So many bible contradictions that can't be explained away

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HOW SHOULD I READ THE BIBLE?

Part One




1.** Read uncritically.** I know very little about art, but I am quite sure that at the first sight of a picture one should not go very close to it and concentrate on some detail; one should stand away from it and let the picture as a whole make its impression upon one’s mind. So I suggest we should read St. Mark’s Gospel right through, if possible at a sitting, glossing over the difficulties. Say to yourself concerning them, ‘I will come back and examine them later’, but first of all read uncritically, so that you see not details, but a Person at work in a human setting and dealing with men and woman like ourselves. Just try to let the whole picture of Jesus which Mark gives us make its own impression upon your mind. That is of tremendous importance, because afterwards you will judge all your Bible reading by your picture of Jesus. And so it is all-important to have your central picture of Jesus clear in your mind. If we are perfectly sure of Jesus we can be content to be uncertain about a lot of other matters.
I agree with this as a first step. You always give your informant a chance to say his piece. But step two of step one is that then you get very critical in analysis and learn about both yourself and the Bible as phenomena and artifact. I like Dorothy Parker’s statement: “This is a novel that should not be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force!” Of course we wouldn’t come to that kind of conclusion about the Bible unless we are an atheist and hav those reasons for doing so. But in the mean time as alleged Christians, we have then the responsibility, if we don’t take the easy way out, to not take things on simple faith and actually do a background check on the material we are reading and its presenters. That, as I’m sure you rightly know, can be very revalatory! And that certainly applies to the first three hundred years of our Church. It may not exactly be what it was then. You knw the reasons if you’ve done youor homework and aren’t looking through the lense of uncritical piety.

And this goes for art as well. In my work I’m often asked to critique work. And while you are right that at first I look at it and let it soak in, that is only so that I might take on as a hypothesis the position of the artist who produced the work. But then there are lines of uestioning about the ground, the light, the medium, the intent, the context, the person of the artist, and many other considerations.

Similarly, with the Bible, we look into the nature of communication, written and spoken, the nature of collections and canons, then and now, the “rules” of writing and reportage then and now, translation and its abilities and short comings, meaning and its meaning, the cultural context of what was written, epistemology, history, phenomenology, semantics, symbolic logic, the influence of other ideas, religions and philoasophies, the nature of spiritual insight, such ideas as the “structural differential” and the “four quadrents,” etc, etc, etc. So no, we don’t just uncritically accept what is presented as a simple first impression as a informative guide or model for accepting wholesale what follows in subsequent readings, Nor do we use it as a panacea for erasiing questions raised by contradictions, inconsistencies, or dissonance.
 
Lets work with them one at a time.

What would be your first concern?

Please be as specific as possible.

Thanks.
 
One thing I would like to point out is people of the old testament didn’t really know God but knew of him.To know God and his nature is to know Jesus which is in the Gospel not in the old testament.Jesus true nature is love and mercy hence so is God.

Heres a prayer that says it all by ST Augustine.

“God our Father, we find it difficult to come to you, because our knowledge of you is imperfect. In our ignorance we have imagined you to be our enemy; we have wrongly thought that you take pleasure in punishing our sins; and we have foolishly conceived you to be a tyrant over human life. But since Jesus came among us, he has shown that you are loving, that you are on our side against all that stunts life, and that our resentment against you was groundless. So we come to you, asking you to forgive our past ignorance, and wanting to know more and more of you and your forgiving love, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”* (Prayer of Saint Augustine)
 
One thing I would like to point out is people of the old testament didn’t really know God but knew of him.To know God and his nature is to know Jesus which is in the Gospel not in the old testament.Jesus true nature is love and mercy hence so is God.

Heres a prayer that says it all by ST Augustine.

“God our Father, we find it difficult to come to you, because our knowledge of you is imperfect. In our ignorance we have imagined you to be our enemy; we have wrongly thought that you take pleasure in punishing our sins; and we have foolishly conceived you to be a tyrant over human life. But since Jesus came among us, he has shown that you are loving, that you are on our side against all that stunts life, and that our resentment against you was groundless. So we come to you, asking you to forgive our past ignorance, and wanting to know more and more of you and your forgiving love, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”* (Prayer of Saint Augustine)
That is an interesting distinction I’ve never heard before. And thanks for sharing that prayer.
 
