We’re critiquing the post “Ten Principles When Considering Alleged Bible Contradictions” from Jim Wallace’s Cold Case Christianity blog. Wallace is certain that his rules will wipe that atheist smirk from our faces once we correctly evaluate Bible verses. (Principles 1–4 are critiqued here.)

Principle #5: Old Testament Quotes Aren’t Meant to be “Verbatim.”

The New Testament often quotes the Old Testament, but these quotes aren’t always perfect. Don’t worry about that—they weren’t meant to be.

The example given is a trivial one. John 19:37 gives the phrase “They will look on the one they have pierced” as fulfilling Old Testament prophecy from Zechariah 12:10, but there the phrase is slightly different: “They will look on me, the one they have pierced.” Wallace says that John never intended a verbatim quote but was simply observing that the prophecy was fulfilled.

Rather surprisingly, Wallace has no problem dropping the claim of biblical inerrancy. It’s good that we agree that God didn’t guide anyone’s hand—either that of the original author or a copyist.

But let’s pursue this. We need to follow principle #2, “Examine the Text in Its Context.” So Zechariah is referring to Jesus as “the one they have pierced”? Continue reading beyond that verse and you see that “on that day” all the inhabitants of Jerusalem will greatly lament this injury. But in the gospels, only the tiny band of Jesus followers even noticed the death of Jesus. No, Zechariah is obviously not a prophecy of the gospel story.

And is that the best example of sloppy quoting from the Old Testament? Here’s a fun one: Matthew says that the resolution of what to do with the 30 pieces of silver, the “blood money” that Judas threw at the priests, was foretold: “Then what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled” (Matthew 27:9–10). But the 30 pieces of silver wasn’t a reference to Jeremiah but Zechariah 11:12–13.

Worse, the Zechariah passage is no prophecy. Say that Matthew was inspired by Zechariah if you want, but it certainly gives no fulfilled prophecy. I wonder how Wallace tap dances away from this one.

Principle #6: Perspectives Are Different Than Contradictions.

The Bible sometimes documents the same event more than once, and these descriptions don’t always match up. But real witnesses don’t describe an event the same way, and you don’t want collusion. Don’t confuse a different perspective with an error.

Wallace tackles a difficult contradiction, the two versions of the death of Judas. Acts 1:18–19 says that (1) Judas bought a field with his 30 pieces of silver. There, (2) he died from a fall. (3) The field was called “Field of Blood” because of this death.

But Matthew 27:4–8 has a very different story. Let’s enumerate the differences. Judas (1) returned the money to the priests. Then (2) he hanged himself. Next, (1) the priests declared the money tainted as (3) blood money, and they used it to buy a field. (3) The field was called “Field of Blood” because of the tainted money.

The stories differ in (1) who spent the money on the field, (2) how Judas died, and (3) the origin of the name “Field of Blood.”

(And don’t get me started about what Papias said about how Judas died.)

Wallace wants to realign the facts so that both accounts are accurate. He makes clear his bias by stating that if the facts can be reinterpreted to preserve the claim of Bible accuracy, they should be.

Here’s his amalgam story. First, Judas returned the money. The priests took it and bought the field—that is, they bought the field with his money. Later, Judas hanged himself, and (whaddya know?) it was in that very field. After he was dead, he fell “and all his intestines spilled out.”

Let’s catch our breath after that impressive bit of gymnastics. It covers most of the bases, though Acts makes clear that the field belonged to Judas and that the fall killed him. There is also no resolution of the source of the name for the field. Most important, though, it’s hard to imagine two writers agreeing on Wallace’s version of the story but then going off and writing such contradictory accounts.

I’ll grant that Wallace has done a fair job in making a composite account from which the Matthew and Acts accounts could come, but it’s still special pleading. The more plausible explanation is two separate, incompatible accounts.

Principle #7: Consider the Viewpoint of “Earthbound” People.

Sure, the Bible sometimes has primitive language to explain natural phenomena, but this isn’t because it was written by primitive people but because it was written for primitive people.

Isaiah 11:12 refers to the “four quarters [or corners] of the earth.” Does this show that the Bible authors thought that the earth is flat? No, Wallace says that this is just an expression—indeed, an expression that we still use. Even today, we say that the sun “comes up,” even though that would demand a geocentric solar system if it were literally true.

