101 Clear Contradictions in the Bible

[Whatsthepoint]

why?

I built a house in two days
I placed the roof and installed the furniture in 4 days
I built a fence around my lot in 2 days.

It's just not right...

I'm goping to bed now. Good night and cheers!

 

[جوري]

Oops, forgot this part.
2 Peter 3:8
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Do you have this in original Aramaic? unlike the bible the Quran hasn't been changed through the centuries to fit the tide..

The Quran came first, modern science came second, people looking for parallels betwen them came third.

Ah.. early Muslims excelled in science due to the Quran.. look at the state of Arabia pre-Islam and in its golden age...
undoubtedly something came along to create that dichotomy..


I believe sometime in your future, you might examine verses more closely and be like brother woodrow.. but who knows..

anyhow I must be off to pray isha..

been a pleasure

cheers

 

[Trumble]

Do you have this in original Aramaic? unlike the bible the Quran hasn't been changed through the centuries to fit the tide..

It was written in Greek, not Aramaic (and it is not quoting Jesus). If you are suggesting it was changed in the light of ideas introduced in the Qur'an you really do need to put up some evidence... there is no indication that any changes of that sort have ever occured in the NT. It is far more likely the exchange was the other way around.. or, for the theists, I suppose, from the same source several hundred years apart!

Ah.. early Muslims excelled in science due to the Quran.. look at the state of Arabia pre-Islam and in its golden age...

The civilization excelled in science compared with it's contemporaries, certainly. So did that of the Greeks a thousand years previously. What evidence links that to the contents of the Qur'an rather than the prevailing social and intellectual environment?

 

[جوري]

It was written in Greek, not Aramaic (and it is not quoting Jesus). If you are suggesting it was changed in the light of ideas introduced in the Qur'an you really do need to put up some evidence... there is no indication that any changes of that sort have ever occured in the NT. It is far more likely the exchange was the other way around.. or, for the theists, I suppose, from the same source several hundred years apart!

amazing isn't it? considering that Aramaic was the language of jesus? I have no interest in putting up where they got their info from or how it evolved along the way.. it doesn't affect the Quran one way or the other..

The civilization excelled in science compared with it's contemporaries, certainly. So did that of the Greeks a thousand years previously. What evidence links that to the contents of the Qur'an rather than the prevailing social and intellectual environment?

here are some suggested reads as to how Islam picked up where Greeks failed a thousand year prior.

and how Islam influenced science rather than a prevailing movement--
You also really ought to study arabia a bit before the advent of Islam and what became of it afterwards..

The first Muslim physician is believed to have been Muhammad himself, as a significant number of hadiths concerning medicine are attributed to him. Several Sahaba are said to have been successfully treated of certain diseases by following the medical advice of Muhammad. The three methods of healing known to have been mentioned by him were honey, cupping, and cauterization, though he was generally opposed to the use of cauterization unless it "suits the ailment." According to Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Muhammad disliked this method due to it causing "pain and menace to a patient" since there was no anasthesia in his time.[2] Muhammad also appears to have been the first to suggest the contagious nature of leprosy, mange and sexually transmitted disease;[3] and that there is always a cause and a cure for every disease,[2] according to several hadiths in the Sahih al-Bukhari, Sunan Abi Dawood and Al-Muwatta attributed to Muhammad, :

another link
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00....0.CO;2-E&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage

M. H. Hart, "The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History." Hart Publishing Co., New York, 1978.

S. H. Nasr, "Science and Civilization in Islam." New American Library, Inc. New York, 1968, pp.184-229.

A. Salam, IAEA Bulletin, 22(2): 81-83, 1980.

D. Campbell, "Arabian Medicine," Cambridge University Press, 1921, pp. 56-57.

5. P. Hitti, "The Arabs: A Short History", Henry Regnery, Chicago, 1943, p. 143.

A. Castiglioni , "A History of Medicine", E. Krumhbhaar (trans), Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1958, p.268.

M. Siddiqui, "Studies in Arabic and Persian Medical Literature", Calcutta University, Calcutta, 1959, p. XX.

T. E. Keys, K. G. Wakim, Mayo Clinic Proceedings of the Staff Meeting, 28: 423-437, 1953.

E. Abouleish, J. Islamic Med. Assoc. (JIMA) 10(3,4): 28-45, 1979.

L. Burton, " 1001 Nights (Six Volumes)", 1884.

C. Singer and A. A. Underwood, "A Short History of Medicine", 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, New York, 1962, p. 76.

B. Miller, Mankind, 6(8): 8-40, 1980.

A. A. Khairallah, Ann. Med. Hist. 34: 409-415, 1942.

Al-Okabi, Hospital Med. Prac., Cairo, 1: 14-29, 1971.

