Fundamentalist Christians view the Bible as the inspired and inerrant word of God. They therefore say people should live according to biblical teachings. Modern analysis of the Bible, however, provides many reasons why the book cannot be considered a reliable guide.
In the first place, the contradictions contained in the Bible prove that numerous assertions in it are false, because two contradictory statements cannot both be true. Examples of the hundreds of biblical contradictions are the conflicting genealogies of Jesus (Mt. 1:1-16 vs. Lk. 3:23-38), the inconsistent stories of Judas’ death (Mt. 27:5 vs. Acts 1:18), and the contradictory accounts of Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:7 vs. Acts 22:9).
Moreover, the cruelties that the Bible says God ordered, approved, or committed make the book totally unacceptable to persons applying modern standards of justice and humaneness. Examples of biblical atrocities include Moses telling his soldiers to kill women and children (Num. 31:15-18), God sending two bears that killed 42 children because they were making fun of a prophet’s bald head (2 Kgs. 2:23-24), and the promise that non-Christians will be sent to the eternal fires of hell (e.g., Mt. 25:41; Rev. 21:.
Additionally, the Bible’s stories of events violating the laws of nature cannot be accepted by scientific persons today. They know it’s much more likely the writers of the Bible either lied or were mistaken than that incidents occurred such as sticks turning into snakes (Exod. 7:10-12), a donkey talking (Num. 22:28), a dead man reviving when his corpse came in contact with the bones of a prophet (2 Kgs. 13:21), and a man living for three days and nights in the belly of a fish (Jonah 1:17).
Other reasons the Bible is not the word of God include its false ideas about the structure of the physical world (e.g., 1 Sam. 2:8, where the earth is said to rest on pillars); its prophecies that have proved to be false (e.g., Mk. 13:24-30, where the prediction is made that the world would end within the lifetime of persons living in the first century C.E.); and its historical inaccuracies (e.g., Dan. 5:31, where one “Darius the Mede” is said to have captured Babylon in the sixth century B.C.E., whereas historians know it was Cyrus of Persia who did so).
Furthermore, the Bible is an unreliable authority because of its harmful teachings (e.g., Mk. 16:18, where believers are taught to handle snakes, drink poison, and rely on faith healing instead of medical science); its obscene passages; the fact that parts of it were written many years – and in some cases many centuries – after the events it purports to describe; and the fact that we have no idea who wrote most of it.
Findings of modern biblical scholarship support Thomas Paine’s position. The American patriot and proponent of common sense wrote in his book The Age of Reason: “People in general know not what wickedness there is in this pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good. . . . Good heavens! It is quite another thing: it is a book of lies, wickedness and blasphemy.”
The application of reason, observation, and experience – what the great nineteenth-century agnostic Robert Ingersoll called “the holy trinity of science” – reveals that the Bible was written solely by humans who lived in a barbaric and superstitious age.
Those same methods of science, and not a reliance on religious dogma, are needed to expose falsehood and discover truth in all other fields as well.

Post like this ehn......











I don't read them

My favourite fairy tale

Silly i dont see no contradictions.

Will I be reading the post and opening my Bible at the same time?,I guess I have to save this page for later,but for now, I definitely don't understand a thing here....
.

Op u r jobless

Speechless3:
Silly i dont see no contradictions.

One has to first know what a contradiction is before she can identify them.

Weah96:


One has to first know what a contradiction is before she can identify them.

FATALITY!

Question: What do "Shrek" and the bible have in common?
Answer: Talking donkeys

Question: What does the cartoon "Jungle Book" and the bible have in common?
Answer: Talking snakes

Question: What does the "Lord of the Rings" and the bible have in common?
Answer: Flying Horses

Question: What does the bible and the movie, "The Mummy Returns" have in common?
Answer: Zombie armies rising en masse from the grave.

Conclusion: The Bible is a house built on 4 pillars. Stupidity, Buffoonery, Imbecility and Oloshiologies!!!

Niflheim:
Question: What do "Shrek" and the bible have in common?
Answer: Talking donkeys

Question: What does the cartoon "Jungle Book" and the bible have in common?
Answer: Talking snakes

Question: What does the "Lord of the Rings" and the bible have in common?
Answer: Flying Horses

Question: What does the bible and the movie, "The Mummy Returns" have in common?
Answer: Zombie armies rising en masse from the grave.

Conclusion: The Bible is a house built on 4 pillars. Stupidity, Buffoonery, Imbecility and Oloshiologies!!!

