What is the biggest bible contradiction?

Yes, about 3000 years ago I believe.Off the top of my head, and related to biblical studies, we have the Tel Dan Stele, dated 9th-8th c. BCE, which is written in Aramaic.There are older inscriptions from tombs and other monuments, I can be more specific if you want. I didn't know the two were ever confused, unless it is a later form of Aramaic. Aramaic is an older language than biblical Hebrew and both are Semitic languages, but are not the same.Have you found someone who confuses the two?Brian.

I don't think the incident itself, however reported, is in the least bit historically plausible.It is contrary to everything we know about Roman history.Brian.

No.I said it was illogical that Rome would allow a Jewish hit squad led by Saul to persecute another religious group.Pax Romana promoted freedom of religion.It is even more illogical when we read in the Bible that Christians were allowed to preach in Synagogues, well as far as I recall Paul claimed he did. Is there evidence of Jews persecuting Christians during the first century BCE?Brian.

Wasn’t the Bar Kochba rising a revolt against Romans? I don’t recall the Bar Kochbas singling out Christians; do you have anymore on this?As you say, it isn’t first century anyway, but it sounds interesting as I thought I knew quite a bit about the Bar Kochbas. IOW, there is no evidence, just your opinion? Nero wasn’t Jewish., and I think this has been greatly exaggerated anyway. Why? There was hardly any Christians in 53 CE, and technically speaking there was no such thing as a Xian then, the name was applied later, but I know what you mean. But, why would Rome have to employ the Jews to do anything? Evidence? Yet Paul was seemingly allowed to carry out hostile attack on groups of Xians? This is really supporting the unlikelihood of the Damascus road episode being true. But why? The Romans were more than capable of squashing a small group of dissident Jews.Who were these dissident Xians that you are talking about?As far as I know the Christians were a very sedate sect who walked joyfully into martyrdom without putting up a fight. It is okay for you to speculate like this but you really need something of substance to support these claims. Anything is possible, but we need have examples to try and work out the plausibility of these claims. Don’t know if I agree with this. Just seems like more speculation to me. What you need is some evidence of Christians being allowed to persecute the Jews in a Roman province. While you are at it, doesn’t it seem unusual to you that the Sanhedrin would have any power in Syria? I would take everything Paul was alleged to have said with a huge pinch of salt. Could you perhaps post some of this evidence? I disagree. I would say that the available evidence means we should not trust Paul on this matter. Religions were allowed freedom from persecution, Paul’s episode is riddled with contradictions, Jews had NO power in Syria, and what’s more the Jews could not sentence anyone to death during the first century CE.Paul’s Damascus road episode smacks of fiction, a great story to help convert the gullible. BTW, there are two different versions of how Paul died, either by beheading or in prison, even his death isn’t recorded correctly. Nero’s persecution of Christians was recorded by whom? Doesn’t this just give my claim even more support?It is sort of contradictory to persecute Xians on one hand and on the other allow them to preach in your synagogues! It really doesn’t add up. I think Xians did preach in Synagogues, but I don’t think Paul’s Damascus road episode has any credibility at all. So all you have is speculation?Brian.

That's fine, as I have said many times over the years I have been a member here, ALL the hypotheses and theories presented by anyone who has carried out historical research are speculative.Historical research is more or less the same as scientific research, and although both disciplines provide some extremely convincing theories, these theories are never proven. There are new discoveries appearing all the time and one may falsify a current theory, so historians should never claim that their findings are true. History is all about plausibility. Oh I know. I even disagree with some of the conclusions of my ex lecturers. If you do the research, and feel confident about your findings then it is good to discuss it with someone in the same field.What I don't like though, and I have witnessed it at 2 conferences, is when the debate gets personal, or one expert has most of the audience on their side and the other expert doesn't really have a chance to put their points across. Of course it is speculation, but it is speculation based on existing evidence. Pax Romana promoted freedom of religion, and the Romans kept order in their empire, this is why I find it highly unlikely that Paul had a hit squad operating in a Roman province. Add to this the fact that the Sanhedrin had no power in Syria, then mix in the supernatural elements of the Damascus road episode and I think it is a pretty sound conclusion that the Damascus road incident is fictional.To me the story is clearly unhistorical, it doesnt even resemble history, it smacks of fiction. What can be more convincing that a former persecutor becoming converted and turning into the most fervent follower of all? It sure reads good. Add in a little bit of 'Goddidit' and hey ho you got a strong argument for your faith.But what I was replying to was your speculative claims, which appear to be based solely on your opinion. Granted your opinion may well be based on existing evidence but you didn't say what that evidence is and I have no idea what it could be.I don't think I said that the alleged Jewish persecution of Xians by Paul was illogical due to Pax Romana, I think I said it is illogical to claim that Jews persecuted xians AND allowed them to preach in their synagogues at the same time! This doesn't sound plausible at all, if the Jews were persecuting xians, why would they allow them to use synagogues to promote xianity? Do you see my point or am I not putting it across very well? Yes, but we can't just make things up. Our speculative claims have to be based on something, we need something tangible to base our speculations on. You may well have something to base your speculations on but I haven't seen it yet. There is a possibility that the reference in Tacitus was a later addition, it isn’t universally accepted as belonging to the original work. I accept all kinds of evidence, but textual contemporary texts are probably the soundest, although these need to be checked for plausibility.However, I wouldn't accept, and NO historian really should accept, supernatural explanations for an event. Saying God interacted in some way with history is beyond the realms of historical enquiry. Well, I would not allow a biblical text to support another biblical text in a historical context, I would be different in a theological context. But I wouldn't permit text 'A' in the Bible supportiing the historicity of text 'B' which is also in the Bible.I don't doubt that the Bible does contain kernels of accurate historical information, but it a task to weed these out. This persecution was under the Romans, much later than Paul.Brian.

