My daughter is excited about this series!! She hung many cards all over the high school and even advertised it on her Facebook. My other daughter came home with a list of Bible contradictions from a boy who loves to argue religion with her. There was one about the New Testament misquoting the Old Testament. I don't remember where that one was, but I found some similar. 1) Here's my questions. I want a better answer for this kid than "the meaning is still the same". Gal. 3:6, Gen 15:6, Gal. 3:8, Gen 12:3, Gal. 3:10, Deut. 27:26, Gal. 3:11, Hab. 2:4, Gal. 3:12, Lev. 18:5, Deut. 21:23. 2) Along that same vein is Matt. 5:18 "...until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished. If this is true, why does the NT quote differently from the OT? Because of the Septuagint? Is it just due to language differences?
What about the contradictions in the biblical text?
Good question.
First, you are right, these men most likely were reading from a Greek version of the Hebrew Torah. This changes things a little bit. We also notice that the “quotes” are from Hebrew translated into Koine Greek (not modern Greek) translated into English, not to mention that these “quotes” were not meant to be literal “quotes” at all. What the author is doing is pulling from memory the point of the verse in the OT. In original manuscripts there are no quotations, no verse markers, no chapter headings, nor are there even lower case letters, periods, commas, or any punctuation. Some of the manuscripts we have do not even have spaces in between the words. There would be no way for the author to quote Gen 3:6, because the concept of “3:6” didn't even exist at the time. Much of what we consider to be quotes from the OT are thought for thought statements, and were never meant to be word for word.
The purpose of the verses in Galatians was to show a stark contrast between the work-based religion of the pharisee and to contrast that with the faith-based life of the patriarchs. The author never intended on pulling the exact phrase any more than we on a daily basis quote whatever translation we happen to prefer (I study the New King James, which is a striking contrast to the NIV). In this case we are both, hopefully, quoting the same point, while sometimes using different words.
Consider the gospels. We see that the gospels to do not line up together, nor do they follow the same order. Through literary study we find that writers and historians of the time did not pay much attention to this type of detail, which we value today. The point for the gospel writers was to relay the message to the particular group they were hoping to reach. So we find a genealogy in Matthew, which shows the Hebrew reader how Christ is from the lineage of David, while we see the term “Word” being used in the Gospel of John, which is a familiar term to Greek studies of nature and philosophy. God inspired the writers to use their gifts to relay a message. This message was never commanded to be word for word, as if God was whispering in their ears, the writers were simply “inspired.”
As far as Matthew 5:18 is concerned, all of those things spoken of in the law are a shadow of the future judgment and Sabbath rest we will find in heaven. We see symbolism in all kinds of actions throughout the OT. Some of it we understand, some of it we debate, some of it we scratch our heads. Consider the comment by Christ in reference to “letting the dead bury the dead.” This sounds rather harsh to tell a man who seems to be concerned about burying his dead father, but in reality the quote is a Hebrew idiom. The man was actually hoping to wait on following Jesus until his inheritance had come, Jesus was just telling him to not worry about the inheritance and to follow him now and let the inheritance come in time. The point is that with a little digging we can always find the answers to skeptics’ “contradictions” within scripture.
Submitted by: Josh Tilley
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