I went back and read the Bible again, this time going contra-spotting. I have come up with a few, which I will list here.
First, and foremost to me( and I would think to theists as well) is the question: Is God good to everyone, or a few people?
PSA 145:9 The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.
Vs.
JER 13:14 And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them.
Secondly, is God a bringer of peace, or a warlord?
EXO 15:3 The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name.
Vs.
ROM 15:33 Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen.
And, for me, the most glaring contradiction of all: Which order did god create the world in?
Did he:
GEN 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
GEN 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Or did he do it in this order?:
GEN 2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
GEN 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
Just a few to start off. Fellow atheists, feel free to give your 2 cents. Theists, feel free to try your hand at clarifying this.
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The bible is riddled with contradictions. Many of them can be contributed to the different opinions of God by the different authors of the books within the bible. Others are due to translation, and still others are because of the hiccups created when you are depending on an oral tradition to pass on information (as many of the authors do, specifically in the book of Genesis which, according to Christians, was written by Moses. I make this point only because according to the bible, Noah's flood took place between "the beginning" and the time of Moses. Which means not only was the biggest answer of all time passed on orally, but would also have been narrowed down to one mans understanding of it (Noah) before continuing its journey to Moses's hand in writing the book of Genesis, the entire time being recorded and preserved ONLY by the memory of the man who happened to be telling the story at the time).
This is only really a problem for Christian fundamentalists, who believe that every part of the bible should be taken literally and as an absolute truth. The more liberal Christian believers have learned to cherry pick the parts that make since in their lives, and dismiss those that they would have controversy with.
So when given two verses that contradict one another, they will simply pick the verse they prefer over the other.
To be clear...
None of this really matters given that the bible is truly nothing more than an incomplete record of the evolution of philosophy. It's simply one of mankinds first attempts at making sense of life. You can see a very good example of this in the vast differences and improvements in tolerance, peace, and forgiveness as you move from the Old Testament to the New Testament.
Without the disgusting hand of religion, or the lunacy and ignorance of theism, it is actually a fascinating book, and I believe would STILL be a number one best seller without the fanatic backing that has made it so after so many years.
Dennis McKinsey wrote a 500+ page encyclopedia of Bible errors. He has passed away, but you can probably buy his book from Amazon.com or other source. If you want to see the tricky defenses that professional apologists come up with, an endless collection of ad hoc arguments to every conceivable error, then either Gleason Archer or Norman Geisler's tome of folly will do.
I'll certainly have to look into that, then.
Find link to Mcinsey's "Biblical Errancy"
http://www.mindserpent.com/American_History/religion/bible/004/
All 192 issues.....
Enjoy......
No different than quran..
It is always good to look at these books with a new focus point or perspective Xavier. You never know what other oddities you may notice.
The contradictions in quran is because there were an original Arabic christian bible not exactly the copy of the old testament but probably created influenced by it and the added and changed verses stood out of course.
About the contradictions in the old testament, I have a different version of possible explanation. We shouldn't forget that judaism is rooted in Ancient Egypt and almost all the 10 commandments are from their law. They had numerous gods but the prominent ones was about 50 or so. Some of these gods have turned into the names of the god (don't know about OT but torah has them).
All these gods had different features and god didn't mean good. Some vere violent or straight out evil. We don't know how the original torah was. Maybe it included other gods too but they were the subjects of yahweh only and in time these gods merged into one and all their features was collected in one god who seemed like suffering from multiple personality disorder. Good, evil, wrathful, compassionate, creator, destructer...
Here is a list of declaration of innocence collected from all the texts found in the book of dead. The book of dead is not a book but a list of spells tailored for each individual according to the way they lived. Together they also reveal a lot of material that has been used in torah.
Declaration of Innocence Before the Gods of the Tribunal
Hail Far-strider who came forth from Heliopolis, I have done no falsehood.
Hail Fire-embracer who came forth from Kheraha, I have not robbed.
Hail Nosey who came forth from Hermopolis, I have not been rapacious.
Hail Swallower of shades who came forth from the cavern, I have not stolen.
Hail Dangerous One who came forth from Rosetjau, I have not killed men.
Hail Double Lion who came forth from the sky, I have not destroyed food-supplies.
Hail Fiery Eyes who came forth from Letopolis, I have done no crookedness.
Hail Flame which came forth backwards, I have not stolen the gods offerings.
Hail Bone-breaker who came forth from Heracleopolis, I have not told lies.
Hail Green of Flame who came forth from Memphis, I have no taken food.
Hail You of the cavern who came forth from the West, I have not been sullen.
