How do you deal with contradiction?

There are some clear differences that I don't think can be explained away contradictions that I don't think can be explained away through a different interpretation. Here are a couple of examples.

How old was Jehoiachin when he began to reign?

KI2 24:8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. And his mother's name was Nehushta, the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.
CH2 36:9 Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.

When did Baasha die?
26th year of the reign of Asa I Kings 16:6-8
36th year of the reign of Asa I 2 Chron 16:1

How old was Ahaziah when he began to reign?
22 in 2 Kings 8:26
42 in 2 Chron 22:2

Who was Josiah's successor?
Jehoahaz - 2 Chron 36:1
Shallum - Jeremiah 22:11

These and other trivial differences don't have any impact on my faith or my interpretation of scripture. Other differences, like the clear support for BOTH limited and unlimited atonement, predestination / election and free will choice of Christ as our Savior have led me to try to incorporate both in my beliefs. There are many things in the Bible that I believe to be a mystery to us and that we won't fully understand until the Second Coming.

 

Numerical Contradictions

2 Kings 8:26 vs. 2 Chron. 22:2 and the other numerical contradictions have bothered me at times. I've read at least two apologists who say simply "scribal error". Which is, of course, an admission that there are errors in our current translations.

Others like to say "there are no contradictions or errors in the autographa". Fine, but no one has seen any of them.

Last, I liked the man who told me that if King Ahaziah was 42, then he was also at least 22! Seriously, this was someone's actual rationalization of this problem.

I find that simply claiming "there are no contradictions" not to be satisfying when there are many right there in the text. That is, merely asserting that they aren't contradictions doesn't make them any less of a contradiction. Equally unsatisfying are the sometimes bizarre rationalizations I have found in apologetic books.

 

There is still no contradiction in the text. There is 'apparent' contradiction to the causal reader but that assessment is not accurate since there is much more here to understand in relation to counting years of kings, lineage, et.. But since you obviously dismiss what you don't like, so be it, but it has been disproven to be a contradiction. Yes, there are some who claim scribal error as their answer, I personally don't agree. Yet the fact is there are other solutions than 'copiest error' that explain the variants set forth in the scripture.

 

Then you have to trow out the notion that God preserves His word. It still doesn't make it any easier to explain to the unsaved that say they can't believe in something that contradicts itself.

 

I like to believe the 18 years old has to be right because it later says he had wives. Hard to believe an eight year old with wives but who knows.

2Ki 24:15 (KJV) And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon, and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and the mighty of the land, those carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.

 

I like to say though the Bible was divinely inspired it was still written through humans.

1Co 7:6 (KJV) But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment.

 

I don't know. I'm not saying that there are contradictions, maybe "supposed" contradictions. But, to try to explain to the lost about those contradictions and not use some of the whacked out excuses I've saw, is hard. It's a problem and I think Christians need to seriously look at finding answers.

 

Then we can't say God preserved His word if we explain contradictions away with "human writers".

 

Why can't we?

I guess you'd be right if you considered God's word every letter and syllable in the prented text but I believe His word to be the ideology, motives, thoughts and messages that comes forth through those Words. Clearly you can see the writers personality, culture and times in the words but never do they obscure the Message from God.

Jer 9:1 (KJV) Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

This is not God speaking, we are clearly seeing the personality of Jeremiah which is partly why we call him the weeping prophet but I believe we all get the message from God.

The Psalms are also great examples of this...

 

I'm with you on this. The point I'm trying to make is what I've heard lost people say about those "contradictions." I guess you could say I'm playing "devils advocate" here. Trying to show things I've heard, and that last "then God didn't preserve His word if we explain it away with human writers" mistakes, was one that I've heard.

 

For those interested, the Skeptics Annotated bible has a good list of about 400 alleged contradications along with links to Christian responses to them.

 

Ahaziah

Good site.

All three of the links it provides for King Ahaziah's age again mention "copyist error." One mentions, in addition, that the age 42 could be his mother's age. That sounds absurd to my 21st century mind. Does anyone know whether this was actually a common practice or is it straw-grasping? That is the only source I've ever seen mention that.

Gleason Archer's Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties relies on the copyist error rectification while falling back on the party lines of, "It doesn't affect doctrine and the autographa were inerrant."

Norman Geisler's When Critics Ask is much more straightforward, saying "This is clearly a copyist error . . ."