Christianity and Judaism believe the Bible (or Tanakh) to be divinely inspired. Some denominations believe in biblical inerrancy, while others hold that inspiration does not preclude human error. Because of these divergent views, apparent internal inconsistencies are important to ecumenical and apologetic discussions, with those believing the text to be essentially true and accurate referring to these issues as difficulties.

Various explanations are provided for the differences. The Catholic Christian view (especially since the Second Vatican Council) holds that the Bible is inerrant only in the things that God intended to reveal, the inconsistencies being deemed not to belong to these, or being deemed to be figurative and/or allegory. The Jewish view is that such issues may be reconciled by reference to other Biblical verses or oral teachings. Others see these inconsistencies as evidence that the Bible is a human-written book of no special divine origin.

The concern with apparent biblical inconsistencies has a long history. Already in the second century, a pagan critic, Celsus, complained that Christians manipulated their sacred texts at will. The church father Origen spoke of the "great" number of differences among Gospel manuscripts. The text, A Critical History of the Text of the New Testament, written by Richard Simon, a French priest, appeared in 1689. This was followed in 1707 by the ground breaking edition of the Greek New Testament by theologian John Mill in which he identifies some 30,000 places of variation (mostly spelling mistakes) from the oldest available texts. Another classic text which discusses some internal contradictions is The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, published in 1794.

Within the Torah

Main article: Documentary hypothesis

In several places in the torah, there is what seems to be duplication, and in some cases triplication, of several passages, and sometimes whole stories. During the narrative of the exodus of the Israelites, water is produced from a rock on two occasions, the ten commandments are given twice, there are two censuses, and an extensive law-code is given twice, involving two similar lists of forbidden sexual relations, or three times if the Covenant Code is counted.

In Genesis, Abraham goes to the home of a significant foreigner, claims his wife is actually his sister; the foreigner believes him, takes Abraham's wife to bed, and is then somehow informed that the woman is actually Abraham's wife, leading to the foreigner apologising and giving Abraham a form of remuneration. In one case the foreigner's name is Abimelech, a name shared by a foreigner to whom Abraham's son Isaac goes, claims his wife is his sister; the foreigner believes him, takes Isaac's wife to bed, and is then somehow informed that the woman is actually Isaac's wife, leading to the foreigner apologising and giving Isaac a form of remuneration.

Of particular concern to Creationists is the account of creation. Man and woman are created out of clay and dust, apparently simultaneously, at Gen 1, but at Gen 2, Eve is created from Adam's rib, to alleviate his loneliness. In classical times the majority position was that Woman was created twice, that Adam had two wives, the first known as Lilith, as attested in the Talmud and Midrash. In more recent times, supporters of biblical consistency, in particular creationists, have been inclined to claim these refer to the same creation of the same woman, with the second account being a zoomed-in reinforcement.

Further problems are sometimes cited in regard to the creation account because the text only indicates the existence of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Seth after the third chapter. Nonetheless, both Seth and Cain have

Modern scholarship instead presents the documentary hypothesis, alleging multiple, originally separate and partly independent sources were later combined, probably by Ezra, and consequently identifies further passages where the different accounts have been interwoven.

A similar problem occurs where Noah is told once to choose one pair of each living creature for the ark, but another time to choose one pair of unclean creatures and seven of each clean creature. Inerrantists have replied: "The phrase 'two by two' in 7:9 simply means the animals entered the ark in pairs. So the beasts with seven representatives came in as three pairs and one oddball each" . Nevertheless, seven is an odd number, and one cannot be a pair on its own.

To simultaneously resolve all these issues about pairing, as well apparent anachronisms such as referring to specific individuals and specific groups of people that did not exist when the bible was allegedly written, modern scholarship produced the documentary hypothesis. This theory, after several decades of refinement, has become the accepted view by over 90% of biblical scholars, the Holy See, and several others. According to this theory, several different, originally separate accounts have been skilfully woven together, sometimes more obviously as whole blocks, resulting in the visible doublets and triplets, and sometimes interlaced finely, revealing variant accounts which have been fudged together into a coherent story.

