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Friday, September 27, 2002 Some Peace For the last week or so I've been finding contradictions in the Bible that I'd never seen or hadn't bothered me before. They weren't ones that I could easily explain or that are the result of paradox (like free will vs. God's sovereignty). Rather, they looked like blatant contradictions and I didn't want to do verbal gymnastics to make things reconcile. This disturbed me since I believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God--if there are lots of little contradictions, wouldn't that get in the way of God explaining his Truth? And even though what I found were just little "errors" wouldn't that render the entire thing suspect? If the little things are wrong, then what's to say that the all-encompassing truths are correct? But I've always been taught that if God is real, he can handle my questions. If the Bible is the word of God, it can handle some probing. Who wants totally blind faith anyway? God gave us minds and the ability to think for a reason. So question I did. And it was scary. But in the end, I'm emerging with a renewed sense in the reliability of the Bible. (Which is a relief! The ground my world was rooted in was starting to shake.) I'm still not entirely through this yet--there are a few more questions I need to work though--but a little research and some help from a guy who reads Greek and Hebrew definitely helped. Some examples for others who have had similar questions: Did Saul's family die together? conclusion: not a contradiction-semantics. this is a description of a battle. it tells us that three of saul's sons die in a battle as well as the rest of his house. since this battle took place out in the country (1 chr 10:1) it is safe to assume that paul's entire "house" (women, children, slaves, livestock, etc...) was not there. i believe that this passage is essentially saying, "everyone who went out with saul to this battle got killed" rather than "saul and every relative he had throughout the palestinian land was slaughtered." When was man created--before or after the animals? conclusion: possible translation error in verb tense. i think that the kjv left out a word that, in my opinion, is implied within the original hebrew and lends further clarification - that word being "had" in verse 19 of gen 2: "and out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them." in this case, the animals were already created and god brought them before adam rather then creating them for adam. the original translation can still be inferred this way so it's hard to call it an "error" - but i would argue that the addition of "had" makes it even more clear. Did Asa remove the high places? conclusion: not a contradiction. this one is ridiculous. the people who came up with it have so little actual knowledge of scripture that they should probably keep their mouths shut. at the time of asa, the kingdom was split up into two parts: judah and israel. asa removed the high places from all of judah but he was not able to remove them from all israel. that's bible history 101. Did Jesus command the disciples to go out with or without a staff and shoes? In Matthew, Jesus tells them to not 'make preparations'--the trip is too urgent to 'acquire belongings for the trip' (cf. Luke 17.31). No hesitation--start NOW with what you already have at your disposal! In Mark, Jesus tells them to 'pick up the walking stick that is sitting beside them, start CARRYING it, and then to get moving!'...no hesitation--start walking NOW! In Luke, Jesus tells them the same thing as in Matthew--do not 'make preparations', but Luke has to use a different word that Matthew. Although he uses the same word form as Mark does, the meanings are different--as can be seen from their independent uses of the same word-form. So Matthew's ktaomai equals Luke's airo (in this and in other passages), and Mark's airo equals Luke's bastazo (in this and other passages). This probably doesn't make sense without reading the entire answer, which is a little heavy on the Greek: Staff or No Staff? Did the men with Paul hear the voice? it's a greek thing. check out a thorough explanation here - and yes, i concur! http://www.apostolic.net/biblicalstudies/acts97.htm ^ Top | 1:56 AM | | | 
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