What is the biggest bible contradiction?

My favorite contradiction is that while Matthew Mark, and Luke all have Jesus being crucified after Passover (the last supper being the Passover meal), Mark crucifies Jesus before Passover.Mark is very different from the other gospels and shows a shift in depicting Jesus as a military savior who would literally save the Jews from their oppressors to a spiritual savior who's death was symbolic of the saving of souls and the granting of eternal life in heaven.

I do not see a contradiction there... Could you be more specific?concerning the time of crucifixion.. maybe if you read it through a little better it will be more clear.Concerning the other contradictions mentioned..I'm not so sure what the big deal is about these minor contradictions. And the fact that 4 different people are "recounting" events that they got from the mouths of the people it actually happened to, to me would explain the slight variations, not so much contradictions.Because one person mentioned one angel instead of two in the recounting of the resurrection hardly discredits the story. The meat of the story here is the resurrection itself of which they all agree.For those who wish to find fault there is fault to be found. Just like Judas Iscariot who took Jesus' acceptance of his feet being perfumed as a "waste" (a hypocrite that really only cared about having more money, not about waste)This pretense of acting as though exact biblical accuracy would make a believer out of you is the same of which I see here.If what was important here is, the same story being told by 4 different people in the 'exact same way', then ok that proves that the Bible is a fake. But now, how weighty is the matter to justify your accusations over such minor variations. In fact I would expect variations of one event told from 4 different people. Insignificant ones. Simply because one chooses to leave out details that another gives does not make it contradicting. Giving a complete picture through 4 different people is what I see it as. Pieces to a complete puzzle only to be found by those who seek it as silver and gold as you do with your science.But just like the Scribes and the Pharisees, still, the enemy seeks to discredit his Lord, trying to find ways to trip him up and trap him and make him a liar. He will succeed in leading many astray from the truth but that will never change the truth.Your problems are not with God, but with mens representation of Him. It is not His fault that those whom He gave a free will to choose, chose darkness instead of light. Look at there, another contradiction for the skeptic. To say that it is not His fault when He Himself created it this way seems a contradiction. But to those who understand fault here as it is meant to be understood, by saying God is to be guilty of the wrong we choose simply because He gave us the right to choose. Those who are bitter and angry with life may take that stance because it is easier to blame others for lifes problems which in turn gives a perverted justification to be the monster you accuse God of.But we cannot blame God for the choices we make. Or the choices our parents made. Or their parents. For at what time did we not come to know right from wrong in our very nature? At what time did we not have the power to say, I will not do this, or I will not be like that? Maybe it was too hard and so we got angry at a God that we don't understand and so we turned our vengence on Him by hurting others. (A contradiction of mans nature when choosing sin). To hurt innocent in the name of anger at a God they say is cruel and unjust, so therefore they are cruel and unjust to those who did nothing to deserve it. The very thing they accuse God of!)It seems we are always looking for an excuse to vent our own way. What perfect excuse to kick God off of His pedastal and put ourselves there in His stead. Surely we can do better than that! Then we justify our stupidity by saying, I don't need a God to help me screw up, I just need one to blame when I do.Now, if there is a God and He is a just God then you have put yourself in a very delicate situation. I hope for your sake, you do not turn up wrong. You gamble with such amazing faith. You put your faith in no God. If you do have faith in a God, it is not one you need to be accountable to, nor show any respect for, therefore making yourself God. If you are wrong, and there is a God, and He is a just God, and you have not sought to prove as just but instead sought to prove Him unjust, then you will get all that you have wagered for. If I am right, you are gambling with eternity. If I am right, this what I am writing will be a testimony against you when accountability comes your way. I'm sure it is not His first attempt to reach you nor will it be His last. Whoever "you" are. He knows who He speaks to and they know as well. It is the one with ears to hear. The one who has not completely hardened their hearts to Him.Back to contradictions...Take for instance faith. Just because Jesus said, "Judge not lest ye be judged" does not mean do not judge. It means if you want to be judged then judge. He also later describes the right and wrong way to judge. Contradiction? No. Complex truth? Yes. Complex meaning, in your language, there is more than meets the eye. The same with judging. And they are all true in their proper percpectives.An example of this would be:The cup is half way full.
The cup is half way empty.Both are true in their own perspectives, but upon glance it looks like a contradiction.Like with hate and love. God may say do not hate and then say hate elsewhere.Obviously there is a complex truth to be learned about hate and love. What appears to be a contradiction to the skeptical eye is in fact no different than the half full/ half empty concept.Yes He said that He is love.
And that if we do not love then we are not of Him.
Then He commands us to hate.To the skeptical, its the perfect opportunity to confirm their hate for a God they do not understand. But to the one who truly seeks truth, will not have God guilty before proven innocent. They will be able to see past what appears to be a contradiction to the truth beyond it.To love truth you must hate a lie.When God commands us to hate, it would be important to find out what and why. You will be surprised I'm sure to find that He always has us hating anything that stands in the way of truth. All the way down to father, mother, brother, wife, husband, or even child. The important truth that He is teaching is that, you cannot choose your love for them at the expense of your love and obedience to the truth of God.The word hate here is not an unjust hate. It is the hate of wickedness and ignorance. It is what one feels when full of love for God and his family. In truth, hate of ignorance, I would dare say, is the full expression of love.For those who have ears let him hear.

