Bible thumpers... How do you feel about the hundreds of contradictions and factual errors in your "holy" book?

Answer 1

Believe it or not, they actually dont acknowledge any factual errors in teh Bible. They completely igmore they as if they dont exist, or they say you are taking that whole "whales are fish and bats are birds" things out of context.

What did I tell you??

Answer 2

Many claim that the Bible contains contradictions. But, if one examines it carefully, these so called errors:
(a) are products of poor translations, or difficulty in translations
(b) many of these so called contradictions can actually be reconciled or harmonized w/ other verses, usually written by same writer, or other writers.

Don't immediately jump into conclusion, is my humble advise.

Answer 3

We like E'm just fine Jer.

What we don't like is know it alls like you pointin em out all the time.

If we wanna believe this crap what the heck do you care. Leave us to simmer in our delusions of superiority. After all that way we can think that God picks favorites and likes us a whole lot better en you all.

Jist whach it, we know where you live and we just might be a fixin to bring our bibles over ta yer house and give ya a good thumpin.

A vastly Superior christian being, who God likes a whole lot betteren you Jer

Answer 4

The one that bothers me the most is that Matthew and Luke disagree on Joseph's lineage (read 'em!).

Now, it's Christian tradition that Luke is giving Mary's lineage, but the decision to have Mary's lineage without mentioning Mary is, at best, uninspired (and at worst, deceitful).

Answer 5

you mean like how god killed thousands and thousands more people the satan did? u mean how it says god is angry, jelous, and murderous (which are all sins deemed by the book itself). or how it says in the bible god created evil? (where creating evil would be considered a holy deed if god is 100% holy and cannot sin?) or where god sends 2 bears to kill 42 youths for calling a man bald? or where he says samson cant cut his hair or his powers will fade but it also says any man with long hair is a shame? or where it calls satan son of the morning star, and jesus son of the morning star? or how all it does is accuse satan of being evil, but it claims satan can do nothing without gods permission. satan wanted to feed and give drink to jesus in the desert for 40 days and yet we call that satan tempting jesus to sin? if eating and drinkin is a sin than i suppose we are all guilty of that...

Answer 6

I would be happy to help Jer by offering you a handful of the thousands of contradictions and factual errors that he mentioned (well, he mentioned hundreds, but there are thousands)

The canon of the Bible was not formalized until the Council of Carthage -- when it affirmed a resolution of the synod of Hippo recognizing a group of books drawn together and claimed as divine by Bishop Anathasius. Anathasius did not even coin the word canon until 327 and the Council of Carthage did not formalize the list approved by Hippo until the 390s, and then sent it on to "the Church across the sea" (Rome) for the Pope's approval.

There are no full copies of what is now considered scripture until the 4th century. There are two copies from the 4th century (Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus) together with hundreds of manuscript fragments of various forms (Papyrus and Vellum Manuscripts and Vellum Palimpsests). Overall there are over 5000 copies of at least part of the present canonical Bible that are from the sixth century or earlier. These range from a few verses to whole books, to Bibles that were read in churches. According to Dr. Bart Ehrman, one of the foremost experts in the world on Textual criticism and Textual reconstruction, those manuscripts have between them at least 200,000 differences (among other scholars the number is guessed to be somewhat more than that, but Dr. Ehrman comes originally from a literalist background, and is still very conservative with the numbers). Some of those differences are minor, or meaningless -- but some are very important and would change core Christian doctrines like the Virgin birth of our Lord and his divinity -- among others.

One does not need to be an expert to see that the Bible is fiction, and not the Word of God however. Even the American Bible Society explains scriptural accreation as starting with Hebrew tribesmen telling stories around a campfire. That is exactly where the earliest parts of the Bible started -- then it was expanded through midrash and so forth.

Looking at the received texts, the idea of Sola Scriptura becomes evidently ludicrous. The Bible says that the world has corners (Isaiah 11:12) and that it sets on pillars (I Samuel 2:8). It says that God accepted a human sacrifice -- he may have prevented Isaac's, but he allowed a general to sacrifice his own daughter without even a murmur, the text giving tacit support to the idea that having given his word, the man had to kill his child, and clear support to the idea that human sacrifice was ok. (Judges 11:30-39). It clearly maintains that genocide is often commanded by God (Joshua 10:40-42 and I Samuel 15: 2, 3 and 8) and that, after killing all the adults in a race, taking the female children as sex slaves is permissible (Numbers 31: 17-18).

