Are these contradictions in the Bible?  I can prove to you that the Bible isfalse in 60 seconds. He’s about todisprove it in 60 seconds. Let's watch. All right, let’s see it.And I’m going to do this simply by justshowing you a couple verses from theBible. Here you go. You’re going to give mesome verses without context to fit yourargument. Go on, friend. In Genesis 32:30, it says that I saw Godface to face. However, in John 1:18, itsays that nobody has ever seen God. Now,that’s contradiction number one. Not a contradiction there, buddy.It is a contradiction. All right, quickcontext so nobody’s confused. In the OldTestament, a man named Jacob wrestledwith a divine being and later says, "Isaw God face to face." Then in the NewTestament, it says, "No one has everseen God." And he’s calling that acontradiction. But it’s not. In theBible, when people see God, they’re notclaiming they saw God’s full unlimitedessence. They’re talking about Godshowing up in a form he allows humans toencounter. For example, revelation, amanifestation. Because the same Biblealso says humans can’t see God in hisIn full glory, people can live. Both statements can be true at once.People can encounter God without seeing his full essence,the same way you can see sunlight without staring into the sun itself. This is one of the most common attempts to try to rationalize away the contradictionregarding the visibility of God in parts of the Hebrew Bibleand the invisibility of God in parts of the New Testament. This is not the most common rationalization.It seems to me that the most common rationalizationis just to claim that anyone who says they saw Godin the Hebrew Bible actually saw a vision of the pre-incarnate Christ or the Word. This is the second most common rationalization of what's going on here.Like the pre-incarnate vision of the Word rationalization,this is also built on a foundation of the presupposition of univocality.In other words, it's begging the questionbecause the conclusion is built into the premise that supports the argument,and the conclusion is that the Bible doesn't contradict itself. As long as we assume that,we see passage A and passage B, and they seem to conflict. Well, we have just misunderstood themand we need to seek out rationalization.The separate third thing thatfunctions as a unifying framework tobring passages A and B together. But inthe absence of that presupposition ofunivocality, there is no need to createthe separate third thing. We can allowthe text to operate on their own terms.And when we do that, they contradict. This is because the notion of God'snature, visibility, corporatereality, and anthropomorphismchanged over time. We went from thenotion that God was anthropomorphic,corporeal, male-presenting, and visiblein the earliest parts of the HebrewBible through to the influence of Greekphilosophy and the notion that deity issomething that is distinct from thevisible, corporeal, and fleshly world, which ultimately ends upwith this notion of God being withoutbody parts or passion. And so in the NewTestament, we have to explain, no, nobodycan see God. And so there's a change inideologies, and that is what creates thecontradiction. The people who wroteabout Jacob and Moses and others seeingGod face to face didn't have a problem. With that, now, Exodus 33 does haveMoses telling God, "Show me your glory."Cavode, which really means body. And Godsays, "I'm going to pass by you. I'mgoing to cover your face with my hand.I'm going to take it away when I passby. You're going to see my back, butyou're not going to see my face becauseno one can see me and live. In partsof the Hebrew Bible, the thing that youcannot see is God's face because that iswhere all the glory comes from. And thisis related to Exodus 34 where Mosescomes down the mountain and his face isshining, and it freaks the people out. So, he has to wear a veil. And this isborrowing from the Mesopotamian conceptof melamu, the notion of a divineradiance with which deities and divinemedia are clothed. And in Mesopotamia,it is feared because that divineradiance signals deity. And deity canmess you up, so you should be scared ofthat divine radiance because that issomebody who can seriously hurt you. Inthe Hebrew Bible, it's more like thatdivine radiance is like the sun in thesense that it hurts to look at the sun.That divine radiance is so overpoweringit can kill you. Exceptions to that. In the Hebrew Bible,you have a number of people who fearthey're going to die because they'veseen God, and they are amazedthat they have seen God and havenot died. And so you have this ruleexpressed in Exodus 33. Then youhave exceptions to the rule, includingMoses, who spoke face to face with God,like one speaks to their friend orneighbor. You have Jacob saying, "I haveseen God face to face." Then youhave a number of other stories wherelater editors have come through andwritten mal to make it seem like theywere actually just talking with a messenger of Adoni or a messenger ofGod. This is related to the wayearly Christians would say, "Oh, no,that's Jesus that they saw. It's notactually God." The notion that therewere appearances of God where the glorywas ratcheted down, and they didn't seethe full essence, which is a conceptthat you cannot find anywhere in theHebrew Bible, is that separate thirdthing. That's the rationalization thatyou don't find anywhere in the Bible,because you do have people who lookdirectly at God's face. That is the full. The essence of God. So the notion that inthe Hebrew Bible they're not getting thefull essence, but in the New Testamentthey're talking about seeing the fullessence is a rationalization thatis rather naive and sophomoric. It is notpaying attention to the text. It is notallowing the text to operate on itsown terms, but is imposing upon the texta unifying framework to try to make