Jim Meritt's List of Biblical Contradictions, Deconstructed
Source: http://infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html
Opening caveats: It's good that the editor is humble here, as I intend to tear through these contradictions in a cursory and dismissive fashion. Which is exactly what they deserve.
"God good to all, or just a few?"
The proper sense in which God is "good to all" is found in Matthew 5: "For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." We are all given the many good things of life in this world.
"War or Peace?" That's easy - both.
"Who is the father of Joseph?" Augustine's explanations are either that Joseph was adopted, or that the second genealogy refers to his stepfather, or that Matthew essentially stopped counting at 40 and double-counted to make a theological point about the mystical numbers 40 and 7(x6).
"Who was at the Empty Tomb?" These don't even contradict on the surface! Mentioning only the relevant members of a larger group is common practice, as in "Obama met with Putin today" when actually there are 12 people in the room.
"Is Jesus equal to or lesser than?" That's easy - both. Jesus has both human and divine natures; even in his divine nature he can be said to be "lesser than" the Father in that he comes after him in the chain of command. The Trinity is pretty weird, I'll grant you that one.
"Which first - beasts or man?" Beasts first, then man, then an additional creation of beasts specifically for Adam to peruse.
"The number of beasts in the ark" The translation here is disputed; it either refers to seven of each clean animal walking up in pairs ("two by two") or seven pairs of each clean animal walking up in pairs. Either way, not contradictory.
"How many stalls and horsemen?" Two possible explanations: either 4000 chariot stalls and 36000 stalls for extra horses, or 4000 pens (the Hebrew word can refer to either) of 10 stalls each. As an aside, Solomon's army was clearly not 40,000 chariots strong, as he only had 12,000 horsemen; rather, he had stalls set up in several cities so that the entire army could camp in any of them.
"Is it folly to be wise or not?" No - wisdom is recommended even though it increases sorrow and is destroyed by God, because it's still better than folly.
"Human vs. ghostly impregnation" The "fruit of David's loins according to the flesh" is one of many errors in the King James Version, which relies on 400-year-old scholarship. No modern translation renders it this way.
"The sins of the father" The passage in Isaiah describes Israel's taunts, the one in Deuteronomy is God's.
"The bat is not a bird" By the ancient classification, it was; a pterosaur would also be called a "bird" in Hebrew.
"Rabbits do not chew their cud" The best defence here is from Tekton, who argues that the Hebrew term "chew" means "bring out" rather than "bring up" as ruminants do, eliminating the inaccuracy.
"Snails do not melt" Poetic license describing the snail's slimy trail. Lest you claim 'Oho, anything you don't like is poetic license!' Psalm 58 is song lyrics, not noted for their literal exactitude.
"Fowl from waters or ground?" Obviously Christians disagree vehemently on the creation passage; my take is that this is a prophetic description of evolution, in which context birds can be said to descend from sea creatures and from land creatures alike.
"Odd genetic engineering" One of the Bible's lesser-known miracles. God routinely cheats in favor of the patriarchs, so this is no surprise.
"The shape of the earth" The devil shows Jesus "all the kingdoms of the world" through a mystical vision, not physical eyesight. Isaiah correctly notes "the circle of the earth", although this could also be metaphorical.
"Snakes, while built low, do not eat dirt" This is a general reference to getting dirt in your mouth, as one can be said to eat flies while whizzing down the highway in an open motorcycle.
"Earth supported?" Clearly metaphorical here, as the verse itself makes clear - similarly, "Hide me in the shadow of thy wings" does not imply that God has literal wings. Job is a philosophical discourse, not an architecture book, as anyone who had read it would know.
"The hydrological cycle" Ecclesiastes describes the cycle accurately, while Job is once again metaphorical.
"Order of creation" See above for easy reconciliation of the two Genesis creation stories. The assertion that God was not satisfied with creation because Adam complained is easily rectified by having the action of Genesis 2 take place on the sixth day. Not to mention that "day" here doesn't necessarily mean 24 hours.
"Moses' personality" Moses is clearly shown as meek, but with flashes of anger when provoked. This isn't a contradiction, it's a three-dimensional personality.
"Righteous live?" Easy - they both live and die, as do the wicked.
"Jesus' first sermon plain or mount?" Matthew skips over the descent from mountain to plain. (This will become a common pattern: Matthew routinely omits steps or details unless he can find an Old Testament reference to them, because he doesn't consider them important.)
"Jesus' last words" Matthew specifically mentions that Jesus cried out multiple times before dying, so these are all reasonable.
"Years of famine" This can either be a clerical error (some ancient translations have 3 in both passages, not 3 and 7) or a reference to the land already being in its 4th year of famine at the time, and 3 extra years makes 7.
"Moved David to anger?" Satan is not a Manichean opposing deity, he acts more like God's prosecuting attorney. Thus God can be said to have "moved David" by allowing Satan to do it. (See Job for a fuller account of this phenomenon.)
"The genealogy of Jesus?" See above with "The father of Joseph".
"God be seen?" God has shown himself in part but not in full - a recurring theme in the Bible.
"Cruel, Unmerciful, Destructive and Ferocious or Kind, Merciful and Good" See above with "God good to all or just a few?"
