Bible Contradictions
[Received without attribution to the original author. -Thomas]
Should we kill?
* Exodus 20:13 “Thou shalt not kill.”
* Leviticus 24:17 “And he that killeth any man shall surely be put
to death.”
vs.
* Exodus 32:27 “Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, Put every man
his sword by his side, . . . and slay every man his brother, . . .
companion, . . . neighbor.”
* I Samuel 6:19 ” . . . and the people lamented because the Lord had
smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.”
* I Samuel 15:2,3,7,8 “Thus saith the Lord . . . Now go and smite
Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them
not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and
sheep, camel and ass. . . . And Saul smote the Amalekites . . .
and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.”
* Numbers 15:36 “And all the congregation brought him without the
camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord
commanded Moses.”
* Hosea 13:16 “they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be
dashed in pieces, and their women with children shall be ripped up.”
For a discussion of the defense that the Commandments prohibit only
murder, see “Murder, He Wrote”, chapter 27 (Losing Faith In Faith: From
Preacher To Atheist
Should we tell lies?
* Exodus 20:16 “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”
* Proverbs 12:22 “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.”
vs.
* I Kings 22:23 “The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of
all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning
thee.”
* II Thessalonians 2:11 “And for this cause God shall send them
strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.”
Also, compare Joshua 2:4-6 with James 2:25.
Should we steal?
* Exodus 20:15 “Thou shalt not steal.”
* Leviticus 19:13 “Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob
him.”
vs.
* Exodus 3:22 “And ye shall spoil the Egyptians.”
* Exodus 12:35-36 “And they spoiled [plundered, NRSV] the Egyptians.”
* Luke 19:29-34 “[Jesus] sent two of his disciples, Saying, Go ye
into the village . . . ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet
never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither. And if any man ask
you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the
Lord hath need of him. . . . And as they were loosing the colt,
the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt? And they
said, The Lord hath need of him.”
I was taught as a child that when you take something without asking for
it, that is stealing.
Shall we keep the sabbath?
* Exodus 20:8 “Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.”
* Exodus 31:15 “Whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he
shall surely be put to death.”
* Numbers 15:32,36 “And while the children of Israel were in the
wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath
day. . . . And all the congregation brought him without the camp,
and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded
Moses.”
vs.
* Isaiah 1:13 “The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of
assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity.”
* John 5:16 “And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought
to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.”
* Colossians 2:16 “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in
drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the
sabbath days.”
Shall we make graven images?
* Exodus 20:4 “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or
any likeness of anything that is in heaven . . . earth . . . water.”
* Leviticus 26:1 “Ye shall make ye no idols nor graven image,
neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any
image of stone.”
* Deuteronomy 27:15 “Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or
molten image.”
vs.
* Exodus 25:18 “And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten
work shalt thou make them.”
* I Kings 7:15,16,23,25 “For he [Solomon] cast two pillars of brass
. . . and two chapiters of molten brass . . . And he made a molten
sea . . . it stood upon twelve oxen . . . [and so on]”
Are we saved through works?
* Ephesians 2:8,9 “For by grace are ye saved through faith . . . not
of works.”
* Romans 3:20,28 “Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no
flesh be justified in his sight.”
* Galatians 2:16 “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works
of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.”
vs.
* James 2:24 “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and
not by faith only.”
* Matthew 19:16-21 “And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good
Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?
And he [Jesus] said unto him . . . keep the commandments. . . .
The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my
youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be
perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and
thou shalt have treasure in heaven.”
The common defense here is that “we are saved by faith and works.” But
Paul said “not of works.”
Should good works be seen?
* Matthew 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men that they may see
your good works.”
* I Peter 2:12 “Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles:
that . . . they may by your good works, which they shall behold,
glorify God in the day of visitation.”
vs.
* Matthew 6:1-4 “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to
be seen of them . . . that thine alms may be in secret.”
* Matthew 23:3,5 “Do not ye after their [Pharisees’] works. . . .
all their works they do for to be seen of men.”
