Sunday, 14 November 2010
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Contradictions in the Bible: What the Bible got Wrong?!
By Matthew at Jesus Needs New PR
That is just a portion of the chart that famous atheist Sam Harris commissioned to be created for his nonprofit foundation Project Reason.The whole chart looks like this…
You can learn more about the chart here. OR, if you want, you can download the chart as a PDF. (via.)Some of the contradictions are less “contradictions” and more or less a misunderstanding of the biblical text. But of course, when you’re trying to inspire skepticism, “understanding the text” as well as the point of the biblical literature isn’t what’s important. Pointing out apparent “fallacies” works if you’re simply trying to… 1) Preach to the “choir” (albeit an atheist choir) or 2) Discredit scripture.
However, the chart-makers do make quite a few good/interesting points…
For instance, point # 257: Was Keturah Abraham’s wife or concubine? Gen 25:1 =̀¸ 1 Chronicles 1:32
Genesis 25:1 says: Abraham had taken another wife, whose name was Keturah. (NIV)
and 1 Chronicles 1:32 says: The sons born to Keturah, Abraham’s concubine: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. The sons of Jokshan: Sheba and Dedan. (NIV)
According to my friend Adam, a pastor and theologian who sent me the link to the chart, the biggest challenges for some (mostly fundamentalists?) will be the discrepancies of factual information and detail that the chart points to.
“What will most likely mess with people are the detail inaccuracies,” Adam said. “For example, there is one place where Jesus talks about an event in the Old Testament and he mentions who was the High Priest at the time. If you look up the event in the Old Testament, you find that either Jesus was wrong or that the Old Testament writer was wrong, because the text clearly says that someone else was the High Priest.” (You can read Adam’s blog here.)
I’ve long knew that the Bible contained contradictions as well as several factual inaccuracies, so this “chart” doesn’t do much for me or my faith.
But how does a believer who is convinced that the Bible is inerrant respond? If you believe every word and detail of the Bible is God-breathed, what does a chart like this do to that person’s faith? Perhaps nothing. Perhaps they just chalk it up to “translations,” I don’t know. Or maybe they just give God the benefit of the doubt.
What does a chart like this make you feel? Anger? Doubt? Frustration? Confusion? Does it challenge your faith? Were you aware of these “errors”? How should Christians respond?
Thoughts?
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About the Author
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- From: JesusNeedsNewPR
- Name: Matthew Paul Turner
- About Me: Matthew Paul Turner is the author of ten books and a contributor to several others. He is also the former editor of CCM, a popular Christian music magazine, and a past contributor to crosswalk.com.
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Comments (95)
Um. My first inclination is to open the Bible and read all the passages in context. That solves most apparent contradictions.
@llamalima@xanga - Alright, but let's assume that one or two defy contextual glossing. There are contradictions that context, cultural understanding and manuscript history cannot account for. Sometimes the Bible appears to be flatly wrong. What do we do in that case?
No worries here!
There is a standard posture toward it that I find reasonable: the errors are due to typists/copyists - the vast majority of the conflicts are with minute chronology of events, the sort of thing that usually got etched up.
for the theological conflicts like whether Abraham was saved by works/faith - that's more of a paradox than a conflict: Bubbles don't cause water to boil, but they confirm that it's boiling. Works don't cause you to be saved, but it confirms your salvation.
yet, in principle, i'm not an inerrantist for other reasons. God not only told us that scripture was breathed by him - he tells us the purpose for which it was inspired: to teach, correct, rebuke, and train people "in righteousness" - this does not as a matter of logic or other necessity mean that scripture concerning historical events be flawless. they need to be as accurate as they can to satisfy the purposes for which scripture was inspired: to teach, correct, and to train others.
The bible isn't about logic, or sense, or reasonable thought. It's about faith. You just gotta believe!
@NikBv@xanga - what deep faith!
@SirNickDon@xanga - You would have to go into specifics for me to know what you mean. =P
"I can't answer that question in the abstract" - Sotomayor
I like what @nyclegodesi24@xanga - said about the whole purpose of the word. It's not necessarily about being able to check every single fact or statement that the Bible makes in order to have faith.
As for Keturah, I wonder if there is some kind of Jewish traditional that, say, takes "concubine" to mean any wife after the first wife, that perhaps the Chronicles writer wanted to be more specific, whereas the Genesis writer took a more general meaning of the term "wife."
@ShimmerBodyCream@xanga - Don't thank me, thank God. He made me believe. He's holding my dead relatives hostage.
A concubine is considered a wife. LINK
What's odd about fundamentalist views of the Bible is that they consider the Bible as perfect and inerrant because God created it. But what other creations of God's were perfect and inerrant? When God created the heavens, earth, plants, animals, man, He said they were "good", not perfect. So why such an emphasis on this alleged perfection in something that so clearly has errors?
I think a problem with such views of scripture is that calling a book perfect can clearly lead to idolatry (of the Bible? It's certainly possible!). Is not the only perfect thing in this universe and beyond God Himself?
