Deus Ex

The Nativity Stories of Matthew and Luke are not just differing information. They contradict each other. It has been shown that they had to have happened ten years apart from each other.

There is no evidence that the gospel writers were ever eyewitnesses. They appear to be compilations of oral traditions.

The books of the bible were written by men, and subject to mistakes, inconsistencies, errors, etc.. No different than the sacred texts of any other religion.

Feel free to do the research. I can provide you with many links about bible errancy.

funinspace

I think many aren't going to bother going into great detail trying to debate various proffered (non)contradictions in a long rambling thread like this (like myself). If you really want to jump in and wrangle over a couple posited contradictions, BC&H is a great place to do that. Could one or a couple of the explanations of the ones mentioned before, or Matthews 3 14's, or the Jesus birthing tale and travels between Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, and Egypt be plausible? Sure a couple could. For myself it's the stringing together of the numerous elaborate and imaginative explanations is what really breaks beyond ideas of credibility. Anywho, it's not a topic I am willing to banter back and forth over much anymore. Like I said, if you really want a go at it, jump into BC&H, and you'll get all the "intellectualism you could wish for.

GenesisNemesis

Differing information is contradictory when talking about the same thing.

Atheos

Are you willing to give the same effort to defend the Quran, the book of Mormon and the Hindu Vedas? If not, why not?

I didn't say it wasn't possible that Herod ordered a bunch of babies to be killed. What I said is it's exceedingly unlikely that he would have done so and there would remain not one shred of evidence that it ever happened, especially considering the writings of Josephus, where one would have good reason to expect that evidence to be. But I'll admit that it's an argument from silence. For sake of argument I'll concede this point if only because it's getting tiresome arguing about it.

Please don't go any further down the path of impugning my honesty. I've told you the truth about my background. For argument's sake I'm accepting your story that you were once an unbiased atheist who came to be a believer in christianity.

The contradictions are there. I saw them even when I was a preacher and ignored them, assuming others knew the answers and I just hadn't learned enough yet.

The following are contradictions but can be rationalized by torturing the text and glazing one's eyes a bit.

• How many angels appeared? (1 or 2)
• Where were the angels positioned? (On the stone? In the tomb?)
• Who saw Jesus first? (Cephas? Mary? The two men?)
• How is it that Jesus appeared to "the eleven" when Thomas wasn't there and Judas was dead?
• How is it that Jesus appeared to "the twelve" (I Cor 15:14-15) when Judas was dead?
• Did Mary Magdalene learn anything about what had happened during her first visit to the tomb that morning? John says she saw the stone was rolled away and ran to Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple, and when she found them she said, "They have taken away the LORD out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him." The other gospels assert that the ladies investigated and were informed by angels before ever leaving the tomb the first time.
• Where were the angel/angels situated? Matthew says there was one angel who rolled away the stone and sat on it. Mark says there was one angel who was not discovered until they looked inside the tomb and he was sitting on the right side of the tomb. Luke says two angels appeared in the tomb while a bunch of women (at least 5) were standing inside it. John says Mary Magdalene saw two angels, one sitting at the head and one at the foot of the place where Jesus's body had been laid.
• When did Mary Magdalene see an angel (or angels)? Matthew says the two ladies saw an angel roll away the stone and tell them to come on in and take a look, which they did. Mark says they didn't actually see an angel (a young man in white rainment, actually) until after they looked in the tomb. Luke says all the ladies went inside the tomb and were perplexed and then suddenly a couple of angels appear with them to explain things. John says Peter and the Beloved Disciple came first, went into the tomb, saw only burial garments and left. After they left Mary saw two angels, then turned around and there was Jesus himself.
• When did Peter and the Beloved Disciple first go to the tomb? John indicates they were summoned by Mary Magdalene to the tomb before anyone else investigated. Mark, Matthew and Luke all assert that several women went inside the tomb and investigated before Peter and the Beloved Disciple did.
• When was the stone rolled away? Matthew says it was after the women arrived. All others say it was before anyone got there
• When did Mary Magdalene/the women first learn the news from angels? Matthew says it was the very first thing that happened. Mark and Luke say it was after they entered the tomb but before any investigation by Peter or any of the other disciples. John says it was after Peter and the Beloved Disciple had investigated the empty tomb, seen burial clothes but no body and left.
• When did Mary Magdalene first see the resurrected Jesus? Matthew says she and the other Mary began running back to see the disciples and Jesus appeared to them while they were on their way. John says that she was looking into the empty tomb, talking to two angels, then she turned around and there he was, whom she mistook for the gardener at first.

