Matthew and Luke give two
contradictory genealogies for Joseph (Matthew 1:2-17 and Luke 3:23-38). They
cannot even agree on who the father of Joseph was. Church apologists try to
eliminate this discrepancy by suggesting that the genealogy in Luke is actually
Mary's, even though Luke says explicitly that it is Joseph's genealogy (Luke
3:23). Christians have had problems reconciling the two genealogies since at
least the early fourth century. It was then that Eusebius, a "Church
Father," wrote in his The
History of the Church, "each
believer has been only too eager to dilate at length on these passages."
Both the genealogies of
Matthew and Luke show that Joseph was a direct descendant of King David. But if
Joseph is not Jesus' father, then Joseph's genealogies are meaningless as far
as Jesus is concerned, and one has to wonder why Matthew and Luke included them
in their gospels. The answer, of course, is that the genealogies originally
said that Jesus was the son of Joseph and thus Jesus fulfilled the messianic
requirement of being a direct descendant of King David.
Long after Matthew and
Luke wrote the genealogies the church invented (or more likely borrowed from
the mystery religions) the doctrine of the virgin birth. Although the virgin
birth could be accommodated by inserting a few words into the genealogies to
break the physical link between Joseph and Jesus, those same insertions also
broke the physical link between David and Jesus.
The church had now created
two major problems: 1) to explain away the existence of two genealogies of
Joseph, now rendered meaningless, and 2) to explain how Jesus was a descendant
of David.
The apostle Paul says that
Jesus "was born of the seed of David" (Romans 1:3). Here the word
"seed" is literally in the Greek "sperma."
This same Greek word is translated in other verses as "descendant(s)"
or "offspring." The point is that the Messiah had to be a physical
descendant of King David through the male line. That Jesus had to be a physical
descendant of David means that even if Joseph had legally adopted Jesus (as
some apologists have suggested), Jesus would still not qualify as Messiah if he
had been born of a virgin - seed from the line of David was required.
Women did not count in
reckoning descent for the simple reason that it was then believed that the
complete human was present in the man's sperm (the woman's egg being discovered
in 1827). The woman's womb was just the soil in which the seed was planted.
Just as there was barren soil that could not produce crops, so also the Bible
speaks of barren wombs that could not produce children.
This is the reason that
although there are many male genealogies in the Bible, there are no female
genealogies. This also eliminates the possibility put forward by some
apologists that Jesus could be of the "seed of David" through Mary.
Of all the writers of the
New Testament, only Matthew and Luke mention the virgin birth. Had something as
miraculous as the virgin birth actually occurred, one would expect that Mark
and John would have at least mentioned it in their efforts to convince the
world that Jesus was who they were claiming him to be.
The apostle Paul never
mentions the virgin birth, even though it would have strengthened his arguments
in several places. Instead, where Paul does refer to Jesus' birth, he says that
Jesus "was born of the seed of David" (Romans 1:3) and was "born
of a woman," not a virgin (Galatians 4:4).
Matthew mentions four
women in the Joseph's genealogy.
a. Tamar - disguised
herself as a harlot to seduce Judah, her father-in-law (Genesis 38:12-19).
b. Rahab
- was a harlot who lived in the city of
c. Ruth - at her
mother-in-law Naomi's request, she came secretly to where Boaz was sleeping and
spent the night with him. Later Ruth and Boaz were married (Ruth 3:1-14).
d. Bathsheba - became
pregnant by King David while she was still married to Uriah
(2 Samuel 11:2-5).
To have women mentioned in
a genealogy is very unusual. That all four of the women mentioned are guilty of
some sort of sexual impropriety cannot be a coincidence. Why would Matthew
mention these, and only these, women? The only reason that makes any sense is
that Joseph, rather than the Holy Spirit, impregnated Mary prior to their
getting married, and that this was known by others who argued that because of
this Jesus could not be the Messiah. By mentioning these women in the genealogy
Matthew is in effect saying, "The Messiah, who must be a descendant of
King David, will have at least four "loose women" in his genealogy,
so what difference does one more make?"