Within the Deuteronomic History

Within the Deuteronomic History, the Book of Joshua purports to present a campaign resulting in the complete conquest of Canaan. Judges is presented as the immediately following history of the area. However, in Judges it appears that the Canaanites were not vanquished as they were in Joshua, but continued to exist, being more gradually suppressed, and in some cases, notably Shechem, their land being purchased rather than conquered.

The Book of Judges also presents several peculiarities concerning the Israelite state, noticeably the Song of Deborah, widely held by textual criticism to be one of if not the oldest part of the entire bible. In this, some of the Tribes of Israel are called upon, but the tribes given do not include all of those given elsewhere in the Torah. In addition, Gilead and Machir are given equal status to the other tribes, but Manasseh is not listed at all, leading several scholars to posit that Machir and Gilead were originally tribes in their own right that were later swallowed up to become the half-tribe of Manasseh.

What is now the First book of Samuel, in the main, presents a positive account of King David, but the Second mostly presents a negative view. This abrupt change in attitude is merely glossed over in the text rather than being explained. The Book of Kings, which follows it, is regarded as more consistent, though the breaks between Kings are somewhat abrupt interruptions to the narrative.

In critical scholarship these features are viewed as the result of the Deuteronomist collecting together several different accounts of the same events, and joining them together with brief passages, and framing. The Book of Chronicles covers the same period in time but also lists some of its sources, and it is these sources which are often considered to have been those which were, more directly, copied into the Deuteronomic history. In particular, the peculiar features of the Deuteronomic history are viewed as a result of some of the underlying sources being recensions, redactions, and different political spins of others.

Chronicles and the Deuteronomic History

The Book of Chronicles and the Deuteronomic History both present an account of the same period of Israelite history, but contain what are apparently subtle discrepancies between them. In the Books of Kings, the basin built before the Temple has a volume of 2000 baths (a Hebrew measure, approximately 32 liters or 8 U.S. gallons), while the account in the Books of Chronicles cites a

Biblical criticism, in the main, views these and other discrepancies to be down to the two separate accounts being based on the same source, but subject to different political spins. There were two significant factions of the priesthood in pre-exilic Israel/Judah, namely, those who claimed descent from Aaron and that only they could be priests, and those who opposed them. Chronicles is viewed as the pro-Aaronid response to the anti-Aaronid Deuteronomist, and since in this view Chronicles is over 100 years later and updated, its figures to take account, for example, the population in its day.

Amongst the Gospels

Main article: Two-source hypothesis

The various censuses and genealogies in the Bible provide a large number of questions for those who seek to interpret the text completely literally. When the same event is described in two places, numbers often differ. As examples, according to Matthew, the father of Joseph is named James (Jacob in Hebrew), while in Luke, he is called Eli (or Heli).

Apologetics attempt to explain this contradiction by stating that Luke gives the genealogy of Mary, despite the fact that it says it is giving the genealogy of Joseph. Their opponents argue that these genealogies were in a large part fabricated to attempt to show that Jesus is a direct descendant of David, and hence a legitimate Mosiach, despite that they have to ignore the virgin birth to do so.

Taken absolutely literally, it is difficult to reconcile the order of events between the Gospels concerning the Resurrection of Jesus, supposedly events which happened in the first few days after Jesus' death. Some advocates of Biblical inerrancy have offered harmonic accounts, producing a version that they say represents the truth of what happened on the third day, asserting that these are not contradictions but merely differences in cultural understanding regarding reporting of events .

More critical scholars, from a Christian background, say that these variations reflect the state of affairs where several people all have limited information and report what they have heard. Some, such as C.S. Lewis, have argued that the inconsistencies even improve the credibility of the narratives, as they suggest that the narratives were written independently.

Ultimately, many Christians view these issues as unimportant in the larger Weltanschauung. Nevertheless, Biblical criticism has produced the two-source hypothesis, alleging that Matthew and Luke copied from the Gospel of Mark, adding only small amounts of their own material.

The Pauline Epistles

Main article: Authorship of the Pauline epistles

Several significant technical discrepancies arise in textual criticism of the Pauline Epistles. Questions concerning writing style, vocabulary and the historic circumstances of the epistles have, for one reason or another, led to there only being seven which are regarded as genuine by a clear majority of scholars. Various shades of opinion cover the authenticity of the remainder, with the Pastoral Epistles being seen as fake by a large majority. The authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews has historically been questioned extensively, and since it is anonymous, even amongst most conservative religious groups, it is believed to have been written by someone other than Paul.

