THE NINETEEN QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTIAN CLERGY
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QUESTION 10
Contradictions...
"There are claimed contradictions that theologians have not
resolved to every atheist's satisfaction. There are textual
difficulties with which scholars are still wrestling. Only a
Bible illiterate would deny these and other problems." (The
Plain Truth, July 1975).
Here is a sample of some Biblical contradictions with which
scholars are still wrestling.
** While Genesis, in chapter 5 & 11, mentions 19 generations
between Adam and Abraham, Luke adds one more. According to
Genesis Shela is the son of Arphaxad, but to Luke Shela is
the son of Cainan. Obviously, either one has added, or the
other has dismissed Cainan.
** Chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Genesis describe a worldwide flood
which destroys all living creatures on the face of the
Earth. This contradicts the findings of modern archeology.
John Allen Paulos, the professor of mathematics at Temple
University in Philadelphia has an entirely different reason
to reject this exaggerated story:
The book of Genesis says of the Flood that "... all the high
hills that were under the whole heaven were covered ..."
Taken literally, this seems to indicate that there were
10,000 to 20,000 feet of water on the surface of the earth,
equivalent to more than half a billion cubic miles of
liquid! Since, according to biblical accounts, it retained
for forty days and forty nights, or for only 960 hours, the
rain must have fallen at a rate of at least fifteen feet per
hour, certainly enough to sink any aircraft carrier, much
less an ark with thousands of animals on board (Innumeracy,
John Allen Paulos, Vintage Books, New York, 1990, p. 16).
** According to 2 Samuel 24:1 God incited David to take a
census of Israel. However, according to 1 Chronicles 21:1
the one who incited David was Satan, not God.
** According to 2 Samuel 24:13 one of the options was "seven
years of famine," but according to 1 Chronicles 21:12 it was
"three years of famine."
** According to 1 Kings 4:26 Solomon had "forty thousand
stalls of horses," but according to 2 Chronicles 9:25 he had
"four thousand stalls of horses."
** According to 2 Kings 24:8 "Jehoiachin was eighteen years
old when he became king," but according to 2 Chronicles 36:9
he was "eight years old."
** According to 1 Chronicles 8:36 "Ahaz was the father of
Jehoaddah," but in the following chapter, 9:42 "Ahaz was the
father of Jarah."
** According to 2 Samuel 24:9 Joab reported the number of
fighting men: "eight hundred thousand in Israel," and "five
hundred thousand in Juda," but the same report according to
1 Chronicles 21:5 is "one million one hundred thousand in
Israel," and "four hundred and seventy thousand in Judah."
** According to 2 Kings 8:26 "Ahaziah was twenty-two years
old when he became king," but according to 2 Chronicles 22:2
he was "forty-two years old when he became king." Obviously
the later one is wrong since Ahaziah's father was in his
40's when he died (2 Chronicles 21:5). According to the
Chronicles 22:2 he was two years older than his father when
he became king just after his father's death!
** There are nineteen contradictions between Ezra chapter 2
and Nehemiah chapter 7 in the list of the exiles who
returned. When we count the grand total of exiles who
returned according to Ezra, we come up with 29818, but
according to Nehemiah we find 31089. Ironically, despite
their differences in numbers of exiled tribes, both of them
give us the same grand total as 42360. Nehemiah is 11271
short, Ezra is 12542 short.
** According to 2 Samuel 6:23 "Michal daughter of Saul had
no children to the day of her death." However, in 2 Samuel
21:8 we see Michal had borne five sons. Some revised
versions tried to get rid of this contradiction by changing
the name of Michal to Merab, unceremoniously! You may find
the trace of this change in a footnote.
** According to Genesis 6:3, man can have a maximum of "a
hundred and twenty years" life span. However in Genesis 9:29
we learn that Noah lived 950 years, and in 11:13 Arpaxad
lived 403 years.
** According to Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man, that he
should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent;"
but according to Genesis 6:6,7 God repented (in some
translations: he was sorry, or was grieved) that he made man
on the earth.
** According to Exodus 24:10 the elders of Israel "saw the
God of Israel;" however, John 1:18 claims that "no man has
seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the
bosom of the Father, he has declared him." John's enthusiasm
to make Jesus an incarnated God makes him contradict the Old
Testament. It is interesting that the "New Revised" versions
of the Bible try to save John by inserting the magic word
"actually" into the verse as reads: "No one has actually
seen God ..."
** According to Matthew 1:1 and Luke 3:31 "Jesus was son of
David;" but Matthew 22: 41-45 denies this claim from Jesus'
own mouth.
** The genealogy of Jesus listed in Matthew and Luke has
numerous contradictions. In Question 8 we mentioned those
problems.
** According to the three Synoptic Gospels, Judas betrays
Jesus with a kiss; but according to John 18:3-5 Jesus
himself went forth and told the soldiers that he was Jesus.
Obviously, the narration of the three Synoptic Gospels do
not make sense, since an exposed betrayer (Matthew 26:25)
will not try to hide himself by using a sign. In fact,
nobody needed to identify Jesus. He was well known by
everyone in the region.
** While Matthew 27:44 sends both criminals to hell, Luke
23:43 saves one of them.
Still verbatim?
Whether these are important or not, we must realize that we
cannot rely on the Bible verbatim. We must read them with a
critical analytic consciousness. Some of the above have been
"corrected" such as in the "New International Version" and
"New Revised Standard Version." But, the contradictions
between the ancient manuscripts are admitted in the
footnotes of their revised versions. Sometimes those
footnotes are removed in the following editions in order to
erase the trace of contradictions.
Related questions:
1. How can we rely on the Bible to the letter, after
witnessing many contradictions and mistranslations?
2. How many times did you "revise" the Bible? Why?
When will we have the Final Revised Bible?
Moslem Questions on Christianity Edip Yuksel P.O. Box 43476, Tucson, AZ 85733-3476 U.S.A. Tel/Fax: (520) 323-7636
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