One thing I would like to point out is people of the old testament didn’t really know God but knew of him.To know God and his nature is to know Jesus which is in the Gospel not in the old testament.Jesus true nature is love and mercy hence so is God.

Heres a prayer that says it all by ST Augustine.

“God our Father, we find it difficult to come to you, because our knowledge of you is imperfect. In our ignorance we have imagined you to be our enemy; we have wrongly thought that you take pleasure in punishing our sins; and we have foolishly conceived you to be a tyrant over human life. But since Jesus came among us, he has shown that you are loving, that you are on our side against all that stunts life, and that our resentment against you was groundless. So we come to you, asking you to forgive our past ignorance, and wanting to know more and more of you and your forgiving love, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”* (Prayer of Saint Augustine)
Thanks!
 
By the way, we are looking for members in our group.

Bible Study - Our journey with God

All are welcome.

2 Cor 13:13
Eddy Barry
 
One thing I would like to point out is people of the old testament didn’t really know God but knew of him.To know God and his nature is to know Jesus which is in the Gospel not in the old testament.Jesus true nature is love and mercy hence so is God.

Heres a prayer that says it all by ST Augustine.

“God our Father, we find it difficult to come to you, because our knowledge of you is imperfect. In our ignorance we have imagined you to be our enemy; we have wrongly thought that you take pleasure in punishing our sins; and we have foolishly conceived you to be a tyrant over human life. But since Jesus came among us, he has shown that you are loving, that you are on our side against all that stunts life, and that our resentment against you was groundless. So we come to you, asking you to forgive our past ignorance, and wanting to know more and more of you and your forgiving love, through Jesus Christ our Lord.”* (Prayer of Saint Augustine)
Thanks
 
Hi, Gaber. I have been doing Bible study for 30 years. One thing the Bible is not is simple.
Excellent!

What do you make of this very short list for starters?

Which is the real Jesus?

Is he the one who
was born when Quirinius was Governor of Syria (6-12 AD) (Luke 2:2)
or the one born when Herod the Great was King (37-4 BC) (Matthew 2:1)? (note q12 year gap)

Is he the one whose
adopted father Joseph wasthe son of Heli (Luke 3:23)
or the son of Jacob (Matthew 1:16)?

Is he the one whose
adopted father, Joseph was descended from King David through 28 generations (Matthew 1:6)
or was descended from King David through 43 generations (Luke 3:23-31)?

Is he the one
whose conception was told to his adopted father Joseph in a dream (Matthew 1:18-20)
or announced to his mother by an angel. (Luke 1:26-31)?

Is he the one who
was born in the house in Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary lived (Matt 1:18 – 2:23)
or in a stable in Bethlehem to where Joseph and Mary have traveled to take part in a census (Luke 1:4 – 2:40)?

Is he the one whose
cousin John survived the killing of the children under 2 years old ordered by King Herod and who later baptised him (Mark 1:9)
or was only six months older than him (Luke 1:24-26) so would have been killed in King Herod’s slaughter? (Matthew 2:16)?

Is he the one
who drove the money lenders out of the Temple at the beginning of his three-year ministry (John 2:14-16)
or in the week before his death (Mark 11:15)?

Is he the one who was crucified
on the day of preparation for Passover at about noon (John 19:14)
or on the day of Passover at 09:00 a.m (Mark 15:25)?

Is he the one whose last words were
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)
or “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” (My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?) (Mark 15:34)?

Is he the one who
died immediately before the land was cast into darkness and the ‘curtain of the Temple’ was ripped (Mark 15:38)
was still alive when the curtain was ripped (Luke 23:45)
or even whose death was followed by an earthquake and dead people rising out of graves and wandering about in the city, events which, surprisingly, no one else seems to have noticed (Matthew 27:51-54)?

