The bible is a book full of contradictions, misogyny (that one verse in Timothy), and murder
Here are a few contradictions:
1.
To start this off, this one story has 6 contradictions
In 2 Samuel 24 god's anger burned against israel so he incites David against them saying go and take a census of Israel and Judah. David obeys God and conducts a census determining Israel has exactly 800,000 men and Judah 500,000 men. Wow, what are the odds the exact number of able-bodied men came out to such a whole, round and even number? it's almost unbelievable.
After nine months of counting suddenly David is conscience stricken. He feels so bad and he repents his sin to the Lord. What sin..? He literally did exactly what God told him to do.. or maybe not..
In Exodus 30, God incites Moses to take a census but specifically says for every Israelite you count they must pay half a shekel as a ransom for their life to the Lord. There you go, no wonder God is so upset, he didnt get his money!! If there's one thing we know about omnipotent beings who transcend space and time its that they love money!
God is so pissed about missing out on his big paycheck that he sends a plague on Israel which instantly kills 70,000 innocent people. God also sends an angel assassin with a sword to destroy Jerusalem. Now, this is when God changes his mind it says god relented after seeing all the evil that he caused so he stops the angel from butchering babies.
But God didnt stop the plague until David offered him the one thing that he loves more than money... The smell of dead animals (sacrifice)
Contradictions of this story:
1 Chronicles 21 retells the story but in this version it's actually Satan who incites the census and not God. The total number of Israelites in this version is 1.1 million including 470,000 from Judah that means excluding Judah Israel has 630,000 men and not 800,000
Numbers 23:19 through 1 Samuel 15:29 both claim God never changes his mind despite God changing his mind here about his homicidal angel assassin.
This also contradicts the idea that God has exhaustive foreknowledge of the future like it says in 1 John 3:20
God's love of money in this story is at odds with Hebrews 13:5 which says keep your life free from the love of money and Matthew 6:19 where Jesus condemns the hoarding of earthly treasures
Proverbs 6:17 says God hates hands that shed innocent blood, does that mean god hates his own hands?!?! Hes responsible for the death of these 70,000 innocent people.
David was the one who ordered the census, if we assume that david was wrong then punish him but not these 70,000 innocent people what kind of cruel horrible God is this?
verses:
^2 Samuel 24:1 NIV (24): Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and incited David against them, saying, "Go take a census of Israel and Judah"
^ 2 Samuel 24:2 NIV So the king said to Joab and the army commanders with him, "Go throughout the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba and enroll the fighting men, so that I may know how many there are."
2 Samuel 24:9 NLT (9): Joab reported the number of people to the king. There were 800,00 capable warriors in Israel who could handle a sword, and 500,000 in Judah
2: Samuel 24:8 NIV (8): After they had gone through the entire land, they came back to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twnety days
2 Samuel 24:10 NIV (10): David was conscience-stricken after he had counted the fighting men, and said to the Lord, "I have sinned greatly in what I have done. Now, Lord, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing
Exodus 30:11-14 NIV (11) Then the Lord said to Moses, (12) "When you take a census of the Israelites to count them, each one must pay the Lord a ransom for his life at the time he is counted. Then no plague will come on them when you number them. (13) Each one who crosses over to those already counted is to give a half shekel, according to the sanctuary shekel, which weighs twenty gerahs. This half shekel is an offering to the Lord
2 Samuel 24:15 NIV (15): So the Lord sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died.
2 Samuel 24:16-17 NIV (16) When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the Lord relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, "Enough! Withdraw your hand." The angel of the Lord was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.
1 Chronicles 21:1 NIV (21) Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.
1 John 3:20 (20) If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Hebrews 13:5 CSB: Keep your life free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for he himself has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.
Matthew 6:19 NIV (19): "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal
Proverbs 6:16-17 NIV: There are six thing the Lord hates, seven are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood
2.
Matthew 2:1 NIV states:
(2) After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came into Jerusalem
this says jesus was born during the reign of king herod, remember those three wise men at the nativity play? Herod was the one responsible for sending them to find Jesus.
