Does The Bible Contradict Itself?

Christianity continues to grow and thrive throughout the world and remains the largest of all religions on Earth.

The life of Jesus is the fundamental event of Scripture and is told from different perspectives. The central theme of the Bible is that God has provided redemption and forgiveness through the Messiah, Jesus Christ. That message is simple to understand by anyone. However, the Bible states that some of what is written within can be difficult or perplexing to understand, which can challenge the thinking of the most ardent Disciple (1 Corinthians 13:12; 2 Peter 2:16). To obtain a deeper understanding often requires prayer and diligent study, which leaves the reader with advanced knowledge and a greater appreciation of the Bible.

It is simply arrogant naiveté for a person to proclaim they 'don't need anyone to teach them because the Holy Spirit is my only Teacher.' God has given teachers, commentators, and Scholars to the Church who have sacrificed their lives to diligently study God's Word for the spiritual benefit and edification of others. Each of them is acutely aware that it is better to have "a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea" than to cause anyone to stumble and sin (Matthew 18:6 ESV).

People did not write the New Testament for scholars. It was written in the language of the day by people who had personal experiences with Jesus and shared their eyewitness accounts of those experiences. Each writer gave their perspective of events, which would naturally vary from other accounts, while guided by the Holy Spirit, who brought it back to memory. The similarities of each account are unmistakable. The writers placed much more emphasis on what Jesus did rather than when He did. Variations are not contradictions.

The writers lived in poverty and suffered tremendous persecution by the two most powerful cultures of the day. They willingly endured political disgrace, beatings, stoning, imprisonment, and execution about the claims of Jesus and what He did while boldly insisting to their last dying breath that they had physically seen Jesus bodily raised from the dead.

The Bible implores everyone who reads its words to "Study to show yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15 ESV).

The Bible is not a textbook about science or mathematics. It is about the heart of God, and the person who studies it must have a genuine desire and determination to understand and comprehend spiritual things.

The Bible is unique among all books and cannot be treated similarly. Since day one, Born-Again Christians have accepted the authority of Scriptures as God's Word based on precedent that follows its acceptance of the teachings and example of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. Scripture is normative and determinative for a correct understanding of all Christian doctrine, including the nature of the Scriptures.

THE KING OF CONTRADICTION CONFUSION

Dr. Bart Ehrman is respected by his peers as a legitimate New Testament scholar whose focus is on textual criticism, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He is a self-described former devout and committed 'Born-Again' evangelical Christian who became a 'Non-Theist/Atheist and biblical antagonist after he lost his faith and is now the go-to guy and poster boy of the God-haters.

Ehrman is not a New Testament historian or theologian. He is a critic who tries to pull apart the original Hebrew and Greek texts, driven by naturalistic philosophy. He filters everything through his atheistic worldview which affects interpretation and leads him to reach distorted and false conclusions, which then leads to conclusions that are not consistent with the entirety of biblical evidence. The vast majority of his objections to Scripture have been presented in the past by others.

Ehrman often summarizes biblical teaching accurately but will disagree with it using a biased, subjective understanding based on faulty and unproven premises and then makes illogical conclusions. The fact is that numerous New Testament scholars throughout history have disagreed on countless things. Still, they universally agree on the abundant and overwhelming evidence found in the Bible regarding the existence of God, the inspiration of the Bible, salvation in Jesus alone, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection of Jesus, and the dramatic changes in the lives of those who repent of their sin and receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

He believes that perspectives sometimes vary in the Bible, making them contradictory. He doesn't address the legitimate fact that Scripture supplements one another. As a result, Ehrman's understanding of the biblical doctrine of eternal life is found in the books of Job, the Prophets, and the teachings of Jesus, as well as the Apostles. When a person uses the science of biblical Hermeneutics to study the Scriptures, the so-called 'contradictions' disappear.