Johnny Skeptic

Please limit replies to three contradictions. One, two, or three will do.

aa5874

This one is just plain dumb. The soldiers are to tell people that Jesus body is stolen, while Jesus is appearing alive to the disciples.

Matthew 28.12-13, "And when they were assembled with the elders, and had taken counsel, they gave large money unto the soldiers, Saying, Say ye, his disciples came by night, and stole him away while we slept."

Gullwind

I've always liked Ahaziah's age difference between II Kings 8 and II Chronicles 22. The newer translations correct it, but it's quite entertaining to watch a KJVO'r try to work out how a guy could be two years older than his father is when his father dies. It's also such a simple mistake - just a wrong number written down somewhere along the line, but it is so effective against innerrantists, because they can't even have that.

Another one is the different accounts of what happened to Saul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9 versus Acts 22). What did those with him see and hear?

figuer

1. That there are two different versions of the creation of men.

2. That there are two conflicting genealogies of Jesus that both end in Joseph (who wasn't his father).

Fr. Gottisttot

I'm particularly fond of the first one I ever found, on my own when I was still a bible-thumper. I was in the midst of reading the four gospels for my theology class when I noticed that one gospel (Matthew 12:30) had Jesus saying "All who are not with me are against me." and then another (Mark 9:40 and later Luke 9:50) had him saying "All who are not against me are with me." That was the very first step on my road to atheism.

Though it is not a contradiction, I am also fond of the story of the rotten underwear found in Jeremiah 13, especially verse 11 wherein god basically calls himself a divine wedgie.

Jubal_DiGriz

Not a particular passage, but all the different times God is described as good and powerful, versus all the passages in which God is a lying, murderous, manipulative, inconsistent SOB and has a problem he can't resolve sufficiently (why did he allow the world to get to such state that it needed to be flooded and start over, for instance? ...and it still doesn't work!).

username

For me it's "For God so loved the world that..." he sends tsunamis to wipe out millions of people as a punishment for the US tolerating gays.

tjakey

I like the two completely different accounts of creation in the first two chapters of the book...good start, that.

The two different ways that Judas died. God must have been really pissed to kill that poor fucker twice, two different ways.

And then there are the different stories surrounder the first Easter Sunday. The most important even of all human history, (if you believe the fundies) and they couldn't get the story straight.

Things that make you go, "mmmmmmmm....."

OneInFundieville

A quick read through all the verses that use the word "mercy" should do the trick.

http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/...lewordsonly=no

Can't imagine how hard it used to be to study the Bible before all these online tools.

Atheos

As a general rule I like numeric contradictions. Numbers don't lie and can't be explained away.

Matthew makes a big deal about 14 + 14 + 14 = Number of generations from Abraham to David, David to Babylonian Captivity, Babylonian Captivity to Jesus. But I Chronicles 3 lists 4 additional "generations" that Matthew ignores in order to come up with his magical 14's. Even Matthew's own list only adds up to 41 generations (14+14+14=42).

Mark 1 says that immediately after he was baptized Jesus went into the wilderness and was tempted by Satan for 40 days. John 1 says that the day after he got baptized (and the dove descended, as detailed also in Mark) Jesus was walking around among them and called his first two disciples, Peter and Andrew). The next day he called Philip and Nathaniel. On the 3rd day he attended a wedding in Cana of Galilee where he turned water into wine.

But I guess my overall favorite contradiction is not numeric at all. It's the silly little lie Jesus told in John 7:8 "I go not up yet unto this feast; for my time is not yet full come". But two verses later it says "But when his brethren were gone up, then went he also up unto the feast, not openly, but as it were in secret."

Black is White. Believe it or perish.