The study of inconsistencies in the Bible has a long history. In his 1670
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,
Baruch Spinoza considered the Bible to be "a book rich in contradictions". In the 18th century,
Thomas Paine in
The Age of Reason compiled many of the Bible's self-contradictions. And in 1860, William Henry Burr produced a list of 144 self-contradictions in the Bible.
Biblical scholars have studied inconsistencies in and between texts and canons as a means to study the bible and the societies that created and influenced it. The field has given rise to theories such as
Julius Wellhausen's
documentary hypothesis and the
deuteronomistic history (concerning the origins of the Torah and the history of Israel contained in the books from
Joshua to
Kings respectively).
Biblical canons The question of inconsistency covers not only the text but even the composition of scripture. Since the Bible never enumerates its own component parts, those who believe it is inerrant must appeal to extra-biblical authority to justify which books to include. Over the centuries, different communities have accepted shifting collections of books. The size of these
biblical canons varies enormously, from the
Samaritans, who consider the five books of the
Torah alone to be authoritative, to the
Ethiopian Bible, which contains all the books of all other churches plus such titles as the
Book of Josephus and the
Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians. The contents of canons have varied over time, books regarded as authoritative by some Christians at some points in history being excluded from the collections of later communities—this was the fate of the
many apocryphal Gospels from the first few centuries of the Church (the
Gospel of Thomas is an example); books long regarded as canonical in one branch of Christianity may be dropped by others on doctrinal grounds (the fate of the
deuterocanonical books, canonical in the
Roman Catholic and
Eastern Orthodox Church but repudiated by the Protestants because they are not included in the
Hebrew Bible and supported doctrines to which the
Protestant reformers objected such as the
intercession of saints,
purgatory,
prayers for the dead etc. Some books that could have been included, such as the
Book of Enoch, quoted as scriptural in , were excluded from the canons of almost all later communities (see
Canonicity of the Book of Enoch).
Attribution of the books The question of internal consistency in the Bible also involves the attribution of authorship to its books. For instance, the words of the Torah, or the first five books of the Old Testament, have traditionally been believed to be by the hand of
Moses, and the New Testament Gospels have been attributed to the
Four Evangelists. Modern scholarship calls these attributions into question. Eliot Rabin writes: "For the past 400 years, readers have been openly questioning the traditional attribution of these five books to Moses." For instance, he quotes
Thomas Hobbes in his 1651
Leviathan as writing that, when Genesis 12:6 has "and the Canaanite was then in the land", it could not have been written by Moses. Hobbes may have been the first European to question this attribution in print, arguing that the words can "only sensibly be used by someone who is writing when the Canaanites no longer are in the land ... But the Canaanites were in the land when Moses was alive." Rabin also quotes the 11th-century rabbi,
Rashi, as saying that Moses could not have written, in Deuteronomy 34:5, "And Moses died there", but it must have been written by
Joshua. However, it is also noted that the second-century commentator
Rabbi Meir, has it that God dictated those words to Moses, who wrote them down with a tear in his eye. The traditional authorship of the New Testament remains debated. M. N. Ralph says that the Gospels represent compilations of written and oral sources, though Bond notes
source criticism of the gospels is generally out of fashion and emphasizes the evangelist's authorial creativity.
Manuscripts Manuscripts also differ. Usually the differences are minor, but occasionally they are significant, as in the case of the
Comma Johanneum, a clause in the
First Epistle of John that bears explicit witness to the doctrine of the
Trinity, which is found written only in Latin in the 4th century at the earliest, but is not observed in any Greek manuscripts prior to 1215. A similar example from the Old Testament is the difference between the
Septuagint and
Masoretic descriptions of the battle of
David and
Goliath: the Septuagint version is shorter and avoids the narrative inconsistencies of the familiar Masoretic story, notably the famous incident of
Saul asking who David is as though he does not know his own harpist and shield-bearer. There are also important differences between the Masoretic and
Samaritan version of the
Pentateuch in the readings of many sentences. Some distinctions seem motivated by (or reflect) philosophical differences between
Judaism and
Samaritanism. Some are obvious, like the inclusion of a passage in the Samaritan version of the
Ten Commandments that restates the command to build an altar on
Mount Gerizim and says that Mount Gerizim is the site where all future sacrifices must be offered. Since the location of God's holy site is probably the central original difference between Judaism and Samaritanism, it makes sense that this passage is in one version and not the other.
