Biblical Inconsistencies

[Jayhawker Soule]

I don`t see any inconsistensies in the Bible as I do understand the passages by the help of the Holy Spirit.

And between bibles?

 

[JerryL]

A typo on my part:
1 Chronicles 21:5 "Joab reported the number of the fighting men to David: In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men who could handle a sword, including four hundred and seventy thousand in Judah."

2 Sam 24:9 And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.

The question is: How many men did Joab report to David? Did he report 1.3 million or 1.1 million.

 

[wmam]

The pure word of YAH has no inconsistensies but man does whether by mistake or purpose. It takes one that can discern that of the Hebrew for the Old as well as the Aramaic for the New convenants. It takes a keen eye to find that which Satan has tried so hard to hide and confuse.

 

[curiouslyminty]

I believe a common misconception with us western culture readers attempting to understand the ancient texts of the bible is that the old jewish style of writing was MUCH different then how we assume it to be today. Many times the writing was in more of narative form to point at the truth. Its the WHY not the HOW. Genesis is NOT a science book. But it does tell who created the world. And thats the point.
Also, in many locations the bible accurately records what was said by incorrect people. <- thats a really important point. As many times you will see someone getting up to preach in the new testiment and saying an age wrong or something similar. The author merely records it. Does it change the message? no. Where the apostles perfect? no. Is the bible an accurate book? yes.

 

[linwood]

This rather large list of inconsistencies makes me wonder just how intelligent the people writing the Bible actually were...

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? People questioning their faith maybe... :jiggy:

I wouldn`t theorize on the intelligence of Biblical authors, rather we should speak of the intelligence of the modern reader of the Bible.

The Bible wasn`t intended to be one book.
The books of the Bible were written by different individuals over the span of thousands of years then put together over the span of decades by the Orthodox church.
The Bible is not the word of god and for these reasons it contains many many inconsistencies and direct contradictions.

Debating these contradictions becomes an exercise in futility as Biblical Inerrantists will contort logic, history, physics, language, and the universe itself to harmonise impossibly contradictory info from the Bible and will still be able to sleep at night.

Give it up, it`s not worth the frustration.

 

[benjosh]

I believe a common misconception with us western culture readers attempting to understand the ancient texts of the bible is that the old jewish style of writing was MUCH different then how we assume it to be today. Many times the writing was in more of narative form to point at the truth. Its the WHY not the HOW. Genesis is NOT a science book. But it does tell who created the world. And thats the point.

Curiously,

I want to propose that you have hit on something with your observation about western culture.
I don't want to try and take this thread in a different direction, but in another post you said you read the Book of Mormon. And, what I proppose to you is that both the Bible and the Book of MOrmon are misunderstood by so many because their reasoning is culture based.
In the US and most English speaking or European countries, Greek and Latin are deep witihn the culture. We call this western civilization in contrast to the Eastern cultures of Asia. The religious gulf is great. The western mind is big on rationalization. The Eastern is more mystical and experiential.
By looking at Jesus Christ's words in the Bible we find that he is coming from the eastern mindset more than the western. I am not going to give an example because the examples are so numerous that all you have to do is read a few quotes or parables and you will see how he turns rationalism on its head.
In the Book of Mormon Nephi's brothers ask him if he is telling them that Isaiah's words are about things spiritual or temporal (eternal or time?). Nephi, tells them he is speaking of both and they don't understand because they do not understand the learning of the Jews. In other words, they don't understand how to extract the truth from Jewish scriptures because they are not aware of how Jews think.
Your assessment

Its the WHY not the HOW.

belies your own western cultural perspective. In the western culture we like to part things out into rational blocks. YOu separate why from how. IN the eastern culture the why and how are a circle. They are not broken.
Westerners used to use a term called "circular reasoning" and it was often used as a put down or counter claim. It was another way to say "you are unreasonable" or "you are in left field".
You said

Genesis is NOT a science book.

When you stated this you were putting forth an Eastern mindset. You shifted to the abstract world of ideas that can not be measured in an empirical way. Earth science, that Western civilization places so much stock in can't touch it.
Nephi would say, it is things both spiritual and temporal. Or, it is both measurable and immeasurable at the same time.
In the scripture writers' (BIble and B of M) there was no separation of the temporal and spiritual. That is the true test of scripture.
This is one reason so many in the US can not fathom what is actually posited in the B of M. And, the Bible has been primarily placed on the same rational scale. In other words, the western mind dy-mystifies so that we can take the truth in handy little bags.

