CONTRADICTIONS: How Two Statements That Seem Different Can Still Be Accurate

It is all but impossible to have a discussion about the Bible with a skeptic without them quickly throwing out the argument that the most widely read book in all of human history is “full of contradictions.”

And to be honest, there are quite a few instances in Scripture where it’s not hard to come away from a shallow reading thinking the claim is accurate. After all, if Statement 1 says A and Statement 2 says 2A, those are not the same, right?

Not necessarily, as comprehensively demonstrated by Eric Lyons of the Apologetics Press. He is the author of “The Anvil Rings: Answers to Alleged Bible Discrepancies,” a superb three-volume examination of pretty much every example of two or more verses routinely cited by skeptics as examples of contradictions.

Take, for example, Jesus’ encounter with the Roman Centurion described at Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10. At first reading, it appears that Matthew reports the Centurion himself approached Jesus to plead for healing of his loyal servant, whereas Luke describes Jewish elders going to Jesus on behalf of the officer.

In both passages, Jesus praises the Centurion’s faith that Jesus can heal his servant, saying “not even in Israel have I found such faith,” and He does exactly that. Jesus does not physically go to the Centurion’s home, but the servant is healed.

So how can these passages be reconciled or are they irrevocably contradictory?

“To help answer these questions, consider a scenario where the President of the United States sends two individuals from his administration to your house with an official invitation to dine at the White House,” Lyons explains.

“What might you truthfully tell your friends about this encounter? To one friend, you might give every detail, describing the two individuals who came to your house, what they said to you, and how you responded to them,” he continues.

“To another friend, you might simply say ‘The President has asked me to come to eat at the White House and I told him yes.’ The two different versions you tell are totally different but both are true. How can the second account be truthful?”

The answer is found in the legal principle of proxy; that is, somebody who effects an action by directing another person to carry it out is deemed under the law to have done it himself. If I order you to carry my message to a third person, it is effectively me sending the message even though it is delivered by another.

As Lyons notes, there are multiple examples in the Old and New Testaments in which the Proxy Principle is employed by the authors. One such example is that of Joseph who, according to Moses, writing in Genesis, ordered to be done.

In Genesis 41:37-44, Joseph is said to have “laid up the food” in all the cities of Egypt, including all of the food in their surrounding fields. He also is said to have gathered up so much grain that he had to quit counting it. Moses says Joseph built storehouses and then opened them to the population when the famine came.

Obviously, Joseph did not physically by himself gather up the harvest, build the storehouses and then open and manage them during the famine. But he did all those things by ordering others to carry out his commands.

“Like all sorts of leaders in the past and present, Joseph was viewed as ultimately responsible for Egypt’s success or failure (at least during the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine and all those actions done on Joseph’s behalf were done ‘by Joseph,'” Lyons writes.

So next time somebody tells you the Bible is full of contradictions and cites two passages in which somebody is said in the first to have done something that is also attributed to somebody else in the second, odds are good the Proxy Principle is at work and the two passages are not contradictory.