Minimalist

In archaeological terms, both numbers have been shown to be totally ridiculous.

evangelical

A quick search of wikipedia (look up "herod" and "quirinius") show that the two were contemporaries. So if, in Matthews nativity narrative, you take "Herod the king" to be "Herod the Great," then the days of Herod the king were simultaneous with Quirinius taking a census. Classic case of alleged contradiction that does not hold up to even a modicum of scrutiny.

So far as I know, pretty much everybody agrees that there was a human named Jesus. Normally only fundamentalist atheists deny it but, of course, they are not normally authorities on history.

thentian

I fear your search of Wikipedia was overly quick. Quirinus was legate in Syria from 6AD. Herod the Great died in 4 BC. His son Herod Antipas was king of Galilee and Perea, but not Judea.

evangelical

My definition of a contradiction is "a violation of the law of non-contradiction." That law says p and not-p cannot both be true at the same time and in the same sense. A hypothetical example might be, "I am standing up, and sitting down, right now."

I never said that skeptics do need to show the Bible contradicts itself. And which Bible are you referring to as being "needlessly confusing"? Which translation, copy, or manuscript are you referring to? Are you fluent in whatever language that is written in, in the first place? With respect to Ezekiel, do you have a reference verse/s for the prophecy? If the Bibe were crystal clear, would that be reason to suppose an omniscient God did not write it? How would people in the ancient world-an entirely different sociocultural context-understand the Bible for thousands of years if it were addressed immediately to only people of the present time?

Egypt did end as a super-power after the 10 plagues did it not? It has continued to the present day, but not with its former strenth. That ended, I think, at the Exodus.

As for the global flood, those evangelicals who deny it, usually do not deny the flood per se. Rather, they deny the interpretation of the flood story as being of global extent. So those evangelicals who interpret it as global, believe in it as global and those evangelicals who interpret is as local, believe in it as local. In neither case does the interpretation and the belief not match up. We see here, as well, that there is no contradiction (with other Bible passages or with extra-biblical truth).

evangelical

Not so fast. Once again, the context is being ignored here. If context were payed attention to in the Bible (like one should do in reading anything else), then most, or perhaps all, apparent contradictions would evaporate. The context of Genesis 1 is the creation of the good world by God. The context of the rest of the Bible, is the fallen world encased with human evil. Is evil good? Of course not. Is the absense of evil, in Genesis 1, good? Nobody could ever deny it.

evangelical

Many things to say here. First, sometimes when God merely allows an event to take, place, He is said, in the Old Testament, to cause it. If He allowed Satan to provoke David to take a census, then that would solve the first problem.

As for the discrepency in numbers, I think we ought not to make too big a deal over this. For one thing, the precise number of people is relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. For another thing, in the pre-numeral days when those verses were written using letters even for the numbers, it was not uncommon to make mistakes in transcription of numbers. I mean when a scroll of, say, 2 Samuel was being copied. Finally, it is sometimes difficult to discern precisely how numbers are to be interpreted in ancient documents. For example, a non-biblical genealogy of some certain kings (I forget their nation), gave the ages, of the kings at death, in the tens of thousands of years. It seems that we are not quite sure, again, precisely how to best understand the meaning of numbers in ancient sources.

cabio

Both are true. There are many examples in the Bible in which both Satan and God were involved in soul-searching testings and trials. This is just another. Given the context of the situation, it appears that David had been building up an attitude of pride and self-admiration for his achievements. God decided to bring him to a time of soul searching and encouraged him to carry out the plan he had long been cherishing, to count his resources. God in effect said, “Go ahead. See how much good it will do you.” Joab tried to dissuade David from this, in a way that seems to be God’s final warning to David. In 1 Chronicles 21, it appears Satan found it in is own interest to also incite David. God incited David to teach him a lesson and humble him, and Satan incited David to deal a severe blow to Israel and mar David’s prestige.

Israel - The 1 Chronicles figure includes all available men of fighting age, whether seasoned by battle or not. The 2 Samuel report gave a subtotal of “mighty men” (’îš hayil) or battle seasoned troops of 800,000. But there may have been an additional 300,000 more men of military age who had not yet been involved in field combat.

Judah – 1 Chronicles makes it clear that Joab did not complete the numbering, for he did get around to the tribe of Benjamin. The procedure of conducting a census was to start with the Transjodanian tribes, shift to the northernmost tribe of Dan, and work southward back to Jerusalem. Benjamin would have come last and was not included in the 470,000 count. The 2 Samuel figure included the 30,000 troops of Benjamin.

cabio

Matthew’s version states explicitly that it was the centurion who came to Jesus and the servant was confined to bed. From the context of Luke’s version, it can be seen that it was the servant who was highly esteemed by the centurion, and therefore, the “by him” must refer to the centurion rather than the servant. This then shows us that the subject of the next sentence is necessarily the centurion also. In other words, in verse 3 it is perfectly evident that Luke also reports that it was not the servant who came to Jesus but the centurion. The nearest eligible antecedent for the participle akousas (hearing) and for apesteilen (he sent) is aut¬¬ō (by him), which was the last to be mentioned. Therefore these two accounts are in perfect agreement.

spamandham

The text doesn't say God allowed Satan to provoke David, it says God incited David, and makes it clear this is the direct result of God's anger.

You are adding to the book what is not there. You could apply that technique to any book, and arrive at the same original assumption* you have with the Bible.

...and now you are subtracting from it what is there.

The Bible you read is a reconstruction based on numerous conflicting ancient texts. If a god had maintained its fidelity during this reconstruction, then there could be no errors at all - including scribal errors. Of course, if he had maintained its fidelity, there never would have been divergence in the ancient texts either.



* it's clear your position is an assumption rather than a conclusion

cogitans

"How many contradictions and/or errors are in the Bible"

I'd venture to say fewer than many sceptics think and more than all apologists think.