Note: The below is in reference to the following website: https://www.atheists.org/activism/resources/biblical-contradictions/. Recommended to have website open in another tab/window and reference as going through these.
The Sabbath Day
“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Mark 2:27
This apparent contradiction is one example of a much larger concept regarding the difference between the law of the Old Testament and grace in Jesus. The law is still true, it’s just no longer used against us if we trust in Christ, because Jesus met the penalty that the law leads to. If one does not choose to trust in Christ, then they’re still under the law and will be judged guilty of it. The law is a set of principles that, though we may not be held to it the same way now as Christians, the rules were there in the first place because it’s what allows humans to live well. God made those laws because He’s a good Father and knows what’s best. In this particular example, we know that having a Sabbath rest (or doing nothing one day a week) is hugely beneficial in keeping us from getting burnt out and preparing us to be productive in the coming week. The same applies to food laws (some things are healthy to eat, some are not), cleanliness laws (if you touch a dead body… yeah, stay away for a bit till those germs die, please!), etc.
Great conversation, thanks for putting that out, website!
The Permanence of Earth
Ecclesiastes is poetry, i.e. art. Art conveys truthful concepts by using flowery imagery, hyperbole, metaphor, etc. This “contradiction” displayed on the website is not the only time this happens. Just read around this verse! In the same chapter, Solomon (the most commonly-believed author) also implies that labor accomplishes nothing… which in a bigger concept, it really doesn’t, but labor does accomplish actual things if taken literally—inventions, societal progress, discoveries in medicine, etc.), “the wind blows southward, then turns northward”… but what about eastward/westward? “All things are wearisome”? Some things aren’t– sleep… fun.
Obviously, Solomon is in a mood. In the larger picture, he’s not wrong, though. But if taken literally, you can definitely find multiple exceptions…. This is the way of poetry. Embrace the vibes and the theme for which he is writing.
Seeing God
This is a good one, actually. The difference I take from it, however, is that this is referring to different members of the Trinity. Jesus is God (and man), but there is also God the Father. God the Father is spirit (John 4:24: God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth), and Jesus is God in the flesh (John 1:1, John 10:30, Isaiah 9:6 (thanks, OpenBible.info!)). Lotsssss of people have seen Jesus, both in the flesh and also in his resurrected form (Daniel 7:9, Revelation 1:14). “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father” (Jesus speaking in John 6:46).
Human Sacrifice
Well, Molech is a little-g god, first of all. Not saying that the Lord condones killing… I will say, it depends. Sometimes He commands it as part of setting things right in a just system (some sins require severe punishment in order to prevent the spreading/worsening of sin). In these particular verses, though, I’m not seeing the contradiction. One was sacrificed to fulfill a vow (something God takes very seriously and therefore advises not making vows at all, Deut. 23:21-23, Matt. 5:33-37), the other sacrificed to a demon. So. That passage in Deuteronomy is really great though, I’m glad this got me to look it up!
The Power of God
I honestly do not know. I mean, God created the universe, and He created iron. It’s not like kryptonite, God doesn’t create something and now it’s His weakness. Oh, no, not iron! Agh!! So, I don’t know what it means. Lol, I trust it means something, though.
Personal Injury
Yeah, this is another great over-arching theme. When Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7, I believe), he was setting a new standard. It was really a standard that had always been there, because the heart matters to God and always has (Jer. 17:9-10, 1 Sam. 16:7). This is why the law was not enough—it didn’t address matters of the heart, and so it could not make one fully clean. When Jesus came, though, now we can be remade (2 Cor. 5:17, Eze. 36:26, Rom 2:29). Jesus gets at the heart and fulfills the law and its requirements. Because there is now actually a way to meet the demands of the law by trusting in Jesus, now we are being shown the true, higher standard that God has always had. We could not meet this standard before Jesus. (We still can’t meet it through physical deeds but only by putting our trust in Jesus.)
