THE BIBLE CONTRADICTS ITSELF AND SO IS NOT THE INFALLIBLE WORD OF GOD

 http://www.religioustolerance.org/inerran6.htm
 
FOREWORD

The Bible shows the full extent of the how far people can wander from decency over dogma and religion. There have been more inspiring and enlightening books and yet this one is the one that everybody promotes and has in the house. We would not want the Bible to be the word of God. Who would listen to it? It gives plenty of orders and no convincing reasons to follow them. It implants a totally unacceptable attitude towards right and wrong for it obviously identifies right with what some authority says and that is the might is right philosophy. Grown people should decide for themselves instead of being treated like children by this book.
 
And it has even its most devoted followers lying for it. God said in Deuteronomy 18 that if a prophet makes so much as one error in predicting the future despite being right all the time in other predictions he is a fake for God cannot err. Christians say when they are shown a contradiction in the Bible that it cannot be a contradiction because the Bible never contradicts itself which is the very logic implicitly rejected in Deuteronomy 18.
 
God does not want people rationalizing contradictions and errors. You can reconcile any contradiction if you assume there is no contradiction and if you try hard enough which is why it is so important to keep things simple and prefer simple explanations to hard ones. The solutions to Bible contradictions are shown to be contrived by their very complexity and improbability. What solution is selected depends on what presuppositions and interpretations the self-appointed solver wants to impose on the text. But interpretations are just interpretations and nobody can be obligated to accept the interpretation of another. To do that is not to believe in the Bible but in what you want to see in it. Contradictions being “solved” does nothing to quieten those who accept sceptical interpretations of the Bible. If a sceptical interpretation that sees lots of contradictions is possible then nobody has the right to insist on an inerrant Bible. And it is more than possible – it is warranted.
 
Two seemingly contradictory accounts could still be contradictory if you think you can reconcile them. It depends on what the authors meant. A possible reconciliation does not amount to an intended one.

The Bible is spiritual pornography and should be detested.

 

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY DOES NOT APPLY TO TEXTS

 

No matter what theory Christians have about the Bible being inspired they agree that the most important thing is God protecting the Bible from contradictions.  Christians come with an innocent until proven guilty attitude to the Bible text that seems to command evil or which contradicts something else in the Bible. They take the same approach to anything that allegedly backs that text up as true. But innocent until proven guilty is fundamentally and unchangeably an unfair approach to take to texts. The rule is for societal relations not for scriptures or any writings. It is a fact that a text has to be assumed to contain at least some fictions. That is the way the world works. To go to the Bible without admitting this means you will lose touch with reality and not see the contradictions of they are there. This is a bad immature attitude even if the contradictions are not there and the Bible really is a divinely inspired unity devoid of contradiction.
 
BIBLE CONTRADICTIONS

Some Bible contradictions.

Deuteronomy 10:1-3,5 relates that the ark of the covenant existed before Moses went up the mountain with the two new stone tablets he wanted God to write on contradicting Exodus 34-37 where Moses acquires the articles required for the making of the ark after he comes down from the mountain from God.

Jesus said that whoever puts faith in him has more belief in God than in him (John 12:44). So you believe Jesus because of God. But when he claimed to be giving evidence for what he claimed about God and for the existence of God – evidence that can’t be got any other way - that cannot be. You would need to trust Jesus more than God. Jesus is not making sense here.

 

In Exodus 9:6 all the cows in Egypt were killed by the sixth plague. But shortly after in verse 25 there were cows left to be killed by hail and fire. Even worse they had their firstborns to die in the tenth plague. The Christian answer is that all was the colloquial word for most. That is not believable for the plagues are miracles meaning we are not talking about normal conditions. So all means all. The evidence that the first books of the Bible have been altered and worked over by editors is overwhelming and some of the contradictions are down to poor editing.

Luke 3:35, 36 says that Arphaxad was Selah’s grandfather with Cainan as the father. Genesis 11:12 says he was his father. Christians say the latter means ancestor not literal father. While it could it does not in this case for Genesis is very careful to give details which means it would not skip a generation. Plus how good is a genealogy if it skips a generation? It could be trying to hide something by not mentioning the natural father for children of suspect paternity were always around.