I’ll grant that the Bible’s primitive view of science doesn’t prove that an omniscient God didn’t inspire the book—but that’s sure where the clues point. We would expect people 3000 years ago to think that the earth was flat, and every clue in the Bible relevant to this question supports this assumption. There are no hints in the Bible that its ancient authors knew any more about science than their neighbors.

All Wallace is left with is, “Well, you haven’t proven the Bible wrong.” That’s true but irrelevant. It’s his job to show evidence that the Bible is right.

Concluded in part 3.

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(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 3/10/15.)

Image from Cindy See, CC license

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Let’s conclude our look at the tactics Christian apologists use to respond to embarrassments in the Bible and Christianity. How well do they work? Let’s find out. (Part 1 here.)

Tactic 7: Contradictions? That’s a Good Thing!

Some Christians respond to contradictions within the Gospels by saying that that’s actually a good thing, because if they were identical, we’d suspect collusion. A few inconsistencies are the hallmark of honest eyewitness accounts. Jim Wallace of the Cold-Case Christianity ministry was a detective and used his reputation to give this tactic credibility.

But by making two categories indistinguishable, this creates a new problem. Category one is what they’re referring to, accounts that are honest attempts at accurate reporting with inadvertent errors or different editorial choices. Category two has accounts that aren’t bound by what actually happened but are written with a religious agenda. How do we know which bin to put a contradiction into?

Here’s an example. The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) have the Last Supper as the Passover meal, so Jesus is crucified after the Passover meal. John has the Last Supper one day earlier so that Jesus is crucified before the Passover meal. With this change, John can make a deliberate parallel between the unblemished lambs being killed for Passover concurrent with the death of the perfect Lamb of God. Maybe that’s just how things worked out . . . or maybe John, the last gospel, deliberately changed the tradition to make that theological parallel.

This tactic mixes the two categories, and agenda-drive theology hides behind the skirts of history. Honest seekers would want those to be as distinct as possible.

Tactic 8: They’re both right

I used to be impressed when Christians would come up with some rationalization for a Bible problem, but I’ve seen it so often that now I just expect it. After all, the Church has had 2000 years to hear the problems and think up answers.

This tactic attempts to directly rebut the problem. Did Jesus heal two blind men near Jericho (Matthew) or just one (Mark and Luke)? Both are correct. Did Sennacherib attack Judah in the third year of Hoshea’s reign (2 Kings 18:1) or the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign (2 Kings 18:13)? Both are correct. Was Jacob buried in Shechem (Acts 7:15–16) or near Mamre (Genesis 50:13)? Pick a contradiction, and this tactic will argue that they’re both right.

I’m sure that a few of the Bible’s many contradictions can be resolved this way, but I’m skeptical that this tactic works everywhere it’s applied.

Tactic 9: Patience

This tactic tells us that some things in the Bible are confusing and that we’ll just have to wait until we get to heaven to understand them. For example, the Christian might explain away Christianity’s inability to make sense of the Trinity by calling it a divine mystery. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God.”

But if the Trinity can’t be explained so that we understand it, don’t bring it up. What sense does it make to present mysteries when the purpose of the Bible and Christianity are to educate us here, not in heaven?

(As an aside, it is extraordinary to see Christians who, in one breath, humbly admit that they don’t understand the mind of God then, in the next breath, suddenly regain their confidence and proclaim God’s very clear views on homosexuality, abortion, or some other social issue.)

Conclusion

Search Amazon for “Bible contradictions.” Half of the books will explore those contradictions from a skeptical standpoint, but the rest will pat you on the head and assure you that those contradictions don’t exist or aren’t important. Popular books defending the Bible include The Big Book of Bible Difficulties, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, and Demolishing Supposed Bible Contradictions. With titles like these, at least we’re in agreement that the Bible has many problematic passages.

While the contradictions might turn potential converts away, the contradictions can actually be a plus. They make the Bible malleable. You can emphasize some verses and ignore others to create one message and then change the mix as social conditions change. When slavery is fashionable, the Bible supports it, and when slavery becomes unpopular, the Bible supports that position as well. God is merciful or strict; God is loving or violent; God is forgiving or demanding—it’s all in there. (More.)