F. S. Haddad, "XXI Int. Cong. Hist. Med.", (Vienna 1968, Sep. 22), 1970, pp.1600-1607.

F.S. Haddad, Leb. Med. J. 26: 331-346, 1973.

C. Elgood, " A Medical History of Persia", Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1951, pp. 278-301.

F. H. Garrison, "History of Medicine", 4th Edition, W. B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia, 1929. P.134.


peace!

 

[Grace Seeker]

Dude, you don't get the point don't you. Yes, if these were written by men alone I would accept the mistakes but you should know that Christians claim that this men were inspired by the Holy Spirit, one third of the trinity. SO! How could the Holy Spirit inspire the two writers to write different stories. The whole point is that these verses were actually were written by men alone without any such inspiration. GOT it?

Dude? Why are you referring to another human being by a term that means "ingrown buttocks hair"?


Now, what is my point in asking the above quesiton, when I am aware that you were really just using colloquial language? To point out that words can have different meanings to different folks. So one has to know the context in which a word is used.

I for one do not think that to say the Bible is "inspired" is equivalent to saying that it is both inerrant and infallible. Indeed, I myself can point to several discrepancies in the Bible that never made the list. But that is irrelevant to most of the concerns raised by objectors. An "inspired" writer is one prompted by God, but not necessarily dictated to by God.

Sure there are some Christians (and I suppose Jews as well) that think of the Bible as a book that was dictated by the Holy Spirit, some even imagine God directing the hand author's hand. But that is not what is meant by the word "inspired". In fact, the words "infallible" and "inerrant" are never found in scripture, let alone used by the Bible to describe itself. The term that is relevant is "θεοπνευστος" (theopneustos), which can be translated "inspired", but is better translated "God-breathed". The term "theopneustos" is used a grand total of 1 time in all of the Bible: "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16). I don't assume that the passage is automatically self-referent as if it can declare itself to be inspired, but even allowing for that, take a look at what it IS and what it IS NOT claiming.

The word is a compound word from the Greek words "theos" (God) and "pneo" (to breathe). Neither the process nor the result of the inspiration is dealt with. What we are left with is the "why" of inspiration. It makes scriptures useful for life in the church. Just as when God breathed into Adam he breathed life into him, animating him. So God breathes life into the scriptures giving life to them in a way that they can become animated in our lives. I will leave it to others to discuss any supposed errors or fallibilities with regard to the scriptures. I simply testify that their is life in the words of scripture, enough so to transform the lives of those who take them seriously and allow them to be authoritative in their lives. And that is the only claim the Bible actually makes for itself.

 

[Grace Seeker]

the word was mistranslated, corrupted as in changed or revised. And you can't argue with the fact that the bible has been changed because I can name over 100 bibles, I think somone already did, but anyway, the quran was right ofcourse, about the bible being corrupted. I don't understand how this is uncomfortable for muslims. do explain

Peace brother,
Omari

Sure, I can argue with the question of corruption. The existence of 100, or even 1000, different Bibles proves nothing. These "different" Bibles you are talking about are not so much different "Bibles" as they are different "translations" from the same Bible. I will certainly admit that the Bible we have today is NOT the original Bible, if you had said that, I would not have challenged you. (Though I think the degree of change it has undergone might be surprisingly little.) But you didn't cite as a way to substantiate your position, and I just wanted to point out that the number of different Bibles available because of the translation process is really no different from the number of different translation I can access of the Qur'an. I don't suppose you would accept 100 different translations of the Qur'an as proof of anything, and I wouldn't expect you to. So, why cite the same thing with regard to the Bible.

The appropriate question is can we get back to the source documents. The answer to that with regard to the Bible is, No we cannot get back to the source document. But before you get all excited by that acknowledgement, know that we can get more reliably close with the Bible than with any other document (or set of documents, remember the Bible is a collection of many different documents) of the same or greater age. Even without the source documents and only copies of copies, some with obvious errors in them, I still maintain a high degree of confidence in the integrity of the Christian scriptures.




Or rather than speaking of 100 different Bibles, you might have spoken of just 2 different Bibles:

ACTUALLY, that's NOT true! Protestant and Catholic Bibles have a different number of books, and within some of the books that ARE accepted, there are verses that no-one can agree on and believe were "added" later. all the early manuscripts vary; that being said, not my kind of thread...