twocontradictory texts agree with eachother. Because according to Numbers,according to Genesis, according toExodus, you have figures who look atGod's face, and that is the source of thefull essence of God. And also, absolutely nothing in the New Testament suggeststhat people saw God, but just not thefull essence of God. That's not anywhere inthe New Testament. In the New Testament,you cannot see God. Period. It doesn'tmatter how much of God's glory is there,you cannot see God. Period. The closestyou get is what Jesus says in the Gospelof John, which is, "To see me is to seethe Father." Why? It's not because Jesusis the Father. It's because Jesus bearsthe Father's presence just like a divineimage. And so to look at Jesus is tolook at God. That is based on the logic of divineimages. You're not actually seeing God'sown self because by the time of the NewTestament, for the most part,depending on the author you're lookingat, Greek philosophy has overruled theanthropomorphism and the corporatereality of God. And God is an immaterialor at least non-fleshlyinvisible essence. So you go from God beinga human-shaped male presentingcorporeal entity who walks around andenjoys a succulent Chinese meal withAbraham and others. It'sdangerous to look at God because God'sface is so glorified. In fact, Godcannot be seen because God is elsewhere. It's not because God is invisible. It'sbecause God is elsewhere. And then Greekphilosophy shows up and says, "No, Godis invisible. To see God would violatewhat God is supposed to be." Andeverybody said, "Okay, so now God can'tbe seen at all."Now, if you would likemore literature that demonstrates thatwhat I'm sharing here is theoverwhelming consensus view. Like thescholars who study this and write aboutthis are in widespread agreement thatGod had a body in the Hebrew Bible thatWas visible and corporeal and could betouched. And then that changed becausethe authoritative knowledge changed. Here are some texts you can check out.First, The Embodied God: Seeing theDivine in Luke, Acts, and the EarlyChurch by Britney Wilson. Britneyhas done a bunch of wonderful work onthe visibility of God in the NewTestament. This is a phenomenallyinfluential book, Benjamin Summer'sBodies of God in the World of AncientIsrael from 2008. I highly recommendthat. This is a very philosophical, veryerudite discussion. Kristoph Marxes,God's Body: Jewish, Christian, and PaganImages of God. And then we've got Luke Irwin's recent publication, Jesus andThe Visibility of God: Sight and Beliefin the Fourth Gospel, that talks abouthow Jesus can help people see God in theGospel of John. Esther Hamore'swonderful text, When Gods Were Men: TheEmbodied God in Biblical and Near EasternLiterature. Then we've got AndreasVagner. This is the English translationof the German original, God's Body: TheAnthropomorphic God in the OldTestament. And then I have alsodiscussed this at length. Check out my open access academic monograph,Adonized Divine Images. You can justGoogle the title and find the PDF of it.There's also a chapter where Idiscuss this in my recent trade book,The Bible Says. So, what do we get right andwrong about scriptures on the mostcontroversial issues? If the texts ofthe Bible have anything to say aboutthis, if the data from the archaeology,from other literature, from anthropology,from cognitive science have anything to say,this is a pretty clearcontradiction. If you don't want it tobe a contradiction, if your worldviewrequires you to reject the notion that it'sa contradiction, you're going to beintuitivelypushed into acceptinginferior data and rather sillyargumentation, which is fallacious becauseit's begging the question and circularreasoning. And you're going to rejectthe notion that this is a contradiction. That's not because there is any reasonor logic or evidence that supports thatnotion. It's because you cannot acceptthat it is a contradiction. If youcannot accept it's a contradiction, noAn amount of argumentation is going tochange your mind. You're only arguingbecause you're trying to defend yourworldview and your identity politics. Ultimately, that is at the root of allof this. People try to argue against thenotion that the Bible contradicts itselfbecause there are social identities thatare very important to them that have asone of their identity markers, one oftheir lines in the sand, the notion thatthe Bible cannot contradict itself. Andwhen those social identities becomeimportant enough, then that identitymarker becomes central to your worldviewand you will fight tooth and nail indefense of that identity marker. Notbecause there is evidence or any data or any reason or any logic behind it, butbecause it's central to your identitypolitics. And that exercises so muchmore influence and power than evidenceever could. In Genesis 6:16, it saysthat Noah went to grab two animals fromeach kind to put them on the ark. Butlater in Genesis, in a differentchapter, it says that Noah went to getseven animals for the ark. So, one partof the Bible says two and one part ofthe Bible says seven. Contradiction. Two of every kind is thebaseline so life doesn’t go extinct.Seven of some animals is because theywere used for sacrifice and survivalafterward. That’s not two versus sevenlike a mistake. It’s two of every kindand an extra of specific animals. Sothis is just one of the multipledifferent contradictions that existbetween the two different accounts ofthe flood that have been woven togetherin the primeval history. You also havecontradictions regarding how long itrained and how long the water hungaround and what the principal dates werefor the starting and the ending of allof this. But the number of animals isanother contradiction. And the notionthat two is the baseline, but then youadd on to it seven pairs of the cleananimals so that they can be latersacrificed is the most common