What is the biggest bible contradiction?

There are no Bible contradictions - there are merely bad Bible exegesis practioners.I would challenge anyone claiming there is a Bible contradiction to do the following 8 steps of Bible exegesis in relation to their alleged Bible contradictions:

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The rules of exegesis:

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Gordon D. Fee, in his New Testament Exegesis, p 27, states simply, “Exegesis . answers the question, What did the biblical author mean? It has to do both with what he said (the content itself) and why he said it at any given point (the literary context). Furthermore, exegesis is primarily concerned with intentionality: What did the author intend his original readers to understand?”

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Before we can determine what a given text might mean for us today, we must establish what it meant for its original audience.

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This is the process of exegesis. In this article, we will lay out the fundamental rules, of which there are eight. In future articles, we will elaborate on each one from a nuts & bolts perspective. The rules listed are taken directly from Prof. Fee’s excellent book (p. 32), mentioned in the paragraph above.

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Rules of Bible exegesis

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Rule No. 1: Survey the historical context in general.

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Rule No. 2: Confirm the limits of the passage.

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Rule No. 3: Become thoroughly acquainted with your paragraph or pericope

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Rule No. 4: Analyze sentence structures and syntactical relationships.

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Rule No. 5: Establish the text.

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Rule No. 6: Analyze the grammar.

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Rule No. 7: Analyze significant words.

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Rule No. 8: Research the historical-cultural background.

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Godward.org

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Edited by timothy44, : No reason given.

This example falls into the category I posted about earlier where I asked the originator of the thread to consider contradicting versions of the Bible.I don't know thish Bible this version comes from, but you should be aware that not all Bibles claim this amount.The NIV, for example claim there were only 70 men that died: But God struck down some of the men of Beth Shemesh, putting seventy of them to death because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. The people mourned because of the heavy blow the LORD had dealt them Young's Literal Translation:And He smiteth among the men of Beth-Shemesh, for they looked into the ark of Jehovah, yea, He smiteth among the people seventy men -- fifty chief men; and the people mourn, because Jehovah smote among the people -- a great smiting. The Revised Standard Version:And he slew some of the men of Beth-she'mesh, because they looked into the ark of the LORD; he slew seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the LORD had made a great slaughter among the people. I am sure there are other versions that that read 'seventy' instead of the huge unhistorical figure quoted in your version.I say 'unhistorical' because if we add children abd women to this figure we would probably have about 160 000 people of Bethshe'mash, which is a ridiculous figure. There was probably less than this amount of people in the whole of Palestine at this time.But, it is a good example to remind us that we don't know which version of the Bible to trust.Brian.

Which is basically a guess. How is it possible to establish 'why' an ancient author wrote something? What criteria would we need to apply to determine this?The readers should also be aware that it is possible to follow these steps and still conclude that there are contradictions in the Bible.I'll repeat an old mantra of mine:If anyone claims that the Bible is inerrant, they simply haven't studied the Bible. Brian.

Brian,You wrote:

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If anyone claims that the Bible is inerrant, they simply haven't studied the Bible.

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Are you saying that the Bible scholars/theologians like Norman Geisler, James Boice, Carl F. H. Henry, Kenneth Kantzer, J. I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, John MacArthur, and R. C. Sproul did not study their Bibles? Are you saying the same regarding the 200 signers of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy?I think you would do well to demonstrate your contention via the 8 steps I cited.

I am saying that ANYONE who claims that the Bible has no errors in it hasn't studied the Bible.If any of the names you have given have claimed that the Bible is error free, then they would be covered by my statement.Also, it isn't just a case of studying the Bible, there are other areas of academia that one has to be well-versed in too.Brian.

Oh! Like the Jesus Seminar does!