The "Catholic" Bible has 7 more books in it that the "Protestant" Bible does not have in it. Those books are called the Deuterocanon. They are accepted as canonical, that is as being a part of scripture, by both Catholics and Orthodox Christians, primarly because they were in the Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Jewish Tanakh) used by first century Christians as their Old Testament. Protestants do not consider those books canonical, not a part of the scriptures, because at the time of the writing of the Septuagint the Jews had not actually codified the Tanakh yet. When they finally did a few hundred years later, they did not include in their official list of canonical books for the Jewish Bible all of the books that had been part of the Greek translation. So, the Protestant reformers in trying to get back to what they thought the original should have looked like, accepted only the books that were accepted by the Jews for inclusion in the Old Testament. And that is how Christians end up with 2 different Bibles, but not 100s of different Bibles.

 

[Woodrow]

I built a house in two days
I placed the roof and installed the furniture in 4 days
I built a fence around my lot in 2 days.

It's just not right...

I'm goping to bed now. Good night and cheers!

I was a structal steel draftsman for 15 years, I was a Paramedic for five years and I was a Psychology Graduate student for 3 years and a University Lecturer for 3 years. Total length of time for that was 15 years. No contradiction in times. I was all of them in the same 15 year time span.

In the same way your example could have been done in a 4 day period. Multi tasking is a reality.

 

[Grace Seeker]

And for my case, well, I can say, I never did something bad in my life. I'm a good citizen, so, will God (if he exist) forgive me, and let me to Paradise too?
If not, then God would be cruel, no? I lead my life, sinless, always faithful to my wife, and yet, I get punished. This makes a non-sense for me.

guabano, I don't know you, so this isn't really about your personally. But I can't say I have evern met anyone for whom the term "sinless" could actually be applied. In fact, having spent some time working in the Federal Prison system, I can tell you that I have never met a US citizen of the age of majority that had not done something that was not sufficient to spend time in a federal prison.

I share with you a passage from a book I am reading, in questioning why, when holiness is so basic to Christian life that we don't see people actually living holy lives, he suggested the following reasons:

1) Our attitude toward sin is more self-centered than God-centered. We are more concerned about our own "victory" over sin than we are about the fact that our sins grieve the heart of God.

2) We have misunderstood "living by faith" (Galatians 2:20) to mean that no effort at holiness is required on our part. In fact, sometimes we even suggest that any effort on our part is "of the flesh."

3) We do not take some sin seriously. We have mentally categorized sins into that which is unacceptable and that which may be tolerated a bit.

The Pursuit of Holiness, by Jerrry Bridges​

I know that last one trips me up. I make much of other people's sins and light of my own. Or are you really suggesting that you are truly sinless? If you are, you don't need forgiveness, you will have earned heaven, just like our Muslims friends plan to. Forgiveness is only needed if you are a sinner like me. But if it is needed, then we have to trust that God is actually able to provide away despite our sinfulness. That is the essence of what faith is about, trusting in God to make a way for us when we are unable to make a way for ourselves. Because I am convinced that only the truly sinless, or God-justified and declared sinless will spend eternity with a God who is so holy that he cannot abide sin.

 

[guyabano]

@Grace Seeker

Thank you so much, that you take the bait. I just hope, someone would do it, as I like to point out to this thread and also Jesus' words 'The one who is free from sin may through the first stone'. According to this, I'm pretty sure, noone is free from sin, thus, none will ever see pardise, Muslims nor Christians

 

[Whatsthepoint]

Ah.. early Muslims excelled in science due to the Quran.. look at the state of Arabia pre-Islam and in its golden age...
undoubtedly something came along to create that dichotomy..

Well, yes. Isalm brought stability, it united the Arabs and consequentially let them concquer other civilisations (as I described in another topic), it created a great social system that encouraged the seeking of knowledge, progress etc.
I don't think the Quran itself was a source of scientific knowledge at that time.

 

[Whatsthepoint]

9. Say: Is it that ye deny Him Who created the earth in two Days? And do ye join equals with Him? He is the Lord of (all) the Worlds.
10. He set on the (earth), mountains standing firm, high above it, and bestowed blessings on the earth, and measure therein its sustenance, in four Days, alike for (all) who ask.
11. Then He turned to the sky, and it had been (as) smoke: He said to it and to the earth: "Come ye together, willingly or unwillingly." They said: "We do come (together), in willing obedience."
12. So He completed them as seven firmaments in two Days, and He assigned to each heaven its duty and command. And We adorned the lower heaven with lights, and (provided it) with guard. Such is the Decree of (Him) the Exalted in Might, Full of Knowledge.

Do muslims believe this to be the literal description of the creation of the earth? (the lenght of a day aside)
Do you believe the chronological order of the creation is descriebd accurately? Doy you believe the earth and the smoke actually replied to Allah?
And what does "we adorned the lower ehaven with lights" mean, according to Islam? What does "provided with gurad" mean?
What does the coming together of the smoke and the earth signify?

