The Bible Against Itself: Why the Bible Seems to Contradict Itself

Before the Bible was the Bible it was a lot of little books written by many writers with many different viewpoints.

If you open up the Bible and read it straight through, you will notice two things that should not be true if it had been written as a coherent whole and with a single purpose. First, the Bible is quite repetitious; second, the Bible frequently seems to contradict itself. Readers have often ignored these contradictions, and apologists have long tried to reconcile them. Randel Helms chooses a third course — to understand the contradictions by looking at the cultural and historical factors that produced them. All books are written for or against some point of view, and the books of the Bible are no different. Bible book authors were often motivated to write because they wanted to challenge or correct those who had written before them. As Helms explains, “The Bible is a war-zone, and its authors are the combatants. Paul said of Peter, ‘I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong (Gal. 2:11).’” Helms notes that Jeremiah condemned the entire religious establishment of his time — the very same people that other Bible authors held in highest esteem: “prophets and priests are frauds, every one of them” (Jer. 8:10). Luke felt the need to write another gospel even though “many writers have undertaken to draw up an account of the events” (Luke 1:1). Luke obviously felt that Mark’s gospel was filled with errors and edited it freely. Not even Mark’s account of the words of the dying Christ was left unaltered.