Do some Christians acknowledge Bible contradictions?

[Tcg]

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Some accuse atheists of not understanding the Bible given that they acknowledge that the Bible contains contradictions.

An example of a contradiction is included in the story of the demons cast into a herd of 2,000 pigs. Both gospel Mark (5:2) and gospel Luke (8:27) state that Jesus met "a man." The gospel Matthew (8:28) claims that Jesus met "two demon-possessed men."

Matthew clearly contradicts both Mark and Luke. Some may argue that this isn't a contradiction because neither Mark or Luke state Jesus met one and only one man. They may explain that Jesus in fact met two men, but that Mark and Luke only mentioned one of them.

I suppose we could stretch this further and claim that there were actually four demon possessed men. Matthew mentioned two of them, Mark mentioned one, and Luke mentioned the last. We could of course push it further and claim there were 98 demon possessed men and the gospel authors only mentioned four of them.

None of these are reasonable explanations. It is clear that Matthew's count contradicts both Mark and Luke's.

Is it only atheists who acknowledge Bible contradictions like the one above?

Do some Christians acknowledge Bible contradictions whether or not it includes the one mentioned above?


Tcg

[Tcg]

Do some Christians acknowledge Bible contradictions?
Please remember that the bible is a collection of 66 books written by 66 different people written at different times.

One version of the Bible is a collection of 66 books. What is generally referred to as the "Catholic Bible" has 73 books.

The version that has 66 books does not necessarily have 66 different authors. All five books of the Pentateuch were reportedly written by Moses. The book of Psalms is a different story. Though it is considered one book, many individuals are credited with the authorship of individual Psalms within that book.

In the New Testament, 13 books have been credited to Paul. There is not a one to one correlation between authors and the books included.

Therefor it is understandable that there may be some contradiction’s because you are getting 66 different points of view.

Is this your agreement that there are indeed Bible contradictions?

The best you can do is get out of them what you can.

The same could be said of any collection of books.

If you don’t believe in the bible, then what do you care?

If we were talking about contradictions within the Harry Potter series, I wouldn't care. However, the Bible, in it's many versions, has been claimed to be the very word of God.

It is used by some to judge the actions of humans. Some consider it the final authority in determining right and wrong and therefore use it to push laws that in some cases discriminate against certain groups.

Obviously, the soundness of the Bible is of key importance given these facts.

Beyond that, some have accused atheists of manufacturing Bible contradictions because of a desire to deny God. When it is shown that atheists are not the only ones who acknowledge Bible contradictions, the weakness of this argument is revealed.


Tcg

[brunumb]

[Replying to post 39 by justme2]

Please remember that the bible is a collection of 66 books written by 66 different people written at different times. Therefor it is understandable that there may be some contradiction’s because you are getting 66 different points of view.

If it was just a compilation of folk tales written by different people then there is no issue to take with any contradictions. But if the Bible is the inspired word of God, there should be none. In fact, it should be clear and concise and mean exactly the same thing to anyone who reads it. As soon as any flaws become apparent it goes from having divine origin to merely simple human origins.

[1213]

…Quite obviously, those Christians who acknowledge Bible contradictions disagree with your assertion that they don't exist. In spite of your continued protestation, some Christians do in fact acknowledge Bible contradictions. …

But no one has been able to prove there is contradiction. So, why would we care, if some people claims there is contradictions, if they cannot prove it?

[Zzyzx]

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…Quite obviously, those Christians who acknowledge Bible contradictions disagree with your assertion that they don't exist. In spite of your continued protestation, some Christians do in fact acknowledge Bible contradictions. …

But no one has been able to prove there is contradiction. So, why would we care, if some people claims there is contradictions, if they cannot prove it?

Some might deny there is a contradiction between yes and no to protect their belief system. Others recognize that saying one thing in one place and the opposite in another IS a contradiction.

Believers may ask for proof of contradictions while believing unverified tales about one or more invisible, undetectable 'gods' -- without requiring proof that the tales are true.

[Difflugia]

But no one has been able to prove there is contradiction. So, why would we care, if some people claims there is contradictions, if they cannot prove it?

