Alleged Contradictions in the Bible

Southern Baptist perhaps?

Nope, more fundamentalist than that. These guys called Southern Baptists too liberal.

 

Oh my, do tell who they are. I am not even sure now.

 

That verse establishes the requirement that a person must be a believer before receiving baptism.

No, actually it doesn't. Belief as a prerequisite to baptism is mentioned many times throughout the Bible.


Mark 16:16 (NIV) "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

Acts 2:38 "Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Acts 2:41 "Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day."

Acts 8:12-13 "But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw."

Acts 18:8 "Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized."


Need I go on? The pattern is clear: repentance and belief, then baptism.

 

The correct answer was.... "Independent Baptist". Or, I think some would call themselves "Fundamentalist Baptist".

They refused to be called Protestants, and insisted that the religion went all the way back to the first Anabaptists.

Doesn't that sound like a fun way to grow up?
At least they let me watch Star Wars ...


And, for IellaWessiriNRI, my disclaimer: I am only drawing from what was drilled into me. That was the only specific example of "missing" verses and explanation I remember. I'm sure there are more if you look, and you could probably refute them all the same way with enough time.

 

Oh those guys are..... SPLITERS! Almost as bad as the Judean People's Front.


Actually, I don't know much about them. Do they like covered dishes as much as Southern Baptists?

 

Heck yeah!

Only, as our preacher jokingly said, we couldn't have potluck dinners. We had to have "pot-Providence" instead.


//preparing for the invevitable "rolleyes" comments

 

OK, I've got answers for Darkside_Spirit's post:

Genesis chapter 1 states that the first man and woman were made at the same time, and after the animals. But Genesis chapter 2 says that the order of creation was as follows: man, then the animals, and then woman.

This has already been answered. The past tense is used in the Hebrew in Chapter 2, so it refers to animals that God had created. NIV translates this in a clearer way.


Additionally, Genesis chapter 1 tells of six days of creation, whereas chapter 2 refers to the "day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens."

The six days of creation refer to God's creation on earth (animals, trees etc) and around the earth (sun, stars etc). Heaven and the earth itself were created right at the start. As Genesis 1 says "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth."


Chapter 1 asserts that the fruit trees were created before man, while chapter 2 indicates that those trees were made after man.

No. Fruit trees are created in Chapter 1, but it's plants and shrubs that Chapter 2 refers to.


Genesis 1:20 states that the fowl were created out of the waters; nevertheless, Genesis 2:19 alleges that they were formed out of the ground.

Again, this is a translation issue with the King James version. Gen 1:20 in modern translations doesn't imply that the birds were created out of waters. The New King James renders it in a clearer way: Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens."


Genesis 1:2-3 avers that God created light and divided it from darkness on the first day, but Genesis 1:14-19 reports that the sun, moon and stars were not made until the fourth day.

Believe it or not, science has actually answered this question. Light exists independent of the sun, and the earth even now becomes self-luminous in the northern light. Other planets as well, particularly Venus, are capable of developing a light of their own. Something to do with molecular action.


Contradictions also abound in the biblical account of a worldwide flood. Genesis 6:19-22 says that God ordered Noah to bring "of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort . . . into the ark." Genesis 7:2-3 states, however, that the Lord ordered Noah take into the ark the clean beasts and the birds by sevens and the unclean beasts by twos.

The first scripture refers to the fact that the animals were to go into the ark in pairs, male and female. The second refers to how many pairs of each should go in.


Genesis 7:17 relates that the flood lasted forty days, whereas Genesis 8:3 tells us it lasted one hundred and fifty days.

No. The rain came down for 40 days, but the earth was flooded for 150. It took a long time for the waters to recede.


Genesis 8:4 reports that, as the waters of the flood receded, Noah's ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat in the seventh month. But the very next verse asserts that the mountaintops could not even be seen until the tenth month.

The first verse doesn't say that you could see the tops of mounatins. It rested on the top, the waters continued to go down until finally they could see the tops of the mountains some time later. Where's the contradiction?


