One of the most common objections to the Christian Faith is the charge the Bible is full of contradictions and therefore untrustworthy. Of course, if the charge is supported by sound facts and indisputable evidence, it would cast serious doubt on the theory of divine inspiration, and therefore its divine origin. In other words, it is argued that if it can be proven that the Bible contains errors, contradictions, and discrepancies on various levels, it stands to reason that it could not have come from a perfect, all-knowing (omniscient) God and therefore is a product of human origin, not divine.

What do we do when the skeptic levels the charge of contradiction in our evangelistic efforts. Quoting the Bible would seem to have no real impact on the person who really believes the Bible if full of errors.¹ Christians are therefore left with the ackward task of trying to establish the authority of the Scriptures based on a flawed, disjointed, and so-called divine revelation. How do believers get over this hurdle? How do we reconcile Bible difficulties and divine inspiration? In order to answer this we must first understand several terms as they relate to how we got our Bible.

The Inspiration of Scripture

The position of Evangelical Christianity is that the Bible is a divine book given through divine inspiration by a loving God Who revealed Himself both through general and special revelation.² In effect, God's revelation is a self-disclosure, a revealing of His nature and purpose to mankind. It is no less a supernatural word from a supernatural, other- dimensional Being we understand in part as our loving heavenly Father.

When we speak of God's revelation, then, we must be careful to represent His self-disclosure as accurately and faithfully as possible. To do this, several terms are used to define what we believe to be the modus operandi or method of receiving divine revelation or truth. Below are several terms and their definitions necessary in any discussion of divine inspiration:

1) Revelation: From the latin revelare, "to Unveil," to "reveal." Revelation may be defined as that act of God by which He communicates to the mind of man truth not known before and incapable of being discovered by the mind of man unaided.

2) Inspiration: From the Latin inspirare, "to breathe in." Inspiration may be defined as the divine influence which renders a speaker or writer infallible in the communication of truth, whether previously known or not. In theology, the Holy Spirit acting on the writers of Scripture in a way that protects the truth of the message, making it the Word of God (see 2 Tim. 3:16; Peter 1:20,21).

3) Illumination: From the Greek photizo, which comes from the word for "light." Illumination may be defined as the divine quickening of the human mind enabling human beings to understand truth already revealed especially with reference to the hearing or reading of Holy Scripture.

4) Inerrancy: The view that the Bible, in all it teaches, is free from error (inerrant) in its very words (verbal), extending to all its parts (plenary), in the original (autographs) and is authoritative in all it presents.³

5) Infallibility: From the Latin in, "not," and fallere, "to deceive." The doctrine that the Bible is free from mistakes, incapable of error, not liable to mislead, deceive, or disappoint.

In short, Revelation concerns the discovery of truth; Inspiration, the communication of truth; and Illumination, the understanding of truth. Of course, not everyone agrees because we use terms to describe inspiration that the Bible is indeed inspired at all! What are the so-called proofs of inspiration? They are generally speaking, twofold: 1) internal and, 2) external. The internal evidence rests upon the testimony of Scripture itself, both direct and indirect. For example, the direct testimony of the Bible records the phrase "Thus saith the Lord," over 2000 times! The Bible states that Moses wrote all the words of the Lord (Exodus 24:4; Isaiah was told to "take a large tablet and write" (Isa. 8:1) and to "inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever (Isa. 30:8); the claim of the New Testament is that was has been written by the prophets and is God's Word (Matt. 4-7; Luke 4:10; Gal. 3:10; Heb. 10:7; 2 Pet. 3:2; 15:16; Rev. 2:7); and, the testimony of Christ and the Apostles indicates they believed the Scriptures were the very Word of God, divinely inspired and authoritative (Matt. 8:16,17; John 10: 35; Luke 24: 27; John 5:39; Heb. 10:7; 1 Cor. 2:13; Rom. 15:4; 2 Pet. 3:16).⁴ The indirect testimony of Inspiration includes the supernatural character of the Bible; the supernatural character of Christ; the unity of Scripture; the chronology of Scripture, etc. The External evidence to inspiration includes the attestation of miracle; fulfilled prophecy; the supernatural spread of the Gospel; the preservation of the Bible; the character and life of Christ; the existence of the Church; and the testimony of Christian conversion.

Dealing with Bible Difficulties

Having made the case for inspiration in the original autographs, we now turn to the argument stated at the outset: if we in fact have an inspired Bible, without error in the whole and in the part, how do we explain the charge of contradictions? If the Bible contains clear contradictions how can we say it is God's Word, inspired, trustworthy, and authoritative? The answer to this seeming formidable argument may be addressed several ways. First, most skeptics of the Bible haven't a clue as to how we got our Bible- they probably haven't even heard of the word transmission! If they had, they would know that the Scriptures we have today came as a direct result of the transmission of the text. That is, we possess copies of Old and New Testament manuscripts which have been discovered since the loss of the originals. Based on manuscript evidence, we possess translations which accurately represent 95% of the Old Testament and approximately 98% of the New Testament as they were originally given!⁵ If then, we possess copies of earlier texts would it not be reasonable to assume transmissional error over a long period of time?! The answer is simply, yes, there are scribal errors and yes, they may be accounted for. But, they need not be considered contradictions simply because the so-called discrepancy exists. Neither should one assume that God was obligated to preserve copies without error just as He did with the original. Which brings us to our second point: Inspiration refers to the original autographs, not to the copies. How then do we explain the alleged discrepancies in the copies? You mean to say the skeptic is right all along that there are contradictions in the Bible!

