Contents

The Book of Non–Contradiction

Copyright Information

Introduction

Chapter 1: Two Creation Accounts?

Chapter 2: The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart

Chapter 3: Homosexuality, Shellfish, and the Law

Chapter 4: Marrying a Brother’s Wife

Chapter 5: God’s Jealousy

Chapter 6: Genocide in Joshua

Chapter 7: The Suicide of Samson

Chapter 8: Two Accounts of Saul’s Death

Chapter 9: The Census of David

Chapter 10: The Suicide of Razis

Chapter 11: The Genealogy of Christ

Chapter 12: On Seeking and Finding

Chapter 13: Praying to be Seen

Chapter 14: Conflicting Passover Chronologies

Chapter 15: Resurrection Appearances of Jesus

Chapter 16: 191 Brief Difficulties Reconciled

The Book of
Non–Contradiction

Recovering the

Harmony of the Scriptures

By Phillip Campbell

Copyright Information

The Book of Non–Contradiction

Recovering the Harmony of the Scriptures

By Phillip Campbell

Published by

Cruachan Hill Press 12552 E Michigan Ave.

Grass Lake, MI. 49240

http://cruachanhill.blogspot.com

Copyright © 2017 Phillip Campbell

All rights reserved. Primary source text is in the public domain. All other material is all rights
reserved – it may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in any form by any means –
electronic, mechanical, recorded, photocopy, or otherwise – without prior written permission
from the author, except for brief excerpts in articles or critical reviews.

Cover art by Amanda Danziger (http://www.ardanziger.com)

Special thanks to Louisa Zachmann, a student whose love of Scripture helped inspire
me to bring this work to fruition.

Introduction

Truth is One

Christianity is a revealed religion. This means that the content of the faith comes not primarily
from natural observations about the world and human behavior – as do, say, the teachings of
Confucius – but rather from a supernatural revelation of God to man. The Christian faith is
certainly enriched and deepened by the application of reason to its teachings, but the fundamental
message of Christianity itself is grounded in a miraculous communication between God and the
human race. It is this communication that tradition has named Divine Revelation.

Christianity is not the only religion that claims to be revealed; Islam and Judaism are also
considered revealed religions, inasmuch as they ground their religious claims in supernatural
revelations of God to man. But Christianity is certainly the only religion where the revelation is a
person – Jesus Christ. “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets,
but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb. 1:1–2). As the Catechism of the Catholic
Church says, “God has said everything in His Word” (CCC 65). Though God spoke through the
prophets of the Old Testament at various times, in the person of Christ we have the final,
consummate, definitive revelation of God.

God’s dealing with man, whether in the Old Testament or through the sending of His Son in the
New, is commonly referred to as salvation history. The Sacred Scriptures faithfully recount the
salvation history of the human race, from the creation of man and the calling of Abraham all the
way to the salvific death of Christ on the cross and the foundation of the Church, the universal
Kingdom of God. Though certainly the Catholic faith has always recognized other sources of
theological truth beside the Scriptures (Sacred Tradition and the authoritative teachings of the
Magisterium) nevertheless, Sacred Scripture has always been considered the primal content from
which theology draws its propositions. From the Apostolic Fathers to St. Augustine and on to
Aquinas and the medievals, theology was essentially the study of and commentary on the sacred
page.

Theology is grounded in Scripture, but Scripture and theology are two different things. In a
certain sense, theology developed as Christians tried to systematize their faith and develop a
coherent method for explaining the Scriptures. This was necessary because the Scriptures do not
present theological truth in any systematic way. They are a record of God’s particular dealings with
mankind, not a manual of dogmatic theology. They teach theological truths inerrantly, but they do
not necessarily do so in an organized way. This is perfectly reasonable if we understand the
narrative nature of the Scriptures. They are essentially like a divine biography, giving a broad
overview of salvation history, but in a way that is chronological and piecemeal. Theology developed
as a means of organizing these pieces thematically.

Imagine we were reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln. Understood as a biography – that
is, a work that is meant to tell us sequentially about the course of Lincoln’s life and work – such a
book would be a fine way to learn about Lincoln, and we would probably gather many insights into
his thought as well. But we would not turn to a biography for a topical treatment of Lincoln’s ideas.
For example, a biography would not necessarily give us a comprehensive analysis of Lincoln’s view
on state’s rights. We may be able to infer his opinions through the biography to some degree, but
it would not present a systematic treatment. For that, we would turn to a book that treated Lincoln’s
political ideology systematically.

This is the same problem theologians run into when reading the Sacred Scriptures. Setting aside
the debate as to whether the Scriptures are a materially sufficient or formally sufficient source for
the corpus of Catholic theology (which is beyond the scope of this essay), the fact remains that the
Scriptures do not teach everything in an explicit manner, and many things in the Bible are merely
stated with no explanation offered for them in the text.

We could offer several examples of challenging aspects of the biblical narrative. The Gospel
writers often record different aspects of our Lord’s life, sometimes such that it is hard to see how
they go together. God acts a certain way in one situation and then mysteriously acts differently in
another seemingly similar scenario. For example, God rejects Saul’s kingship after Saul commits
the trivial sin of offering a sacrifice without the presence of Samuel, but He forgives David the sins
of adultery and murder. Different accounts of the same event sometimes present different
explanations for that event; what one text attributes to the providence of God another says is the
agency of the devil. Many passages use the same word but in different contexts. The challenges are
many.

These difficulties are nothing new to Christians. Some of the earliest Christian apologetical
works were written to explain difficult passages. St. Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho is a
masterful exegesis of difficult Old Testament passages that Jews had been accustomed to invoking
against the claims of the Church. St. Justin methodically sorts through these passages, interprets
them in light of the New Testament, and reconciles them with Christian theology.

The first attempt to reconcile the accounts of the Gospels was the Diatessaron by the 2nd century
Church Father Tatian. The Diatessaron featured the four Gospels combined into a single narrative
work. Its purpose appears not to have been to show how the Gospels were in harmony as much as
to simply create a single Gospel text that could be referenced instead of having to consult four
different manuscripts. A more notable work is St. Augustine’s On the Harmony of the Gospels. In
this work, St. Augustine examines different passages in the Gospels and attempts to reconcile them
in order to harmonize the four accounts of Jesus’ life. St. Augustine taught that differences in the
Gospel texts are only apparent, and that the Gospel writers chose to emphasize different aspects
of Christ’s life because they meant to exemplify different facets of Christ’s identity: Matthew on
royalty, Mark on humanity, Luke on priesthood, and John on divinity. This is the first major work
in what would be a long Christian tradition of “harmonizing” the Scriptures.

Various other “Gospel Harmonies” would appear throughout the Middle Ages, most of which
were essentially rehashes of the Diatessaron or Augustine. Meanwhile, Christians developed other
means of systematizing and harmonizing the Church’s theological tradition. The canonical
movement of the 11th–13th centuries sorted through the vast trove of ecclesiastical canons from the
first millennium in a laborious effort to reconcile them into a single body of legislation. The
Scholastic movement in the universities did the same thing with the various theological and
philosophical sources of antiquity, demonstrating that, despite differences in style and emphasis,
St. Paul, St. Augustine, Peter Lombard and others all essentially taught the same thing, and that the
faith could be reconciled with some of the greatest insights of the pagan philosophers, most notably
Aristotle.

Pietistic works strove for the same sort of synthesis. The medieval Biblia Pauperum (“Pauper’s
Bibles”) were largely pictorial works meant for instruction of the illiterate. They consisted of
illustrated scenes from the Gospels surrounded by panels depicting corresponding scenes from the
Old Testament. The purpose was to pair up Old Testament stories with New Testament teachings
to demonstrate the allegorical unity of the Scriptures, especially when the literal unity was not
particularly apparent.

Protestants have also produced notable Gospel Harmonies, including works by Jean Gerson,
John Calvin, Lieven de Witte’s woodcuts Life of Christ, Johann Jacob Griesbach, and a famous dual
column harmony produced by Gerard Mercator, the renowned cartographer.

Behind all these works was the assumption that there is an integrity to the Sacred Scriptures.
Though the Bible comes to us in the form of seventy–two books, these books form a single, cohesive
narrative that is consistent with itself and capable of clearly and objectively communicating a single
truth about God, man, and the world. Indeed, if the Scriptures are truly God–breathed, it could not
be otherwise, for God Himself is truth and cannot lie. Truth cannot contradict truth; the teachings
of the prophet Jeremiah cannot contradict the teachings of St. Paul – the words of Christ cannot
contradict the teaching of St. John. The truth may be presented piecemeal and with different
emphases, but it remains singular. All contradictions are only apparent, not actual. They can be
resolved with study and understanding. Truth cannot be opposed to itself. If the Bible is true, it
cannot err or contradict itself.

This was definitively taught by Pope Leo XIII in his 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus on
the study of the Sacred Scriptures. Leo wrote:

But it is absolutely wrong and forbidden, either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only
of Holy Scripture, or to admit that the sacred writer has erred…. For all the books which the
Church receives as sacred and canonical, are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts,
at the dictation of the Holy Spirit; and so far is it from being possible that any error can
co–exist with inspiration, that inspiration not only is essentially incompatible with error,
but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself,
the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true. This is the ancient and unchanging faith
of the Church, solemnly defined in the Councils of Florence and of Trent, and finally
confirmed and more expressly formulated by the Council of the Vatican.1

Thus the inerrancy of Scripture is an authoritative teaching of the Catholic Church, but on a more
fundamental level it is simply a matter of logic and common sense. Something that is true cannot
be in real contradiction to another truth.

The problem is that, beginning with the Enlightenment, many people began to fundamentally
doubt whether the Bible was inerrant in every respect. Early on most were too wedded to a
Christian worldview to totally deny the inerrancy of the Scriptures, preferring to question only
certain passages. Thomas Jefferson, for example, was willing to accept the moral principles of the
Scriptures but refused assent to Scriptural accounts of God’s supernatural intervention. He
famously produced the “Jefferson Bible”, a Bible with all references to the supernatural omitted.
As time went on and religious skepticism became more pronounced, it became more common to
see the Bible not as a unity but as a chimera of fundamentally irreconcilable teachings.

This tendency was manifest in many ways: the Documentary Hypothesis, which sees the Old
Testament as a post–Exilic hodge–podge compilation of contradictory accounts; the Two Source
Theory, which posits a New Testament oral tradition known as “Q” that accounts for alleged
discrepancies in the Gospels.

All of these various theories share an origin in the 19th century school of Higher Criticism.
Higher Criticism centered on the study of the literary methods and sources discernible in the
biblical text. There is nothing inherently problematic with studying the sources of the biblical text;
rather, the problem with Higher Criticism was that it was imbued with an anti–supernatural bias
that approached the Scriptures with an a priori presumption of the books’ fundamental
incompatibility with each other. Difficult passages became not occasions to demonstrate the unity
of the Scriptures but rather proof–texts for their disunity. To this day, methods of biblical
scholarship that find their origin in Higher Criticism have largely abandoned the tradition of
harmonizing the Scriptures.

This book is a modest effort to undo this trend by recovering, to a small degree, the rich patristic
and medieval belief in the unity of the Scriptures.

If Christian biblical scholars themselves have ceded this ground, it is not surprising that atheists
and others antagonistic to Christianity have jumped on the bandwagon. It is a common refrain for
atheists and religious skeptics to denounce the Bible as a book “full of contradictions.” This has
become such a standard line of attack for atheists that most do not even bother defending the
thesis. It is casually repeated in online forums, radio programs, and television interviews with the
confidence of one saying the sky is blue or snow is cold. The critic assumes it, states it, and moves
on, the argument left unproven because, in his mind, it is self–evident.

It was my own personal encounter with these sorts of assertions that inspired me to compile
this book. Some years ago, while defending the Church’s traditional teaching on Christ’s mediation
between God and man, an atheist responded to an argument by posting a link to a website that
claimed to point out 190 contradictions in the New Testament. As one who had been studying the
Bible for over two decades and never found any legitimate contradiction, I was quite curious to see
what these atheist critics were coming up with. The results were laughable, as you will see below,
where the original website the atheist directed me to has provided the content for Chapter 16.

It is the assertion of this book – and the assertion of Christian tradition – that there are no real
contradictions in the Scriptures. Before we dive in though; a few preliminary considerations on
what we are looking for when we talk about proving or disproving biblical “contradictions”.

What is a contradiction, exactly? Before answering the question of whether the Bible contains
contradictions, it is helpful to define our terms. A contradiction occurs when two things are
affirmed that are mutually exclusive. For something to be a true contradiction, the two things must
be truly mutually exclusive; for example, consider the statements, “the painting is entirely blue” and
“the painting is entirely red.” Presuming that we are talking about the same painting at the same
time, these statements are in contradiction because they cannot possibly both be true.

The title of this book calls to mind the classical Principle of Non–Contradiction, first elaborated
by the Greek philosophers and associated with Aristotle. The Principle of Non–Contradiction states
that contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time, e.g. the two
propositions “A is B” and “A is not B” are mutually exclusive. If one is true the other must be false
and vice versa. This truth is axiomatic; that is, one immediately grasps its truth as soon as one
understands the terms. It flows from the very nature of being itself. Reality is one, and because of
this there can be no fundamental contradiction in reality. Reality is a cosmos, which in the original
Greek denotes an orderly system and is opposed to chaos, something with no underlying unity or
form. All being, insofar as it is being, possesses this most basic unity.2

Truth is a statement about reality. To say, “The man is wearing orange” is a statement about an
objective state of affairs in the real world. A statement is true to the degree that it says something
accurate about reality. Just as reality cannot be in contradiction with itself, so statements about
reality cannot either, to the degree that they are true. And if we affirm with our tradition that the
Scriptures are true in everything they attest, then there can be no real contradiction in the
Scriptures.

