Episode 55 - Whoops!

I am told over and over that the Bible contains errors and contradictions that make it hard to believe. I am told that the God of Christianity is a tyrant; maniacal and vindictive; looking to decimate whole civilizations at His whim. But I don't read about a God like that in Scriptures, and I don't see the errors and contradictions that seem to be rampant on every page. Why is that? Am I just willfully blind and deceived? There is a lot to be said about what we find in the Biblical text and often we find things we aren't looking for.

Transcript

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Introduction

Welcome to Teleios Talk. Thank you for listening and watching. This last month has been exciting as we have begun to release our interviews. If you haven't watched them yet I’d like to encourage you to find them on YouTube and Rumble and give them a listen.

Today I will be talking about the Bible, it’s most famous contradictions, and whether or not it contains mistakes. The American Atheists organization, founded by Madalyn Murry O’Hair, has made the statement that if the Bible were “written by a perfect being, then it must not contradict itself, as a collection of books written by different men at different times over many centuries would be expected to contradict each other.”
https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/biblical-contradictions/

I agree with this statement and it is this premise we will be discussing today.

Last month I closed the Podcast by talking about the inerrancy of Scripture. I said, the assertion that the Bible is inerrant, infallible, and authoritative is not bibliolatry, it is simply the belief that what the Bible says is true. But now we are going to flesh out the accusation that the Bible is not supernaturally perfect, is not the word of God, and is, in fact, full of errors. The reason this is important Is for a very simple reason, if the Bible contains errors, then God isn't real.

Seated in the shadow of this reasoning is something even more insidious. When challenged regarding errors, most Christians cannot defend their faith and the truth it contains; we are not prepared to give an answer. At the core of faith we must be able to proclaim what we believe, and do it with reason and understanding.

What is an error/contradiction?

It is important for us to discuss this topic from a common point of reference. We need to define what is meant by error and contradiction. An error, according to Dictionary.com is: a deviation from accuracy or correctness. A contradiction, according to the Oxford dictionary, is a person, thing, or situation in which inconsistent elements are present. 

When we hear criticisms of the Biblical text it is the errors we need to address before coming to the contradictions. The reason for this is that inconsistency is not the mark of error but an invitation to greater study and understanding. We cannot start from a point of distorted truth, so, let’s flesh this out further.  

My father-in-law worked in the Congo many years ago, and he tells the story of trying to explain ice skating to a people who had never seen ice, never mind a frozen pond or lake. This is why people can claim to see contradictions or errors in the Scriptures; they cannot comprehend the truth. Their view of truth is, itself, distorted.

We live in a society which has made the distortion of truth an art-form; so it is no wonder that challenges to the Biblical narrative arise. We see the polarization of truth in how politics are focused through a lens of bias, the application of chronological snobbery twists how we apply judgment to the source of truth, and through our personal intentions we eisegete a personal truth which intentionally dismisses negative outcomes.  

I have found the work of Soren Kierkegaard particularly useful when addressing errors in Scripture. He once wrote, “What, exactly, have the errors of exegesis and philosophy done in order to confuse Christianity, and how have they confused Christianity? Quite briefly and categorically, they have simply forced back the sphere of paradox-religion into the sphere of aesthetics, and in consequence have succeeded in bringing Christian terminology to such a pass that terms which, so long as they remain within their sphere, are qualitative categories, can be put to almost any use as clever expressions.”
[Soren Kierkegaard, “Of The Difference Between A Genius And An Apostle”, Alexander Dru translation 1962 p. 89]

He is saying that our sense of perception regarding Christianity has been confused through philosophy, reducing its paradoxes to clever expressions. The errors of exegesis and philosophy only serve one purpose, they only expound on one uncomfortable truth, That all men are fallible, manipulative, emotional beings who, above all, desire to grasp and explain the unfathomable knowledge of God.

When I was researching this, I came across an online repository of research papers which dug into contradictions found in French philosophy, Aristotelian philosophy, paraconsistent logic, and even the law of noncontradiction.