Hahaha laffing at your opinion. But I know best

Niflheim:
Question: What do "Shrek" and the bible have in common?
Answer: Talking donkeys

Question: What does the cartoon "Jungle Book" and the bible have in common?
Answer: Talking snakes

Question: What does the "Lord of the Rings" and the bible have in common?
Answer: Flying Horses

Question: What does the bible and the movie, "The Mummy Returns" have in common?
Answer: Zombie armies rising en masse from the grave.

Conclusion: The Bible is a house built on 4 pillars. Stupidity, Buffoonery, Imbecility and Oloshiologies!!!

What a privilege to be in possession of such a Unique Book!

seunwen2:
Fundamentalist Christians view the Bible as the inspired and inerrant word of God. They therefore say people should live according to biblical teachings. Modern analysis of the Bible, however, provides many reasons why the book cannot be considered a reliable guide.
In the first place, the contradictions contained in the Bible prove that numerous assertions in it are false, because two contradictory statements cannot both be true. Examples of the hundreds of biblical contradictions are the conflicting genealogies of Jesus (Mt. 1:1-16 vs. Lk. 3:23-38), the inconsistent stories of Judas’ death (Mt. 27:5 vs. Acts 1:18), and the contradictory accounts of Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:7 vs. Acts 22:9).
Moreover, the cruelties that the Bible says God ordered, approved, or committed make the book totally unacceptable to persons applying modern standards of justice and humaneness. Examples of biblical atrocities include Moses telling his soldiers to kill women and children (Num. 31:15-18), God sending two bears that killed 42 children because they were making fun of a prophet’s bald head (2 Kgs. 2:23-24), and the promise that non-Christians will be sent to the eternal fires of hell (e.g., Mt. 25:41; Rev. 21:.
Additionally, the Bible’s stories of events violating the laws of nature cannot be accepted by scientific persons today. They know it’s much more likely the writers of the Bible either lied or were mistaken than that incidents occurred such as sticks turning into snakes (Exod. 7:10-12), a donkey talking (Num. 22:28), a dead man reviving when his corpse came in contact with the bones of a prophet (2 Kgs. 13:21), and a man living for three days and nights in the belly of a fish (Jonah 1:17).
Other reasons the Bible is not the word of God include its false ideas about the structure of the physical world (e.g., 1 Sam. 2:8, where the earth is said to rest on pillars); its prophecies that have proved to be false (e.g., Mk. 13:24-30, where the prediction is made that the world would end within the lifetime of persons living in the first century C.E.); and its historical inaccuracies (e.g., Dan. 5:31, where one “Darius the Mede” is said to have captured Babylon in the sixth century B.C.E., whereas historians know it was Cyrus of Persia who did so).
Furthermore, the Bible is an unreliable authority because of its harmful teachings (e.g., Mk. 16:18, where believers are taught to handle snakes, drink poison, and rely on faith healing instead of medical science); its obscene passages; the fact that parts of it were written many years – and in some cases many centuries – after the events it purports to describe; and the fact that we have no idea who wrote most of it.
Findings of modern biblical scholarship support Thomas Paine’s position. The American patriot and proponent of common sense wrote in his book The Age of Reason: “People in general know not what wickedness there is in this pretended word of God. Brought up in habits of superstition, they take it for granted that the Bible is true, and that it is good. . . . Good heavens! It is quite another thing: it is a book of lies, wickedness and blasphemy.”
The application of reason, observation, and experience – what the great nineteenth-century agnostic Robert Ingersoll called “the holy trinity of science” – reveals that the Bible was written solely by humans who lived in a barbaric and superstitious age.
Those same methods of science, and not a reliance on religious dogma, are needed to expose falsehood and discover truth in all other fields as well.

Matthew and Luke actually give two different genealogies. Matthew give the genealogy of Jesus through Joseph, the legal, though not the physical father of Jesus. Luke, on the other hand, gives the ancestry of Jesus through Mary from
whom Jesus was descended physically
as to his humanity. This is a beautiful
fulfillment of prophecy and actually
testifies to the accuracy of the Bible.
Through Joseph, Jesus became the legal
heir to the throne while at the same time bypassed the curse of Coniah as
prophesied in Jeremiah 22:24-30. Both, of course, were in the line of David so that Jesus had a legal right to the throne as the adopted son of Joseph and was at the same time a physical descendent of David through Mary.
The Ryrie Study Bible gives an excellent
summary of the issues here:
Although Coniah had seven sons
(perhaps adopted; cf. 1 Chron. 3:17),
none occupied the throne. So, as far as
a continuing dynasty was concerned,
Coniah was to be considered
“childless.” Although his line of
descendants retained the legal throne
rights, no physical descendant (no man
of his descendants) would ever
prosperously reign on the Davidic
throne. The genealogy of Matthew
traces the descent of Jesus through
Solomon and Jeconiah (Heb., Coniah;
Matt. 1:12); this is the genealogy of
Jesus’ legal father, Joseph. Luke traces
Jesus’ physical descent back through
Mary and Nathan to David, bypassing
Jeconiah’s line and showing accurately
the fulfillment of this prophecy of
Jeremiah. If Jesus had been born only
in the line of Joseph (and thus of
Jeconiah), He would not have been
qualified to reign on the throne of David
in the Millennium. See note on Matt.
1:11.