The ability to show a contradiction and the ability to convince a diehard inerrantist to acknowledge it are not the same thing, nor do they have to be.

Creationists, sovereign citizens, antivaxxers, moon landing hoaxers, Holocaust deniers, climate change skeptics, and David Icke are all objectively wrong. They've been shown to be so, over and over again.

Cognitive dissonance being what it is, the tension between "I'm right" and "I'm wrong" includes many other variables than just the data. Sometimes the other variables join together so strongly that they drown out proper evidence. The complexity is that "I properly evaluate evidence" itself becomes one of those variables. Harmonizing "my epistemology is sound," "the evidence says I'm wrong," and "I'm right" means something has to budge and a specious loophole in the framing of the evidence often offers the weakest link.

Matthew wrote that Judas died by suicidal hanging after throwing his money to the priests. Luke wrote that Judas fell to his death while strolling in a field that he bought with the money. Those two cannot be simultaneously true.

"I think you'll find that the definition of 'acquired' could be satisfied if..."

"If he wasn't quite dead yet and the rope broke..."

"Instead of 'hanged,' the Greek word could mean..."

Baloney. Two and two don't stop adding to four no matter how loudly you yell that we're ignoring really small and really large values of two, radiocarbon dating of trees doesn't stop working because penguins sometimes eat deepwater fish, and Matthew and Luke wrote what they meant and meant what they wrote no matter how much inerrantists wish they hadn't.

[Tcg]

…Quite obviously, those Christians who acknowledge Bible contradictions disagree with your assertion that they don't exist. In spite of your continued protestation, some Christians do in fact acknowledge Bible contradictions. …

But no one has been able to prove there is contradiction.

Convincing evidence for contradictions has been presented by many. This group includes Christians, non-Christian theists, and atheists.

So, why would we care, if some people claims there is contradictions, if they cannot prove it?

Conclusive evidence has been presented to support the existence of Bible contradictions. Some who accept this fact are Christians and other non-Christian theists. This proves that it is invalid to claim that only atheist do so.


Tcg

[Abdelrahman]

[Replying to Tcg]

"Then do they not reflect upon the Qur'an? If it had been from [any] other than Allah , they would have found within it much contradiction." - The Holy Quran (4:82)

We Muslims believe in Jesus and his gospel, but the modern day bible is only a broken record of said gospel and hence why contradictions exist. Early Christians were divided in their beliefs, with someone believing in Jesus (pbuh) as a prophet, others believing him as a son, and others as God. The Council of Nicaea is where the concept of the trinity was formed BY MAN, it is a historical document not Gods infallible word (the Gospel) that came with Jesus.

Islam is the only religion in the world that offers an explanation as to why all the religions of the world are slightly similar yet different. We believe God sent many prophets (thousands) to mankind over their history. Each nation received its own prophet so God was fair.

You must understand the history of Christianity to understand why contradicting verses exist. We are told blatantly in the Qur'an that Gods word should not contain errors and contradictions. Whether with itself or with reference to versus about the natural environment and creation, it must not contradict what we know scientifically as well. It doesn't make sense that God would make such mistakes it goes against the very concept of God.

I honestly don't know how Christians rationalize these contradictions to themselves and I challenge anyone to offer me a similar contradiction in the Qur'an. We simply have none because we have explanations for each verse stemming from explanations offered by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) or his companions. Everything is clear. We are even told in the Qur'an that a text from God should not contain contradictions or errors and thus we hold this standard when testing all texts that claim divine authorship. Muslims agree with many verses from the Bible and they are probably verses that stemmed from the original Gospel, but the Gospel was one book. Not a collection of books. And it was not preserved correctly with the Bible being authored at an unkown date with some estimates at hundreds of years after Jesus (pbuh). The Gospel was infallible, not full of contradictions and scientific inaccuracies that reflected man's knowledge at the time of its writing and not Gods.

[Difflugia]

We simply have none because we have explanations for each verse stemming from explanations offered by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) or his companions.

I hope you can realize that this is in essence the exact same claim made by Christian apologists.

I honestly don't know how Christians rationalize these contradictions to themselves and I challenge anyone to offer me a similar contradiction in the Qur'an.

