ExChristian8

After reviewing several sites concerning the "explanations" for contradictions in the Bible, I am not sure that Biblical apologist would ever be able to spot a contradiction in any text given the way they interpret Biblical contradictions. I am referring to the methodology used to harmonize the passages. For instance, concerning the contradictory accounts of the death of Judas, many apologist would explain that possibly Judas tried to hang himself (mat. 27:5), did a terrible job, and fell head first killing himself as the second passage says (Acts 1:18). That would be like me saying that someone died of cancer. Then another says that the person died of a car accident. I would guess a Biblical apologist would respond that the person passed out because of cancer-related complications while driving, crashed his car and died. That is an explanation but is surely reading into things despite any evidence. I think a more sensible answer would be that probably one of the accounts are incorrect rather than crafting such a creative harmonization. The point I am making is any contradiction can be cleared up through making unjustified assumptions of what the writer either left out or really meant. The question is then, what would a Christian, who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, consider a contradiction? I would dare say that just about any contradictory statement or text can be cleared up through these generous methods.

RUmike

This really is an excellent point, and I liked your "modern" example to help demonstrate how absurd apologists can be. Christians may have a hard time answering your question, or will most likely avoid it. Read in the same light that a fundamentalist/literalist reads the Bible, any and every religious text can be considered inerrant and perfect.

Doug Shaver

Those methods generally rely on the fallacy of begging the question to "prove" the harmonization. It works like this.

Skeptic: Passage A in the Bible states X. Passage B states Y, and Y implies not-X. That is a contradiction between A and B.

Inerrantist: Not really. Passage B may be interpreted as meaning Z, and Z is consistent with X. Therefore, there is no contradiction.

The question then becomes whether it is reasonable to suppose that the writer of B meant Z rather than Y. An assumption of inerrancy obviously forces the supposition. IF the Bible is inerrant, THEN the writer of B certainly must have meant Z instead of Y, but this is not a proof of noncontradiction. It is only an example of how if you assume your conclusion, nobody can prove you wrong.

ExChristian8

Begging the question does seem to be the common denominator to the literalistic interpretations. It is not only limited to defending Biblical contradictions, but also to failed prophecies, or even prophecies they pro-actively used as proof. I am not as annoyed nor surprised by the Fundamentalist's use of creatively reading in the text to harmonize, but by their insistence that atheist and skeptic's claims of Biblical errancy are totally unfounded.

Steven Carr

There is a good Biblical principle

Mark 14
57 Then some stood up and gave this false testimony against him: 58 "We heard him say, 'I will destroy this man-made temple and in three days will build another, not made by man.' " 59 Yet even then their testimony did not agree.

So witnesses are discredited if they agree on the main points, yet disagree on the details.

This is a fact well known to any prosecuting lawyer.

Steven Avery

Your point is worthy of careful consideration.

On the example you give, sadly, I know of a recent situation that is actually far more of an analogy than the example you give. An asthma attack and a car accident could both be mentioned, depending on context or viewpoint, in the description of the man's death. That is of course easier to see as a possibility than your example. Similarly heart attacks and car accidents often occur in the same event.

In the example you give there is a similar relationship which comes out clearer in some of the articles -

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/143
How Did Judas Actually Kill Himself? by Joe Deweese and Brad Harrub, Ph.D.

Remember, even on its own the Acts account is unusual, and the following has been oft-critiqued --

"and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out." ..

What type of force would be necessary for this ? Apparently the most sensible answer is a decomposing body, and one that takes a "hit". And this is an aspect that makes the accounts complementary and supplementary rather than contradictory.

Now one may wonder if the body would decompose sufficiently in a number of days. Brad Harrub's credentials to speak on that are reasonably good.

So since the two stories have a major complementary element, the attempted analogy loses all force.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Julian

Since prax has done us the favor of showing us just how accurate the OP was, I shall refrain from comment.

I will say that religious aplogetics are simple to explain.

1) The bible is inerrant.
2) If a contradiction or error is discovered anything can be added (not taken away) or re-interpreted to explain the error. Go to 1.

Since the bible is inerrant then clearly no contradictions or errors can exist. Any seeming error is a lack of understanding on the readers part, it must be.

Julian

Steven Avery

I'm happy to hear and consider the conceptual issues about apologetics.

Similarly I was looking for one skeptic who would acknowledge that modern "scientific" concepts of the criticisms creates an errant text which it then uses what it creates for its claims. And that the criticisms could never recognize an inerrant text. Skeptic folks so far have simply refused to touch that.

And the Judas situation is in a sense the edgiest one that I know of, since it turns around very clear and unusual physical claims that are not alex text blunders (often other such ones, like the geography of Gerash, are not in the historic Bible).

However it is right for me to point out that there was a major flaw in the analogy in the OP, since it ignored the complementary aspect. That should at least be recognized. The unusualness of the Acts account would be easier to criticize, except that it complements very nicely the Matthew account. Everything is a smidgen special and unusual, yet it all fits together.

One can almost see a divine providence in the production of such books, where eyes of faith see and are gladdened by the complementary aspect, while hermeneutics of suspicion try instead to dissect how the text got through various processing, while glossing over the complementarity.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

ExChristian8

Praxeus, I understand that apologist have attempted to harmonize these two passages concerning Judas' death but given the details in Acts 1:18, there is more creativity yet to be revealed. As you know, Acts 1:18 says that Judas fell headlong or head first. It is pretty difficult to imagine a motionless body hanging from a tree or other structure landing anyway but feet first. The apologist's interpretation seems forced and unnatural.

Steven Avery

Check both the meanings of headlong in English and prenes in the Greek. Your point is well taken, but does not apply.