Aunty, I’ve encountered some passages in the Bible that directly contradict others. How can that be?
19 May 2025 |
Dear Aunt Sevvy,
In Luke 21 where Jesus is talking about the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of time, he said, “They will put some of you to death” (v.16), followed by “not a hair of your head will perish” (v.18). What did Jesus mean by these seemingly contradictory statements?
Signed, Needing Clarity
Dear Needing Clarity,
Some scholars think that in the second phrase Jesus was talking about the resurrection. But if so, it still leaves a rather jarring conjunction between these two almost-adjacent verses—because in the second, Jesus doesn’t say our hairs will be restored in a new body, but that they won’t be harmed in the first place!
This is a good time to remind Aunty’s readers how the Bible came about, and why we find some of these problematic and contradictory passages.
Many Christian still think of the Bible as a book dictated by God. It wasn’t. Not only was it written by human beings, but some books were assembled from various other writings by other human authors. For example, even conservative scholars accept that Mark was one of the sources for Matthew and Luke—sometimes word for word.
After that, these books were copied again and again and again (and again and again and again), and finally translated into our languages so we can read them—by which time a few errors crept in. Bible scholars have always known this: the Greek Bible lists a number of alternative readings for some passages from different manuscripts, and translators have to decide among them.
The miracle is that the Bible still shows us God as clearly as it does! God protected the big spiritual principles. But there are places where, in the assembly of these writings, the occasional odd contradiction shows up.
Fortunately, the New Testament is crystal clear about God’s desire to save us, and how Jesus made that possible. God has given us minds to see the big picture, and not be thrown by a few problematic texts. A quotation attributed to Mark Twain: “It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me; it’s the parts that I do understand.”
Aunt Sevvy
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