There is an entire sector of the publishing industry that is dedicated to undermining people’s confidence in the Bible. Many of these books shoot to the top of the bestseller lists with their novel conspiracies about the Bible’s origins, their theories about its hidden secrets, or their conviction that it is a mess of contradictions. This appears to be an “evergreen” genre with new titles being released year after year.
And indeed, a cursory reading of the Bible will quickly turn up what appear to be contradictions. “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself,” says Proverbs 26:4. Yet in the very next verse we read, “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” Some of the accounts of Jesus’ life may appear to contain contradictions and so too some of the teachings of the Apostles (such as the the relationship between faith and works as taught by James and Paul).
But those who wrote the Bible were no fools. They knew what God had said in the past and, guided by the Holy Spirit, made no mistakes, messed up no details, and introduced no conflicts. So while some people insist they have rejected the Bible because of its incoherence, E. Paul Hovey offers a profound insight when he says, “Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them.” If these skeptics were honest with us, with themselves, and with God, they would need to admit that their real beef is not with the historicity of the Bible but with its teaching. The ultimate reason they reject the Bible is because of what it says about them, how it tells them to live, and what it calls them to affirm and deny.