Is he the one whose tomb was
opened in the presence of Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and an angel who sat outside on a stone (Matthew 28:1-2)
found to be open by Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome with one angel sitting inside it (Mark 16:1-5) (but they told no one about it! (Mark 16:8))
found to be open by an unspecified number of nameless women with two angels standing inside it (Luke 23:55 - 24:4)
found to be open by Mary Magdalene on her own and in which two angels only appeared after several other people had come and gone (John 20:1)?

Very clearly, only one Jesus can’t have been all of the above, So the only possible conclusion, other than that they were all made up, is that there were several different Jesuses and that the Bible’s authors were either writing about different ones or they got them muddled up. In either case, or any other, even if there was just one Jesus, we have then to question the historical veracity of these differences and ask why they exist, especially coming from people who were right there! And if times, dates, places were so muddled, how accurate are the recorded sayings so few as there are?
 
Well the original Gospels were written in Greek and I’m not sure about the rest of the bible - one thing I do know is they were not written in English.So the English bible we have is a translation.I write technical documents in the Aerospace industry which I take from different sources and no matter how hard I try there are usually many errors in the completed document and I have to go over it and over it again and again to fix the errors and still I miss some - in my occupation thats why we have revisions to documents because months later or even years later errors are found .My point being is there will always be mistakes in translating documents.Many of the Greek words cannot even be translated properly to English.A true scholar of the bible would study it in its original language.I not making excuses for mistakes but what I say is true.
 
Remember we’re talking eyewitness accounts here. Any policeman or criminal lawyer can tell you that if you get multiple witnesses to one event they will differ on how they recall detail. Clearly only one thing happened one way, but people remember and describe differently. In fact they will tell you that a great sign of possible collusion is if two or three witnesses agree on every single last detail of their stories.

Some of the contradictions you’ve listed are not so at all. There’s no indication whatsoever that Zachary or Elizabeth was of the house of David as Joseph was - unless they were of Davidic lineage then they wouldn’t have to go to Bethlehem for the census as Joseph and Mary did, nor would John have been born there as Jesus and the children who were killed were.

And it’s pretty obvious they they would have been in the stable only temporarily - it would hardly be pleasant long term accommodation for new parents would it? So they found a house to stay in after Jesus was born, and that’s where the Wise Men found them. And there’s no reason why angels couldn’t have appeared to BOTH Mary and Joseph.

And I believe there is a very simple explanation for the tomb. I think Mary went by herself first, met the Lord, told the other women, some of whom are named and mentioned in some accounts, neither they nor she were sure she wasn’t delusional (would you be?) so all went back to check and saw the angels. Contradiction disappears in a puff of logic!
Excellent!

What do you make of this very short list for starters?

Which is the real Jesus?

Is he the one who
was born when Quirinius was Governor of Syria (6-12 AD) (Luke 2:2)
or the one born when Herod the Great was King (37-4 BC) (Matthew 2:1)? (note q12 year gap)

Is he the one whose
adopted father Joseph wasthe son of Heli (Luke 3:23)
or the son of Jacob (Matthew 1:16)?

Is he the one whose
adopted father, Joseph was descended from King David through 28 generations (Matthew 1:6)
or was descended from King David through 43 generations (Luke 3:23-31)?

Is he the one
whose conception was told to his adopted father Joseph in a dream (Matthew 1:18-20)
or announced to his mother by an angel. (Luke 1:26-31)?

Is he the one who
was born in the house in Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary lived (Matt 1:18 – 2:23)
or in a stable in Bethlehem to where Joseph and Mary have traveled to take part in a census (Luke 1:4 – 2:40)?

Is he the one whose
cousin John survived the killing of the children under 2 years old ordered by King Herod and who later baptised him (Mark 1:9)
or was only six months older than him (Luke 1:24-26) so would have been killed in King Herod’s slaughter? (Matthew 2:16)?

Is he the one
who drove the money lenders out of the Temple at the beginning of his three-year ministry (John 2:14-16)
or in the week before his death (Mark 11:15)?

