Inconsistencies in the Bible: Encyclopedia - Inconsistencies in the Bible

Inconsistencies in the Bible

Some religions believe that the Bible was inspired or received in singular events. Many historians who have analysed the Hebrew Bible and New Testament believe they were written over a long period of time. In addition, various religions assign varying degrees of inerrancy to these Scriptures. Because of this, inconsistencies alleged to be found within the Bible take on an importance in ecumenical and apologetic discussions. Those believing in Scriptural inerrancy sometimes refer to these issues as "difficulties"; some believe they were deliberately placed by God, perhaps to test people's faith.

Various explanations are provided for these issues. Advocates of Biblical inerrancy hold that they are not, in fact, inconsistencies and that the claims that they are, are often the result of insufficient exegesis, since Bible scholarship is a multidisciplinary endeavor (requiring knowledge of language, cultural differences, historiography, etc). For example, scholars who advocate Biblical inerrancy say the text must be interpreted in its true context, and some look for ways to reconcile different texts that allow the Bible to read without contradictions. Alternatively, scholars who analyse stories, myths, and ancient documents interpret many of the apparent inconsistencies as intentional storytelling devices to teach lessons by example.

The Roman Catholic Christian view (especially since the Second Vatican Council) holds that the inerrancy of the Bible is limited to the things that God intended to reveal. The highlighted issues are then deemed not to belong to this group of teachings, or are examples of figurative language and/or allegory. The Jewish view is that such issues may be reconciled by reference to other Biblical verses, or oral teachings. On the other hand, others often see these alleged inconsistencies as evidence that the Bible is a human-written book of no special divine origin.

Inconsistencies in the Bible - Difficulties in evaluating inconsistencies

Besides the major philosophical/theological differences brought about by different views of Biblical inerrancy and different religions, there are many other factors that may make what is an "inconsistency" to one reader seem perfectly acceptable and unproblematic to another. An inconsistency is considered here to be two statements in the Bible that cannot be true at the same time.

As there is not complete agreement among believers as to which books form the Biblical canon, some alleged inconsistencies will simply not exist for some observers, as they do not consider the particular books containing them as belonging to Scripture. Problems of translation can also cause problems that may be perceived as inconsistencies. However, the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states that inerrancy applies only to the original languages, not necessarily copies or translations.

Further, failure to understand the culture of the peoples of the Bible may also cause certain passages to appear inconsistent to a modern reader, when an ancient reader never would have noticed a problem. Hebrew "slaves" were very different from African "slaves" in the New World, even though the same English word is used for both. Most biblical "slavery" is closer to what we would now call indentured servitude[1], although the Old Testament, as well as passages in the New Testament, state that slaves were the property of their owners, assigning values to types of slaves and examples of punishments.

Some alleged inconsistencies might be better termed "incomplete information". When Cain is banished, he is worried that someone might kill him, yet according to the people explicitly mentioned in the Bible, only his mother and father are alive and do not seem inclined to murder him. For some this would be taken as evidence of inconsistency in the Biblical narrative. Others point to the "other sons and daughters" that Adam and Eve had in Gen 5:4, which does not state when they were born.[2]

In the following sections, several major groups of alleged inconsistencies in the narrative will be discussed, together with explanations for why some persons see no inconsistency in the matter.

Inconsistencies in the Bible - Within the Torah

In several places in the Torah, there is what seems to be duplication, and in some cases triplication, of several passages and sometimes whole stories. During the narrative of the exodus of the Israelites, water is produced from a rock on two occasions, the ten commandments are given twice, there are two censuses, and an extensive law code is given twice involving two similar lists of forbidden sexual relations, or three times if the Covenant Code is counted.

In Genesis, Abraham goes to the home of a significant foreigner, claims his wife is actually his sister, the foreigner believes him, takes Abraham's wife to bed, and is then somehow informed that the woman is actually Abraham's wife, leading to the foreigner apologising and giving Abraham a form of remuneration. In one case the foreigner's name is Abimelech, a name shared by a foreigner to whom Abraham's son Isaac goes, claims his wife is his sister, the foreigner believes him, takes Isaac's wife to bed, and is then somehow informed that the woman is actually Isaac's wife, leading to the foreigner apologising and giving Isaac a form of remuneration.