In Matthew, the angel
appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him that Mary's child will save his
people from their sins. In Luke, the angel tells Mary that her son will be great, he will be called the Son of the Most High and will
rule on David's throne forever. A short time later Mary tells
If this were true, Mary
and Joseph should have had the highest regard for their son. Instead, we read
in Mark 3:20-21 that Jesus' family tried to take custody of him because they
thought he had lost his mind. And later, in Mark 6:4-6 Jesus complained that he
received no honor among his own relatives and his own household.
According to Matthew,
Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great (Matthew 2:1). According to
Luke, Jesus was born during the first census in
Some Christians try to
manipulate the text to mean this was the first census while Quirinius
was governor and that the first census of
Both Matthew and Luke say
that Jesus was born in
Luke has Mary and Joseph travelling from their home in
In order to have Jesus
born in
Matthew says that the
birth of Jesus and the events following it fulfilled several Old Testament prophecies.
These prophecies include:
This verse is part of a
prophecy that Isaiah relates to King Ahaz regarding
the fate of the two kings threatening
This passage obviously has
nothing to do with Jesus (who, if this prophecy did apply to him, should have
been named Immanuel instead of Jesus).
Matthew says that Herod,
in an attempt to kill the newborn Messiah, had all the male children two years
old and under put to death in Bethlehem and its environs, and that this was in
fulfillment of prophecy.
This is a pure invention
on Matthew's part. Herod was guilty of many monstrous crimes, including the
murder of several members of his own family. However, ancient historians such
as Josephus, who delighted in listing Herod's crimes, do not mention what would
have been Herod's greatest crime by far. It simply didn't happen.
The context of Jeremiah
31:15 makes it clear that the weeping is for the Israelites about to be taken
into exile in Babylon, and has nothing to do with slaughtered children hundreds
of years later.
Matthew has Mary, Joseph
and Jesus fleeing to
As further proof that the
slaughter of the innocents and the flight into
Since the prophecies
mentioned above do not, in their original context, refer to Jesus, why did
Matthew include them in his gospel? There are two possibilities:
1. The church says that
the words had a hidden future context as well as the original context, ie, God was keeping very important secrets from His chosen
people.
2. Matthew, in his zeal to
prove that Jesus was the Messiah, searched the Old Testament for passages (sometimes
just phrases) that could be construed as messianic prophecies and then created
or modified events in Jesus' life to fulfill those "prophecies."
Fortunately for those who
really want to know the truth, Matthew made a colossal blunder later in his gospel
which leaves no doubt at all as to which of the above possibilities is true.
His blunder involves what is known as Jesus' triumphant entry into
Why does Matthew have
Jesus riding on two donkeys at the same time? Because he misread Zechariah 9:9
which reads in part, "mounted on a donkey, and on
a colt, the foal of a donkey."
Anyone familiar with Old
Testament Hebrew would know that the word translated "and" in this
passage does not indicate another animal but is used in the sense of
"even" (which is used in many translations) for emphasis. The Old
Testament often uses parallel phrases which refer to the same thing for
emphasis, but Matthew was evidently not familiar with this usage. Although the
result is rather humorous, it is also very revealing. It demonstrates
conclusively that Matthew created events in Jesus' life to fulfill Old
Testament prophecies, even if it meant creating an absurd event. Matthew's gospel
is full of fulfilled prophecies. Working the way Matthew did, and believing as
the church does in "future contexts," any phrase in the Bible could
be turned into a fulfilled prophecy!
From looking at just the birth
accounts several conclusions can be reached, all of which will be further
reinforced by examining other parts of the New Testament:
1. The gospel writers
contradict each other.
2. The gospel writers
rewrote history when it suited their purposes.
3. The gospels were
extensively edited to accommodate the evolving dogma of the church.
4. The gospel writers
misused the Old Testament to provide prophecies for Jesus to fulfill.
From the birth accounts
alone, it is obvious that in no way can the New Testament be considered
"the inerrant Word of God," or even "the Word of God, inerrant
regarding matters important to faith and practice."
John's first encounter
with Jesus was while both of them were still in their mothers' wombs, at which
time John, apparently recognizing his Saviour, leaped
for joy (Luke 1:44). Much later, while John is baptizing, he refers to Jesus as
"the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world", and "the
Son of God" (John 1:29,36). Later still, John is
thrown in prison from which he does not return alive. John's definite knowledge
of Jesus as the son of God and saviour of the world
is explicitly contradicted by Luke 7:18-23 in which the imprisoned John sends
two of his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who is coming, or do we look for someone else?"
