What did Jesus really say?

2.2 A small sampling of these contradictions (Part 1)

"And the chief priests and all the council sought for witness against Jesus to put him to death; and found none. For many bare false witness against him, but their witness agreed not together. And there arose certain, and bare false witness against him, saying, We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands. But neither so did their witness agree together."

Mark 14:56-59

Christian scholars have known, recognized, and documented the many and varied contradictions to be found in the Bible for centuries now. These contradictions are a direct result of the continuous and unrelenting attempts to correct, fix, and amend the Bible in order to make a given doctrine "clear" to the reader. It is the masses who have been kept in the dark in this regard. There is extensive historical and scriptural evidence to be found in the books of the Bible which support this conclusion. Many detailed examples have been presented in this and other chapters of this book. As shown above, some Christian scholars estimate the errors in the Bible to be in the range of 48,800. This is why it has become necessary for the Church to demand "blind faith" from the masses.

Matthew is now recognized as not being the author of Matthew (read for example Matthew 9:9). John is also recognized as not being the author of John (read for example John 21:24)... and on and on. These Christian scholars (not Muslims) have even gone so far as to attempt to identify the original documents from which these books were originally derived, such as J, P, Y, Q,...etc.(see section 2.3) . For centuries now, the Qur'an has been bearing witness that the previous books of God had been modified by the hands of the unscrupulous few. Even now when Christians and their universities themselves recognize this to be a historical fact they still do not bother to tell the masses. Some of these Conservative scholars, such as Mr. F.F. Bruce, appear to have completely given up on refuting the proof of distortion and have now resorted to "spiritualizing" the Bible and telling people in effect that the teachings of the Bible are useful anyway even if we don't even know who the inspired authors are.

Others will adamantly refuse to believe that anyone has changed the word of God or that the Bible contains any conflictions whatsoever no matter how much evidence is presented. They are willing to either:

1. Explain it away using abstraction to explain the "true" meanings of the verses presented, or
2. Explain it based upon assumptions of their own not contained in the Bible, or
3. Claim that these matters are all insignificant and that the words remain the inspiration of God even if we don't know who the "inspired" authors were and their narrations contradict one another.

Even at that, they don't attempt to explain all the contradictions presented. As we have seen in the previous chapter, they have developed a system where in one paragraph they manage to reduce many thousands of discrepancies to "only a handful which are at all important," and even before reaching the end of the paragraph, even this "handful" is quickly brushed away as being "only apparent discrepancies."

The problem in many cases is that it is human nature when given a choice between two matters, to take the simpler of the two, sometimes even against one's better judgment. This is indeed how many people lose their life savings to people who tell them that they will invest it for them in a "sure thing," or people who encourage others to participate in lotteries. We would not expect that our land would grow fruit without our having to lavish upon it months of back breaking work. We would not expect that a large company would be willing to pay us a handsome weekly paycheck without our actually doing some useful work for them, however, when it comes to the ultimate reward and the ultimate prize, the Paradise of the Lord of creation, now we are told that it is no longer necessary to work for the ultimate prize.

Paul has made salvation a very easy commodity to come by in Christianity. They only have to "believe." No actual work is required. No one has to work for their salvation (Romans 3:28, etc.). Paul has brought for them the "sure thing" and the short cut to salvation. The commandments of Jesus (pbuh) which he himself observed faithfully and fully up until the crucifixion, are all discarded by Paul as old, decaying, and ready to vanish away (Hebrews 8:13, etc.). The fact that Jesus (pbuh) himself told his followers that observing the commandments and selling their belongings shall make them "perfect" is forgotten (Matthew 19:16-21). The fact that Jesus (pbuh) himself commanded his followers to keep the commandments until the end of time is also forgotten (Matthew 5:17-19). All they need is "faith." They have already been saved. The commandments are merely "extra."

In this chapter I have presented a table containing only a small sampling of the many and varied contradictions between the verses of the Bible. These are only some of the very simple and obvious examples known today. Other more serious ones require comparisons of many passages with each other (see for example sections 5.2, 5.4 and 5.5) or with historical or scientific knowledge. The reader is encouraged to investigate these examples and to try to analyze the excuses given for them objectively. Please do not accept any and all attempts to justify these contradictions without first analyzing them carefully. When someone tells you that something was a scribal error then remember that the transmitters of even the Old Testament claim that every word and every letter was faithfully counted and recorded and thus, it would be impossible for unintentional errors to creep in. This claim by itself should refute all excuses.

For instance, the contradiction between Matthew 17:13 and John 1:21 (point 16 below) is explained by Mr. J as: "John is answering the question directly and literally, he is not Elijah, he is John the son of Zechariah... John was not interested in promoting all kind of speculation about his identity, but to focus attention upon the one he had been sent to prepare the way for." So, if Joe is a vice principal, and someone asks the principal "Is Joe the vice principal?" and the Principal says "yes," then it is OK for Joe to say "I am not the vice principal" because he is "talking within the context that he is Joe" and he wants to "focus attention" on the principal?

Does this sound logical? These apologists' arguments are usually presented with such confidence that people don't bother to analyze them or look any further. The Jews acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah hinges on John admitting he is Elias (Mark 9:12). If John does not admit to being Elias then Jesus' (pbuh) whole message will lose credibility. Is this how John "focuses attention" on Jesus?

It is inconceivable to think that John, peace be upon him, a prophet of God, would intentionally lie especially in a matter that can totally nullify Jesus' whole message. It is also inconceivable that a prophet of God would remain a prophet of God for many years before the coming of Jesus (pbuh), fulfilling many prophesies, but neither know that he was sent by God, nor be informed by God that He sent him.

The Qur'an tells us that if the word of God were ever to be tampered with by the hands of mankind then it will be easy to detect this tampering by the contradictions which will inevitably result. We read

"Do they not consider the Qur'an (with care)? Had it been from other than Allah, they would have surely found therein much discrepancy."

The noble Qur'an, Al-Nissa(4):82.

Even the Bible itself gives the same criteria for discovering such modifications,

"For many bare false witness against him(Jesus), but their witness agreed not together."

Mark 14:56

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