"Tempts?" The Greek word here does not refer to direct but remote agency. God indirectly tempts us by creating the situation in which we are tempted but does not directly tempt anyone to sin.
"Judas died how?" Once again, Wikipedia has a bunch of explanations, but it is generally agreed that Matthew once again gets his facts wrong here for the purpose of a scriptural proof. (The passage he's thinking of isn't even in Jeremiah, it's in Zechariah.) Fortunately, I don't subscribe to the notion that every single word in the Bible must be historically accurate; the inerrancy of the Bible refers to its concepts and speech acts.
"Ascend to heaven" Isaiah (and Enoch) did not ascend under their own power, but were carried up by God; Jesus remains the only one who has ascended.
"What was Jesus' prediction regarding Peter's denial?" and "How many times did the cock crow?" Cocks are known to cry twice in a row, so one event can be specified as the cock crowing once or twice without contradiction. This is a truly unimportant detail, which is why only Mark records it.
"How many beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount" Shocker: The Gospels are not transcripts of Jesus from a tape recorder! They collect sayings the author considered important, and each writer records different ones! Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
"Does every man sin?" 1 John 3 refers to a (usually) temporary condition of not sinning while we are in perfect communion with God. Also used for this "contradiction" is a selectively edited version of Romans 5, which refers to a certain kind of sin, not sin in general.
"Who bought potter's field" Judas' money being used to buy a field, he can be said to have "bought" the field in the same sense that the bank "paid for" my college education by giving me loans which I used to pay the school.
"Who prophesied the potter's field?" See the death of Judas, above.
"Who bears guilt?" Easy - we are to bear both our own burdens and one another's. Not exactly hard to follow.
"Do you answer a fool?" I once heard an entire sermon preached on these verses. The proverbs are not intended as 100% true statements direct from God, but as earthly wisdom which must be wisely applied. The book supports this in a number of instances.
"How many children did Michal, the daughter of Saul, have?" This is explained in the very same verse: Michal had five adopted sons, "brought up for Adriel" their actual father.
"How old was Jehoiachin when he began to reign?" Either a copyist's error, or a reckoning of "8 years" from the previous deportation of Hebrews, when he was 10.
"Marriage?" Paul specifically notes that his views on marriage are his opinion, not God's.
"Did those with Saul at his conversion hear a voice?" This is the subject of much debate among translators; the proper term could be "did not understand the voice" or "heard the sound" without hearing a voice or "heard a voice" but not the articulated words.
"Where was Jesus three days after his baptism?" Just one instance of the Gospel writers not ordering everything chronologically; there are several such instances. This one has way more substance than most of the others.
"How many apostles were in office between the resurrection and ascension?" 1 Corinthians refers to "the twelve" as a group name, although there were only 11 of the original 12 apostles alive at the time.
"Judging" Two different senses of "judgment" - we are to judge things in the ordinary sense of weighing evidence, but not to presume to pass final judgment, which is God's job.
"Good deeds" - Our good deeds are to be shown before men, but not specifically our giving of alms.
"For or against?" Both - everyone is either for or against Jesus, and the two groups are mutually exclusive.
"Whom did they see at the tomb?" Aside from the omission of non-speaking members of a group in some accounts, the gospels are all agreed that angels are men dressed in white robes, full stop. They are not winged harp-playing blondes as in Western tradition.
"God change?" Jonah 3:10 does not depict God changing, but God making good on his message "Repent or be destroyed." The people repent and are not destroyed. Samuel is simply incorrect in saying "God does not regret," as there are several instances of God regretting things in the Bible. Biblical heroes are not infallible.
"Destruction of cities" See Judas' death above.
"Whose sepulchers" Abraham bought the field from the tribe of the sons of Hamor, not Hamor's physical sons - it is common practice in Genesis to refer to tribes by their founding fathers.
"Strong drink?" Wine is both a source of merriment and a source of solace for the grieving. Duh!
"When second coming?" Jesus uses "this generation" to refer to the entire post-Jesus age.
"Solomon's overseers" Chronicles and Kings divide up the overseers into two different groups but the total of 3850 supervisors is the same. This could also be a clerical error, as usual when Kings and Chronicles conflict - Chronicles is known to have been written long after the events it records.
"The mother of Abijah:" Daughter here is used metaphorically to refer to granddaughter, in the same way that "sons" occasionally means "descendants" and "cousin" means "any relative".
"When did Baasha die?" Chronicles counts from the division of the two kingdoms, making it "in the 36th year, of the reign of Asa," although it was only Asa's 26th year as king. (I think this is a typo myself.)
"How old was Ahaziah when he began to reign?" Clerical error - the characters for 22 and 42 in Hebrew are very similar.
"Who was Josiah's successor?" These are two names for the same person, as pretty much any source will tell you.
"The differences in the census figures of Ezra and Nehemiah" Although generally agreed to be a clerical error, note that many census figures in the Old Testament enumerate only men, so a discrepancy of 12,000 between the listed men and the entire company of both genders is not surprising.
"What was the color of the robe placed on Jesus during his trial?" The Romans had a broader definition of "purple" than we did, including shades of dark red.
"What did they give him to drink?" Two separate occasions of Jesus being given something to drink are recorded in Mark. Duh!
"How long was Jesus in the tomb?" "Three days and three nights" is a figure of speech. This also appears in several other passages.
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