Not every contradiction is a real contradiction; some are only apparent. In the above statements
“the painting is entirely blue” and “the painting is entirely red”, if we remove the word “entirely”
from the statements, the case for contradiction becomes fuzzier. What if the painting was half blue
and half red? Then the statements “the painting is blue” and “the painting is red” would not
necessarily be in contradiction. It is the presence of the word “entirely” that commits us to affirming
that the painting is either blue or red, but not both.

Sometimes two statements may seem contradictory, but may be reconciled when understood
in a certain sense. For example, suppose the original painting was blue, but then a later restoration
of the painting covered the blue with red. The blue painting still exists, but entirely covered by the
red. In this case, both statements could be true – the original layer is entirely blue, and the
restoration was entirely red, in which case we need to simply amend our original statements to
make them more precise: “Layer 1 is entirely blue; layer 2 is entirely red.” Not every contradiction
is a real contradiction. Some are merely apparent and can be resolved upon further inquiry or by
clear understanding of in what sense the statements are meant.

When reading the Bible in particular, it must be born in mind that a contradiction is not the
same as a difficulty. A contradiction is not the same as a complicated theological problem that the
unstudied will probably not be able to resolve. The Bible is full of difficulties and theological
complexities. That much has never been in question, but that is not what is meant by
“contradiction.” A contradiction occurs when affirming Proposition A means Proposition B is
necessarily denied; there is no possible way they can both be true. If, however, there is a manner
in which A and B can be shown to both be true, there is no contradiction.

None of the “contradictions” we will examine in this book are real contradictions; indeed, we
affirm that the Bible contains no real contradictions. Many are contradictions that are only
apparent, such as the one above about the painting being blue or red. Examples of these apparent
contradictions are situations where one Gospel says Jesus was with Peter, James and John and the
other Gospel says Peter, Andrew and John. There is no contradiction unless the latter Gospel
specifically says, “James was not there.” Unless this qualifying statement is present, what we have
is a situation where Peter, James, John and Andrew were all present, but different Gospels only
mentioned certain disciples specifically without intentionally omitting any. Many of the
“contradictions” are of this sort.

In addition to this, many are misunderstandings based on the presumption on a word having
a uniform meaning throughout Scripture, which is clearly not the case. For example, the word
“peace.” Our Lord clearly distinguishes between the peace that comes from God with worldly peace.
He states, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, do I give unto
you” (John 14:27). There are clearly two kinds of peace, both of which can be used in very different
contexts. A person assuming that the word “peace” has but a single, uniform meaning would find
difficulty with our Lord’s words in Matt.10:34 and Luke 12:51 where He specifically denies that He
has come to bring peace. If the “peace” of these verses and the “peace” of John 14 are exactly the
same, we might have a problem; how can Jesus simultaneously bring peace while denying He has
come to bring it? But as it is, these are two different forms of peace. In fact, sometimes they are
opposed to one another. Having peace with God might necessitate worldly conflict. Many of the
“contradictions” examined in this book are based on this sort of simplistic approach to the way
words are used.

Still more “contradictions” are often theological difficulties, not true contradictions. For
example, “God is love” and the existence of hell are not contradictions. The goodness of God and
the killings in the Book of Joshua are not contradictions. There is no logical contradiction why the
truth of one implies the falsity of the other. These are rather theological difficulties that need to be
understood in light of the totality of Christian revelation. Their “difficulty” comes not so much from
any inherent contradiction as much as from one’s own worldview. For example, reconciling “God
is love” with “homosexuals will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (cf. 1 Cor. 6:9) is neither
contradictory nor even problematic unless you approach the verses with a disposition against the
Church’s teaching and a failure to understand the totality of Divine Revelation. For those who
accept the traditional understanding of Christian morality and the consequences of immoral
behavior, there is no problem. This is an issue with one’s worldview, not any contradiction in the
text.

Finally, some of the “contradictions” examined are just ignorant. For example, “Peter was
chosen by the Sea of Galilee” and “Peter was chosen by the Lake of Gennesaret.” The Lake of
Gennesaret and the Sea of Galilee are the same body of water. Or Oprah Winfrey’s famous
statement that God could not possibly be a “jealous” God because jealousy is a petty human
emotion – as if the jealousy of God is the same as the jealousy of men! These “contradictions” are
just the result of ignorance from persons predisposed to attack Christianity. They could have found
the solutions to their difficulties with a mere ten minutes of research.

One can foresee that some skeptics who will read this refutation will object, “You are not
reconciling the contradictions! You are only explaining them away!” What is it to resolve a
contradiction versus explaining it away? In fact, to resolve a contradiction is to show that what
appeared to be a contradiction was in fact not – that two statements thought to be irreconcilable
are in fact able to be reconciled. In other words, an explanation is offered that brings harmony to
the two statements.

Consider a man accused of a crime: Suppose a man – call him Jones – is accused of murdering
a store clerk. Jones’ DNA is found on the crime scene. He insists that he has never been to the store
in question and protests his innocence. We have an apparent contradiction: The statement “I have
never been there” with the indisputable presence of Jones’ DNA in the store. If these two positions
are shown not to be in contradiction, an explanation will need to be brought forward that will
account for both the man’s protestation of innocence as well as the presence of his DNA.

Now, suppose it is brought forward by the defense that the man has six brothers who also live
in the area, and being that members of a family share the same DNA, the DNA found at the crime
scene could just as easily belong to one of the brothers as to the accused man. Now we have an
explanation that reconciles the contradictory statements. We now see how the man could be telling
the truth, and the prosecutor could also have legitimate DNA belonging to a Jones. What seemed
to be a damning indictment was explained away by the defense.

Does this mean Jones is innocent? No. Does it mean the story is not still suspect, or that there
are no other difficulties or problems that need to be thought out? No. All it means is that Jones’
claim that he had never been in the store is not inconsistent with the fact that DNA belonging to
Jones or one of his brothers was found at the crime scene, since the DNA could have belonged to
a biological brother and not to Jones.

In short, yes, it can be said that we are “explaining away” the contradictions, but it should be
recalled that this is what we do all the time when comparing evidence, examining testimony, and
attempting to evaluate conflicting accounts. If an accused person’s alibi is under question, the
defense must show that there is another factor, an explanation that does not make the alibi as
questionable as once seemed. The prosecution must prove that there is no possible explanation. If
there is an explanation, then there is reasonable doubt.

As you will see throughout this book, in not a single case does the skeptic “prosecutor” succeed
in poking an irreconcilable hole in the Christian “defense” position. The real problem is most of
these skeptics who gloat in finding contradictions in the Bible have never bothered to really dig into
the verses in question; many of the “contradictions” in this book evidence a glaring ignorance of not
only the Bible itself, but even geography, conventional literary method, and basic linguistics. They
do not care what the Bible really says; they care only about attacking Faith. Yes, I am a Catholic and
proceeding from a view of defending the Bible, but at least the explanations in this book actually
dig into what the Bible and Christian theology really say, and as such, are more intelligent than the
ignorant attacks of the critics.

We will also see many of the “contradictions” in this book, especially in the New Testament
section, depend upon what I term the Fallacy of the Unspoken Companion. This occurs when,
because one Gospel does not mention a particular person that another Gospel does, it is erroneously
inferred that the person was not present. For example, in the Gospel of Mark it is mentioned that
Jesus healed a blind man named Bartimaeus. In Matthew, it is mentioned that Jesus healed two
blind men. Because Mark does not specifically mention the second blind man, skeptics allege that
there is a contradiction. This is not true, of course, so long as the first Gospel does not positively
deny the existence of the second blind man. The obvious truth is that there were two blind men, but
the Gospel of Mark records the name of only one of them, the one who happened to speak to Jesus.
Most of the brief contradictions examined in the New Testament section are just ignorant
accusations based on a hyper–uniform interpretation of language that no one would ever apply in
any other context in real life.

Hyper–uniformity is rife in the attacks of skeptics. Hyper–uniformity occurs when the skeptic
insists that a word be used one way and only one way consistently in an entire corpus of work. This
is absurd. In real life nobody speaks in a uniform manner consistently. Words are fluid things, and
they often take on various meanings depending on how they are used. “I’m tired from stacking
wood all day” and “I am tired of these high taxes” use two completely different meanings of the
word “tired”, the former denoting physical exhaustion, the latter meaning to be fed up with or
indignant over. In the real world nobody insists that people use words in an absolute uniform
manner, and it is sloppy scholarship to insist on such a method for interpreting the Scriptures.
Nobody would insist on such hyper–uniformity when evaluating any other written work.

The contradictions alleged in the works of St. Paul are an example of a hyper–uniform
interpretation that nobody would actually use in any other literary context. Our interlocutors are
extraordinarily narrow with what they allow words to mean. For example, no distinction is allowed
between the kind of pride that is a sin and the kind of pride a man has in his child who has
accomplished something noteworthy. We will see total ignorance of the most basic ideas of
Christian eschatology and theology. We will see a failure to recognize literary hyperbole and an
insistence on taking every statement in the most absolute narrowest, most literal sense without any
effort to determine the nuance involved in real human speech – in short, a failure to treat the
Scriptures the way we approach any other writing.

Every competent person knows there is a difference between saying, “Napoleon was a proud
and arrogant ruler” and “St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was proud of her sisters for all their hard work.”
There is certain nuance in the word proud that everybody understands. Yet we are supposed to
suspend that linguistic convention to believe that the fact that St. Paul was proud of the Church of
Corinth is a “contradiction” to our Lord’s warnings against arrogance! These are not contradictions.
Most of them are just plain failures to understand language – and deliberate failures at that. Willed
ignorance.

Yes, there are real theological challenges in the Bible. We will see some alleged contradictions
on the place of the Old Testament in relation to the New, something that St. Paul himself takes great
pains to explain and that Christian theologians have mulled over for centuries. But a challenge or
a difficulty is not a contradiction.

A final word on my own experience with the Scriptures and the genesis of this project. Having
not been raised in a Christian home, my knowledge of the Scriptures was extremely limited as a
young man. The first time I held a Bible in my hand was in 9th grade, when a friend gave me a
standard hotel–room Gideon’s Bible. I resolved to read it and opened it up to Genesis 1. I was 14
when I started. I think I was 18 when I finished. That first read through of the Scriptures was
laborious and yielded very little. Yet as I became more serious about my faith (culminating in my
acceptance into full communion with the Church in October, 2002) I would subsequently return
to the Scriptures again and again. With every kernel of knowledge picked up, each re–reading
became easier and more fruitful. To use a tired cliché, the Scriptures began to come to life.

Though my field of study in college was European History, I took advantage of the voluminous
college library to further my study of the Scriptures. While my professors were assigning
Thucydides and Tacitus, I was studying Hebrew and Old Testament rabbinical tradition on the side.
I amassed Bible commentaries, both old and new, and devoured works on biblical archaeology. I
continued my own private study of the Bible as much as I could.

I was eventually hired as a Director of Religious Education in the Diocese of Lansing, despite
my lack of a theology degree. I taught RCIA for years and led Bible studies centered on the liturgical
calendar. I taught Sacred Scripture classes to high school juniors and seniors for nine years, taking
students from Genesis to Revelation on a two–year cycle. Some of the chapters in this book grew
out of discussions or assignments from the high school class. The question posed in Chapter 2 on
the Pharaoh began as an essay assignment I assigned to my junior year students.

None of this is to suggest I am “qualified” to write a book on the Scriptures. There are many
others who are more qualified in a formal sense to write this book. The problem is that nobody is
doing it. Scripture scholarship has by and large caved into the pressures presented by Higher
Criticism and abandoned the field on the question of Scripture harmony. The battle has not been
fought and lost; it’s been lost because it has not been fought. What I have sought to accomplish with
this book is to merely reintroduce the traditional idea of harmonizing the Scriptures and
demonstrate how it can be applied to difficult biblical passages.

Though this book is written from the perspective of the Catholic tradition, it is my hope that
non–Catholic Christians will find value in it as well. Any Christian who loves the Scriptures and
takes them to be the word of God, inspired collectively and in all their parts, should be able to
derive some benefit from this modest effort.

Phillip Campbell

January 22, 2017

Notes

1. Leo XIII, Providentissimus Deus, 20 (1893)

2.Which is why unity is one of the fundamental attributes common to all being, the transcendentals of western
philosophical tradition.

Chapter 1: Two Creation Accounts?

The attack on the veracity of the biblical narrative often begins at the very beginning, with Genesis
1–2

The first two chapters of the Book of Genesis tell of the creation of the world, of mankind,
and of man in a state of grace before the fall. While the scientific import of these chapters is often
downplayed in modern exegesis – such as in the footnotes of the Ignatius Press RSV 2nd edition,
which go out of their way on two occasions to insist that there is nothing scientific about these
chapters – the chapters are of undeniable importance in establishing some very basic theological
truths about human nature, man’s relationship to God, and salvation.1 Any explication of the Gospel
really ought to begin with Genesis 1–2 on God’s creation of the world and His plan for man.

