Isn't the Bible full of contradictions?

Actually, one of the most remarkable things about the Bible is its unity.  It is sixty-six different books, written by forty different authors from different backgrounds over a 1,500 year span and yet it tells one continuous, unified story.

But we sometimes hear that it has contradictions.  Web sites from skeptics dot the internet and suggests some.  

But in each case when we actually open the Bible and read it like any other book or eyewitness accounts they evaporate one after the other.

Take the so-called “two accounts of Creation” in Genesis 1 and 2.  This is a famous one that is often held up as a contradiction.   It goes like this:  “In Genesis 1 God created the animals first and then man and woman simultaneously, but in Genesis 2 animals are created after mankind.”

But Genesis 1 is an overview of the entire six days of creation.  Genesis 2 zooms in on the creation of man, the sixth day alone, and specifically to the Garden of Eden setting.  It lays out the fact that when God created “male and female” he did it in that order--just as Genesis 1 says, first Adam and then Eve:

Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind….Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image…. male and female He created them.”  (Genesis 1:24-27)

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them...But for Adam no suitable helper was found….Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.  (Genesis 2:19-22 NIV)

Notice the words “had formed” meaning the animals were previously created but only now brought to Adam.

Many so-called contradictions show little evidence that the passage has actually been read by the skeptic.  Take the following:

Gen. 1:31 God was pleased with his creation.

Gen.  6:5-6 God was not pleased with his creation.

If the writer had read Genesis 3 he would have noticed that between Genesis 1 and Genesis 6 a major event happens, the fall of man!  Adam and Eve’s rebellion brought sin, death, and chaos to the entire creation.  By Genesis 6  sin is in full bloom.  In fact, that is the reason God says He  is displeased.  His creation was perfect, but sin corrupted it.  It is the fall of man that set up the need for redemption in Christ (Gen. 3:15).  So actually these accounts are very consistent and not a contradiction at all. 

Sometimes different accounts are given in the gospels of the same event but not all the same details.  These again are sometimes called “contradictions.”  But they are not at all!  

For instance, in John 20 the author focuses only on Mary Magdalene’s visit to the empty tomb of Jesus.  Matthew also mentions “the other Mary” accompanying her (Matthew 28).  Luke adds that a woman named Joanna, and “other women” were  with them, and that the “other Mary” was the mother of James.  Finally, Mark mentions the Mary’s and that one of the “other women” was named Salome.  And Mark let’s us know that Mary Magdalene was also the spokeswoman (16:10) for the group.  This may have been why John only mentions her.

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