Does the Bible Contradict Itself?

Keeping Faith in an Age of Reason: Refuting Alleged Bible Contradictions, Jason Lisle.  Green Forest: Master Books, 2017.  Softcover, 254 pages.

Spend any time discussing Christianity with unbelievers and eventually you’ll hear how the Bible is unbelievable because of its countless contradictions.  I’ve noticed that even ex-Reformed unbelievers will trot out this claim.  Unbelievers will Google “Bible contradictions” and they’ll come up with lists and lists of them.  They’ll bombard you with them and expect you’ll have no way to respond.  More than likely, you’ll feel overwhelmed at the volume of unbelieving fire that seems to be raining down on you.

Jason Lisle’s Keeping Faith in an Age of Reason is the resource you need for moments like that.  Lisle has catalogued 420 supposed Bible contradictions.  He puts them into six categories:

• Quantitative Differences
• Names, Places, and Genealogies
• Timing of Events
• Cause and Effect
• Differences in Details
• Yes or No?

Dr. Lisle also helpfully points out the mistaken reasoning used by Bible critics.  At the beginning of the book he outlines some common fallacies.  With most of the contradictions he’ll then indicate which fallacy is being used. 

Here’s an example from the fifth category (Differences in Details):

Was Jonah swallowed by a fish or a whale?  Jonah 1:17 says fish, but Matthew 12:40 says whale. 

Semantic anachronism fallacy.  The Linnaean classification system by which whales are classified as “mammals” and not as “fish” was not invented until the 1700s.  So, obviously the Bible isn’t going to use that system.

The Greek word translated as “whale in Matthew 12:40 in the KJV is ketos, which includes both whales and large fish.  Likewise, the Hebrew word for “fish” in Jonah 1:17 is dag and is not exactly the same as our modern Linnaean category.  So, there is no inconsistency in the original Hebrew and Greek languages.  (p.162)

Like this one, some of the “contradictions” only need a short response, while others span over several pages.

Since this book spans so much biblical interpretation, there are a few places at which I differ from Dr. Lisle.  Most of those instances remain within the pale of orthodoxy.  The only exception might be Lisle’s apparent concession that baptism could validly be done in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit OR in the name of Jesus (p.108).  However, I didn’t detect anything else that might contradict what Reformed believers confess.  This is happily different from at least one other book of this genre:  Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.

Keeping Faith in Age of Reason helpfully concludes with an explanation for how only the Christian worldview can provide the necessary foundations for the law of non-contradiction.  Unbelievers can’t justify their concerns about contradictions from within their own worldview.  Therefore, in order to argue against Christianity, they have to steal from the Christian worldview – thus illustrating how unsound their reasoning really is.

Perhaps a young person you know could benefit from this book, especially if they’re in an environment where the Christian faith is always under attack.  Bible teachers would be well-served by it too – maybe do a unit on alleged Bible contradictions and use Lisle as a text.  Whoever uses it will find their confidence in the trustworthiness of God’s Word bolstered.  You’ll soon find Jason Lisle’s words verified:

The critic did not perform a fair and objective analysis of the text.  Rather, he relentlessly pulled the verses out of context, drawing unwarranted and incorrect inferences.  Clearly, the critic is not interested in the truth.  He has an ax to grind.  He doesn’t like the Bible.  And he is not above distorting the text of Scripture in an attempt to persuade others that the problem is in the text.  But this really shows that the problem lies with the critic.  (p.241)

I Recommend

This past week, I shared the following links on social media and I think they’re worth sharing here too:

The Free Reformed Churches of Australia

It’s been a long time coming, but the FRCA finally has a new website. It now includes news items from our churches (which you can also get delivered to a blog aggregator like Feedly via RSS).

What To Do About Halloween on the Sabbath?

This is, to me it seems, a distinctly North American discussion. Halloween is a thing here in Australia, but not a big thing. It’s certainly not anywhere near as big as in the US and Canada. That suits me just fine.

Legalism: What It Is and What It Is Not

Chris Gordon: “Too often when people critique confessional Protestants, who affirm the abiding validity of the Ten Commandments, as “legalistic,” they are really advocating antinomianism, rejection of God’s moral law. What they are saying is this: we won’t require anything of you if you come to us. This is all an escape tactic for people who are running. God’s law is totally disregarded, and the consequences of this are evidenced in the way people approach him in worship.”