 

[Whatsthepoint]

I was a structal steel draftsman for 15 years, I was a Paramedic for five years and I was a Psychology Graduate student for 3 years and a University Lecturer for 3 years. Total length of time for that was 15 years. No contradiction in times. I was all of them in the same 15 year time span.

In the same way your example could have been done in a 4 day period. Multi tasking is a reality.

Well, it's different. And anyway, your statement as well as the verses are confusing, something which I would not expect from a religion that advertizes the simplicity of its theology. I am aware this is a biased subjective claim, but that's how I feel.
It say the Erath was created in two days.
Then it goes talking about seting mountains onto it and giving it sustenance without making a clear distinction between the two acts. Or does it? Does the Arabic version describe both events in a simoultanious-actions way? Does it decribe the second event(sustenance) any different?
Why does seting mountains go under the creation of the Earth, yet giving it sustenace doesn't?

 

[Grace Seeker]

@Grace Seeker

Thank you so much, that you take the bait. I just hope, someone would do it, as I like to point out to this thread and also Jesus' words 'The one who is free from sin may through the first stone'. According to this, I'm pretty sure, noone is free from sin, thus, none will ever see pardise, Muslims nor Christians

Well, I think that you would find agreement that no one is free from sin -- though we would give different reasons for that statement. But on the other hand both Islam and Christianity have answers for what to do about sin. Quite different answers mind you, but both attempt to provide a way to resolve the problem it creates.

Like you, Islam likes to say that we simply do more good than bad, and that keeps us on the positive side of the balance sheet. As a Christian, I don't see that working, as I understand God's standard to be absolute perfection. Any falling short at all, even the slightest, becomes exclusionary. The sort of cleanness of soul that God expects is even stricter than the folks working in clean environments to manufacture microchips in silicon valley.

The Christian answer is simply that on our own we can never be good enough. Which at first would be a message of despair. But we do not believe that we are on our own. We also believe that God can and does work in our lives to accomplish in us and for us what we are unable to do for ourselves. But of course, that requires not good works on our part, but a willingness to let God actually have the freedom to be at work in our lives. A process some people seem to resist to their own peril.

 

[Omari]

I don't think the Quran itself was a source of scientific knowledge at that time.

Unfortunatly, you have accidently [perhaps] mistaken again. You see the quran said the earth was round when everyone thought it was flat. Quran said the sky was free standing, when people thought the mountains held it up. The Quran told them the EXACT stages of the embryo in the womb, when nobody at the time even thought about. So you see, the Quran was, and still is full of scientific knowledge, because it's the word of god

Omarieace:

 

[Trumble]

You see the quran said the earth was round when everyone thought it was flat.

A total myth, I'm afraid.. the second part, that is. Wikipedia has an excellent article on the subject.

Quran said the sky was free standing, when people thought the mountains held it up.

Which people? That would be 'everyone' again, would it?

The Quran told them the EXACT stages of the embryo in the womb, when nobody at the time even thought about.

Firstly it's not quite as 'exact' as some would have you believe. Secondly, the Qur'an merely reproduces what had been written centuries earlier by the Greek physician Galen. It's only fair to point out that Purest Ambrosia and others might take issue with that so I won't present it as 'definitive'.. but I will suggest you do some research yourself outside 'Islamic' websites, if you haven't already.

So you see, the Quran was, and still is full of scientific knowledge, because it's the word of god

You mentioned earlier that you see it as your duty as a muslim to argue and debate the case for Islam with non-muslims. That's laudable enough, but please don't take offence if I suggest you look elsewhere than Qur'anic 'science' for material. I, and the other atheists here, may not necessarily be right but all of us (I think) have seen all the evidence for Quran'ic science and are totally unconvinced by it. In my very humble opinion, a couple of points are interesting and thought provoking. Most simply do not stand up to more than the most cursory examination.

 

[جوري]

maybe we should stop getting our knowledge from wiki and reference history books instead?

a little google search for all you google scholars who aren't into libraries will do..just type in

Al-Idrisi see what comes up
( The World's First Globe)

Al Idrisi, who died in 932 AD, was a renaissance man, a world class geographer. He prepared the world's first globe out of 400 pounds of silver for the king of Sicily Roger II. The globe showed the trade routes and detailed measurements. He also prepared a detailed companion book. Centuries later, Europeans continued to believe that the earth was flat.