It is not surprising, then, that these chapters are usually the starting point for those who
have invested in the idea of a Bible full of contradictions. The skeptic’s objection centers on alleged
contradictions between the first and second chapters. A cursory reading of the first two chapters
of Genesis seems to suggest two distinct creation narratives. So distinct do these narratives seem,
that several Bible translations will assume they come from two completely different sources, such
as the Ignatius RSV, which says that chapter two comes from “a different and earlier source.”2

The primary differences are in the sequence of creation and the place of mankind within
God’s original order. Genesis 1 presents us with what is undoubtedly the more familiar ordering of
creation. First, light is created at God’s verbal command (Gen. 1:3), followed by the heavens, the
ocean and dry land, and then all the plants and creatures to populate the regions He had created.
Only after the creation of animals and vegetation does God bring forth mankind, on the sixth day.
So plants and animals are created before mankind; this is important, as we shall see.

Another point is that there is no mention of the separate creation of Adam and Eve; Genesis
1:27 reads, “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and
female He created them.” After the creation of man, God gives man dominion over all the creatures
of the world and “every green plant for food” (1:30).

Genesis 2 contains the more familiar account of the special creation of Adam, the taking of
Adam’s rib by God, and the creation of Eve. Most readers focus on these important details of the
narrative, but often ignore the sequence of creation presented in Genesis 2, which seems different
from what we read in Genesis 1.

Let us look at Genesis 2:4–9, which gives details about the creation of the world, the special
creation of Adam, and his placement in the Garden of Eden:

In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was
yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused
it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a mist went up from
the earth and watered the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed man of dust
from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living
being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man
whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is
pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

First, skeptics will note that the text implies that man was created “when no plant of the field had
yet sprung up” (v. 5). This seems to contradict Genesis 1:12, which says that vegetation was created
on the third day, before the creation of man.

Second, it is noted that here the male gender only is created – Adam, who is placed alone in the
Garden of Eden. This seems to contradict Genesis 1:27, which says, “So God created man in his own
image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” Gen. 1:27 seems to
suggest man and woman were created simultaneously, while 2:7 suggests Adam was created first.

Third, Genesis 1:24–25 says the creatures of the land were created on the sixth day, before the
creation of man. But Genesis 2:18–19 suggests that the land creatures were created specifically to
address the problem of man being alone (v. 18), and hence necessarily created after mankind.

Fourth, Genesis 1 describes the creation as something stretched over six days, with a seventh
day of rest; Genesis 2, on the other hand, seems to suggest this creation happened in a single day,
for it says “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens…”

Thus we have our four major issues that need resolution. Of course, the skeptics’ resolution is
simply to say that the first two chapters were written by different authors representing two different
traditions, and that a later editor or redactor just included them both in Genesis, presumably
because he did not know how to reconcile them but recognized them both as authoritative. As we
shall see, this inference is hardly warranted.

Genesis 1–2 do not present a simple chronological narrative; yes, as tradition and the Catechism
have affirmed, Genesis 1–2 do relate historical events. But they do not recite them in a merely
chronological matter. That is to say, the events in chapter 2 are not meant to happen after the
events in chapter 1. Rather, chapter 1 presents a broad picture, followed by a kind of “zoomed in”
perspective in chapter 2, which re–presents certain events from chapter 1 but in greater detail. This
method is common throughout Genesis; for example, Genesis 11 tells of the various families
descended from Shem and then Genesis 12 goes on to “zoom in” on a specific family – that of
Abram.

An example is the issue with the creation of plant life. Genesis 1:12 mentions the creation of
vegetation; but what sort of vegetation? “And then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation,
plants yielding their seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its
kind.’” By specifying plants that “yield” their seed, and fruit trees that “bear” fruit, the text is noting
that this is not cultivated vegetation; rather, this is the primordial wild vegetation, in which
everything that is edible must be “yielded” because it is not under cultivation.

Now, if we compare this with the vegetation described in Genesis 2:5, we see chapter 2 is
describing something different. “In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
when no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up – for the
Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground…” (Gen.
2:5). Here the text specifies that the world lacked any plant of the field, and no herb of the field.
Genesis 1 does mention plants “of the field”, and Genesis 2 does not mention plants which “yield”
or “bear” their fruit. So the sorts of plant life being described differ.

Why were there no plants “of the field”? After noting that there was not yet rain, the text says
“there was no man to till the ground.” This is key. The lack of a man “to till the ground” is the reason
given why no plants “of the field” had yet appeared.

Once we understand this, the meaning of the text becomes clear. Of course, plant life on earth
predated human life. This is what Genesis 1 tells us when it says all vegetation of the world was
created on the third day. But Genesis 2 tells us that at the time man was created, all plant life was
wild. There were no cultivated crops because man had not been created to till the field. So while
plant life as such predated man, cultivated plants “of the field” obviously had to wait for the arrival
of men who could till the field. Genesis 1 notes that plants predated man, but Genesis 2 states that
there was not yet any agriculture.

The issue with the creation of man is a similar case of a broad picture being presented in
Genesis 1 with a “zoomed in” view in the subsequent chapter.

Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.” Now because the text says “male and female He created them”,
some have posited that absurd position the primordial human being was a hermaphrodite!3 The
truth is much simpler.

First, Christian tradition is unanimous that Adam, the man, was in fact created first. This is
affirmed in the New Testament by St. Paul, who wrote “for Adam was first formed, then Eve” (1
Tim. 2:13). So we must take Genesis 2:7 – which describes the special, individual creation of Adam
first – as the literal description of what happened. The question then is how to interpret Genesis
1:27.

The purpose of Genesis 1:27 is to note that the human race was created by God on the sixth day.
The human race consists of male and female, but origin of the human race is the creation of man.
Man is the head of the human race. Genesis 1:27 simply notes that the human race as such was
created in God’s image, and that the human race began on the sixth day with the creation of man.
Genesis 2:7 presents a more “zoomed in” view, explaining that woman was created sequentially
after man. This is also why Gen. 1:27 asserts that male and female are made in God’s image, but 1
Cor. 11:7 notes that the woman is in God’s image in a more indirect manner because of her creation
from man. So Gen. 1:27 and 2:7 are not in opposition; chapter 2 presents a more detailed version
of the basic truth taught in 1:27.

Our third conundrum is that Genesis 1:24–25 says the creatures of the land were created on the
sixth day, before the creation of man, but Genesis 2:18–19 suggests that the land creatures were
created after mankind, specifically to address the problem of man being alone (v. 18).

This problem seems very thorny if we are insisting on reading Genesis 1–2 in a chronological
sense. But, as explained above, we need not necessarily be committed to a chronological reading
here. Genesis 1:24–25 recounts the mere fact of the creation of animal life prior to human life;
Genesis 2:18 tells us the reason why animal life was created.

Wherever man is created chronologically in the sequence of creation, it is absolutely true that
mankind is the crown and glory of the created order. Human beings alone are created in God’s
image; to him was given dominion over the world (Gen. 1:28). For the salvation of men did the Son
of God come. Thus, even things created before man are created with reference to man; the plants,
water, animals, and everything else are all created by God in preparation for the coming and
sustenance of man.

Animal life was created before mankind, as taught in Genesis 1:24–25; but Genesis 2:18–19 tells
us that the reason animals were created were to provide man with companions in creation. Of
course, as we see from Gen. 2:18–24, God did not ultimately intend man to find his help mates in
these creatures; rather, it was to lead man to see his need for a companion who was “bone of my
bones and flesh of my flesh” (v. 23); but the point stands that the rationale for the creation of
animals was man’s loneliness, which is what 2:18–29 explains for us. God’s statement, “It is not
good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (v. 18), should not be read
as something God says after the creation of man, but something God says at the time he creates
animals in anticipation of the creation of man.

Our final difficulty with Genesis 1–2 has to do with how long creation took. Genesis 1 describes
the creation as something stretched over six days, with a seventh day of rest; Genesis 2, on the other
hand, seems to suggest this creation happened in a single day, for it says “In the day that the Lord
God made the earth and the heavens…” (2:4).

We really have two modes of interpretation open to us here, depending on whether we take the
“days” in Genesis to be literal days. If we take the days to be literal, it is difficult to see how there
is any option left other than to interpret one passage literally while interpreting the other
allegorically. St. Augustine opted for this approach; Augustine taught that the creation of the world
happened in a single instantaneous moment, choosing to take Genesis 2:4 more literally and
adopting an allegorical reading of Genesis 1.

It seems, however, that if we must choose which chapter is literal, it would make more sense
to suggest that the “days” of Genesis 1 are meant to be literal days, since chapter 1 alone adds the
qualifying statement “there was evening and there was morning” to explain the nature of the days
it describes.

Genesis 2:4, on the other hand, merely says “In the day that the Lord made the earth and the
heavens…” This statement need not commit us to a specific, particular day. The word “day” here
seems to be used to denote a larger age or timeframe. This is a very common usage of the word
“day”, both in English as well as most languages, including Hebrew.

For example, one can say “On the day of my wedding, such–and–such happened,” and in
that sentence, “day” would denote a specific, particular day. However, one could also say, “In my
grandfather’s day, things were very different.” In this second sentence, “day” could denote a huge
expanse of time. Genesis 1 uses “day” in the former sense, whereas Genesis 2 uses it in the latter.
Thus the true meaning of Genesis 2:4 is simply to say “In the first days of the world,
such–and–such happened,” without implying that everything in creation was formed
instantaneously. This seems to be the best way to read these passages, if we are committed to
assuming the “days” of Genesis 1 are literal.

But what if we do not interpret the days literally? While it seems that the “days” of Genesis
1 are literal – based on context and the way the word is used elsewhere in the Scriptures – obviously
many Catholics choose not to interpret them literally. We have already demonstrated that the “day”
of Genesis 2:4 need not be read literally; if the “days” of Genesis 1 are not either, it is hard to see in
what sense there is any difficulty. If everything is symbolic or allegorical, why bother reconciling
anything at all?

This exemplifies a very important point: the Bible has many passages that are literal and
many that are symbolic, and it is a very praiseworthy and necessary work to sort out which are
which; such tasks are necessary to biblical exegesis. However, to simply blanket all passages as
symbolic when we encounter a difficulty is neither praiseworthy nor helpful. It is no exegesis at all;
rather, it is the opposite of exegesis. A true biblical exegete attempts to use scholarship and the
Church’s tradition to understand what a passage is really saying; an exegesis that makes everything
symbolic gives up on trying to figure out what the passage really means.

At any rate, it should be clear that there is no fundamental contradiction between Genesis
1 and Genesis 2. There is nothing in these chapters that should lead us to conclude they are separate
accounts. If we understand that we need not read Genesis 2 as chronologically following Genesis
1, our difficulties lessen tremendously – and once we realize that chapter 2 functions generally as
a “zoomed in” view of the things broadly narrated in chapter 1, the difficulties evaporate altogether.

As a final aside, we should note that the theory of multiple creation accounts in Genesis was
invented to lend credence to a particular Old Testament hermeneutic known as the Documentary
Hypothesis, which is the assertion that the first five books of the Bible (Pentateuch) were not
written until over a thousand years after Moses’ death and were the result of a process of writing,
rewriting, editing, and compiling by various editors and redactors. The final book we know as the
“Old Testament” is actually a compilation of four distinct works or “traditions”: the Yahwist,
Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly (JEDP).

The theory of the multiple creation accounts in Genesis was developed to support the
Documentary Hypothesis. For more on the Documentary Hypothesis, its errors, and why it is so
dangerous to faith, we recommend the article “Deconstructing the Documentary Hypothesis” by
Phillip Campbell.4

As with other alleged contradictions we will examine in this book, the difficulties in Genesis
1–2 are not cases of a real contradiction – certainly not anything that would warrant positing a
“second account” written by an entirely different author, especially since Christian tradition never
saw any difficulty reconciling chapters 1 and 2. It is a modern innovation created by those already
predisposed to find disharmony in the biblical narrative. This bias is at the heart of all attempts to
show how the Bible is a book “full of contradictions.”

Notes

1. The Ignatius RSV footnote on Gen. 1:1 says, “The aim of this narrative is not to present a scientific picture but teach
religious truth”, and its footnote on 2:4 says, “There is nothing in these early chapters that commits us to any particular
scientific view of the origins of the world or man, or that would exclude the evolution hypothesis.” It is not our contention
that these chapters are primarily scientific, but as we will see, admonitions against taking Genesis 1–2 too literally often
are but excuses to throw out any consistency in the text and ultimately undermine its authority.

2. Ignatius RSV, 2nd edition, footnote on Gen 2:4.

3. This position was unfortunately promoted by the late Pope St. John Paul II in his Wednesday audiences which have
since become known as the “Theology of the Body.” For example, in his address of September 12, 1979, entitled “Analysis
of the Biblical Account of Creation”, John Paul II said, “There man is created in one act as male and female. God created
man in his own image...male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). As we have already mentioned, the second account
speaks first of the creation of the man and only afterward of the creation of the woman from the “rib” of the male. This
account concentrates our attention on the fact that “man is alone.” This appears as a fundamental anthropological
problem, prior, in a certain sense, to the one raised by the fact that this man is male and female.”

4. Available online at the Unam Sanctam Catholicam website at:
http://unamsanctamcatholicam.com/history/historical–apologetics/79–history/472–deconstructing–documentary–hypothesis.html

Chapter 2: The Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart

The narrative of the Exodus from Egypt is one of the best known stories of the Old Testament. The
dramatic deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage by the hand of God has been a favorite
theme of Christian art throughout the ages, and its accounts of God’s miracles are replete with
typological symbolism that have been used fruitfully by Christian exegetes for centuries.