Victorian Government to Discriminate against Faith-Based Schools

While this is a deplorable development, I can’t help but wonder if the real problems are being missed here: churches which don’t practice church discipline, and then Christian schools which don’t make biblical church membership a requirement for employment.

Appeal court overturns UK puberty blockers ruling for under-16s

The case of Keira Bell (Bell v Tavistock) has received a lot of attention from Christians concerned about so-called conversion therapy legislation. This is a set-back, however an appeal to the UK Supreme Court is in the works.

Study: Majority of Self-Identified Christians Don’t Believe the Holy Spirit is Real

Perhaps a better title: Majority of Self-Identified Christians Don’t Really Believe Christian Doctrine.

Christian vs. Atheist Debate

I didn’t post this one on Facebook, but last week I did show it to participants at a Reformed Apologetics course I taught in Western Australia. Brace yourself — one unhinged atheist makes it a wild ride.

Meet Cornelius Van Til

One of my favourite authors is Cornelius Van Til.  Van Til was born in the Netherlands in 1896.  While still a child, he immigrated with his family to the United States.  He grew up in the Christian Reformed Church and eventually went on to attend Calvin College and Seminary.  In 1922, it was on to Princeton where he earned master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in 1927.  He spent one year as the pastor of a CRC in Michigan before returning to Princeton as an instructor in apologetics.  Later he became one of the pioneering faculty at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.  He taught apologetics there until 1973.  He died in 1987.

Van Til is important because he recognized the need for consistency in apologetics (the defense of the faith).  Up till his day, there was no internally consistent system of Reformed apologetics.  In other words, the apologetics that was taught and practiced up to that point was more consistent with Arminianism and Roman Catholicism than with Reformed theology.  Van Til took the best insights of previous Reformed theologians including John Calvin, B. B. Warfield, Abraham Kuyper and (especially) Herman Bavinck, and brought them together into a consistent approach to defending and promoting the faith of the Scriptures.  This consistent approach begins with recognizing that the Reformation principle of sola Scriptura (by Scripture alone) has to be applied to our method of apologetics.

If you want to read just one book by Van Til, it should be The Defense of the Faith.  However, two caveats are in order:  1) Van Til is not always easy reading.  He wrote for educated laymen and pastors/scholars; 2) If you are going to read The Defense of the Faith, I would suggest the third edition.  There is a more recent fourth edition with notes by K. Scott Oliphint, but that edition tends to focus more on the differences that Van Til had with a number of his critics in the 1950s.  If you’re looking for Van Til to put his beliefs about apologetics into practice, the only thing that’s available is his little booklet Why I Believe in God.  If you want to read about Van Til’s life, the best biography is the one by John R. Muether, Cornelius Van Til: Reformed Apologist and Churchman.  Finally, the best anthology and commentary on Van Til’s work is the massive Van Til’s Apologetic by Greg Bahnsen.

One might quibble with some of Van Til’s statements or formulations, but on the whole he is a reliable and consistently Reformed theologian.  He had two formal faults, however.  One was what I mentioned a moment ago:  clear, effective communication was not his strong suit.  The other is the fact that he so rarely provided the biblical foundations for the case he was making.  It’s not that those biblical foundations weren’t there, but he just didn’t always make them obvious.  That would fall to later generations of his students and followers, especially K. Scott Oliphint and Greg Bahnsen.

I don’t exaggerate when I say that I learned to love the Reformed faith because of Cornelius Van Til.  As a university student I read The Defense of the Faith and I caught Van Til’s infectious love for being Reformed.  Moreover, I realized that Reformed theology, because it is biblical, has the resources within to be able to withstand any assault the world can mount.

Surviving Religion 101

From time to time I search online for “ex-Can RC.” I’m curious as to why people would leave the Canadian Reformed Churches. What makes people walk away from the church and sometimes the faith in which they were raised? What can I learn from that as a pastor?

Several individuals mention how they were told not to study philosophical or scientific questions, not to think too deeply about things, nor to read widely for themselves outside of the “approved CanRC authors.” Church leaders allegedly told them to check their brains at the door. Well, we all know what some people do when they’re told not to do something. They started reading and studying for themselves and soon discovered that they’d been brainwashed and hoodwinked by their church leaders. The exit came into view.

If we presume these stories are even a little accurate, what might lead pastors or elders to give those kinds of warnings to their flock? Perhaps it’s fear. Maybe they’re afraid that the arguments of unbelievers will persuade their members. Connected with that, possibly it is the worry that we don’t readily have solid counter-arguments so “You just have to believe.”

