A proof against god?

Question

Luke 23.44 It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun's light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. ****THEN*** Jesus, criying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Having said this, he breathed his last.

Matt27.50 Then Jesus cried again with a loud voice and breathed his last. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn is two, from top to bottom.

From Luke is is clear curtain was torn THEN Jesus died. From Matt it's the oppsite (or close to it) it happened at the same time.

This proves that the bible isn't prefect...so what should we believe and what shouldn't we?

This isn't a small event either...this is one of the biggest most important moments in the bible.

Answer 1

I already read this in your answer to Bible mistakes. Was it really necessary to pose it as a question. It's not a question, and this isn't "proof against God" ... it just demonstrates inconsistencies in the Bible.

Answer 2

Not so fast:
Luk 23:44 ¶ And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.


Luk 23:45 And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.


Luk 23:46 And WHEN Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

This leaves a bit of interpretive room. Additionally, it is the event itself, the death, that is of supreme importance. The timing of a curtain tearing before, during, or after actually pales in comparison. While this is certainly of importance if one were reconstructing the sequence of events for, say, a jury trial, it is arguably demonstrative that there was a lack of collusion. They were probably recounting from memory, and people DO make mistakes about timing. If anything, if the account were fictitious, which you are trying to demonstrate, why did they not collude to get their stories straight?

This seems a bit specious to me.

Tom

Answer 3

You want to rest your eternal destiny on the New International Version of the Bible?

"THEN" is the Greek "kahee" which is rendered "AND" (then is not a time-related, it is an additive conjunction) which lines it up with the other accounts.

NKJV - Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And (kahee) when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’”

"At that moment" does NOT appear in Matthew in the Greek.
NKJV - And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Then (kahee), behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split

So really, this only proves one thing. And that is that YOU do not know how to look things up in the original text, and YOU are the one that is proven to be in error.

It's only proof that YOU have been winnowed...
http://www.schneblin.com/studies/pdfs/winnowing_wheat_chaff.pdf

Answer 4

Did you mean perfect?

The gospel of Matthew was written as a book to the Jewish people to show that He was Messiah. The events that were told were not meant to be a chronology of the exact things Christ did in order and timing. It was written to show Jewish people how Christ fulfilled prophecy. It's the "book of the King".

Luke, on the other hand, was written to show the humanity of Christ, the MAN part of the hypostatic union. Luke, a physician, wrote to show that Christ, although He was 100 percent God, was also 100 % man. "But" you say..."that's impossible". and you are right if Christ was JUST a man. But He wasn't. After He died, He came BACK. Luke wrote to show how Christ could be the propitiation for our sins because He was the sinless lamb of God.
Again, the exact chronology of when the veil tore in the temple was unimportant.
What WAS important was that it was ripped. It separated God from the people. Jesus' death on the cross, eliminated the need for the veil. Man could now come freely to God without a priest.
The fact that Christ paid the price for our sin is important. The chronology of when the curtain was torn is not. The deed was done.

Answer 5

Unbelieveable. Do you realize how those stories are EXACTLY the same? This only proves that different people wrote it, who were carried along by the Holy Spirit! If it sounded word for word, it would sound like the same person wrote it --but God used many men to write it, and all these men had the exact same prophecy! Because it is the Holy Spirit who told them what to write. The curtain was torn in two no matter what, before and after, it was torn! So even if it said it was torn after, of course it had been torn! Think about it...stop looking for contradictions and just think about it, it is very simple.

Answer 6

I don't see it as a contradiction at all - one doesn't discount the other. They are both saying the same thing happened - within a matter of moments. Each apostle recollected the events in different manners - yet they all tell the same story. They all have different backgrounds & told it differently. One was a fisherman, one was a doctor, etc. They told the same story with different words.
Ask two people to recount the same car accident that they both witnessed & the details might be a little different because they both saw different details - but the story remains the same.

Answer 7

Comparison of these two verses does not prove the Bible is inperfect at all!
Just two different accounts by two different witnesses of the same event!
Luke starts his retelling of the death of Jesus with the darkness and mentions the curtain of the temple being torn in two halves! Then he goes on to mention the actual death of Jesus, but we are not to believe the curtain was torn into two halves until Christ actually died!
Matthew relates the scene of Jesus last moments on the cross FIRST for that was obviously more important to him to do so!
This doesn't prove your point, but rather reveals to us, if we care to actually learn from it, that God may inspire His Word in the Bible, but He gives,'free license' to those who write it down, to use 'their point of view' on the subject; in this case, the death of His Son!!!
You should instead be posting as I have here, proof of the accuracy of Luke's Gospel!
"In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Iturea and Trachonitus, and Lysanius was tetrarch of Abilene . . . "—Luke 3:1

Every one of these facts has been verified. This kind of historical accuracy led Sir William Ramsey, the Oxford professor who spent 15 years trying to refute the New Testament, to finally conclude, "Luke is an historian of the first rank. [He] should be placed along with the very greatest of historians."

Answer 8

Written by 2 different people, 2 different versions. Like any given testemony, somewhat of a varience in insignificant details, but basically the same story. I don't think anyone ever said the Bible was perfect. Jesus was perfect, the bible was written by man and therefore subject to error in interpretation.

Answer 9

No this is not a proof against god. The Bible is full of contradictions, both internal contradictions as well as contradictions against established scientific facts. This would only be proof that the Bible is not a divinely inspired text. It says nothing about proof in a Christian type of god or any other kind of supernatural god that mankind has imagined.

Answer 10

The bible was written by men. No man is perfect not even Jesus. I believe something the bible has to offer but not all. I do believe in Jesus he was a good man who tried to change the world (John Lennon of his time) but I don't believe in god. Humans have a way on exaggerating the story I think that is what happened to the bible.

Answer 11

You apparently can't read. Luke 23:46 doesn't say "then Jesus cried," it says "WHEN Jesus cried." The different accounts are not saying what the order of occurence was, they are just saying that these things happened.
Most of the above people probably didn't bother to check it out in the KJV.