The Bible is riddled with inconsistenies and contradictions.?

Question

It also asks people to believe that an all loving and all forgiving God will torture human beings who engage in bad behavior or "thought crimes" for all eternity. How can people treat this drivel as the infallible word of God? Do these people all have single digit IQ's, or what?

(I think you people who are answering with defenses of the Bible are unintentionally providing the real answer to my question - thanks!)

Answer 1

I am amazed at the duplicity of people sometimes. There are those in here who have stated for a fact that the Bible has been tampered with. The problem with such a premise is that they are merely parrotting what someone else has said about it, without actually having read the Bible through, or doing any historical background into the texts.

Allow me to begin a short defense of the authority and accuracy of the Scriptures.

I'll start with the history and accuracy of the Old Testament manuscripts. When the translators of the King James Bible wrote the Old Testament, the oldest available manuscript for them to use, was known as the Masoretic Text. This had been written in the 9th century A.D. It was this text that the translators based their work on the Old Testament. In 1947, a shepherd boy discovered some pottery in caves in the area called Qumran, near the Dead Sea. In these jars, he discovered scrolls, which archaeologists and Bible scholars have researched ever since. Every book of the Old Testament (except Esther) was discovered. Most of these scrolls are dated to 150 B.C. After comparing these Dead Sea Scrolls to the Masoretic Text, the scholars discovered an amazing degree of unanimity between the two, although they were written a thousand years apart. Further, the Septuagint (the Greek language translation of the Hebrew Bible) was also compared. With all of these references, there is plenty of evidence that no biblical doctrine has been tampered with.

Naturally, the next object of ridicule is the New Testament. However, there is no larger ancient body of manuscript evidence in the history of mankind, than the papyri and parchment manuscripts of the New Testament. With over five thousand actual Greek manuscripts, and numerous other manuscripts in four other languages, there are about twenty-four thousand available manuscript texts for the New Testament.

Even if we didn't have these documents, we could almost have a complete New Testament from extra-biblical sources, such as ancient lectionaries, church fathers' records/sermons/writings, etc.

No other body of ancient work comes close. No one really disputes Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars (10 manuscripts remain, with the earliest one dating to 1,000 years after the original autograph). No one really disputes Pliny the Younger's Natural History (7 manuscripts; 750 years elapsed). Or Thucydides' History (8 manuscripts; 1,300 years elapsed). No one disputes Herodotus' History (8 manuscripts; 1,350 years elapsed). No one really disputes Plato (7 manuscripts; 1,300 years elapsed). No one really disputes Tacitus' Annals (20 manuscripts; 1,000 years elapsed.) Homer's Iliad, the most renowned book of ancient Greece, is the second best-preserved literary work of all antiquity, with 643 copies of manuscript support discovered to date. In those copies, there are 764 disputed lines of text, as compared to 40 lines in all the New Testament manuscripts.

But we have ancient manuscripts of the New Testament that are written within a generation of Christ's resurrection, and people have the audacity to say it's been tampered with!

Now, to your question about God's justice. The wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:23) However, we don't have to receive those wages, as God has given us a way out through His Son Jesus Christ. If you fail to take advantage of it, how is it God's fault? He has given you an engraved invitation. It's in several places, such as Matthew 22, and Luke 14 for example.

Answer 2

The first question can be answered "No". While there are parts of the Bible that seem to contradict one another without the proper context, most can be and have been answered so to say "riddled" would be incorrect.

I can find any book to be riddled with contradictions if I make up enough stuff about said book. Nowhere in the Bible does it say God will torture humans, nor that humans will be tortured by anyone for eternity. Hence, your next two questions are unfounded.

Answer 3

The thing about the Bible is that it's been bastardized and re-written SO much over the years that it's lost most, if not all, of it's original meaning. Any more, it's just a joke.

And, as much as I hate religion and religious people, you can't really blame them, simply because that's probably how they were raised, they don't know any better. They can talk all they want about how they pity and pray for people who don't "believe," but WE'RE the ones who feel sorry for them.

Answer 4

Holy Moses , Leroy! You parroted that nonsene almost perfectly! Why don't you try having an original thought , sometime? Talk about low IQ. And your such a chickensh!t bigot . going for the Believers, who you Libs will pick on, but not blacks, mexicans or Jews. You; are a cookie-cutter bigot and a carbon copy dipsh!t.

Answer 5

I'm afraid you are mistaken.

The all loving, all forgiving God is a strawman, not the real God of the Universe.

Hell is Just.

Hell is a place where people experience the Just consequences for the harm they did to others (by their actions or by their inaction). The punishment will fit the crime. The Bible indicates that there are different levels of punishment in hell. And the language used in the Bible is consistent with Hell not being necessarily eternal.

God's rules are intended to minimize the harm that we do to each other... and when we violate the rules, we increase evil and harm and pain in human society.

Cordially,
John

Answer 6

I grew up real religious, but I've been discussing the bible alot with some friends lately. If you live the way God commands you to in the bible, you will live a very miserable life and probably die very young if you follow everything. The commandments for example: Thou Shall Not Steal (Everything is stealing in some way shape or form)

Thou Shall Not Kill (There is always a time to kill)

Thou Shall Not Bear False Witness (Sometimes it is necessary to lie)

Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbors Goods (o.k, keeping up with the Jone's, ever heard that phrase? That is what American Society is based on.)

Love thy enemy. If you went around loving all of your enemies, you would not last long.

Answer 7

Most contradictions as you call them within the bible are contradictions of interpretation. IE One translator translates it purple the other red, and that has nothing to do with IQ. Intelegence has nothing to do with faith, they are seperate issues. I have known both religious and non religious people who were smart. If you go back in history and start looking you will find that many of the greatest minds of the past were religious and had faith, many did not but as I said, faith and intelegence are not linked. Also where did you get your information. I am curious if you observed these inconsistencies yourself or if you are just riding on stuff you have heard from others without checking it out for yourselves. That is also a sign of lack of intelegence.

My question is why do you feel the need to attack a group of people because their faith is different from yours? are you that insecure about yourself? I mean really. are we still in the third grade?

Answer 8

God IS a loving God and a gracious God. He gives everyone the chance to go to Heaven. He even sent Jesus to die on the cross. He gives everyone second chances. But He is a power ful God also. In the end if you don't believe in God you will get a second chance (my opinion) but if you still don't believe in God, only then will you be punished for eternity. God gives so many "do-overs" that you have to look at the full picture--second chances everyday, or one final punishment--to only focues on the punishment would be terribly biased

Answer 9

The Bible says that hell is torture although a lot of people can't wait to get there just as they are. That is because they don't realize that lack of a good heart means eternal damnation.

Answer 10

Yes. why yes it is!

Not only does the bible contradict itself,
but it contradicts life as we know it today --
No one true word of God meant for all the ages inspired by the all knowing all powerful being would put down the pages and pages of utter boring crap, vile ludicrous nonsense, illogical and confusing blubberings, offensive and disgusting acts of savagery, primitive and disturbing laws and rituals.....
Wow, you know what? This book sounds so primitive I guess because it's just a book written by PRIMITIVE MEN> how bout that?