Alleged contradiction in Paul's conversion

The Bible is replete with examples of where an event is recorded multiple times. Sometimes the repetition will be by different writers, as in the case of certain narratives in the books of Kings and Chronicles, or in the Gospel records. At other times a single writer may repeat the record of an event for the sake of a slightly different point of emphasis. Chapters 1 and 2 in Genesis are an example of such. In Acts, chapters 10 and 11, there are two accounts of the conversion of the Roman centurion, Cornelius. The first is Luke’s depiction of the event; the second is Peter’s rehearsal of the circumstances when he subsequently defends his actions before the Jews in Jerusalem.

Another New Testament illustration of this literary phenomenon is the record of Paul’s conversion, as set forth three times in the book of Acts (chapters 9, 22, and 26). This repetition has puzzled some Bible students. Others, searching for flaws in the sacred Scriptures, contend that the repetition is superfluous and contradictory, and thus constitutes evidence against the inspiration of the sacred narrative. One critic recently asked:

“If the New Testament is without contradictions, why does Paul give three totally different memories of Jesus appearing to him?”

In the first place, the author reveals his own lack of knowledge of the facts. The initial record of Saul’s conversion (Acts 9) is not Paul’s account; it is that of the historian Luke.

Secondly, the criticism fails to take into account the epochal nature of the conversion of Saul, and its importance in the divine scheme of things. Add to this the fact that there were different circumstances underlying the case histories the apostle later introduced, in defending his transformation from Judaism to Christianity (Acts 22,26).

Thirdly, the critic, doubtless sincere but lacking mature analytical skills, charges that the accounts contradict one another. They do not. Yes, there are differences; one record may supplement another narrative. But supplementation is not the same as contradiction.

The Significance of Paul’s Conversion
The conversion of Saul, that rabid persecutor of the early church, is one of the most significant events in the history of the first-century church. One historian has expressed the matter in the following way.

“In all the history of Christianity no single conversion to Christ carried with it such momentous results to the whole world, as that of Saul the persecutor, afterward Paul the Apostle” (J.L. Hurlbut, The Story of the Christian Church, Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., 1954, p. 30).
Another historian describes Saul’s conversion as “one of the most important events in the entire course of Christianity” (Kenneth Latourette, A History of Christianity, Vol. I, San Francisco: Harper, 1953, p. 70). Quotations of a similar nature could be multiplied many times over.

If the Holy Spirit saw fit to initiate four Gospel accounts of the death of Jesus Christ, surely no reasonable person can fault the divinely guided historian, Luke, in including three accounts of the conversion of Christianity’s greatest missionary — especially since there is unique purpose in each narrative.

The Three Narratives
Perhaps brief notice should be given to the nature of the three “conversion” records in the book of Acts.

Luke’s personal description of Saul’s dramatic conversion, and certain accompanying events, is found in Acts 9:1-30. The narrative may be divided topically into the following segments:


Saul’s mission of persecution to Damascus (vv. 1-2);
the zealot’s confrontation with the resurrected Christ (vv. 3-9);
the details of Saul’s conversion (vv. 10-19);
Saul’s immediate, post-conversion proclamation of the Christ (vv. 20-22);
the Jewish assassination plot (vv. 23-25);
the apostle’s eventual return to Jerusalem (vv. 26-30).
This section of Acts constitutes the primary historical record of this event. It is wonderfully condensed (which reflects an example of the restraint of the inspiration process), and is entirely accurate. This was forcefully illustrated by the research of noted archaeologist, Sir William Ramsay (1851-1939). Originally Ramsay doubted the credibility of Acts. However, after years of personal investigation and discovery, he championed the position that “Luke’s history is unsurpassed in respect of its trustworthiness” (The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979, p. 81).

The second narrative that contains a record of Paul’s conversion follows a vicious attempt on the part of certain militant Hebrews in Jerusalem to lynch the apostle — based upon the false charge that he had defiled the Jews’ temple (21:27ff). When Paul was providentially rescued from the bloodthirsty mob, he asked permission to address the crowd from the stairs of the fortress of Antonia. His request was granted.

