Jesus seemed to have problems contradicting himself and telling the truth. Did God permit him to do this?

Question

Jesus said that whoever calls somebody a "fool" shall be in danger of hell fire (Matthew 5:22), yet he called people "fools" himself (Matthew 23:17).

Regarding his own truthfulness, Jesus gave two conflicting opinions: "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true" (John 5:31), and "Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true" (John 8:14

These a just a couple of things noted. Dozens more if you're inclined to read them.

Jesus - Are you a Christian representative that resorts to "Name Calling" when you can't answer the question or you don't like the question? Sad.

Kiker - I am afraid your reference of Josephus is completely wrong. You need further research. For the small mention (Not even a paragraph) in the whole Testamonium by Josephus, It appears to have been inserted later by Eusebius. Further, even if it had not been proven that Eusebius made the insertion, Josephus never met or knew Jesus. Also, the Testamonium was written over 40 years after the death of Jesus.

Kiker - This may help you improve your understanding of what many scholars think in regards to the existence of Jesus. You are wrong in that regard too. Emotions and Imagination cannot and does not prove his existence.
http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html

Answer 1

well personally i think the understanding is in the context .. calling someone a name and belittling them directly .. calling them an idiot for instance, is one thing ... stating the error of someones ways is somthing else .. i think its a matter of where the heart is .... and so on .. imo from the little that is written of Him he was a brilliant orator and could see through peoples motives ...

Answer 2

if you don't use any logic at all with the Bible and only let others tell you what it means you will feel or maybe be fooled that there are no contradictions in the Bible. The Bible is full of absurdities and down right impossible things and events. It is full of murder and deceit sex and pervertiness. The Bible is very good in some respects and does give some history that can be verified but we have trouble believing that man walk on the moon in the 60's so why should we even try to ponder why Jesus seems to contradict himself in many places in the Bible. Men write in ways to confuse others. There is nothing wrong with trying to be a nice person and live a life in which you help others but you aren't much of a person if you have to resort to name calling to make your point. Men who think they are above others have done this and it has and will happen again and again. Elections are a very good time to reflect on the name calling techniques that has been used with public speaking since Aristotle and maybe long before.

Answer 3

I don't see any contradiction here.

In Matthew Jesus it is saying that he himself has every right to judge as he could read hearts, they couldn't. People change, but he saw that the hearts of those hypocrites were unchangeable.

In John, Jesus was saying, if you read the context of both accounts, that it would take two witnesses to bear his record. With his Father as bearing record to Christ, that would include a second witness. Read other translations and you will find that he is saying in Joh 5:31,32: "If I alone bear witness about myself, my witness is not true. There is another that bears witness about me, and I know that the witness which he bears about me is true."

Answer 4

well, assuming that there actually was a radical Rabbi named Yeshua we don't have a clue what he might have said. all we have are a few short books with conflicting details written some 30-70 years after Yeshua is purported to have been executed for sedition by the Romans. for some strange reason there is no buzz in the ancient histories of his miraculous endeavors and this very powerful and important personage decided to leave no writings of his own or even any verifiable evidence of his existence. all we have is mythological hearsay, someone said Jesus said.

Answer 5

The scripture in entirety: "However, I say to you that everyone who continues wrathful with his brother will be accountable to the court of justice; but whoever addresses his brother with an unspeakable word of contempt will be accountable to the Supreme Court; whereas whoever says, ‘You despicable fool!’ will be liable to the fiery Ge‧hen′na".

Notice he's talking about calling ones "brother "(or fellow believer) a fool. Saying that would be akin to judging and condemning his brother as being morally worthless and hating him. Romans 14:10-12 basically tells us that it's not OUR place as imperfect beings to judge our brother, rather we have to render an accounting for ourselves.

