Apparent contradictions in the Bible occur because of translation errors, copying errors, or because the reader simply misunderstood the text. In my document entitled “101 Contradictions in the Bible?” I went through a list of 101 “contradictions” and showed how none of them were truly contradictions. The following list of 101 supposed contradictions in the Bible was created by Sabir Ally, a Muslim who a pparently compiled the list from a King James Bible. Because he was using such an old translation, many of his “contradictions” no longer applied. For instance, dozens of contradictions caused by translation errors in the King James Bible have been examined by theologians and corrected in newer versions of the Bible such as the New Internation al V ersion (NIV), the New American Standard Bible (NASB), and the New King James V ersion (NKJV).
Modern Bibles, even modern King James Bibles, include footnotes which clear up apparent contradictions from translation errors or copying errors. Obviously, Sabir Ally was not using a modern Bible, or he chose to ignore such footnotes. The contradictions that occurred from translation/copying errors were easy to explain and refute.
But about half of the contradictions Sabir Ally listed were not from errors in translation, but from a misunderstanding of the text. When Sabir Ally read the Bible, he was looking for contradictions. He did it with the sole purpose of finding contradictions in the Bible in an attempt to disprove Christianity. As a result, he read 1.
Many passages that most people would never think of as contradictions, and twisted his interpretation of those passages in order to interpret them as contradictions. A good example of this, wh ich occurred man y times in Sabir Ally’ s list of contradictions, is when the Bible says two verses about an event, and those two verses are obviously meant to be put together to show the big picture, but Sa bir Ally acts as if they contradict each other. This happens all the time in the gospels. There are four gospel accounts, each written by a different writer (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John).
They named their site “101 Clear Contradictions in the Bible.” Ironically, their own quotes below refute them! For example, you can do a search on this text in. 101 contradictions in the Bible Contradiction #1 Who incited David to count the fighting men of Israel? (a) God did (2 Samuel 24:1) (b) Satan did (1 Chronicles 21:1).
The gospel writers wrote the gospels in order to record the life of Jesus on the earth. All f our of them were apostles. They traveled with Jesus and witnessed his ministry fi rsthand. All four of them wrote the gospels after Jesus ascended into heaven. When they wrote the gospels, they t hought back to their experiences with Jesus and wrote down what they remembered.
The “contradictions” occur because some of the gospel writers wrote things which the others didn’t. When you think about it, this is only logical. None of the gospel writers could possible write down. Jesus said and did.
Their books would be endless. So t hey wrote down what was most important. Some of the gospel writers considered some events to be more important, and others considered other events to be important.
By reading all four gospels, we can see four different opinions on what events of Christ’ s ministry were m ost important. Most of the time, the gospel writers agreed on what was im portant. They all recorded the most important events, such as the last supper, the crucifixion of Jesus, and the resurrection of Jesus.
But other more minor events were not recorded by all the gospel writers. Even with events that they all recorded, one gospel writer would often record specific details which the 2. Others did not write about. This doesn't mean the other gospel w riters didn't witness t hose details. They just didn't record them because they didn't consider them to be important.
So how does this cause contradictions? Sabir Ally just thinks it does. For instance: Luke wrote that just before Jesus died, he said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” John wrote that just before Jesus died, he said, “It is finished.” Do these verses contradict? They would only contradict if Luke said tha t “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit” were Jesus’s last words. John said that “It is finished” was Jesus’ s last words. But neither gospel writer says which phrase is Jesus’s last words.
The logical thing to do in a case like this is to put the two gospel accounts together in order t o gain a better understanding of the passage. The whole reason we have four gospels is so that we can compare them, combining them to get a clearer picture of Christ’ s ministry on earth. When the two accounts are put together, we see that Jesus’s last words were either “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. It is fi nished,” or “It is finished. Father, into my hands I commit my spirit.” Y et instead of combining the accounts to get a better understanding of the passage, Sabir Ally chose to put the two accounts against each other, acting as if they contradict each other. An absence is a detail in one account and a presence of that detail in another account is not a contradiction.
Rather, it is an opportunity to put the two accounts together, adding the details from all four gospel records, to gain a full understanding of the life of Jesus. Differences in the minor details of the gospel records only contradict when it is impossible for a detail in one account to coincide with a detail from another account’s record of the same passage (for instance, this would happen if one account said Christ’s last supper was in Jerusalem, and another said it was in 3.