John baptized for
repentance (Matthew 3:11). Since Jesus was supposedly without sin, he had nothing
to repent of. The fact that he was baptized by John has always been an
embarrassment to the church. The gospels offer no explanation for Jesus'
baptism, apart from the meaningless explanation given in Matthew 3:14-15
"to fulfill all righteousness." Other passages, which indicate that
Jesus did not consider himself sinless, are also an embarrassment to the church
(Mark 10:18, Luke 18:19).
Luke, who claims to be
chronological (Luke 1:3), tries to give the impression that John did not
baptize Jesus. Luke's account of Jesus' baptism occurs after the account of
John's imprisonment (Luke 3:20-21).
If John knew that Jesus
was the son of God, why didn't he become a disciple of Jesus? And why didn't
all, or even most, of John's disciples become Jesus' disciples? Most of John's
disciples remained loyal to him, even after his death, and a sect of his
followers persisted for centuries.
The gospel writers were
forced to include Jesus' baptism in their gospels so that they could play it
down. They could not ignore it because John's followers and other Jews who knew
of Jesus' baptism were using the fact of his baptism to challenge the idea that
Jesus was the sinless son of God. The gospel writers went to great pains to
invent events that showed John as being subordinate to Jesus.
In Matthew, Mark and Luke
the last supper takes place on the first day of the Passover (Matthew 26:17,
Mark 14:12, Luke 22:7). In John's gospel it takes place a day earlier and Jesus
is crucified on the first day of the Passover (John 19:14).
In Matthew, Mark and Luke,
Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper during the Passover meal (in John's gospel
the Lord's Supper is not instituted - Jesus was dead by the time of the
Passover meal).
In 1 Corinthians 11:23 the
apostle Paul writes, "For I received from the Lord that which I also
delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed
took bread..." Here Paul claims that he got the instructions for the
Lord's Supper directly from Jesus (evidently from one of his many revelations).
Paul writes these words about twenty years after Jesus' death, and had the church
already been celebrating the Lord's Supper he certainly would have been aware
of it and would have had no need to receive it from the Lord. Some apologists
try to play games with the text to make it seem like Paul actually received the
instructions from the other apostles, but one thing Paul stresses is that what
he teaches he receives from no man (Galatians 1:11-12).
The Lord's supper was not invented by Paul, but was borrowed by him
from Mithraism, the mystery religion that existed long before Christianity and
was Christianity's chief competitor up until the time of
The early Church Fathers
Justin Martyr and Tertullian tried to say that
Mithraism copied the Lord's Supper from Christianity, but they were forced to say
that demons had copied it since only demons could copy an event in advance of
its happening! They could not say that the followers of Mithras
had copied it - it was a known fact that Mithraism had included the ritual a
long time before Christ was born.
Where did Mithraism come
from? The ancient historian Plutarch mentioned Mithraism in connection with the
pirates of Cilicia in
Paul admits that he did
not know Jesus during Jesus' lifetime. He also says that his gospel was not
taught to him by any man (Galatians 1:11-12). All of Paul's theology is based
on his own revelations, or visions. Like dreams, visions or hallucinations do
not come from nowhere, but reveal what is already in a person's subconscious.
It is very likely that the source of most of Paul's visions, and therefore most
of his theology, is to be found in Mithraism. That we find Jesus at the Last
Supper saying more or less the same thing Paul said to the Corinthians many
years later is another example of the church modifying the gospels to
incorporate the theology of Paul, which eventually won out over the theology of
Jesus' original disciples.
It is very unclear in the
gospels just what Judas Iscariot's betrayal consisted of, probably because
there was absolutely no need for a betrayal. Jesus could have been arrested any
number of times without the general populace knowing about it. It would have
been simple to keep tabs on his whereabouts. The religious authorities did not
need a betrayal - only the gospel writers needed a betrayal, so that a few more
"prophecies" could be fulfilled. The whole episode is pure fiction -
and, as might be expected, it is riddled with contradictions.
Matthew says that Judas'
payment and death were prophesied by Jeremiah, and then he quotes Zechariah
11:12-13 as proof!