This serves the purpose of strengthening the truth claims of Scripture in two ways. First, we can see that contradictions, intentional or accidental, are a part of the human condition, so this tells us the Scriptures were penned by human authors. Secondly, in human contradiction we find the presence of errors, so if there are no errors found in Scripture then we can believe it is the Word of God even if there is the appearance of contradiction. Kierkegaard called this appearance of contradiction the sphere of paradox-religion.

In Numbers 23:19 we read, “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” We have all heard, or even used, a portion of Alexander Pope’s quote, "To err is human…" In light of Pope’s own religious thought and upbringing we can surmise he wrote this as a commentary on the nature of man versus the nature of God. 

Two things we read from this verse in Numbers stand out. It is clearly stated that God cannot lie. To lie isn’t even an option for God; it’s like trying to convince me that a man could breath underwater without gills or breathing apparatus, or that he could fly without wings or other enhancements; it isn’t in our nature, we can not do it. Again, God cannot lie. Next, what we are reading about here is the immutability of God and that His words are always true, His works are always good. "Goodness and justice are the several aspects of one unchangeable, infinitely wise, and sovereign moral perfection. God is not sometimes merciful and sometimes just, but he is eternally infinitely just and merciful."
[M.G. Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, published by Thomas Nelson, 1897. Public Domain]

Popular examples.

There are many examples of error and contradiction in the Bible which we hear about everyday. The claim is so widespread that we hear it said by many who cannot qualify what they are saying. Essentially, the claim is, itself, quickly falling into the realm of myth it supposes to assert, by its very vagueness of statement.

When engaged, these accusations include more than 800 supposed errors and contradictions. They vary from grammatical misunderstandings, to cultural articulations, to myopic scientific perspectives, and personal assumptions. To address every single accusation is beyond the scope of today’s podcast so I will focus on the one I hear most often, one I am sure you have asked yourself.

Are Christians guilty of belief in a God which is evil? Called the schizophrenic god or bi-polar god, critics of Christianity paint Him as being a vengeful, wrathful killer; as well as a lover of man. There is the assertion that a good god, the creator of heaven, could not possibly be the creator of hell as well.

Let’s explore that contradiction. The New Testament seems to paint God as loving and benevolent, whereas the Old Testament shows God as a violent psychopath beyond comprehension. And this gives rise to statements from many who are critical of what they read in Scripture.

God is often labeled as evil as well because of the suffering we face and the suffering of others. Actor Stephen Fry is well known for his challenge of God saying, “How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault. It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean minded, stupid god who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”
[https://www.rte.ie/archives/2020/0201/1110624-stephen-fry-the-meaning-of-life/]

The apologist James White had this criticism posted to his Twitter X account, in 2020, “God kills people in the Bible  Lots even. What's surprising is how many Christians try to apologize for God's behavior.”
[https://x.com/ReformedDoc/status/1809905096009863259?t=7Ta7_Io68cLE2FlMcw0Wqg&s=19]

This contradiction has come to be known as the problem of evil. What we can’t do is downplay the observations that are being made. However, we do need to look at answering one important question and that is of intention. 

Let’s look at the plagues of Egypt. We read about the plagues, and the actions leading up to them, and it becomes clear that the acts of Egyptian leaders brought on the wrath of God through the plagues. But why did the innocent have to die as well, why kill the firstborn when they were not responsible, and why did God harden Pharaoh's heart?

This reads like an act of genocide on the part of God. What was the intention of God here? My first observation is that the plague of death was preceded by 9 plagues of warning. It is Pharoah who is the leader of his people and it is the responsibility of the pharaoh to act in a way which benefits his people. Have the warnings been too vague? Have the warnings not been followed up with appropriate action? Did Pharaoh think God was joking? When we are warned to change our actions or there will be consequences then we earn those consequences when we ignore the warnings.

But, the argument states that if God hardened the heart of Pharaoh then weren't the actions of Pharaoh just coerced through the actions of God? Jewish understanding of this text shines a light which is very often overlooked or ignored. In the story of Pharaoh, God allowed the will of the Pharaoh to become more resolute, defiant, and obstinate. In popular culture we can see this in the character of Anakin Skywalker when he embraces evil and kills the young padawan. His heart is hardened as his will for evil becomes more resolute.