In fact its as convenient as fast food. Would you like some fries with that?

BenJosh

 

[john63]

These can all be explained. I'm not going to go through all of them, but here's a couple:

GE 4:9 God asks Cain where his brother Able is.
PR 15:3, JE 16:17, 23:24-25, HE 4:13 God is everywhere. He sees everything. Nothing is hidden from his view.

God knows where Abel is, He is asking because He's testing Cain to see if he will confess to slaying his brother.

GE 4:16 Cain went away (or out) from the presence of the Lord.
JE 23:23-24 A man cannot hide from God. God fills heaven and earth.

This doesn't mean Cain physically went somewhere to hide from God. It means he hardened his heart to the Lord. When we hearden or hearts to God we distance ourselves from Him.

I know these are two easy ones that require no research to rebut. If I have time I will go over some of the more difficult ones.

 

[curiouslyminty]

Benjosh- I agree completely, but being constrained by the languages I currently know. And the way that I was raised. It's nearly impossible for me to stay in that mindset But you make good points.

 

[JerryL]

These can all be explained. I'm not going to go through all of them, but here's a couple:

I'll give you my three favorites:
How many soldier were reported by Joab?
How did Judas die?
What color was Jesus's robe?

 

[curiouslyminty]

I'll give you my three favorites:
How many soldier were reported by Joab?
How did Judas die?
What color was Jesus's robe?

You probably didn't see passion of the christ (which i understand lol) but When judas dies he does hang himself but his organs gush out. Its just a difference of what happened and how he was found.

Jesus's robe was thought by two of the disciples to be purple, one to be red. ok? how many guys do you know notice color well. those are very similar and its a small footnote as to the account. (btw the site trys to ADD meaning to the color, which isnt found in the bible)

Joab's soldiers i couldnt find on the page... Maybe a cut and paste for me? Really most of the inconsistancies is easily explained by realizing they are eyewitness accounts. When police bring multiple people in for testimony, they notice different details, one may say we were heading to seatle the other washington, but is there a difference? Showing that they didn't collaborate and write identical pieces is actually evidence to support a truth...

 

[linwood]

How did Judas die?

oooooooooo..my favorite.
It simply can`t be harmonised with any intelectual integrity.

 

[DTrent]

:woohoo: Thanks a lot, Deut. What I had posted earlier was all that I could remember from my World Religion's class about it, and I was dreading finding sources, though I found a couple of reliable mentions, nothing too scholarly.

Unless I'm wrong, Yahweh was a thunder god, Baal was his son and I believe had a bull's head. Regardless of the details, archeological evidence backs up the Bible, which both say ancient Israelites worshipped many gods. Later generations labeled them false idols, but their worship is indiputable, I believe.

Yes, when the Isrealites were unrepentent and disobedient, they fell into worshipping other gods, sometimes giving the pretense that they were, in fact, worshipping Jehovah (or YHWH) the one true God. When they came back to reality and humbled themselves, Jehovah accepted them back and accepted their worship of Him and ONLY HIM. (No interfaith was EVER allowed in worshipping Jehovah. :tsk: He "exacts exclusive devotion." - Ex.20:5; Deut. 4:24.

 

[TheTruthWillSetUFree]

2 Timothy 3:16 Thats your answer

 

[kevmicsmi]

A typo on my part:
1 Chronicles 21:5 "Joab reported the number of the fighting men to David: In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men who could handle a sword, including four hundred and seventy thousand in Judah."

2 Sam 24:9 And Joab gave up the sum of the number of the people unto the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men.

The question is: How many men did Joab report to David? Did he report 1.3 million or 1.1 million.