According to Matthew
26:15, the chief priests "weighed out thirty pieces of silver" to
give to Judas. There are two things wrong with this:
a. There were no
"pieces of silver" used as currency in Jesus' time - they had gone
out of circulation about 300 years before.
b. In Jesus' time, minted
coins were used - currency was not "weighed out."
By using phrases that made
sense in Zechariah's time but not in Jesus' time Matthew once again gives away
the fact that he creates events in his gospel to match "prophecies"
he finds in the Old Testament.
a. In Matthew 27:7 the
chief priests buy the field.
b. In Acts 1:18 Judas buys
the field.
a. In Matthew 27:5 Judas
hangs himself.
b. In Acts 1:18 he bursts
open and his insides spill out.
c. According to the
apostle Paul, neither of the above is true. Paul says Jesus appeared to
"the twelve" after his resurrection. Mark 14:20 makes it clear that
Judas was one of the twelve.
In Matthew 19:28, Jesus
tells the twelve disciples, including Judas, that when Jesus rules from his
throne, they will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of
a. Matthew says because it
was purchased with blood money (Matthew 27:6-8).
b. Acts says because of
the bloody mess caused by Judas' bursting open (Acts 1:18-19).
Before listing the
contradictions regarding the trials of Jesus, it should be stated that the
whole episode is quite obviously a fabrication. Anyone familiar with Jewish law
recognizes the impossibility of the chief priests and scribes arresting Jesus
and assembling to question him during the most holy of Jewish festivals.
a. Matthew, Mark and Luke
say that Jesus was taken directly to the high priest (Matthew 26:57, Mark 14:53
and Luke 22:54).
b. John says that Jesus
was taken first to Annas, the father-in-law of the
high priest (John 18:13) who, after an indeterminate period of time, sent Jesus
to the high priest (John 18:24).
a. Matthew 26:57 says that on the night
Jesus was arrested the priests and scribes were gathered together prior to
Jesus being brought to the high priest.
b. Mark 14:53 says the priests and
scribes gathered together on the night of Jesus' arrest after Jesus was brought
to the high priest.
c. Luke 22:66 says the
priests and scribes assembled the day after Jesus was arrested.
d. John mentions only the
high priest - no other priests or scribes play a role in questioning Jesus.
a. Luke says that Pilate
sent Jesus to Herod who questioned Jesus at length and then returned Jesus to
Pilate (Luke 23:7-11).
b. Matthew, Mark and John
make no mention of Herod. This, in itself, means nothing, but it brings about
another contradiction later.
The gospel writers go to
every conceivable length to absolve the Romans in general, and Pilate in
particular, of Jesus' crucifixion and to blame it on the Jews. The reason, of
course, was that Christianity was going to have to exist under Roman rule for
many years, which is why the New Testament contains nothing critical of the
Romans, even though they were hated for their heavy taxation, and Pilate was
hated for his brutality.
For the church, the Jews
made an appropriate scapegoat because the Jews were a thorn in side of the
early church. The Jews, of course, had far greater knowledge of Jewish laws and
traditions than the largely gentile church, and were able to call attention to
some of the errors being taught by the church.
The Biblical account of
Pilate's offer to release Jesus but the Jews demanding the release of Barabbas is pure fiction, containing both contradictions
and historical inaccuracies.
a. What had Barabbas done?
1. Mark 15:7 and Luke
23:19 say that Barabbas was guilty of insurrection
and murder.
2. John 18:40 says that Barabbas was a robber.
b. Pilate's
"custom" of releasing a prisoner at Passover.
This is pure invention -
the only authority given by
c. Pilate gives in to the
mob.
The gospels have Pilate
giving in to an unruly mob. This is ridiculous in light of Pilate's previous
and subsequent history. Josephus tells us that Pilate's method of crowd control
was to send his soldiers into the mob and beat them (often killing them) into
submission. Pilate was eventually recalled to
a. Matthew 27:28, Mark
15:17 and John 19:2 say that after Pilate had Jesus scourged and turned over to
his soldiers to be crucified, the soldiers placed a scarlet or purple robe on
Jesus as well as a crown of thorns.
b. Luke 23:11, in
contradiction to Matthew, Mark and John, says that the robe was placed on Jesus
much earlier by Herod and his soldiers. Luke mentions no crown of thorns.
