding Salvation", Free Inquiry 14 (Summer 1994), pp. 56-57.
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