Mistakes and Contradictions in the Bible

What follows is a brief sampling of the numerous errors in the Bible. There are hundreds more.

1.How many generations were there between the Babylonian captivity and Jesus? In Matthew 1, it says there were fourteen, but only thirteen are listed.

2. Was Enoch a member of the sixth generation after Adam (as indicated in Genesis 5 and Luke 3) or of “the seventh after Adam� as it states in the epistle of Jude?

3. Did the Last Supper take place on the evening of Passover (Matthew 26:17-20; Mark 14:12-17; Luke 22:7-14), with the crucifixion occuring the next day and therefore “not on the feast day� (Matthew 26:5; Mark 14:2), or did it take place on the evening before Passover as John reports, so the crucifixion took place on the day of Passover -- that is, on the feast day (compare John 13:1-2; 18:39; 19:14, 31, 42)?

4. Was the potter’s field purchased by Judas before his death (Acts 1:15-19) or by the priests after his death (Matthew 27:3-10)?

5. Is pi, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle, equal to 3.0, as is implied by I Kings 7:23 and II Chronicles 4:2, or is it equal to about 3.1416, as all mathematicians agree?

6. Was Sisera killed while he was sleeping on the ground (Judges 4:21) or did he fall to the ground and die when he was struck with a hammer (Judges 5:26-27)?

7. Why does Matthew say that Jesus came to live in Nazareth “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene� (Matthew 3:23)? There is no such prophecy anywhere in the Old Testament.

[A couple of sidelights: In Judges 13:5, there is a prophecy that Samson will be a Nazarite, but being a Nazarite had nothing to do with where one lived. It involved certain ascetic practices, like abstinence from wine or other grape products, not cutting one’s hair or beard, and normally was undertaken by an oath. Since Jesus drank wine, he could not have been a Nazarite, at least not throughout his ministry. And there is, besides, no reason for supposing that this prophecy was meant to apply to anyone but Samson.

There are references in the New Testament both to Jesus coming from the town of Nazareth and also to his being a “Nazoreanâ€? – which many translations render as “Nazarene.â€? But in fact, they shouldn’t be confused. They have different roots in Hebrew and Aramaic. (In Hebrew – Aramaic is similar on this – there are two different letters transliterated as “z,â€? zayin [×–] and tzadde [צ]. “Nazarethâ€? uses tzadde and “Nazoreanâ€? uses zayin.¹) Outside the New Testament, there is no evidence that the town of Nazareth even existed in first-century Palestine and actually some evidence that it did not.²

However, there is evidence, inside and outside of the New Testament, of a Jewish sectarian group called “Nazoreans.� Most likely, Jesus was a Nazorean, and the gospels were doctored by people in later times who didn’t understand what Nazoreans were, but were familiar with the later town of Nazareth. Understandably, they confused the two and thought Nazoreans were residents of Nazareth. Whoever authored Matthew compounded the confusion with a fuzzy memory of a prophecy about someone (Samson) being a Nazarite (not a Nazorean or a Nazarene).]

8. Is God all-knowing (I John 3:20) or does he sometimes have to find out things (Genesis 18:20-22)?

9. Is the earth motionless (Psalms 93:1; 104:5)?

10. Is there any mountaintop on a round earth from which one can see “all the kingdoms of the world� (Matthew 4:8)? (If this is not to be taken literally, why does the devil take Jesus up “an exceeding high mountain� at all?)

11. At the time of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, did Jesus ride on the backs of two animals? – “And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.� (Matthew 21:6-7, emphasis added)

Maybe Jesus was very fat! Actually, the explanation is not hard to find. Right before this, a prophecy from Zechariah (9:9) is quoted: “Behold thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.� (v. 5) At least four factors appear to be at work here. First, the author of Matthew was not an eye-witness. He didn’t see Jesus perched on the backs of two animals at the same time. Second, he thought he had to say that Jesus was riding both of them because of a woodenly literal interpretation of an Old Testament prophecy. Third, if he was Jewish at all, he was almost certainly a Gentile convert, for, had he been raised in the traditions of Israel, he would have recognized the passage from Zechariah as a familiar parallel construction of Hebrew poetry, not a literal assertion that one person would be riding two animals. Finally, and of more general importance, is the evident fact that whoever authored Matthew was willing to adjust the way he reported events in order to make them accord more closely with faith-based preconceptions of how they ‘must’ have been.

12. Is there any kind of life after death, as most Christian denominations teach (backed by numerous texts) or is it true that the dead do not have “any more for ever a portion in any thing that is done under the sun� (Ecclesiastes 9:6)?

13. Is it true that "No man has ever seen God at any time" (John 1:18) or did Isaiah (6:1) and Moses and the elders (Exodus 24:9-12) see God?