Should we own slaves?
* Leviticus 25:45-46 “Moreover of the children of the strangers that
do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, . . . and they shall
be your possession . . . they shall be your bondmen forever.”
* Genesis 9:25 “And he [Noah] said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of
servants shall he be unto his brethren.”
* Exodus 21:2,7 “If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall
serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. . . .
And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not
go out as the manservants do.”
* Joel 3:8 “And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the
hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the
Sabeans, to a people far off: for the Lord hath spoken it.”
* Luke 12:47,48 [Jesus speaking] “And that servant, which knew his
lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to
his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not,
and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few
stripes.”
* Colossians 3:22 “Servants, obey in all things your masters.”
vs.
* Isaiah 58:6 “Undo the heavy burdens . . . let the oppressed go
free, . . . break every yoke.”
* Matthew 23:10 “Neither be ye called Masters: for one is your
Master, even Christ.”
Pro-slavery bible verses were cited by many churches in the South during
the Civil War, and were used by some theologians in the Dutch Reformed
Church to justify apartheid in South Africa. There are more pro-slavery
verses than cited here.
Does God change his mind?
* Malachi 3:6 “For I am the Lord; I change not.”
* Numbers 23:19 “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the
son of man, that he should repent.”
* Ezekiel 24:14 “I the Lord have spoken it: it shall come to pass,
and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare,
neither will I repent.”
* James 1:17 ” . . . the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
vs.
* Exodus 32:14 “And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought
to do unto his people.”
* Genesis 6:6,7 “And it repented the Lord that he had made man on
the earth . . . And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have
created from the face of the earth . . . for it repenteth me that
I have made him.”
* Jonah 3:10 “. . . and God repented of the evil, that he had said
that he would do unto them; and he did it not.”
See also II Kings 20:1-7, Numbers 16:20-35, Numbers 16:44-50.
See Genesis 18:23-33, where Abraham gets God to change his mind about
the minimum number of righteous people in Sodom required to avoid
destruction, bargaining down from fifty to ten. (An omniscient God must
have known that he was playing with Abraham’s hopes for mercy–he
destroyed the city anyway.)
Are we punished for our parents’ sins?
* Exodus 20:5 “For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the
iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation.” (Repeated in Deuteronomy 5:9)
* Exodus 34:6-7 ” . . . The Lord God, merciful and gracious, . . .
that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children,
unto the third and to the fourth generation.”
* I Corinthians 15:22 “For as in Adam all die, . . .”
vs.
* Ezekiel 18:20 “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.”
* Deuteronomy 24:16 “The fathers shall not be put to death for the
children, neither shall the children be put to death for the
fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.”
Is God good or evil?
* Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all.”
* Deuteronomy 32:4 “a God of truth and without iniquity, just and
right is he.”
vs.
* Isaiah 45:7 “I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these
things.” See “Out of Context” for more on Isaiah 45:7.
* Lamentations 3:38 “Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth
not evil and good?”
* Jeremiah 18:11 “Thus saith the Lord; Behold, I frame evil against
you, and devise a device against you.”
* Ezekiel 20:25,26 “I gave them also statutes that were not good,
and judgments whereby they should not live. And I polluted them in
their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all
that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end
that they might know that I am the Lord.”
Does God tempt people?
* James 1:13 “Let no man say . . . I am tempted of God: for God
cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.”
vs.
* Genesis 22:1 “And it came to pass after these things, that God did
tempt Abraham.”
Is God peaceable?
* Romans 15:33 “The God of peace.”
* Isaiah 2:4 “. . . and they shall beat their swords into
plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not
lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”
vs.
* Exodus 15:3 “The Lord is a man of war.”
* Joel 3:9-10 “Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men
of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into
swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am
strong.”
Was Jesus peaceable?
* John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.”
* Acts 10:36 “The word which God sent unto the children of Israel,
preaching peace by Jesus Christ.”
* Luke 2:14 ” . . . on earth peace, good will toward men.”
vs.
