Why does the Bible contradict itself?

Answer 1

Because its not the word of god, its the word of a bunch of sheepherders who thought the earth was flat.

Answer 2

It doesn't.

You just have a lot of smart-mouthed people who cannot comprehend what they read, so they assume that anything that they are confused about must be a contradiction.

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Skeptic's Instructions for Reading the Bible:

1. Always read it completely literally in isolation and never take into account the social, historical, literary and cultural context in which it was written.

2. Have a wrong concept of how God should have done things and then throw the rattle out of the pram when he does things differently - this is otherwise known as setting up a straw man and then knocking him down.

3. Assume that God dictated it rather than using men in the social, historical and cultural context of the day.

4. If there is a difficult passage never consult a commentary written by someone who understands the social, historical, literary and cultural context.

5. Never compare scripture with scripture to find the meaning of difficult texts

6. Never use different bible versions, never check out the Greek or Hebrew.

7. Always assume that if you cannot understand something then it cannot ever be true.

8. Ignore the fact of progressive revelation

9. Never try to understand the human-divine nature of Jesus or the Trinity, never consult a theologian who can explain these difficult things.

Here is C Dennis McKinsey's advice to the bible critic "Avoid Christian commentaries. Don't be swayed as to what is being said or what commentators allege is intended. Just read it cold." Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy p. 500.

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Mistakes the critics make by Norman Geisler.

Norman Geisler in 'When Critics Ask' says: The Bible is without mistake, but the critics are not. All their allegations of error in the Bible are based on some error of their own. Their mistakes fall into the following main categories.

1. Assuming that the unexplained is not explainable

2. Presuming the Bible guilty until proven innocent

3. Confusing our fallible interpretations with God's infallible revelation

4. Failing to understand the context of the passage.

5. Neglecting to interpret difficult passages in the light of clear ones

6. Basing a teaching on an obscure passage

7. Forgetting that the Bible is a human book with human characteristics

8. Assuming that a partial report is a false report

9. Demanding that NT citations of the OT always be exact quotations

10. Assuming that divergent accounts are false ones

11. Presuming that the Bible approves of all its records

12. Forgetting that the Bible uses non-technical, everyday language

13. Assuming that round numbers are false

14. Neglecting to note that the bible uses different literary devices

15. Forgetting that only the original text, not every copy of scripture, is without error

16. Confusing general statements with universal ones

17. Forgetting that latter revelation supersedes previous revelation

Wanting the answer to a specific bible difficulty?
Try the Tekton "Encyclopedia Apologetica" (third link, below)

Answer 3

The Bible does not contradict itself. It may seem in many places like it does, but the Bible is in fact completely free from error. I will answer this question more in detail if you can give me certain points where the Bible contradicts itself. The bottom line though is on faith. I can tell you that God created the heavens and the earth and the Bible can tell you that but if you don't have faith in that, there is nothing that I can say to you. The Bible just tells the truth, you have the choice to believe that truth.

Answer 4

One has to do some actual research (seriously) to solve apparent contradictions. You'll find that some if not all, are taken way out of context.

Like Judas the Bible said that he died two different deaths. But when one takes a look, back in the OT, the use of the wording talks about a spiritual death for the second one, and the first death is physical.

Answer 5

It does not contradict itself. You need to focus on the overall message of the Bible and not each individual excerpt from it. The text is extremely old and has been translated over and over. Throughout time and translations, the individual passages have been somewhat changed but the overall message of the Bible has not. Even the Koran has been interpreted differently by muslims and so you have the different secs in which radical muslims are one of them.

Answer 6

Not sure why, but it does all over the place. Do a quick Yahoo search for "bible contradictions". You will find pages listing hundreds of them. Maybe because God's existence by definition is self-contradictory. It would only be fitting for the instruction manual to his followers to also be contradicting.

Answer 7

Because even when one person writes something, they may contradict themselves. A collection of writings by many different authors, written over many centuries in many languages, is bound to have tensions and contradictions.

Answer 8

It doesn't.
Those are actually apparent contradictions. This is what makes it difficult to interpret, and why one is not qualified to interpret the Word. See 2Peter 3:16

Answer 9

Because that is what Christianity is based on. He who is whithout sin cast the first stone, an eye for an eye. If you ever want to win a debate on anything, use the bible, it goes both ways, just sell the belief.

Answer 10

Because it is 1000s of years old and the text has been mistranslated (intentionally by some, unintentionally by others.) In our day, the Bible has been so mis-interpretted that we really need another source of scriptural content to restore the plain truths that have been lost over the years.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (I, myself am one) believe that the true gospel of Jesus Christ needed to be restored to its original Christian form (i.e. with prophets and apostles who continue to receive revelation from God, just as they did of old) in order to resolve much of the confusion and contention created by many Christian sects with their differing and conflicting interpretations of the Bible.

Before you shrug off the Church through all of those misconceptions and steretypes that you've heard in the past, check out the link below for the other side of the story.

Answer 11

because the bible is silly and It's made up by a bunch of guys back in the old times to control the masses and gain power and boy did it work!