The story of Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Qur'an is a garbled conflation of Protevangelium of James with Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron.

In Sura 3 (Āl ʿImr�n), a somewhat abridged version of the Protevangelium story of Mary's birth to Joachim and Anna is retold, but with Joachim changed to ʿImr�n. This is suspiciously close to the Hebrew name of Moses' father, Amram. We are then told in Sura 19 (Maryam) that Mary is Aaron's sister.

Of course, it's a different ʿImr�n and different Aaron, or "sister" doesn't really mean "sister," or some other excuse that should be instantly recognizable to apologists of any stripe. It seems that, rather than being different than Christianity and the Bible, the Qur'an has no contradictions in exactly the way that the Bible doesn't. Or does. Or whatever.

We are told blatantly in the Qur'an that Gods word should not contain errors and contradictions. Whether with itself or with reference to versus about the natural environment and creation, it must not contradict what we know scientifically as well.

Does that include the bit in Sura 27 (al-Naml) about Solomon overhearing some ants talking to each other about whether Solomon (by name) and his army of birds and jinn (to whom Solomon could also talk) might step on them? Out of curiosity, how did the ants talk in a way that Solomon could overhear? Do ants also modulate sound the way we do, just on a very, very small scale? Did Solomon have supernatural hearing?

[Abdelrahman]

I hope you can realize that this is in essence the exact same claim made by Christian apologists.

No its not. I have not heard any Christian state that Jesus (pbuh) offered his explanation to those contradicting versus in the Bible and that we have record of those statements of Jesus (pbuh). What we have instead are Christian priests and ministers and THEIR own interpretations. Muslims on the other hand, have statements from the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) himself further explaining certain versus and the context for each surah (kind of like chapter). The very Prophet of God himself explaining revelation, instead of men who want to profit off religion.

The verse in question poses no contradiction. Cause guess what? Yes the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) himself was asked about this very verse by some Christians back in the day and this is what he said:

“When I came to Najran, they (the Christians of Najran) asked me: You read" O sister of Harun" (i. e. Hadrat Maryam) in the Qur'an, whereas Moses was born much before Jesus. When I came back to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) I asked him about that, whereupon he said: The (people of the old age) used to give names (to their persons) after the names of Apostles and pious persons who had gone before them.� – Sahih Muslim [38:13]

So she had a brother who was called Aaron like the Aaron from Moses’s time and a father called Imran. People named themselves after pious people. So since that’s been answered it’s not a contradiction. The very definition of apologetics is:

“reasoned arguments or writings in justification of something, typically a theory or religious doctrine.�
But since this is the very religious source himself explaining the confusion it is not an attempt at apologetics. It is the very answer. Not a theory or someones interpretation… but the answer to your question

It is also interesting to note that I found this information while looking this topic up online; that in the Bible Mary is the cousin of Elizabeth (Luke 1:36) and Elizabeth is described as from the daughters of Aaron (Luke 1:5) and so this would mean that Mary too is from the same line and can be described as a ‘sister of Aaron’.. something common in Hebrew.

As to Imran, the Bible which does not name Mary’s fathers in the genealogies of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, does not say otherwise. No fathers are listed, and in fact both gospels name two different fathers for Joseph.

“Does that include the bit in Sura 27 (al-Naml) about Solomon overhearing some ants talking to each other about whether Solomon (by name) and his army of birds and jinn (to whom Solomon could also talk) might step on them? Out of curiosity, how did the ants talk in a way that Solomon could overhear? Do ants also modulate sound the way we do, just on a very, very small scale? Did Solomon have supernatural hearing?�

Hahahah nicely put. Yes it includes that part too, and ill tell you why. Every Prophet came with a miracle in Islam. God gives signs to people to reflect upon because Hes the most Just and FAIR and so one of Solomon’s miracles was that he he could speak to animals. This was a miracle in his time for those people he was sent to.

