jimmy-sydney

Hi infidels,

Im looking for advice :huh: .

Surely one of the classics in the realm of accusations of internal Bible contradiction would be Ezra 2:3-35 vs Nehemiah 7:8-38, with all the numerical discrepancies between the otherwise matching lists.

Well a smart cookie has suggested to me that these apparently contradictory passages are not real contradictions. Quoting from "101 Cleared-up Contradictions in the Bible" (1998) as listed on websites such as http://debate.org.uk/topics/apolog/contrads.htm
one mr van der Laan forwarded the following to me (italicised below);

"There are two important factors to bear in mind when looking at these discrepancies between the two lists. The first is the probability that though members of the units or families had enrolled their names at first as intending to go; in the interval of preparation, some possibly died, others were prevented by sickness or other insurmountable obstacles, so that the final number who actually went was not the same as those who had intended to go. Anyone who has planned a school-coach trip to the beach can understand how typical a scenario this really is.
A second and more important factor are the different circumstances in which the two registers were taken, an important fact of which critics seem to be acutely unaware. Ezra's register was made up while still in Babylon (in the 450s BC), before the return to Jerusalem (Ezra 2:1-2), whereas Nehemiah's register was drawn up in Judea (around 445 BC), after the walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt (Nehemiah 7:4-6). The lapse of so many years between the two lists (between 5-10 years) would certainly make a difference in the numbers of each family through death or by other causes.
Most scholars believe that Nehemiah recorded those people who actually arrived at Jerusalem under the leadership of Zerubbabel and Jeshua in 537 or 536 BC (Nehemiah 7:7). Ezra, on the other hand, uses the earlier list of those who originally announced their intention to join the caravan of returning colonists back in Babylon, in the 450s BC."

Well, Im wondering what you bright sparks make of this. Reading directly from the test it's not apparent to me that the two passages were definately written during different periods. I would have thought they would both have been written post the return to Jerusalem, listing those who actually returned. So is the above "solution" a load of hogwash designed to obfuscate what is a clear contradiction?

Thanks.

GakuseiDon

How can we tell? I'm a liberal Christian myself, but I think it is pointless to try to find errors in the Bible unless you have an understanding of what inerrantists view as within and without the scope of 'errancy' (See the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy as an example). Inerrantists believe, for example, that only the original autographs were inerrant - inerrancy wasn't an inheritable property for later translations.

In this case, Ezra 2:62 says the genealogy was incomplete. As Nehemiah works from a genealogy, an inerrantist could say that the Bible was only reporting what the genealogy was saying. That the genealogy was wrong doesn't make the Bible wrong, according to the rules of inerrancy. (In fact, I think this is a reasonable point).

Far better to research one error in depth (like the rooster crowing once/twice before Peter denying Christ three times) than worry about nonsense contradictions that have no substance beyond the generally faulty reasoning of the 'fundy atheist'.

Toto

No one has updated Errancy Wiki on this:

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Nehemiah_7

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Ezra_2