Genesis 8:13 states that the earth was dry on the first day of the first month; contrariwise, Genesis 8:14 reports that the earth was not dry until the twenty-seventh day of the second month.

Another King James problem. The second verse is correctly rendered "completely dry"
in the NIV.


The Old Testament contains a significant contradiction in the story of the census taken by King David and God's subsequent punishment of the Israelites. According to the tale, God was so angered by the census that he sent a plague that killed seventy thousand men. At II Samuel 24:1, the Lord is said to be the one who caused David to take the census. But an attempt was made late

 

Why did the Earth flood? Was it the ENTIRE earth? Do not say rain, because that is impossible, as rain comes from the ocean. Now it is possible that valleys were flooded because there is no way of discharging the water.

I'll take science over the bible any day. The bible may have been the word of god, but it was written down by people like you and me.

--Joey

 

Yup, it was the entire earth. And yup - it was rain. You said quite rightly that rain comes from the oceans. The rain in the worldwide flood was sent by God himself. In Genesis 7:4 God says: "Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights."

It's the same God who seven chapters earlier created the entire universe out of nothing. I'm sure rustling up a bit of rain ain't gonna present him with any problems.

 

I have a question on that.

Then how did Noah get the millions of species on the boat.

Then once the water receded how did the kangaroos get back to australia and the iguanas back to the galapagos islands.

If the animals walked how come some didn't stop in india and think "hey this looks good enough".

Just wondering.

Edit: Spelling

 

Sorry for the link, but this is a great page on Noah's Ark. Answers it better than I ever could. It answers the question very well on how big the ark was, how much available animal storage space it had and how many different species would had to have gone on board.

As to how the kangaroo ended up in Australia - absolutely no idea.

 

Quote from that site. "The Ark had plenty of room for all the animals, including the dinosaurs"


LOL Now thats comedy not religeon.



I'm sorry but, I just can't accept that millions of species were on a boat, let alone dinosaurs?

I'm sorry.

I guess I'm not convinced. sorry

 

My apologies, Mr GMM, for putting only one notice in about the fact that I took those references from humanist.net. Perhaps one disclaimer per paragraph would be more to your liking? As to "doing your own thinking", when other people have done the work there's no sense in repeating it. I really don't have time to go searching through the Bible looking for contradictions; I have a LOT of other things to do, thankyou very much. Perhaps it has something to do with my not seeing the Bible as some sort of divine source, but instead as a collection of ancient myths of very dubious origins.

Having said that, you've done a good job of answering those contradictions - a very good job, in fact.

Again, I apologise for my unworthiness in ever daring to question the Bible using material copied from another site!!

 

On the subject of rationalizing contradictions:

After watching Gladiator for the first time, I happened across an account of what really happened to the Roman Emperor Commodus; according to the book, he was poisoned at dinner, then strangled in the bathroom as he tried to vomit the poison out.

More recently, I took a trip to Rome, and signed up for a guided tour of the Colosseum. Part of the tour guide's spiel featured the story of Commodus--only in this version of the story, Commodus ends up stabbed outside the Colosseum's gate.

Having heard these two seemingly contradictory stories, it would appear I have two choices: Do I (a) assume one or both sources are in error, or (b) try to figure out a way that both stories could have happened? Perhaps Commodus was stabbed by his guards at the Colosseum, then staggered home, sat down to dinner, ate the poison and died in the bathroom?

You see my point.

 

Do not say rain, because that is impossible, as rain comes from the ocean.


It was not only rain, but God also opened "the fountains of the deep" -- which sort of allows for more than just 40 days' worth of rain. If I recall correctly, the water continued to rise even after the rain ceased.

But when talking about stories in the Bible, remember that you have to allow for supernatural acts of God, including the sudden presence of much more water than the world previously contained.

 

From that site:

Noah's Ark

Did Noah take dinosaurs on the Ark?

The Bible does not list the names of every creature on the Ark. It does say that one set of every kind of air-breathing animal was on board (Genesis 6:19-20, 7:15-16). So, dinosaurs must have been included.