The Exodus story also furnishes us with one of the most perplexing problems in the Bible.
We are all familiar with the life and mission of Moses. Exodus relates how God appeared to Moses
in the burning bush on Mount Horeb and commanded him to go to Pharaoh and demand freedom
for the Israelite slaves (cf. Ex.3:7–12). Moses repeatedly presents himself to Pharaoh and demands
– in the name of God – that Pharaoh release the Israelites. Pharaoh consistently refuses Moses’
requests, leading to increasingly harsh supernatural punishments from God. This culminates in the
death of the first born (Ex. 12). Finally, exasperated by Moses’ persistence and ground down by
God’s severe punishments, Pharaoh relents and grants the Israelites their freedom.

The story seems very straightforward, but a close reading of the text reveals a difficulty that
many Christians have mulled over throughout the ages. As Moses and Aaron prepare to confront
Pharaoh with the first of the plagues, God says:

…tell the Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go out of his land. But I will harden Pharaoh’s
heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, Pharaoh will not
listen to you… (Ex. 7:2–3)

Here God specifically says that Pharaoh’s refusal to let the people go is a direct result of God’s own
agency – God says the reason Pharaoh will not listen is that “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart.”

This is reaffirmed in other places in Exodus. For example, in chapter 9, after the plague of
boils, Scripture says “But the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he did not listen to them”
(Ex. 9:12). After the plague of locusts, it says “the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not
let the children of Israel go” (Ex. 10:20), and the comment is repeated yet again after the plague of
darkness (Ex. 10:27). Prior to the smiting of the first born, Moses is sent to warn Pharaoh one final
time, but “the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his
land” (Ex. 11:10).

The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart by a direct act of God is also affirmed as the reason for
Pharaoh’s rash decision to pursue the Israelites to the Red Sea after having released them: “And the
Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt and he pursued the people of Israel as they went
forth defiantly” (Ex. 14:8). Not only the pursuit, but the decision to send the Egyptian army into the
Red Sea and to its subsequent destruction are due to this “hardening” action of God:

Lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of
Israel may go on dry ground through the sea. And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians
so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory of Pharaoh and all his host, his
chariots, and his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I get
glory of Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen (Ex. 14:16–18).

The whole Exodus from Egypt can be seen as a series of events that escalate in dramatic severity,
and at every turn it is God’s own agency that escalates the story to the next level, through the act
of God “hardening” Pharaoh’s heart.

This presents a certain textual problem, as elsewhere in the Exodus it insinuates that Pharaoh’s
refusal to heed Moses is due to his own stubbornness. In Exodus 3:19, God says, “I know the king
of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.” In other places it specifically says
that Pharaoh was the one who hardened his heart; after the plague of frogs, Scripture says “when
Pharaoh saw there was a respite, he hardened his heart” (Ex. 8:15). After the plague of hail,
Scripture says, “But when Pharaoh saw the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned
yet again, and hardened his heart” (Ex. 9:34). This last passage is particularly interesting, as it not
only notes that Pharaoh hardened his heart, but specifically states that he was culpable for it.

In some places the text notes that Pharaoh’s heart was hardened in a passive sense without
giving any indication of how it became so. “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen
to them,” Exodus 7:13 says, and in the next verse God says “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he refuses
to let the people go.” Also Exodus 8:19, “Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.”

The question thus becomes, if Pharaoh is the one who sinned by hardening his heart, why do
other verses say that God hardened it? Some verses present Pharaoh as the active agent who
willfully hardened his own heart; others present Pharaoh as passive, his heart being hardened by
a direct act of God. This is the main textual problem.

But there is also a larger moral problem: If God has intentionally hardened Pharaoh’s heart so
that he would not listen to Moses, how is it just that Pharaoh is guilty of sinning and that he is
punished by God? If God is good and just, how can He compel a man to act a certain way and then
punish him for doing so? How is that not capricious?

This seems like a deeper problem than it really is. In fact, it only becomes a real problem if we
see agency as binary; i.e., either God acts, or man acts, but not both. In fact, human acts are not so
simple. Often God, man, and even the devil or other angelic powers may all be present in a single
act. We will explore this more in chapter 9 on the census of David.

It is helpful here to review the traditional Catholic concept of providence. Proverbs 3:19 says
“The Lord by wisdom founded the earth”; Wisdom 8:1 states that wisdom “reaches mightily from
one end of the earth to the other and orders all things well.” The cosmos in all its order and
complexity is an act of divine wisdom. St. Thomas Aquinas explains that providence is an extension
of this wisdom. He says:

Since God is the cause of all things by His intellect (in conjunction with His will), it is
necessary by the type of the order of things toward their end should preexist in the divine
mind; and the type of things ordered toward an end is, properly speaking, providence.1

Providence has to do with God bringing about His desired ends in the order of creation. It is the
way God’s wisdom is worked out in time and space. By Providence, God uses secondary causes to
bring about His purposes for the world. “Wisdom was the craftsman…but it is thy providence, O
Father, that steers its course” (Wis. 14:2–3).

The secondary causes God uses to bring about His ends can be anything and everything in the
created order, both natural causes and the free actions of men. But everything God uses is used
according to its nature; immaterial, physical forces act of necessity, due to physical laws woven into
the fabric of creation. A stone dropped falls to the earth of necessity by virtue of gravity. This is the
nature of physical, natural causes. But human beings do not act by necessity; rather, we act freely.
To act freely is just as proper to human nature as it is for the stone to fall by necessity.

Thus, when God uses human beings to bring about His ends, He uses them not by constraining
their freedom, but by utilizing it. In fact, when it comes to human beings, it might be said that
providence is the way that God, in His foreknowledge, orchestrates the free decisions of men to
bring about His predetermined ends. By providence, God uses everything inherent in the nature
of an individual, including their freedom, to accomplish His ends. The renowned Dominican
theologian Fr. Reginald Garrigou–Lagrange (1877–1964), who wrote an entire treatise on divine
providence, explained the relation of providence to freedom in this manner:

[The] universal and immediate sway exerted by providence does not destroy, but safeguards
the freedom of our actions. Not only does it safeguard liberty, but actuates it, for the precise
reason that providence extends even to the free mode of our actions, which it produces in
us with our cooperation…The slightest idiosyncrasy of temperament and character, the
consequences of heredity, the influence exerted on our actions by emotions – all are known
to providence; it penetrates into the innermost recesses of conscience, and has at its
disposal every sort of grace to enlighten, attract, and strengthen us. There is thus a
gentleness in its control that yields nothing to strength.2

All men have their own natural character and temperament; this, of course, includes Pharaoh.
Part of Pharaoh’s natural temperament was to be stubborn – in fact, culpably stubborn when the
good of his nation, the freedom of hundreds of thousands of slaves, and the lives of his subjects
were on the line. Who knows how Pharaoh became this way; perhaps it was part of his upbringing,
perhaps a disposition he cultivated as part of wielding absolute power. From whence ever it came,
he was culpable for it, as we all are for our own actions, and hence Scripture says “he sinned yet
again, and hardened his heart” (Ex. 9:34). And thus he was justly punished.

Yet God’s providence has ordered all things. It was part of God’s eternal plan that things should
happen as they did, and God’s foreknowledge took into account the culpable stubbornness of
Pharaoh, incorporating it into His providence. Because it was positively the will of God that things
unfold as they did, it is very true that God caused Pharaoh’s heart to harden. All things that happen
are willed by God either permissively or positively, but everything that happens is within the scope
of God’s providence. Hence the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is both a culpable act freely
undertaken by Pharaoh as well as something attributable to the providence of God. Both God’s will
and the free will of Pharaoh come together.

This is actually readily understandable when we reflect on how God’s providence unfolds in our
own lives. We all have had pivotal moments – occasions where the courses of our lives take an
important turn. In those moments, we discern the providence of God opening up our eyes, putting
the right people in our path, or leading us in a different direction. And yet, when we think back on
those moments, we know that all our actions unfolded as free choices; we are conscious of no
restraint or compulsion whatsoever. They were true exercises of human freedom. Free will and
divine providence move together in a kind of dance, where both sides move together in a manner
consistent with their natures – the divine ordering things omnisciently, the human acting freely.

Thus the problem with the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is reconciled if we understand that
God’s providence and the free will both work together in bringing about all that is. This is a
profound mystery; indeed, because it touches on the very omniscience of God, it is beyond our
ability to comprehend. But it is not irrational. It goes beyond our reason, but does not go against
it. And it is certainly not a contradiction.

Notes

1. STh, I, Q. 22 art. 1

2. Fr. Reginald Garrigou–Lagrange O.P., Providence (Rockford, Ill: TAN Books and Publishers, 1998), 160–161

Chapter 3: Homosexuality, Shellfish, and the
Law

The cultural acceptance of homosexuality presents an immense challenge to contemporary
Christianity. The debate is excessively broad; questions of law, morality, tradition, culture, and
scriptural exegesis all overlap. Volumes of books can – and have – been penned on this issue.

This article deals with only one small corner of this debate, but an important corner, because
it is a very common point of contention and often confounds well–meaning but otherwise
unprepared Christians attempting to defend the traditional Christian condemnation of homosexual
behavior.

It often happens that a supporter of homosexual so–called marriage, when confronted with the
many biblical injunctions against homosexuality in the Old Testament, will respond by saying
something like, “Well, the Old Testament says we ought not to eat shellfish and we still do that. You
can’t pick and choose which passages from the Old Testament you are going to obey.”

The argument has many variations, but the crux of it is that an argument that some activity is
prohibited in the Bible is answered by pointing out other prohibitions in the Bible that are no longer
observed by Christians. The purpose is to weaken the Christian’s faith in the authority of the biblical
prohibition of homosexuality. It also implies that Christianity is selective in how the Scriptures are
interpreted, that what is and is not a binding prohibition is conditioned by culture. This is at the
heart of the shellfish argument.

The shellfish argument seems strong, but only to those who do not understand the relationship
between the Old and New Testaments. Unfortunately, persons without this biblical grounding can
be taken in by the shellfish argument; it is frequently trumpeted by pro–homosexual Christians as
an argument in favor of a broader tolerance of homosexual activity within Christianity.

A perfect example of how this argument is utilized is furnished by Protestant musician Jennifer
Knapp, who despite claiming to be a practicing Christian, is also an active lesbian in a same–sex
relationship. In an interview about reconciling her homosexual activities with Scripture, Knapp
brings up the Old Testament prohibition against shellfish. She says:

The Bible has literally saved my life. I find myself between a rock and a hard place ––
between the conservative evangelical who uses what most people refer to as the ‘clobber
verses’ to refer to this loving [same–sex] relationship as an abomination, while they’re
eating shellfish and wearing clothes of five different fabrics, and various other Scriptures
we could argue about.1

Notice that when shellfish is brought up in the context of a discussion of Old Testament
condemnations of homosexual behavior, the implication is that Christian opponents of same–sex
marriage are hypocrites; the Old Testament prohibits homosexual activity, but it also prohibits
eating pork and shellfish; yet we eat pork and shellfish while condemning homosexuality.
Therefore, we are being hypocritical. If Old Testament prohibitions against eating shellfish can be
discarded by modern Christians, so can Old Testament prohibitions against homosexual activity,
infers Knapp.

The argument is weak on several fronts. For one thing, though it seemingly explains away Old
Testament passages on homosexuality, it does not tell us what to do about the New Testament
condemnations of homosexual behavior, much less the many negative statements from the early
Church Fathers. It would also be interesting to see how the homosexual advocate responds to
critiques of homosexuality by Jews and Muslims, both of whom condemn homosexuality and refuse
to eat pork and shellfish based on Old Testament prohibitions.

But the real stupidity of the shellfish argument from a Catholic perspective is in its failure to
distinguish between the moral law and the ceremonial law, which is an interpretive key that is
fundamental to understanding the Old Testament. The shellfish argument only makes sense as long
as the distinction is not understood; once it is, the coherence of the argument collapses entirely.

The Old Testament is full of laws. The rabbis say there are 613 of them, to be precise. Some of
these laws are very general and apply to morality and human relations as such. Others are of a
ceremonial nature and have to do with the requirements of the Levitical law of Old Testament
Judaism. The former are called the moral law, the latter the ceremonial or “Levitical” law.

The moral laws are binding on all men everywhere and at all times without exception. Some
examples of the moral laws are “Thou shalt have no other gods besides me”, “Honor thy mother and
father”, and “Do not hate your brother in your heart.” The ceremonial or Levitical laws, on the other
hand, are binding only on Old Testament Israelites and pertain to the nature of Old Testament
worship and discipline. Examples of Levitical laws are “Do not cook a kid in its mother’s milk”, “Do
not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material”, and “Make tassels on the four corners of the
cloak you wear.”2

In the Mosaic Law, the moral and ceremonial laws are often commingled. The core of the
Mosaic Law is moral, but the morality at the core of the Law is surrounded by the ceremonial laws.
Thus, not every law in the Old Testament is of equal weight or value. Some pertain to human nature
and morality as such, while others are specific to ancient Israelite worship and discipline and as
such are merely provisional or temporary. It is thus reckless exegesis to assign equal value to every
command in the Old Testament.