Circumcision
This would be similar to the reasoning for the Sabbath, but I will add that the Galatian church was being tempted to go back to the law and be made right by it. If you are in Christ, then you can’t be made right by the law (no one truly can, after all). But if you try to go by the law in order to be righteous, then you’re going to be held to it. Actually, apparently one verse later in Galatians 5:3, it says this… “Again I testify to every man who gets himself circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been severed from Christ…” (decided to keep going into verse 4). Paul the apostle explains this in the context. Circumcision itself, to my understanding, was a physical sign of being a “clean” people, which would differentiate them from other people who were “unclean” (by not having the law to follow and make them “clean”). Again, referring to outward cleanliness as a precursor to the later fulfillment of complete cleanness that can be found in Christ.
Incest
Genealogies can be pretty confusing to me, so I googled this one. This seems good to me: https://www.messianics.us/bible-history/sarah-and-abraham.html. At the end, he says, “(1) Sarah was his wife; (2) She wasn’t the birthed daughter of his mother; (3) Sarah was a ‘daughter’ (which we would call ‘granddaughter’ in modern terminology) of his father; and (4) Sarah was a sister in a spiritual, ecclesiastical sense. While Sarah very well could be Abraham’s niece, she unlikely was his half-sister, and she was most certainly his wife!” They may have been related—that was pretty common, since men often had multiple wives and concubines. Family trees could get pretty complicated. But not a brother and sister in this case. I hope that’s satisfactory, I struggle following names and histories. Anyone else, feel free to add.
Trusting God
I’m not sure of the contradiction here. Job was tested, but the Lord gave him double what he lost (Job 42:10).
The Holy Lifestyle
Honestly, this one has confused me before, too. But since Ecclesiastes is poetry, I think he’s trying to make a point without necessarily saying that one “should” do this. He’s saying, Welp, might as well! To drive home a point. It’s not actually advised. It’s going along with the theme of “if everything’s pointless…” Basically, it comes down to literary analysis, like trying to understand any poet’s/artist’s message. Like, what are they driving at? Should’ve examined this passage in AP English back in HS.
Punishing Crime
So the context of this one is actually more interesting than I remembered… basically, the son in Ezekiel is not receiving the guilt of the parent because he chose to act differently. The son is not following after his father in his father’s iniquity! Therefore, since the son has behaved more righteously, he will not be held to that. However, I will say that in a lot of cases, it does seem that sin from parents “visits” us, i.e. it’s something we might struggle with. For instance, I have had to deal with things from my own family that others would not, and I’ve had to fight harder in areas that others wouldn’t need to face. But at the end of the day, I am still held to my own actions and will stand before God and speak to those. I don’t get a free pass just because the sins of my parents (or other ancestors, actually) has been “visited” on me. Likewise, you see this in pretty much every family, whether it’s a tendency toward substance abuse such as alcoholism, gambling, sexual struggles, having a temper, prejudice, etc. BUT we can behave differently than our parents and walk another path. We must, actually. Boy, do we need Jesus.
Temptation
Oi. This one’s a toughie. Long story short, tempting and testing are two different things. I know the words in this translation were both translated to “tempt”, but a lot of translations move the Genesis reference to “test”, and the context bares that out. James 1 is referring to temptation to sin (vs 14: “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust”), Genesis 22 is God testing Abraham with telling him to sacrifice Isaac. I will say, I’m thinking of the prayer that goes, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matt 6:13a). You almost should have quoted that one, my friend. And honestly, this same concept occurs whenever God allows the enemy to fulfill his purposes in a way that ultimately fulfills God’s design. He does that literally ALLLLL the time. So it’s a bigger concept, here. In my mind, it’s kind of the same thing when He uses a gentile nation to punish the Israelites. The things that these peoples do are not condoned by God, and indeed, He often will punish that nation after the Israelites have been harmed by it! But He does allow us to choose to do harm, and He ultimately can use our choices to ultimately lead us to righteous behavior. So it’s really our own “lust”, our own tendency to want to sin, our own choices that drive this. But He does uses those choices to ultimately bring about good things. Again, He himself is not the one doing it. WE are, along with the enemy.
And then a test is just a test. Lol. Like, you’ve made it this far, let’s see if you’ve really got it. Spoiler alert, Abraham is a boss in this moment. Hall of faith notoriety, right there.