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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

Hi T,Before I apply these 8 steps to an alleged contradiction, perhaps you could hepl me with a problem or two I have with some of the steps. Rule No. 1: Survey the historical context in general. Is this the historical context of the contents of the book? Rule No. 3: Become thoroughly acquainted with your paragraph or pericope Would't you just automatically do this regardless of which discipline you work in? Rule No. 6: Analyze the grammar. How is this different from Rule 4? Rule No. 7: Analyze significant words. How do we determine which words are significant and which aren't?Rule No. 8: Research the historical-cultural background.Is this the historical background of when we think the book was written?Take the Book of Joshua as an example, we do not know who wrote the book and we do not know when it was written.Here we meet a big problem.The Book of Joshua, if we take Bible chronology as accurate, describes events that were primarily supposed to have occurred about 1400 BCE. Since we do not know when it was written, and internal and external evidence falsifies most of the Book of Joshua if taken to describe 1400 bce-ish, do we try and determine when it WAS written and study that particular historical cultural background, or do we establish the historical-cultural background of the period the Book of Joshua is claiming to describe?Brian.

joshua appears to draw from the j and e sources, and appears as a direct continuation of deuteronomy, whose date of authorship is known (ironically, thanks to the bible) as ~621 bc. but this could be a trick of editting. i'll leave tim to answer this, but i do feel that it's important to understand when the book was written, and why, and what role it played in society.

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i'll reiterate what others have said. anyone who espouses this view simply has not studied the bible. dogma and theology, sure, but not the bible.because a plain and literal reading of the bible is unbelievably full of contradictions. remember that whole idea in the torah about god being just? yet in job he punishes the righteous. that's the premise of the book: that god does not play by the rules the other books say he does. job is righteous and perfect -- yet paul says no man is perfect. and no man has ever seen god. except moses, elijah, enoch, jacob, and maybe abraham. nobody knew his name until he told moses -- yet the first sons of adam called him by the same name. the god in genesis is close, very anthropomorphic, and sometimes just petty. he wrestles with jacob in the desert. but the god of exodus is so holy you can't get within a thousand feet of him without bursting into flames. god is not a man, that he should repent, yet he does numerous times in the bible. god is perfect, but by his own admission makes errors (see repenting). he tells us to make no images of anything divine, yet commands israel to place golden cherubs on his ark.these are not minor things. they are major, major points about the character and identity of god. is he mysterious, or familiar? is he just, or forgiving? is he human-like, or abstract? does he allow for the existance of other divine entities, or not? can we be just in his eyes, or not? there are, and they are the ones who think that the bible has no contradictions. of course a text that was written by more than 50 authors, in three different languages, over the course of 1000 years, and stitched together from so many different sources and traditions will contradict. most people have problems not contradicting themselves, let alone someone several hundred years in the future, living in a different region, speaking a different language, and having a different set of beliefs.

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Furthermore, exegesis is primarily concerned with intentionality: What did the author intend his original readers to understand?”

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yes. exegesis is concerned with meaning. not with making texts agree. when that becomes our primary concern, we lose sight of the intent of the individual authors. texts lose their flavor and impact. the text becomes boring -- and all debate and discussion within disappears. it also does an incredibly disservice to the text when we are forced to assume that it doesn't actually mean what it says.so what if one author means something, and another means its opposite?

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Rules of Bible exegesis

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Rule No. 1: Survey the historical context in general.

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Rule No. 2: Confirm the limits of the passage.

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Rule No. 3: Become thoroughly acquainted with your paragraph or pericope

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Rule No. 4: Analyze sentence structures and syntactical relationships.

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Rule No. 5: Establish the text.

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Rule No. 6: Analyze the grammar.

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Rule No. 7: Analyze significant words.

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Rule No. 8: Research the historical-cultural background.

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this is sloppy. rules 4 and 6 are the same (and should be combined with 7) as a starting place. rules 8 and 1 are the same.really, we should be concerned with, in order:

1. what the text actually says, across different manuscripts (thus the history of the text itself)
2. the meaning contained in the grammar and syntax, and what the words imply.
3. the idiomatic usages, and the language in general,
4. symbolic meanings
5. the verse's role in that particular text (textual context)
6. the book's role in the collection of books
7. the book and collection's role in societal context
8. the functioning of the society that produced the text, and the effect of the text

we can extract from this what the author probably means. the problem with most christian exegesis supported by fundamentalists is that they often ignore #1, and start with a fault assumption about #6 (god's word, inerrant, consistent, etc). bad process leads to bad conclusions, and the process that start with a conclusion always end the worst. we MUST star with the text and work up from there. we cannot start with an assumption about the nature of the text that is easily demonstrated to be false by any actual study.Edited by arachnophilia, : subtitle, typo

