God’s Truth
Contradictions in the Bible
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Sunday, July 25, 1999
Notice on the Cross
The good Dr Phibber gives us a few examples of words used today in a surprising sense to illustrate that we might not always fully understand the meaning of a biblical word. When we do understand it then quite often an apparent contradiction will be cleared. Fine, say I, but what then of the honesty of a God who has let millions of his followers labour under delusions for centuries. When we eventually prove that the miracle of a virgin giving birth was not a miracle at all but a false interpretation of an ancient word our tutor will mourn the passing of a beloved miracle but will gloat that nevertheless the bible is once again proved to be true. Funny old world, this world of God’s Truth.
Anyway, our guide invites us to look at contradictions in the gospels and begins with the wording of the notice on the cross in all four gospels, no two of which agree. Well, the disagreements do not bother me, but perhaps they bother those who believe that the Christian bible is infallible. All four gospels agree anyway that the inscription said “the king of the Jews” and I think it likely that this is just what it said. Pilate or the Roman soldiers handling the hanging could not have cared less what the victim’s name was nor where he came from. He was being hung as an example to the Jews not to go around claiming to be a king. If they did, they could expect this punishment whoever they were and wherever they came from.
Phibber, though, has to explain it to prove that the bible is infallible. His reason for the discrepancy is that three notices were put up not one—they were in different languages Hebrew, Greek and Latin and because the inscriptions differed we get different translations in the different gospels. It is John’s gospel that tells us that several inscriptions were used and, since John’s is the last gospel, it looks almost as though it is an explanation of the differing inscriptions in the other three. John then adds “of Nazareth” to his version of the inscription just to further complicate matters. The problem is, of course, that when John has the opportunity to make it clear that the inscriptions differed, he does not. He implies that all of them said, “Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews”. Still, who cares?
Infancy
Phibber takes us back to Jesus’s infancy. Where did he go after all the kerfuffle at his birth? Matthew says Egypt—Luke says Nazareth. Phibber has a simple explanation. The Joseph family went to Bethlehem from Nazareth to be counted. Jesus was born and, after visits by shepherds, the family returned to Nazareth as Luke tells us via Jerusalem where they gave offerings in the Temple.
Meanwhile, on the day of the birth, a long way away the Wise Men see a star and begin to follow it. By the time they find it hovering over Bethlehem, Phibber tells us as much as two years has passed because Herod was prepared to murder all young children up to two years of age and Matthew describes Jesus as a “young child”.
But wait! Surely the Joseph family have been in Nazareth for all this time. Ah! Yes. But they had come back to Bethlehem for some unknown reason, postulates our teacher, were now staying in a house not a stable and were there just in time for the arrival of the Wise Men. When Herod heard of this he saw red, but fortunately the Joseph family were warned and ran away to Egypt. Later they went back to Nazareth again.
So there we have it. Both gospels are true as long as you believe the Josephs went to visit their fellow descendants of king David in Bethlehem every Christmas! In such ways are legends created. The earliest gospel, Mark’s, tells us nothing about all this. The final gospel, John’s, perhaps assumes we know all about it and don’t want to hear it all again. The middle two tell us two different stories. Finally, Phibber and his ilk make the story even more elaborate to give it its missing coherence.
Well I don’t believe it, and I don’t think Matthew did either. In Matthew 2:1, he writes quite clearly:
Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold wise men from the east came to Jerusalem.
Matthew does not say they arrived two years later but “when he was born”. Is our mentor seriously telling us that this heavenly fixer, the Holy Ghost, is so inept that he forgot to get the star moving in time so that, instead of arriving at Jesus’s birth, it arrived two years later and, consequently, the poor Joseph family had to get back down to Bethlehem a second time to meet them. The absurd explanation actually destroys any coherence in the tale. Still, it’s God’s Truth.
Our guide belittles the Holy Ghost again by saying that the bible is full of Hebrew idioms which are lost on us English. That twit, the Holy Ghost, has been slacking again. He puts a lot of effort into getting God’s word written down by a load of apostles that he inspires and then forgets to inspire the translators. Poor show! Won’t do! HG! You are the weakest link! You’re fired!
Wrongly Quoted
Now Phibber moves on to explain to us why the New Testament fails to quote the Old Testament accurately—not the sort of thing one expects of a God given work, but just the sort of thing that would arise in a man-made work for a variety of reasons, including translating quotations differently.
He explains that some of them were deliberately misquoted to bring out a theological point or to revise a meaning in the light of the new religion. We are told that we would not do it in that way but would quote the passage then explain it. This, of course, is precisely what the rabbis did and quite possibly what Jesus did too. It is difficult to believe that the scriptures were held in such awe as holy books and yet could be freely rendered to mean whatever suited the apostles, but no doubt it happened.
