What about contradictions in the Bible? Critics will give many examples.
The contradictions initially baffled me. I valiantly tried to resolve them. Some of the books I used are:
- John Haley, Apparent Contradictions in the Bible, Whitaker House, 1992
- Dick Wilson, A Scientific Investigation of the Old Testament, Moody Press, 1959
- J Bickersteth and T Pain, The Four Faces of God, Kingsway Publications, 1992
- Others like Norman Geisler’s book on Christian Apologetics, Warner Wallace’s books on Cold-Case Christianity, RC Sproul, Frank Turek, Paul Copan, Josh McDowell, and others.
The example of Dick Wilson always inspires me. He knew Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German and many other Semitic languages. He collected thousands of documents. He studied his subject, the Bible, thoroughly although he was more an Old Testament scholar. What I learned from him is, unless you know your Bible, the background and the different languages very well, it is dangerous to make claims about the Bible’s problems. We are the problem, not the Word.
My resolve is:
The Bible cannot be torn apart by armchair critics. Unless he/she is an absolute expert in Biblical languages, familiar with the history of that time and an honest seeker after the truth, I ignore them and their claims.
‘…The Word of the Lord stands forever.’ 1 Peter 1:25
During the revival upsurge of the 80’s and 90’s many ‘apparent’ discrepancies or contradictions were raised. Most of these have been cleared up due to misunderstanding brought about by a lack of knowledge of scripture, the figurative nature of spiritual matters such as the righteous requirements of the law can not be met by the deeds of the flesh. The seven fold Spirit of God can not be entered into by intelectual reasoning, without a revelation of the ‘fear of the Lord’ abiding in the heart, that releases spiritual knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
For many years I pondered the apparent contradictions in scripure but God is faithfull to answer prayer. I also learnt a lot from Rick Joyner and Bill Johnson in this line.
This does not mean I have uncovered all the mistakes of interpretation of scripture by the forefathers of the Church. I reglarly run into knowledge that seemingly contradict, but now I quite enjoy digging deeper into the Word that eventuality reveals my own misinterpretation.
The word is like a network, where everything, every law, principal and precept and even sin are connected into a whole, a huge system, by missing one precept many others will be missaligned intellectually. Thank God for spiritual understanding during these times, the Spirit corrects and teaches the Soul.
Blessings
Patrick
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Thanks for sharing, Pat. Blessings for you and Ann.
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