Bible errors?

We have to remember, as the site admits, that we have no original manuscripts today, only copies. Then we have translations done by different translators or group of translators. Could there be some errors or badly translated words? Let's look at one supposedly contradiction: Gen 32:30 states “…for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” John 1:18 states, “No man hath seen God at any time…” Jacob saw an angel and expressed it as having seen God. While Jesus is saying that no man has actually seen God literally. It seems that when individuals in the Bible saw some supernatural being they considered it as actually seeing God. If I saw an angel and spoke about it as if I had seen God, would that be surprising? Are you going to condemn for not being precise or would you be interested in the details of what I saw and experienced?

I'll deal with the easiest first: 1 Kings 7:23. The Bible is quoting the parameter to the nearest integer. 9.5 x Pi = 29.8, and 9.71 x Pi = 30.5. So a diameter between 9.5 and 9.7 cubits (10 cubits, to the nearest cubit) will give a circumference of 30 cubits, again, to the nearest cubit. But how would you expect the Old Testament to say "9.5" or "9.7" and why does it quote both diameter and circumference? Could this be the OT's way of telling us that the diameter was 9.5-9.7 cubits?

Leviticus 11:6 and Deuteronomy 14:7 : Another case of pre-Linnaean classification. If you observe a rabbit or hare in the wild while it's there for you to observe, most of the time it will be chewing, and the food will be moving around in its mouth, being brought up from the back to the front of the mouth, and becoming pretty cud-like. The early Israelites would not have made a distinction between cud that is brought back from a second stomach and food that is being thoroughly chewed, so true ruminants and the hare and rock hyrax (a species of rabbit, Latin: cuniculus becoming in English, Coney) were all described as those that chew the cud (literally, bring up the cud). So in terms of language used at the time, the texts are accurate enough. And I don't know where Wesley Edwards got hold of the idea that the hare divides the "hoof" - "divide" in this context means bisect and there's no more of a trace of bisection in a hare's paw than in our own hands.

Next: 2 Kings 25:8 vs Jeremiah 25:12, 7th day of the month versus 10th: Kings says "unto Jerusalem", whereas Jeremiah says "into Jerusalem". The difference is even more marked in the Hebrew, where Kings has no preposition at all (so it could mean "towards Jerusalem", meaning that he left Riblah or Babylon on the 7th) and Jeremiah has "in" or "into", meaning that Nebuzaradan entered Jerusalem on the 10th day. But even if we insist on one particular understanding of the English, that Nebuzaradan arrived at Jerusalem on the 7th day, it doesn't mean that he entered the city on that day - he could have had three days' business to carry out outside. Contradiction not proven.

Matt 4:8: Even if the world had been flat and the mountain as high as Everest, Jesus would still had a job to see all the kingdoms of the world, let alone the glory of them. No, the devil used powers beyond those of nature to show Him these things - the mountain location was not causative and the Scripture doesn't say it was.

Mustard: Dr Edwards is imposing his definition of a tree on to the language of Christ and His audiences, whose criterion of what constitutes a tree, for the purposes of the parable if nothing else, was merely height. Furthermore, by "least of all seeds", Christ cannot have meant the smallest of all seeds that are and have ever been - after all, infertility clinics and their attached laboratories regularly handle seeds much smaller than the mustard seed. No, He meant the smallest of the seeds that He or His audience would normally handle. Common consensus (e.g., http://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Mustard) seems to be that the species in question is, most likely, Sinapis nigra. The error here is that Dr Edwards is not allowing the Bible to speak its own language.

Seeing God face to face: The doctrine of Biblical Infallibility does not extend to the content of quotations. The statement that Jacob said what he said is infallible. What he actually said is not infallible. Indeed, as the angel left before daybreak, Jacob cannot have meant what he said literally. However, there are other sightings of God in the Bible that need further explanation, e.g., Isaiah's. Basically, John 1:18 cannot mean that no man has seen God in any way or in any shape or form - after all, Jesus is God and the disciples all saw Him in the flesh, both in His natural flesh and in His glorified flesh. No, it means that in His full form, "dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see" (1 Timothy 6:16), no man has seen God.

Tempting: The word "tempt" can mean "seek to induce to commit evil" or, simply, "test". It clearly means the first in James 1:13 and the second in Gen 22:1. No contradiction.

Fish and whales: I must modify slightly what I wrote above: Aristotle (before Linnaeus) did make a distinction between fish and whales. However, Moses was pre-Aristotle. God is not obliged to impose modern classifications on to the language of the people He is addressing - indeed, even us post-Linnaeans may not have it all. He uses their language and, in the language of the exodus ex-slaves the class "fish" included whales.

The two genealogies of Christ in Matthew and Luke: The simple answer to this old chestnut, which seems to have puzzled so many people unnecessarily (it certainly puzzled me for some years) is that Luke's qualification, "as was supposed" need not be taken to apply only to Joseph's physical paternity, but also to any part of Luke's genealogy about which there may be any question, such as (H)Eli's physical paternity of Joseph (and God's physical paternity of Adam). Most commentators consider that Luke's genealogy is that of Mary (the gender of the definite articles in the original Greek precluding possibilities like (H)Eli being Joseph's mother), adopted in Nazareth to be that of Joseph, possibly because of his roots being elsewhere - the presence of Aaronic names in Luke's genealogy (like (H)Eli and Levi) would support this, Mary having priestly cousins. If these commentators are correct, the curse on Jeconias's posterity in Jeremiah 22:28-30 is circumvented, Christ's physical descent being through Nathan rather than Solomon. Note, too, that not one of Jesus's half-brothers is called (H)Eli, whereas one is called after Joseph's father Jacob (Jacob and James are the same name in Hebrew). Thus unambiguous genealogies of Joseph and of the Lord Jesus Christ can both be adduced from Scripture, without contradiction.

Hadadezer's horsemen and Solomon's stalls: If David took 7000 horsemen, he certainly took 700, and if he took 700, it doesn't mean he didn't take an additional 6300. The two statements are not contradictory, but they would be if 2 Samuel had said that he took only 700. Exactly the same argument applies to Solomon's stalls.

Leviticus 11:20-21 : Before Linnaeus made his classification, a fowl was anything that flies, and the Bible and the best translations were definitely written before Linnaeus. This is clear from the context of these verses. In verse 19 the bat is listed with the birds and is referred to in the following verse as fowl. Verse 20 is expanded in verses 21-23 when it is made clear that fowls include flying creeping things which go on all four. Therefore, the Bible is not factually inaccurate in these verses. Similarly, before Linnaeus, a fish was anything that lived solely in the sea, so whales were classed as fish. So no contradiction between Jonah 1:17 and Matthew 12:40 either.

if we read the bible with our own we cant understand but if we read the bible with the holy spirit only we can understand what were written on them....