God becomes the Christian’s sock puppet, mouthing what the Christian wants to hear while speaking with the authority of the Bible.

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Let’s continue our look at the ways Christian apologists respond to embarrassments in the Bible and Christianity and see how well they work. (Part 1 here.)

Tactic 3: God put them there on purpose

Let’s start with a palate cleanser and hear from “Dr.” Kent Hovind (whose “doctoral dissertation” memorably opened with the line, “Hello, my name is Kent Hovind”). Hovind admits that, yes, there are contradictions in the Bible, but don’t worry about them because God put them there on purpose. According to Hovind’s thinking, the contradictions are there to throw off those who aren’t serious. Let those people become atheists and leave the flock with stronger believers.

Or something.

Tactic 4: Things were different back then

Slavery was always wrong, y’see, but God needed to work within the social context of the Israelites 3000 years ago. And that’s also true for genocide. And human sacrifice. God knew they were wrong, of course, but he needed to ease the Israelites into this new thinking.

This creates the Janus Bible, a Bible that doesn’t tell you the unchanging, difficult moral truth whether it suits you or not but a Bible that looks forward and backward at the same time. Or maybe it’s the Quantum Bible, the superposition of moral rightness and moral evil at the same time.

If God was working within the context of those social customs, why did he impose the Ten Commandments and the hundreds of other laws in the Old Testament with no grace period? And if he could impose prohibitions against murder, lying, and stealing in an instant, why not add prohibitions against slavery, human sacrifice, and genocide?

Do the Bible’s archaic customs sound like a god easing in a new policy, or do they just sound like the Bronze Age thinking that was popular back then? And what happens to the claim of objective morality, moral truths that are unchanging through time? If “slavery is wrong” is objectively true, then the Old Testament shows God dictating a flawed morality.

No, “things were different back then” or “God’s hands were tied” don’t help when God is omnipotent. The ancient Israelites had our brains and could’ve understood modern morality as well as we do.

The Bible can’t be timeless and stuck in the past at the same time.

Tactic 5: Use context selectively

The Stand to Reason ministry has some surprising Bible advice: “Never read a Bible verse.” What they mean is, never read just a Bible verse but use the context of its paragraph or chapter to understand it correctly.

That’s a good step, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough. The maxim should read: Never quote a Bible verse until you know that its point isn’t challenged anywhere else in the Bible. (More.)

The Bible is a big book, and you can find just about everything in it. God hates the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt, but he later establishes the rules for how to do it properly to other people in Israel. God knows everything, but he had to send scouts to Sodom to learn what was going on. Good comes from God, but so does evil.

The lesson here is to reject the maxim about a Bible-wide context, keep one’s outlook confined, and ignore the verses that contradict your message.

Tactic 6: “Interpret difficult passages in the light of clear ones”

By this, the Christian means that embarrassing passages like God’s support for human sacrifice or slavery should be subordinate to passages that reject human sacrifice or emphasize God’s love. So the distinction actually isn’t difficult vs. clear passages but rather embarrassing vs. pleasing. That every clash of passages always gives a result that preserves the Christian position is a clue that this isn’t an honest following of the evidence.

The Muslim rule of abrogation neatly sidesteps any contradictions in the Quran, but (like me) Christians are quick to wonder how the Prophet could get something wrong (even if it’s overruled with the correct message later) when he was basically taking dictation from an angel. With tactic 6, Christians bring the same challenge on themselves. Their job is easier—just pick the verse(s) that you like and handwave some rationalization for why you can overrule the competing verse(s)—but problems remain. They’ve opened the door for every Christian to make their own personal evaluation for which verses to keep, and, like the Muslims, they’ve admitted that the Bible is contradictory.

Here’s a clear declaration of this philosophy from the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978):

The truthfulness of Scripture is not negated by the appearance in it of . . . seeming discrepancies between one passage and another. . . . Solution of [apparent inconsistencies], where this can be convincingly achieved, will encourage our faith, and where for the present no convincing solution is at hand we shall significantly honor God by trusting His assurance that His Word is true, despite these appearances.

So it’s head’s I win; tails I don’t lose. That’s a bold and surprisingly candid statement that they don’t care about evidence. (I explore this tactic in detail here; also here and here.)

Concluded in part 3.