The God revealed by the Bible is not only both a liar who doesn't know the natural laws of his own world, and a monster, as shown above -- but he has no real regard, even for his own people, whom he forces into cannibalism (Leviticus 26: 27-29) when he is mad at them; or his priests, whose faces he wipes with dung (Malachi 2:1-3).

This monstrosity suggests killing kids who eat or drink too much (Deuteronomy 21: 18-21), and says that if he is angry with parents he will kill their children (Leviticus 26:22) and he blames things upon children whose great-great-great grandfathers committed the things being blamed on the kids (Exodus 20: 5).

Putting it in a word, bible-god is a monstrosity, a horrific demiurge of evil. Something that even he admits ( Isaiah 45:7 ) [Furthermore, the word used in Hebrew for evil, the word ra' is widely conceded to mean a number of different things: It can mean "wickedness," "mischief," "bad," "trouble," "hurt," "sore," "affliction," "ill," "adversity," "harm," "grievous," and "sad." So no matter what particular interpretation is given of this word -- it has profoundly negative implications. The idea that god is sovereign over the affairs of man makes this even worse, because no matter what interpretation it has, it indicates that bible-god deliberately does harm.]; evil about which he sometimes changes his mind (Exodus 32:14). What a font of unchanging morality -- that almighty God can decide to kill an entire people, and then be talked out of it by a human servant... Furthermore, it is obvious, if God can change his mind, then even if the Bible were not full of errors and horrors, you could not trust that God had not changed his mind on any other issue in it.

So, yes, I suppose if one wants to take as truth a book that says that beetles have four legs instead of six (Leviticus 11: 21-23) and that rabbits chew their cud [which they do NOT] (Deuteronomy 14:7) and if you are willing to, having accepted it as truth, overlook the fact that bible-god routinely changed his mind (I can show you other instances if you wish) then yeah, I suppose its words would matter -- but to get to that point you have to either deliberately overlook the errors and contradictions that Jer mentions and that nearly all scholars who are at all serious theologians accept -- or you have to blind yourself to facts, clearly spelled out and proved by the Bible itself -- facts that lead inoxerably to the truth -- that the text like all other supposedly inspired period texts is a bronze age and early iron age mismash of myth and legend that has little relativity to reality, and therefore by its nature is NOT the Word of God.

What you do after that is up to you. I for one have no problem believing in Christ without believing in the Bible -- and accepting him and his life and atoning death as being inclusive - and not the exclusive artifice created by ancient legend writers that wanted Christians to view the world as "us versus them." I see no reason at all to continue to pay homage to their creation, a book of myths owing heavily to the Sumerian and Egyptian myths in the Old Testament and to a collection of pagan faiths, particularly Mithraism in the New Testament, especially when very little of it was written in anything like its present form when Christ walked the earth or in the century following.

Christianity is centered around love, faith in Christ, and Eucharist. At best the Bible is sacred because of its place in the life of the historic church and should be regarded as holy myth -- stress on the myth. And what is a myth? It is fiction.

Regards,

Reynolds Jones
Schenectady, NY
http://www.rebuff.org
[e-mail]

Answer 7

When you list the errors and contradictions, they hem and haw and basically say, "give it a rest" or "that's no fair"... and if you don't lost them, they say, "what contradiction?"

then they wonder why they are perceived as they are.

Answer 8

first of all, there are no errors in the bible. second who says we are bible thumpers? third, they are not factual. these readings have been passed down through generations to make up what the bible actually is today. you know the saying don't judge a book by its cover? have you ever read the bible? taken time to get to know what is actually all about? try it before you call us bible thumpers - thanks.

Answer 9

What errors? Bats ARE birds. Says so in the Bible so it's true!

Answer 10

You know, every time someone says that, I ask for an example. Please give one, and see what happens. True believers will go to the root and find the answer - not just brush over the top to make the bible what they want it to be.