What is the Christian to do with these laws in the New Testament dispensation? The answer of
course is that some of them have passed away, some remain in observance – though having been
“transfigured” or “elevated” by Christ. Since the moral laws have as their subject human nature as
such, they are not abolished with the coming of the Lord and the inauguration of the New
Covenant; in fact, they are elevated and perfected. Our Lord demands stricter adherence to the
moral law in the New Covenant than in the Old: “You have heard that it was said to them of old:
Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after
her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27–28).

The ceremonial laws, on the other hand, have as their subject the worshiper of the Old Covenant
(i.e., pre–Christian Israelites), not human nature as such. Because these laws are directed towards
Old Testament Israelites in particular, they necessarily pass away with the ending of the Old
Covenant. These laws are transitory by their very nature and reflect the temporary character of the
Old Covenant itself. Thus, when the Old Covenant passes away after the coming of Christ, these
ceremonial laws no longer have a purpose and hence are no longer binding on Christians. This was
the approach the Apostles took at the Council of Jerusalem when they judged that Gentiles did not
have to observe circumcision or Jewish dietary law because the coming of Christ and the inclusion
of the Gentiles had rendered them obsolete.4

The Old Testament prohibition against eating pork and shellfish is another example. Since this
prohibition pertained to the ceremonial law, Christians have always been considered free from
these observing the dietary aspects of the Mosaic Law. This is why St. Paul says “Let no man
therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of a festival day, or of the new moon, or of the
sabbaths” (Col. 2:16) and why our Lord teaches “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a
man: but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man” (Matt. 15:11). This is why Christians
have always eaten pork and shellfish with a clean conscience, despite the Old Testament
prohibitions. It has always been understood that these prohibitions lost their force with the passing
away of the Old Covenant.

The crux of the whole issue is whether the Old Testament prohibitions of homosexual actions
belong to the moral or the ceremonial law. Because sexuality has to do with the basic nature of man,
and because of the moral dimension of all sexual actions, the Old Testament prohibitions of
homosexuality have always been included in the moral law. Thus, they are applicable at all times
and places and will never pass away. This is why there is really no contradiction or hypocrisy in
Christians condemning homosexuality while gleefully eating shellfish and pork. Homosexual acts
are always wrong, under every circumstance. This is why the Catechism of the Catholic Church
says:

Tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered. They are
contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed
from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be
approved.5

The Church Fathers understood the issue this way as well, which is why their writings are replete
with unequivocal condemnations of homosexual actions, all while affirming that Christians are not
bound by Levitical laws regarding dietary restrictions and other ceremonial obligations.

Note the Catechism reference to Tradition. Some Old Testament scholars have argued that this
division of Old Testament laws into moral and ceremonial/Levitical is arbitrary and imposed from
outside the text, since the Old Testament itself does not give any indication which laws are
ceremonial and which laws are moral. This is not entirely true; if we accept New Testament data,
there is quite a bit to help us sort the laws out. But by and large, it is Catholic Tradition that offers
the definitive clarification on these questions. This is why we cannot throw out tradition and expect
to maintain the Christian faith in its integrity. Tradition is necessary to rightly interpret the
Scriptures.

In short, the prohibition against shellfish belongs to the ceremonial law, which is no longer
binding on Christians, whilst prohibitions on homosexual acts belong to the moral law and are
always binding.

Notes

1.http://www.content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2010/04/christian–singer–jennifer–knapp–comes–out–in–interviews–with–christianity–today–advocatecom/1#.UiPas1J6–Is

2. Ex. 34:26, Lev. 19:19, Deut. 22:12

3. Matt. 5:27–28

4. See Acts 15

5. CCC 2357

Chapter 4: Marrying a Brother’s Wife

When King Henry VIII of England attempted to divorce Catherine of Aragon so he could marry
Anne Boleyn, he centered his argument for annulment on a certain passage from Leviticus. This
passage carried great weight for Henry because it seemed to prohibit a man from marrying his
brother’s wife, and Catherine was widow to Henry’s elder brother, Arthur, who had died
prematurely in 1502.

Theologians who examined the question cited a passage from Deuteronomy which appeared to
contradict King Henry’s interpretation of Leviticus, as it seemed to grant a man permission to wed
his brother’s widow. Here is another case in the Scriptures where two verses – if read without the
context of the rest of Scripture and with a Modernist mindset against biblical authority – seem to
contradict each other but can be happily resolved by a brief look at other relevant passages and
historical precedent of interpretation and application.

First let us examine Leviticus 20:21, the passage that meant so much to Henry VIII:

If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness,
they shall be childless.

This verse specifically forbids a man taking the wife of his brother. One reason Henry was fond of
this verse was that he and Catherine of Aragon had been unable to raise up a male heir, which
Henry attributed to the curse of childlessness mentioned in the passage. Henry argued this passage
was so straightforward that his case should be simple to adjudicate.

But it was more complex than that, for in Deuteronomy 25:5, we have the Law of Moses actually
commanding what it apparently forbade previously:

If brothers dwell together and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead shall
not be remarried outside of the family to a stranger; her husband’s brother shall go into her,
and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her.

Here is the apparent contradiction. Leviticus flatly forbids a man from marrying his brother’s wife.
But in Deuteronomy the marriage of a man to his brother’s widow is considered a duty imposed
upon him by God, called the “Levirate marriage” (from levir, meaning ‘brother–in–law’). Can these
two verses be resolved without asserting that Scripture forbids and commands the same thing?

Debate on these passages pre–dates the Henry VIII case; argument on the question goes back
to the beginning of the Church. These two verses are quite interesting because, unlike other issues
of apparent biblical contradictions that are more on the level of the theoretical, the interpretation
and application of these verses has passed concretely into canon law in how the Church looks at
certain types of marriages. It has very practical consequences. Let us look at some hypotheses posed
over the years on how to reconcile these verses, many of them used in the famous Henry VIII
divorce case.

First, perhaps Leviticus is meant to be taken literally but Deuteronomy is spiritual? St.
Augustine once argued against the Manichean Faustus that Deuteronomy ought to be interpreted
as instructing preachers of the Gospel to raise up “seed” (new converts) for their dead brother,
Christ. 1

St. Augustine’s argument suffers from several defects. First, it fails to reconcile the two verses;
instead it just explains one away as a spiritual admonition.

Second, any solution which proposes to simply choose one as literal and the other as spiritual
possesses a very arbitrary quality: couldn’t one make an equal argument for the literal
interpretation of Deuteronomy over Leviticus?

Third, any use of a spiritual interpretation must be built first upon a literal foundation. Many
Scriptures certainly have allegorical interpretations, but one can’t just say there is no literal
interpretation underlying the allegorical (unless it is clearly allegory, which it isn’t – the passage
from Deuteronomy falls in the same sections in which the Ten Commandments are spoken, hardly
a place to insist on allegory!)

Fourth, St. Augustine does not himself believe the allegorical hypothesis given above. If one
reads the entire text of Contra Faustum, we see that Augustine is not denying a literal application
of Deuteronomy, but rather is citing this allegory as an example of how the Old Testament still has
relevance to the New. That he believed in the historical reality of Levirate marriage and its justness
is indisputable from his work On the Harmony of the Gospels, where he cites Levirate marriage as
the reason for the discrepancies in the genealogies of Christ in St. Luke and St. Matthew.2
Therefore, we cannot propose the allegorical view, nor cite St. Augustine as a proponent.

We have shelved the idea that one is literal and one is allegorical. But maybe the solution is
easier; perhaps Leviticus simply forbids intercourse with a brother’s wife while the brother was still
living, thus leaving freedom for a younger brother to marry the widow of a deceased brother who
had died without issue.

The appeal of this argument is in its simplicity, and it too has had its supporters throughout
history, Alexander of Hales and St. Albert the Great being the most notable. But its simplicity is also
its weakness. If this is all the passages mean, then they are redundant. To say you can’t have
intercourse with your brother’s wife while he is still alive is to merely condemn adultery, and
adultery is condemned already in many other places, rendering the specific prohibition of Leviticus
superfluous.

Another argument might be that Leviticus forbids a man from marrying a woman whom his
brother had put away, say for adultery, but did not impinge on his duty to marry a dead brother’s
wife, thus fulfilling Deuteronomy. However, this interpretation seems to limit the text much too
narrowly. It also draws a lot out of the text that is not warranted; i.e., Leviticus mentions nothing
about whether or not the brother had put his wife away; it simply forbids another brother to marry
her.

The best resolution for these two verses – the one adopted by St. Augustine and also St. John
Fisher in the Henry VIII case (but also Ambrose, Chrysostom and Aquinas) – was that Leviticus was
to be interpreted maximally as forbidding a man to marry his brother’s wife under any
circumstances (whether she was a widow or not) with one exception: if that brother had died
without issue. This interpretation has the benefit of being true to the context of each passage and
does not rob Leviticus of its binding nature but gives full room for a man to fulfill the obligation of
Deuteronomy. Thus, Deuteronomy can be seen as the one exception to the general rule laid out in
Leviticus.

But if marrying a brother’s wife is always bad, how does it suddenly become good just because
the brother had died without heir? St. Robert Bellarmine agreed that a union between brother and
sister–in–law was base, but that the good that would come out of the marriage outweighed the
baseness of the union. The Levirate marriage, which would have otherwise been forbidden, was
made “honest” by the good that was expected to come from it.3

This interpretation is also borne out by Scripture: Judah commands his sons to perform the
Levirate duty with regard to Tamar, widow of his eldest son Er, not once but twice (Gen. 35). In the
Book of Ruth, Boaz has to perform an elaborate ceremony against a relative who has refused to
perform her Levirate duty in order to obtain legal permission to wed Ruth, a more distant
kinswoman.

Furthermore, and most importantly, the above interpretation of the Levirate obligation has
been used since the time of St. Augustine to explain the divergent genealogies of Christ in St.
Matthew and St. Luke.4 This would make St. Joseph the biological son of Jacob, who had married
the widow of Heli in order to raise up seed for him – and thus Joseph is called both the son of Heli
(by Levirate) and son of Jacob (biologically). One certainly cannot dismiss the Levirate obligation
when it was practiced even within the holy family. We will have more on this in Chapter 11.

We are left with a resolution to the two apparently contradictory verses which is exegetically
sound, upheld by other Scriptures, as well as historical precedent (for this principle passed into the
canon law of the Church) and gives adequate literal application to both the Levitical prohibition
against marriage to a brother’s wife and the Deuteronomic verse that allows for an exception if the
brother has died without issue. Another nail in the coffin of those who say the Scripture contradicts
itself.

Notes

1. St. Augustine, Contra Faustum 32:10

2. St. Augustine, On the Harmony of the Gospels, 2:3

3. St. Robert Bellarmine, De Matrimonio

4. St. Augustine, Retractions II.7

Chapter 5: God’s Jealousy

In a statement that has subsequently become famous for its ignorance, Oprah Winfrey once spoke
on her Baptist upbringing and how it came to pass that she lost her faith in Christianity, ultimately
rejecting the faith of her upbringing in favor of New Age mysticism. She related about ten years ago:

I was raised a Baptist and we were too hung up on traditional ways. I was sitting in church
and heard that God is a jealous God. I asked ‘Why?’ Come on–let’s get over it!1

What Oprah eventually concluded was that a loving God could not possibly be jealous, since
jealousy is a purely human affection – and a particularly petty one at that. Therefore God could not
be a jealous God, as the Bible states. The god Oprah eventually settled on is a god that does not care
what people think about him; he is aloof and all–embracing, inspiring not awe and reverence but
merely a passing yawn. He is certainly not jealous by any stretch.

It certainly cannot be denied that God calls Himself “jealous” in the Old Testament. This is
found right in the Decalogue. The prohibitions against idol worship in the first commandment are
concluded with the statement, “I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous” (Ex. 20:5). What is this
jealousy that God attributes to Himself and which Oprah thinks so little of?

Let’s begin by looking at this verse quoted above in Exodus 20:5, “I am the Lord thy God,
mighty, jealous.” (Latin: Ego sum Dominus Deus tuus fortis zelotes). Notice two things here: first
that the original word from the Latin Vulgate is zelotes, the same word that is used in the New
Testament to describe one of the Apostles, Simon the Zealot. This is where the English translation
of the word as “jealous” comes from. It demonstrates a connection between the ideas of “jealousy”
and “zeal” in the Scriptures; the connection is both semantic and etymological, as we will
demonstrate.

Second, notice that the designation of God as “jealous” follows immediately upon the warnings
against idolatry, suggesting that God wishes us to understand this attribute of His nature
specifically against the backdrop of the sin of idolatry.

Regarding the first point – the connection between “jealousy” and “zeal” – we need to first
understand that both of these words come from the same source, the Latin word zelus, which itself
comes from the Greek zelos. Zelos can sometimes means jealously in the negative sense, but it can
also mean emulation, rivalry or zeal. It is quite interesting that this one root can have two opposing
derivations, that there can be a positive and a negative aspect of jealousy. We can be jealous of or
jealous for; to be jealous of means to envy something we do not have; to be jealous for means to
desire to retain something good one already has, as we shall see.

On the great etymology resource Etymology Online we find this interesting comment on
Indo–European word origins for “envy” and “jealousy”:

Most of the words for ‘envy’ ... had from the outset a hostile force, based on ‘look at’ (with
malice), ‘not love,’ etc. Conversely, most of those which became distinctive terms for
‘jealousy’ were originally used also in a good sense, ‘zeal, emulation.’2

Of course, we know as a theological truth that God cannot be “jealous” in the petty, human way;
God cannot be envious of some positive good that He somehow lacks. But the Scriptures do clearly
speak of God as jealous, and there is no difficulty with this if we understand God’s “jealously” more
in keeping with the root word than with the common English usage, that is, as “zeal.” This is the
type of zeal expressed by our Lord when He drove the money changers from the Temple, of which
the Scriptures said, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”3 See how God is said to be
zealous/jealous “for” something? His zeal is for His house.

