Biblical contradictions.

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Originally posted by Diamus:
Anyway, to get back on track here are a few assorted contradiction that are written in the bible.

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Should we kill?
Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not kill."
Leviticus 24:17 "And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death."
-------vs.-------
Exodus 32:27 "Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, . . . and slay every man his brother, . . . companion, . . . neighbor."
I Samuel 6:19 " . . . and the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter."
I Samuel 15:2,3,7,8 "Thus saith the Lord . . . Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. . . . And Saul smote the Amalekites . . . and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword."
Numbers 15:36 "And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."
Hosea 13:16 "they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with children shall be ripped up."

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Though all judges have the right to be merciful, they also have the right to execute the Law to its full extent. In each of these passages, the ones being killed are those who have been found guilty under the Law. The ones doing the killing are carrying out the Law upon the order of the Judge. See Genesis 9:6. According to Matthew 12:5, those carrying out the Law are held blameless for any breaches of the Law necessary for is accomplishment.

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Should we tell lies?
Exodus 20:16 "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
Proverbs 12:22 "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord."
-------vs.-------
I Kings 22:23 "The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee."

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According to verses 20-22 of I Kings 22, God merely gave the lying spirit permission to persuade the king. He did not command the spirit to do this; He simply allowed that spirit to carry out its own designs. If you would like to research the ethics of this, allow me suggest a study of Romans 9:15-24.

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II Thessalonians 2:11 "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."

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Here God will allow men to believe a lie because they have refused to believe the truth. In essence, He allows them to believe what they are already proclaiming as true.
II Thessalonians 2:12 "That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

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Should we steal?
Exodus 20:15 "Thou shalt not steal."
Leviticus 19:13 "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him."
-------vs.-------
Exodus 3:22 "And ye shall spoil the Egyptians."
Exodus 12:35-36 "And they spoiled [plundered] the Egyptians."
Luke 19:29-34 "[Jesus] sent two of his disciples, Saying, Go ye into the village . . . ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither. And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of him. . . . And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt? And they said, The Lord hath need of him."

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In response to the first two in your second set of verses, let me simply say that you did not complete the quotation of the given passages. Doing so might eliminate these two from your list. If not, let me refer you to my argumentation concerning your first proposed contradiction.As for the final verse, you will notice first of all that the owners of the colt knew why and were present when it was being taken. You will also notice that Luke does not record their response to this action. Mark, on the other hand, records, "and they let them go." (Mark 11:6) Thus the colt was borrowed with consent of the owners. This hardly constitutes thievery on the part of the disciples.

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Shall we keep the sabbath?
Exodus 20:8 "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy."
Exodus 31:15 "Whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."
Numbers 15:32,36 "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. . . . And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."
-------vs.-------
Isaiah 1:13 "The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity."
John 5:16 "And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day."
Colossians 2:16 "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days."

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These verses can be best understood through a study of the following passages.
Matthew 12:1-8, I Samuel 15:22, Hosea 6:6, Micah 6:6-8, Romans 8:1-4, and Romans 9

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Shall we make graven images?
Exodus 20:4 "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven . . . earth . . . water."
Leviticus 26:1 "Ye shall make ye no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone."
Deuteronomy 27:15 "Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image."
-------vs.-------
Exodus 25:18 "And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them."
I Kings 7:15,16,23,25 "For he [Solomon] cast two pillars of brass . . . and two chapiters of molten brass . . . And he made a molten sea . . . it stood upon twelve oxen . . . [and so on]"

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Please take another look at the passages referred to here. If you do so, you will find that you substituted a period for a semicolon in your quote of Exodus 20:4 and failed to quote verse five. You also inserted periods into the middle of Leviticus 26:1 and Deuteronomy 27:15, failing to provide the conclusion of either verse.Let take Leviticus 26:1 as an example. If read in its entirety the verse states,"Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God."Notice the phrase, "to bow down unto it:" You will find a similar phrase in each of the passages in question. Thus the Cherubims crafted for the tabernacle and the temple ornamentation designed by Solomon are not condemned by the Law, for they were not created to be worshipped. On the contrary, they were created to point men to God.

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Originally posted by schrafinator:
OK, here is another contradiction which, to date, no Biblical literalist has been able to explain to me...

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There are contradictory accounts of when Jesus was crucified, depending upon which Gospel you read. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have him being crucified after passover, while John has him being crucified BEFORE Passover.

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At the time of Christ, there were two timetables in use by the Jews. The Galileans measured each day from sunset to sunset while the Judeans measured from sunrise to sunrise. Therefore all the Galileans, including Jesus and His disciples, would have eaten their Passover meal on what would be by our reckoning Thursday night. The Judeans, on the other hand, would not have eaten their Passover meal until Friday evening. Thus Christ's crucifixion would have taken place after His own Passover meal but just prior to the meal of those who crucified Him.This explanation is supported by Mark 14:70. In that verse, Peter is told, "Surely thou art one of them: for thou art a Galilaean, and thy speech agreeth thereto." Why would they associate Peter with Christ merely because he was a Galilean? The Galileans had a custom in which they did not work during the day of the Passover. The Judeans, on the other hand, kept the custom of not doing any work after noon on the day of the Passover. Thus any Galilean mingling with a crowd of Judeans on Passover morning would be suspected of being associated with Christ.