Contradictions Most questions of biblical inconsistency relate to contradictions in the narrative. Some relate to apparently minor details; for example: the number of soldiers in an army (e.g. vs. ), the year a certain king began his reign (e.g. vs. ), the details of
Apostle Paul's itinerary (
Acts 9,
11,
15,,
21 vs.
Galatians 1:18,
2:1). In some cases, seemingly trivial points of differences can actually have an enormous significance for the interpretation of a book or for the reconstruction of the history of Ancient Israel, how the world was created, why God allows suffering, or the religious significance of Jesus's death. Modern scholars find inconsistencies in the Old Testament and Torah and ascribe many of them to the process by which they were created. For example, the
documentary hypothesis asserts that repetitions and contradictions are the result of texts that have been woven together from diverse sources written by different authors, at different times. On this point, Ronald Witherup gives the example of and , which most scholars view as
two separate stories of creation written by different authors in different time periods. "Most biblical scholars accept Genesis 1 as originating around the sixth century B.C. with a group of scribes who were concerned about the preservation of the liturgical traditions of the Jews (thus the concern for the seven-day schema of creation and the notion of the sabbath). Genesis 2, on the other hand, originates from an earlier, more primitive tradition dated to around the tenth century B.C." Fundamentalists argue that this is simply the same story told twice, the first time () being poetic and the second one () being more anthropomorphic. There are further examples of other types of inconsistency in the Old Testament. In the account of the slaughtering of an animal before the Temple, it states that the animal "was killed at the entrance to the tabernacle, north of the altar, and cut up". The most natural interpretation of the Hebrew wording is that the slaughtering was done by the one making the offering rather than by the priest. If so, it contradicts , where it is done by the Levites, and where done by the priests. There are several places in the Old Testament where numerical figures can be directly compared. For example, both and present the list of Jewish families that "came up out of
the captivity of the exiles ..." and returned to Jerusalem and Judah". But the two lists disagree on the number of members of each family. In total, there are nearly twenty numerical discrepancies between the lists. Furthermore, in both cases a total figure of 42,360 people is given, but the partial figures do not add up to the total. A third version of the list exists in the apocryphal book
1 Esdras. In
Deuteronomy chapter 4, verses 1 and 8 state that Moses is about to teach the laws "today". Verse 8, in the Hebrew text, even says that the "entire Torah" is to be taught today. However, verse 5 suggests that the laws have already been delivered some time in the past.
The Oxford Bible Commentary notes that: However, orthodox rabbis, such as
Mordechai Breuer, deny that such inconsistencies are evidence that the words were not all created by God. He asserts that such hypotheses are false, and that the contradictory portrayals of creation are not because they were written by different authors. "Instead we refer them to the different qualities of God."
Copying errors in the Old Testament Jewish scholars are concerned that all copies of the
Torah are identical, and that each copy is consistent in its statements and in its language. The aim is to preserve the work in a condition as close to its original state as possible. This extends to consistency in spelling and the use of individual words. B. Barry Levy notes that the 16th-century
Rabbi Ibn Zimra recounted "how he restored the scrolls to their original state" and noted "the importance of having textual consistency in the scrolls, because criticisms of how Jews preserved and transmitted the Torah text contained accusations that they willfully changed it." Levy also suggests that "Torah scrolls remain prized and frequently used ritual objects, and scribes have continually worked as carefully as possible to copy them, always holding dear the belief that they were producing as accurate and correct a text as they could. Unfortunately even this commitment and care could not guarantee a letter-perfect text". Furthermore,
Shnayer Leiman writes that "Errors have crept into the best Torah scrolls. Every so often a Torah has to be returned to the ark due to an error discovered while being read in public." The discovery of the Hebrew Bible texts among the
Dead Sea Scrolls has been taken to demonstrate a high degree of accuracy in the transmission of
Old Testament texts:
Internal consistency of the text Several grammatical errors are known to appear in copies of the Torah. As Shai Cherry notes, "Since one of the Rabbinic assumptions is that the Torah is perfect, at a minimum one would expect there to be no grammatical mistakes. After all, shouldn't God be an inerrant grammarian?" For examples of such mistakes, Cherry notes that, in the Cain and Abel story, where 'sin' is mentioned, "
sin (chatat) is feminine, but the predicate is masculine". Rabbis have suggested that this is because sin starts out weak like a woman, but ends as strong as a man. Also, in verse 7 of this story, which concerns 'daughters' so that all four suffixes should be feminine, two of them are masculine. Cherry says that such problems ought to be ascribed to "sloppy editing", but that those who believe the Torah is perfect would say that these errors were put there intentionally.
