No not the [adult swim] game.
I promised Brug I'd move this to another thread and finally got around to doing the research, so here goes (anyone else feel free to jump in here but keep in mind our debate is academic and theological in nature, so rhetorical fallacy will be mocked).
Potentially, my assertion is, (for the most part) as the catholic church teaches...
The holy books of the bible are divinely inspired, as in God worked through imperfect servants as imperfect tools to impart His message. Therefore the message must be judged by the spirit, rather than the letter of the words. Various forms of copying, editing, and translating into various languages affect the letter of the law. Additionally, the bible uses extensive parable to explain impossible situations to human minds, and therefore contains stories and metaphors that should not be taken literally. Biblical contradictions exist, following the Rule of Contradictions, but these are not by any means an issue to be taken into account to the validity of the bible, they are proof that the bible is written and transcribed by imperfect authors.
SO:
The following "alleged" contradiction is not truly a contradiction due to the law of contradictions.
The two thieves reviled Christ. (Matthew 27:44 & Mark 15:32) Only one of the thieves reviled Christ. Luke 23:39-40.
The reason is because two witnesses corroborate that they saw two thieves, and a third confirms only one. For the purpose of legal documentation, this would not be a contradiction, as only a testament that a person is in another place counts as a contradiction (alibi).
The following contradiction would, from an academic standpoint, be verifiable.
(Matthew 10:10) Jesus instructed them not to take a staff, not to wear sandals. (Mark 6:8-9) Jesus instructed his disciples to wear sandals and take a staff on their journey.
Matthew states that Jesus SPECIFICALLY told them not to take a staff or sandals. Mark states that Jesus SPECIFICALLY told them TO take a staff and sandals. These two testimonies contradict each other. In a court case, you'd say that Jesus must have specifically mentioned both things, because two people remember that. But they differ one whether he asserted to take them or not.
I don't see this as a crisis of faith, as by my interperetation, details such as these are only important for story telling and the flow of the parable. But I think they prove that biblical inerrancy is problematic, as the literal word is contradictory. But I feel like the spirit is still there.
Discuss!
