Do you believe that the Bible is true?
Yes.
So you must believe the Bible doesn't contain any contradictions?
No. It's perfectly obvious that the Bible does contain contradictions.
And you don't have a problem with those two statements?
No. Well, not really.
So what do you do about the contradictions? How can the Bible be true and contain contradictions?
Well, basically there are five classes of contradiction. This is fortunate, because I wouldn't be able to go through every single contradiction; all I need to do is to take each class in turn.
But let me say this now. Usually I am going to choose little contradictions, ones that are encapsulated in very small bits of text. That's me being nice to you. You don't want to have to wade through long passages trying to pick out what I'm talking about. But several of the classes do include some quite large scale contradictions, as well. As long as you're not a theology student, you should have the intelligence to be able to allocate them to their proper class.
Anyway, as I said, we take each of six classes in turn. Beginning of course with -
It is well known, of course, that all theological students are totally illiterate, and this has led to some quite remarkable results. For example: consider Mark 2:23-26
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the cornfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some ears of corn. The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?" He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."
and 1Sam 21:1-6
David went to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech trembled when he met him, and asked, "Why are you alone? Why is no-one with you?" David answered Ahimelech the priest, "The king charged me with a certain matter and said to me, 'No-one is to know anything about your mission and your instructions.' As for my men, I have told them to meet me at a certain place. Now then, what have you to hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever you can find." But the priest answered David, "I don't have any ordinary bread to hand; however, there is some consecrated bread here-- provided the men have kept themselves from women." David replied, "Indeed women have been kept from us, as usual whenever I set out. The men's things are holy even on missions that are not holy. How much more so today!" So the priest gave him the consecrated bread, since there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence that had been removed from before the LORD and replaced by hot bread on the day it was taken away.
Amazingly enough, theological students are taught to regard these two verses as contradictory. No, I'm sorry. I can't resist a (!).
This is equivalent to claiming that "While Michael Ramsay was Archbishop of Canterbury, I met Rev Joe Bloggs in Canterbury Cathedral, polishing the communion rails" is a selfcontradiction!
The only question of any real interest is: why does Jesus mention Abiathar at all?
The answer is simple. Abiathar is not a quotation or a reference, he is a DATE. There were several different ways of dating events in antiquity, and in particular each party among the Jews had their own. The Pharisees, for example, had a system of dating by Jubilee Years.
The dating by High Priest was a system used by the priestly party - but the essential thing is that Jesus is making a point: he's saying, I'm not just an ignorant hick from the provinces, I've been to College, I know my facts. You're trying a simplistic argument on me, well, don't push your luck. I've had the same training as you, and I can handle it.
Indeed, this is a feature that runs all through this essay - all the contradictions, even the Class 0 ones, point to a deeper issue. However, time to get to some real contradictions...
Paradox is a recognised trick in public speaking, and biblical authors are quite happy to use it. For example: 1John 2:7,8 - and notice this is a single continuous passage; I haven't edited it at all:
Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.
It's a very effective device. It stops us in our tracks, makes us realise that the author means a lot more than he says; that we need a wider or deeper view than either statement alone would suggest. The contradiction is necessarily superficial; as soon as we analyse the statements we see that there is no actual contradiction. But it does force us to analyse the statements much more thoroughly that we otherwise would.
If you would like one example of the sort of large scale contradiction that I mentioned earlier, there is a discussion of a large scale Class 1 contradiction here.
There are a few things in the Bible which the writers or their later editors have been, shall we say, a teensy bit embarrassed by. Ba'al, for instance. In early Hebrew, as in most of its related languages, ba'al is an ordinary word for lord. As such it happily becomes a title of God, and we get names, perfectly good Jewish names, containing it.
Unfortunately, the Canaanites used it very specifically for their own God, so in later usage it becomes a specifically pagan name. So these older names became an embarrassment. Pious Jews, therefore, began to replace Ba'al in such names by Besheth, which means Shame. Consequently we often get both names in use.
For example: Jdg 9:1
Abimelech son of Jerub-baal went to his mother's brothers in Shechem and said to them and to all his mother's clan...
and 2Sam 11:21
Who killed Abimelech son of Jerub-besheth? Didn't a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez?
You might like to look at Jdg 9:50 -53 to make sure it's the same man.
So we get doublets. As I said, it's almost entirely a matter of names containing Ba'al. There are a very few other cases of the same kind, but the basic situation is the same.
But since the Bible is happy to allow this, what does it say about truth? What was Abimelech's father's real name? And how does belief change? When does belief change legitimately and when does it change illegitimately?
It is of course worth pointing out yet again that we don't really know how either name was pronounced - if we were suddenly transported back to Abimelech's childhood, we probably would hear his father's name pronounced differently again. Don't forget that Jesus was not called Jesus! Jesus is an English corruption of a Latin corruption of a Greek corruption of an Aramaic name, which might - and only might - have sounded something like Yeshuwa.
Both names, Jesus and Jerub-besheth, have been accommodated to the environment in which we live and in which the Bible is read. How far is this legitimate? How far should we accommodate what we teach to the environment we live in? Bearing in mind - I repeat - the Bible is happy to allow this!
Yes, the text of the Bible is corrupt in places.
I am going to quote from the Authorised version, (known to our colonial cousins as the King James Version) because the translators didn't have quite so many axes to grind on this issue.
For example, 1Chron 1:17
The sons of Shem; Elam, and Asshur, and Arphaxad, and Lud, and Aram, and Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Meshech.
To compare with Gen 10:23:
And the children of Aram; Uz, and Hul, and Gether, and Mash.