Matthew 27:38 and Mark
15:27 say that Jesus was crucified between two robbers (Luke just calls them criminals;
John simply calls them men). It is a historical fact that the Romans did not
crucify robbers. Crucifixion was reserved for insurrectionists and rebellious
slaves.
When the gospel writers
mention Jesus talking to his mother and to Peter from the cross, they run afoul
of another historical fact - the Roman soldiers closely guarded the places of
execution, and nobody was allowed near (least of all friends and family who
might attempt to help the condemned person).
According to Matthew
27:51-53, at the moment Jesus died there was an earthquake that opened tombs
and many people were raised from the dead. For some reason they stayed in their
tombs until after Jesus was resurrected, at which time they went into
Here Matthew gets too
dramatic for his own good. If many people came back to life and were seen by
many people, it must have created quite a stir (even if the corpses were in
pretty good shape!). Yet Matthew seems to be the only person aware of this
happening - historians of that time certainly know nothing of it - neither do
the other gospel writers.
a. According to Matthew 28:1, only
"Mary Magdalene and the other Mary."
b. According to Mark 16:1, "Mary
Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome."
c. According to Luke 23:55, 24:1 and
24:10, "the women who had come with him out of
d. According to John 20:1-4, Mary
Magdalene went to the tomb alone, saw the stone removed, ran to find Peter, and
returned to the tomb with Peter and another disciple.
a. According to Matthew 28:2-4, an
angel of the Lord with an appearance like lightning was sitting on the stone
that had been rolled away. Also present were the guards that Pilate had
contributed. On the way back from the tomb the women meet Jesus (Matthew 28:9).
b. According to Mark 16:5,
a young man in a white robe was sitting inside the tomb.
c. According to Luke 24:4, two men in
dazzling apparel. It is not clear if the men were inside the tomb or outside of
it.
d. According to John 20:4-14, Mary and
Peter and the other disciple initially find just an empty tomb. Peter and the
other disciple enter the tomb and find only the wrappings. Then Peter and the
other disciple leave and Mary looks in the tomb to find two angels in white.
After a short conversation with the angels, Mary turns around to find Jesus.
a. According to Mark 16:8,
"they said nothing to anyone."
b. According to Matthew
28:8, they "ran to report it to His disciples."
c. According to Luke 24:9,
"they reported these things to the eleven and to all the rest."
d. According to John 20:18, Mary
Magdalene announces to the disciples that she has seen the Lord.
According to Luke 24:51,
Jesus' ascension took place in
According to Acts 1:9-12,
Jesus' ascension took place at
According
to Matthew 5:18, Jesus said that not the tiniest bit of the Law could be
changed. However,
in Mark 7:19 Jesus declares that all foods are clean, thereby drastically
changing the Law.
The church tries to get
around this obvious contradiction by artificially separating the Mosaic Law
into the "ceremonial" law and the "moral" law, a separation
which would have abhorred the Jews of Jesus' time. The Mark passage and similar
ones like Acts 10:9-16 were added to accommodate the teaching of Paul regarding
the Law (which was diametrically opposed to the teaching of Jesus on the Law)
and to make the gospel palatable to the Gentiles.
At one point the Pharisees
come to Jesus and ask him for a sign.
1. In Mark 8:12 Jesus says
that "no sign shall be given to this generation."
2. In contradiction to
Mark, in Matthew 12:39 Jesus says that only one sign would be given - the sign
of Jonah. Jesus says that just as Jonah spent three days and three nights in
the belly of the whale, so he will spend three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth. Here Jesus makes an incorrect prediction - he only spends
two nights in the tomb (Friday and Saturday nights), not three nights.
3. In contradiction to
both Mark and Matthew, the gospel of John speaks of many signs that Jesus did:
a. The miracle of turning
water into wine at the wedding in
b. The healing at
c. Many people were following
Jesus "because they were seeing the signs He was performing" (John
6:2).
Matthew, Mark and Luke all
contain passages which have Jesus quoting Psalm 110:1 to argue that the Messiah
does not need to be a son of David (Matthew 22:41-46, Mark 12:35-37 and Luke
20:41-44).
