Bible
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2. I have found in the Bible several contradictions, can you explain
to me why there are these contradictions? |
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Listen, in the Bible there are no contradictions. However, there are
some APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS, which look like contradictions because of our
limited knowledge. For we should never forget that “we know in part” (1
Corinthians 13:9), thus there are certain statements in the Bible which seem
to be contradictory. I am fully persuaded that in that day, when knowledge is
passed away (1 Corinthians 13:8), we will fully understand why certain sayings
and stories which are written in the Bible seem to be contradictory. |
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You will say then: ‘Why did God want the Bible to contain such
apparent contradictions?’ Listen, I also have often asked myself why God
wanted certain things to be written in the Scripture in a way that they seem
to be contradictory, and I have come to the conclusion that God wanted to do
it in order to test the believers to see if they, before such APPARENT
CONTRADICTIONS, will doubt or question the inspiration of the Scripture. I
must say that some believers have not passed this test for they claim that
the Bible is a book full of errors!! As for me, I must confess that after I
turned to the Lord and I started to search the Scriptures, when I found some
passages which seemed to be contradicting each other I was tempted to conclude
that in the Bible are several human errors; however, reading those passages in
the light of their overall context and of the whole Scripture I concluded
that the Scripture, being the Word of God, cannot contain errors of any kind
and so all those things that look like errors are just APPARENT ERRORS. |
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However, I am also persuaded that God decided to put all these
apparent contradictions in His Word in order to make unbelievers stumble. I
will give you two examples to explain to you what I have just said. |
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The first example is the following one. Concerning the Messiah, in the
book of the prophet Isaiah it is written: “And there shall come forth a rod
out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the
spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and
of the fear of the LORD; And shall make him of quick understanding in the
fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither
reprove after the hearing of his ears: But with righteousness shall he judge
the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall
smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips
shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins,
and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall dwell with the
lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young
lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the
cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and
the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the
hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice'
den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy
mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the
waters cover the sea” (Isaiah 11:1-9). As you can see, according to these
words of the prophet Isaiah, when the Messiah comes there will be a radical
change in the nature, God will judge the poor with righteousness, the wicked
will be destroyed by the Messiah, and the earth will be full of the knowledge
of the Lord. However, according to some other words of the prophet Isaiah,
the Messiah at His coming will die for the transgressors. Listen to the words
of Isaiah: “Who hath believed our report? and to
whom is the arm of the LORD revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a
tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no
form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty
that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of
sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him;
he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs,
and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and
afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions,
he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon
him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not
his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before
her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison
and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for
he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my
people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was
any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put
him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see
his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall
prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be
satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he
shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the
great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured
out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors” (Isaiah 53:1-12). That’s an apparent contradiction AT WHICH
THE JEWS STUMBLE, in that they claim that Jesus cannot be the Messiah for at His
coming the things which the prophet Isaiah predicted in chapter 11 did not
take place. To us now things are clear, in the verses of the eleventh chapter
of Isaiah, in the second part of the verses we mentioned, the prophet spoke
of what will happen at the second coming of the Messiah. However, to the Jews
the thing is not clear at all. Of course, the Orthodox Jews don’t question
the inspiration of the book of the prophet Isaiah, but they certainly stumble
at those words. |
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The second example I want to mention is this one. In the law it is written:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one ….” (Deuteronomy 6:4 -
NKJV) and in the prophets it is written: “I am the LORD, and there is none
else, there is no God beside me ….” (Isaiah 45:5). However, according to
several passages of the New Testament Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God. Here are two of them: “Jesus said unto them,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am” (John |
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Now, considering the examples I mentioned before, we must see that we
don’t stumble at the APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS existing in the Bible. |
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God has never contradicted Himself and He cannot contradict Himself –
therefore His Word cannot contain contradictions – for He cannot lie and He
is not double-tongued. Let God be true, but every man a liar (Romans 3:4).
Amen. |