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i am somewhat well known on here for my biblical analysis. you will find that i tend to discuss all of the important factors described in your process (though less redundantly), and still come a very different conclusion.even when the contradictions are more subtle -- a revisement of intention, perhaps -- they are still there. it is still one author saying "don't read it this way, read it this way." for instance, in another thread, it came up that jeremiah and psalms both say that god doesn't ask for sacrifices. yet in exodus, he clearly does. can both be accurate? possibly. see that thread (old laws still valid) for the reasoning. there are a lot of "contradictions" like this, and they us a great deal about the changing ideas of the society that wrote them.so here's what i'm going to do. i'm going to call you out on this one. demonstrate to me, using your exegetical guidelines (or mine) why these three contradictions are not really contradictory. i'll start with two i give to noobs on occasion, to watch them scratch their heads and say "i never noticed that."

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2Sa 24:1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.

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1Ch 21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

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the lord = satan?

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Isa 14:12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

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Rev 22:16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, [and] the bright and morning star.

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jesus = lucifer?i'll give you a hint, or perhaps a word of encouragement regarding these two. they are not contradictions, but it's up to you to figure out why, and then demonstrate your logic using the process you described. and then when you've done that, please explain this one to me:

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Pro 26:4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

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Pro 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

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answer a fool, or don't? please note the sequential verse numbers.

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Hi,How about the so-called doctrine of the Trinity? No where in the bible is the word "Trinity" found and yet it is believed by many in the Christain world today.I am wondering how a topic of Christainity beliefs that are in contratdiction with the bible as a magesterium. I think I am going to post it one of these days.

you will find many christian concepts at odds with the bible. the trick to this thread is showing the ones that are recorded in the bible at odds with other parts of the bible.the trinity in particular seems to have been invented to explain just such a contradiction: is jesus god (john), or is he separate from god (matt, mark, luke)?Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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The word "Trinity" is found nowhere in the Scriptures, only the allusion of the concept. Belief in the Trinity is one of many aversions that Judaism has with Christianity. They view this as idolatry, seemingly incapable of distinguishing the characteristics of God, and thus, equating them to polytheism.Interestingly enough, the pseudo-spiritual belief, Kabbalah, which is widely venerated by many Jews and no-Jews alike, describes God as having 12 characteristics composing of one God. Many Christian scholars have attempted to point this out, as well as using the Old Testament and New Testament as a reference, but to no avail. The majority of Jews to this day reject Jesus as the Messiah and are still waiting the One who would place Yisrael above all nations.When Jesus stated that He and God are One (Echad, in Hebrew), He was not merely stating that He was in the perfect will of God. Jesus is actually saying that He is God, and God is, Him. Jesus is God incarnate-- something that is considered a heresy to all of the Abrahamic faiths, except Christianity.But what you want to know is how Christians have even come up with the Trinitarian theory. Well, its supported by Scripture.“In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” -John 1:1-5“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the Name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” -Philippians 2:5-11The Apostle Paul explains in this verse that understanding the Trinity is not something that can be fully grasped, humanly speaking. Even so, I give you an illustration in nature to help us understand what God means, by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What is water? What is ice? What is vapor? They are forms of liquid, solid, and gas. What is their chemical compound? Do they biochemically differ from each? No. They are all forms of H²O. While its true that they each have separate characteristics, they are still the exact same thing. So truly, though they are separate, they are still, but one.Perhaps, even when the prophet Yeshayahu (Isaiah) declared, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Name of the Lord,” he was not being redundant for effect. He was conveying the principle of the Trinity. The intimation given by Isaiah is implicit, but this isn;t the only verse.I'm currently scouring the Bible for more. Its just a matter of me remembering where they are.Anyway, hope that helps you.Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : add italics

