Why does the bible contradict itself?

Question

I'm not going to type the verses because I don't like to type he hath thou and all of that, but if it is the word of god would such a book have so many contradictions such as saying prejudice is evil then being prejudice angainst homosexuals is good? so wouldn't that mean the bible is saying it itself is evil?

Answer 1

it doesnt say anywhere that being prejudice against evil is wrong ...

Answer 2

It does not say prejudice against homosexuals is good, it just says homosexuality is condemned (and not even that it only condemns homosexual acts not homosexuality itself). The Bible does not promote that (intolerance and prejudice), Jesus very often hung around lepers (at his time the most unclean hated people) if anything the Bible teaches us to be tolerant of all people. Only individuals (wrongly) decide that since the Bible condemns an act, that all those who commit the act should be ridiculed and excluded.

In other words God hates the Sin but loves the sinner, and so should we.

Also the King James is the most inaccurately translated (despite the claims of fundies) versions of the Bible, unfortunately it is the most commonplace, and as such contains some obvious errors due to human error.

Answer 3

There are no contradictions in the Bible. Those Bronze age goat herders were inspired by God.
2 Timothy 3:16 ALL SCRIPTURE is given gy inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

I have an Electronic Bible loaded in this computer, and I can search the entire Bible as fast as you can Google. The word prejudice is not there; nor is the word homosexual.
The IDEA of homosexuality IS there; why don't you do an etymological study and find out where the word "sodomy" came from? HINT: Genesis 19-the town of Sodom.

Perhaps if you would provide a specific example? Or is the premise of the question simply to ridicule and taunt? :)

Answer 4

I love the people who say it doesn't contradict itself if you interpret it properly! Ha! By that logic, nothing contradicts anything. Google "Bible contradictions" for some good sights that show clear, undeniable contradictions that are not open to "interpretation" by any intellectually honest person.

The Bible was written by many different people, many decades after the events described supposedly took place. The Bible was then edited by committee over the years.

I have always wondered why God didn't write the Bible himself and hand it down to man on indestructible metal plates or something similar. It would have prevented a lot of needless arguments (and deaths) over the centuries.

Answer 5

Prejudice is evil. The Bible itself is the word of God and is good for correction. God has made it clear to us that homosexuality is a sin and is not to be done. It is not saying you should be prejudice against a homosexual so before you go saying it contradicts itself check it out first. I understand what you are saying because I see things myself that may look contradictory but when we look at the word of God through the love of Christ we see exactly what the word is saying.

Answer 6

The Bible does not say that prejudice is evil. It says judge not and you will not be judged.

God however gave certain guidelines on what is and is not good for us. They follow along the lines of an owners manual. We were created to love a person of the opposite gender. So God tells us that it is disgusting to go against our nature and have perverse passions.

He tells us these things because He knows that if we are not tricked into the perversions of sin then we can find true happiness. If someone tells me that they are living a lifestyle that goes against human nature I feel honor bound to let them know how to find the love that God intended for them instead of a counterfeit

Silly people don't you know that the Bible has been studied and retranslated and corrected painstakingly and slowly by scholars for almost 1800 years?

Answer 7

No.
On the preventative 'basic' level, it gives the 'thou shalt not's'.
However, it also gives the 'higher level' 'remedies' (mercy,forgiveness, etc).
Bear in mind also, that it uses the '2 or more witnesses' principle (given to Jews and later to Christians) along with the do not depart from God's word principle (Jews; Joshua 1, Christians 2 Tim.3:16-17). Unfortunately, in USA that principle(s) is not uniformly practiced in purity presently.

