Contradictions in the New Testament

Contradictions in the New Testament

I was talking to a Christian friend about the authenticity of the Bible. A few days later, he

gave me a book from his pastor, and told me that if I read this book, I would understand

and believe in the authenticity of the Bible. The book is called “Evidence That Demands

a Verdict”, and was written by McDowell in 1972. The book deals with “Apologetics”

which is a branch of theology that provides a defense for belief in God through a

presentation of evidences that answer criticism against the Christian doctrine. The

author, like all apologists, presented tremendous evidences about confirmation of the

Bible by history as well as archaeology. The book emphasized the moral values that

Jesus preached. The author also addressed many of the prophecies in the Old

Testament and showed that these prophecies actually happened.

No single monotheist dares to say that the Old Testament or the New Testament

should in any way be disregarded as a whole. No one should disagree about the

effectiveness of the sayings of Jesus and Moses regarding the well being of humanity.

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However, a witness in a court of law is usually asked to speak the truth, the whole

truth, and nothing but the truth. Do the Christian apologists and the Sunday preachers

really believe in this witness swearing in the courts? They preach half the truth and

prefer to keep their congregation in the dark about the other half. No Christian preacher

in a Sunday class or on TV addresses the many conflicts in the Bible. And even if he

does, he is going to approach any contradiction very casually. The preacher may even

use the approach of Origen and St. Augustine and explain contradictions between the

biblical texts as a divine will to teach a point of a deeper meaning that lies beyond

human comprehension!

Each of the four Gospels includes a large number of descriptions relating events

that may be unique to a single Gospel, or common to some or all of them. Common

stories that contradict each other represent a serious question about the authenticity of

the Bible, especially if one holds the notion that whole Bible is divinely inspired. Also,

when events are unique to one Gospel, they too raise serious problems. Thus in the

case of an event of considerable importance, it should be surprising to find the event

mentioned by only one Evangelist: Jesus’ Ascension into heaven on the day of

resurrection, for example. Elsewhere, numerous events are differently described -

sometimes very differently indeed - by two or more Evangelists.

Christians are often astonished at the existence of such contradictions between

the Gospels - if they ever discover them. This is because it has been repeatedly said in

tones of the greatest assurance that their authors were the eyewitnesses of the events

described! If there are few contradictions in the New Testament, one might attempt to

find a reasonable interpretation, or blame it on our human limitation. But if the

contradictions are so many and they exist in serious events, then this is another story.

One might, in this case, question any event in the New Testament that does not conform

to the previous religious history.

Some of the following contradictions were presented in the above sections.

However, in the following section an attempt is made to list some of the contradictions in

details, for the reader to appreciate the seriousness of the problem, and how can anyone

explain all these conflicts. One Christian Apologist suggests a common answer for all the

contradictions in the Bible. He says, “We know every apparent contradiction in the Bible.

They happen because different authors receive different divine inspiration.” Now, which

divine inspiration do we believe? This explanation is almost as comical, or sad, as the

fact that he believes that.