Theology Christian theologians agree that the New Testament has a single and consistent theological focus on the salvific nature of Christ, but the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament consists of several different theologies. Some of these complement each other, while others are contradictory, even within the same book. Despite the lack of a single unifying theology, common themes recur, including (although no list can be exhaustive)
monotheism, the divine origins of human morality, God's election of a chosen people, the idea of the coming
Messiah, and the concepts of
sin, faithfulness, and
redemption. The study of these is central to both Jewish and Christian theologies, even if they differ in their approaches. For example, although both religions believe in the coming Messiah, the Jewish expectation is different from the Christian view. Within Christianity, themes such as the nature of God (
trinitarianism and
nontrinitarianism),
nature of Jesus,
views of the old covenant,
original sin,
predestination,
ordination of women,
hell,
biblical prophecies, etc. have continued to be a matter of dispute among theologians and
various denominations.
New Testament The
New Testament has been preserved in three major manuscript traditions: the 4th century AD
Alexandrian text-type; the
Western text-type, also very early but prone to paraphrase and other corruptions; and the
Byzantine text-type, which makes up over 80% of all manuscripts, the majority comparatively very late in the tradition. Scholars regard the Alexandrian text-type as generally more authoritative when treating textual variations. The majority of differences are minor—matters such as variant spellings—although at a few points the oldest manuscripts show important inconsistencies compared with the more recent ones: these include the endings of
Mark 16, describing Jesus' post-resurrection appearances, from the
Gospel of Mark; the absence from
John of the story of
the woman taken in adultery; and an explicit reference to the
Trinity in
1 John (the
Comma Johanneum).
Sixteen New Testament verses in the
King James Version (published in 1611) are not included in more modern English translations, as scholars believe they were later additions to the text. All major modern Christian communions accept a uniform canon of 27 books, although a few small and isolated communities have either fewer or more. Nevertheless, the idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from
Apostolic times has no foundation in history, and the
canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the
result of a historical process. The very idea of a closed canon did not exist prior to the 2nd century, when it became necessary to counter movements such as
Marcionism. By the end of the 4th century unanimity had been achieved in the West concerning the New Testament canon as it is today, and by the 5th century most of the East had come into harmony by accepting the Book of Revelation. Nonetheless, a full dogmatic articulation of the canon for Roman Catholicism was not made until the
Council of Trent of 1546, as until then the authority of the Scriptures was not considered higher than that of Sacred Tradition, papal bulls, and ecumenical councils. Martin Luther revived the
antilegomena dispute by suggesting the removal of Jude, James, Hebrews, and Revelation; this was not generally accepted by his followers, but these books are still ordered last in the German-language Luther Bible. The canons of other important communions were defined in the
Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 for the
Church of England, the
Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for
Presbyterianism, and the
Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 for the
Greek Orthodox.
Internal consistency Biblical scholar
Bruce M. Metzger mentions several internal inconsistencies in the New Testament in earlier manuscripts that later scribes attempted to correct: In the 2nd century AD,
Tatian produced a gospel text called
Diatessaron by weaving together all four gospels into one. The gospel compilation eliminated all the discrepancies that exist between the four gospels. For example, it omits the
genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. To fit in all canonical material, Tatian created his own narrative sequence, which is different from both the synoptic sequence and John's sequence.