Answer 8

After many years of studying the bible I too asked this question and was directed to The Hidden Jesus by Donald Spoto, which led me to study many many more texts and books including true Kabbalism and its plethra of sources. If you get a red letter version and stick to the red letters only then you will get a clearer version of what Jesus was trying to teach. Constantine along with Catholism altered the version that we read today to sway the Christians into fighting for Romes causes. It is good that you are searching. Seek and you will find- When the Pupil is ready the Teacher will appear. Credere est orare; Orare est Cognescere.(To believe is to pray; To pray is to KNOW.) The word sin in Hebrew is Het. Watch a soccer game in Isreal and you will hear it repeatedly, het het het. It simply means miss, to miss being in syncronization with the energy (will) of GOD. En la sua Volentade en nostra Pace. (In his will is our Peace) the origin of Peace on earth good will toward men. Also realize that the Bible is a compilization of many books scrolls and yes even beliefs. Noah's Flood story is prevalent in almost all ancient cultural teachings. The Adam and Eve story of creation comes from the Mystical Book of Sex ( see the study of Kabbalism.) The object of this book is to try to explain the acceptable and un acceptable practices of sexual intercourse. In which Eve was tempted by the serpant or Lilith who was accompanied by her partner Samael, represented by a camel that road on the back of the serpant or lilith. This is all to represent the perversion or doggy style of sex. As well the reserction of Jesus after being dead for three days was borrowed from Egyptian religious beliefs. So Keep seeking the truth and you will find it. You can hardly advocate a personal relationship with GOD and then demand that everyone believes exactly the way you believe can you? Jesus said that if you have the faith of a mustard seed then you can command the mountains.(parafraze). In my interpritation that means that what ever you believe is your reality, what you truly believe! The problem as I see it most people believe half heartedly what they are told to believe or what is socially accepable to believe and therefore lack conviction, hence we don't truly believe much of anything except what the media and the corperate world would have you believe. And you guessed it if you believe that satan is out to eat your lunch then count on being one hungry soul.

Answer 9

You heard someone say there are contradictions in the Bible?
Where does the Bible say prejudice is Evil?
Judging other peoples motives is discouraged because we never really know all the facts.
It warns us to not be homosexual it doesn't tell us to judge them.

Answer 10

The "Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation" (Vat. 11, Ch. 3.11) of the Catholic Church says that "all that the inspired, or sacred writers, affirm should be regarded as affirmed by the Holy Spirit, we must acknowledge that the books of Scripture firmly, and without error, teach that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to be confided to the sacred Scriptures." This is the Church's teaching on the matter after twenty centuries of Christian discernment.

Biblical inerrancy, then, is the Bible's privilege of never teaching error. Does this mean that every statement in the Bible is divine teaching? Of course not. The Bible does not always teach. There are many statements in its various books that are there for historical, geographical, poetic or other reasons. However, whenever a biblical author intends to teach us something, then the Holy Spirit intends that too. Everything that the Bible teaches is without error, but everything in the Bible is not meant as teaching. Each author was left free by the Lord to express himself according to the ideas of his own day. It is the revelation contained in the Scriptures that is important.

There are also many accounts in the Bible, which employ a literary device used by Jewish Old and New Testament writers called Midrash. Midrash is the substantive of the Hebrew word darash which means to search, to investigate, to study and, also, to expound on the fruits of the research. The aim of Midrash is to draw from Scripture a lesson for the present.

Midrash could also be defined as a "reflection on Scripture in the light of the actual situation of God's people and of the developments of God's action on its history. It proposes to explain the meaning of Scripture in the light of the later historical experience of God's people. This kind of interpretation often opened the door to embellishments of the sacred accounts, anachronisms, and a freedom in handling and maneuvering the data of tradition that were at times a little too candid and certainly very imaginative."

A good example is the Midrashic story of Noah and the flood. It is the divine message, which is important, (God saves his children from evil) not the literal account of the story.

Peace and every blessing!

Answer 11

Just because you don't like what God says, do not use your agenda to poke at something you do not or will not understand. I have studied the Bible for 35 years and I have found not a one. Most who come up with these contradictions have just passed them on via a simple cut and paste and have zero concept that they were even originally written in another language. How much Hebrew have they studied? Do they even know the Dead Sea Scrolls exist? Or the Septuagint? Have they cross referenced? Do they know what meticulous copying a scribe used to transfer the text from scroll to scroll? Or the idea that they could be killed for purposely altering it?

Don't hang your faith on man and his puny attempts to discredit God's Word. They do not know what they are doing. Now, consider it from their point-of-view. If the Bible is true, then there is a God who will judge on their last day. They assume, "destroy the message, you destroy God and eternal consequences". This is wishful thinking toward their own destruction.

Isaiah 34:16
"Search from the book of the LORD, and read: Not one of these shall fail; Not one shall lack her mate. For My mouth has commanded it, and His Spirit has gathered them."

1 Corinthians 1:21
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.