Today I’d like to discuss two blatant contradictions in the Bible; one from the Old Testament, one from the New.
For the first contradiction we need turn no further than the first two chapters of Genesis. I’ll quote sufficient verses (from the KJV since so many love it) to make it abundantly clear that it is a contradiction.
Genesis 1
20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
It is absolutely clear from these verses that the story has God creating non-human animals first and humans (male and female together) afterwards. Remember that: animals first, man (and woman) after.
Let’s look at the second quotation:
Genesis 2
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18 And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
Here the order of creation is clearly different; we have man first, animals second, and woman last.
If that isn’t a direct contradiction then I’m a monkey’s uncle.
If anybody is interested in what actual biblical scholars (not Christian apologists) have to say about this contradiction… Genesis 2 was written between one and two hundred years earlier than Genesis 1; Genesis 2 is considered to have been written by the “Yahwist” source (sometimes denoted “J”) and Genesis 1 later by the “Priestly” source (sometimes denoted “P”).
Well, let’s consider a clear contradiction in the New Testament. Before I cite the verses (from the gospels), a quick note: all of the gospels were written anonymously; Mark, as it came to be known, was written first… it was written generations later than any real-life Jesus could possibly have lived, on the wrong continent (2,300km away as the crow flies, over 4,000km by land) and in the wrong language (Greek – Jesus would, had he been real, have preached in Aramaic).
Years after Mark (which is blatant Roman propaganda), Matthew and Luke show up… both copy more than half of the text from Mark verbatim… and both add bits, including infancy narratives; both contain made up genealogies (but they contradict each other).
Let’s look at the contradiction. The question to consider is this: Who was Joseph’s father?
Matthew 1
16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.
Luke 3
23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli
Pretty obvious contradictions, huh?
Did God create man before the animals, or man after the animals? (and why does neither creation account accord with modern scientific discoveries about the history of life on Earth?)
Was Joseph’s father Jacob or Heli?
Christian excuses for these contradictions would be funny if they weren’t so utterly pathetic, but the question I really want to discuss is this:
Do you think that it’s reasonable to call any Christian who denies that there are contradictions in the Bible (when they are presented with this crystal clear evidence) delusional?