In response, let's put it this way: when God originally inspired those who wrote Holy Scripture, He supernaturally protected His Word from any kind of human corruption. While He spoke to the writers hearts and minds to write exactly what He intended for them to write, God allowed at the same time for the writers to express God's thoughts in human words and emotion. All the time God was superintending the message which became the Word of God, inerrant, infallible, and authoritative. On the other hand, copies were not divinely inspired nor were they protected from corruption or transmissional errors. Be that as it may, God sovereignly has allowed through time the discovery of many manuscripts which faithfully represent the original scriptures. Piece by piece scholars have produced texts which have the highest degree of integrity and thus represent the authoritative Word of God. And in doing so, they have made a very important observation worth noting. In the words of Metzger: "As the physician must make a correct diagnosis of a disease before attempting to effect its cure, so the textual critic must be aware of the several kinds of injuries and dangers to which a text transmitted by handwriting is liable to be exposed before he can rectify the errors. In fact, it is important to see not only what might happen, but also what has happened in the copying of manuscripts."⁶

Now, having acknowledged the fact of human error in the transmissional process, let's look briefly at the sources of the alleged discrepancies. As with Metzger, others have pointed out the causes of error. In his classic work, An Examination of the Alleged DISCREPANCIES OF THE BIBLE, John W. Haley offers the following answers to the so-called discrepancies of the Bible.⁷ Note the following:

1) A difference in the dates of the discordant passages. That is, a change in circumstances necessitates a change in phraseology: "God saw everything He had made and it was good; God repented that He made man on the earth."

2) Differences in authorship. That is, recorded in the Bible are words of God and good men and words of Satan and words of evil men: God said [to Adam and Eve] "...you shall surely die." Satan said to them [Adam and Eve] "You shall not surely die."

3) Differences of stand-point of object. That is, writers often follow different lines of thought, or employ language, which seems inconsistent with something elsewhere in the Bible: e.g., the Apostle Paul and the subject of "faith" in Romans 4 and the Apostle James and the subject of "works" in James 2. Here we find two authors looking from different points of view, presenting different, yet not inconsistent nor contradictory aspects of the same great truth.

4) Different principles and methods of arrangement. That is, one writer follows the strict chronological order while another disposes his materials according to the principle of association of ideas. Then, one author writes history minutely and consecutively while another omits, condenses, or expands to suit his purpose.

5) Different modes of computation, particularly of reckoning time. That is, many ancient nations have two kinds of year in use, the civil and the sacred. The Jews employed both.

6) Peculiarities of the Oriental idiom. That is, people in the East are impassioned in their modes of thought and expression: they think in poetry, and their writings and conversation abound with metaphors, and startling hyperboles.

7) Eastern custom of applying a plurality of names to the same person or object. That is, the Hebrew language has as many as fifty words denoting for example, a body of water of some kind; eighteen words used to express different kinds of prickly shrubs or weeds; eight words for counsel; twelve for darkness; thirty-two for destruction, etc.

8) Use of the same word with different, sometimes opposite, signification's. For example, the Hebrew word "barak" is used in the opposite senses of to bless and to curse; "yarash" means both to posses and to dispossess; "nakar" means to know and to not know; and, "shabar" means to buy grain and to sell grain.

9) Errors in manuscripts. A large number of discrepancies come from the similarity of the alphabetical characters to one another, and by the consequent blunders of transcribers. Also, in ancient Hebrew, letters were, in all probability, used for numerals. That is, letters were employed by the writers to represent numbers, which were expanded and written out in full by later copies. So, you might find one author write, "CXI" while another writes, "one hundred and eleven."

10) Imagination of the critic, influenced to a greater or less degree by dogmatic prejudice. That is, textual critics sometimes make basic assumptions such as similar events are necessarily identical.

All in all, Haley does a superb job in silencing the critics regarding alleged doctrinal, ethical, and historical discrepancies of the Bible.⁸

CONCLUSION

We began with the contention that if the charge that the Bible is full of contradictions as the critics argue is true, then it casts serious doubt on its divine origin and as a consequence, its authority and trustworthiness. I think it is safe to say the charge leveled is without any real foundation. And while most evangelical scholars will freely admit that many discrepancies have been resolved, some have not, in the course of time, with continued work in textual criticism with existing manuscript material or perhaps new manuscript discoveries and archaeological data, they too will be resolved.

Finally, as we have seen above, the so-called discrepancies and seeming contradictions are answered by a variety of means and present no problem with regards to the integrity of the text. In fact, no discrepancie, apparent or real, unsettles the text nor impairs its message! The plan of redemption is fully in tact, from the beginning of Scripture to the end. God has sovereignly protected His Word, even in the absence of the original text! Haley has put it eloquently as anyone could when he stated, "We therefore deem the position an impregnable one, that all the discrepancies and objections which the teeming brain and malignant heart of infidelity have been able to conjure up and rake together, do not in any essential degree detract from the value of the inspired volume, nor diminish its wonderful and beneficent moral power." The Apostle Peter sums it up in the perspective of the divine: "For all flesh is a grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls away: but the word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the word which by the gospel, is preached to you."

While we don't have an infallible translation, we do have a Bible which can be trusted and preached without fear of contradiction! We need to challenge our friends who object to the Christian Faith on the grounds of so-called Bible contradictions, to check out the facts! Once we dismiss the fear of contradiction, we may by God's grace present reasons for faith and gently lead them to a saving knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Dan