aa5874

I don't know if these are contradictions, fiction or inconsistencies but can you explain if Jesus pre-existed as the Word and was with God and was God , how did he become flesh and was called the Son of the same God that he was with and whom he was, as stated in John 1?

And is this a contradiction, fiction, an error or what?

Again in John, Jesus pre-existed as the Word, the Word was God, the Word became flesh, the Word was crucified in the flesh, did the Word die? Did God die? What happened?

elevator

I think the point is that the bible has ambiguous, incoherent and inconsistent passages. There are plenty of websites and literature that lists these contradictions and inconsistencies and it is up to the reader to further examine them and to decide to what extent such inconsistencies would challenge their faith (or question the authority of the biblical text). As far as I am concerned, I can not justify the bible as being neither divinely authored nor divinely inspired based on its content, but I do make the observation that many many people can.

thentian

I like to ask inerrantists if they believe the OT story about Jonah is literally true. Did Jonah live for three days and three nights inside a "great fish"? If they say he did, then I'll just shake my head and walk away, because there is no sense arguing about anything with people who can make themselves believe things like that.

Cheers!

fast

Just to test my memory on this. I went to the store at 3:00 and I went to the bank at 3:00 are contraries, but I went to the store at 3:00 and I didn't go to the store at 3:00 is a contradiction. Right?

Doug Shaver

Strictly speaking, as the terms are used by logicians, your memory is correct. Two statements are contrary if they cannot be both true but could be both false. They are contradictory if they can be neither both true nor both false.

fast

Thanks

mike.davis

In order to educate the public about the many contradictions in the Bible, we cannot get hung up on arcane distinctions such as contradictions vs. contraries vs. difficulties. This is the atheist equivalent of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. And no one outside a narrow circle cares. When Jesus says "I and my father are one," (John 10:30) and "My father is greater than I," (John 14:28) that is a contradiction in any common sense definition of the term. If the Bible were a mathematical treatise you could strictly apply the rules of formal logic, but it is a literary work, and requires a different approach. Here's another example that is not a contradiction in the logical sense but is clearly "off message" in relation to mainstream Christian teaching: Jesus says there has been no one born of woman that is greater than John the Baptist (Matthew 11:11). But Jesus himself was born of a woman (Galatians 4:4). Therefore, Jesus was no greater than John the Baptist. So how could he be a god? Difficulties such as these are very awkward for the Christians to explain, but more importantly, if these and similar examples become more widely known to the general public (at least the open-minded portion of it) the superstition can be contained within current boundaries. So my point is, don't get lost in arcane logical niceties - learn the Bible and become familiar with the contradictions, so you can make persuasive common-sense arguments to folks who don't spend all their time studying this subject.

Reason

If this isn't already a sticky somewhere, it should be. :thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:

thedistillers

I don't see the contradiction "I and my father are one" can mean so many things. :huh:

aa5874

Well, didn't you see that one of the meanings is a contradiction?

And from John 1.1&13