Of particular concern to Creationists is the account of creation. Man and woman are created out of clay and dust, apparently simultaneously, at Gen 1, but at Gen 2, Eve is created from Adam's rib to alleviate his loneliness. This has been the source of much speculation over the centuries, and by the Middle Ages a legend had developed that Woman was created twice and that Adam had two wives, the first known as Lilith, as attested in the Talmud and Midrash. In more recent times, supporters of biblical consistency, in particular creationists, have been inclined to claim these refer to the same creation of the same woman, with the second account being a zoomed in reinforcement.

Further problems are sometimes cited in regard to the creation account because the text only indicates the existence of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Seth after the third chapter. Nonetheless, both Seth and Cain have children, even though Cain has been banished from the rest of the persons listed. Lilith is sometimes cited here as a solution, but most theorists surmise that Eve's daughters simply were not mentioned by the author, or were only mentioned out of chronological sequence at Gen 5:4.

A similar problem occurs where Noah is told once to choose one pair of each living creature for the ark, but another time to choose one pair of unclean creatures and seven of each clean creature. Inerrantists have replied: "The phrase 'two by two' in 7:9 simply means the animals entered the ark in pairs. So the beasts with 7 representatives came in as 3 pairs and 1 oddball each." [3] Nevertheless, 7 is an odd number, and 1 cannot be a pair on its own. Another answer to this "contradiction" can be found in the Hebrew text (as opposed to the English translations), which actually reads "seven seven" in 7:2,3. Hebrew occasionally omits "and" when merely linking two nouns, so the best translation of this passage is "seven and seven" or "seven pairs".

To simultaneously resolve all these issues about pairing, as well apparent anachronisms such as referring to specific individuals and specific groups of people that did not exist when the Bible was allegedly written, modern scholarship produced the documentary hypothesis. This theory, after several decades of refinement, has become the accepted view by over 90% of biblical scholars, the Vatican, and several others. According to this theory, several different originally separate accounts have been skilfully woven together, sometimes more obviously as whole blocks, resulting in the visible doublets and triplets, and sometimes interlaced finely, revealing variant accounts which have been fudged together into a coherent story.

In Genesis 1, verse 5, it is said that "the isles of the Gentiles [were] divided in their lands; every one after his tongue", which many modern critics see as contradicting the Babel account which follows in chapter 11, beginning "Now the entire earth was of one language and uniform words" (Gen 11:1). However, the traditional understanding of this passage would place the scattering of peoples according to their languages after the tower of Babel was abandoned (indeed, this is exactly what the text states, e.g. 11:8). Genesis 10, like Genesis 1, may represent a large-scale view of events, a summary of what is to follow (i.e. the rest of Genesis, human history in general).

Inconsistencies in the Bible - Within the Deuteronomic History

Within the Deuteronomic History, the Book of Joshua purports to present a campaign resulting in the complete conquest of Canaan. Judges is presented as the immediately following history of the area. However, in Judges it appears that the Canaanites were not vanquished as they were in Joshua, but continued to exist, being more gradually suppressed, and in some cases, notably Shechem, their land being purchased rather than conquered.

The Book of Judges also presents several peculiarities concerning the Israelite state, notably the Song of Deborah, widely held by textual criticism to be one of if not the oldest part of the entire Bible. In this, some of the Tribes of Israel are called upon, but the tribes given do not include all of those given elsewhere in the Torah. And in addition Gilead and Machir are given equal status to the other tribes, but Manasseh is not listed whatsoever, leading several scholars to posit that Machir and Gilead were originally tribes in their own right that were later swallowed up to become the half-tribe of Manasseh.

In critical scholarship these features are viewed as the result of the Deuteronomist collecting together several different accounts of the same events, and joining them together with brief passages and framing. The Book of Chronicles covers the same period in time but also lists some of its sources, and it is these sources which are often considered to have been those which were, more directly, copied into the Deuteronomic history. In particular, the peculiar features of the Deuteronomic history are viewed as a result of some of the underlying sources being recensions, redactions, and different political spins of others.

Inconsistencies in the Bible - Chronicles and the Deuteronomic History

The Book of Chronicles and the Deuteronomic History both present an account of the same period of Israelite history, but contain what are apparently subtle discrepancies between them. In the Books of Kings, the basin built before the Temple has a volume of 2000 baths (a Hebrew measure, approximately 32 liters or 8 U.S. gallons), while the account in the Books of Chronicles cites a volume of 3000 baths. David's census yields a result of 800,000 people in Israel and 500,000 in Judah, according to the Books of Samuel, but 1,100,000 in Israel and 470,000 in Judah according to the Chronicler.