Is he the one who was crucified
on the day of preparation for Passover at about noon (John 19:14)
or on the day of Passover at 09:00 a.m (Mark 15:25)?

Is he the one whose last words were
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)
or “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” (My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?) (Mark 15:34)?

Is he the one who
died immediately before the land was cast into darkness and the ‘curtain of the Temple’ was ripped (Mark 15:38)
was still alive when the curtain was ripped (Luke 23:45)
or even whose death was followed by an earthquake and dead people rising out of graves and wandering about in the city, events which, surprisingly, no one else seems to have noticed (Matthew 27:51-54)?

Is he the one whose tomb was
opened in the presence of Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and an angel who sat outside on a stone (Matthew 28:1-2)
found to be open by Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome with one angel sitting inside it (Mark 16:1-5) (but they told no one about it! (Mark 16:8))
found to be open by an unspecified number of nameless women with two angels standing inside it (Luke 23:55 - 24:4)
found to be open by Mary Magdalene on her own and in which two angels only appeared after several other people had come and gone (John 20:1)?

Very clearly, only one Jesus can’t have been all of the above, So the only possible conclusion, other than that they were all made up, is that there were several different Jesuses and that the Bible’s authors were either writing about different ones or they got them muddled up. In either case, or any other, even if there was just one Jesus, we have then to question the historical veracity of these differences and ask why they exist, especially coming from people who were right there! And if times, dates, places were so muddled, how accurate are the recorded sayings so few as there are?
 
I am a Christian who tries my best to follow Christ,

Having said that, the Bible is full of contradictions, plenty of gory genocide and some myths.
Code:
A few examples.

Can we talk about the love of God and accept Noah's Ark - that God deliberately drowned everyone but one family? Hey, what about all those children - even children in the womb? And can we really believe that God ordered Joshua to murder the inhabitants of Jericho or commanded Saul to kill every remaining Amalekite? The same God that told us to love one another, even our enemies?

 What about the verses calling us to kill witches, kill everyone who sacrifices to any God but Jehovah, kill homosexuals? What about the son who curses his father? I guess he has to be killed, too!

 That wild tale found in II Kings 2:23-25 (as I recall) - Elisha, his bald head, children mocking, Elisha calls down the curse of the Lord, two bears come out from the woods and maul them! Give me a break!

 In the New Testament what about the discrepancies in the family tree of Jesus - and why through Joseph, if not the father? Various conflicting accounts re the resurrection? I have trouble with Jesus putting a legion (2000?) demons in pigs and they rush down a cliff and drown. 

 Do we agree with Paul that slaves should obey their masters, that women should be silent in the church and cover their heads?

 You get the idea.

 To defend all this is to make Christianity appear contradictory and even a bit stupid.

 It's important that Christians study the Bible realistically. It is full of inspiration. It contains much of God's truth. But this notion that the Bible is inerrant, free of mistakes - forget it.

 And why does the Bible seem to rejoice when the people shout "Saul has killed his thousands but David has killed his ten thousands!"? And scripture tells us that Solomon was the wisest of men. Was that because he had 700 wives and 300 concubines? Great example of family values!

  We could go on and on. but I would leave the wrong impression. I love the Bible, but to make it infallible is silly. It is the product of men who were inspired by their faith but not perfect. Sorry. But God bless them for trying, even if with limited success.
 
Which is the real Jesus?

Is he the one whose
adopted father Joseph wasthe son of Heli (Luke 3:23)
or the son of Jacob (Matthew 1:16)?

