This is simply untrue. I'm sorry. I don't intend this a criticism of you.
The contradictions in the bible are well known, and there are many lists on the internet you can check out with a quick google search. I challenge you to, in context, justify all of them without the explanation becoming forced or convoluted.
I'm not sure I can articulate this in a way that anyone apart from me will understand. At least not in a little forum, but it is the inconsistencies in the gospels of this sort that helps me trust their veracity. The Gospels were a setting to ink the oral traditions spread by the Apostles and other witnesses to the life of Jesus. For instance, in your example here, I find no reason that they can't all be true. Differences don't make each other untrue. If the gospels were carbon copies of each other, I believe, then I would have been much more skeptical about the Gospel writings. Probably not much point in this counterpost. I don't expect it to be understood. It's most likely a standard not very common. (though I have heard a few other folks that tend to also understand it in this light.) It's just more like real witnesses, or at least 1 degree witnesses of actual events.
They can't all be true, because in context, the bible says Jesus died right after saying them. That is, they are all his exact last words, so even if he did say them all, they can't all qualify as his last words, because the material is too long. Whatever is said first wouldn't count as being said in his dying breath.
In all truth, I don't understand this. That is, I have an inability to understand this, so it's rather pointless to argue with. Apparently you can. So be it. The Gospels, for me, and many others were life shattering, and life changing. It was a see change. The world was one way for me, and I was a different person before full engagement with the Gospels, and the Lord that they introduced in a real tangible way into my life. To read the Gospels and not come away with more than a sentiment, and some shoulder shrugs, really seems genuinely inconceivable to me. But, there is certainly nothing I can do about it, and so I will let it be.
I read them on my own, and I read the bible in order... like an actual book is supposed to be read. The reason why people encourage the Gospels to be read first is because they are filled with excuses for why some people don't believe the rest of the text, and encourage people to believe without thinking while also spewing slander about people that don't believe. They also are relatively well-written compared to other texts in the bible. It's the bible's best foot forward.
Out of all the books I have read, the bible took me the second longest to read, at a full month and a half, because the diction slowed me down. However, I kept track of important details by writing them down, which is why I noticed many of the contradictions. (The longest read was a horribly dull fantasy novel with flowery writing that would put the Scarlet Letter to shame that took me 3 months to push through).
One of the reasons people often don't notice the biblical contradictions (even those that read the bible themselves) is for the following:
1. They cherry pick which texts they read, so they often don't read the ones with more contradictions in them. If you avoid the Old Testament entirely, that cuts out all its contradictions, and any contradictions in the New Testament that contradict passages in the Old Testament.
2. They take a long time to read the bible, so by the time they get to a passage that contradicts a previous one, they have forgotten about that previous passage.
3. The diction of the bible differs so greatly from what is used in modern day, that even when contradictions are right next to each other, like the whole deal about Saul trying to capture/kill David, often people won't notice them because they don't quite understand what they are reading.
No. Not at all. My attempts to read the Bible in the way you're speaking about was nearly impossible for me until Christ. I tried many times. Perhaps I left that out.
I've heard people suggest before that they couldn't understand the bible until they had faith. To me, that completely defeats the purpose of the bible, which is to inspire faith. Why should it exist if only people that already believe can understand it, given that believers are already saved and kinda don't need it?
It didn't shake my faith, (Which hadn't been granted me yet, anyway). It just confused me, and when it left the story, (which it did many times), it just lost me. I guess I wouldn't make a very good Jewish person. No problem with Genesis and Exodus. Leviticus and Deuteronomy is where I just started getting lost. It comes back again to the narrative in parts of Numbers, and then is fully back on track for Judges, Samuel, Kings, etc.. I had to learn about what the Bible was. It's many different books put together under one binding. The individual books are of different literary types. There are stand alone books that are not part of a stream type history. That is because many of the books aren't part of a historical narrative. So it really helped to learn that it is not A BOOK.
Well, yeah, I knew well enough when I read it that Judges, Samuel, etc. were not different chapters of the same book, but different books entirely. Like how the stories of Perseus and Theseus are entirely different stories in the same mythology that don't really connect with each other. However, the majority of biblical contradictions are self contained in the Old Testament, meaning that it is passages which are both in First Samuel that contradict each other, not First Samuel and Judges. Some of them are literally next to each other, with one sentence contradicting the sentence the precedes it.
Also, I never had faith to begin with, so the bible didn't shake it so much as block it from forming.
It is many books about the same topic, by many different authors, over a very long period of time. There is a history narrative that runs through many of the early books, but there are hard to track if you just sat down and read it straight through. I've never heard a single bible scholar recommend the reading of the bible in this way. That would seem like a way to do it to just get it done. Bible read. Check. I am pretty sure I have read the Bible in it's fullness by now. I've been an engaged Christian now for 10 years. I also read it every day. But it's not on a check list for me. It is a love. and there are many treasures to be found. Often in something that I have read before, but didn't get right, because it wasn't in context of the life I understand at the time I first read it.
But do you read it in a study like manner? The text is so long, that I doubt that more than a handful of people in history have actually memorized the whole thing word for word, if even that many. If you don't take down notes about specific details, chances are you won't notice the contradictions in the New Testament, which also tend not to be as severe and numerous as those in the Old Testament.
This would maybe be true if it were a book, like a novel, or a single narrative. It's not that. It is a lot of books. Each one has it's own story or point. Many of them aren't even stories. There are collections of songs and poetry. There is at least one philosophical and theological discourse set within a story. There are two testaments. There are the prophets. A beautiful love poem. There are the wisdom books and proverbs. It's essentially a library. Just that this library only has books which are based on the Judeo Christian God as the general theme.
However, some of the different texts are accounts of the same event, so when they contradict each other on, say, how Judas died, it doesn't matter if it isn't the same book, because it is the same character and as a regular human, his physical body cannot die twice.
Anyway......not much left to say here. We disagree about all this. I also fear we're moving away from the OP thread topic. So, first, apologies to the OP. As for our side conversation, I wish you well. My God bless and keep you always. I thank you for your time, and giving a read to my experience of Christian conversion, and understanding of the scriptures.
Anytime. Thanks for being accepting of my differing position. I regard that level of civility in debates very highly. I also greatly appreciate your efforts to portray your thoughts to me, rather than blowing me off as some "foolish nonbeliever than won't ever understand anything", which is a frustratingly common occurrence. And, yeah, we have gotten somewhat off topic, so this will be the end of our conversation on this particular matter.