* Matthew 10:34 “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I
came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at
variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother,
and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s
foes shall be they of his own household.”
* Luke 22:36 “Then said he unto them, . . . he that hath no sword,
let him sell his garment, and buy one.”
Was Jesus trustworthy?
* John 8:14 “Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true.”
vs.
* John 5:31 “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.”
“Record” and “witness” in the above verses are the same Greek word
(martyria).
Shall we call people names?
* Matthew 5:22 “Whosoever shall say Thou fool, shall be in danger of
hellfire.” [Jesus speaking]
vs.
* Matthew 23:17 “Ye fools and blind.” [Jesus speaking]
* Psalm 14:1 “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.”
Has anyone seen God?
* John 1:18 “No man hath seen God at any time.”
* Exodus 33:20 “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man
see me, and live.”
* John 6:46 “Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is
of God [Jesus], he hath seen the Father.”
* I John 4:12 “No man hath seen God at any time.”
vs.
* Genesis 32:30 “For I have seen God face to face.”
* Exodus 33:11 “And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man
speaketh unto his friend.”
* Isaiah 6:1 “In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord
sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled
the temple.”
* Job 42:5 “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now
mine eye seeth thee.”
How many Gods are there?
* Deuteronomy 6:4 “The Lord our God is one Lord.”
vs.
* Genesis 1:26 “And God said, Let us make man in our image.”
* Genesis 3:22 “And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become as
one of us, to know good and evil.”
* I John 5:7 “And there are three that bear witness in heaven, the
Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
It does no good to claim that “Let us” is the magisterial “we.” Such
usage implies inclusivity of all authorities under a king’s leadership.
Invoking the Trinity solves nothing because such an idea is more
contradictory than the problem it attempts to solve.
Are we all sinners?
* Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of
God.”
* Romans 3:10 “As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.”
* Psalm 14:3 “There is none that doeth good, no, not one.”
vs.
* Job 1:1 “There was a man . . . who name was Job; and that man was
perfect and upright.”
* Genesis 7:1 “And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy
house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in
this generation.”
* Luke 1:6 “And they were both righteous before God, walking in all
the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.”
How old was Ahaziah?
* II Kings 8:26 “Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began
to reign.”
vs.
* II Chronicles 22:2 “Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he
began to reign.”
Should we swear an oath?
* Numbers 30:2 “If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath .
. . he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.”
* Genesis 21:22-24,31 ” . . . swear unto me here by God that thou
wilt not deal falsely with me . . . And Abraham said, I will
swear. . . . Wherefore he called that place Beersheba [”well of
the oath”]; because there they sware both of them.”
* Hebrews 6:13-17 “For when God made promise to Abraham, because he
could swear by no greater, he sware by himself . . . for men
verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to
them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to
shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel,
confirmed it by an oath.”
See also Genesis 22:15-19, Genesis 31:53, and Judges 11:30-39.
vs.
* Matthew 5:34-37 “But I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by
heaven . . . nor by the earth . . . . Neither shalt thou swear by
thy head . . . . But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay,
nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”
* James 5:12 “. . . swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the
earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and
your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.”
When was Jesus crucified?
* Mark 15:25 “And it was the third hour, and they crucified him.”
vs.
* John 19:14-15 “And about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the
Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out . . . crucify him.”
It is an ad hoc defense to claim that there are two methods of reckoning
time here. It has never been shown that this is the case.
Shall we obey the law?
* I Peter 2:13 “Submit yourself to every ordinance of man . . . to
the king, as supreme; Or unto governors.”
* Matthew 22:21 “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are
Caesar’s.” See also Romans 13:1,7 and Titus 3:1.
vs.
* Acts 5:29 “We ought to obey God rather then men.”
How many animals on the ark?
* Genesis 6:19 “And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every
sort shalt thou bring into the ark.”
* Genesis 7:8-9 “Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean,
and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the
female, as God had commanded Noah.”
* Genesis 7:15 “And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two
of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.”
vs.