Biblical criticism, in the main, views these (and other discrepancies) as two separate accounts being based on the same source but subject to different political spins. There were two significant factions of the priesthood in pre-exilic Israel/Judah, namely, those who claimed descent from Aaron and that only they could be priests, and those who opposed them. Chronicles is viewed as the pro-Aaronid response to the anti-Aaronid Deuteronomist, since in this view Chronicles is over 100 years later and updated its figures to take account of, for example, the population in its day.

Inconsistencies in the Bible - Names of God

Supporters of biblical inerrancy reply that the different names of God merely reflect different context [4] and point out that many ancient gods had more than one name. Their opponents claim that the ancient gods had more than one name because they were originally separate gods whose identities later merged.

Elohim is a word translated from the original Hebrew as God. At first glance Elohim is a plural word, the singular form being either el or eloah, and is used to refer specifically to the God of Israel in various parts of the Bible. This is traditionally held to be analogous to the Royal We found in other languages to express the sovereignty of God, and this interpretation is supported by the surrounding adjectives and verbs, which are singular rather than plural, as would otherwise be expected. There is no evidence that the kings of Israel and Judah, nor any of the other leaders of Israel, ever used the majestic plural of themselves, but in light of the reverence given to God by the Hebrews this is not surprising.

Some argue from the variation between Yahweh and Elohim, and the extensive finds of statues of Asherah (allegedly Yahweh's wife) throughout Israel, and the presence of gods with similar names (El and Yaw) in early religions surrounding Israel, that the Hebrews were not originally monotheistic but rather henotheistic. This is in contrast to the monotheism of the theological descendants of the ancient Hebrew religion — Judaism and Islam and the monotheism of some forms of Christianity (although some strains of Christianity are perhaps better viewed as henotheistic, acknowledging angels, demons, and saints, and sometimes even the existence of other lesser gods to whom God is superior). Jews, Muslims, and some groups within Christianity consider the doctrine of the Trinity to be polytheistic, but the majority of Christians both ancient and modern regard this as a misinterpretation.

See also: Names of God in Judaism

Inconsistencies in the Bible - Amongst the Gospels

The various censuses and genealogies in the Bible provide a large number of questions for those who seek to interpret the text completely literally. When the same event is described in two places, numbers often differ. As examples, according to Matthew, the father of Joseph is named James (Jacob in Hebrew), while in Luke he is called Eli (or Heli).

Apologists explain this contradiction by stating that Luke gives the genealogy of Mary, though Luke says he is giving the genealogy of Joseph. Their opponents argue that these genealogies were mostly fabricated to attempt to show that Jesus is a direct descendant of David, and hence a legitimate Messiah.

Taken absolutely literally, it is difficult to reconcile the order of events between the Gospels concerning the Resurrection of Jesus, supposedly events which happened in the first few days after Jesus' death. Some advocates of Biblical inerrancy have offered harmonic accounts, producing a version that they say represents the truth of what happened on the third day[5], asserting that these are not contradictions but merely differences in cultural understanding regarding reporting of events [6].

More critical scholars, from a Christian background, say that these variations reflect the state of affairs where several people all have limited information, and report what they have heard. Some, such as C.S. Lewis, have argued that the inconsistencies even improve the credibility of the narratives, as they suggest that the narratives were written independently.

Ultimately, many Christians view these issues as unimportant in the larger Weltanschauung. Nevertheless, Biblical criticism has produced the two source hypothesis, alleging that Matthew and Luke copied from the Gospel of Mark, adding only small amounts of their own material. Critics of Christianity argue that the (small) additions by these two parties were in a large part fabricated to suit their religious and political stance, such as the Slaughter of the Innocents, which is not attested in other contemporary accounts.

Inconsistencies in the Bible - The Pauline Epistles

Several significant technical discrepancies arise in textual criticism of the Pauline Epistles. Questions concerning writing style, vocabulary and the historic circumstances of the epistles have, for one reason or another, lead to there only being 7 which are regarded as genuine by a clear majority of scholars. Various shades of opinion cover the authenticity of the remainder, with the Pastoral Epistles being seen as fake by a large majority, though it must be admitted that the purpose of the Pastoral epistles differs greatly from those written to churches in general. The authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews has historically been questioned extensively, and since it is anonymous, it is believed, even amongst many conservative religious groups, to have been written by someone other than Paul.

