Biblical Scholar Refutes Bible Contradictions!

Mike Licona joins me to discuss his new book "Jesus Contradicted" and how he handles alleged contradictions in the bible.

[YourFriendDevin]

My two favorite Mikes. Together they are unstoppable

[paradisecityX]

The Gospels are masterpieces of nonfiction

[LeatherStraps-fmdt]

IP and Trent Horn colab? Literally a dream come true, looking forward to next week!

[coffeehousedialogue]

Just became a member, Mike! You're awesome!

[mariotriunegod]

hecklers expect a 500 page book by each writer that would of cost like 10 years of cash and how many schrolls. and years of copying 🤪🤪🤪🤪

[brandonp]

Always like listening to Mike! Thanks again for this IP. Great stuff as always

[dylan]

It’s so key to emphasize (over and over until they get it) that the term of art, inerrancy, and fundamentalism are NEW. We need to appeal to the oftentimes typical mistrust of enlightenment thinking in fundamentalist circles (esp with regard to skepticism about miracles) and make it clear to them that their inerrancy view is itself a product of enlightenment thinking.

[nickcariglia]

Really enjoyed the discussion. Lots of great points made that support and strengthen our faith.

With regards to trying to harmonize the resurrection accounts, a point to consider is each gospel author wrote at a different time, different place to a different audience. No one then would have thought that the Gospels would be part of a volume of books with the letters of the Apostles. So, trying to harmonize them would be futile. Understanding how they were written with unique writing styles known and practiced back then is more useful and helpful.

[chrisazure]

One of the staunchest proponents for inerrancy in the Southern Baptist Church is Judge Paul Pressler. He was my Sunday School teacher of my single men's group when I was in my early twenties (circa 1984-5).
I remember him inviting me and my roommate over one evening. The meeting didn't really have any sort of agenda and seemed to be social only. However, he did suggest we chat in his hot tub. I said we didn't have a swimsuits, but he said he didn't care, we could skinny dip. I was concerned about other family members coming home and refused his offer. It seems the visit ended soon after. Something about that evening always seemed odd, but he was a respected man at church.
This year I found out he has been credibly accused of abusing a young man in the 70s. It all makes sense, now. Always be wary of those that seem ultra-righteous.

[NoESanity]

1:00:00 saying the day was dark could also be a literary device to show that everyone was sad because jesus died hours ago.

[dsj]

THE BIBLE: The Bible was originally written in three different languages (Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic), on three different continents (Europe, Asia, and Africa), in a time-spend of over 1500 years, by over forty different authors among whom were kings, peasants, philosophers, fishermen, poets, statesmen, scholars, a herdsman, a general, a cupbearer, a doctor, a tax collector, and a rabbi. Without contradicting one another, each author wrote on the common theme of God’s enduring love for mankind, and God’s redeeming plan of salvation through His Son — Jesus Christ.
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Unlike the Quran written in a period of about 23 years in Mohammed’s native tongue (the Quraishi tribal dialect and then translated into the Arabic language), the forty plus different authors of the Bible were moved by the Spirit of God to write down truths about God in their own ways of thinking, in their own ways of understanding, and in their own ways of reasoning in that which is truth. Each author also wrote down the truths of God in his own style of compositions — be it essay, music, or poetry.
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Critics of the Bible claimed the Bible contains contradictions. How? — Because two different authors living hundreds and hundreds of years apart on two different continents, and whose writing styles (essay, music, or poetry) in two different languages did not use the same word or phrase to describe the same event. How ridiculous the claim!
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We must also consider the Bible was not originally written on computer software (Microsoft Disk, iPad, or CD Rom), but rather the Bible was written on papyrus — a wet land plant-based substance (or materials) that would rot and decay; thus, making the transcribers (copyists, clerks) to primitively re-write the Bible by hands unto new papyrus decades, after decades, after decades for centuries, after centuries, after centuries… What a monumental feat in all human existence — What an enormous human ingenuity of preservation!

[billschauer]

Had a criminal investigator tell me that real eyewitness accounts always contain contradictions, differences, omissions, and additions. They try to look for common elements in the testimonies of the witnesses. He said that if all the stories told by multiple witnesses are the same, he starts to suspect dishonesty of some type is going on.

[Michael_the_Servant]

IRT Q at 39:35 - Mark intentionally ended his gospel at verse 8 because he was using it as a literary device that was used by other writers in scripture. That being he was ending his gospel with what we in the modern day would call a hyperlink. The end of his writing was pointing straight to the beginning of another writing. The longer ending was possibly written also by Mark, after he took heat for being too obvious with his ending, as both are extremely early.

[bobthrasher]

The question about Acts 8:15-17 is interesting because the Samaritans didn't automatically receive the Spirit as some think normally happens. Something similar happens in Acts 19 with Paul and the Ephesian "disciples." Paul determines they don't know the Gospel and after they believe they are baptized in water and THEN Paul lays hands on them to receive the Spirit. So we see yet another example where the Spirit was not "automatically" received upon "belief" as Eph 1:13 seems to suggest. It only takes one exception to invalidate a "rule."

[PoppinPsinceAD]

These people in the comments pulling up supposed discrepancies that have been answered ten million times crack me up. Bet they didn’t even watch the stream at all

[povoq]

There is a reason similar events happen twice. The amount of double miracles/events is huge. Some doubles are in the same gospel.

If the 2 miracles of multiplying loafs and fished (for 4000 & for 5000) werent in Matthew and Marc we would be struggling with another contradiction.

Not only the parables but the stories themselves have prophetic significance.

The details that change have meaning not for the story but for the interpretation.

[coffeehousedialogue]

Uh-oh! Did Mike smile??? 😂😂 How's Elvis doing, Mr. Alien? (Cue the "Saw Elvis in a UFO" song by Ray Stevens!) LOL

[bh]

I believe allowing the human element in scripture offers more credence to it making it inerrant in the intention of how it was developed.

[NelsonAerial]

Great video Mike(s)! At around 20:53 the date offered for the book of John is 90-95…. I really don’t understand why scholars believe this dating. The gospel of John and book of Revelation must have been written in the early to mid 60’s, perhaps as late as 67-68. Revelation reads that in the present tense, “…they stand daily offering sacrifices in the temple…”. This is a proof text that at the time of John writing, the Temple must have still been standing, which necessitates the date to pre-70AD…. Right?? Thx 🙏🏼

[RealCaptainAwesome]

When I think of the Slippery Slope fallacy I think of the story 12 Angry Men where one man's doubt in the case of an obviously guilty person is used to sway a jury to let him go free because certain testimony could not be harmonized so it invalidated all of it.