Please explain this clear Bible error.

The following is from a website of 101 contradictions answered..."13. According to the author, did Baasha, the king of Israel die in the 26th year of king Asa's reign (1 Kings 15:33), or was he still alive in the 36th year ( 2 Chronicles 16:1)?(Category: misunderstood the historical context, or copyist error)There are two possible solutions to this problem. To begin with, scholars who have looked at these passages have concluded that the 36th year of Asa should be calculated from the withdrawal of the 10 tribes from Judah and Benjamin which brought about the division of the country into Judah and Israel. If we look at it from this perspective, the 36th year of the divided monarchy would be in the 16th year of Asa. This is supported by the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel, as well as contemporary records, which follow this convention. (note: for a fuller explanation of this theory, see Archer, page 225-116).Keil and Delitzsch (pp. 366-367) preferred to regard the number 36 in 2 Chronicles 16:1 and the number 35 in 15:19 as a copyist's error for 16 and 15, respectively. This problem is similar to question numbers five and six above. In this case, however, the numbers were written using Hebrew alphabetical type (rather than the Egyptian multiple stroke type used in the Elephantine Papyri, referred to in questions 5 and 6). It is therefore quite possible that the number 16 could quite easily be confused with 36. The reason for this is that up through the seventh century BC the letter yod (10) greatly resembled the letter lamed (30), except for two tiny strokes attached to the left of the main vertical strokes. It required only a smudge from excessive wear on this scroll-column to result in making the yod look like a lamed. It is possible that this error occurred first in the earlier passage, in 2 Chronicles 15:19 (with its 35 wrongly copied from an original 15); then to make it consistent in 16:1, the same scribe (or perhaps a later one) concluded that 16 must be an error for 36 and changed it accordingly on his copy."

Again from 101 contradictions answered, in response to your assertion that John 19:14 and the rest of the Gospel accounts contradict..."52. Was Jesus on the cross (Mark 15:23) or in Pilate's court (John 19:14) at the sixth hour on the day of the crucifixion?(Category: misunderstood the historical context)The simple answer to this is that the synoptic writers (Matthew, Mark and Luke) employed a different system of numbering the hours of day to that used by John. The synoptics use the traditional Hebrew system, where the hours were numbered from sunrise (approximately 6:00am in modern reckoning), making the crucifixion about 9:00am, the third hour by this system..John, on the other hand, uses the Roman civil day. This reckoned the day from midnight to midnight, as we do today. Pliny the Elder (Natural History 2.77) and Macrobius (Saturnalia 1.3) both tell us as much. Thus, by the Roman system employed by John, Jesus' trial by night was in its end stages by the sixth hour (6:00am), which was the first hour of the Hebrew reckoning used in the synoptics. Between this point and the crucifixion, Jesus underwent a brutal flogging and was repeatedly mocked and beaten by the soldiers in the Praetorium (Mark 15:16-20). The crucifixion itself occurred at the third hour in the Hebrew reckoning, which is the ninth in the Roman, or 9:00am by our modern thinking.This is not just a neat twist to escape a problem, as there is every reason to suppose that John used the Roman system, even though he was just as Jewish as Matthew, Mark and Luke. John's gospel was written after the other three, around AD90, while he was living in Ephesus. This was the capital of the Roman province of Asia, so John would have become used to reckoning the day according to the Roman usage. Further evidence of him doing so is found in John 21:19: 'On the evening of that first day of the week'. This was Sunday evening, which in Hebrew thinking was actually part of the second day, each day beginning at sunset."

I'm not knowledgable enough to touch this one, but I do have to make at least one correction. Luke supposedly wasn't Jewish.

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Asgara
"Embrace the pain, spank your inner moppet, whatever....but get over it"

Agreed...Luke was not jewish. I imagine the above statement to be a typo or incorrect wording trying to express that Matthew and Mark were written by jews and that Luke was not an eye-witness but his writing of the gospel is based on eye-witness accounts of jews. Either way, contradictions are answered.[This message has been edited by NotAHero, 03-25-2004]

The Bible contains a multitude of errors.What are you going to do with 1John 5: 7,8 ?The word of God, as possessed by God, obviously contains no errors, but He chose to communicate His word via humans which introduces the fact that He can live with errors and their damage to His word of truth.God knew errors were/are inevitable, He also knows His word is the object of desecration by demon forces, yet, nontheless, IF you study theology seriously with an objective mind you will learn why and where the errors originated, then armed with this knowledge you can teach the ignorant and enlighten them to the truth of God's word and hopefully set them free.

What are you going to do with 1John 5: 7,8 ?For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood;
and the three are in agreement. NIVI don't see a problem with these verses except possibly in another translation. You have to remember that the translations are not inspired only the originals.You have no problem with me trying to gleen the truth through the errors that may have crept into the text.

I'm sure not a biblical scholar, but I didn't think there were any orginals available to us. Long lost they are, no?

This is true. We have not uncovered the original autographs for the new testament. We do have copies and quotations from chruch fathers that date back almost to the originals. The best Greek documents we have say that the NIV translation given earlier for 1 john 5:7,8 is a good translation.

The only problem is that you are ignoring what the KJV says.You are defending inerrancy. Now what do you say to a person who cites this version."Go see the NIV"That is dodging the issue. This is fundementalist buffoonery.Did you know that the Sinaiticus has inumerable spelling errors ?