I am pressed for time today and can't go at it tit for tat..but I really do urge folks to go for some credible history books instead of wiki and get pouty about using 'islamic' references.. that is if any of the sources on the bottom of this page were http://www.islamicboard.com/compara...-clear-contradictions-bible-6.html#post897682

but if we really must use wiki as an authority, then by all means

Islamic World
Around 830 CE, Caliph al-Ma'mun commissioned a group of astronomers to measure the distance from Tadmur (Palmyra) to al-Raqqah, in modern Syria. They found the cities to be separated by one degree of latitude and the distance between them to be 66 2/3 miles and thus calculated the Earth's circumference to be 24,000 miles.[5]

Many Muslim scholars declared a mutual agreement (Ijma) that celestial bodies are round, among them Ibn Hazm (d. 1069), Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200), and Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328).[6] Ibn Taymiya said, "Celestial bodies are round—as it is the statement of astronomers and mathematicians—it is likewise the statement of the scholars of Islam". Abul-Hasan ibn al-Manaadi, Abu Muhammad Ibn Hazm, and Abul-Faraj Ibn Al-Jawzi have said that the Muslim scholars are in agreement that all celestial bodies are round. Ibn Taymiyah also remarked that Allah has said, "And He (Allah) it is Who created the night and the day, the sun and the moon. They float, each in a Falak." Ibn Abbas says, "A Falaka like that of a spinning wheel." The word 'Falak' (in the Arabic language) means "that which is round.[7] [8]

The Muslim scholars who held to the round earth theory used it in an impeccably Islamic manner, to calculate the distance and direction from any given point on the earth to Makkah (Mecca). This determined the Qibla, or Muslim direction of prayer. Muslim mathematicians developed spherical trigonometry which was used in these calculations.[9] Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), in his Muqaddimah, also identified the world as spherical.

cheers

 

[Omari]

I honestly don't take any offence in anything people say, though it may seem like it [unless somone directly attacks muslims ] . The one thing that should be forbidden in a debate is getting emotional as that defies the whole point.

Anyhow.

I'm sure that you have read [as you said] all of the scientific knowledge in the quran and are totally unconvinced. Could this be [i say this is NO OFFENCE] your unintended ignorance as oppose to the detail of the evidence? because i hope you have considered the fact that had the Quran given EXACT EXACT details, it would be hard to belive and follow over 14 centuries ago...
once again no offence
Omari

 

[Trumble]

maybe we should stop getting our knowledge from wiki and reference history books instead?

I generally use a range of sources, but the Wiki article is concise, well written, well referenced and as far as I am aware, accurate. Should you actually have any case against the contents rather than the name of the site, please present them. Or don't, if you are short on time.. the claim I was contesting was that believing the world to be flat was universal - it clearly wasn't.

The one thing that should be forbidden in a debate is getting emotional as that defies the whole point.

Possibly, but it is human, particularly when the subject is one you feel strongly about.

Could this be [i say this is NO OFFENCE] your unintended ignorance as oppose to the detail of the evidence? because i hope you have considered the fact that had the Quran given EXACT EXACT details, it would be hard to belive and follow over 14 centuries ago...
once again no offence
Omari

None taken, of course. But I did answer that in my previous post, I do not believe that the Qur'an does give "EXACT, EXACT" details, or at least any more exact that a Greek writer managed several centuries earlier. I am not medic of any variety let alone a specialist in this area, so my opinion counts for little, but nonetheless that is the conclusion I have drawn by reading articles from both medical professionals and laymen on both sides of the 'fence'. With all due respect, I suspect you are just as reliant on others for information in this area as I am.. so how can you be so sure? But if you have reached that opinion after consideration of the case from both sides rather than merely one, we must agree to differ.

 

[جوري]

I generally use a range of sources, but the Wiki article is concise, well written, well referenced and as far as I am aware, accurate. Should you actually have any case against the contents rather than the name of the site, please present them. Or don't, if you are short on time.. the claim I was contesting was that believing the world to be flat was universal - it clearly wasn't.

I believe I already have above including the 'accurate and referenced wiki'... getting you to read it or believe it, is an entirely different story all together.. it is your God given rigtht to babble on the importance of one negligible source, in face of cold hard evidence as documented and taught in history books.
I have learned of Al-Idrisi and other Muslim scholars in the 7th grade attending the 'united Nations International school' in NY, I was taught history by an atheist woman names Miss Aouldus..she disliked Muslims but at least she taught proper history, the state curriculum!
Luckily I have a photographic memory and it has served me well!


cheers

 

[Kurisu]

The greeks thought it was spherical long before. Which doesn't change the fact that it isn't spherical, it's an oblate spheroid, but it was a good guess nonetheless.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth

I know everyone hates wikipedia but google is right there and comes up with as many references as you can eat.