In the other Scripture Matt 23:17 Jesus was talking to the Pharisees, who were defined by scholars as "Separatists". These were not people who were doing the best they could to obey God, but were doing everything opposite. Jesus was perfect, he knew this. For example:They prided themselves on being righteous (actually, self-righteous) and looked down on the common people. (Lu 18:11, 12)

“They broaden the scripture-containing cases that they wear as safeguards.” These relatively small cases, worn on the forehead or on the arm, contain four portions of the Law: Exodus 13:1-10, 11-16; and Deuteronomy 6:4-9; 11:13-21. But the Pharisees increase the size of these cases to give the impression that they are zealous about the Law. They loved money (Lu 16:14) and desired prominence and flattering titles. (Mt 23:6, 7; Lu 11:43) The Pharisees were so biased in their application of the Law that they made it burdensome for the people, insisting that it be observed according to their concepts and traditions. (Mt 23:4) They completely lost sight of the important matters, namely, justice, mercy, faithfulness, and love of God. (Mt 23:23; Lu 11:41-44)

These are just a few of their antics and Jesus could rightly call them fools.

RE: John 5:31/8:14 In John 5:31 Jesus was speaking w/ the Pharisees who were trying to trip up Jesus and accused him of saying that he was making himself equal to God. But if we back up a bit to vs 30 and go thru 38 is says:

"I cannot do a single thing of my own initiative; just as I hear, I judge; and the judgment that I render is righteous, because I seek, not my own will, but the will of him that sent me.

“If I alone bear witness about myself, my witness is not true. There is another that bears witness about me, and I know that the witness which he bears about me is true.  You have dispatched men to John, and he has borne witness to the truth."

So he's telling the Pharisees basically, 'If I told you I was here of my own doing you wouldn't believe me. John's already told you of me and now my other witness is that I'm doing what my Father wants me to..so it's not just me talking,'. This was basically a quotation from the Hebrew Scrip. Deut 19:15 where he talks about an issue would be good at the mouth of 2-3 witnesses, not one..

John 8:14 - Again the Pharisees were drilling Jesus and sarcastically asking him 'Who do you think you are?' In the face of their rejection, Jesus answers: “Why am I even speaking to you at all?” Yet he goes on to say: “He that sent me is true, and the very things I heard from him I am speaking in the world.” Jesus continues: “When once you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing of my own initiative; but just as the Father taught me I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me; he did not abandon me to myself, because I always do the things pleasing to him.”

The Pharisees were constantly flipping questions around trying to trip up Jesus so he had to make his answers accordingly. Often it's helpful to read the context around the scripture to get the idea of what's happening.

Answer 6

Some things were said to confound the non-believer but those that believe understand the scriptures and the true message of salvation. As Christians the Holy Spirit imparts understanding to us so that we are informed about the will of our Lord. Jesus did not, does not and cannot lie.

Answer 7

those passages do no longer contradict what Paul wrote interior the passage you gave from a million Corinthians. Please understand that my answer is in accordance to the biblical attitude/theory device as I know it...which does no longer inevitably make it astonishing. The context wherein all of those have been written is as follows: Exodus 15:3 - This passage describes how God deals together with his enemies. He considers His enemies to be anybody that denies His love and worships something yet Him; considering the fact that he's the writer of all issues. God create guy to particular His love intimately with guy(form) and hates while something distracts us from having that intimate connection. Zephaniah a million:2-6 - this may well be a prophecy given to Zephaniah regarding the coming near judgment upon mankind for their determination to stray from their unique meant objective - love and intimate communion with God. he's taking this very heavily through fact as in the previous pronounced he created us for the only objective of having an exceedingly great relationship with him. a million Corinthians 13:4-7 - Paul is writing his first letter to the Corinthians and is largely telling them that their intentions ought to be organic to verify that them to be common by potential of God as trustworthy. that's like paying for plant life on your spouse on Valentine's Day considering the fact which you sense obligated as adversarial to doing it considering the fact which you particularly care approximately her and be attentive to that she would be able to get excitement from the gesture. The element of the passage you quoted is his occasion of ways human beings ought to latest their acts of worship/kindness/sacrifice to God and others. examine the full financial ruin to get a greater useful be attentive to-how of the context. lower back, please understand that i'm writing from the biblical attitude and my constrained adventure interpreting it. in case you're taking those passages in context that's plenty much less complicated to be sure how the argument for those meant 'contradictions' fail extremely particularly. i did no longer write the previous sentence to belittle you in any way...basically making the element.

