Are There Contradictions in the Bible?

Honesty requires distinguishing two things: apparent difficulties, which the Bible certainly has, and genuine contradictions, which—when the texts are read fairly—it does not. Scripture contains passages that at first glance seem to conflict: two Gospel accounts that report different details of the same event, numbers that don’t obviously line up, hard sayings that sit uneasily beside others. These are real, and pretending they aren’t there helps no one.

But most of these dissolve on closer, more charitable reading. Different Gospel writers select and arrange details for different purposes, the way four honest witnesses to the same accident emphasize different things without contradicting one another—indeed, perfectly identical accounts would look more like collusion, not less. Ancient writers counted, quoted, and ordered events by conventions different from ours. And some “problems” are simply translation or copyist matters in a manuscript, not errors in what God inspired. Where a difficulty remains genuinely hard, the humble conclusion is that we do not yet fully understand it—not that the Word has failed.

Underneath the method is a disposition. Do we come to Scripture as a suspect to be cross-examined for inconsistencies, or as a witness to be heard? Jesus treated the Scripture as unbreakable (John 10:35); the psalmist says “the sum of your word is truth” (Psalm 119:160). Lutherans read the Bible as God’s own trustworthy Word, and so we let its clear passages interpret its unclear ones, and we grant it the benefit of the doubt we’d extend to any honest friend.

Peter even admits that some of Scripture is “hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16)—so difficulty is expected, not alarming. A book that never puzzled us would be a book we had outgrown. The remaining puzzles are an invitation to dig deeper, not evidence to walk away.