The address delivered on this occasion was a benevolent, evangelistic polemic, the design of which was to present an argument to his Hebrew kinsmen, explaining why he had come to acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. He chronicles his illustrious background in Judaism, his days as a persecutor of the Christian faith, the details of his “new birth,” and his subsequent commission to proclaim Jesus. There thus is ample reason as to why this testimony was recorded by the inspired historian.
Agrippa II, who governed certain territories in northern Palestine, was the last Jewish ruler to wear the title “king.” Having been appointed by Claudius Caesar, he was a powerful political figure of that day. When Porcius Festus became the Roman procurator over Palestine, he found Paul imprisoned at Caesarea. Not knowing exactly how to deal with his famous prisoner, he sought the counsel of Agrippa. After some discussion, the two of them (together with Agrippa’s sister, Bernice) determined they would interview the celebrated apostle. Paul then had the opportunity to put his case before a Jewish official (allegedly an “expert” in Hebrew matters — 26:3), and a pagan governor; these were legal dignitaries. The apostle begins his address directly to Agrippa, but quickly broadens his remarks to include the others (as reflected by the plural pronoun — 26:.

That he made a devastating defense of his cause (thus also for the validity of Christianity) is evidenced by the response that he received from his hitherto hostile audience. After an initial explosive outburst from Festus (obviously to “save face”), the king, the governor, and powerful and wicked Bernice, had a private conference.

In this clandestine session, they discussed Paul’s case extensively (as suggested by the verbal tenses; “spoke” — imperfect; “saying” — present, v. 31). Their verdict was this: “This man is doing nothing worthy of death or imprisonment.” Agrippa even added that Paul deserved to be released, and likely would be, were he not under the restraint of his own appeal to Caesar (v. 32). Protocol demanded that that legal process be satisfied.
The late E.M. Blaiklock, former Professor of Classics at University College (Auckland, New Zealand), once raised the question as to whether the extensive inclusions relative to Paul’s conversion, as displayed in Acts, were justified. He responded in the affirmative. He called attention to the fact that Paul’s case was a great legal test for the authenticity of Christianity, and that the apostle’s eventual acquittal (as evidenced by the letters of 1, 2 Timothy and Titus) justifies the volume of Luke’s material, and demonstrates that the historian’s purpose was achieved (Acts of the Apostles, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959, p. 186).

Contradiction vs. Supplementation
Let us now give brief notice to the charge that the records of Paul’s conversion conflict with one another.

The most-frequently-cited example, that is said to mar the harmony of the narratives, is the alleged conflict between 9:7 and 22:9. The former, in earlier versions (KJV, ASV) states that the men accompanying Saul “heard the voice” of the Lord, while the latter text contends that they “heard not the voice.”

A common method of reconciliation has been to note that in 9:7 “hearing” (akouo) is used with the genitive case, which merely specifies that a “sound” was heard. On the other hand, akouo in 22:9 takes an accusative object, which indicates “extent,” i.e., though a sound was heard, the extent (the “meaning”) was not to the point of comprehension. A.T. Robertson, the prince of grammarians, declared that this approach is “perfectly proper” (Historical Grammar of the Greek New Testament, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1919, p. 506).

A contemporary scholar suggests that an appropriate harmony is explained best by Luke’s use of different sources to compose his document. Professor Daniel Wallace surmises that Luke preserved the precise phraseology of dual sources (cf. Luke 1:3), and that his record reflects the fact that both akouo (hear) and phone (voice) are capable of different nuances, e.g., hear/understand and sound/voice. Thus, no contradiction may be charged legitimately, even without the “case” argument (Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, pp. 133-134).
Factual “supplementation” (the addition of non-contradictory details), of course, presents no problem for the perceptive student who is aware of the nature of a genuine discrepancy. And the three “conversion” accounts do supplement one another quite richly. Consider but one example.

When Saul opened his eyes, following the brilliant vision, he was unable to see anything, and it was necessary that he be led by his companions into the city of Damascus. Even though these men also “beheld the light,” they were not blinded (22:9). Why not? This unique detail explains the matter. It was the “glory” of the light, i.e., the radiance of the Lord Jesus himself (22:11; cf. v. 14), that his companions did not see, that temporarily robbed Saul of his vision.
Yes, wonderfully complementary are the details, but no contradictions exist. The critic’s charge, as stated at the beginning of this piece, is without credibility. Truth ever triumphs.