Is he the one whose
adopted father, Joseph was descended from King David through 28 generations (Matthew 1:6)
or was descended from King David through 43 generations (Luke 3:23-31)?
Scholars contend that the two genealogies were written with two different purposes in mind: one showed Jesus’ legal sonship, whereas the other showed his genetic sonship; one showed Jesus’ relationship to Adam, whereas the other showed Jesus’ relationship to Abraham and David.
Is he the one
whose conception was told to his adopted father Joseph in a dream (Matthew 1:18-20)
or announced to his mother by an angel. (Luke 1:26-31)?
Why are these mutually exclusive? Mary learned about it at the time of Jesus’ conception, while Joseph found out about His divine incarnation after learning of Mary’s pregnancy.
Is he the one who
was born in the house in Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary lived (Matt 1:18 – 2:23)
or in a stable in Bethlehem to where Joseph and Mary have traveled to take part in a census (Luke 1:4 – 2:40)?
Matthew doesn’t say that the magi found Mary & Joseph on the day Jesus was born. Is it too difficult to consider that, having stayed in a stable (out of necessity), they nonetheless found a more reasonable place to stay while their business in Bethlehem was conducted?
Is he the one whose
cousin John survived the killing of the children under 2 years old ordered by King Herod and who later baptised him (Mark 1:9)
or was only six months older than him (Luke 1:24-26) so would have been killed in King Herod’s slaughter? (Matthew 2:16)?
John was Elizabeth’s and Zechariah’s son; they lived in the “hill country… of Judah” (Lk 1:39), but Luke doesn’t say that they lived in Bethlehem.
Is he the one
who drove the money lenders out of the Temple at the beginning of his three-year ministry (John 2:14-16)
or in the week before his death (Mark 11:15)?
Aahhh–NOW we’re talking!

OK – so, John’s Gospel was written later than the synoptics, and were meant for a different audience. So, there are a number of ways in which John structures his account differently than the other gospel writers. Why is this evidence of “contradiction”, rather than the more reasonable conclusion (since the gospels were meant as persuasive texts rather than historical accounts in the 21st-century style) that they’re simply two different ways of telling the story?
Is he the one who was crucified
on the day of preparation for Passover at about noon (John 19:14)
or on the day of Passover at 09:00 a.m (Mark 15:25)?
I’ve read articles that suggest that the differences might proceed from different perspectives: one is based on the lunar calendar of feasts, while the other is not. 🤷
Is he the one whose last words were
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)
or “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” (My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?) (Mark 15:34)?
Again – different audiences, different accounts. Since this isn’t a history book, per se, does this really shake your faith?
Very clearly, only one Jesus can’t have been all of the above, So the only possible conclusion, other than that they were all made up, is that there were several different Jesuses and that the Bible’s authors were either writing about different ones or they got them muddled up.
:doh2: Really? That’s the only other possible conclusion? C’mon … you can do better than that…! 😉
In either case, or any other, even if there was just one Jesus, we have then to question the historical veracity of these differences
No … I have to ask why the value of the gospels are to be measured in terms of a sort of journalistic historical accuracy standard? You need to apply a standard that’s of the same type that’s applied to other documents of the era, as well as to consider the literary genres of the particular documents, before you reach your conclusion… 😉
 
Quite a few contradictions. Here. Most are debatable, but you’ll get the point:

infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html

War or Peace?

EXO 15:3 The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.

ROM 15:33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.

Who is the father of Joseph?

MAT 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

LUK 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli.

Who was at the Empty Tomb? Is it:

MAT 28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

MAR 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

JOH 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

Is Jesus equal to or lesser than?

JOH 10:30 I and my Father are one.

JOH 14:28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.

Which first–beasts or man?

GEN 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
GEN 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

GEN 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
GEN 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

How many stalls and horsemen?

1KI 4:26 And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.

2CH 9:25 And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.

Is it folly to be wise or not?

PRO 4:7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

ECC 1:18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

1CO 1:19: “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

Human vs. ghostly impregnation

ACT 2:30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;

MAT 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

The sins of the father

ISA 14:21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.

DEU 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.

Rabbits do not chew their cud

LEV 11:6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.

“Gerah,” the term which appears in the MT means (chewed) cud, and also perhaps grain, or berry (also a 20th of a sheckel, but I think that we can agree that that is irrelevant here). It does not mean dung, and there is a perfectly adequate Hebrew word for that, which could have been used. Furthermore, the phrase translated “chew the cud” in the KJV is more exactly “bring up the cud.” Rabbits do not bring up anything; they let it go all the way through, then eat it again. The description given in Leviticus is inaccurate, and that’s that. Rabbits do eat their own dung; they do not bring anything up and chew on it.