To continue reading this book review, head over here to Reformed Perspective.

Living Sola Scripturally

There are differences between the way houses are often built in Australia and the way they’re built in Canada.  I’m not a builder but even I can see some of these differences.  In many areas of Canada, a house will be built with a basement as the foundation.  However, at least where I live in Australia, most houses are built on top of a flat concrete slab.  But either way they have a solid foundation.  You wouldn’t dream of building without one.

The Protestant Reformation was about getting the church back on a solid foundation.  For the Protestant Reformers there was but one such foundation:  God’s Word.  From that we receive one of the key tenets of the Reformation:  sola Scriptura.   The Bible alone is our foundation.  As the Belgic Confession states in article 7, “Since it is forbidden to add to or take away anything from the Word of God (Deut. 12:32), it is evident that the doctrine thereof is most perfect and complete in all respects.” 

It’s quite easy to maintain this principle merely in an abstract fashion.  However, sola Scriptura is meant to be lived.  The Bible is not only the foundation for theology in the academic sense, it’s also meant to be the foundation for the life of the church and the life of every Christian.  Let’s briefly explore two ways of living “sola Scripturally.”

Worship

A moment ago I mentioned the Belgic Confession and what it says about the sufficiency of Scripture.  Interestingly, earlier in article 7, the Confession connects the sufficiency of Scripture to public worship:  “The whole manner of worship which God requires of us is written in it at length.”  It’s in the Belgic Confession because it was a contentious issue in the Reformation.  The Roman Catholic Church didn’t maintain the sufficiency of Scripture and that was reflected in how it approached public worship.  Many practices were introduced into the worship of God which had no warrant from God in his Word.

Contrary to that, the Reformers insisted that God’s Word alone can determine the elements of our public worship.  This eventually came to be known as the Regulative Principle of Worship.  As the Heidelberg Catechism expresses it in QA 96, “We are not…to worship him [God] in any other manner than he has commanded in his Word.”  Scripture alone is the foundation for Reformed worship.       

So one of the ways we live “sola Scripturally” is that we aim to worship God only in his ways.  For example, the church can never substitute anything for the preaching of God’s Word.  Scripture commands (2 Tim. 4:2) that we must have preaching – authoritative proclamation by a man ordained for that task.  And Scripture also commands that it be the preaching only of God’s Word.  It can’t be human opinions, nor can it be “preaching” based on what God is supposedly revealing in a TV show or movie.  Perhaps that seems obvious, but sadly, it’s not so obvious to many churches not upholding the Regulative Principle of Worship.    

Apologetics

Over the course of my 20-plus year ministry so far, there’s been a surge of interest in learning how to defend and promote the Christian faith.  Back in my seminary training, apologetics wasn’t even taught and there was a level of suspicion attached to it.  Today that’s changed and it’s all for the better.

However, the Reformed approach to apologetics (pioneered by Cornelius Van Til) is still very much the minority opinion, especially in your vanilla Christian bookstore.  Why this matters has to do with foundations.  Non-Reformed apologetics builds on something other than the Scriptures.  Sometimes it’s human rationality and our ability to evaluate arguments or evidence; at other times it might be our sense perception.  Regardless of the details, we’re looking at an approach that’s building on a foundation of sand.

What distinguishes Reformed apologetics is a commitment to sola Scriptura.  This commitment isn’t just lip service.  We actually go to what God says to find out how to defend and promote what God says.  The Bible holds the content of our apologetics, but it also determines our method.

1 Peter 3:15 is often referred to as the “Magna Carta” of apologetics.  Here the Holy Spirit tells us that we’re always to be prepared to offer a reasoned defence of our faith.  However, the first part of the verse is sometimes overlooked:  “…but in your hearts honour Christ the Lord as holy.”  One of the best ways we can do that in apologetics is by building on the foundation Christ gives in his Word.  We need an apologetical method which is determined by Scripture alone.  Reformed apologetics supplies that method.

Conclusion

The word “Reformed” is often reckoned as short-hand for “Re-formed according to the Bible.”  While true enough, we could improve it by adding one little word: “alone.”  To be Reformed is to be constantly going back to the Bible alone.  The reason we do that is because it’s the only sure foundation for our lives as individuals and collectively as the people of God.  It’s been said that you have to stand somewhere in order to get anywhere.  If the place you’re standing is sinking sand, you’re going nowhere.  But if you’re on solid rock, you’ve got the traction you need.  Only the Word of God provides that.