There is evidence that dinosaurs lived after the Flood. For instance, Job saw "behemoth" after the Flood. (Other evidences will be discussed later.)

The Ark was a very large ship designed especially by God for its important purpose.

LISTEN

It was so large and complex that it took Noah 120 years to build. Noah used this time to warn people about the Flood and convince them to turn to God and be saved with his family.

The Ark had plenty of room for all the animals, including the dinosaurs. It was carefully built to fulfill the needs of each passenger as they rested in safety during the great Flood. Many of the animals may have slept through most of the trip.

Noah did not have to go out and find the animals. God brought each one. This probably included a young pair of each main type of dinosaur. Perhaps God just included the basic types of dinosaurs He first created; not every variety that had developed since Creation.

Young dinosaurs would be small and easier to care for and would use less food. It would have been foolish to fill up space on the Ark with the oldest, biggest adults.

 

One wonders how Noah managed to provide enough refrigeration for the penguins and polar bears.

 

It does make sense though, you see paintings of the ark and you just know a couple of adult brontosauri would sink the thing. Better to keep the babies instead.

 

I thought brontosaurs died off around 130 million years ago.

 

I could probably write a book about the contradictions in the Bible, and other scriptures as well... but who cares?

I'm assuming here, and correct me if I'm wrong, that this thread was opened to find some counterarguments to the alleged contradictions in the Bible... primarily so that the initiator of this thread could find some reassurance in their beliefs.

Well, faith, unlike scientific disciplines, doesn't require proof. The issue of whether or not anything in the Bible is actually true or accurate hs nothing to do with whether one chooses to believe or not. So, why worry?

If you're convinced that being a follower of the words of the Bible is for you... then no one but yourself can really change that view.

However, I'm wondering if a lot of these contradictions have caused you to question your faith. Just because you question your faith doesn't mean you have lost it. You need to test your faith and see if it only hinges on the legitimacy of the parables... rather than the validity of the morals.

Anyone can debate who went to what mountain on which day... but no one can really debate what you personally believe is the way for you to live. Hinging all your faith on the historical accuracy of a book makes absolutely no sense.

If you still have self-doubts... you need to identify them, explore them, find out why they are there, instead of finding justifications to avoid it. Ask yourself: Why are the arguments against the validity of the historical accuracy of the Bible so compelling to me if I'm really convinced this is my path? What about those arguments is ringing familiar with me? Am I certain this is the right path for me? Is there a conflict between what I'm being told to believe, and what I really believe? Why?

These are valid questions that only you can ask yourself... and that only you can answer. If your beliefs aren't swayed... Why care what the rest of us think?

 

Great post Darth Snow Dog. I'm from the other camp, i was forced to believe all this stuff was true and only within the last few years have i become brave enough to question these things. The more i see that these stories aren't all literal, the more liberated and hopeful i feel about life and humanity.

 

The earth would have still been one land mass at the time of the flood. It isn't until Chronicles that the earth was divided. That is how animals moved.

Additionally, the validity of radiocarbon dating is in question. Dates obtained from around volcanoes using different methods yeild different results. There is a convergent validity problem with that. In fact, the dinosaurs may not be 65 million years old.

But the bottom line is, if you don't believe that God can do whatever he wants outside of physical laws, then no evidence will convince you anyway.

 

Oakaly doakaly. I guess your right in the movie caveman there were dinosaurs and people.

 

Additionally, the validity of radiocarbon dating is in question. Dates obtained from around volcanoes using different methods yeild different results. There is a convergent validity problem with that. In fact, the dinosaurs may not be 65 million years old.

Still quoting creationist bs, eh Palp?


Sorry Christians, there was no worldwide flood. There was probably a large local flood of that area recorded by the Sumerians.

Funny though, you sure want science to support your bible even though you like to dump on it?

 

Oh I don't see science as bad at all - as long as it is good science. Sadly, the zeitgiest of today prevents any data from being view from a creation POV. Since God is untestable, many rule him out. That is actually a contradiction of science.