Hail White of teeth who came forth from the Faiyum, I have not transgressed.
Hail Blood-eater who came forth from the shambles, I have not killed a sacred bull.
Hail Eater of entrails who came forth from the House of Thirty, I have not committed perjury.
Hail Lord of Truth who came forth from Maaty, I have not stolen bread.
Hail Wanderer who came forth from Bubastis, I have not eavesdropped.
Hail Pale One who came forth from Heliopolis, I have not babbled.
Hail Doubly evil who came forth from Andjet, I have not disputed except concerning my own property.
Hail Wememty-snake who came forth from the place of execution, I have not fornicated with a child.
Hail You who see whom you bring who came forth from the House of Min, I have not misbehaved.
Hail You who are over the Old One who came forth from Imau, I have not made terror.
Hail Demolisher who came forth from Xois, I have not transgressed.
Hail Disturber who came forth from Weryt, I have not been hot-tempered.
Hail Youth who came forth from the Heliopolitan nome, I have not been deaf to words of truth.
Hail Foreteller who came forth from Wenes, I have not made disturbance.
Hail You of the altar who came forth from the secret place, I have not hoodwinked. (this is smtms translated as winked and it exists as a strange and confusing rule in the old testament/torah)
Hail You whose face is behind him who came forth from the Cavern of Wrong, I have neither misconducted myself nor copulated with a boy.
Hail Hot-foot who came forth from the dusk, I have not been neglectful.
Hail You of the darkness who came forth from the darkness, I have not been quarrelsome.
Hail Bringer of your offering who came forth from Sais, I have not been unduly active.
Hail Owner of faces who came forth from Nedjefet, I have not been impatient.
Hail Accuser who came forth from Wetjenet, I have not transgressed my nature, I have not washed out the picture of a god.
Hail Owner of horns who came forth from Asyut, I have not been voluble in speech.
Hail Nefertum who came forth from Memphis, I have done no wrong, I have seen no evil.
Hail Tempsep who came forth from Busiris, I have not made conjuration against the king.
Hail You who acted according to your will, who came forth from Tjebu, I have not waded in water.
Hail Water-smiter who came forth from the Abyss, I have not been loud-voiced.
Hail Prosperer of the common folk who came forth from your house, I have not reviled mankind.
Hail Bestower of good who came forth from the Harpoon nome, I have not been puffed up..
Hail Bestower of powers who came forth from the City, I have not made distinctions for myself.
Hail Serpent with raised head, who came forth from the cavern, I am not wealthy except with my own property.
Hail Carrier-off of His Portion who came forth from the Silent Land, I have not blasphemed God in my city.
***
As far as I know although accepting the existence of multiple gods and respecting them as well, each settlement had their own personal god and the last one is meant for that god. The Jews didn't have one god but one of the gods were theirs or the person called Moses brought them together under a god of his choice. The additional "in my city" was probably cut out within time and made to look like there was only one god.
*Forgot to add: The devil, angels and other important characters could also have been former Egyptisn gods.*
The biggest contradiction in the bible are the words "In the beginning...." Yeah right, even though there was no beginning as far as we know. The god of the bible forgot to invent time, space, gravity, and a whole host of things that just didn't exist, but yet he creates the heavens and earth. How about the rest of the planets that aren't part of the heavens? This is a prime example of how one can tell that christianity is just a myth. The very first words in the bible jump to a conclusion. You have to make an assumption right off the bat. From that point on the bible gets even more illogical. It's like a kid lying. He tells another lie to get out of his first lie, and then the story gets bigger and more far fetched.
http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html
One of the most obvious contradictions in the bible is the idea that all modern human beings could be descended from a single breeding pair, Adam and Eve, 6,000 years ago. Tigers are considered critically endangered with a population of around 2,000. Homo sapiens also came close to extinction with just a few thousand individuals surviving 50-100K years ago. Our gene pool is still very shallow, but it's a lot deeper and older than the Garden of Eden story would suggest.
If you take that reasoning and apply it to the flood, you get an even worse scenario since the human population was reduced to only eight people.
And only 2 of each kind of animal repopulating their species? If you take into account that most of the animals would have a lack of food, since the flood would have destroyed grass and other vegetation and the carnivores couldn't just start eating the herbivores without wiping out those species, and that many of the animals would be grossly out of place from their natural climate zones and geographical location, it seem a tiny bit illogical.
Then, there's eight people repopulating to the current 7 billion people? Subtracting all those who died from disease, starvation, wars, etc, you'd think that level of inbreeding would leave some DNA evidence.