FINALLY

 

You cannot make sense of a Bible or religion full of contradictions.  If the Bible appeared today we would not accept it even if the contradictions were merely on science or history but not faith.  The only reason it gets away with it is that past generations "accepted" it without knowing much about it and superstition gets solidified and ends being part of the cultural fabric.  A Bible that thinks the sky is a dish is hardly an authority on the evidence that God raised a man from the dead.  Doctrine and history overlap.

 

Contradictions no matter how small are important for they are human handprints and show the Bible is not the word of God.  It is a form of bigotry and totalitarianism to proclaim man's work infallible.  The contradictions then if minor in themselves are still serious and affect the main core teaching that God has given us his word and God does not err.  There are huge contradictions where in the gospel of John says if he speaks in his own favour

 

Believers who claim that critics will not consider that the one God wrote the Bible accuse them of holding a naturalistic bias. What they mean is that they fail to hold the belief that God wrote the Bible and made no mistakes.  But that is a very big ask.  The matter is complicated.  They are the biased ones. It is easier to assume a book is normal than that it is somehow inspired and especially when other books claim to be inspired too by some higher power.

 

All attempts to prove that the Bible is the word of God fail because the Bible contradicts itself and attempts to hide this are stupid, irresponsible and are fabricated. If you assume that two contradictory books are true in all they say and try to make them fit you will manage it but the result will be contrived. You are really still assuming they are true and have no proof for it. This observation should be a warning to the fundamentalist Christians who say there are no contradictions in the Bible. They have no faith in the Bible at all for they are only assuming it is right. If they really believed, they would not need to work out and produce laughable far-fetched ways of reconciling Bible contradictions. They wouldn’t do that with anything else but the Bible.

 

Contradictory beliefs are really not beliefs at all.  They are just fighting each other.  They are proof that one only imagines one believes.
 