Very well, so we can say that if God is jealous, it is not in the petty human way that we mean
when we use the word in the context of malice or envy, but rather more in the context of zeal. So
we have a God whose jealousy is understood in terms of zeal “for” us. What does this mean exactly?
For this answer, we need to go back to our second point: that the designation of God as “jealous”
follows immediately upon the warnings against idolatry.

We established above that jealousy “for” something consists in a desire to retain a good
already possessed. This type of jealousy flows from the possession of a true good and a consequent
desire to see that good preserved. This desire for the well–being of the good puts one in conflict
with anything that detracts from the goodness of the object/person, or which could deprive the
lover of the object loved. The Scriptures use this phrase to describe the affections of a man for his
wife when there is a suspicion of real (or imaginary) adultery, that is, when he feels he has “lost”
his beloved to someone else:

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes
astray and is unfaithful to him by sleeping with another man, and this is hidden from her
husband and her impurity is undetected [since there is no witness against her and she has
not been caught in the act], and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he
suspects his wife and she is impure–or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is
not impure– then he is to take his wife to the priest (Num. 5:11–15: ).

Knowing that the Lord’s covenant with His people is spoken of in marital terms, and that idolatry
is spiritual adultery (see Hosea 1:2), we should not be surprised then if this language about God
being “jealous” is used in connection with the worship of idols and false gods. This is in fact the case
all throughout Scripture, beginning in the Decalogue with the first commandment and continuing
on throughout the whole of the Old Testament. Consider the following verses, noting the connection
between jealousy and idolatry:

Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (Ex.
34:14).

Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you; do not
make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden. For
the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God (Deut. 4:23–24)

Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who
is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you
from the face of the land. Do not test the LORD your God as you did at Massah (Deut.
6:14–16).

Deut. 32:16–17: They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their
detestable idols. They sacrificed to demons, which are not God – gods they had not known,
gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear.

Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a
jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the LORD and
serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he
has been good to you” (Jos. 24:19–20).

Like their fathers they were disloyal and faithless, as unreliable as a faulty bow. They
angered him with their high places; they aroused his jealousy with their idols. When God
heard them, he was very angry; he rejected Israel completely (Psalm 78:57–59).

I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he
was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. He stretched
out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up
between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance
to the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood. And
there before me was the glory of the God of Israel, as in the vision I had seen in the plain
(Ezk. 8:2–4).

An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite. The LORD
is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The
LORD takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies...The LORD
has given a command concerning you, Nineveh : “You will have no descendants to bear your
name. I will destroy the carved images and cast idols that are in the temple of your gods. I
will prepare your grave, for you are vile” (Nah. 1:1–2, 14)

The message here is undeniable: we can only understand the jealously of God for His people against
the existence of competing loyalties that distract us from God and drive us from Him – in Israel’s
case, literal false gods. God is passionately intent on possessing us and on not sharing us with other
gods or rival loyalties. This is to be understood in the same way that a husband or wife is “jealous”
of their spouse, insofar as they desire his/her highest good, are privy to a special, exclusive
relationship with one another, and expect this exclusivity to be respected and honored by virtue of
marital fidelity.

Is there anyone out there so foolish as to say that a man’s jealousy to the exclusive marital
relationship with his wife against other competitors is the same as the petty, vain jealousy of, say,
a man who covets his neighbor’s new car? The latter seeks through envy to possess something
lacking; the former seeks through charity to preserve a good from corruption or loss. It is in this
second sense that we must understand God’s jealousy: jealous zeal for His people, due to His great
love, which is in hostility towards anything that would take us from Him, knowing that our true and
highest good lies in communion with our Creator. This is the divine zeal with which God pursues
souls.

Does Oprah care? Not really. Her confused statement over God’s “jealousy” is really no reason
to disbelieve in God; it’s a simple misunderstanding, a stumbling block, a block which she uses to
justify her desire to seek not that which is true but that which is gratifying to the flesh. Her
statement reflects not an argument against a Christian God, nor even a real doubt; just a difficulty
– one that could have been cleared up with ten minutes of study.

Well, even if we doubt Oprah Winfrey will read this and repent, perhaps it will help someone
else who has been deluded by Oprah’s poison to see just a little more clearly.

Notes

1.http://www.wfial.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=artNewAge.article_1

2. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=jealous&searchmode=none

3. Ps. 68:9, John 2:17

Chapter 6: Genocide in Joshua

If one takes the time to read the work of the modern atheists like Richard Dawkins, one will find
that a recurring assault on the veracity of Christianity comes in the form of attacks on the fierce
warfare presented to us in the Old Testament Book of Joshua. The alleged contradiction between
Christianity’s God of love and the war God of the Old Testament is in fact one of the most oft–cited
difficulties people have with the Old Testament. We will thus spend considerable time addressing
this question.

In Joshua we are presented with what is legitimately one of the greatest apparent obstacles to
the affirmation of an All–Loving God in the Scriptures. There we find God not only permitting evil
to be done but in fact positively commanding genocidal warfare as part of His Divine Plan. Since
we are obviously not going to take Dawkins’ position that this somehow implies God cannot exist,
nor are we going to adopt the Modernist route of denying the inspiration of this book, let’s see if we
can’t find a satisfactory solution to this apparent difficulty.

First, let’s look at the argument, as presented by Dawkins. Here’s one of Dawkins’ main points
against the Christian conceptions of God:

The God of the Old Testament is a sheer monster. Anyone who denies that simply hasn’t
read the Old Testament. In chapter two of [my] book, I describe him as ‘a petty, unjust,
unforgiving control–freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic,
homophobic, racist, genocidal, capriciously malevolent bully.’ I defy anybody to disagree
with any of those epithets...For example, in the book of Joshua, the story of the children of
Israel taking over the Promised Land has one genocide after another. Tribe after tribe are
wiped out with great gore, blood and glee with direct orders from God. ‘Thou shalt not kill’
really means ‘Thou shalt not kill another Jew’.1

Right out of the gate we can reply to Dawkins that the question of God’s goodness is different from
the question of His existence. The fact (for the sake of argument) that God comes off as a “sheer
monster” is irrelevant as to whether He exists or not. It could just be that we are in reality stuck
with a “sheer monster” for a God, as in Islam, where the rule of God is completely arbitrary and
God’s will is grounded in His unbounded power (“because I said so”) not in His goodness. So, if God
really does come off as a monster in the Old Testament, then we’d have to ask ourselves if this
sufficiently disproves God’s existence, or if it was rather a case of disbelieving what we did not like
to hear about.

At any rate, it is interesting that the ancients, despite being mired in paganism, were more
rational about this than Dawkins. They fully acknowledged within their pantheons the existence of
“evil” or capricious gods whom one would not want to have anything to do with. Yet they never
disbelieved in Kali or Hades or any of the other “unpleasant” gods and goddesses: they simply tried
to placate and avoid them. The point is that – regardless of whether or not any god really exists –
most people throughout history, even the pagans, understood the morality of the gods as a distinct
issue from their existence.

But we should not be satisfied with this answer alone, because we are not content to admit that
God is a sheer monster, for we know Him to be a God of infinite goodness, love and mercy.
Therefore, let us cast Dawkins aside and look at the text of Joshua itself and see how to approach
this problem.

Genocidal warfare was not uncommon in the ancient world, nor in the Bible. Its biblical origin
comes from Leviticus 27:28–29, in which the concept of things or persons “devoted” to the Lord
is treated:

But nothing that a man owns and devotes to the LORD –whether man or animal or family
land—may be sold or redeemed; everything so devoted is most holy to the LORD. No person
devoted to destruction may be ransomed; he must be put to death.

This “devotion” is often referred to as the “ban”, signified by the Hebrew word herem. This was a
practice of devoting something entirely to God by utterly destroying it; this, for example, was the
idea behind giving an animal sacrifice to God by slaying it, burning portions of it and consuming
it.

Observance of the destruction of devoted objects was an obligation. Furthermore, failure
to observe herem when it was commanded brought curses upon Israel:

But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own
destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to
destruction and bring trouble on it (Jos. 6:18).

What the subject of the ban was exactly could vary. But in the Book of Deuteronomy, the nations
of the Canaanites are specifically put under this ban by the Lord Himself:

When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives
out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites,
Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you– and when the LORD
your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must
destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Do not
intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for
your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the
LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. This is what you are to do
to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles
and burn their idols in the fire. For you are a people holy to the LORD your God (Deut.
7:1–6).

To these verses critics make several weak arguments. First, some assert that this was not truly God’s
command but was written into Deuteronomy well after the fact to justify the genocide against the
Canaanites committed by the Israelites. This view is preferred by those who adopt the Documentary
Hypothesis, which we alluded to in chapter 1.

This explanation cannot be held because it denies the divine inspiration of Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy 7:1–6 are the words of God Himself, and it should be further pointed out that they
occur in the same discourse in which God gives the Ten Commandments through Moses a second
time – therefore we ought to tread carefully with this passage before suggesting it is some kind of
editorial redaction!

Furthermore, the idea of some Middle Eastern tribe in the second millennium before Christ
having such reluctance about genocide that they felt panged by their conscience to insert some
divine justification of it into the Sacred Books is absurd. It is a classic case of ‘Presentism’,
projecting the mindset and scruples of the present back into the peoples of the past. People in that
place and time had no scruples about genocidal warfare and would have carried it out with or
without a decree from God. No army or nation “felt” guilty about genocide in the second
millennium BC, making any sort of after–the–fact redaction a non sequitur. Let’s not project our
guilt–ridden, delicate 21st century politically correct consciences onto a warrior–tribe of the 15th
century before Christ.

Another modern argument against this passage is that God did not command the genocide, but
merely tolerated it. In this view, God commands the removal of the Canaanites and it is Joshua who
takes it upon himself to interpret that as killing. Thus, they would argue, God can be vindicated
since He did not actually command the slayings.

It is true that God frequently tolerates evils He does not command. Men have free will, which
of course includes the potential to do evil. But that is not what we are dealing with here, as we shall
see.

First, it is simply not true. God does command the herem warfare in Deuteronomy 7, explicitly
and positively. Thus this argument must turn into the assertion that this portion of Deuteronomy
is not really inspired, which is not tenable.

But let us put that aside for a moment and look at the issue we raised above of God allowing
something that He does not actively command. A great example of this is polygamy, which God
tolerated because of the “hardness of their hearts”, similar to His toleration of divorce (cf. Matt.
19:8); in other words, it was tolerated in light of the imperfect stage of moral development of the
Israelites at that time. God permitted polygamy but never commanded nor ordained it. And as soon
as God thought the moral development of mankind was sufficiently advanced, He no longer allowed
it. Hence polygamy has always been forbidden since the coming of Christ.

But that is not what we have with the genocide commanded in Deuteronomy. To appeal to this
principle is not a valid argument in this case, because again it fails to take into account that the
destruction of the Canaanites (unlike polygamy) is positively ordained by God, not only in
Deuteronomy 7 but in Joshua 6:17 as well.

Furthermore, God shows that He positively willed this by extolling punishment on Israel for not
utterly wiping out the nations in the Book of Judges:

When Israel became strong, they pressed the Canaanites into forced labor but never drove
them out completely… [Then] the angel of the LORD went up from Gilgal to Bokim and
said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land that I swore to give to your
forefathers. I said, ‘I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall not make a
covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.’ Yet you have
disobeyed me. Why have you done this? Now therefore I tell you that I will not drive them
out before you; they will be thorns in your sides and their gods will be a snare to you”
(Judges 1:28, 2:1–5).

If God did not positively decree the extermination of the Canaanites, how could he punish the
Israelites for not carrying out the decree? Nobody was ever punished for not entering into
polygamous marriage. The genocide of Joshua is a case of God definitively commanding something,
not permissively allowing it.

Finally we must make the moral point that if God commands the ends He also must will the
means. Suppose the critics are right and God simply said, “Get rid of the Canaanites and take their
land,” and it was Joshua who assumed that God meant killing them – if so, we have to ask the
following question: What else was Joshua supposed to think? It is akin to saying the mafia boss is
not guilty of commanding murder just because he said to “get rid” of a certain person without
actually commanding a killing. In the 14th century BC in Palestine, what other conclusion was
Joshua supposed to come to when God tells him to destroy the nations, dispossess them, and take
their land?

Even if we grant Joshua could have had such a misunderstanding, God would still be the cause
of the killings, because God gave the command to dispossess them. He would be guilty of failing to
specify to Joshua how this was to be done; furthermore, we don’t see God stepping in to stop
Joshua saying, “Wait! I didn’t mean kill them!”

But this is all a moot point, because we cannot get around the one fact that God actively
commanded not just the removal but the killing of the Canaanites. Remember Deuteronomy 7:1–6:
“When the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you
must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.” If “show them no
mercy” means anything other than “kill them”, then we still have to judge God guilty of being the
worst communicator in history.

No, there is no way around the fact that God commanded genocide. So other than trying to use
Modernist legerdemain to get rid of problematic verses, let’s actually look at what occurs in Joshua,
admit it was God’s command, and see where we can go from there.