As another example, God alone knows what has happened at the beginning of 1 Sam 13:
Saul reigned one year; and when he had reigned two years over Israel...
So how far can we believe what the Bible says? If there are manifest corruptions how much of the rest of the text is corrupt in subtle ways?
Well, note first that none of the corruptions make any difference to doctrine. I know that's not enough, but it's a start.
And then, note what it is saying about how we should handle texts, how we should scrutinise - or not - every nuance, every tiny word, every fine detail. The Bible itself is telling us that nit-picking is wrong, it is the wrong way to approach the Bible. It is the wrong way to understand what it means to say that the Bible is true.
There is another point which I suppose comes under this heading. You will often find New Testament writers quoting the Old Testament - for example Is 55:3 reads (and I return to a heterosexual translation):
I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David.
while in Acts 13:34 Luke says Paul quoted Isaiah as saying
I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.
No it doesn't make any significant difference to the sense, but it flies in the face of the nit-pickers, the text shredders, and everyone who relies on the letter of the Bible instead of the Spirit.
By the way, It's surprising how often you hear people claiming that such-and-such a doctrine was 'edited out of the Bible by the Church'. When, please? There wasn't a Church, in the sense of an organisation capable of agreeing a text, before 400AD at the absolute earliest, and 450AD would be a lot closer. Before then geography, culture and above all persecution meant that the Church was hopelessly fragmented, in an impossible condition even to work out which books to include, let alone to agree on a single text, edited or otherwise. And we have texts, actual texts, not copies, from around 350AD, not to mention fragments from as early as 125AD! Oh, and by the way, we don't see anything like an agreed or consistent text of the New Testament until about 1000AD!
To be honest, I almost wish these people could be right. It would be nice to think that the Church could have got its act together at a reasonably early date and actually agreed on something - anything! But that's not how the Church has ever worked.
There is one factual contradiction for which I have no explanation: the genealogies of Jesus. For example Matt 1:16
...Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
against Lk 3:23
Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli...
No, I repeat, I don't have an explanation. Commentators have put some ideas forward, but quite frankly they're as convincing as a four-pound note. But I do believe, simply on 'inductive' grounds, that since all the other contradictions had a purpose, so does this one. It's just that I haven't spotted it yet.
(One point to notice, though, is that this is further proof that the text of the Bible has not in fact been edited by a hypothetical 'Church' in the fourth century - no editor would have allowed such a blatant contradiction to survive.)
But am I so arrogant that I expect to be able to see through all these problems? Shouldn't I have the humility to say, no I don't see it, but that's my problem, not the Bible's? According to my friends and family, the answers are 'yes' and 'yes but he doesnt' respectively.
To sum up at this point: I don't believe that an honest person would regard any of these contradictions as a good enough reason to reject the Bible. All of them have a legitimate explanation that is not so difficult to find and to accept.
But the last class, Class 5, is a different matter altogether. And it has to be faced.
Let me simply lay out a series of quotations.
Josh 6:21
They devoted the city to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it-- men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.
Josh 8:1-2
Then the LORD said to Joshua, "Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land. You shall do to Ai and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, except that you may carry off their plunder and livestock for yourselves.
Jdg 5:24-31
Most blessed of women be Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, most blessed of tent-dwelling women. He asked for water, and she gave him milk; in a bowl fit for nobles she brought him curdled milk. Her hand reached for the tent peg, her right hand for the workman's hammer. She struck Sisera, she crushed his head, she shattered and pierced his temple. At her feet he sank, he fell; there he lay. At her feet he sank, he fell; where he sank, there he fell-- dead. Through the window peered Sisera's mother; behind the lattice she cried out, 'Why is his chariot so long in coming? Why is the clatter of his chariots delayed?' The wisest of her ladies answer her; indeed, she keeps saying to herself, 'Are they not finding and dividing the spoils: a girl or two for each man, colourful garments as plunder for Sisera, colourful garments embroidered, highly embroidered garments for my neck-- all this as plunder?' So may all your enemies perish, O LORD! But may they who love you be like the sun when it rises in its strength.
Ps 137:8-9
O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us-- he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
Lk 6:35-37
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Lk 23:34
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Ac 7:55-60
But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." When he had said this, he fell asleep.
Rom 5:6-8
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Well? Do you see? There is not one actual, factual contradiction between any of these passages but they are deeply contradictory in atmosphere, in attitude, in almost everything that we would recognise as Christian.
I believe that these passages could make an honest person reject the Bible, or at least the Old Testament. And honest people, from Marcion in the second century AD onwards, have done precisely that. I, who find myself still hearing the voice of God even in passages like these, also find myself put to the temptation of explaining them away, of sanitising the Old Testament to avoid these embarrassments. At least in so doing I would not be doing the opposite: sanitising the New Testament passages to justify mass slaughter, war, and ethnic cleansing. People have done exactly that, and are still doing it (to quote Mark, let the reader understand!) But I believe that there is an explanation for these contradictions too. I have still not got the explanation properly worked out, but I suspect that these will finish up, to a very large extent, as Class 1 contradictions.
If there is a theme to all these classes, it is this. There are contradictions in the Bible when language is inadequate to convey the truth. Read them through again, if you doubt me. Every class - even class 0 - reflects a limitation of language, either of excess precision, or of inadequate precision, or of a lack of some way of thought or of the means of expression of some category of experience.
The reason, the ultimate reason why the infallible Word of God contains contradictions, is that it is written in a fallen language, a language no longer capable of bearing the Word without first being washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. The contradictions are not truly in the Word of God, but in the words of fallen mankind. And I suspect, even though I can not yet prove or sufficiently justify it, that the Class 5 contradictions are the greatest examples of that fall.