14. How long was Jesus' ministry and when was he executed? There is actually no direct statement in the Bible. There's an argument from prophecy for a three-and-a-half year ministry from the ninth chapter of Daniel favored by some fundamentalists, but in the first place, it depends upon identifying "caus[ing] the sacrifice and oblation to cease" (v. 27) with the events surrounding the crucifixion. (This argument takes "the going forth of the commandment" in verse 25 as referring to Artaxerxes' decree of 457 BC, and thus sets a beginning date for the ministry of 27 AD and a concluding date of 31 AD.³) That is, it depends upon the crucifixion being interpreted in the light of Christian theology as having the meaning that sacrifice and oblation no longer had a point -- so of course it can't be checked or confirmed (if you call this confirmation!) unless one already buys into Christian theology. As a matter of history, sacrifice and oblation did not cease then. Second, it depends on understanding the "he" who causes the cessation as being the same as "Messiah the Prince" (v. 25), but the text appears to refer to anotherprince, "the prince that shall come," whose people "shall destroy the city and the sanctuary" (v. 26). That prince appears to be the person referred to as the "he" who will "cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease." Third, it seems likely that, even if the apparent holes in the prophetic argument can be plugged, it will only be impressive to people who already think that Biblical prophecy in general, or at least that one, is reliable. Anyone who doesn't share that faith will think it provides no evidence at all about how long Jesus' ministry actually was.

What other evidence is there? There are the accounts of Jesus' ministry in the gospels. Unfortunately, these do not settle the matter. Judging by internal evidence in the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke), such as references to seasons and feast days of the Jewish calendar, all the events could be fit into approximately a year to a year and a half. But applying the same standards to the gospel of John, yields a duration of about three years. The evidence of the gospel of John is actually the main piece of support given for a three-year ministry. (The idea, presumably, is that the Synoptics might, without falsifying matters, have left out time-references that John included, but not the other way around.)

There is a bit of external historical evidence, though. Shortly after Jesus’ ministry began, John the Baptist was imprisoned (and later executed) for criticizing the marriage of Herod and Herodias (Matthew 14:3; Mark 6:17). We know it was shortly after the beginning of Jesus’ ministry for two reasons: first, there are no references in any of the gospels to anything else that John the Baptist did after the baptism of Jesus and before his imprisonment, and second, Mark 1:14 says that Jesus began preaching in Galilee after John was imprisoned. The marriage of Herod and Herodias can be dated on the basis of first-century records outside the New Testament as taking place in 35 AD. We also can identify, from other evidence, a latest possible date for the crucifixion. Pilate, the Roman governor under whom Jesus was crucified, was recalled to Rome in 36 AD. Thus, Jesus began preaching in 35 and so could not have been crucified any earlier; otherwise, John would not have been imprisoned and executed first. And the crucifixion could not have been later than Passover of 36, because, after 36, Pilate was no longer the governor (nor, for that matter, was Caiaphas, under whom the New Testament tells us that Jesus was condemned, still the high priest).

Thus, it appears that the Synoptics, which do not require more than a year to a year-and-a-half of ministry for Jesus, are more nearly correct than the gospel of John. In any case, the fact that Jesus had to be alive as late as 35, throws a monkey-wrench into the prophetic argument that places the crucifixion in 31 or before, as well as into other traditional datings for Jesus’ ministry, which generally set a date no later than 33 for the crucifixion.

15. According to Matthew 16:27-28, Jesus prophesied that some of the people listening to him would still be alive when he returned and God’s kingdom was ushered in: "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom." Of course, it didn’t happen. All the people who were "standing there" have long since "tasted of death," and the Second Coming looks as remote as ever. (It won’t do, as I have heard some biblical literalists urge, to say that the transfiguration, reported in the next chapter, is what the prophecy was about. Rewarding "every man according to his works" did not occur then.)

16. Did the plot of the king of Syria with Pekah, the son of Remaliah, against Judah fail (II Kings 16:5) or succeed (II Chronicles 28:5-8)? In light of the passage from Chronicles, what are we to think of the prophecy regarding this plot in Isaiah 7:1-7? See especially verse 7: "Thus saith the Lord God, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass." Is the Bible telling us that the plot that God said shall not stand or come to pass did stand and come to pass?

17. In II Kings 9 and 10, we are told the story of Jehu’s anointing as king and his going into battle at Jezreel against Ahab. He was commanded to do this by God (9:6-10), and later, God announced that Jehu had "done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart" (10:30). Why, then, does Hosea, a couple of centuries later, write, "And the Lord said unto him ... I will avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu, and will cause to cease the kingdom of the house of Israel"? The blood of Jezreel was shed at God's command and with his approval, yet he says he’s going to take vengeance for something that never would have happened without his own command. Worse yet, he’s going to take vengeance on "the house of Jehu" – that is, on descendants who had not even been born at the time of the bloodshed of Jezreel.

There is, of course, no strict inconsistency here. It could be that God really did command, announce being pleased with, and later decide to punish the very same act. Any being who would do that, however, is monstrous and evil. He might frighten us into obedience with threats or bribe us with promises -- and why would we trust either of those? -- but he could never deserve obedience or love or respect.