That's why I emphasize that the Bible points to a relationship with God. The Bible doesn't point to a relationship with itself.
Does it rest on infallibly copied and translated text, or does it rest on an infallibly transmitted message (with our impressively preserved text as a bonus)?
To what would someone turn if they sought infallible data?
Science has been contradicting itself from its very beginning, and constantly discovers new data that proves their old hypothesis' wrong. So someone seeking infallible data would not be able to turn to science.
Yet, even though science has been known to contradict itself, quite a bit actually, I still go to doctors, I still cross bridges and fly in jets. I still trust its over-all ability to work reliably in my life.
Something like the contradiction in between Paul in Romans 4:2 and James in James 2:21 would be a major problem for Christians because it would present a contradiction in message.
However, James clarifies his meaning in the following verse (v22) by saying that neither faith nor works can stand alone but must work in accordance with one another. Paul, starting in Romans 1:18 and going through chapter 5, tells those that are seeking justification from the law that it is not the law that justifies.
Paul's case was against legalistic law-based justification. He pointed out that if you did not have faith, you were not justified. But he never told anyone to cease their work.
Regarding the questions "how does this make you feel".
Those who point to texts like Romans and James annoy me because they're flat out trying to be deceptive (or they're just plain ignorant).
The other points actually serve to humble me by calling to my recollection how uniquely important and necessary "faith" is to sustained faith in Christ.
Meh. I find most of those to not even be important enough to attempt to sort out. The rest are easily reasoned through. At least it's easy for me. Maybe I just have a better handle on this reasoning thing he is so fond of? (I kid, I kid.)
But really, an awful lot of work he did for something that isn't going to make a difference in the world. Imagine if he put that time and energy into something like saving girls from forced prostitution in Mumbai. Sad.
Sam Harris shows himself in his writings as a small minded, negative person, so this is the sort of thing we might expect from him. There are a few apparent factual inconsistencies in the Bible which may be put down, perhaps, to copyists errors, or might be down to our lack of knowldge of what the writer was actually talkin g about. But there is nothing that detracts from the great truths the Bible teaches. In fact, what is remarkable is just how few cases there are in a book written over so many centuries and in so many hands. Harris needs to sort his own patch out - like the incredible scientific inconsistencies within his beloved Darwinianism.
I contradicted myself when I wrote my Honours dissertation some years ago; it's amazing how the word "not" can change the entire meaning of a sentence (It was there by accident in the conclusion section, when it wasn't supposed to be, resulting in contradiction with the rest of the work). I guess some of the OT writers may have made mistakes too; not that they were intentional about it, but that it simply means we're human.
In fact, these contradictions further reinforce the truth. Say if a group of people witnessed a crime, and the police went around questioning each witness. It is considered normal for each witness to have slightly different accounts, which may seem contradictory. On the other hand however, if all the witnesses gave exactly the same accounts, with no variations, then it would be even more suspicious (more likely to be a fabricated lie).
How do you know the two different names of the High Priest aren't just teh same name in different languages, or two names for the same guy? Like, everyone knows me as Rayne, but officially my name is Surrayne. Or my friend Biddy, who's name is actually Alexandra, only we've known has a Biddy since we were 2.
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - Agreed.
People of faith should not concern themselves with logical or rational thought.
That said, inconsistency is the very least of my qualms with scripture.
@kenedwards5@xanga - Spewing ad hominem at someone who is a professional in multiple fields of study and has decades of practice in those fields, which very likely dwarfs your own expertise, is hardly a means by which to prove one's point.
That is to say, I would trust Sam Harris on any matters concerning religion, evolutionary biology, philosophy and neuroscience before I would trust some random hostile blogger that can't form a coherent criticism without personal attacks.
I believe in God and the bible and the only thing that I can rest on is the goodness of God. So. No reason for me to doubt.
Context is everything. When people look for contradictions in the Bible they aren't looking at the context.
@TheSaltMine@xanga - Oh come off it! His so-called learning doesn't mask his prejudice. Like Dawkins, Harris doesn't actually know what he is talking about when it comes to biblcal christianity. These guys are theological non-starters! As to evolution, don't trust him on that one either! The theory is full of holes! Believe that you believe anything!
@kk_grayfox@xanga - There is a lot of wisdom in this comment!
I'm not christian, but I do believe a lot of those errors have occured due to translation errors. Finding the bible in it's original form is almost impossible to find. Therefore, if you go by just the translations, you are going to have inconsistencies.
@kk_grayfox@xanga - I'm not trying to argue with you. But if something is considered the word of God, shouldn't it be perfect? Why would God write a book with errors in it? I think the argument would fair better, if you place the error on humans. I think in the original form, the Bible was perfect, but human error in translating and interpreting the bible has caused inconsistencies. A book that has been around for over 2000 years now, can lead to human mistakes. Like I said, I'm not christian, but I do believe the bible as being one of Gods books.