Family Relationships
Oi. I mean, you really could have picked a lot of things Jesus said. How do you mean, I’m supposed to gouge out my eye? What do you mean, I’m supposed to be “perfect” as my heavenly Father is perfect? Jesus uses severe language. He takes it all the way. He’s giving you the perfect standard. Ideally, we would follow the Lord so closely that if He DID tell us to turn against our family, we would. Honestly, reference to Abraham sacrificing Isaac. That’s LITERALLY what he did. Abraham demonstrated that he basically chose the Lord so much that he was willing to kill his own son (reasoning that God would raise him back to life, Hebrews 11:19), but God did not require him to actually do this (God provided an animal to sacrifice instead). Basically, we’re supposed to be of the same heart. Do you love God so much that you would hate your own family? Not that you should, just like you shouldn’t actually gouge out your eyeball. It’s the concept, here. Like, following God is serious, and Jesus is the our only chance at being “good enough” (through his death on the cross) to meet these crazy-high standards. Praise God for the Son.
Resurrection of the Dead
Yo, you gotta be careful quoting the book of Job, because it’s a record of several different people speaking, and some of them were wrong according to the text of Job itself. Elihu seemed to get it right towards the end, and then God mic-drops them all at the very end of the book. But you know that a lot of what these “friends” of Job were saying was wrong, because several times they said that Job must have done something wrong to deserve it, and Job kept insisting that he did not. Job was correct, though in this whole situation, he did start to get a little inappropriate in understanding his place, which God then restructures, like Job, WHERE WERE YOU when I created literally everything? Get real, bro. Remember that you are the creature, He is Creator. That’s very important. But let me see who was actually speaking in chapter 7… it is Job himself. But again, he wasn’t even acting right for a lot of this, though in his position, I think most of us would have failed wayyyy harder. Job was probably the only one who could handle this and make it through it. Yeah. Job was not a prophet, his theology isn’t perfect. This book is a written account of something that happened and words that were exchanged by various individuals. It is not meant to be theological on a verse-by-verse basis but as an overarching story (thematically), just like a LOT of stories in the Old Testament. You can’t take every verse as being a prescription for reality. Some of it is literally historical record, like, this happened, not commenting on the rightness or wrongness of the event (though it does sometimes). Yeah, basically, you’re not being fair with the context. I’m tired so I’ll stop rambling now.
The End of the World
Ah, the good old “generations” debate! I have a Christian friend who actually believes that this is one of the main reasons that the events of the end times have already occurred (called “full preterist” eschatology, I believe). Just like I told her, I believe “generation” is referring more to an epoch, an age. Jesus, the one speaking in the Matthew and Luke references, says that only the Father knows the day or the hour. You might take that and say, well Jesus knew a general timeframe but just didn’t know specifically what day. I guess so. However, I believe generation is used multiple times in Scripture and is not always taken so literally… let me see. Jeremiah 2:31. Matthew 11:16 I would argue is not about the Gen Zers of 2000 years ago. Acts 2:40, same. Acts 13:36, David serving the purpose of God in his own “generation” (like, for only those people there at that time?), Phil 2:14-16. Sometimes it’s used literally like in Deut 5:9, and there are a lot of references to “all” generations that are probably being more literal, but I think in a spiritual sense, there are “generations” differently, just as one can be brother and sister spiritually and not literally. There is a greater meaning to these OT concepts in the NT a lot of the time. Jesus used metaphorical language all the time. Was the bread literally his body, the blood literally his blood? Most of us (unless Catholic) would say, No, silly. It’s a metaphor.
Uh-huh.
Anyway, yeah that’s an ongoing discussion in Christianity. Considering the use of metaphors though throughout Scripture, this is certainly no contradiction here. I get the vibe, though. But even Jesus’ coming looked differently than they anticipated based on a literal reading of the Old Testament. Conquering king? Well, sure! But not the first time, that’s when he comes back (we believe). But they were confuzzled by this, for sure! Lots of imagery and metaphors, which honestly, spiritual reality is largely like this when it represents physical reality. Oi. Yes.
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