The Gospels Francis Watson argues that alleged contradictions are far from trivial and at the heart of Christian faith and life, though
Dale Allison notes that most variations in the Synoptics are relatively minor. In the 2nd century,
Assyrian Christian apologist
Tatian (120-180 CE) produced the
Diatesseron, the first known
gospel harmony: it unified the narratives of the four canonical gospels into a single coherent narrative of Jesus's life and death, only excluding the
genealogies of Jesus and the so-called
pericope adulterae. It enjoyed great popularity in the
Syriac Church, but was eventually abandoned in the 5th century. The
Church Father Origen (184/185 – 253/254
CE) replied to the pagan philosopher
Celsus, a critic of Christianity, who had complained that some Christians had remodelled the
Gospel to answer objections, agreeing that some had done so. In his
Harmony of the Gospels,
Augustine of Hippo (354-430 CE) produced a 5th-century attempt to explain away all of the apparent contradictions he was aware of. He wrote that because there are those who would "rob [the Evangelists] of their credit as veracious historians", "we must prove that the writers in question do not stand in any antagonism to each other." Whereas more modern apologists, such as
Gleason Archer, in producing a book that provides explanations for many Bible difficulties, writes: "Be fully persuaded in your own mind that an adequate explanation exists, even though you have not yet found it." Of those who accept that there are inconsistencies, scholars such as
Raymond Brown have examined contradictions in the Gospels, particularly in the
infancy narratives of Christ.
W. D. Davies and
E. P. Sanders claim that: "on many points, especially about Jesus' early life, the evangelists were ignorant ... they simply did not know, and, guided by rumour, hope or supposition, did the best they could". More critical scholars see the nativity stories either as completely fictional accounts, or at least constructed from traditions that predate the Gospels. As a further example, the
"Markan Appendix" (Mark 16:9-20) "is universally accepted to have not been written by the author" of the
Gospel of Mark, and it has been argued that Mark 16:9–20 was added later so that the Gospel of Mark originally ended at
Mark 16:8. Similarly, the so-called "
Pericope Adulterae" is almost universally accepted not to be part of the original
Gospel of John, but a later addition. Since
Eusebius reports that
Papias of Hierapolis mentioned a similar episode narrated in the apocryphal
Gospel of the Hebrews,
Bart D. Ehrman suggests that such episode could have been originally part of such work; however, Kyle R. Hughes disagrees and states that the pericope was originally part of the
Gospel of Luke.
Grammatico-historical exegesis is determining the meaning of scripture by understanding the author's environment outside the Bible, as well as the scripture itself.Apologists have suggested that the differences are the result of two different lineages, Matthew's from King David's son, Solomon, to Jacob, father of Joseph, and Luke's from King David's other son, Nathan, to
Heli, father of Mary and father-in-law of Joseph. However,
Geza Vermes points out that Luke makes no mention of Mary, and questions what purpose a maternal genealogy would serve in a Jewish setting. He also points out that Jesus is 42 generations away from King David in Luke, but only 28 generations away in Matthew. In
Ethics,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer pointed out another conflict, between / ("
He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters") and /("For he who is not against us [
you] is for us [
you]"). Bonhoeffer called these two sayings "the claim to exclusiveness and the claim to totality". He argued that both are necessary and that "The cross of Christ makes both sayings true."
D. A. Carson commented similarly, adding he thought there are two different contexts where /describe the attitude listeners are to have to other possible disciples: when in doubt, be inclusive, while / describe the standard listeners should apply to themselves: be in no doubt of one's own standing. Other commentaries argue that, juxtaposed, the sayings declare the impossibility of neutrality. New Testament scholarship tends to view these as one statement that has either been preserved in two different forms or has been altered by the Gospel writers to present a point of view that expresses the needs of the Christian community at the time. Mark, the earliest of the Gospels, presents the 'inclusive' formulation, in association with an account of Jesus rebuking his followers for stopping someone from carrying out
exorcisms in his name. The Gospel of Matthew has the other, 'exclusive' version, preceded by a
story about a strong man; the Gospel of Mark also includes this story, but without the concluding observation. The Luke version presents both versions. There is still lively discussion about which version is the more authentic. Barton and Muddiman note that "In
Mk there are three women at the tomb, in
Mt two, and in
Lk more than three. In Mark and Luke they come with spices to anoint Jesus, but in the Fourth Gospel this has already been done. According to Allison the resurrection narratives in the gospels agree on "the basic facts," citing
Lessing on differences between accounts by historians
Livy,
Polybius, and
Tacitus on the same event.