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Here's some more. So, how agout drinking a little poison for us? I choose Drano.

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"67.Jesus said that his true followers will routinely perform the following tricks: 1) cast out devils, 2)speak in tongues, 3) take up serpents, 4) drink poisons without harm, and 5) cure the sick by touching them. Mk.16:17-18"

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Jesus did not say that His followers would routinely perform these tricks. He said that these signs would follow them that believe. Notice also that, in each case, the reference is plural, thus leading one to the conclusion that though every believer may not perform these signs, the body of believers as a whole, including past believers, will be found to have had these signs follow them. This is certainly evidenced to be true throughout Scripture and the history of Biblical Christianity.

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And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. (Mark 16:17-18 KJV)

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Originally posted by TrueCreation:
Uh, you still haven't explained to me why there are so many different VERSIONS of the Bible, which each have somewhat different flavors and slants."
--One would simply because of change of syntax usage over time. Or because there are different words for the same thing.

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The King James Version of the Bible is the primary English translation of the Textus Receptus, the Greek text which has been accepted by Christians since the New Testament era. Most of the other translations are from the Critical Text, a Greek text formulated by Westcott and Hort in 1881.Many arguments have been presented for acceptance of the Critical Text and its translations, however the final test for any book that claims to be holy is that which reveals the presence or absence of error within that book. In Mark 1:2, the TR, as translated in the KJV, states, "As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee." This is a quote of Malachi 3:1, however the Critical Text changes this verse in Mark to state, "As it is written by the prophet Isaiah..." This certainly qualifies as error, and the Critical Text cannot truthfully claim to be the Word of God.As for why there are so many different translations, let me simply point out that, to my knowledge, the King James Version is the only current English translation of the Bible which can be reproduced royalty free.

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Originally posted by Philip:
Although there are numerous translation glitches that ‘suit’ one population over another, only one Biblical contradiction has stymied my ‘fundamentalist’ attempt to render the Bible inerrant in every last detail. Doubtless there are others apparent, but I believe I’ve reconciled them all, including the Genesis discrepancies and the so called Calvanistic-Arminian discrepancies (i.e., God’s Sovereignty vs Free Will). But note this apparent discrepancy:

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2 Kings 24.8 states: Jehoiachinb was EIGHTEEN years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months.

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Vs.

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2 Chronicles 36.9 states: Jehoiachin was EIGHT years old when he began to reign and he reigned three months

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Apologists have called this a transcriptional error.
(1) If, indeed, this is a transcriptional error, then a purely literal fundamentalist scheme of the KJV seems to fail (at least to a degree).
(2) If, on the other hand, I state that I believe the original manuscripts only were correct, then I concede God’s Word is at least partially obscured by errors.
(3) Jehoiachin tutored 10 years before really allowed to reign.
(4) Or, the words must become ‘surreal’ in their relations (as in the Poetic books) to impart a ‘higher’ meaning, e.g., Jehoiachin was ‘so young’, ‘premadonna-like’, ‘premature’, etc. before taken into captivity by Babylon.
(5) A devout Christian may add that the Gospel Word (i.e., the Christ dying for our sins and raising from the dead) must also be ‘symphonic’ with this scripture to be valid. (an offshoot of no. 4 above)

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Anyone care to comment additionally on this ‘apparent’ contradiction?

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The answer is found in Ezekiel 19:5-6. There we read,

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Now when she saw that she had waited, and her hope was lost, then she took another of her whelps, and made him a young lion. And he went up and down among the lions, he became a young lion, and learned to catch the prey, and devoured men. (Ezekiel 19:5-6)

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In speaking of Jehoiachin, this passage states that he was first made a young lion and later became a young lion. This would then lead one to interpret the supposed discrepancy between II Kings and II Chronicles as follows. Jehoiachin was made co-regent with his father at age eight. Ten years later his father died and he became the sole regent of Israel.

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Originally posted by Percipient:
Let's see if we can pick our way through this, assuming KJV for the Bible.
The KJV of the Bible contains errors and contradictions.

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The Word of God is without errors and contradictions.

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Therefore, the KJV version of Bible is not the Word of God.

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But the Word of God *is* contained within the original manuscripts.

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Therefore, either the KJV was not translated from original manuscripts, or the translation is in error, or both.

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Hmmm. So how do you know when you have a manuscript that contains God's original words? And how do you know when it's been interpreted and translated properly?

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First of all, I agree with you that the Word of God is without error or contradiction. This is the primary test of all Scripture.On the other hand, however, I would disagree with your claim that the KJV contains errors and contradictions. I have just recently completed a study of 279 pages worth of supposed errors, and in every case I found the Scriptures in question to be inerrant.Thus, using your same logic, I would have to conclude that, the true Word of God containing no error and the KJV likewise containing no error, the KJV is an accurate translation of the true Word of God.