contradictions

The Bible, the Inspired Word of God, contains dozens, if not hundreds, of contradictions. Events and quotations described in one book by one author are flatly opposed or contradicted by another author in another book. Does that sound like a divinely inspired Book Of Truth, intended to galvanise the reader into belief through its purity and simplicity, or as a hotch-potch of humanly-inspired stories cobbled together over a period of time to serve some ulterior purpose?

Sometimes these contradictions are subtle and can lead to endless arguments back and forth, so I'm not going to waste time on those. Instead, I'm going to give just a few blatant examples, chosen mostly from well-known stories and quotations, which illustrate quite clearly how deeply flawed the Bible is, and therefore how unlikely it is to be "Divinely Inspired".

First, concerning the character of Jesus. John 14:27 has Jesus saying "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you", and in Luke 2:14, the famous quotation "...on earth peace, goodwill toward men". All very soothing, warm and cuddly. Then, in complete contrast, we read Jesus' words in Matthew 10:34 - "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household". How many regular churchgoers do you think have heard this quotation or know of its existence? How many Sunday sermons have taken this verse as their theme? Precious few of either, I'll bet.

Let's stay with the issues of peace and violence for a moment and consider the Bible's attitude to war with another famous quotation. Isaiah 2:4 says "... and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation...". Then in Joel 3:9-10 we read "... Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong". So which is it - swords into ploughshares or ploughshares into swords? What is the Bible's (God's) message here, and why is it so irreconcilably confused? Could it be, perhaps, that it's not God's Word at all, but two different stories from two different (non-inspired) authors, brought together into a single book by a non-too-careful (human) editor?

Now let's look at one of the most famous stories of the New Testament - what happened immediately after the birth of Jesus. I won't quote the whole text here because it would take up too much space, but you can check it yourselves through the links. The point is that two totally different accounts are given in Matthew and Luke. Matthew 2 (the well-known version) gives the following chain of events:

- After the birth, an angel tells Joseph to take the child into Egypt, because Herod is going to search for the child and kill him

- Herod then orders the slaughter of all male children under two years old in the vicinity of Bethlehem

- After the death of Herod, Joseph returned to Galilee

Luke 2 has it this way:

- After the birth, Joseph and Mary took the child to Jerusalem, to present him at the temple and offer a sacrifice, as was the custom then.

- When they had done what was required, they quietly returned to Galilee

How come these two versions are so totally different? Surely such momentous events as a flight to Egypt, murder of hundreds of infants, and an enforced period of exile ought to have figured in Luke's account as well as Matthew's (if they actually happened)? These are not minor differences to be swept under the carpet. These are two completely different stories. How can this happen, if the Bible is the Inspired Word of God?

Next, another set of totally irreconcilable pronouncements, this time concerning the vengefulness (or otherwise) of God. In Ezekiel 18:20 we have "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father". Then, in direct contravention of this, we have Exodus 20:5 "For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." What on earth are we to make of this? What exactly is God's position on passing blame to future generations? Shouldn't such a fundamental issue have been made absolutely crystal clear? Why wasn't it?

Finally, a few contradictions of pure "fact", first concerning the animals taken on board Noah's Ark. Genesis 7:2 relates God's instructions to Noah: "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens... and of beasts that are not clean by two...". Noah must have been very relieved to have been given such clear instructions from God - seven of every clean beast and two of every unclean beast (except, how was he supposed to know whether Koala bears were clean or unclean? How about anteaters? hippos? Galapagos turtles? snow eagles? llamas? or any of the thousands of other species that he would never have seen?). Never mind, because the clarity doesn't last long. Just six verses later, Genesis 7:8-9 gives another version: "Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean... there went in two and two... as God had commanded Noah". Again, very clear, but this time two of all beasts, clean and unclean. Poor old Noah - no wonder he only lived to be 950!

I've chosen the above examples of contradictions deliberately out of dozens of others because these are so blatant and incontrovertible. I challenge any believer to give a simple, credible explanation for these contradictions - and if they can't, to answer the obvious question: Why did God allow His Holy Book, on which humankind is supposed to base its belief in Him, to give such diametrically opposed messages on some of the most fundamental issues of faith?

To finish, some pieces of elementary biology:

Leviticus 11:20
"All winged insects that go upon all fours are an abomination to you."

and

Leviticus 11: 6
And the hare, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you.

Any modern biologist will tell you that there are no insects which "go upon all fours" - all insects have six legs, not four - and that hares do not chew the cud. So why does the writer of Leviticus seem not to know these things? "Ah", you say, "they didn't have biologists in the days when Leviticus was written, so there were a lot of things they didn't know." Surely, being guided in his writing by the very Creator of insects and hares, he should have known with absolute clarity, better than any biologist will ever know? It seems pretty obvious that these basic errors are there because there was no divine hand guiding the Leviticus writer.