attempt torationalize away the contradiction. Again we have text A and text B. Theyseem to contradict. If you presupposeunivocality, you refuse to accept thenotion that they contradict, then youhave to create an idea or argument orrationalization. C, the entirely newseparate third thing that’s not in theText that functions as a unifyingframework to try to harmonize text A andtext B. And that's what's going on here. But it doesn't fit the text. This is notwhat the text says because it says twoof everything: all the behemote, whichmeans the land animals, all the birds ofthe air. Two of all the birds of theair. Now, when you get to the accountthat has the seven pairs, it saystwo of the behemote that are unclean. Sothat's unclean land animals. Seven pairsof the clean land animals, seven pairsof all the birds of the sky. So when youget to the distinction between clean andunclean, no such distinction is assertedfor the birds of the air. So you have inone passage two of all the birds of theair and in another passage seven pairsof all the birds of the air. There areno birds of the air that only come inone pair. They're all seven pairs. Sothere is a contradiction. It does notfit what the text says. And if you look in the scholarship, the fact that theflood account comprises two originallyseparate accounts that have beeninterwoven, that is one of the most long-standing,widely agreed upon, best-supportedSource-critical arguments indicate that there isin the Hebrew Bible. There's pretty muchno serious scholar who rejects theseparate existence of a priestly accountin the Pentateuch. That’s just notsomething anyone takes seriously. Andif you gloss over that, ignoringit, that argument is built on allkinds of different evidence and types ofevidence and methodologies. If you justgloss over that entirely, ignore it, andsay, "No, it was just a baseline of twoand then they added seven pairs for theclean animals so that they could besacrificed," you're ignoring everything. You're just asserting thisrationalization againstabsolutely everything. And if you wouldlike to understand better the principlesbehind all of this, there are a bunch oftexts you can check out. To beginthough, I’m going to recommend DavidCarr's book, Reading the Fractures ofGenesis, which goes through a lot of theevidence, methods, and the theorythat lead us to conclude that Genesis isactually composed of a bunch ofdifferent sources. And he’s also got awonderful, much newer book on theformation of Genesis 1-11 you shouldCheck out his commentary on the primevalhistory through Colehammer's Genesis 1-11. You can check out DavidPeterson's Genesis commentary in the OldTestament library. You can check out YanChristian Girtz's commentary from thehistorical commentary on the OldTestament series, Genesis 1-11. You cancheck out Ron Hendel's Genesis 1-11commentary from last year in the AnchorYale Bible commentary series. You can goback to Clauserman's commentary onGenesis 1-11. You can check out BillArnold's new Cambridge Bible commentaryvolume on Genesis. You can check out1964 EA Spiser's commentary on Genesis. All of these are going to point outthat we have two sources here thathave been woven together. Theywill talk about the evidence forthis. They will point out thefact that one says only two of all kindsand another says two of most kinds,with seven pairs of others, is acontradiction. Just asserting theyactually fit is simply false. Theydo not fit because you have to accountfor the fact that one says two of everybird of the air and the other says seven. Pairs of every bird of the air. Thatdoes not fit the notion that it's justtwo as a baseline, but for all the cleananimals, we're going to do seven pairs.It just doesn't fit. So again, this is arationalization that has been jinned upby someone who refuses to accept theexistence of a contradiction. And whenyou refuse to accept the existence of acontradiction and then you engage in anargument about whether or not there's acontradiction, you're begging thequestion, whether you are cognizant ofit or not, intuitively, subconsciously,your mind is making you acceptlaughable arguments. You are beingcompelled to accept logic that isfacious. The contradiction in these twoaccounts is not up for serious debate. This is not a serious debate that thiscontent creator is providing. It's anapologetic rationalization that isprofoundly facious that you're onlygoing to acceptif you already presuppose it. And if youpresuppose it, you're not going toaccept the logic and the reason and theevidence and the data and thescholarship because that's not yourpriority. Your worldview. Your priority isprotecting these identity markers thatare central to your self-image and yourself-identity. To wrap up, theapologetic endeavor is not about findingout what’s true. It’s not aboutdefending what’s true. It’s not aboutwhat’s most likely. It is aboutdefending dogmas and making the peoplewho accept those dogmas feel justifiedand validated in accepting those dogmas. And overwhelmingly, those dogmas areinstalled by identity politics, notlogic, not reason, not data, notevidence. And so this is why you’re notgoing to find actual engagement with thedata or with the scholarship. You’regoing to find rationalizations that areoverwhelmingly weak, inadequate, andfacious. Just like the tworationalizations that have been offeredby this content creator becauseapologetics can’t engage with the dataand the scholarship and the evidence andthe logic and the reason, because onceyou do that, you have to start acceptingthings that are uncomfortable to youridentity politics. And withinapologetics, the identity politics are incharge, not the data. It is putting dogma. Over data. And the fit for this videohas been "Get Low" by My Manades Nuts., Are these contradictions in the Bible?, Dan McClellan, 01kdk4sa03eddyex32azpx29n6.