Ok red, you called me out. Post your list of alleged Biblical contradictions. I will answer the ones I know, and hopefully some of the other Christians on the board will add in.
I am just a simpleton, so help me out here. There are Biblical contradictions, and this causes some to question the validity\construct of the Bible. There also are an abundance of scientific contradictions, and we question the validity\construct of those events. My question is, why, when there are contradictions in science, we seek more knowledge to help us better understand, but when we see contradictions in the Bible, it is used as a rationale to dismiss the entire content of the Bible, rather than sparking us to seek greater knowledge and understanding of the Bible? I often think some refuse to acknowledge a higher power because it would seem to imply that we are less significant. The story of the Bible, however, is one that proves how significant we really are. "You are a soul with a body, not a body with a soul.”
Ok, here is the original list. I'll scare up some others when I have time to do a little reading. You have addressed a couple already, but not most of them and I'm curious what the Deekster has to say. The bible contradicts itself an awful lot. How can each of these "infallible" documents be true? 1. David took seven hundred (2 Sam. 8:4), seven thousand (1 Chron. 18:4) horsemen from Hadadezer. 2. Lot was Abraham's nephew (Gen. 14:12), brother (Gen. 14:14). 3. Saul was killed by his own hands (1 Sam. 31:4), by a young Amalekite (2 Sam. 1:10), by the Philistines (2 Sam. 21:12). 4. Jesus is crucified at the third hour (MARK 15:25). Jesus is crucified at the sixth hour (JOHN 19:14-15) . 5. Does God repent? (Genesis 6:6) God does repent. (Numbers 23:19) God does not repent (I Samuel 15:11,35) God does repent. 6. Who has seen God? (Gen 18:1) The Lord appeared to Abraham. (GEN 32:24-30) Jacob saw and wrestled with God (EX 24:9-11) Moses & 73 elders gazed upon God. (Exodus 33:11) God spoke to Moses face-to-face. (Exodus 33:22-23) God allowed Moses to see his "back parts". (Deut 34:10) God spoke to Moses face-to-face. (IS 6:1-13) Isaiah stood before God and saw him (Ezekiel 1:27-28) Ezekiel saw God in a vision and described Him in some detail. (Amos 7:7) Amos saw God. (John 1:18, 6:46) No one has ever seen God. (1 TIM6:16) God is un-seeable (I John 4:12) No one has ever seen God. 7. How does God feel about the making of images? (Exodus 20:4) Image-making forbidden (Exodus 25:18) God commands the making of two cherubim. 8. What of the dead? (Job 7:9) The dead will never rise again. They will have no further reward. (Ecclesiastes 9:5) The dead will never rise again. They will have no further reward. (John 5:28-29) The dead will rise again to be rewarded or punished. (I Corinthians 15:16,52) The dead will rise again to be rewarded or punished. 9. What of the Earth? (Psalms 104:5) The Earth will last forever. (Ecclesiastes 1:4) The Earth will last forever. (Hebrews 1:10-11) The Earth will perish. (II Peter 3:10) The Earth will perish. 10. Last words? (Matt 27:46) Jesus' last words were "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?" (Mark 15:34) Jesus' last words were "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?" (Luke 23:46) Jesus' last words were "FATHER, INTO THY HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT" (John 19:30) Jesus' last words were "IT IS FINISHED."
You make assumptions not in evidence, amigo. I do not use the evidence of biblical contradictions to dismiss the entire content of the bible. Indeed, I have stated many times that the Bible is the greatest single piece of literature ever published and has greatly influenced the rise of Western Civilization. I only object to those who proclain that the bible is infallible, contains no errors or contradictions, and specifically that the King James Version, above all others, is the true word of God. One need only research biblical history a little to understand that it is actually the work of many Men of God over many years. And many, many men have made careers out of studying the bible and its various components and especially how it has evolved through the millenia. Much more is known about the many individual books than is imagined by most people. I simply advocate that the Bible must be interpreted in context of the time of its creation and that millenia of oral traditions, mistranslations, and simple transcribing errors have crept in and must be considered. That all of this has occured and most of the underlying messages still come through clearly is remarkable to me. That others take every word of the Bible as the literal truth, astonishes me.
I can answer a few of these off the top of my head, others I'll have to read the chapters. Only two of these accounts telling of the same event. One is a third person narrating what happened, Saul killed himself. One is an Amalekite telling his David's camp he killed Saul in hopes of getting a reward. The third account is not talking about Saul's death at the hands of the Philistines, but of his defeat. Mark uses the Jewish timekeeping system and John uses the Roman The first two accounts do not say that "MY God My Why have you Forsaken Me" are his last words. Both accounts say after he drank wine he cried out again in a loud voice. Possibly to say "Into Thy hands I commed My Spirit, as in the Luke account, or "It is Finished" as in John. What is important is that John was a witness of the event, and Luke was not. So Luke is relating the event as it was related to him. Another explanation is that the Mark, Matt and Luke are only writing the things that Jesus cried out. John ignores these things. He doesn't mention that Jesus asked for wine, for example. He may be focusing only on the intimate quiet things while the other writers are focusing on the public cries that everyone heard. In any event both agree that Jesus gave up his spirit at his death.
1) The Samuel account is most likely describing a single battle, while the Chronicles account is describing a larger campaign. This explanation is supported by the difference in language. 2) http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/700or7000.html
These are miniscule differences involving a great deal of minutia. The authors of the Bible were not concerned with such trivial details. They certainly did not go over biblical scrolls to make sure such trivial details were compatible with other trivial details. Each author had his own point of view - his own purpose - and it was getting this broader point of view across that he was concerned with. Secondly, as far as the Old Testament is concerned, it is the result of the merging of two different written traditions - one tradition being written in Israel and the second tradition being written in Judea. These traditions were written from a point of view of two different perspectives: one from a southern perspective (Judea) and one from a northern perspective (Israel). That is why we often find two different accounts of the same story, called a doublet, in the Bible. These stories were written from two separate points of view and so there are differences between them. When the two written traditions were merged, it was felt by the editors that both traditions were important and so they were both included in the Bible. The answer to such "contradictions" as you mentioned is not to disregard the credibility of the Bible, but to search for a greater understanding of what the Bible is and the process by which it was written as well as the nature of inspiration. Inspiration does not demand that the books of the Bible be absolutely and perfectly in harmony with what was written in other books. Some of your contradictions occurr between the Old and New Testaments. This is readily understandable since the two books were written by different people for different purposes and for different audiences, and requires some understanding of what those purposes were. For example, the "contradictions" over whether or not God has been seen. The Old Testament lists several people who have "seen" God, while the New Testament says no one has seen God. Certainly the authors of the New Testament were familiar with the Old Testament and saw no contradiction between the two. The authors of the New Testament were speaking of a physical sighting of God, such as I would see someone who was in the same room with me. The Old Testament references cannot be taken in this way. For example, Moses did not see God "face-to-face" in a literal sense. Fire has always been a symbol of God's presence, and that is the manner in which we should interpret Mt. Sinai ephiphany between Moses and God. The burning bush was a symbol of God's presence. And that is the way we should understand all the Old Testament references to someone seeing God. Certainly the authors of the New Testament were familiar with the Old Testament and saw no contradiction between what they were writing and what was in the Old Testament.