The following are contradictions. Period. Glazing the eyes isn't enough here, the eyelids must be closed completely.

• Where did Jesus tell his disciples to wait? Jerusalem (according to Luke/Acts) or Galilee (According to Matthew/Mark). This is not reconcilable. Luke clearly pictures Jesus visiting the disciples in Jerusalem after nightfall on that first day. There he commands them to "tarry in Jerusalem" until they are endued with power from on high. They went no further from Jerusalem than Bethany ("about a Sabbath day's journey") before he ascended, then returned to Jerusalem. Luke is very specific about this, leaving no room for Matthew's excursion to Galilee, which is no less than 50 miles away from Jerusalem.
• Had the women seen Jesus before they talked to the disciples? Matthew says they met him while on the way to talk to the disciples but Luke clearly denies that, saying that they had seen angels but not Jesus.
• Where, exactly, did Mary Magdalene first see the resurrected Jesus? Matthew says it was somewhere between the tomb and wherever the disciples were staying. Luke doesn't say where she first saw him but argues that Mary Magdalene absolutely did not see Jesus during her trip to the disciples (Luke 24:23). John says that she saw him right there at the tomb (she was stooping to look in the tomb, turned around and there he was) and mistook him for the gardener.

I know you can offer me some tortured apology for each of the contradictions listed. My question is, "Why should you have to?" Haven't you been arguing all along that the Bible is objectively better than any other god-myth around? But if one assumes that there is no contradiction and works hard enough one can rationalize every "contradiction" ever written in any book. I challenge you to find anything in the Quran, the Hindu Vedas or the book of Mormon that can't be rationalized using the same apologetic license you apply to the bible.

Kharakov

Everyone knows God put contradictions in the bible to prove that God doesn't exist. At least anyone who knows God.

angelo

It truly is fascinating that some 21st century men still regards a book written mostly by ignorant bronze age goat herders as the revealed word of gawd or so-called scripture, and even more ridiculous actually live their lives by this ancient book of myths and magical thinking written by said sheep and goat herders who had no idea at all about the world around themselves, the laws of nature or anything else discovered in the last millinium or so. For goodness sake, these people had no idea why it rained, snowed or sometimes din't and drought was the result. They just believed more goats had to be sacrificed to make it rain on their crops. These were the authors of the so-called babble that some modern men still think is the word of 'god'.

Atheos

dr lazer blast, I'd like to encourage you to consider the fact that the tremendous effort your're putting forth to defend this notion of yours that the bible is 100% perfect is futile and unnecessary. Surely you understand it's not 100% perfect. It was written by human beings -- you believe they were "inspired" by God. Fine. Whoever they were, they were still human and they made mistakes. And then the people who hand copied the original texts made more mistakes. For hundreds of years more and more mistakes crept into the books through copying errors, deliberate redaction and inadvertent assimilation of marginal notes. Translation into other languages became an issue as well. Even if one assumes that the original copies were divinely 'perfect' (which is a major and unsupportable assumption) they've been soiled by too many human hands to be perfect today.

So it's not perfect. Nor is it completely harmonious as the infamous "Easter Challenge" demonstrates so effectively. If you want to take another stab at reconciling the "Easter Challenge" be my guest, but I doubt you're going to show me a rationalization I haven't seen dozens of times in the past. If you want to "wow" me, write a short narrative that includes every detail from all four (five, if you count I Cor 15:14-15) accounts of the resurrection in the order they happened. The only rule is you don't get to leave out a single detail. Can't be done. It's the textbook definition of a contradiction.