I can see why you would feel these examples are minor. Afterall, we do have some very major problems in the Biblical record. The Genesis creation account is contradicted by biology, the story of the Flood is contradicted by modern geology, the story of the Exodus contradicts modern archaeology, and so forth. These are very serious problems that pretty much show beyond a doubt that the Bible cannot be taken seriously as a literal description of history.But I can't see how a literalist can be so complacent about the contradictions that have been exposed. Take my contribution about the four different accounts of the discovery of the empty tomb. You are saying that the process of "divine inspiration", which somehow was able to give the writers an accurate account of the creation or an accurate account of pre-Flood history, or an accurate account of pre-recorded Hebrew history, was not able to give the Gospel writers an accurate account of the discovery of the tomb? It appears that "divine inspiration" isn't so different from the normal human inspiration responsible for other myths and written accounts.

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For those who have ears let him hear.

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And for those who have eyes let him see.That is what we have been trying to get the literalists to do.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

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I do not see a contradiction there... Could you be more specific?
concerning the time of crucifixion.. maybe if you read it through a little better it will be more clear.

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I did read it through, and have done so many times.It is perfectly clear.Matthew, Mark and Luke have Jesus being crucified after Passover.John times the crucifiction as happening before Passover.That is a clear, unambiguous contradiction.Matthew's version: Mark's version: Luke's version: John's version:(bold added by me) And later in the chapter, they hurry to remove Jesus from the cross because it was a preparation for a "high" day and the Sabbath.(Bold added by me) So, you see, it is very clear that there are two very different versions of the timing of the crucifiction of Jesus; one taking place after Passover, and one happening before it ever starts.That is contradictory.If I say that something happened before January 7th, and some other people say it happened after January 7th, we can't both be correct, can we? Our versions contradict each other. Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

Hi, schraf. I think zaron is admitting these accounts are contradictory, but that they are just "minor" contradictions. The Bible is inerrant, except when it isn't.When the Bible describes the sun going about the earth, that is a figure of speech. When Isaiah describes the earth as a disk and the sky as a tent, then it is actually describing an expanding universe. When angels stand on the four corners of the earth, that is a metaphor. When the Gospel writers contradict one another, that is "minor".But when the first two chapters of Genesis contradict basic facts in biology and geology, then modern science is wrong. Go figure.

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus

Sorry, I am no literalist, but in this case there is no apparent 'clear, unambiguous contradiction'. It is actually perfectly sound and sensible. Passover lasts 7-8 days. The Seder is on the first or second nights. When Matthew, Mark, and Luke say 'Passover' they are referring to the Seder meal. John is talking about Friday after the Seder when Jesus is on the cross. It was Preparation day for the upcoming Sabbath, Saturday. Preparation is so called because the Jewsih people would prepare their meals on Friday so that they could keep to the custom of not cooking on the sabbath. This particular Sabbath would be even more solemn because it fell during the week of Passover.

Also, if you go back and start at chapter 13 of John, you will see he is not confused. His apostles had already eaten their Passover just like in the other versions. He is telling the story in chronological fashion from there on, and clearly does not mean to deny what he had just written and say that the eating of the Passover had not yet happened. It is just that the entire feast was not over.

This is a good example of how the focus on Scripture has changed. Men in Augustine's time (4th century) were confounding themselves by taking the Bible too literally. Augustine attempted over and over to clarify that the Bible is not to be taken as the answer to anything except salvation. It would probably frustrate him to find out that this is still an issue 1600 years later! From reading the previous posts in this thread, it is obvious that the modern christian emphasis on the inerrancy of scripture, and the insistance that it can and MUST be taken literally, is still doing more harm than good.

from the "kingly" genealogy of jesus, found in matthew 1:

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Mat 1:11 And Josias begat Jechonias and his brethren, about the time they were carried away to Babylon:

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now, luke has a totally different genealogy, so that's 1 contradiction before we even get started. now, let's go check this line against the old testament.