I never claimed that the KJV was inerrant. They obviously added several words to this verse for no good reason. Newer translations like the NIV did not do that in this case anyway. The best greek texts do not support the added words in the KJV

There are no original texts so there are no inerrant forms of them left. The KJV is just one human made translation made from human copies. They are all human made with nothing left to check against. They are all subject to some errors whether major or minor.

quote:

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This reading, the infamous Comma Johanneum, has been known in the English-speaking world through the King James translation. However, the evidence-both external and internal-is decidedly against its authenticity. For a detailed discussion, see TCGNT 647-49. Our discussion will briefly address the external evidence. This longer reading is found only in nine late mss, four of which have the words in a marginal note. Most of these mss (221 2318 [18th century] {2473 [dated 1634]} and [with minor variations] 61 88 429 629 636 918) originate from the 16th century; the earliest ms, codex 221 (10th century) includes the reading in a marginal note, added sometime after the original composition. The oldest ms with the Comma in its text is from the 14th century (629), but the wording here departs from all the other mss in several places. The next oldest mss on behalf of the Comma, 88 (12th century) 429 (14th) 636 (15th), also have the reading only as a marginal note (v.l.). The remaining mss are from the 16th to 18th centuries. Thus, there is no sure evidence of this reading in any Greek ms until the 14th century (629), and that ms deviates from all others in its wording; the wording that matches what is found in the TR was apparently composed after Erasmus' Greek NT was published in 1516. Indeed, the Comma appears in no Greek witness of any kind (either ms, patristic, or Greek translation of some other version) until a.d. 1215 (in a Greek translation of the Acts of the Lateran Council, a work originally written in Latin). This is all the more significant since many a Greek Father would have loved such a reading, for it so succinctly affirms the doctrine of the Trinity. The reading seems to have arisen in a 4th century Latin homily in which the text was allegorized to refer to members of the Trinity. From there, it made its way into copies of the Latin Vulgate, the text used by the Roman Catholic Church. The Trinitarian formula (known as the Comma Johanneum) made its way into the third edition of Erasmus' Greek NT (1522) because of pressure from the Catholic Church. After his first edition appeared, there arose such a furor over the absence of the Comma that Erasmus needed to defend himself. He argued that he did not put in the Comma because he found no Greek mss that included it. Once one was produced (codex 61, written in ca. 1520), Erasmus apparently felt obliged to include the reading. He became aware of this ms sometime between May of 1520 and September of 1521. In his annotations to his third edition he does not protest the rendering now in his text, as though it were made to order; but he does defend himself from the charge of indolence, noting that he had taken care to find whatever mss he could for the production of his text. In the final analysis, Erasmus probably altered the text because of politico-theologico-economic concerns: He did not want his reputation ruined, nor his Novum Instrumentum to go unsold. Modern advocates of the TR and KJV generally argue for the inclusion of the Comma Johanneum on the basis of heretical motivation by scribes who did not include it. But these same scribes elsewhere include thoroughly orthodox readings-even in places where the TR/Byzantine mss lack them. Further, these advocates argue theologically from the position of divine preservation: Since this verse is in the TR, it must be original. (Of course, this approach is circular, presupposing as it does that the TR = the original text.) In reality, the issue is history, not heresy: How can one argue that the Comma Johanneum goes back to the original text yet does not appear until the 14th century in any Greek mss (and that form is significantly different from what is printed in the TR; the wording of the TR is not found in any Greek mss until the 16th century)? Such a stance does not do justice to the gospel: Faith must be rooted in history. Significantly, the German translation of Luther was based on Erasmus' second edition (1519) and lacked the Comma. But the KJV translators, basing their work principally on Theodore Beza's 10th edition of the Greek NT (1598), a work which itself was fundamentally based on Erasmus' third and later editions (and Stephanus' editions), popularized the Comma for the English-speaking world. Thus, the Comma Johanneum has been a battleground for English-speaking Christians more than for others.

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- see The Biblical Studies Foundation

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Two points:

1. What originals, specifically?
2. Was Timothy inspired, and how do you know?

I think this is a category mistake and therefore, not a contradiction. The words added and used are in perfect alignment with what is revealed in scripture all throughout the Bible. Whether or not they were in the original etc...is the issue, not if the passage is contradictory(because it isn't). Perhaps a new thread could be started somewhere else about this? Just a thought.

ConsequentAtheist asks:"Two points:1. What originals, specifically?
2. Was Timothy inspired, and how do you know?"1. The Textus Receptus (TR), Which the KJV is based is a collection of late manuscripts written after the 10th century that has several mistakes compaired with older manuscripts found after 1611 when the KJV was originally published. The originals that I spoke of were the originals written by the inspired apostle John in the first century around AD 90. Since we don't have this today, we have to go back to the oldest manuscripts, which are copies of John's letter. These predate the TR by hundredes of years to the second and third centuries.2. I'm not sure I understand your question about Timothy. He did not write any of the books of the Bible and is probably not inspired. However, 1 Timothy and 2 Timothy were written by the apostle Paul and he was inspired. 2 Peter 3:15,16 refer to Paul's writings as scriptures.

You're missing the point of the problem. The problem is that John has Y'shua being put to death on the preparation day of the Passover. John 18:28 makes it clear that the Pharisees had not yet eaten the Passover. In the synoptic Gospels, however, Y'shua has his disciples go prepare the Passover (see Mark 14:12, for instance). He then eats it with them, and is then arrested and put to death the following day.The time is the least of the contradictions. The problem is the day.Maybe the issue really is John's use of the Roman time system. If you use Roman time, you do have to have Y'shua killed before the Passover is eaten, because that's the only way he is put to death on the Passover. If you use Jewish time, he must be put to death on the day following the Passover (if he's to die in the daytime) in order to die on the Passover.That would explain the reason John got the day different than the others, but the fact is, he has the day different than the others.