Contradictions in the N.T.

[liamconnor]

I apologize, for I am sure this is a hackneyed topic.


Now, though discrepancies and even contradictions in the Bible do not automatically threaten my beliefs (there are some which, if they could be shown, would make me abandon Christianity) still, the mention of "contradictions in Scripture" is made so often, I have forgotten which ones we have in mind.

Let's narrow this down to the N.T. since that is an explicitly Christian compilation.

What are they. Are there ways of reconciling them?

[Divine Insight]

Thanks for the note. However, I had asked in the OP to keep it to N.T. contradictions.

Bringing in the O.T. drags in too many theological theories for a single thread.

What are solely N.T. contradictions.

I'm sorry liamconnor but I must reject your unrealistic demands. Jesus is nothing if not the Son of the God of the Old Testament. The dependency of Jesus and therefore the entire claims of the NT are totally dependent upon this connection. Therefore for you to demand that all contradictions associated with Jesus must be confined within the New Testament alone is unrealistic.

Jesus has no feet of his own. Jesus is nothing if not the Son of the God of the Old Testament. Jesus has been nailed to the Old Testament by the authors of the New Testament far more firmly than his physical body could even be nailed to a wooden cross. You cannot remove Jesus from his ties to the Old Testament.

Many of the other contradictions that I feel are extremely profound also require an acknowledgement of the entire religious thesis.

For example Jesus was resurrected in a physical body complete with the wounds that had killed him. But this religion (including Jesus himself) claims that the spiritual realm is not a realm of "flesh". Therefore it's a contradiction that Jesus would be resurrected with a body of flesh and need to take that body of flesh with him as he ascends up to heaven.

So this is yet another extreme contradiction.

The story would have made far more sense if Jesus had appeared ressurrected as a spiritual ghost. But clearly that's not the story.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

This contradiction is extreme, IMHO.

Jesus said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone?"

Does this mean that we are supposed to stone sinners to death if we are indeed without sin? If not, then why would Jesus suggest that sinless people should cast the first stone?

Moreover, if only sinless people are supposed to do this, then why wasn't this made clear in the OT?

Why didn't Jesus cast the stone, what with him being sinless and all?

Exactly right. We don't even need to bring the OT into it to demonstrate the contradiction.

If it is the law of God that sinless people are supposed to stone these sinners to death, and Jesus himself was sinless, then by the Law of God Jesus would need to stone this woman to death. But he didn't. And that would have been "disobedience" of the law of God, thus making Jesus as "sinner" right there on the spot for having disobeyed God's law that sinless people are to stone sinners to death.

So it qualifies as a contradiction even within the confines of the New Testament.

That is indeed correct.

So all of these contradiction are just going to be outright denied. None of them are going to be resolved.

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

Quote:
This contradiction is extreme, IMHO.

Jesus said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone?"

Does this mean that we are supposed to stone sinners to death if we are indeed without sin? If not, then why would Jesus suggest that sinless people should cast the first stone?

Moreover, if only sinless people are supposed to do this, then why wasn't this made clear in the OT?


Why didn't Jesus cast the stone, what with him being sinless and all?

RESPONSE:

The story of the woman taken in adultery only appears in the Gospel of John, but not in early copies. It was added about 400 AD

The two oldest complete New Testaments that are extant (we have) are the Codex Sinaiticus dated 325 AD and the Codex Vaticanus dated 375 AD. Neither has the woman taken in adultery story.

This is another way of dismissing contradictions. Just toss those parts of the Bible out as being invalid parts of the Biblical Canon.

[Elijah John]

One contradiction is the Gospel of John, vs the Synoptics.

John has Jesus teaching folks to pray "in Jesus's name".

Matthew, and Luke's Jesus makes no such mention of this, but rather to pray in the Father's name. ("hallowed be THY name")

Shall we take these NT contradictions one at a time?

Or maybe this was not a contradiction, but a discrepancy.

[Divine Insight]

One contradiction is the Gospel of John, vs the Synoptics.

John has Jesus teaching folks to pray "in Jesus's name".

Matthew, and Luke's Jesus makes no such mention of this, but rather to pray in the Father's name. ("hallowed be THY name")

Shall we take these NT contradictions one at a time?

Or maybe this was not a contradiction, but a discrepancy.

I wouldn't consider that to be a contradiction. Just because Jesus didn't teach to pray in his name one place, doesn't make it a contradiction that he did teach to pray in his name later.

Also, he taught to "ask in his name", that's not the same as instructing people to pray "to him".

In fact, most Christians I know take this to mean to pray to the Father God asking "in Jesus name".

In fact, this is what our preachers always did when they said public prayers.

They always began with,

"Dear Heavenly Father",

Then they said their prayer and end with:

"In Jesus's name we ask"

So they aren't praying to Jesus. They are praying to the Father God but simply including that they are asking this in his Son's Name.

So these Christians aren't praying to Jesus at all. So where is there any contradiction, or even a conflict at all?

I don't see any.