This example falls into the category I posted about earlier where I asked the originator of the thread to consider contradicting versions of the Bible.I don't know thish Bible this version comes from, but you should be aware that not all Bibles claim this amount.The NIV, for example claim there were only 70 men that died: But God struck down some of the men of Beth Shemesh, putting seventy of them to death because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. The people mourned because of the heavy blow the LORD had dealt them Young's Literal Translation:And He smiteth among the men of Beth-Shemesh, for they looked into the ark of Jehovah, yea, He smiteth among the people seventy men -- fifty chief men; and the people mourn, because Jehovah smote among the people -- a great smiting. The Revised Standard Version:And he slew some of the men of Beth-she'mesh, because they looked into the ark of the LORD; he slew seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the LORD had made a great slaughter among the people. I am sure there are other versions that that read 'seventy' instead of the huge unhistorical figure quoted in your version.I say 'unhistorical' because if we add children abd women to this figure we would probably have about 160 000 people of Bethshe'mash, which is a ridiculous figure. There was probably less than this amount of people in the whole of Palestine at this time.But, it is a good example to remind us that we don't know which version of the Bible to trust.Brian.

Which is basically a guess. How is it possible to establish 'why' an ancient author wrote something? What criteria would we need to apply to determine this?The readers should also be aware that it is possible to follow these steps and still conclude that there are contradictions in the Bible.I'll repeat an old mantra of mine:If anyone claims that the Bible is inerrant, they simply haven't studied the Bible. Brian.

I am saying that ANYONE who claims that the Bible has no errors in it hasn't studied the Bible.If any of the names you have given have claimed that the Bible is error free, then they would be covered by my statement.Also, it isn't just a case of studying the Bible, there are other areas of academia that one has to be well-versed in too.Brian.

Hi T,Before I apply these 8 steps to an alleged contradiction, perhaps you could hepl me with a problem or two I have with some of the steps. Rule No. 1: Survey the historical context in general. Is this the historical context of the contents of the book? Rule No. 3: Become thoroughly acquainted with your paragraph or pericope Would't you just automatically do this regardless of which discipline you work in? Rule No. 6: Analyze the grammar. How is this different from Rule 4? Rule No. 7: Analyze significant words. How do we determine which words are significant and which aren't?Rule No. 8: Research the historical-cultural background.Is this the historical background of when we think the book was written?Take the Book of Joshua as an example, we do not know who wrote the book and we do not know when it was written.Here we meet a big problem.The Book of Joshua, if we take Bible chronology as accurate, describes events that were primarily supposed to have occurred about 1400 BCE. Since we do not know when it was written, and internal and external evidence falsifies most of the Book of Joshua if taken to describe 1400 bce-ish, do we try and determine when it WAS written and study that particular historical cultural background, or do we establish the historical-cultural background of the period the Book of Joshua is claiming to describe?Brian.

Christians who claim that Jesus was the suffering servant AND claim he was never married or had children present a contradiction as well.The suffering servant would have children:Isaiah 53:10 Yet it was the LORD's will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the LORD makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand. Christians argue that 'seed' (zera) is used metaphorically, yet in every occurrence related to offspring in the OT it is used to signify biological children.If Jesus never had any children, then he wasn't the servant of Isaiah.Brian.

We are all first century con men?Brian.

Hi, The only word I can think of that applies to metaphoric children is ben . It is never used metaphorically in any usage in the OT. The context of the songs suport this. The servant isn't even an individual, it is the personification of Israel the nation.You have to read the verses in context. Your heart of stone example would demonstrate that you can only tell it is a metaphor by the context. Every single use of zerah in the OT is in reference biological children.There are other reasons why Jesus is not the suffering servant, but it is sort of immaterial as the servant songs are not even messianic prophecies!It is yet anothe rexample of early Christians quote mining the OT and taking verses out of context. Whoever wrote Matthew was particularly prone to doing this, but he left some glaring errors.You might be interested in this , where I demonstrate beyond all doubt that Jesus was not the Messiah.Brian.

There are a few huge problems with your criteria, and im sure CA will spell them out to you, but surely you can see a huge problem with the text I quoted from your post?Brian.

You just keep saying this as if it is going to change a few thousand years of a people's beliefs!Jews do not take the bloodline through a woman, this is a fact no matter how many times you ignore it.Also, if you choose to keep ignoring it then you also have to ignore another fact, namely that the messiah would come from Solomon's bloodline and NOT Nathan's who is supposed to have been Mary's ancestor. So, no matter how you look at it, this desperate move by Christians is just ludicrous when taken in context, and the thing is it isn't even Mary's geneaology! Evidence please? If the author of Matthew hadn't boobed by misunderstanding Isaiah 7:14 then Christians wouldn't have to make a fool of themselves trying to link Jesus to David. As it stands, the Bible itself negates Jesus' messiahship.I find it difficult to get excited about Jesus' apparent 'sacrifice'. A few hours on a cross, complete with the knowledge that you are going to rise 3 days later is hardly a sacrifice at all! I've made a bigger sacrifice myself when I take the small portion of a cake and leave the larger one for someone else.Brian.Edited by Brian, : spelling

If God became a man, wouldn't it be impossible for Him to become God again?Brian.Edited by Brian, : No reason given.