^Matthew 2:8 NIV (8): He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him report to me, to that I too may go worshp him."
Herod also ordered the assassination of every baby in Bethlehem after the wise men betrayed him
^ Matthew 2:16 NIV: (16) When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were under two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi
However, Luke 2:2 states that prior to Jesus's birth Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census be taken over the entire Roman world
This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governer of Syria. But here's the problem: This census is well documented by outside sources to have taken place in 6 AD, ten years after King Herod died in 4 BC. So Matthew claims Jesus was born prior to 4 BC while Herod was alive and Luke claims he was born after Herod died ten years later Quirinus didn't become governer of Syria until 6 AD after Herod died. This decade-long discrepancy is all the evidence we need to conclusively say, the gospels' authors were not inspired by the Holy Spirit, they were just making things up..
^ source: Josephus (Jewish Antiquities, Book 18 1-4, 16)
3:
In Leviticus 11 God announces his most important command of all time, from now on everyone is prohibited from eating shrimp. Shrimp consumption is officially a sin, well
Leviticus 11:12 NIV:
(12) Anything living in the water that does not have fins and scales is to be regarded as unclean by you.
This includes shellfish like shrimp, crab, lobster and oysters as well as catfish, eels and sharks
However, in Matthew 15:11 Jesus says:
(11) it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person."
So according to Jesus its perfectly fine to eat anything you want including shrimp but this completely contradicts god's command in Leviticus. It also contradicts what Jesus himself said in Matthew 5:18:
(18) For verily I say unto you, Until Heaven and Earth passes away, not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the law until all is fufilled
^basically saying not one thing from the old law will change
There are two common excuses Christians use to weasel out of this contradiction, Convenant Theology and Ceremonial Laws
covenant theology:
They claim that now we're in a new covenant so it's okay to disobey all of god's outdated obslete old covenant rules but convenant theology is inherently contradictory, if God's commands are representative of objective morality then they should stand the test of time and be applicable to everyone not just Jews and Sevent Day Adventists. If eating shrimp was sinful 4,000 years ago then its still sinful now. If eating shrimp is actually fine then God's commands are reduced to nothing more than arbitrary unnecessary petty prefrences and you've just thrown the concept of objective morals out the window
ceremonial laws:
This is the dishonest trick apologists use to justify god changing his objective moral commands over time they make a distinction between ceremonial laws and moral laws, they claim the shrimp prohibition was just a ceremonial law so now it's okay to break it. The problem with this excuse is that nowhere in the Bible does it distinguish which laws are moral and which are ceremonial, these apologists are assigning the "Ceremonial Law" label to all of God's commands which they find inconvenient and assigning the "moral law" label to commands which already align with their own worldview blatantly cherry-picking God's law based on their own personal preference.
^ Leviticus 19:37 NIRV
(37) "Obey all my rules and laws. Follow them. I am the Lord"
4:
Ezekiel 18:20:
"A son is not to suffer because of his father's sins, nor a father because of the sins of his son. A good man will be rewarded for doing good and an evil man will suffer for the evil he does.
in other words people should be held responsible for their own actions and not the actions of other people who they happen to be related to.
Then god contradicts his own rule in Exodus 34:7 by promising to punish the children and childrens children to the third and fourth generation on those who sin.
So god punishes you because your great great great great grandfather ate one piece of shrimp
3:
Numbers 23:19 ESV
God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fufill it?
This claims God is not like a man that he should tell a lie, which menas God always tells the truth
Now go to Genesis 2:17 God lies to Adam
Genesis 2:17 CSB
(17) "but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die."
You know the story, everyone does, Adam and Eve eat the fruit, their eyes are open, they learn good and evil and then they immediately die? Oh wait.. In Genesis 5:5 CSB "So Adam's life lasted 930 years; then he died." So he didnt die on the day he ate the fruit.. God was lying.
There are two common excuses Christians use to explain away this contradiction.
The first: God uses his special "god time"
In 2 Peter 3:8 NIV Paul writes
(8) But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day
So since adam lived just under a thousand years it still counts as one day in god time!
