ERRORS AND

CONTRADICTIONS
By: Dvaion Mandeville
Faith and Culture Project
 Contradiction
 Gen 32:30 states, “…for I have seen God face to
face, and my life is preserved.” 
 However, John 1:18 states, “No man hath seen
God at any time…” 
 Both statements cannot be true.  Either there is
an error of fact, or an error of translation.  In
either case, there is an error.
 Explanation
 A typical defense used in this situation is to
look up the original meaning of the word in
Hebrew / Greek. It’s been known that many of
the words in the Bible can have multiple
meanings, and Christians can then pick the
meaning that seems to break the contradiction. 
 For example, the Christian might argue that
“seen” or “face” means one thing in the first
scripture, and something completely different
in the second.
 How Can A Truth Be A Lie?
 Christians say that because the Bible is God's
Word and God cannot lie, it’s totally
trustworthy, and free from any error. God’s
Word is described as “the word of truth.”
 What most people claim as errors in the Bible
aren't errors but difficulties. People think
they've stumbled upon apparent
inconsistencies when they haven't even taken
the time to find out all the facts, or made an in-
depth study of the passage.
 To Many Writers
 Many believe that the Bible is full of
contradictions and inconsistencies, due to the
fact that there were a collection of books
written by many people, edited by many
others, and all over a span of many centuries.
 Jonathan Dodson
 In response to that statement, Jonathan Dodson
replies: “Yes, our Bible translations do have errors—
let me tell you about them (insert errors found in
Bible). But as you can see, less than 1% of them are
meaningful and those errors don’t affect the major
teachings of the Christian faith. In fact, there are a
thousand times more manuscripts of the Bible than
the most documented Greco-Roman historian by
Suetonius. So, if we’re going to be skeptical about
ancient books, we should be a thousand times more
skeptical of the Greco-Roman histories. The Bible is,
in fact, incredibly reliable.” ( theresurgence)
1. SPELLING AND NONSENSE ERRORS

 We are all human, we wrote the bible by

hand, and we are capable of mistakes, yet
these mistakes are pretty easy to point out. A
small mistake that was fixed was found in the
late manuscript 1 Thessalonians 2:7 which use
to state “we were horses among you” (Gk.
hippoi, “horses,” instead of ēpioi, “gentle,” or
nēpioi, “little children”) There is no reason to
believe that Paul acted like a horse. These
types of errors can be easily corrected.
 2. MINOR CHANGES
 The minor changes in the Bible are not all
that significant. These mistakes only include
the misplacing of the word “the” or switching
up the order of a word, which does not make
a huge difference in Greek. In Greek, you are
able to write a single sentence in at least 18
different ways, while still saying the same
thing! So even though a sentence wasn’t
written down in the same exact order, doesn’t
mean that we lost the initial meaning.
 3. MEANINGFUL BUT NOT
PLAUSIBLE
 These errors make since, but aren’t what the
original texts were trying to point at. In 1
Thessalonians 2:9, instead of “the gospel of
God” (which was written in almost all the
manuscripts), a late medieval copy has “the
gospel of Christ.” There is a meaning
difference between God and Christ, but it is
pretty clear where the scripture is trying to
lead you.
 4. MEANINGFUL AND PLAUSIBLE

 These types of errors happen less than 1% of

the time and involve a single word or phrase.
These errors have to do with a meaning and
the alternate writing being credible as a
reflection of the original wording.
 Who is the father of Joseph?

 MAT 1:16 And Jacob begat Joseph the husband

of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is
called
 Christ.LUK 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be
about thirty years of age, being (as was
supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son
of Heli.
 Explanation
 The explanation for this is that Heli is from
Mary’s side of the family (Her Father and
Joseph’s Father in Law), which was rare
considering the status of women back then.
 Jesus' last words

 MAT 27:46,50: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried

with a loud voice, saying, "Eli, eli, lama
sabachthani?" that is to say, "My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?" ...Jesus, when he cried again
with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.”
 LUK 23:46: "And when Jesus had cried with a loud
voice, he said, "Father, unto thy hands I commend
my spirit:" and having said thus, he gave up the
ghost.”
 JOH 19:30: "When Jesus therefore had received the
vinegar, he said, "It is finished:" and he bowed his
head, and gave up the ghost."
 Explanation
 When John recounts the events at the cross, he's focusing on
what was said privately to him at the foot of the cross and
what's said to those standing close by - the plea of thirst, the
statement of completion, and the turning over of responsibility
for Jesus' mother to John.
 Matthew focused on the words Jesus said "in a loud voice" to all
that were there (the crowd). The Last thing Matthew heard was
"My god, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Then a loud cry
before giving up the ghost.
 Luke hears the same loud cry that Matthew mentions, but also
hears after that, probably because he's closer, "Father, unto thy
hands I commend my spirit". It makes sense that he would say
"My God, My God..." in a louder voice than he would say his
last words commending his spirit into the father's hands.
 Compare and Contrast
 As I mentioned before, we are all human and
capable of making mistakes. I think that we can
all agree on that. Nothing we can do is perfect
even when it comes to not only writing, but also
translating it.
 The thing that we can’t agree on is that any
minor errors (if there are any more found from
mistranslation) are easily changed and are so
miniscule that they really don’t make a
difference in the message that is trying to get
across.
 End Result
 After all the research, I found that the main
problem was the miss understanding of what
the Bible is actually saying in certain contexts.
Every claim that is made about the Bible
contradicting itself have been able to be
explained due to people just misunderstanding
the message, or things that are intended for
you to know already but not written down (ex:
Joseph’s Father). I honestly believe that simple
careful reading could solve this problem.
 Work Cited
 Dodson, Jonathan. "What to Say When Someone
Says, "The Bible Has Errors"" The Resurgence. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014
 Meritt, Jim. "A List of Biblical Contradictions."
N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
 "Who Was Joseph's Father? - Atheist Bible Study."
Who Was Joseph's Father? - Atheist Bible Study. N.p.,
n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.
 "Bible Contradictions Answered." Bible
Contradictions Answered. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Feb.
2014.