Some of the less technical and more obvious examples of these discrepancies involve significant questions of theology and content:

• What does the writer believe about the Law? (abolished in Ephesians, but not in Romans.)
• What is the main emphasis? (faith, in Romans and Galatians; proper behaviour (works) in the Pastorals)
• Who was Jesus? (The epistles appear to range from docetic viewpoints, asserting that the flesh is dead, to views suggesting a concrete historic figure.)
• Is Jesus returning soon? (1 Thess seems to say yes; 2 Thess seems to say no)
• Are the leaders of the church important? (Galatians seems to disparage church leaders; 1 Tim teaches that bishops and deacons are important.)

When dealing with such seeming contradictions, the exegete should be aware of his own theological bias, and not read into Paul's words his own assumptions.

Many of these inconsistencies arise because inadequate attention has been paid to context. For example:

• Ephesians 2:15 speaks of "the law of commandments contained in ordinances" being abolished in the sense that the enmity it created between man and God, because of man's disobedience, is taken away by Christ's death. Here it is just a passing reference. In Romans on the other hand, beginning in chapter 4, Paul enters into a very detailed discussion of the relationship of the law to the Christian, and his conclusions are not easy to summarise. However, it can be said with certainty that any consideration of these two passages which goes beyond the surface, that is, the words, to the real discourse-level significance of each, would find no contradiction.
• Paul is writing for completely different reasons in the Epistles to the Churches and the Pastoral epistles, in the former to instruct whole congregations, and in the latter to encourage and train specific individuals already well-founded in faith. Certainly to someone who held that works are irrelevant for one who has faith, the Pastoral epistles seem to present a contradiction, but this is not what Paul teaches even in Galatians.

Inconsistencies in the Bible - Between the New Testament and the Old

According to many commentators, several of them Christian, God in the Old Testament is often vengeful, taking abrupt and often merciless action upon his enemies. In contrast, the New Testament appears to present a much lighter deity, declaring that God is love. In the early days of Christianity, this apparent contradiction lead to, or was a result of, the gnostics.

The most prominent of these, Marcion, claimed that the God of the Old Testament is not the same god as that of the New, and in fact, that the God of the Hebrew Bible was the personification of evil, the demiurge. This essentially was the orthodox position turned on its head, making the serpent in the garden of Eden the hero rather than the villain, trying to save the couple from the evil deity denying them wisdom.

Marcion gave significant financial support to the early church, and so his views on this and on other matters, such as that Jesus was not exactly human (docetism), could not be ignored, and quickly they grew into an exceptionally large following known as the Marcionites. Justin Martyr declared that his views were spread throughout every race of men. Eventually, Marcion was excommunicated, but he afterwards continued to develop his sect independently of the remainder of Christianity, and was for a time evidently highly successful.

The influence of Marcion on Christianity cannot be underestimated. The threat Marcion represented to the other views in the 2nd-century church was perceived as so significant that those opposed to him collected together, even though they agreed on little else, and individuals wrote vast series of books on him, effectively creating an orthodoxy. The result of anti-Marcion action was that the church formally defined its teaching, produced a creed to explicitly exclude Marcionism (known as the Roman Symbol — later evolving into the Apostles' Creed) and listed the Biblical Canon (something he had done first, but missing out the whole Old Testament and much of the new). In the 20th century, Marcionism was still regarded as the most heretical of all heresies by the Roman Catholic church, and the most dangerous foe they had ever faced.

Gnosticism continued to appear throughout the centuries, until it was brutally suppressed in the Albigensian crusade, widely viewed as one of the most horrific acts of barbarity ever committed by the church, even by mediaeval standards. Although gnostic theology was not supported by the orthodoxy, the discrepancy between the apparent behaviour of God between the Old and New testaments nevertheless remained an issue that was seen to exist amongst Christians, even into modern times.

Some Christians proclaim that because of the stain of an original sin, mankind was prey to passion and instinct, angering God, until mankind learned control — at which point God's mercy shone through resulting in Jesus, thus explaining the behaviour discrepancy. The vast majority of Christians nevertheless do not see a complete rupture between the two parts of the Christian Bible, though many advocate some form of supersessionism.

Nonetheless, some aspects of God's attitude are the reverse of this apparent general trend. It is in the New Testament that Jesus talked about hell and how God gets angry regarding men's moral failings. Whereas it is in the Old Testament that God is described as kind and merciful, slow to anger. This Old Testament claim about God's attitude is one that appears to conflict with the demonstrated behaviour, an apparent inconsistency that Jews have claimed to address by stating that God is angered by sin and evil, even though he loves humanity and desires good for them.

See also

• Criticism of Christianity

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Inconsistencies in the Bible", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki