Why does the Christian bible have so many contradictions in it? And why are so many different versions of it?

Answer 1

"...so many contradictions..."
Translational errors occured when UNQUALIFIED men decided to translate it the Bible for themselves. Unless you have a comprehensive understanding of ancient Greek and Hebrew, you'll probably make some simple errors too. These translational errors unfortunately have resulted in simple numerical errors which do not match between books.

Would you trust a person who got a C- in Arabic to translate the Qur'an to English accurately? Look to the oldest known compilations of the Bible, such as the original Vulgate, and you will NOT find such contradictions. Even the Dead Sea Scrolls show how well preserved the Old Testament is, up until a point in time when many people took it upon themselves to translate the Bible into their own languages.
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"...why are so many different versions..."
For the same reason that you'll find so many different English translations of the Qur'an. Compare these English translations of the Qur'an, and you'll see similar differences (versions)

1. http://www.hti.umich.edu/k/koran/browse.html
2. http://www.islamicity.com/mosque/arabicscript/Ayat/1/1_1.htm
3. http://www.submission.org/quran/koran-index.html#AA
4. http://www.islam.tc/quran/
5. http://www.indotalisman.com/searchquranhadith.html
etc, etc, etc.........

Answer 2

There is absolutely no contradiction in the Bible. When someone cannot understand a certain verse in the Bible, then he immediately passes a very harsh judgment against it and then claims that the book is full of contradictions. Why don't you tell us where have you found that contradiction and we shall tell you the correct interpretation of what you think is a contradiction. This Book is written by the Holy Spirit during a period of almost 2000 years. It wasn't written by one man over a night. The Bible interprets itself by itself. Instead of claiming contradictions and judging why, find its wonder and its splendor and praise God that you have a copy of the Bible in your hand. There was a time when only the high ranking officials could own a copy of the Bible, which was a privilege not awarded to many people. The Bible is the greatest book ever written. It brings so much joy and peace to who ever reads it with a thankful heart. As far as having so many version of the Bible, that is because it was translated from the original language by many scholars and translators.

Answer 3

The bible does not have any contradictions in it. Have you read the bible and checked that out for yourself. If you are not a beliver then the bible says that you will read it and it will seem foolish - you can only understand it once you are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. Before I became a Christian I did not get the bible and I tried to read it a number of times and it really didn't make sense. As SOON as I accepted Christ it all became so much clearer to me - I thought that was really wierd until I read about that happening in the bible!
The versions of the bible are not different in their context or the message that they are getting accross. The versions differ in small ways - as in another word for "thus" in moder lingo would be "so" the meaning is the same and you are understanding the same point the sentence is making. We are just getting lazier!
The bible was written in Greek and Hebrew and often those languages had much more diversity with their words: for example there are 5 versions of the word "love" in greek, there is Gods all encompassing love, love for a family member, love for a spouse, love for a friend and love for an aquaintence - good old English has .....well...."love"! We suck as far as descriptive language expression goes. This accounts for most of the differences in the translations. Why not get a couple of different versions of the bible and see for yourself - it's kinda cool looking into all that.

Answer 4

The Bible only has different versions due to the language of the time it has been translated in.
The actual language of the translation reflects the languageand literary style of the time- for example the King James version uses archaic words such as begat whilst the New International Version, a modern translation, does not
Also many scholars debate the exact translation of the original Latin/Greek?Aramaic- no two tranlators will come up with the same result. There are also ambiguities in some words which can be problematic. For example the Greek logos, used in Genesis, can mean either argument or word,and Hebrew has 6 words for time The difference between the three main languages Latin Greek and Aramaic/Hebrew also mean a idea in one language may not mean the same in another. Again it is up to a translator to sort out and spot these ambiguities.
You must also understand the difference in ideas between the ancient Hebrew population and our own. The development of ideas on things such as law, science and womens rights mean our understanding of a passage is different to that of a first century Christian.

Answer 5

I would say there are no contradictions in the Bible. When reading, like anything, you need to come to the Bible with an understanding of what it is and who is the author. The Bible states that it is the inspired word: (2 Timothy 3:16
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:) You either believe that or you don't. It also states that God is not a man that he should lie (Numbers 23:19)...
Either its true or it isn't.

You either believe that or you don't. However, WHAT you believe and think will determine everything- even your perception of what you read.
If you approach the Bible with open heart attempting to learn something and base things only on the facts, and you believe it IS true, you will read it one way, attempting to learn.
If you approach the Bible hell bent against it or see it as fiction or with any other preconceived notion- you will read it that way.

I listed a GREAT article in the sources if you would like to read it.

And different versions- translations as stated before.
Hope this helps...whether you were asking and actually looking for an answer- or posed it as a rhetorical question to make a point.

Answer 6

What contradictions are in the bible? As far as the different versions, that depends on on the version. Some versions are old english language some in King James' century. It has to do with the era in which it is published. Also the difference in versions are sentence structure(grammar) and vocabulary usage. For the most part though there all about the same in discussion.
From Scott at sitesell.com/ satisfies . h t m l

Answer 7

By versions, you're meaning the King James version, the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), etc., right?

Translation is never straight forward -- read two versions of anything and you'll see the differences. The translator or team has to decide what to emphasize and how to do it. So you get the more literal translations that a lot of scholars favour, the dogma-informed versions that the evangelicals like because they support their views, archaic but poetic ones like the KJV and so on. Each one has their audience and hence their financial support.

Also, our understanding of the ancient languages changes over time, so that affects translations (i.e .the RSV and the NewRSV).

As for contradictions, shall we paraphrase Walt Whitman?
"Do I contradict myself then? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."

Actually, I think God put the contradictions in there because it's just too much fun to watch the fundies stand on their heads coming up with creative ways to explain them away.

Answer 8

Did you ever play the game "telephone " in school where a story is started at one end of the room and is whispered around the class to see what gobbled **** makes it to the end?

Now try that with 2000 years and dozens of different languages, many of then not spoken for a thousand years, the errors of hand transcription, different people wanting to stress different points and words changing meaning over the years(In Shakespeare's time, saying his wife looked "awful" would have been a compliment).

Then we have the fact that MEN collated things in the 300s CE and picked and chose what to put in and leave out. Ever wonder why there were 12 Apostles but only 4 Gospels?

Add the fact that it was in the first place only the collected folk tales of a nomadic people, allegory and metaphor, and you have your answer.

There is not a single original story in the Bible, all of then predate monotheism by centuries.

Answer 9

The bible has stories written by many men over many many years.

Think of it like the game TELEPHONE, the word tends to get lost when these imperfect people (not to say that anyone is capable of perfection) are passing it on, but this does not mean the word never existed to begin with since without the word to contradict there would be no contradiction.

Answer 10

Several hundred years after this so-called person, Jesus lived, the Christians had many caucuses about trying to decide what they actually believe out of the millions of accounts of this man's life. So, a bunch of people who were never there argued over a bunch of centuries old hearsay to come up with versions of the bible. So many disagreed that they broke off into differerent groups and created their own bible.

Answer 11

different scholars have translated the original text in different ways leading to the numerous versions available. As for the contradictions, probably because the bible is actually a compilation of different books written 100's of years apart by different authors with different goals and social commentary....