Bible
“Contradictions” and Confidence in the Face of them
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The most potent way to attack
Christianity is to attack its foundation – the Bible. As a result, it is easy
to find lists of alleged Bible contradictions on line, which draw its
detractors like honey draws bears. There is even an atheist bible listing an
assortment of contradictions with predictable scorn.
When I debated Rabbi Yossi
Mizrachi in 2007 – you can find this debate on UTube – he zeroed in on the
question of contradictions, claiming that if he could find just one
contradiction, this would prove that the New Testament could not possibly be
the Word of God.
I accepted his challenge because,
in theory, I agreed. I even agreed that there were many seeming contradictions. However, if the NT is
God’s actual words, we should expect no less. If, instead, we could easily get
our mind around Scripture so that it all made perfect sense, we would have
every reason to suppose that this book was actually the word of man and not of
God.
Admittedly, Scripture contains
many perplexing passages, some of which yield way to understanding under closer
scrutiny, and others remain resistant to our attempts to harmonize them. This
shouldn’t surprise us. Even the Apostle Peter acknowledged that much of what
Paul had written was difficult to understand (2 Peter 3:16). Nevertheless, this
fact never caused him to be skeptical about Paul’s writings. After all, the
miraculous workings of the Spirit had clearly validated Paul and the other
Apostles (Heb. 2:3-4).
Therefore, we shouldn’t be overly
troubled by the fact that we too are perplexed by some passages of Scripture.
After all, scientists are perplexed by their “contradictory” scientific
findings. Should this be a reason to jettison the entire scientific enterprise?
Of course, not! Instead, these perplexing findings rightly serve as goads to
provoke further research to understand our world.
Consequently, I regard these Bible
“contradictions” as mysteries to be solved (or marveled at) rather than as
indictments. Of course, the atheist will say:
· Well, science has provided us with
great and tangible benefits. It has proved itself, while Scripture has merely
misled.
I think that we can make a similar
claim about Scripture. Here is a brief list of proofs, each containing
storehouses of evidence:
1. Transformed Lives and Cultures
2. Personal Authenticating Experiences
3. The Non-Human Nature of the
Scriptures
4. Internal Consistency
5. External Verification
6. Wisdom for Life of the Word
7. Validating Miracles
8. Fulfilled Prophecy
However, I must warn you – even if
you become skilled in the use of these various proofs, it doesn’t mean that you
will pave inroads into the hearts of others. These hearts are already committed
to their own carefully chosen paradigms and find the Christian revelation
highly offensive.
However, I hope that these
thoughts might make you more confident that you are on the right road and have
a light to shine upon this resistant world.
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