Is the Bible true ?

Question

When I say is it true I mean all of it.

If so then how do you respond to the fact that there are 101 clear contradictions in it?
Go to answering-christianity.com and look for 101_bible_contradictions.

How can you rely on a text with so many errors?

Don't even bother to answer if you can't come up with an answer that I don't have to be a Christian to buy into. This is an academic question that deserves a THOUGHTFUL response not a lecture on how I need to accept Christ as my personal saviour.

BGrimey I AM Black.

Are you serious? I said no answers you have to be a Christian to understand. Why should i need faith in order to understand the book that is supposed to tell me what the faith is about in the first place. That is some more of that goofball circular logic that people with no intelligent response rely on in order to BLAME the question rather than to answer it.

What is interesting is that NOBODY has answered the question about how to respond to the FACT that there are 101 CONTRADICTIONS.
And NOBODY has told me how they can rely on a book with so many errors.
How do you know what is true since everything in it is contradicted by the text itself?

Mandy. Go to the website I listed and look at the contradictions. They are often within the same chapter sometimes they are almost right next to each other.

THANK YOU Buddy_Le for your honest and well though out answer. There ARE contradictions. For instance the genealogy of Jesus given in Mark is nowhere near the sam as the one given in Luke. they cannot both be true. Also since these lists trace his descent through Joseph they must BOTH be in error if Mary was a virgin because Joseph is NOT his father making both of these lists both a waste of time and a contradiction of the story of the virgin birth. Maybe people don't feel they can answer 101 contradictions. How about starting with that one?

Answer 1

Yes, but I don't want to push this on you. It's true to the best of my knowledge. I looked on your website but didn't find the part you told me to look up. However I did look up some of the items that the website did talk about. For instance, John's reference to Psalm 34. Proving the Bible to be true is something that isn't meant for Yahoo Answers. I've been trying to undersand discrepencies in the bible for years. I wish I wasn't poor so I could take old Hebrew lessons and see where some of these passages could be written either out of context or could not possible be translated correctly. For instance, your website probably mentions Genesis 6:4. It uses the word "giants". The word giants is used over and over again (Numbers 13:33, Deuteronomy 2:11, etc.). This makes no sense because these giants from Genesis 6:4 seem seperate from other giants. For some reason these "giants" were mentioned for no reason. They were mentioned as these great warrior heroes of old. It doesn't make sense so obviously these giants didn't exist and the bible is false and written by liars. Oh wait, if you go to the New Revised Standard they use the actual word "Nephraim" instead of giant. Hebrews have more than one word for giant (three I think) and this one is best translated as "fallen ones". However they were considered great giants. So who were these giants? Presumable the Bible was just letting us know that demons were already making havoc on earth at this time. The great warriors of old are our fallen ones. It shows admiration for these great warriors of old but also shows how they've ended up. Hebrew is like many other languages. It's very poetic and can have many synonyms with slightly different meanings. Anyone who is learning other languages should be able to identify with this. Certain formalities from romance languages don't translate into English. Ser and Estar both mean "to be" in English but they aren't both interchangeable. If you want to understand these discrepencies you are going to have to understand the languages they were written in.
Also remember that events in the bible that were considered preposterous in the past are now considered very likely or even fact. Even the tale of the Exodus has gone from "that never happened" to "it did but something else caused it, not God". It wasn't until the late 1800's that historians would even acknowledge that the Assyrian culture even existed! Now we know who they were and that they were one of the largest kingdoms in history (and many of these great people have decendents in good ol' Germany).But they were a made-up enemy of the Israelites until around 1860. People say that David didn't exist. About ten years ago we confirmed that he and his kingdom existed and must have traded with tons of nations around the world because we are finding items with inscriptions stating "bought from the House of David". Pontius Pilate was a villain the Jews made up. Oh yeah, we found his tomb in 1992.
I'm not telling you to believe in the Bible, but if you want to find out if it's real and if it's completely true, then you're going to have to do a lot of research which will most likely be against the Islamic faith. It seems like every day a small part of the bible is proven correct through archaeological diggings. How long until we find something very important? Like king Solomon's mines or the arc of the covenant. Don't use just one website or source for your information. There are a lot of inconsistencies, or percieved inconsistencies in the bible. Don't let someone tell you that a misunderstood verse automatically makes the Bible heresy. If you wan't to find the truth, you'll find it.

Edit: Oh, and the Quran shares a lot of the same types of discrepencies. It's a lot younger than the texts from Moses. Try the following website as an EXAMPLE only.

Answer 2

First, I'm a Roman Catholic. That's out of the way.

The short answer is that the Bible isn't literally true. Very few people believe this entirely, and it certainly isn't the official view of the Church. The Church believes that the Bible guides those it follows through the interpretation of its stories and parables. Some things, of course, the Church believes to be literally true (Jesus was real, He was the one and only Son of God, Mary was his mother, etc.), but many stories within it are considered to have been written for the purposes of teaching a lesson to the reader, or as ways of recording histories in an allegorical manner (the Tale of Jacob is thought to be an allegorical story about two warring tribes).

It is also important to consider the humanity of the writers, and the circumstances of their writings. Matthew and Luke both derived their gospels from the writings of Mark, but were preaching to different audiences, and thus made different choices in their writings (what to include, whether to say anything that wasn't strict to Mark's gospel, etc.). One preached to an audience which was a mix of rich and poor, and so included more stories about charity and equality among the two. The other preached mainly to an audience of Gentiles (non-jews) and preached about inclusion and the love of Jesus for all people.

The Bible, despite the repeated cries of fundamentalists, is not a literally true document. It is, however, an excellent moral guide when skillfully interpretted by a knowledgable scholar.