But let us look closer at the relationship between ends and means. We stated above that if God
wills the end, He must will the means as well. Could this not lead to the moral justification of all
sorts of barbarity as God’s will?

For example, let us take the inexcusable firebombing of Dresden, Germany on February 13–15,
1945, in which 25,000 Germans, the vast majority innocent civilians, were killed by American and
British bombers. Now, one could make the argument that the Nazis were evil, and that it could be
inferred that God clearly willed the stopping of the Nazi regime. However, if God clearly “willed”
the stopping of the Nazi war machine, then He also “willed” the horrific carpet–bombing of
defenseless civilians in Germany as a deliberate act of mass terror as a “means” to accelerate the
achievement of his primary objective. If He willed the end (stopping the Nazis), He must have also
willed the means (the horrific bombing of Dresden). If this were true, we could drum up moral
justification for almost any evil act if it could be somehow connected to a praiseworthy end.

Let us qualify our principle in two respects: first, when God wills something and wills the means
to that end, if human beings are the agents of His will then the means obviously must be in accord
with what is Good and True. So if God says, “Go and fetch a donkey for yourself,” we have to admit
that the very fact that God commands it is implying that you can’t steal the donkey, but must obtain
it through licit means.

But second, we must note that this principle applies only with reference to things that we know
for a fact that God has positively willed (i.e., things He has spoken about in Scripture). While we
might be able to reasonably affirm that God probably directly willed the defeat of Nazi Germany,
it is not something on the same level as the commands He explicitly gives in the Sacred Scriptures.
In Joshua, He wills the destruction of the Canaanites and specifically explains what means He
expects to be used. With something like World War II or other historical events, we have only
conjecture. We thus have to be careful about presuming to know what God wills outside of Divine
Revelation.

That being said, we now come to our real conundrum with Joshua: God explicitly commanding
not just the removal but the killing of the Canaanites down to the last person. That’s the issue with
this text – God apparently commanding an end and evil means to attain it. We have already swept
aside the argument that God did not really command it or that the Jews could have misinterpreted
it (both of which end up denying the inspiration of Deuteronomy). This leaves us with only two
possible alternatives: either God really is a sheer monster, as Richard Dawkins claimed, or else He
is justified in commanding the slaughter of the Canaanites, and the Israelites who participated in
the slaughter are not to be held guilty on account of their participation.

Let’s review some of the texts from Joshua that pertain to this. We already mentioned Joshua
6 regarding Jericho. In Joshua 10 there is a chronicle of seven cities taken and destroyed by Joshua.
It reads pretty much the same for every city with only the names changing:

Then Joshua and all Israel with him passed on from Makkedah to Libnah and fought
against Libnah. And the LORD gave it also and its king into the hand of Israel. And he
struck it with the edge of the sword, and every person in it; he left none remaining in it. And
he did to its kings he had done to the king of Jericho. And Joshua passed on from Libnah,
and all Israel with him, and came to Lachish... (Joshua 10:29–31).

Then the Scriptures sum up the conquest of the seven cities in chapter 10:40:

So Joshua struck the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the
slopes, and all their kings. He left none remaining, but devoted to destruction all that
breathed, just as the LORD God of Israel commanded.

Another synopsis which is even more explicit, indeed almost startling in its frankness, comes in
chapter 11:12–20:

And all the cities of those kings, and all their kings, Joshua captured, and struck them with
the edge of the sword, devoting them to destruction, just as Moses the servant of the LORD
had commanded...every man they struck with the edge of the sword until they had
destroyed them, and they did not leave any who breathed. Just as the LORD had
commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did. He left
nothing undone of all that the LORD had commanded Moses...For it was the LORD’s doing
to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they
should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the
LORD commanded Moses.

This is interesting: the Latin here from the Vulgate for destroyed is perirent, which simply means
to be destroyed. The RSV uses the politically incorrect word “exterminated.” God definitely was
commanding the killing of the Canaanites, and no argument that claims that the Israelites
misunderstood God could possibly hold water if we are to preserve inspiration. For many people
this becomes a squeamish topic because there is way too much emotional connection between this
idea of herem warfare in the Old Testament and actual atrocities committed in more recent times,
sometimes by persons claiming to act on God’s behalf. Modern sloppy thinkers immediately recall
the Crusades, but historically the English Puritan attitude towards the Native Americans was much
closer to the Israelite/Canaanite paradigm than anything we saw in the Crusades. The Puritans were
wont to view themselves in Old Testament terms and saw themselves as dispossessing a new
Canaanite from the American Promised Land.

Thus we have to strenuously declare that the example of warfare found in Joshua is not to be
taken as any kind of normative prototype for Christian warfare. Too many people are afraid that
if we somehow justify the conduct of Joshua it will only be a small leap to justifying similar conduct
by ourselves. This is a source of considerable opposition to any vindication of Joshua or Israel here.

Fear not! As with many other situations in the Old Testament, we have to recognize that ancient
Israel was a kind of “special case” because of their direct access to the will of God, and that we are
in no way attempting to make a connection between Israel’s slaughter of the Canaanites and any
type of Christian warfare.

Now we come to the crux of this issue: what we ultimately need to keep in mind when looking
at the Canaanite genocide is that God is the ultimate authority over human life and can take it in
any way He chooses. Consider a few things. First, God wiped every man, woman and child off the
planet in the Great Flood save those in the Ark – but most of the time, we do not question God on
this point because it is more clearly understood that it was God’s prerogative to punish for sin if He
chose.

The same is the case with Sodom and Gomorrah, in which there was a total overthrow. We
seldom hear people saying, “How can a loving God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah?” Again, it is
somehow more clearly understood that it is within God’s sovereignty to do what He wills and to
punish whom He wills.

St. Paul takes up this issue of God’s sovereign right to do what He pleases with the lives of men
in Romans chapter 9:

What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy
on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does
not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the Scripture says
to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and
that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he
wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden...who are you, O man, to
talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, “Why did you make me
like this?” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some
pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God, choosing to show his
wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his
wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known
to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also
called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? (Rom. 9:14–18, 20–24)

God has power over all lives and can terminate them how He wants – and in the end, doesn’t He
terminate every single life? Maybe we do not die in war, but we all die. Most of us recognize this fact
when it comes to the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. God can take us out any way He chooses.

This is easily understood. The thing that is so disturbing about the stories of Joshua is not that
God takes human lives, but that He chooses other human beings as His agents of wrath. But this
is not unique in the Scriptures, either. Here is an example from Isaiah, in which God says He will
use the Assyrians as a “rod” with which to chasten Israel:

Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger; the staff in their hands is my fury! Against a godless nation
I send him, and against the people of my wrath I command him, to take spoil and seize
plunder, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets (Isa. 10:5–6).

One further example comes from Jeremiah. This time it is the Medes who are being wielded
against the Babylonians:

Sharpen the arrows! Take up the shields! The LORD has stirred up the spirit of the kings
of the Medes, because his purpose concerning Babylon is to destroy it, for that is the
vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance for his temple. You are my hammer and weapon of
war: with you I break nations in pieces; with you I destroy kingdoms; with you I break in
pieces the horse and his rider; with you I break in pieces the chariot and the charioteer; with
you I break in pieces man and woman; with you I break in pieces the old man and the youth;
with you I break in pieces the young man and the young woman; with you I break in pieces
the shepherd and his flock; with you I break in pieces the farmer and his team; with you I
break in pieces governors and commanders. I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of
Chaldea before your very eyes for all the evil that they have done in Zion, declares the LORD
(Jer. 51:11, 20–23).

While the warfare mentioned above is not herem warfare, it demonstrates the concept that just
as God can use natural forces to chasten peoples, sometimes He also makes use of other nations to
be His “hammer and weapon of war.” This is exactly what God did with Joshua with regards to the
Canaanites.

This brings up the question of why the Canaanites had to be destroyed. This is given for us in
two places in Scripture: Genesis and Deuteronomy. In both cases, their destruction is attributed
to their manifold sins, the same reason humanity was destroyed by the Flood and why Sodom and
Gomorrah were overthrown. The first reference to the “iniquity of the Amorites” comes in a
prophecy of God given to Abraham in Genesis 15:

Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in
a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred
years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come
out with great possessions...and they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the
iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete” (Gen. 15:13–14, 16).

Here God tells Abraham that the Israelites will come into their own land only when the “iniquity
of the Amorites” is complete; in other words, when they have sinned so much that there remains
no hope for them, only judgment. This is made clearer in Deuteronomy 9, where God reveals to
Joshua the reason for the extermination of the Amorites:

Hear, O Israel: you are to cross over the Jordan today, to go in to dispossess nations greater
and mightier than yourselves, cities great and fortified up to heaven, a people great and
tall...Do not say in your heart, after the LORD your God has thrust them out before you, ‘It
is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,’
whereas it is because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is driving them out
before you. Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you
going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD
your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the
LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Know, therefore, that the
LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness,
for you are a stubborn people (Deut. 9:1, 4–6).

Here we have it on authority of God Himself that the displacement is to occur because of the
wickedness of the Amorites, which they had apparently been building up since the days of
Abraham. Another interesting point is how God repeats to the Israelites three times that they are
not possessing the land because of their righteousness, but rather because of the wickedness of
those they are dispossessing.

Understood thus, the genocide of Joshua is really only another biblical case of God wiping out
a nation or people because of their sins (like Sodom) and using another nation as His instrument
to do this (like Assyria to Israel, or Media to Babylon). Really, there is nothing new here. Unless we
are prepared to ask why God didn’t spare the babies when He flooded the world or destroyed
Sodom, we ought not to raise a similar argument here, for His power over life is complete: “See ye
that I alone am, and there is no other God besides me: I will kill and I will make to live: I will strike,
and I will heal, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand” (Deut. 23:29).

But while we can accept the idea of God meting out this sort of punishment, we might be
tempted to ask if it isn’t overkill? If the Amorites were heaping up judgment for four centuries since
Abraham, is it right for God to punish with death those living in Joshua’s time, only one generation,
one fragment of the people who made up the sum total of the Amorites since the time of Abraham?
Is it right for God to judge a person for somebody else’s sin, one generation for the sins of another?

We do know from the Scriptures that besides our own particular judgment, there is a sort of
social or communal judgment, in which whole communities or nations are judged collectively or
generationally. In the Gospel Jesus speaks of whole cities being judged:

Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had
been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and
ashes. But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you (Luke
10:13–14).

He also shows that entire generations can be condemned for their faith or unbelief:

As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous
sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah was a sign to the
Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. The Queen of the South will rise
at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the
ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here.
The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for
they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here (Luke
10:29–32).

But especially pertinent to the question of whether God will punish a generation or a people for
deeds committed by its forebears are our Lord’s words when pronouncing the woes against the
Pharisees:

Woe unto you! For ye build the sepulchers of the prophets, and your fathers killed them.
Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers: for they indeed killed them,
and ye build their sepulchers. Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them
prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute: That the blood of
all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this
generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias which perished between the
altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation (Luke
11:47–52).

Jesus’ teaching is very plain. If we are questioning if God can punish one generation of Amorites
for four hundred years of sins, what are we to make of Jesus’ statement that one generation of Jews
shall be punished for all the blood of the prophets “shed from the foundation of the world?”

So far we have established that God does punish a single generation for years of sins. But what
does this punishment imply? What it does not necessarily imply is the eternal destiny of the
individuals involved. Just because God wipes out a people does not mean they all go to hell. Insofar
as a person’s individual standing before God is concerned, then we ought not to see these
judgments as any sort of condemnation regarding to eternal punishment due to sin. That is a
personal matter between the person and God. But insofar as that person is part of a social group,
nation or generation that God happens to be executing judgment on, then their death is seen as a
judgment not on them personally but on the wicked generation.

We also have to keep in mind that it might have been God’s mercy towards some of the
“innocent” Canaanites and Amorites. We all know the perversity of Canaanite culture: rampant
temple prostitution, homosexuality, and child sacrifice to Moloch, among all the other perversions
common to paganism. What would have been the fate of those little ones had they grown up into
mature adulthood? St. Thomas Aquinas is helpful here in addressing the question of in what way
it can be said that the son is punished for his father’s sins:

The sins of the fathers are said to be punished in their children, because the latter are the
more prone to sin through being brought up amid their parents’ crimes, both by becoming
accustomed to them, and by imitating their parents’ example, conforming to their authority
as it were. Moreover they deserve heavier punishment if, seeing the punishment of their
parents, they fail to mend their ways (STh I–II:87:8).

Remember Sodom? God said He would spare it if Abram could find but ten righteous persons in
the city, but Abram was unable to find even that. This idea about the destruction of the innocent
Amorite children perhaps being a mercy of God brings us to an element of Catholic social teaching
that tends to get neglected due to the emphasis on the right to life: the manner and time in which
we exit our lives on this earth are not the final end nor of ultimate importance to our destiny.
Sometimes God snuffing out a life when it is young is merciful if He knows it will fall into mortal
sin when it reaches adulthood. Is this not the ideal behind the prayer, “Lord, let me die rather than
commit a mortal sin?”

