God’s Steadfast and Ever-Changing Word: A Look at Biblical Contradictions

Before I say anything else, let’s start off with a short game about Biblical contradictions.

That short game says what I never could put into words.

Even if you don’t view the Bible as an instrument of God’s breath and soul, you can still view it as a historical document. It does, after all, have a lot to say about the people of the time. About how scared, easily influenced, brutal, vengeful and ignorant they were. Though I think a healthy dose of science would have prevented much of the Bible from ever being written, the fact that it remains today gives us something to look, and sometimes laugh at.

The Bible was not written by God. This is obvious. Even though God has a hand, he apparently does not have a pen. Therefore, he had to settle for the next best thing; channeling the message through his flawed creation. So man sat down to put to paper all of the things that God Almighty was “saying” to them.

I constantly hear people say that it is impossible to understand God’s plan. I suppose that did not apply to the lucky few whose names are in the table o’ contents of Ye Goode Booke. They were all able to flawlessly comprehend and scribe The Truth©. Of course, even if they were able to interpret the Lord 100% accurately, there are still numerous factors to consider: the omission of certain gospels by ecumenical councils, the various and subsequent translations from Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin into the languages of today not to mention the unknown mental stability of the authors themselves.

Having been to the land of Israel and having seen many of the sites where Biblical events took place, I have no doubt that there is historical accuracy in parts of the Bible. But when you play 70 years of the “telephone game”, publish works without appropriate fact checking or source citations, and leave it all open to interpretation by easily manipulated people 2000 years later, you end up with a shit storm of Biblical proportions.

Some Scripture Each Day Sends Satan Away!

I love daily desk calendars. You know, the ones where you tear a page off each day to reveal a new picture, cartoon, quote, etc. Next to my bed, I have The Far Side. At work, I have Dilbert. Now I have Bible Verses. Each day, I will now tear off a page to reveal a new combination of words, innocuous by themselves, but when arranged as scripture form a dangerous mind control spell that even Lord Voldemort couldn’t muster.

The back of the box quotes the apostle Paul in his letters to St. Timothy: “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Of course, the undertone of that last part really says, “man without scripture cannot do good works.” I also won’t point out any of the many very shitty things that have been done with their basis in scripture.

I would also like to point out that the Bible Verses are all from the NIV Bible. And I quoth, “Verses in this calendar are taken form the NIV Bible–the most widely accepted contemporary Bible translation available. More than one hundred scholars from six countries, representing no less than 2- denominations, worked on the English translation alone. The NIV Bible has been translated into more than 60 languages, reaching some 600 million people worldwide.” Basically, the version of the Bible these verses represent have been translated even more than some other versions. Also, it’s been further translated and interpreted for 60 other languages. I know these folks aren’t translating the Bible with Google Language Tools, but you’re an idiot if you don’t think that the Bible hasn’t lost some of its original meaning having changed hands so many times.

At last, I leave you with a random date’s verse, being that half the year has already passed.

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD, is the Rock eternal. – Isiah 26:3-4

When I think of the Rock, I think music, Chevrolet, wrestling and Alacatraz, but the LORD is not on that list.