Raymond E. Brown notes the apparent disagreements between the New Testament books in reporting the words of Jesus concerning his prediction of the destruction of the Temple. In it is reported as a direct statement: "And Jesus answering said unto him, Seest thou these great buildings? there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down." However, in , the event becomes words from people who "bear false witness against him"; in , Jesus' words are used to blaspheme him; and in , similar words are again said to be from those bearing false witness. Furthermore, and has people accusing Jesus and blaspheming him as someone who had said such words, while reports Jesus saying directly that the sanctuary would be destroyed, but actually speaking "of the sanctuary of his body". While Sanders writes it is "overwhelmingly probable that Jesus did something in the temple and said something about its destruction", Brown suggests that the various accounts show that Jesus did not have God's detailed foreknowledge of what was to happen to the Temple. In evidence for this lack of detailed prescience, he points out that there are many stones left upon other stones in the remains of Herod's temple, for instance in the
Wailing Wall. Bart Ehrman argues that the concept of Jesus's preexistence as a divine being who became human is only claimed in the Gospel of John. However, some scholars disagree, locating pre-existent and divine Christology within the Pauline epistles and synoptic gospels. Ehrman points out that while
Mark 14 has Jesus crucified the morning after the Passover, John has Jesus crucified on the following day, the "day of Preparation for the Passover". Ehrman suggests the John author changed the day for theological reasons: John is the only gospel that explicitly identifies Jesus as the "Lamb of God", so has Jesus dying on the same day as the Passover lambs. Ancient compositional practices involved chronological displacement and compression, with even reliable biographers like
Plutarch displaying them. Some apologists have noted that "day of Preparation for the Passover" might refer to the Sabbath Preparation Day that occurs during the Passover week (i.e., Friday), thus dissolving the apparent contradiction between
Mark 14 and John 19:14.
Acts of the Apostles In the
Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties,
Archer examines two verses in Acts describing the
Conversion of Paul which are sometimes perceived as a contradiction: • "The men who travelled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one" • "And those who were with me saw the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me" Archer claims that the original Greek shows "there is no real contradiction between these two statements" because "Greek makes a distinction between hearing a sound as a noise (in which case the object to the verb 'to hear' takes the genitive case) and hearing a voice as a thought-conveying message (in which case it takes the accusative)" and "in neither account is it stated that his companions ever heard that Voice in the accusative case". Some apologists have noted that in most translations (as in NASBu) ‘died’ is a plural form, but in the Greek ‘died’ is a singular form with ‘Jacob’ as subject, not ‘Jacob and the fathers’ as subject. And so ‘they were removed’ refers to the last mentioned plural form, i.e. ‘the fathers’ and not to ‘Jacob and the fathers’, thus dissolving the apparent contradiction.
Gospel and Acts In , Judas returns the bribe Christians believe he had immorally accepted for handing over Jesus, throwing the money into the temple before hanging himself. The temple priests, unwilling to return the defiled money to the treasury, used it instead to buy a field known as the Potter's Field, as a plot in which to bury strangers. In , on the other hand, Judas, having not committed suicide out of guilt, used the bribe money to buy the field himself, and his death in the field is attributed thus: "falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his intestines gushed out".
Raymond E. Brown points to the contradiction: "Luke's account of the death of Judas in Acts 1:18 is scarcely reconcilable with Matt 27:3–10."
Harmonization of the two accounts has been tried since ancient times and occasionally still today. However, modern scholars tend to find these unconvincing, pointing out the absence of suicide in Acts and that ancient historical works could display differences when reporting events; variations between
Tacitus,
Suetonius, and
Plutarch on
Otho's death being similar to those in the gospels.