So what? Are you not aware that the vast majority of christians do not belong to a "fundamentalist" sect of christianity? That's right, there's a whole world of christians out there who are just fine with the fact that the bible is not 100% perfect and that it contains contradictory material. They still believe their God speaks to them through the bible in the same way they believe that their God speaks to them through the evangelical efforts of their friends. They listen to imperfect sermons delivered by imperfect preachers and believe that their God uses all these imperfect methods to convey his perfect will to them.

In other words they take a stand of faith, which is the same thing you're doing. It's just that the stand they take involves a viewpoint that isn't as hardened and inflexible as the one you appear to be taking. There's room for the demonstrable "human factor" in their religion.

A hardened viewpoint, like hardened steel, is the most brittle. Maybe it can take lots of stress, but rather than give a little it is destroyed if stressed too much.

I was once a fundamentalist preacher. Over a period of 16 years I occupied the pulpits of 6 different congregations of the church of Christ in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky. I took a hard line when it came to the bible. "The bible is either 100% perfect or it's 100% useless." Had I subscribed to a more liberal (or even neo-orthodox) view of what "inspiration" meant, perhaps I'd still be involved in that profession after some fashion. It was necessary for me to ignore certain obvious issues (such as the "Easter Challenge" and the absurdity of the "7 Day Creation", the "Garden of Eden", "Noah's Ark" and "Tower of Babel" origin myths) in order to keep following the path I had followed all my life. Eventually I came to the realization that I had a responsibility to study these things with an open mind or I was nothing but a hypocrite, as I often challenged people who believed in "false gods" (and false denominations of christianity) to do the same. From the moment I took the blinders off there was no going back for me.

Half-Life

http://www.tektonics.org/qt/rezrvw.html

Take a look at one of the first lines from this page:

"The major factor to recall is that which we have described here. The Gospel writers did not have unlimited paper and ink at their disposal; this was expensive stuff, and anyone who wants to question this point need to explain why it is not relevant."



OK, so, these apologists believe an almighty, omnipotent, all-knowing, timeless God created the universe from nothing. Yet, they didn't have unlimited ink or paper and it was expensive.

Don't you think God would have provided the Gospels writers with enough pen and paper to write down *****GOD'S****** stories down in a perfect way?

It seems apologists love to say their God is all-powerful, but then limit him to human power by saying the gospel writers couldn't get enough paper because it was too expensive.

Some "all-powerful" God. :rolling:

dr lazer blast

First off, I'll skip explaining the contradictions considering the fact it would be pointless, you yourself said that any explanation I'd give would be a tortured one, so why should I even bother since I am already doomed to fail in your mind.

however I do accept your challenge. Please just clarify a couple things for me? what do you mean by 'you can't skip a single detail?'

Atheos

dr lazer blast,

Is there something vague about the statement "'you can't skip a single detail"? :huh: You said you needed clarification a 'couple' of things. That's only one and it's pretty damn clear.

From Dan Barker's book, "Losing Faith In Faith: From Preacher To Atheist":
The problem here is not whether or not you can spend a few hours coming up with a resolution to the "Easter Challenge" (But I don't think you can). At issue here are two important questions:

1 - Why should you have to resolve anything? Why can't the bible just speak for itself? When I read the bible I see lots of obvious problems with internal consistency, compliance with modern knowledge of how the universe operates and downright absurd statements. Is there some "good stuff" there? Sure there is, but there's "good stuff" in the Quran, the Vedas, the book of Mormon, the Taoist traditions, the Shintu traditions, etc.

2 - What makes the bible different from the Quran, the Vedas, the book of Mormon or any other religious book? So far you've got a major "O-fer" going. You've tried "Substance", "Predictive Prophecy", "Interal consistency" and in each case it has been demonstrated that they are simple matters of taste, question begging and dilligent apologetic effort. So what if you have explanations for the obvious issues one can see with a cursory look at your favorite religious book? Can a devout Moslem not offer explanations of the issues you find with the Quran? Can a devout Hindu not offer explanations of the issues you find with the Vedas? Can a devout Mormon not offer explanations for any problems you have with "The Prophet Joseph Smith" or any of his publications?

When I read the bible I see lots of problems. When I read the Quran I see the exact same kinds of problems. No difference. Same thing with the book of Mormon.

When you understand why you dismiss all the other holy books, you'll understand why I dismiss yours.