There is another possibility that will be reasonable after examination. The reader should re-read 1 Chr 27. Notice here that there are 12 divisions of 24,000 men each, giving a total of 288,000 men. It is possible that the Chronicler counts these men whereas the author of 2 Sam does not. Notice that the 800,000 men in 2 Sam were included in a census, as David wanted to know how many men there were for fighting. Yet, as the numbers of divisions were apparently fixed at 24,000 per division, one would presumably not need to take a census of groups whose sizes are intrinsically defined by a priori fixed numbers. It is not requiring too much to state that it is reasonably possible that the author of 2 Sam did not include these 288,000 while the (different) author of 1 Chr did. With two different authors writing apart from each other at non-identical times, it is not at all specious to assert a reasonable plausibility to a different mode of reckoning in reporting the census. Thus my suggested reconciliation at the very least cannot be called credulous, and at the best it can be called quite reasonable. Yet, the constant refrain should be sounded again: dogmatism on both sides is to be avoided here. We don't have all the facts -- in fact we are missing a great deal of them. This fact of the absence of all the facts should keep us humble. Apologists can not be overly zealous in claiming that the divergent numbers have in fact been reconciled, but neither can critics of the Bible be overly zealous in claiming that there is a necessary contradiction here.

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/otmilitarynumbers.html


Does that help?

 

[Dentonz]

Whilst discussing the bible with a Christian friend, we bumped into this little web-page:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/inconsistencies.html

I checked over the references, and the ones that I did bother to view are actually there.

This rather large list of inconsistencies makes me wonder just how intelligent the people writing the Bible actually were...

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? People questioning their faith maybe... :jiggy:

I have yet to see any valid contradictions. Commas out of place and blatant misinterpretations do not constitute errors in content. Just give me one and we'll talk about it.

 

[alexander garcia]

Hi, this is my point as to the hiden truth in mistranslations and direct lies. When you use the English ( GOD ) it says anything you want. As so many state ok it says their are many (GODS) NO thaty is mot what it says. It says their are many that are called and are mighty ones In old times they did NOT speak English so how could they be saying god? There are many mighty ones and so called mighty ones but there is only one Yahvah the Almighty One

 

[Tiberius]

the fact that this list is mentioned, just goes to prove that some people do not have an accurate knowledge of the bible ,to those with an accurate knowledge of the bible there are no inconsistencies because they are cleared up . so they are not getting their questions answered by the ones with accurate knowledge are they.i found that these questions were cleared up when i went to the right source but that is for individuals to do themselves.., if they are seeking accurate knowledge .

Very well, could you clear up a contradiction if I ask you?

And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.

This says that Jesus' robe was scarlet.

And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head."

This says that Jesus' robe was purple.

So there is one passage that says that his robe was scarlett when they put it on him, but the other passage says it was purple when they put it on him. These are two very different colours, and I have no idea what to believe. Which one do I accept as truth?

 

[sojourner]

Very well, could you clear up a contradiction if I ask you?



This says that Jesus' robe was scarlet.



This says that Jesus' robe was purple.

So there is one passage that says that his robe was scarlett when they put it on him, but the other passage says it was purple when they put it on him. These are two very different colours, and I have no idea what to believe. Which one do I accept as truth?

You accept as truth, not the picayune minutae of the story, but the message of the story. The story is just a tool to convey a message, like a hammer is a tool for building a house. It doesn't matter if the hammer is black or brown, as long as the house gets built. It doesn't really matter if the robe was red or purple, or chartreuse with periwinkle polka-dots. The message of the story is about Jesus' self-sacrifice of love for us. Don't let the trees get in the way of seeing the forest.

also, there are some shades that are pretty darn close to both purple and red. So what? It's symbolic. Red stands for blood and for passion. Purple stands for royalty and for penitence. either one lends appropriate symbolism to the story.

 

[Fluffy]

So there is one passage that says that his robe was scarlett when they put it on him, but the other passage says it was purple when they put it on him. These are two very different colours, and I have no idea what to believe. Which one do I accept as truth?

Why do you feel that the truth about this matter is important? I will assume you are simply being flippant but in the event that there are further unresolved inconsistences, simply analyse all the possibilities so you are prepared for each eventuality. Works wonders when the truth is unattainable yet not of the utmost importance.

 

[Tiberius]

yes, I was being flippant, but my point is that if the Bible is a historical account of actual events as many people claim it to be then it is doubtful that there would be the number of internal contradictions that there are.

it's like having two historical texts, one saying that Lincoln was assasinated by John Wilkes Booth at the Ford Theatre, the other saying it was John Wilkes Ford at the Booth Theatre. Reliable historical texts do not contain these sorts of errors, and yet the Bible does.