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1Ch 3:15 And the sons of Josiah were, the firstborn Johanan, the second Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, the fourth Shallum.

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hm, no jechoniah. oh, here he is in the next line:

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1Ch 3:16 And the sons of Jehoiakim: Jeconiah his son, Zedekiah his son.

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matthew skips a generation. so that's 2. why does matthew skip a generation, you ask?

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Jer 36:30 Therefore thus saith the LORD of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.

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Jer 36:31 And I will punish him and his seed and his servants for their iniquity; and I will bring upon them, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and upon the men of Judah, all the evil that I have pronounced against them; but they hearkened not.

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no son of jehoiakim will ever sit on the throne of judah. in fact, after his son does sit on the throne, (you counting? that's three contradictions) the kingly line reverts back to jehoiakim's brother (not his son) zedekiah, who becomes the last rightful king of judah.so where's the subtle point? jesus is listed as a son of not only josiah, but of his grandson jeconiah, who was part of a cursed lineage. meaning, jesus has no claim to the throne -- meaning he cannot be the messiah. which is kind of devastating to the entire point of the new testament. there are lots of little genealogical contradictions that can be fudged here and there as copyist errors and whatnot, but this is a rather important and legitimate issue with the text. matthew either made a big mistake, or this is in fact his point.

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Not enough time passes in the first three gospels for your explanation of John to work.In fact, in every gospel except for John, Jesus dies the very next day, after the Last Supper.In addition, why is the Last Supper so explicity a Passover meal, recounted very nearly identically in the first three gosples, but there is no mention of it in John?I've also got to mention that this is an explanation that I haven't heard yet, and it contradicts the other explanations I've gotten from other believers.

Hi Schrafinator, I think you meant the Gospel of John instead of Mark. Mark, Matthew, and Luke have Jesus crucified after Passover and John has him crucified on the day of Passover. I already mentioned it earlier in this thread.

Can you tell me what you mean here? I still think you ae misreading something. Last Supper is on Thursday. Jesus dies Friday, the Preparation Day. This is the day before the Sabbath, which is on Saturday in the Jewish calendar, and not Sunday. As I said before, read chapters 13-18. The entire thing is the Last Supper, or Passover Seder. It is actually longer than any of the others, as John was an eye-witness. I am curious about the other explanations you have received, but I think they could be from well-intentioned people who have tried to explain so that you would not doubt. I do not see that you should be worried about contradicting explanations. Many people simply do not know enough background information. For a long period of time, every Tom, Jack and Joe was not allowed to read the Bible, at least without the guidance of a spiritual counselor. It was meant to prevent this exact thing from happening. Think about a photo of any beautiful landmark; 1000 artists would paint it differently, and none capture it so perfectly as the original. Now think what would happen if you took people off the street with no painting experience whatsoever, and asked them to paint. The Bible is like a photo in this sense. Any preacher will tell you that the answers are all inside if we keep looking, just as our painting will get better if we refer to the photo. But no one is going to get it 100 percent no matter what. Errors in interpretation occur constantly, otherwise known as heresies, schisms, sects, cults, etc. It is not always so much the Bible's fault, as the 'artist's'.

Just wanted to mention BTW that this does not show contradiction either. The Jews have long been waiting for a Messiah. At the time of Jesus, under Roman persecution, it was natural for them to believe the Messiah would save them from this, as they were the Chosen People of God. The point is that they were looking for the wrong thing. Jesus came to save souls, and not bodies. That is why He told Pilate "My kingdom is not of this world". Many Jews were disappointed in their expectations. They are still awaiting a Messiah who will do great things for the people.

Apologetics is so very boring.It's a lot like Astrology in that no matter what you think the problem or contradiction is, there is always something you can use to make it correct.Biblical Apologetics just points out to me that the Bible is so squishy and maleable that it can be made to mean and say just about anything....which means it says nothing.

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At the time of Jesus, under Roman persecution, it was natural for them to believe the Messiah would save them from this, as they were the Chosen People of God.

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Actually, it was natural for them to think this because this is what the Old Testament scriptures said.-

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Many Jews were disappointed in their expectations.

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Actually, the only Jews who were disappointed were the followers of the Jesus cult. They were so shocked by the unexpected crucifiction of their "Messiah" that they had to go back and take Old Testament scriptures out of context to manufacture their own "prophecies".

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Kings were put to death long before 21 January 1793. But regicides of earlier times and their followers were interested in attacking the person, not the principle, of the king. They wanted another king, and that was all. It never occurred to them that the throne could remain empty forever. -- Albert Camus