Heaven supported too

JOB 26:11 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.

The hydrological cycle

ECC 1:7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

JOB 38:22 Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,

Storehouses are not part of the cycle

Order of creation

Here is the order in the first (Genesis 1), the Priestly tradition:

Day 1: Sky, Earth, light
Day 2: Water, both in ocean basins and above the sky(!)
Day 3: Plants
Day 4: Sun, Moon, stars (as calendrical and navigational aids)
Day 5: Sea monsters (whales), fish, birds, land animals, creepy-crawlies (reptiles, insects, etc.)
Day 6: Humans (apparently both sexes at the same time)
Day 7: Nothing (the Gods took the first day off anyone ever did)

Note that there are “days,” “evenings,” and “mornings” before the Sun was created. Here, the Deity is referred to as “Elohim,” which is a plural, thus the literal translation, “the Gods.” In this tale, the Gods seem satisfied with what they have done, saying after each step that “it was good.”

The second one (Genesis 2), the Yahwist tradition, goes:

Earth and heavens (misty)
Adam, the first man (on a desolate Earth)
Plants
Animals
Eve, the first woman (from Adam’s rib)
 
Hello everyone,

Im worried tonight.

The past months of bible studying has really made me question the bible a lot.
I have some concerns that I will list here. I hope we can have a good discussion on this post about any of these points.
  • Also anything anyone wants to say about why we should trust the vatican. The catholic church put the bible together - what if they changed, added, or deleted things in it to suit what they wanted the church to be?
I know that’s a lot. I know you may not want to respond to every single point I said, but even just one would be great.

Thank you in advance to anyone who responds.
philvaz.com/apologetics/bible.htm

Countering Bible Contradictions

Contradictions 1 to 55
Contradictions 56 to 99
Contradictions 100 to 143
  1. God is satisfied/unsatisfied with his works
  2. God dwells/dwells not in chosen temples
  3. God dwells in light/darkness
  4. God is seen/unseen and heard/unheard
  5. God is tired/never tired and rests/never rests
  6. God is/is not omnipresent and omniscent
  7. God does/does not know the hearts of men
  8. God is/is not all powerful
  9. God is changeable/unchangeable
  10. God is just/unjust or partial/impartial
  11. God is/is not the author of evil
  12. God gives freely/witholds his blessings
  13. God can/cannot be found by those who seek Him
  14. God is warlike/peaceful
  15. God is cruel/kind
  16. God’s anger endures for a long/short time
  17. God approves/disapproves of burnt offerings
  18. God accepts/forbids human sacrifices
  19. God tempts man/doesn’t tempt man
  20. God send lying spirits/doesn’t lie
  21. God will/will not destroy man
  22. God’s attributes are revealed/cannot be discovered
  23. God is one/many
 
pablope;9182110 said:
It is very useful in this matter to understand both the vastness of some contradictions which “faith” blinds us to, and to know intimitly the astounding need the mind has to be right at any nearly cost, as a function of the drive to survive. The mind and body are not the substance of being human, and yet seem to rule us until we can get beyond them in the search for Identity. So if you are dispassionate enough to see it, you will readily recognize that for the very great and most part, these “counters” are but magnificent rationalizations. Moreover, their study is a distraction from the intent of spiriual life in most ways save to act as sort of a koan, but not as a lesson in history, science, or much else but Myth in the classical sense of being material useful in the work of transformation f you don’t get caught in the roots and swamps of its backwaters,
 
Excellent!

What do you make of this very short list for starters?

Which is the real Jesus?

Is he the one who
was born when Quirinius was Governor of Syria (6-12 AD) (Luke 2:2)
or the one born when Herod the Great was King (37-4 BC) (Matthew 2:1)? (note q12 year gap)

Is he the one whose
adopted father Joseph wasthe son of Heli (Luke 3:23)
or the son of Jacob (Matthew 1:16)?

Is he the one whose
adopted father, Joseph was descended from King David through 28 generations (Matthew 1:6)
or was descended from King David through 43 generations (Luke 3:23-31)?