Answer 8

You are switching from one precept into another and expecting them to correlate. The burden here is when non-Christians start to attempt to 'prive' Christ's hypocrisy they inivitable make some erroneous assumptions. For example, in your first assertion, you are taking it completely out of its context to correlate it to the second verse. People do this with religion, but fail to realize that any solid argument must be fashioned in such a way as to be uniform with other arguments. So if you were to attempt to do this with something in the realm of science you would clearly show your ignorance on the subject and likely be scoffed at, never truly getting to voice your opinion or seek truth. In the Matthew 5:22 Jesus went into great length explaining essentially not to point the finger at others, as there are still fingers pointing at you. (essentially, your crap stinks so don't elevate your own perceived holiness at someone else's expense. Matthew 23:17 Jesus is actually making a direct statement to people as being fools, as they choosing the worth of salvation as it pertains to the earthly manifestation, rather than He who santified that earthly manifestation; essentailly stating they have their priorities mixed up. Since Jesus is not saying its wrong to call someone a fool in your first versus example, He is actually saying you should not just lest you be judged (meaning by the same standards that you judge will be the stand to which you are judged). That being said, there is nothing wrong with Jesus calling someone a fool, as they clearly are being just that. As He being just, there is no hypocrisy in the statement. The important thing to remember is not to take a single sentence out of a whole statement and use it to cross-reference another. All you do is emphasis your lack of understanding and then only those who share in that lack of understanding will align with you. You accomplish nothing in the way of formulating a well structured argument to engage in a debate with. Hope this helps.
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with regards to the one of the responses posted. There is no doubt within the academic community that Jesus of Nazzareth actually existed. Even Josephus, a historian of sorts in that day wrote of Him. No one can deny He never existed, only as to whether He was the Messiah or not. Even the Judaistic community acknowledge His existence, and they are diometrically opposed to Him.

Answer 9

Jesus never contradictes himself, you do not understand because you have no faith in Jesus Christ and what he stands for, The Bible says to look up and know that I am God, Jesus came and died on a cross for our sins, he spilled his precious blood as a ransom for us. We are all sinners but Jesus has washed us clean, we need only believe in him to inherit eteranal life, if we die without Jesus Christ in our hearts we will spend eternity with the devil in a lake of fire, that don't sound to promising, think about your life, where you are headed, think about the afterlife, the Bible says we have a spiritual body that lives forever, I believe the Bible is true, To go to Heaven we must accept Jesus and serve him, its not hard, Jesus says to come as your are, here is a simple sinners prayer,just pray this believing and a new life awaits you, Dear Jesus, I know and confess that I am sinner in need of salvation. I believe you died on a cross at calvery and arose from the grave to wash away my sins, I ask you right now to come into my heart and save me, I pray this Prayer believing in the name of Jesus Amen. If you prayed this prayer with a sincere heart you are now a child of God, rejoice that your name is written in the Lambs book of Life. Jesus will now send his Holy Spirit to come and live in your heart and guide you into all truth. If you have any questions just send me an email, God Bless YOU!!

Answer 10

Jesus was and is perfect in every way. He is God, and is JUSTIFIED in calling anyone a fool. He knows the correct definition of it. He tells you what it is in the Bible.
He tells us not to call anyone a fool, because we are not without sin, and are foolish ourselves. We are human. He is God. No comparison!

As for the rest, I suggest you read the passages before and after verses you "pick out" to be contradictions. They aren't at all. Only taken out of context. Nice try, though.