John J. Parsons in his article “Hardening of Heart” makes this observation, “If we find ourselves opposing God, our punishment might be prolonged through the process of hardening. This is the phenomenological aspect of our own inward rebellion. Often we are not conscious of it within ourselves, and then – when we are made conscious – we find ourselves helpless to change direction. The sages wrote, “God leads men along a path which they themselves choose. If a man wants to be good, God leads him toward goodness; if he wants to travel an evil road, God helps him do that, too.”
[https://www.hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Parashah/Summaries/Bo/Hardening/hardening.html]

Proverbs 16:9 says, “The mind of man plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.” Consider the repentance of Nineveh after God sent Jonah there as a warning, the repentance of the Babylonian Kings during the Diaspora, and the repentance of Israel during the time of Ezra. In every case it was a decision made by the leadership which came down to the people.

In response to Stephen Fry, John Lennox said, “At the heart of Christianity there is a cross, and whatever that tells you, if the central claim of Christianity is correct, that Jesus is God incarnate, then that’s God on a cross. And I ask myself, ‘What’s God doing on a cross?’ Well one thing it tells you is that God has not remained distant from the problem of human suffering, but has Himself become part of it.” “If that were the end of the story I would have nowhere to go. But it’s not the end of the story. The central evidence for the truth of Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead; and that opens up the huge possibility that ultimately justice is going to be done. And when we’re talking about ethics and morality, this, to my mind, is the most important factor in the situation, that justice is going to be done.”
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFt4cRPGI74]

The answer John Lennox gives cuts to the heart of Stephen Fry’s complaint. Ultimately he wants justice, but he wants it on his terms, he does not want an incarnate God whose justice is perfect and awesome.

James White responds to the accusation that God is an indiscriminate killer who Christians attempt to apologize for by saying, “That's because there are truly very few who have ever come to the firm conclusion, “My sin is so heinous before a Holy God He has always had the right to destroy me at any point, no questions asked.””
https://x.com/ReformedDoc/status/1809905096009863259?t=7Ta7_Io68cLE2FlMcw0Wqg&s=19

Where is God?

Why do these apparent contradictions exist? When we read our Bible, why do we seem to come across errors?

Quite simply. It shows the absence of collusion. If all witnesses in a trial described events in the exact way we would assume they had been coached, or they were outright lying.

When we find those things we determine to be errors or contradictions it should cause us to study more. We discover the nature of Scripture with Prophecy, Poetry, Historical language, Witness language, story telling, narrative, and more. We become aware of cultural context, grammatical context, historical context, and synthesis - where the reader compares what they are reading with other parts of Scripture to discover a fuller meaning

Here is something I have learned over many years of study; the person of God is discovered in the supposed errors and contradictions we come across. Instead of being a catalyst for unbelief my desire for answers has strengthened my belief. Too often the challenges of errors and contradictions in the Bible come from those who have already convinced themselves the Bible is an antiquated tome of myth; they are unwilling to hear the evidence in front of them.

Theologian Wayne Grudem wrote, “When the psalmist says, “The sum of your word is truth; and every one of your righteous ordinances endures for ever” (Psalm 119:160), he implies that God’s words are not only true individually but also viewed together as a whole. Viewed collectively, their “sum” is also “truth.” Ultimately, there is no internal contradiction either in Scripture or in God’s own thoughts.”
[Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), p. 35]

One of the most fascinating things I have discovered in the Bible are the paradoxes used to show the nature of God. It is also the paradoxes in Scripture that cause much disagreement and misunderstanding. Is the paradox of Christ a contradiction in Scripture? Could Jesus have been both fully God and fully man and yet one person? What about divine election and free will, the doctrine of the Trinity, or the invisible and visible church.