1. This contradicts many
Old Testament passages that indicate that the Messiah will be a descendant of
David. It also contradicts official church doctrine.
2. In Acts 2:30-36 Peter,
in what is regarded as the first Christian sermon, quotes Psalm 110:1 in
arguing that Jesus was the Messiah, a descendant of David.
After Jesus' triumphant
entry into
1. Since
this occurred in the early spring before Passover, it is ridiculous of Jesus to
expect figs to be on the tree.
2. Matthew and Mark cannot
agree on when the tree withered.
a. In Matthew, the tree
withers at once and the disciples comment on this fact (Matthew 21:19-20).
b. In Mark, the tree is
not found to be withered until at least the next day (Mark 11:20-21).
In Matthew 28:19 Jesus
tells the eleven disciples to "go therefore and make disciples of all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit."
1. This is obviously a
later addition to the gospel, for two reasons:
a. It took the church over
two hundred years of fighting (sometimes bloody) over the doctrine of the
trinity before this baptismal formula came into use. Had it been in the
original gospel, there would have been no fighting.
b. In Acts, when people
are baptized, they are baptized just in the name of Jesus (Acts 8:16, 10:48,
19:5). Peter says explicitly that they are to "Repent, and let each of you
be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins"
(Acts 2:38).
2. This contradicts Jesus'
earlier statement that his message was for the Jews only (Matthew 10:5-6,
15:24). The gospels, and especially Acts, have been edited to play this down,
but the contradiction remains. It was the apostle Paul who, against the express
wishes of Jesus, extended the gospel (Paul's version) to the gentiles.
Jude 14 contains a
prophecy of Enoch. Thus, if the Book of Jude is the Word of God, then the
writings of "Enoch" from which Jude quotes,
are also the Word of God. The Book of Enoch was used in the early church until
at least the third century - Clement, Irenaeus and Tertullian were familiar with it. However, as church
doctrine began to solidify, the Book of Enoch became an embarrassment to the
church and in a short period of time it became the Lost Book of Enoch. A
complete manuscript of the Book of Enoch was discovered in
The Book of Acts contains
three accounts of Paul's conversion on the road to
1. Acts 9:7 says they
"stood speechless, hearing the voice..."
2. Acts 22:9 says they
"did not hear the voice..."
3. Acts 26:14 says
"when we had all fallen to the ground..."
Some translations of the
Bible (the New International Version and the New American Standard, for example)
try to remove the contradiction in Acts 22:9 by translating the phrase quoted
above as "did not understand the voice..." However, the Greek word
"akouo" is translated 373 times in the New
Testament as "hear," "hears," "hearing" or
"heard" and only in Acts 22:9 is it translated as
"understand." In fact, it is the same word that is translated as
"hearing" in Acts 9:7, quoted above. The word "understand"
occurs 52 times in the New Testament, but only in Acts 22:9 is it translated
from the Greek word "akouo."
This is an example of
Bible translators sacrificing intellectual honesty in an attempt to reconcile
conflicting passages in the New Testament.
1. In Matthew 4:18-22 and
Mark 1:16-20, Peter and Andrew are casting nets into the sea. Jesus calls out
to them and they leave their nets and follow him. Jesus then goes on a little
further and sees James and John mending their nets with their father. He calls
to them and they leave their father and follow him.
2. In Luke 5:1-11, Jesus
asks Peter to take him out in Peter's boat so Jesus can preach to the
multitude. James and John are in another boat. When Jesus finishes preaching,
he tells Peter how to catch a great quantity of fish (John 21:3-6 incorporates
this story in a post- resurrection appearance). After Peter catches the fish,
he and James and John are so impressed that after they bring their boats to
shore they leave everything and follow Jesus.
3. In John 1:35-42, Andrew
hears John the Baptist call Jesus the Lamb of God. Andrew then stays with Jesus
for the remainder of the day and then goes to get his brother Peter and brings
him to meet Jesus.
When Jesus summons the
twelve disciples to send them out to proclaim the
1. In Matthew 10:9-10 and
Luke 9:3-5, a staff is included in the list of things not to take.
2. In contradiction to
Matthew and Luke, Mark 6:8 makes a specific exception - the disciples may take
a staff.