Now you may ask, how does that coincide with science? How is that proof of God from a scientific perspective, if anything, it sounds like it goes AGAINST what we know about nature. You are correct, it does. And that is what a miracle is. I unfortunately cannot prove to you per say that this happened, HOWEVER (huge however) we have a different miracle meant for our time. Something that exists today to point to the existence of a Creator and thus validate Solomon's claims. We believe the Qur’an is the word of God and a timeless sign for His existence. It is not the story of the miracle that leads me to believe in it. I believe in the story of Solomon because of the miracle meant for our time, the Qur’an. So let’s take a look at the Qur’an and why we believe it’s a miracle and proof of God in and of itself.

When the Qur’an makes reference to creation or the natural world in its verses, it goes beyond what people believed at the time and in many cases makes scientific claims about the natural world that have only been discovered in the last 50 years or so. Things man 1400 years ago could not have known. And then the Qur’an points to said verses and asks us to reflect, to think, to ponder. It challenges us to think. This forces me to believe that the text was inspired from the Creator of the very universe being described in the Qur’an.

“We will show them Our signs in the horizons and within themselves until it becomes clear to them that it is the truth. But is it not sufficient concerning your Lord that He is, over all things, a Witness?� - The Holy Qur'an [Fussilat 41:53].

“Have those who disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the earth were a joined entity, and We separated them and made from water every living thing? Then will they not believe?� – The Holy Qur’an [21:30]

Dr. Alfred Kroner is one of the world’s renowned geologists. He is Professor of Geology and the Chairman of the Department of Geology at the Institute of Geosciences, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. He said: “Thinking where Muhammad came from . . . I think it is almost impossible that he could have known about things like the common origin of the universe, because scientists have only found out within the last few years, with very complicated and advanced technological methods, that this is the case.� Also he said: “Somebody who did not know something about nuclear physics fourteen hundred years ago could not, I think, be in a position to find out from his own mind, for instance, that the earth and the heavens had the same origin.�

“And the heaven We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander.� - The Holy Qur’an [51:47]

The Qur’an talks about God being the ‘expander’ of the universe. No man could have guessed such things about our natural world. There are probably a hundred more examples like these. Legit man I could keep going.

Scientific ‘signs’ are not where the Qur’an stops either. Mathematical signs exists as well, for example, there are patterns that exist in the Qur’an when counting words, patterns that whomever wrote this book must’ve taken into account:

The number of times the word ‘Angel’ is mentioned in the Qur’an – 77. The number of times the ‘Devil’ is mentioned is also 77 times, and we keep going:

Belief 25, Disbelief 25
Man 24, Woman 24
Ship 23, Drown 23
Winter 1, Summer 1
Benefit 9, Harm 9
This world 115, Next world 115
Life 145, Death 145
Paradise 77, Hell 77
Cool 4, Heat 4
Men of wisdom 16, Mad 16
Hardship 114, Patience 114
Action 108, Reward 108
Say 332, They said 332
The word ‘Prophet’ 513, Prophet Names (Adam, Noah, Abraham, Jesus etc..) 513

And then my personal favourite:

Sea 32, Land 13.

And when you take the ratio of land to sea you get the ratio of Land to Sea on Earth. Now tell me brother, how does an illiterate man, not only make claims about the natural world that we have only come to learn of its truth with technology and a book full of so many mathematical patterns and ‘signs’. How does a man 1400 years ago just guess these things?

It is not guess work. It is inspired. And we keep discovering more and more the more we look at scripture. This is what scripture is meant to be, illumination. It should be mind blowing, it should be if we are claiming it to be a book from GOD ALMIGHTY. It should NOT be a text full of contradictions and scientific errors when referencing the natural world. It should contain proof and evidence for what it preaches. This is just a taste of the type of evidence we have.

[1213]

…Creationists, ….antivaxxers, moon landing hoaxers, …, climate change skeptics, and … are all objectively wrong. They've been shown to be so, over and over again …

Sorry, I have not seen any intelligent and good reason to believe you in this.

…Matthew wrote that Judas died by suicidal hanging after throwing his money to the priests. Luke wrote that Judas fell to his death while strolling in a field that he bought with the money. Those two cannot be simultaneously true…

Yes, they can. It is possible that Judas hang himself and the rope was cut and he fell.