[polonius]

[Replying to JLB32168]

JLB posted:

One thing I think needs to be addressed, Liam, is the idea of contradiction " a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another and discrepancy, which is simply a lack of similarity between two or more facts. The two are often used interchangeably by critics; however, the two arent congruent. The example of a discrepancy between two accounts is the number of angels present at the tomb. One account says X angels were present while the other says Y angels were present. Most people would regard such a thing as a contradiction, which would be more like one account saying that ChrisOne thing I think needs to be addressed, Liam, is the idea of contradiction " a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another and discrepancy, which is simply a lack of similarity between two or more facts. The two are often used interchangeably by critics; however, the two arent congruent. The example of a discrepancy between two accounts is the number of angels present at the tomb. One account says X angels were present while the other says Y angels were present. Most people would regard such a thing as a contradiction, which would be more like one account saying that Christ was crucified while another said that he escaped out of the Jews hands. was crucified while another said that he escaped out of the Jews hands.

RESPONSE:

A contradiction may be a single statement.

Merriam Webster Definitions of Contradiction

Definition of CONTRADICTION:
: the act of saying something that is opposite or very different in meaning to something else
: a difference or disagreement between two things which means that both cannot be true.

Definition of DISCREPANCY:
: a difference especially between things that should be the same.

From the Farlex Free Dictionary:

discrepancy
noun aberration, anomaly, asymmetry, clash, conflict, contradiction, contrast, departure,deviation, difference, differential, differentiation, disaccord, discongruity, discord, discordance, disharmony,disputed point, dissimilarity, dissimilitude, divergence, failure to correspond, ground of argument, inaccordance,incompatibility, incongruence, incongruity, inconsistency, inequality, lack of accord, lack of agreement, lack of concert, lack of conformity, lack of congruence, lack of congruity, lack of consonance, lack of resemblance, matter of disputation, nonagreement, nonconformity, nonuniformity, split, subject of controversy, subject of dispute,unconformity, unlikeness, variance, variation.

Thus a contradiction is a synonym for a discrepancy.

[Elijah John]

Here's another one, from Edgar Jones' site:

Paul says:
Rom.7
[9] I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died;
[10] the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me.

Jesus says:
Matt.19
[17] And he said to him, Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.

That is an important theological contradiction, not a mere matter of narrative discprepency.

[Elijah John]

One contradiction is the Gospel of John, vs the Synoptics.

John has Jesus teaching folks to pray "in Jesus's name".

Matthew, and Luke's Jesus makes no such mention of this, but rather to pray in the Father's name. ("hallowed be THY name")

Shall we take these NT contradictions one at a time?

Or maybe this was not a contradiction, but a discrepancy.

I wouldn't consider that to be a contradiction. Just because Jesus didn't teach to pray in his name one place, doesn't make it a contradiction that he did teach to pray in his name later.

Did Jesus teach "to be continued later in John's Gospel?"...Or were John's teachings more a reflection on what Jesus had come to mean to John and John wanting to share his later realization(vision) with others?

But I do agree the two are not necessarily irreconcilable. The Synoptic Jesus prayer teachings, vs John's Jesus prayer teaching. But the fact that the Synoptic Jesus omits what the Johannine Jesus declares as an imperative, is a descrepancy, at the very least.

Why would Matthew or Luke omit such an important detail? Or maybe John's detail was just not all that important, and was in fact, an accretion based on John's opinion which had no real grounding in what Jesus actually taught.

Apparently Matthew and Luke's audience missed out, on what was essential to John's audience?

Or were the two Synoptic Evangelists relying on John to come along later to "fill in the gaps" of Jesus message?

[Divine Insight]

Did Jesus teach "to be continued later in John's Gospel?"...

Insofar as I am aware there are not "Teachings of Jesus" anywhere. All that exists are hearsay rumors written by people other than Jesus. And even those authors to have Jesus instructing them to actually write anything down for future generations. In fact, those authors actually have Jesus telling them that they won't even be able to spread the word to the house of Israel before he returns.

So to even speak of "The Teachings of Jesus" has no meaning. What teachings would you be referring to? The writings of Mark? The writings of Matthew? The writings of Luke?

Or how about the writings of Paul. Where did even Mark, Matthew or Luke have Jesus mention that Paul would be coming along to complete Jesus's ministry?

According to Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Jesus never predicts that Paul would be his future spokesperson. To the contrary he proclaims that many false prophets will come in his name. Therefore we actually have good reason to believe that Paul was a "false prophet".

And this assumes that we accept the hearsay teachings of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. We don't have any teachings from Jesus at all. And if Jesus was the "Word Made Flesh" why should that be? Surely Jesus should have been aware of how important it is to actually write things down?

We have no "Teachings of Jesus". Pure and simple. They simply don't exist.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 19 by Divine Insight]

Sounds like you don't believe in a historical Jesus, or even in his teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, which are by in large very compatible with his native Judaism.

Question, do you believe Jesus even existed? Or are you simply saying we cannot really know anything about the real, historical Jesus?