In G. K. Chesterton’s book “Orthodoxy” he talks about the paradoxes in Scripture when he writes, “For orthodox theology has specially insisted that Christ was not a being apart from God and man, like an elf, nor yet a being half human and half not, like a centaur, but both things at once and both things thoroughly, very man and very God.”
[Chesterton, G. K. G.K. Chesterton Collection 40 Works: Innocence of Father Brown, Wisdom of Father Brown, The Ball and the Cross, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Crimes of England, The Man Who Was Thursday, and MORE! (Kindle Locations 47271-47273). Doma Publishing House. Kindle Edition.]

He loved the seeming contradictions and obvious paradoxes in Scripture calling it “Truth standing on her head to gain attention.”

 Soren Kierkegaard, is known for his view that in becoming a Christian we accent to its paradoxes and offensiveness.
[Kierkegaard, Søren. Kierkegaard’s Writings, XX, Volume 20: Practice in Christianity. Edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton University Press, 1991.]

In the book “The Soul of Kierkegaard: Selections from His Journals”, He is quoted as writing, “The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo.” 
[Kierkegaard, Søren. The Soul of Kierkegaard: Selections from His Journals. United States: Dover Publications, 2012.]

God’s greatest ideas, then, are held in the paradox; something which exists, but to us is not something we can fully explore, hold, or fathom; merely an object at which we marvel and must not be allowed to lead us to frustration. Rather, it is the paradox, the destination of contradiction, which is there for our eternal desire.

Where is God in suffering, where is God when we are surrounded by evil, where is God in loneliness and despair? I believe these questions are the impulse behind the desire to find a God who “is not great”, impotent, malicious, or evil in the Bible. It is fitting to remember that even Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” in Matthew 27:46.

What happens is we hear that voice which whispers, “God doesn’t love you, if He did, would He allow these things to happen to you?” The writer of the book of Romans reminds us of this, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39)

When she was 17 years old, Joni Eareckson Tada became paralyzed from the shoulders down after an accident. She experienced anger, depression, suicidal thoughts, and religious doubts. Today, she still lives in the same state of disability but is an accomplished painter, singer, writer, and actor. Does she have a reason to hate God? Of course she does, but she responds by looking at the story of the paralyzed man in Luke 5 and has come to this realization. Forgiving sin is a lot harder than healing someone, and if God can forgive sin then why should we expect Him to heal as well? That is a tough thing to believe in a culture that only wants pleasure and happiness.

In conversation with Jordan Petersen, Robert Barron, founder of Word on Fire, said, “God is not a being but being itself.”
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZcSUNEHye30?si=Br-Y1HybJKVlzqbo

The God of Atheism, Agnosticism, and pagan understanding does not exist. So when we ascribe error and contradiction to God and His Word the statement being made is, “I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Let’s read Numbers 23:19 again, “God is not a man, that He would lie, Nor a son of man, that He would change His mind;” The Bible isn’t saying that God is better than man, it’s saying that God isn’t man. We are made in His image, He isn’t made in ours. God is the uncaused cause, He brings things into existence without the need to have been brought into existence. When we apply error to God, we err instead.

Closing

I thought I'd finish with one last quote from Soren Kierkegaard, “You wanted God's ideas about what was best for you to coincide with your ideas, but you also wanted him to be the almighty Creator of heaven and earth so that he could properly fulfill your wish. And yet, if he were to share your ideas, he would cease to be the almighty Father.”
[Søren Kierkegaard, “Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses”, Hong p. 37]

When we addressing the concerns of apparent Biblical contradictions, when we stop studying the Bible, when we start claiming that our faith is based on the writings of men and God is not involved; then we begin to twist Scripture. Consider these challenges: “Show me a verse that talks about abortion!” “The Bible is misogynistic!” “The Bible encourages slavery.” “Sexual orientation was not understood in Bible times.” The Bible isn't silent on abortion, Jeremiah 1:5, says God knows us in the womb and appoints our days. In Genesis 1 the Bible teaches women are infinitely valuable and made in God's image.

Do you know why the Christian church struggles with the demands of culture, do you know why people are leaving the faith? Because we don't care, we don't know what the Bible says; we have embrace a skewed sense of love, and we have pushed God away because He is an inconvenience. 

In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus says, ““Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”