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"With derision the atheist points out that there can be no God because this world is so unfair. Without hesitation, I concur with him. Indeed, we live in an unfair world because of all sorts of social ills and perils. I must not contend with such a sentiment because it is factual-- we don't live in a fair world. Grace is unambiguous proof that we live in an unfair world. I received salvation when I deserved condemnation. Yes, indeed this world is unfair." -Andrew Jaramillo-

there is a more direct parallel in qabalah. actually, two more direct parallels in qabalah. one being ain, ain soph, ain soph aur. the other being adonai, shekinah, and one other party (the angel of the lord?). both are concepts of separate "facets" or even entities, but a single god.i don't think either fits the bible very well at all. nor does the trinity, imo. that text is in greek, and the hebrew is quite irrelevent. especially since jesus spoke aramaic. john contends that jesus is god, quite literally. this isn't exactly a trinitarian concept as it is that he thinks jesus is god incarnate. but in matthew and mark, jesus and god are separate to the extent that he pleads with god in gethsemane, and call out on the cross, "elahi, elahi, lamah shabaqt-ani?" meaning "my god, my god, why have you abandoned me?" a VERY odd statement to make if you are your own god.the trinity idea seems to come about to rectify john's almost gnostic ideas with the more human-prophet ideas of the synoptic gospels. it's just not biblical, even if you can read it in here and there. in biblical hebrew, one repeats to mean "very." if we were to exlcude all the repition in the bible, it would be less than half the length. nearly all poetry is redundant (that's the style). it's just the way the hebrews wrote, and there is no cause to read anything else into it.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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Adonai, just means, the Lord. I don't think its meant descriptively about His nature. Shekina glory is supposed to be the feminine attributes of God. Whether you believe in the Trinity or not, would you agree that it is unreasonable for early Christians to have surmised such a thing based off of the scriptures I presented? I think its reasonable to assume that Jesus not only spoke Aramaic and Hebrew, but Greek and Latin, being that He was able to converse with centurians and procurators of Rome. Aside from which, Greek at that time was the commercial language, much as English is in our time. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that He spoke those languages. Only odd in human relation, which is why I quoted Paul. Of course, we have hundreds of verses of Jesus speaking with the Father. So, from a human perspective, it appears that He is speaking to someone sles. I understand that and it isn't crazy for anyone to make that argument for face value. However, let me dig up more verses to solidify the notion of the Trinity and what it means.We have a few verses from the New Testament. I won't even get into the Pentateuch or the the Tanakh just yet:"As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." -Matthew 3:16-17"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." -Matthew 28:19-20"For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many "gods" and many "lords"), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." -1^st Corinthians 8:5-6"My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."

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Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?"

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"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."

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Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came”and the Scripture cannot be broken” what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'? Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." -John 10:29-38"Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

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How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves." -John 14:8-11"Then Jesus cried out, "When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." -John 12:44-46"You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." -Romans 8:9-11"But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

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All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"”which means, "God with us." -Matthew 1:20-23"Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory." -1^st Timothy 3:16"For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope”the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ." -Titus 2:11-13"To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours: Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." -2^nd Peter 1:1-2"They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them." -Acts 2:3-4Anyway, there are quite a bit more verses speaking about the Trinity than what I posted. Then why did Matthew, Paul, Peter, etc corroborate the same claim that God equals the Father, Son, and Spirit, if this is uniquely a trait of John? No, what it does in that poetic style is make an affirmation, then it is followed up by example. The Psalms are riddled with this poetic style. Being redundant for effect doesn't seem to fit the style, especially for a prophet, not a poet. Edited by nemesis_juggernaut, : typos and italics fixedEdited by nemesis_juggernaut, : No reason given.

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"With derision the atheist points out that there can be no God because this world is so unfair. Without hesitation, I concur with him. Indeed, we live in an unfair world because of all sorts of social ills and perils. I must not contend with such a sentiment because it is factual-- we don't live in a fair world. Grace is unambiguous proof that we live in an unfair world. I received salvation when I deserved condemnation. Yes, indeed this world is unfair." -Andrew Jaramillo-