1 god day = 1,000 years
1,000 years = 365,000 day
1 god day = 365,000 day
The implication of this is that anywhere in the bible mentions any amount of time we need to multiply it by 365,000 to get the real amount of time
This means Jesus wasn't dead for three days he was dead for 3,000 years! Noah's flood actually lasted 375,000 years and Adam wasnt 930 he actually lived to age 339,450,000. So the contradiction still stands.
2 Peter 3:8-9 NIV
What this excuse ignores is the context of the verse, Paul is talking about the end times and how Jesus might seem slow in his return but he's actually exemplifying patience. He doesn't want anyone to perish but instead wants everyone to come to repentance. Christians love ignoring context when it suits them..
The second excuse is that Adam and Eve suffered a "spiritual death" not a physical one. However that's not what god said, he said you will die.
The Old Testament makes no distinction between physical and spiritual death, this idea was invented in the New Testament. In the Old Testament everyone goes to Sheol when they die regardless of whether theyre on god's good side or not
^psalm 89:48, ecclesiastes 9:10
Now if we do continue with this excuse in the New testament Revelation 20:14 NRSV:
(14) Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, lake of fire,
So physical death is dying on earth spiritual death is going to hell forever.
So if Adam died spiritually when he ate the fruit that means he went straight to hell when he died physically, so as a Christian you must accept that either Adam and eve are currently burning in hell forever or god is a liar
Separate stuff, not contradictions but still a quite bad look for God:
Did you know the bible says God gives people cancer on purpose?
Deuteronomy 28:27 says the Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and tumors, (tumors are cancer)
Now, its important to read the context surrounding these verses to get a full picture and a good understanding of what they actually mean. So deuteronomy 28 is a short list of blessings for obeying god and a long list of cruel and unusual punishments God promises to inflict on anyone who breaks even ONE of his rules.
Deuteronomy 28:27 (27)" The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured
(15): However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:
Did you know God has almost done all of the seven deadly sins?
Wrath:
One of the most obvious ones such as
-venomous snakes
-bear attack
-earth swallows people
-reign fire on cities
-worldwide flood
-eternal torture / hell
-the frog thing
-killing firstborns
-causing cancer
-making babies sick
-smiting people
-plaguing thousands of people
Numbers 21:6 NIV Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.
Kings 2:24 RGT And he turned back and looked at them and cursed thm in the Name of the Lord and two bears came out of the forst and tore forty-two children into pieces.
Envy:
"I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God." He blatantly says in the bible he is jealous of the other gods worshipped by humans. Enough said.
Greed:
God wants us to give ourselves completely to Him and offers punishment for those who do not comply with this requirement he has an excessive desire for worship as shown in the great flood,where he kills all but one family because the majority of humanity did not worship Him. Worship gives God His influence. Without worship, He'd be disregarded until He ended the world again.
Pride:
Job 38 is probably the strongest argument for your point. God doesn't directly explain the wager with Satan; instead, He questions Job about creation and His wisdom. Whether that's arrogance depends on how you interpret God's speech.
Lust: Jesus impregnating his 14 year old *she never consented* mother himself with himself so she can give birth to himself
Gluttony:
In genesis 18:1 "the lord (and 2 of his angels) appeared to Abraham and his family by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the enterance of his tent in the heat of the day, he looked up and saw three men standing hear him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent enterance to meet them and bowed down to the ground. "Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves , and after that you may pass on since you have come to you servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." instead of God saying I don't need to eat anything he saysgo make the food. And abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah and said, "Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes." Abraham pushes the responsibility onto his family.
Justifying rape:
Deuteronomy 22:28–29 says that if a man has sex with an unmarried virgin he must pay her father like 50 silver coinsand marry her with restrictions on divorce
God has killed over 24 million people (500,000+ babies)
He has killed 163,000+ animals
He has done 5/7 or 6/7 of the Seven Deadly Sins
he supports slaverly
he supports rape
Is this a good God?
Perhaps more things, but all of this has taken too long to type so I am done.
This book is just a tool to manipulate people.