Some of the less technical and more obvious examples of these discrepancies involve significant questions of theology and content:

• What does the writer believe about the Law? (abolished in Eph, but not in Rom)
• What is the main emphasis? (faith, in Rom and Gal; proper behaviour, works, in the Pastorals)
• Who was Jesus? (the epistles appear to range from docetic viewpoints, asserting that the flesh is dead, to views suggesting a concrete historic figure)
• Is Jesus returning soon? (1 Thess seems to say yes; 2 Thess seems to say no)
• Are the leaders of the church important? (Gal seems to disparage church leaders; 1 Tim teaches that bishops and deacons are important)

Between the New Testament and the Old

Main article: Gnosticism

According to many commentators, several of them Christian, God in the Old Testament is often vengeful, taking abrupt and often merciless action upon his enemies. In contrast, the New Testament appears to present a much lighter deity, declaring that God is love. In the early days of Christianity, this apparent contradiction led to, or was a result of, the gnostics.

The most prominent of these, Marcion, claimed that the God of the Old Testament is not the same god as that of the New, and in fact, that the God of the Hebrew Bible was the personification of evil, the demiurge. This essentially was the orthodox position turned on its head, making the serpent in the garden of Eden the hero rather than the villain, trying to save the couple from the evil deity denying them wisdom.

Marcion gave significant financial support to the early church and so his views on this, and on other matters such as that Jesus was not exactly human (Docetism), could not be ignored, and quickly they grew into an exceptionally large following known as the Marcionites. Justin Martyr declared that his views were spread throughout every race of men. Eventually, Marcion was excommunicated, but he afterwards continued to develop his sect independently of the remainder of Christianity, and was for a time evidently highly successful.

Marcion's influence on Christianity cannot be underestimated. The threat Marcion represented to the other views in the 2nd-century church was perceived as so significant that those opposed to him collected together, even though they agreed on little else, and individuals wrote vast series of books on him, effectively creating an orthodoxy. The result of anti-Marcion action was that the church formally defined its teaching, produced a creed to explicitly exclude Marcionism (known as the Roman Symbol — later evolving into the Apostles' Creed), and listed the Biblical Canon (something he had done first, but missing out the whole Old Testament and much of the new). In the 20th century AD, Marcionism was still regarded as the most heretical of all heresies by the Roman Catholic church, and the most dangerous foe they had ever faced.

Gnosticism continued to appear throughout the centuries until it was brutally suppressed in the Albigensian crusade, widely viewed as one of the most horrific acts of barbarity ever committed by the church, even by mediaeval standards. Although gnostic theology was not supported by the orthodoxy, the discrepancy between the apparent behaviour of God between the Old and New testaments, nevertheless, remained an issue that was seen to exist amongst Christians, even into modern times.

Some Christians proclaim that, due to the stain of an original sin, mankind was prey to passion and instinct, angering God, until mankind learned control — at which point God's mercy shone through resulting in Jesus, thus explaining the behaviour discrepancy. The vast majority of Christians, nevertheless, do not see a complete rupture between the two parts of the Christian Bible, though many advocate some form of supersessionism.

Nonetheless, some aspects of God's attitude are the reverse of this apparent general trend. It is in the New Testament that Jesus talks about hell and how God gets angry regarding men's moral failings. Whereas it is in the Old Testament that God is described as kind and merciful, slow to anger. This Old Testament claim about God's attitude is one that appears to conflict with the demonstrated behaviour, an apparent inconsistency that Jews have claimed to address by stating that God is angered by sin and evil, even though he loves humanity and desires the good for them.

References

• Paine, Thomas, The Age of Reason, (orig. 1794), Prometheus Books, 1984 edition: ISBN 0-87975-273-4

See also

• Biblical criticism
• Criticism of Christianity

Pro–inerrancy

• to articles on Scripture from a conservative Calvinist perspective
• by B. B. Warfield
• (wikisource)
• by Dr. Vic Reasoner, — a conservative Arminian/Wesleyan perspective
• by Kenneth Kantzer 聖經的內部矛盾