* Genesis 7:2 “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by
sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean
by two, the male and his female.”
Were women and men created equal?
* Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of
God created he him; male and female created he them.”
vs.
* Genesis 2:18,23 “And the Lord God said, It is not good that the
man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. . . .
And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my
flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Were trees created before humans?
* Genesis 1:12-31 “And the earth brought forth grass, and herb
yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose
seed was in itself, after his kind: . . . And the evening and the
morning were the third day. . . . And God said, Let us make man in
our image . . . And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.”
vs.
* Genesis 2:5-9 “And every plant of the field before it was in the
earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord
God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a
man to till the ground. .Ê.ÊAnd the Lord God formed man of the
dust of the ground . . . And the Lord God planted a garden
eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And
out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is
pleasant to the sight, and good for food.”
Did Michal have children?
* II Samuel 6:23 “Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child
unto the day of her death.”
vs.
* II Samuel 21:8 “But the king took the two sons of Rizpah . . . and
the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul.”
How many stalls did Solomon have?
* I Kings 4:26 “And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for
his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.”
vs.
* II Chronicles 9:25 “And Solomon had four thousand stalls for
horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.”
Did Paul’s men hear a voice?
* Acts 9:7 “And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless,
hearing a voice, but seeing no man.”
vs.
* Acts 22:9 “And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and
were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.”
(For more detail on this contradiction, with a linguistic analysis of
the Greek words, see “Did Paul’s Men Hear A Voice?
Dan Barker, published in the The Skeptical Review, 1994 #1)
Is God omnipotent?
* Jeremiah 32:27 “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is
there anything too hard for me?
* Matthew 19:26 “But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men
this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.”
vs.
* Judges 1:19 “And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the
inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the
inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.”
Does God live in light?
* I Timothy 6:15-16 ” . . . the King of kings, and Lord of lords;
Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can
approach . . .”
* James 1:17 ” . . . the Father of lights, with whom is no
variableness, neither shadow of turning.”
* John 12:35 “Then Jesus saith unto them, . . . he that walketh in
darkness knoweth not wither he goeth.”
* Job 18:18 “He [the wicked] shall be driven from light into
darkness, and chased out of the world.”
* Daniel 2:22 “He [God] knoweth what is in the darkness, and the
light dwelleth with him.” See also Psalm 143:3, II Corinthians
6:14, and Hebrews 12:18-22.
vs.
* I Kings 8:12 “Then spake Solomon, The Lord said that he would
dwell in the thick darkness.” (Repeated in II Chronicles 6:1)
* II Samuel 22:12 “And he made darkness pavilions round about him,
dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies.”
* Psalm 18:11 “He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round
about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.”
* Psalm 97:1-2 “The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice . . .
clouds and darkness are round about him.”
Does God accept human sacrifice?
* Deuteronomy 12:31 “Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for
every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done
unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have
burnt in the fire to their gods.”
vs.
* Genesis 22:2 “And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac,
whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer
him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I
will tell thee of.”
* Exodus 22:29 “For thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy
ripe fruits, and of thy liquors; the firstborn of thy sons shalt
thou give unto me.”
* Judges 11:30-39 “And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said,
If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine
hand, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors
of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children
of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord’s, and I will offer it up for a
burnt offering. So Jephthah passed over unto the children of Ammon
. . . and the Lord delivered them into his hands. . . . And
Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter
came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: . . . And it
came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her
father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed.”
* II Samuel 21:8-14 “But the king [David] took the two sons of
Rizpah . . . and the five sons of Michal . . . and he delivered
them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the
hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were
put to death in the days of harvest . . . And after that God was
intreated for the land.”
* Hebrews 10:10-12 ” . . . we are sanctified through the offering of
the body of Jesus Christ . . . But this man, after he had offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.”
* I Corinthians 5:7 ” . . . For even Christ our passover is
sacrificed for us.”
Who was Joseph’s father?
* Matthew 1:16 “And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom
was born Jesus.”
vs.
* 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.”