The question is “Should the Holy Ghost have allowed it if, indeed, the words were supposed to be sacrosanct?”. No doubt Phibber will tell us that God can do as he likes and, I suppose, we have to agree but he is giving us a strange idea of honesty and providing us with a weird role model. That, though, appears to be God’s Truth.
To further illustrate the point Phibber refers to Romans 10:18 where Paul quotes Psalms 19:4 to prove that the message of the preachers of his new religion had been heard by the nations just as the firmament above “speaks” to the whole world of the glory of God. For most of us, Paul included, this is perfectly good as a metaphor, but Phibber, being a fundamentalist, has to see literal truth and not metaphoric truth—though the latter suits him quite often.
The metaphor is literally true because the second part of Psalms 19 refers to the “word of God” making it clear that the metaphor is God’s and therefore is true. However when you refer to the psalm to check this point you find God’s Truth at work because the second part of the psalm is a hymn to the benefits of God’s law—the law of Moses in other words—the law that Jesus, according to Christians, is supposed to have repealed. Perhaps the Mosaic law is God’s word because Jesus announces that he will alter not one jot or tittle of it—then proceeds to do so, so it is not exactly God’s word!
You can only assume that Phibber does not mean us to look up the biblical references that he gives us because, so often when we do, we find his interpretation is utter nonsense. It demonstrates the dishonesty of these fundamentalist apologists all too clearly, and the fact that they depend on their sheep remaining sheep. It is only be all right to look at these references when you have been indoctrinated into believing that the truth is false and that falseness is truth. Then you are a true Christian.
Points of View
Phibber now tells us that differences between the gospels depend only on points of view. Mark was written for Romans, Matthew for Jews, Luke for Greeks and John was written to bring out the inner meaning of it all. This might all be true but does not tell us much. Phibber specifically tells us that when Matthew says the Jews shouted to Jesus, “Hosannah,” they meant “Save us”, the correct meaning of the Aramaic word “Osanna”, but, for the Greeks, Luke translates it “Glory” which, Phibber tells us, was what “Hosannah” meant to the Greeks.
Someone who believed in truth as opposed to God’s variety of it would say that it is not true to say that “Save us” means “Glory” however you look at it.
The Jews did indeed shout “Osanna” to Jesus as he entered Jerusalem on a “foal and the colt of a foal” because he was announcing that he was the king of the prophet Zechariah who would cast out the foreigner and free the Jews from foreign rule. Thus to shout “Save us” or “Free us” as it might be better translated in this context was quite natural. “Save us” is “Save us” to a Greek just as it is to a Jew even though their words might be different. It is not “Glory”.
Finally, Phibber tells us that contradictions in the bible are often explained elsewhere in it. In Leviticus 26:44, God declares that he will not utterly destroy the Israelites even though they disobeyed him. However, in Deuteronomy 28:20, God tells the poor Israelites that He will destroy them—for disobeying Him! Phibber says Amos settles it all by explaining (Amos 9:8) that the sinful kingdom will be destroyed but the House of Jacob would not be utterly destroyed. Apparently, God is implying that only a single person would survive because He addressed the people as “thou” throughout Deuteronomy. Too subtle! Phibber missed it.
It all refers to the capture of the Israelites by foreign enemies and this is clear in the context of the quotations, so Amos is not really needed to explain it. If our Phibber were such a bible scholar, why did he not read the few verses preceding Leviticus 26:44, where God makes it clear that, though the whole of Israel be scattered and encaptured, those few who, in their enemies’ lands, confess their iniquity will be remembered by their God.
In the passages in Deuteronomy, God seems more emphatic adding after 28:20 that he would destroy the Israelites at 28:45 and at 28:63. However, at 28:62, God has already said that they would be few in number, and, at 28:64, he says that they shall be scattered. So even here there is no need of Amos for it to be clear that a remnant would survive. Phibber seems to be seeking wonders when they do not exist.
After all this, Phibber admits a biblical error! A copyist’s error in the infallible book! The passages are 2 Samuel 8:13 and 1 Chronicles 18:12. One refers to Syria and the other to Edom in passages that are otherwise identifiably the same—1 and 2 Chronicles together are an alternative rendering of part of the mainstream scripture. The explanation is that Edom and Syria in Hebrew look similar and here have obviously been confused in one or other of the passages. For Phibber, it is a tiny inconsequential slip. But it is one that utterly defeats everything he has been arguing about the Holy Ghost overlooking the propagation of God’s word.