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Image from Bring Back Words, CC license
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I’ve written about the Bible’s confused relationship with science and have explored Bible contradictions with a Top 20 list of the most embarrassing. Now let’s look at how Christian apologists respond to Bible contradictions and similar embarrassments.

The perfect message of an infallible god has a lot more contradictions than you’d expect. Was John the Baptist the reincarnated Elijah? Yes (Matthew 17:10–13) and no (John 1:19–21). How many donkeys did Jesus ride on Palm Sunday—one (Mark 11:7) or two (Matthew 21:7)? Who killed Goliath—David (1 Samuel 17:50) or Elhanan (2 Samuel 21:19)?

You won’t be surprised that Christians have a lot of tactics with which to resolve awkward questions like these. Let’s review some of them and see how they hold up.

Tactic 1: Technically, it’s not a contradiction

This excuse splits hairs about the word “contradiction.” A contradiction, they’ll say, is a sentence X that clashes with a sentence not-X, and nothing less precise will do. The two statements must directly and unambiguously contradict each other.

They might apply this to the number of women at the empty tomb. Each gospel identifies a different number of women. For example, John says that it was Mary Magdalene, but Luke says Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James “and the other women.” Apologists will defend the Bible by saying that John didn’t say Mary and only Mary was there, so it’s not a contradiction—at least not technically.

This approach might work if the question of women at the tomb were the only problem, but there’s much more than that. And, of course, apologists always resolve the contradiction in favor of their conclusion, which is a supernatural fantasy that is about as far-fetched as it is possible to be. (More “apparent” contradictions in the four resurrection accounts here.)

While you’re haggling with them over the definition of “contradiction,” the Bible problem is ignored, which they count as a win.

What does “contradiction” mean?

To remember how we evaluate contradictions in everyday life, suppose you’re a newspaper editor. Matthew and Luke have been assigned to the Jesus beat—this is such an important story that you want two journalists working on independent articles—and they drop off their stories (their respective gospels) on your desk. How satisfied would you be?

Not very. You’d call them back and tell them to try again. This isn’t merely Luke having the Parable of the Prodigal Son but Matthew omitting it, and Matthew having the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant but Luke omitting it. Space is limited, and those editorial decisions are understandable, but it’s more than that. Did wise men visit the baby Jesus, or was it shepherds? Was Jesus whisked off to Egypt for his protection or not? Did the dead rise at the crucifixion, who first witnessed the empty tomb, and how many angels were at the tomb? Matthew and Luke disagree on each of these and more. In common parlance, these are contradictions. Relabel the problem if you want, but don’t dismiss it.

We could debate how essential these story elements are (very essential for the flight to Egypt and less so for the shepherds), but with enough of these differences, the stories become unreliable—both of them.

Tactic 2: Use or discard evidence based on whether you like where it points

Here’s an example of an apologist wanting to have it both ways, inconsistently using contradictory information as it suits his agenda. After accepting that Jesus spent two years in Egypt (a claim given only in Matthew) but dismissing the idea that he also visited India, Greg Koukl concluded:

The record that we have of Jesus’ life indicates that he was there [in Israel] for his entire life except for that brief sojourn in Egypt, which is recorded. (@ 23:44)

Let me illustrate the problem with an imagined dialogue:

Bob: Why say that Jesus went to Egypt? Matthew is the only one with that. Luke has a birth narrative, but it doesn’t mention Egypt. If the flight to Egypt actually happened, it’s hard to imagine Luke omitting that.

Greg: Luke doesn’t say, “And by the way, Jesus never went to Egypt.” Luke apparently pared down his narrative, and the Egypt journey was cut. This was an editorial choice, not a contradiction.

Bob: Luke also doesn’t say, “And by the way, Jesus never went to India.” So maybe he did.

Greg: We have a record of his life before his adult ministry in two of the gospels. There’s no mention of India, so we have no reason to consider it.

The problem here is that you can’t ignore the omission of Egypt and then point to the omission of India as important evidence.

To be clear, I’m not saying that there’s strong evidence that Jesus went to India. I doubt there is, and support for such a hypothesis would need to be put forward with data from outside the New Testament. But you must be consistent—don’t decide whether to ignore or highlight an omission in your holy book based on whether it will support your conclusion.

Continued in part 2.

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Image from Jenni Jones, CC license
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