First off I apologize in advance to anyone who has seen this article already.

Here is the link;
http://debate.org.uk/topics/apolog/contrads.htm

This stuff is sooo entertaining. The author's explain away these contradictions using a whole host of questionable methodologies and still claim the ‘buybull’ is inerrant.

They close w/ this quote (and totally fail to see the irony of it);
"...our dear brother Paul also wrote to you with the wisdom that God gave him....His letters contain some things that are hard to understand which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:15-16)

Regards,
Barkhorn.

I was impressed with #52; I had never seen anyone address that particular problem before. Unfortunately its resolution is incorrect; the Romans did not begin their days at midnight; their times were calculated from dawn to dusk.

Edited to add:

Upon further research I find that sources disagree on this; but it is by no means a given that Roman days began at midnight, and even if they did, it's difficult to show that the author of John was using Roman time rather than Hebrew.

[This message has been edited by Muad'dib (edited June 28, 2001).]

Some of the explanations look pretty good and well informed. But I have to agree: With some of them, the less said the better.

I'm surprised you haven't seen anything on this before Muad'dib, because it's a fairly regularly used stock argument.

You mean #52? Well, My experience isn't that wide. Just in conversations with my fundamentalist uncle (which no longer take place, thankfully).

I thought it was interesting that some of the contradictions were dismissed as "copyist's errors."

If we don't have any originals, how do we know these were copyist errors instead of just plain old errors?

But then again, it's the bible..it can't have an error.

And how do we know what other copyists errors are lurking away in the text?

For all we know, someone could have accidently inserted the word "not" into the 7th Commandment. All that sexual frustration for nothing.

Does anyone here but me see how pathetic this exercise is? The people on both sides of the issue have to expend enough time and energy to write a sequel to "War and Peace" in order to prove to themselves that THEY are RIGHT; that THEIR "holy book" is the TRUTH, while all others are false, if not actually evil. Can you imagine being so intellectually and emotionally barren that you must defend an ancient, arcane, mystical world view so fanatically? If it weren't so sad it would be hilarious. Picture it as a debate between George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield.

The Bible? The Qu'ran? The Book of Mormon? The Upanishads? The Bahgavad Gita? The Tibeten Book of the Dead? The Wizard of Oz? These people ought to get some kind of life, like maybe taking the show on the road.

[This message has been edited by fred pratt (edited June 29, 2001).]

I too enjoy the torture these guys go though to "prove" that the bible is A-OK.

What I find most interesting is the kind of logic they use to explain away #58. Did 24,000 Israelites die in the plague in 'Shittim' (Numbers 25:1, 9), or was it only 23,000 Israelites who died (1Corinthians 10:8)?
(Category: confused this incident with another)

The substance of the passages - that God killed thousands of people - troubles them not. They just want to make sure we all understand how "inerrant" the good book is (sigh).

Regards,
Barkhorn.

OH NO! MY Lord!!! All this time!

THERE IS AN _R_!

It was celebRate!

You get sexually aroused by stealing things? Sick, dude.

Throbert "Mackerelsnapper" McGee