Is he the one
whose conception was told to his adopted father Joseph in a dream (Matthew 1:18-20)
or announced to his mother by an angel. (Luke 1:26-31)?

Is he the one who
was born in the house in Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary lived (Matt 1:18 – 2:23)
or in a stable in Bethlehem to where Joseph and Mary have traveled to take part in a census (Luke 1:4 – 2:40)?

Is he the one whose
cousin John survived the killing of the children under 2 years old ordered by King Herod and who later baptised him (Mark 1:9)
or was only six months older than him (Luke 1:24-26) so would have been killed in King Herod’s slaughter? (Matthew 2:16)?

Is he the one
who drove the money lenders out of the Temple at the beginning of his three-year ministry (John 2:14-16)
or in the week before his death (Mark 11:15)?

Is he the one who was crucified
on the day of preparation for Passover at about noon (John 19:14)
or on the day of Passover at 09:00 a.m (Mark 15:25)?

Is he the one whose last words were
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” (Luke 23:46)
or “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” (My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?) (Mark 15:34)?

Is he the one who
died immediately before the land was cast into darkness and the ‘curtain of the Temple’ was ripped (Mark 15:38)
was still alive when the curtain was ripped (Luke 23:45)
or even whose death was followed by an earthquake and dead people rising out of graves and wandering about in the city, events which, surprisingly, no one else seems to have noticed (Matthew 27:51-54)?

Is he the one whose tomb was
opened in the presence of Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and an angel who sat outside on a stone (Matthew 28:1-2)
found to be open by Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Salome with one angel sitting inside it (Mark 16:1-5) (but they told no one about it! (Mark 16:8))
found to be open by an unspecified number of nameless women with two angels standing inside it (Luke 23:55 - 24:4)
found to be open by Mary Magdalene on her own and in which two angels only appeared after several other people had come and gone (John 20:1)?

Very clearly, only one Jesus can’t have been all of the above, So the only possible conclusion, other than that they were all made up, is that there were several different Jesuses and that the Bible’s authors were either writing about different ones or they got them muddled up. In either case, or any other, even if there was just one Jesus, we have then to question the historical veracity of these differences and ask why they exist, especially coming from people who were right there! And if times, dates, places were so muddled, how accurate are the recorded sayings so few as there are?
You seem to be making an important point, but in fact you are not.

(1) When the Holy Spirit inspired the Bible’s redactors, He did not force them to speak with perfect historical accuracy. Muddled things remained muddled. Inspiration has a different effect. See point (3) below.

(2) Sometimes, facts seem to have been twisted on purpose, to teach something other than correct facts. For example, Matthew probably tampered with the number of generations in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1, so that he came up with three sets of 14, probably because he was talking to us with numbers. 7 symbolizes perfection; 2 symbolizes the church; so, 14, which is the product of 7 x 2, tells us that the folks in Jesus’ genealogy brought us the perfection of the church, by bringing us Jesus.

(3) The standard of historical accuracy to which you implicitly hold the Bible did not even exist when the Bible books were written. For example, the older scrolls of Luke’s gospel include indications that Luke’s intent in Luke 24:50-53 was to portray Jesus as having ascended to heaven ON THE NIGHT OF THE DAY OF HIS RESURRECTION.

Yet, in the Acts of the Apostles, which appears to be a mere continuation of the gospel by the writer of Luke’s gospel, written TO the same man, Jesus ascends to heaven 40 DAYS AFTER!

Note well that LUKE COULDN’T CARE LESS ABOUT PERFECT HISTORICAL ACCURACY. He just changed the facts blithely, probably to teach a different theology lesson.

But, there are still amazing things within these “handicapped” works.

For example, in the Nativity accounts which you question, Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger – a feeding trough – in Bethlehem.

Why?

The doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist is being anticipated there: You see the body of Jesus wrapped-up like a cadaver being served as food on a kind of “dinner plate.”

Where? In Bethlehem, which means “house of bread.” We have a picture of Jesus’ actual dead body being served as food in the House of Bread, because His actual dead boidy will be in the form of bread.
 
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