Epistles The
Tübingen school of historians founded by
F. C. Baur believes that in
Early Christianity, there was conflict between
Pauline Christianity and the
Jerusalem Church led by
James the Just,
Simon Peter, and
John the Apostle, the so-called "
Jewish Christians" or "Pillars of the Church". Paul believed that the
gentiles and Jewish Christians were no longer obligated to keep the Mosaic law (). The Jewish Christians disagreed, believing that everyone, including the gentiles, must keep the Mosaic law. In , part of the "
Incident at Antioch", Paul publicly rebuked Peter for
Judaizing.
Paul claims several times that believers are saved by
divine grace, and that believers are therefore "not under law, but under
grace". The Epistle of James, in contrast, claims that Christians are to obey the "whole law", that "a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone", and that "faith without works is dead". Protestants, with their belief in
salvation by faith alone, have had difficulty reconciling these contradictory views.
Martin Luther, for example, asserted that the
Epistle of James might be a forgery, and relegated it to an appendix in his Bible (although he later accepted its canonicity – see
Antilegomena). Some scholars believe that Paul and James do not contradict each other but speak about different questions. They assert that the perspective of Paul is different from, and complementary to, that of James: "When Paul claims that one is justified by faith alone, apart from works, he is referring to works that precede salvation. Conversely, when James insists on works as necessary to justification, he has in view works that follow and validate salvation." Paul states in various passages that works have to follow faith (, , , , etc.). In
I Corinthians: "Inconsistencies have been found within later chapters, for instance between an apparently softer stance on sacrificial food in and , and a harder line in ." Also, the letter "seems to place a total ban on women's speech in church, which is strangely inconsistent with Paul's permission in that (veiled) women could pray and prophesy. However, some authors argue that there is no inconsistency in Paul's words. He consistently prohibits Christians from eating food sacrificed to idols; by appealing first to their obligation to love other believers and then to their obligation of exclusive faithfulness to Christ.
Old Testament versus New Testament In the 2nd century CE, the Christian theologian
Marcion composed a work (now lost) entitled
Antithesis. In the Antithesis, Marcion set out in detail and discussed at length the contradictions between the Old Testament and New Testament. The Old and New Testaments, Marcion argued, cannot be reconciled to each other. The code of conduct advocated by Moses was "
an eye for an eye", but
Jesus set this precept aside. Marcion pointed to "I make peace and create evil, I the Lord do all these things". He contrasted this with Jesus' saying that "a tree was known by its fruit; a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit" and then pointed to several injunctions and lessons in the Old Testament that the New Testament contradicts. For example,
Elisha had children eaten by bears; Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me".
Joshua had the sun stopped in order to prolong the slaughter of his enemies.
Paul quoted Jesus as commanding "Let not the sun go down on your wrath" (
Eph ). In the Old Testament,
divorce was permitted and so was
polygamy; in the New Testament, neither is allowed.
Moses enforced the
Jewish Sabbath and
Jewish law; Jesus has
de-institutionalised both. Even within the Old Testament, Marcion found contradictions. For example, God commanded that no work should be done on the Sabbath, yet he told the Israelites to carry the
Ark of the Covenant around Jericho seven times on the Sabbath. No graven image was to be made, yet Moses was directed to fashion a
bronze serpent. Marcion therefore rejected the entire Old Testament. One Christian view is that
Jesus mediates a
New Covenant relationship between God and his followers and
abolished the Mosaic laws, according to the
New Testament (; ; ; ; , etc.). From a
Jewish perspective however, the
Torah was given to the Jewish people and
B'nei Noah as an eternal covenant (for example , , ) and will never be replaced or added to (for example , ). There are differences of opinion as to how the new covenant affects the validity of biblical law. The differences are mainly as a result of attempts to harmonize biblical statements that the biblical law is eternal (, ) with New Testament statements that suggest that it
does not now apply at all, or at least
does not fully apply. Most biblical scholars admit the issue of the law can be confusing and the topic of
Paul and the law is still frequently debated among New Testament scholars (for example, see
New Perspective on Paul,
Pauline Christianity); hence the various views. ==See also==