Answer 3

Yes 100% because it is God-breathed, and also there are more than two hundred prophecies about Jesus Christ's life guess how many of those were correct and proven.......



Everyone of them, Matthew quoted prophecies that Jesus did fulfill that's the Gospel Truth
Mark wrote of the Servant King who did the Father's Will
and so on

And I looked at more of the site and I saw the facts about contradictions are very unstable the other contradictions cancelled each other out and everything so i dont think its a very good resource for the question. Maybe you should look into this for yourself. And also have anyone reading ever told a white lie? sin is a defined as missing the mark in the favor of men and the Bible says that lieing is sin. connect two and 2. maybe this will change your answer.

Answer 4

Faith (n) Firm belief in something for which there is no proof.

I know it seems overly simplistic, but it's no different than a Buddhist believing that Buddha was a god, or a Hindu believing the same about Vishnu. (If I got the Hindu god name wrong, I apologize. I'm not really sure about that one.)

Anyway, there are things that are accepted as true jsut because of faith. Children believe in Santa Clause just as Christians believe in Jesus. And the're both right becasue both were real people. (Saint Nicolas, a Turkish bishop, was believed to be the inspiration for Santa Claus. The Shroud of Turin, which was believed to house Jesus Christ after his crucifixion was recently discovered.)

As far as contradictions go, I would not call them contradictions so much as I would call them breakdowns in communication. As the centuries after the books of the Bible was created rolled on, several translations were transcribed as possibly not everything was recorded correctly. Things may have been either omitted, added, or just plain incorrect.

But I digress. Christainity, belief in the Bible, et al. is not so much for the analytical, but for the spiritual. The above definition of faith is form m-w.com, but I like the definition I heard somewhere, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen." To attempt to prove the Bible using any means without utilizing faith will prove fruitless.

You sound really angry. Are you just trying to start a fight, or will you actually read what people with opposing viewpoints have to say?

Answer 5

The bible is a book - a book filled with stories that dates back 2000+ years. It is folklore, myth and metaphor. The stories were gathered from different areas throughout the Med. area along with Egypt. Many of the stories were borrowed from the various beliefs and ideas that were verbal throughout the areas. It simply allows an overview of the history of a nomadic people that formed a monotheistic view of a god. Originally the nomadic tribes had many different gods but took Yahweh as their particular protector god.

Contradictions - 101Myths, I believe I read the book and it references the OT. There were many myths as I stated, the ones in this specific book are only some of the contradictions.

I rather doubt that the writers of the stories in this book were ever meant to be taken as literally as today's believers tend to think. There were different writers that scholars refer to as J P E D. This reinforces the fact that the stories were circulating in various areas of the Mediterranean.

One has to consider that the ancient world viewed their lives in an entirely different context then that of today. Their deity only understood the world they lived in when a wheel barrel would have been a miracle. This book of stories has to be read in the context of the life and tribulations of the time frame. To do otherwise is logically unworthy of a sound mentality.

Answer 6

Depends on what you mean by true. As a historical document, it is true in the sense that it gives us a lot of information about what was on people's minds in the Middle East at the time. Some of the dates, however, are not accurate. What is accurate is the sentiment expressed over the various concepts and customs of the day. The bible is also true in that it depicts what one should do to worship the god of abraham. The contradictions you speak of probably stem from your comparision of the Old and New Testaments.


Updade: I did as you requested - I went to the website. It was propaganda, and offered no useful information. I am a polytheistic pagan, and I would never offer the site of my pagan temple (that any pagan site) as a source to refute christianity, Judaism, or Islam.

Answer 7

I am not willing to or have the knowledge to clarify 101 contradictions tonight but I did discover recently the truth in one that had been bothering me, it is:

Thou shall not steal
and
if a man take from you your hoe also give to him your rake

So you shouldn't steal but if someone steals your hoe give him something else?? It finally dawned on me that thou shall not steal is a commandment once learned as a believer and the person who steals the hoe is the sinner and needs more than a believer so give to him your rake.

GARWY,
I just went and read it and NO it does not say anything like that. It speaks of the land and separation of water. where on earth did you get that and the confidence to spread lies?

TRUTH,
Your avatar appears to be a man yet you are deceived it appears as a women. Stop being blinded and seek the TRUTH.

ZCLIFTON,
Please do not drink of much wine and try to be a leader because it distorts your perception. If you smoked a fat joint and found yourself an instant theologist is it not in religion but possibly strong politics, seek your peers.

Answer 8

The Bible is truly myth, stories, parables, poems, rules, conflict, lies, and just about everything else. The idea that you can follow the literale word of the Bible is about false as a JC Penny's padded bra.
Now, the fact that many bible thumping religious business people are selling the product and living the good life as a result has nothing to do with religion. It is strictly business and bull @@@@!
Anything that Tom Delay, one of the great Republicans of his time said was a lie. Geroge Bush and Tom Delay belong together in the same chapter of history. It should be entitled, The Ghost of American History by Karl Rove!

Answer 9

Certainly not. Take Moses for example. It is yet to be proved that he really existed, but if he did, just why was he going up on that mountain every day for so many days? Then one day he came down with stone tablets claiming that some god had given him the commandments. If he was a real person, he had gained power of leadership over his band of wanders and they were getting tired of his BS about a land of milk and honey. He knew he was losing his position of power over them, so he invented his idea of a god and went up that mountain many times for many hours each time. Then suddenly one day he returned with those commandments; yes the ones that he carved when he went up that mountain so many times. The very way so many others have used a god to control the masses. The NT has only a few real names of actual persons in an attempt to make that fictional story seem real, that is to the uninformed, ignorant minds who are insane to belief that lie.

Answer 10

NO, I'm sure some on the stories have an element of truth to them, but most were just made up. Remember the bible was written a long time after Jesus died.