In Romans 7:1-6 the
apostle Paul tries to compare a Christian's "dying to the Law" to a
woman who marries again after her husband has died. In doing so, Paul gets
hopelessly confused about whether the Christian corresponds to the wife (by
being released from the Law), or corresponds to the husband (by having died).
One scholar has referred to the passage as "remarkably
muddle-headed." This just goes to show that, although a brilliant man, Paul
did have his bad days.
There are several passages
in the gospels where Jesus says he will return in the disciples' lifetime (Mark
13:30, Matthew 10:23, 16:28, 24:34, Luke 21:32, etc.).
The same expectation held
during the period the apostle Paul wrote his letters. In 1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Paul says that the time is so short that believers should drastically change
the way that they live. But Paul had a problem - some believers had died, so
what would happen to them when Jesus returned?
Paul's answer in 1
Thessalonians 4:13-18 shows that Paul expected that at least some of those he
was writing to would be alive when Jesus returned - "we who are alive, and
remain..." The same passage also indicates that Paul believed that those
believers who had died remained "asleep in Jesus" until he returned.
However, as the delay in Jesus' return grew longer, the location of Jesus'
kingdom shifted from earth to heaven and we later find Paul indicating that
when believers die they will immediately "depart and be with Christ"
(Philippians 1:23).
It is quite obvious that
Jesus never intended to start any type of church structure since he believed he
would return very shortly to rule his kingdom in person. It is also quite
obvious that Jesus was wrong about when he was coming back.
Revelation 1:7 says that
when Jesus comes with the clouds, everybody on earth will see him. Some
Christians have said that this will be literally fulfilled because the event
will be broadcast by satellite over all the world's TV stations (We interrupt
this broadcast...). Actually, the passage reflects the flat-earth cosmology of
the time, as does also "the four corners of the earth" in Revelation
7:1 and 20:8.
Here, and in many gospel
passages, Jesus is spoken of as coming with or on the clouds. This is because
the Bible's view of heaven is "up" and Jesus has to pass through the
clouds to get back, just as in Acts 1:9 Jesus ascended up through a cloud.
The Book of Daniel is
included here because, after the Book of Revelation, Daniel is the book most
studied with regard to the second coming. Christians are very impressed with
the detailed prophecies in Daniel that have been fulfilled. Anybody would be,
if they believed that Daniel was written during the Babylonian exile, as the
book of Daniel says.
However, the book itself
makes it possible to pinpoint the date of its writing as 167 BC. How? Because up
to that year all of Daniel's detailed prophecies came true. After that year
none of them did. But how was Daniel to know that shortly after he wrote his
book one of the greatest events in
There are four primary
causes for most of the contradictions listed above:
The gospel writers (especially
Matthew) tried to show that Jesus was the Messiah by having him fulfill Old
Testament "prophecies," sometimes with absurd results (as in the case
of the "two donkeys" and the "thirty pieces of silver").
The gospel that Jesus and
his disciples proclaimed to the Jews was in accordance with what the Old
Testament predicted about a human Messiah reigning over a restored
In contrast to Jesus'
gospel was the gospel preached to the Jews and gentiles by the apostle Paul,
which Paul refers to as "my gospel" and "the gospel that I
preach" to differentiate it from what was being proclaimed by the
disciples. In Paul's gospel the human Jewish Messiah became a divine saviour of all nations, the restored
The two gospels caused
great animosity between Paul and the original apostles, an animosity that is
played down in the books of Acts and Galatians, but which still shows through
in several places. When
As time went by without
Jesus returning, the apostle Paul was forced to rethink things he had written
about earlier, including the state of dead believers and the nature of the
kingdom.
When Jesus was changed
from a Jewish "son of David" sitting on David's throne to a divine
"son of God" sitting on a heavenly throne, it became necessary to
invent a godlike biography for him. Thus the troublesome
virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, etc.
The list of contradictions
in this paper is by no means complete, the examples being chosen primarily from
the gospels. The examples given above, however, more than prove the point that
the Bible is most definitely not, in any sense, the Word of God. The church has
made imaginative (and often absurd) attempts to reconcile these contradictions.
None of these attempts have the ring of truth - instead they have the ring of
desperation.
Copyright © 1995,
Paul Carlson. All
rights reserved.