FURTHER READING
 
www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/indef/4e.html
 
A Summary of Christian Doctrine, Louis Berkhof, The Banner of Truth Trust, London, 1971
A Test of Time, David Rohl, Century, London, 1995
Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible, John W Haley, Whitaker House, Pennsylvania, Undated
An Act of God, Graham Philips, Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1998
Answers to Tough Questions, Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Scripture Press Bucks, 1988
Attack on the Bible, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1965
Belief and Make-Believe, GA Wells, Open Court, La Salle, Illinois, 1991
Biblical Exegesis and Church Doctrine, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press, New York, 1985
But the Bible Does Not Say So, Rev Roberto Nisbet, Church Book Room Press, London, 1966
Catholicism and Christianity, Cecil John Cadoux, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1928
Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988
Creation and Evolution, Dr Alan Hayward, Triangle, London, 1994
Does the Bible Contradict Itself? Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986
Encyclopaedia of Bible Difficulties, Gleason W Archer, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1982
Essentials, David L Edwards and John Stott, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1990
Evidence that Demands a Verdict, Vol 1, Josh McDowell, Alpha, Scripture Press Foundation, Bucks, 1995
Free Inquiry, Fall 1998, Vol 18, No 4, Council for Secular Humanism, Amherst, New York
God and the Human Condition, F J Sheed, Sheed & Ward, London, 1967
God Cannot Lie, David Alsobrook, Diasozo Trust, Kent, 1989
God, Science and Evolution, Prof E H Andrews, Evangelical Press, Herts, 1985
God’s Word, Final Infallible and Forever, Floyd C McElveen, Gospel Truth Ministries, Grand Rapids, 1985
Hard Sayings, Derek Kidner, InterVarsity Press, London, 1972
How and Why Catholic and Protestant Bibles Differ, Carolyn Osiek, RSCJ and Donald Senior, CP, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1983
How to Interpret the Bible, Fergus Cleary SJ, Ligouri Publications, Missouri, 1981
In Defence of the Faith, Dave Hunt, Harvest House, Eugene Oregon, 1996
Inspiration in the Bible, Fr Karl Rahner, Herder and Herder, New York, 1966
It Ain’t Necessarily So, Investigating the Truth of the Biblical Past, Matthew Sturgis, Headline Books, London, 2001
Jehovah of the Watch-tower, Walter Martin and Norman Klann, Bethany House Publishers, Minnesota, 1974
Let’s Weigh the Evidence, Which Bible is the Real Word of God? Barry Burton, Chick Publications, Chino, California, 1983
Know What You Believe, Paul E Little, Scripture Union, London, 1973
Know Why You Believe, Paul E Little, Scripture Union, London, 1971
New Age Bible Versions, GA Riplinger, Bible & Literature Foundation, Tennessee, 1993
New Evangelicalism An Enemy of Fundamentalism, Curtis Hutson, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1984
None of These Diseases, SI McMillen MD, Lakeland, London 1966
Our Perfect Book the Bible, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1958
Proof the Bible is True, Rev JMA Willans BD, Dip.Theol. Vermont Press, Larne, 1982
Radio Replies Vol 3, Radio Replies Press, Minnesota, 1942
Reason and Belief, Bland Blanschard, London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1974
Remarks on the New King James Version and Revised Authorised Version, DK Madden, 35 Regent Street, Sandy Bay, Tasmania, 7005, 1991
Return to Sodom and Gomorrah, Charles Pellegrino, The Softback Preview, New York, 1995
Science and the Bible, Henry Morris, Moody Press, Bucks, 1988
Science Held Hostage What’s Wrong With Creation Science and Evolutionism, Howard J Van Till/Davis A.Young/Clarence Menninga, IVP, Downer’s Grove, Illinois, 1988
Science Speaks, Peter W Stoner and Robert C Newman, Moody Press, Chicago, 1976
Set My Exiles Free, John Power, Logos Books, MH Gill & Son Ltd, Dublin, 1967
Testament, The Bible and History, John Romer, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1988
The Authority of the Bible, Ambassador College, Pasadena, California, 1980
The Bible Fact or Fantasy, John Drane, Lion, Oxford, 1989
The Bible is the Word of God, Jimmy Thomas, Guardian of Truth, Kentucky
The Bible or Evolution? William Jennings Bryan, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee
The Bible, The Biography, Karen Armstrong, Atlantic Books, London, 2007
The Bible, Questions People Ask, A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication, Liguori Publications, Missouri, 1980
The Bible Unearthed, Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, Touchstone Books, New York, 2002
The Canon of Scripture, FF Bruce, Chapter House, Glasgow, 1988
The Church of Rome and the Word of God, Rev Eric C Last, Protestant Truth Society, London, Undated
The Early Church, Henry Chadwick, Pelican, Middlesex, 1987
The Enigma of Evil, John Wenham, Eagle, Guilford, Surrey, 1994
The History of Christianity, Lion, Herts, 1982
The King James Version Defended, Edward F Hills, The Christian Research Press, Iowa, 1973
The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Edited by Raymond E Brown, Joseph A Fitzmyer, Roland E Murphy, Geoffrey Chapman, New York 1990
The Theology of Inspiration, John Scullion SJ, Mercier, Cork, 1970
The Unauthorised Version, Robin Lane Fox, Penguin, Middlesex, 1992
Verbal Inspiration of the Bible, John R Rice Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1943
What is the Bible? Henri Daniel-Rops, Angelus Books, Guild Press, New York, 1958
When Critics Ask, Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, Victor Books, Illinois ,1992
Which Version Now? Bob Sheehan, Carey Publications, 5 Fairford Close, Haywards Heath, Sussex RH16 3EF
Who is a Fundamentalist? Dr Curtis Hutson, Sword of the Lord, Murfreesboro, 1982
Why Does God..? Domenico Grasso SJ, St Pauls , Bucks, 1970
Why People Believe Weird Things, Michael Shermer, Freeman, New York, 1997
 
BIBLE QUOTATIONS FROM:
The Amplified Bible

WEB

Final Response by Steven Carr to Dr Wilkinson
www.bowness.demon.co.uk/wilkin6.htm

Science in the Bible? Dr M Magee
www.askwhy.co.uk/truth/440BibleScience.html

Why It’s a Load of Old Cobblers, Adrian Barnett
www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/noahs_ark.html
Exposes the utter absurdity of the Noah’s Ark story in the Bible

Steven Carr, Critique of Josh McDowells Non_Messianic Prophecies This Site cannot be overly recommended. It is superb.
www.infidels.org/library/modern/steven_carr/non-messianic.html

New Testament Contradictions, Paul Carlson
www.infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html

Rabbits do not chew their cud, Alleged Bible Contradictions
http://unhindered.com/apolo/contradictions/index.html

The Bible as History Flunks New Archaeological Tests
www.10.nytimes.com/library/arts/072900david-bible.html

Biblical Errancy by Dennis McKinsey
http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/bepart31.html
This is one of McKinsey’s online magazines. The magazine is excellent for it gives the fundies the chance to respond and carefully exposes their twisted reasoning.