Examples of unreliability in the Bible

The Bible is a great collection of literature, but it cannot be treated as a uniformly reliable source of historical information. Here are a few examples of statements in the Bible which are either errors or myths or deliberate tampering with the truth.

(a) make mistakes:

• 24000 (Num 25:9) is mis-copied as 23000 (1 Cor 10:8).
• Jehoiada (2 Chr 24:20-22) is mistaken for Barachiah (Matt 23:35).
• The quotation in Mark 1:2 does not come from Isaiah.

(b) recount contradictory traditions:

• In Mark, Jesus says he will give no sign (Mark 8:12), whereas in John he performs many signs (John 2:11).
• In Matthew, Jesus' paternal grandfather is called Jacob (Mt 1:16). In Luke he is called Heli (Lk 3:23).
• In Mark, Jesus performs the 'cleansing of the temple' late in his ministry (Mk 11:15ff.), whereas in John he performs it early in his ministry (Jn 2:13ff.).
• In Luke, Jesus seems undecided whether the kingdom of God is near (10:9,11) or has already arrived (11:20; 17:21).

(c) hide unpalatable facts:

• Au_Mark (writing in Greek) occasionally quotes Aramaic, but normally gives a translation (as e.g. in Mark 5:41). However in the list of disciples he refers to "Simon the Cananaean". Now "Cananean" is the Aramaic for "Zealot", and Au_Luke supplies the translation (Luke 6:15). Au_Mark does not translate the word because he wants to hide from his Greek-speaking readers the fact that one of Jesus' disciples was a Zealot. At the time when Au_Mark wrote his gospel, the Romans had only just completed the suppression of the Zealot revolt in Judaea.
• Au_Acts describes in great detail the appointment of a twelfth apostle to replace Judas Iscariot (Acts 1:21-26), but fails to explain the sudden appearance (Acts 12:17) of James the brother of Jesus as the leading apostle. For to have explained James' leadership, Au_Acts would have had to contradict his own gospel account, because this had been based on Mark's gospel, which had claimed that James had not been a disciple of Jesus during his lifetime.

(d) modify unpalatable statements:

• No staff, no sandals (Matt 10:10, based on the logia) becomes Except a staff, but to wear sandals (Mark 6:8-9).
• "Why do you call me good?" (Mark 10:18) is altered to "Why do you ask about what is good?" (Matt 19:17), thus avoiding the possible implication that Jesus is not "good".
• 'James and John ..... said .....' (Mark 10:35) is altered to 'the mother of the sons of Zebedee asked .....' (Matt 20:20), thus in a few deft words erasing the implied greed of the two brothers.

(e) put speeches into the mouths of their heroes:

• In John's gospel, Jesus speaks in a Johannine style, quite different from the way he speaks in the synoptic gospels. The words of John's Jesus cannot be the words of the historical Jesus.
• In Acts, Peter, Stephen and Paul speak in the same (Lukan) style. Of course we can hardly blame Au_Acts. He was following the literary conventions of the day as described by Thucydides. When not an eyewitness, the author simply did his best to represent what the speaker would have said in the given circumstances. Nevertheless this is of limited help from the historian's point of view, especially if the author had not known the speaker personally.

(f) compose 'teachings of Jesus' and events in his life:

• Au_Matt composed the story of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem (Matt 2:1-6) in order to present it as the fulfilment of the prophecy of Micah 5:2 that a ruler would emerge from Bethlehem.
• Au_Mark composed the parable of the vineyard (12:1-11) in order to illustrate his central message that God's Son had been sent into the world.
• Au_Luke composed the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) in order to shame the rich and encourage the poor.

(g) pass off their writings as the work of apostles:

• The clearest example is 2 Peter, which purports to have been written by the apostle Peter (2 Pet 1:1, 16-18), but was actually based on the letter of Jude. 2 Peter was written after the first generation of Christians had died (3:4), and the letters of Paul had been made available as a collection (3:15-16).
• Modern scholars have also concluded that several letters attributed to Paul were not actually written by him: Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy and Titus. Also that 1 Peter was not written by the apostle Peter.