What if the bible were filled with thousands of contradictions and errors? Would you still think it was the "inspired word of God?" What if it had only one truly irreconcilable contradiction? One absolute error that could not be fixed? Could it have come from the Mind of God?
I will supply only a few contradictions that are truly impossible to reconcile, then give links to pages that contain hundreds of contradictions and errors, if you wish to explore further. One of the main points I would like to make is that if the bible is the inspired word of God, not only should it have no errors or contradictions, it should not even give the appearance of having such problems. It should be a book that no human mind could produce. And if God has given the bible to us through authors He has "inspired", should he not "inspire" the translators as well? Why would He allow His Word to be corrupted by incompetent men?
Contradiction Number One:
In Matthew 27:5, Judas threw down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed and he went and hanged himself.
But in the Acts of the Apostles 1:18, Judas kept the silver and purchased a field with it; he went into it and falling headlong, he burst open and all his bowels gushed out.
That is a contradiction. Did Judas throw down the money in the temple, or did he purchase a field with it? He cannot have done both. He cannot have both hanged himself and threw himself face down into a field and exploded. One account MUST be false (or both are). Which one should you believe? Why should you be placed in this position of having to choose between scriptures as to which one is true and which one is false? Who purchased the field? Judas or the priests? Both of these stories cannot be true at the same time. This one example leads to the honest and inescapable conclusion that the bible is not wholly true and consistent-- that it is flawed.
Contradiction Number Two:
Does God change his mind?
- Malachi 3:6 "For I am the Lord; I change not."
- Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent."
- Ezekiel 24:14 "I the Lord have spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent."
- James 1:17 " . . . the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
VS.
- Exodus 32:14 "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people."
- Jonah 3:10 ". . . and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not."
- Jeremiah 15:6 "Thou hast forsaken me, saith the Lord, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary of repenting."
Of course, the most spectacular instance of God flip-flopping on an issue is when He changed His mind about creation, and killed every man, woman, child and animal on the planet with a Great Flood (with the exception of Noah and his family, of course). If He was all powerful, why didn't He just make the wicked people vanish off the face of the earth, clean and simple? Wasn't He powerful enough to do that? That would have been muchmore impressive than rain.
Genesis 6:6,7-- "And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth . . . And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth . . . for it repenteth me that I have made him."
Didn't He know 'the beginning from the end', as we are led to believe? Did He forget that Humanity would become so utterly evil that all men, women and children, millions of them, needed to be drowned? That's not something you would think He'd miss. But apparently He did. But someone who knows the future CANNOT regret something he did. To regret something is to wish you had not done it. If he regrets something, that means he did not know the future in the first place.
The purpose of the flood was to rid the world of wickedness. Was it successful? A nyway-- does God change his mind or not? If He does, why does the bible say He doesn't? If He doesn't, why does He admit that He does? You can't have it both ways and remain honest with yourself.
Contradiction Number Three
Has anyone seen God?
- John 1:18 "No man hath seen God at any time."
- Exodus 33:20 "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live."
- I John 4:12 "No man hath seen God at any time."
VS.
- Genesis 32:30 "For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."
- Exodus 33:11 "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend."
- Isaiah 6:1 "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple."
- Job 42:5 "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee."
Has anyone seen Him and lived? Or not? It says both. Both statements can't be true.
Contradiction Number Four (and five):
Mark states that Jesus was crucified in the "third hour", (MK 15:25), while John states clearly that Jesus was crucified "about the sixth hour." How can he be crucified in the sixth hour if he had already been crucified three hours earlier? Also, Matthew, in 27:28, states that Jesus had a scarlet robe put on him (the Greek word for scarlet here is kokkinos), while John states, in 19:2-3 that the soldiers dressed him in a purple robe (the greek word for purple here is porphurous).
If you think that these are just differences in opinion or perception, you might want to think again. You are then admitting that the "Word of God" is subject to interpretation.
As Robert Green Ingersoll stated so well: "The question is, were the authors of these four gospels inspired?
If they were inspired, then the four gospels must be true.
If they are true, they must agree.
The four gospels do not agree."
(About the Holy Bible - 1894).
Contradiction Number Six:
Who was Moses' father-in-law?
Exodus 3:1 Jethro was the father-in-law of Moses.
VS.
Numbers 10:29, Judges 4:11 (KJV) Hobab was the father-in-law of Moses.
Contradiction Number Seven:
Does God tempt people?
- James 1:13 "Let no man say I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man."
VS. - Genesis 22:1 "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham."
Contradiction Number Eight:
Are we all sinners?
- Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
- Romans 3:10 "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one."
- Psalm 14:3 "There is none that doeth good, no, not one."
VS.
- Job 1:1 "There was a man . . . who name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright."
- Genesis 7:1 "And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation."
- Luke 1:6 "And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."
Contradiction Number Nine:
"... the earth abideth for ever." -- Ecclesiastes 1:4
VS.
"... the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up." -- 2Peter 3:10
Contradiction Number Ten:
Jesus stated that he was the only person to ascend up into heaven, thereby denying all the other biblical ascentions.
- "No man hath ascended into heaven but he that descended from heaven, the Son of Man." -- John 3:13
VS.
- 2 Kings 2:11 "And as they still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Eli'jah went up by a whirlwind into heaven."
- Hebrews 11:5 "By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God had taken him."
- 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into Paradise-- and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter."
Error Number One:
Leviticus 11:20-23 states that there are winged insects that go around on all fours. This is completely false. All insects have six legs.
Error Number Two:
Leviticus 11:6 states incorrectly that rabbits chew their cud. They do not-- this is wrong. Why didn't God know this? And why would the All Powerful Creator of the Universe really care whether or not people ate rabbits anyway?
Error Number Three:
In Exodus 17:14, God states quite clearly: "Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven." BUT, didn't God just permanently preserve a record of them in the bible? How could the memory of them be blotted out from under heaven?
Error Number Four:
Isaiah, in 30:26, thinks that someday "the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun". This was written in the days when people thought the moon gave off it's own light. It does not. There is no "light of the moon".
Error Number Five:
Matthew 4:8 states that there is a high mountain from which all the kingdoms of the world can be seen. There is no such thing. (Note: This implies a flat earth.)