This argument has taken us on several asides; let us recap a bit before moving on. We can
vindicate God of any wrongdoing in the genocide of the Amorites in these respects: first, that He
is the ultimate Lord over all human life and can dispose of it as He pleases. We understand this to
be the case if He uses a flood, brimstone from heaven, earthquake or some other natural means, but
it is equally as true if He decides to use other humans. Second, it is common for God to use other
nations as the instruments for judging a wicked people or generation. Third, that God does indeed
judge persons collectively by their membership in a particular group. Fourth, that sometimes the
judgment of these wicked peoples is brought down in a single generation to account for centuries
of sins. Fifth, though many may die in these judgments, we ought not to see any one person’s death
as indicative of their personal eternal destiny. Sixth, ultimately the manner in which we leave this
earth is not of supreme importance: God ultimately wipes out not only the Amorites, but also every
single human person since everyone dies.

There is only one thing left to consider: how can the Israelites who did the killing have
participated in the slaughter of babies, elderly and women and not be guilty of sin?

Let us now examine the moral culpability of those involved in the slaughter of the Israelite
conquest. We do not put forward our opinion as the only allowable one on the issue, but we do
think it is reasonable as it preserves the goodness of God, the inspiration of Deuteronomy, the
reality of the Canaanite genocide and the justification of the Israelites who faithfully obeyed God’s
commands. For those who have accepted the simple biblical reality that God did indeed command
the genocide, we come to a serious dilemma, which we can phrase thus:

I. It is always wrong to kill an innocent human person.

II. God commands the killing of innocent human persons.

III. Therefore, either God commands what is evil and is not therefore good, or else the
killing of innocent persons is not evil, which we know to be false.

If killing innocent people is sinful, how can God command what is sinful? Furthermore, this puts
the persons involved in a terrible dilemma: if they obey God, are they guilty of the mortal sin of
murder? But if they disobey God, do they incur the wrath of God for disobedience? What exactly
is the culpability of those involved in carrying out God’s decree of destruction against the
Canaanites?

To begin, we have to step back and look at why killing is wrong. Murder is clearly prohibited by
the fifth commandment. But why is murder wrong? Because it is the taking of a human life. But
what is it about the taking of a human life that makes it sinful? God takes human life all the time.
He sends or allows car accidents, heart attacks, sometimes smites people, in the Old and New
Testaments, has some devoured by wild beasts or taken in plane crashes, all of which He either
permits or directly causes – and He does directly kill people at times, as He plainly tells the
Israelites in Exodus where He warns against taking advantage of the widow and the orphan: “My
anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword” (Ex. 22:24).

Scripture seems to say that the prerogative of taking a life belongs to God alone: “See ye that I
alone am, and there is no other God besides me: I kill and I make to live: I will strike, and I will heal,
and there is none that can deliver out of my hand” (Deut. 32:39). God’s absolute prerogative of
taking human life is all worked out through the principle of secondary causes working within Divine
Providence.

But this verse from Deuteronomy 32 brings us to the point of why killing is wrong: since God
kills, we have to infer that killing a person is only wrong when done by another person. The reason
killing is so heinous is because only God knows when a man’s allotted time on earth is over and can
cut the thread of life. If anybody other than God presumes to take life, they take unto themselves
the power of God.

This is not to minimize the true human tragedy of losing an irreplaceable person to death, which
always entails depriving the world of a life which is unique and irreplaceable. However,
fundamentally, if we see murder within the context of the Old Testament and God’s relation to His
people, it is primarily a property issue. Humanity and human life are God’s alone to give and take,
and when we assume the right to do so on our own, we are robbing God of His prerogative. Even
worse, we are acting as though we were God, not only knowing good and evil as the serpent
promised, but deciding when to give and take life.

So then it is always wrong to take life because we never know when a person’s time is up and
we cannot take upon ourselves the role of God in deciding these matters. But what if God Himself
says authoritatively that a person’s time is up and orders you to take their life as His instrument?

Of course, it is presumed that we all understand that in accordance with Divine Revelation God
would never tell anybody this now – I am referring this question solely to the Old Testament
dispensation. We are confining this discussion to only those few instances recorded in the Sacred
Scriptures. Therefore no one should infer we mean to say that anybody who believes God told them
to kill somebody has an obligation to do so.

At any rate, we would have to admit that knowing what we know about why killing is wrong,
these factors become a non–issue if God is commanding the killing. I can’t kill because the power
to kill belongs to God alone. But if God says, “I, the Lord over life and death, command you to take
such–and–such a life and give you my authority to do so”, it is a very different story. God alone
knows when a person’s time is up; this is not something any man can decide. But God says, “Their
iniquity is complete and the time for their destruction is at hand.” Therefore, the very factors that
make murder a culpable sin are negated when God commands the killing and invests someone with
His authority to carry it out.

Two examples to give weight to this point: We understand that a private individual cannot kill
another person (save in self–defense), and that even if a criminal were found guilty of a serious
crime and merited the death penalty, still a private individual could not execute this penalty upon
the wrongdoer. Just because somebody is guilty doesn’t mean one can just kill them. However, God
has delegated the power to take life to the state, as sanctioned in Romans 13. Therefore, this is one
situation where God says, “I give you power and authority to take human life” (provided it meets
certain criteria, of course). And Catholics all understand and accept this, even if there are
disagreements about what constitutes sufficient criteria.

Another example is the sacrifice of Isaac. Murder is always wrong, but human sacrifice is
positively deplorable. And yet God commands Abraham to commit human sacrifice, and Abraham
instantly obeys, even though it is precisely because of human sacrifice that the Canaanites are being
reserved for judgment! Of course, Isaac was not actually killed, but Abraham had no idea that God
would intervene and he intended to go through with the action to its completion. And the Scriptures
even commend Abraham for his faith in doing this. The lesson of this is that when God commands
something it is to be obeyed: it is a matter of authority. God commanding something directly is of
a different order than receiving a merely human command – not because good and evil as
categories do not apply to God, but because we have absolute confidence that what God commands
is always good, and hence obedience to these commands is considered faith. If one reads Judges
and the last portions of Joshua, one can see that the Israelites are actually chastised by God for not
taking the genocide far enough.

Now we must be extremely careful here: we are absolutely not saying that God is not good, or
that He is arbitrary. We are not suggesting that God can command what is wrong; rather, that what
God commands is always right, even if it is genocide. But the only reason God can command
genocide and it be right is because He alone has the authority to dispose of life as He wills and He
alone knows the appointed time for each person’s death. Therefore, it falls within His rights to
order genocide if He wants and we must regard the obedience of the Israelites to this not as sin but
as obedience to God – an obedience which is meritorious and which the failure of (as we see in
Judges, for example) is blameworthy.

Murder is always a sin, but murder consists of man killing another man of his own will. God
commanding the death of somebody else cannot be said to be murder in the strict sense. We must
conclude that theologically speaking, the Israelites are not committing the sin of murder in the
proper sense when they kill the Canaanites. They are killing, but killing with God’s sanction, which
He can give if and when He wills.

This is a truth that modern ears have difficulty accepting. Ultimately, though, no other
explanation will suffice. If God said it, it must be accomplished in obedience and we can have faith
(the implicit faith of Abraham as he raised the knife over Isaac) that what God commands is always
right because He commands it., for He is good and cannot positively command what is evil.

Notes

1.http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/interviews/article.html?in_article_id=52341&in_page_id=11

Chapter 7: The Suicide of Samson

One of the challenges in reading the Old Testament is reconciling the behavior of some Old
Testament characters with the moral imperatives of the natural law as revealed in the New
Testament. Classic examples of this problem are the polygamy of the Old Testament patriarchs or
the slavery Solomon imposes upon the conquered peoples of his kingdom. In our last chapter we
spent considerable time examining the genocide of the Canaanites depicted in the Book of Joshua.

There are various explanations to these problems. Usually these types of quandaries can be
resolved by appealing to the imperfect moral development of the Israelite people and the
incomplete nature of God’s revelation to them. We could also call to mind the fact that the Bible
does not approve everything that it reports. Sometimes, as in the case of Joshua’s genocide, we just
have to work through several underlying theological issues to get to the root of the question (e.g.,
does God have sovereignty over human life or does He not?).

Another one of these problems is the suicide of Samson, which is undoubtedly portrayed in a
glorious light in the Old Testament Book of Judges. How can this be the case when, according to
natural law and the Church’s perennial teaching, suicide is always wrong?

First, it is necessary to recall that, since suicide is condemned absolutely as against the natural
law, this means that it is now and always was wrong, whether in the Old Testament or the New. It
is not in the same category with, say, polygamy, which was tolerated in the Old but later prohibited
in the New. Suicide is and always has been immoral. Given that, how then can we square this
teaching with the obvious fact that Samson’s suicide is portrayed as a noble action in the Old
Testament?

There are only eight suicides explicitly mentioned in the Bible:

•    Abimelech, son of Gideon, orders his servant to thrust him through with a sword when he
realizes he is mortally wounded (Judges 9:50–57). This is indirect, but we will count it as
a suicide because Abimelech deliberately chooses to terminate his own life.

•    The suicide of King Saul, narrated in 1 Samuel 31 and 2 Samuel 1.

•    The suicide of Saul’s armor–bearer in 1 Samuel 31.

•    The suicide of Ahithopel in 2 Samuel 17:23. Ahitophel, an adviser of Absalom, kills himself
after he sees that Absalom has not followed his advice.

•    King Zimri, in 1 Kings 16:18, kills himself by setting his house on fire and letting it burn with
himself inside.

•    The suicide of Samson in Judges 16:4–31.

•    The suicide of Razis, in 2 Macc. 14:37–46, which we examine in Chapter 10

•    The suicide of Judas, depicted in Matthew 27:3–10.

Samson and Razis are the only ones of these who are righteous; Samson even appears by name
in Hebrews 11 as an example of faithfulness. Therefore, among the suicides of the Bible Samson and
Razis are the only ones we really have to develop an apologetic for because they are the only ones
who are depicted as heroes. The other six suicides were of wicked men whose suicide was part of
their very wickedness (Saul, Judas) or acts of despair or pride (armor–bearer, Abimelech,
Ahithopel, Zimri). Not so with Samson. In Samson’s case we have a man whose life was marred by
many faults but who redeems himself, appearing most heroic in the very act of terminating his own
life while taking his foes with him.

The problem with Samson’s suicide can be easily resolved if we note that Samson’s suicide is
different from all the others depicted in the Bible. In the cases of Abimelech, Saul, Judas and the
others, the primary intention of each agent in their suicide is the ending of their own life. In
Samson’s case, we can easily see that his primary motivation in pulling down the Temple of Dagon
was not to end his own life but to destroy his Philistine opponents. This is evident in his prayer:

But he called upon the Lord, saying: “O Lord God, remember me, and restore to me now my
former strength, O my God, that I may revenge myself on my enemies, and for the loss of
my two eyes I may take one revenge.” And laying hold on both the pillars on which the
house rested, and holding the one with his right hand, and the other with his left, he said:
“Let me die with the Philistines.” And when he had strongly shook the pillars, the house fell
upon all the princes, and the rest of the multitude that was there: and he killed many more
at his death, than he had killed before in his life (Jud. 16:28–30).

Though Samson knows that his action will bring about his own death, he is not acting primarily to
end his own life. His motivation is the destruction of the Philistine leadership; he sees his death as
a secondary effect of this destruction. Therefore, the principle of double–effect comes into play
here; namely, that it is permissible to cause harm as a side–effect (or “double–effect”) of bringing
about a good result, even though it would not be permissible to cause such harm as a primary
means to bringing about the same good end.

For example, it is always wrong to kill innocent people. Yet, in war (presumably a just one), a
bomber may attack an enemy military installation knowing that there may be innocent people
within (reporters, civilian personnel, etc). Yet, his primary intention in attacking the enemy
position is not to kill innocent non–combatants, but to disable or destroy the enemy fortifications.
If he could do so without killing any non–combatants who might be within, he would do so. The
bombing is justified because the potential death of non–combat personnel is not willed as the
primary end of the attack but only tolerated as an unavoidable and undesirable secondary effect.

Were the pilot of the bomber attacking specifically to kill non–combatants, however, or if he
willed the death of non–combatants as a positive good, the situation would be different. The crux
of the matter is whether the evil act (killing of non–combatants) is the primary end of the attack,
or merely a tolerated secondary–effect.

St. Thomas Aquinas formulates the principle in his discussion on self–defense in the Secunda
Secundae Partis of the Summa:

Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while
the other is beside the intention. Now moral acts take their species according to what is
intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental as
explained above (43, 3; I–II, 12, 1). Accordingly the act of self–defense may have two effects,
one is the saving of one’s life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor” (II–II, Q. 64, art. 7).

This principle would come into effect in Samson’s case. His primary intention is the destruction
of the Philistine leadership, which would cripple his enemies and ensure the safety of the Israelites.
He only tolerates his own death as necessarily proceeding from the act of destroying the Philistines.
Thus, the killing of himself is willed indirectly and is not suicide in the proper sense.

In the Douay–Rheims footnote to this episode, written by Bishop Richard Challoner
(1749–1752), we read the following gloss, which also emphasizes the indirect nature of Samson’s
death and reminds us that this was an act inspired by God and a typification of Christ’s own death:

Samson did not sin on this occasion, though he was indirectly the cause of his own death.
Because he was moved to what he did, by a particular inspiration of God, who also
concurred with him by a miracle, in restoring his strength upon the spot, in consequence
of his prayer. Samson, by dying in this manner, was a figure of Christ, who by his death
overcame all his enemies.

We could think of other moral actions in comparison to this: A soldier who jumps on a grenade to
save a comrade – this would not be suicide because his primary end is to save his comrade, not kill
himself, though he recognizes the act will undoubtedly result in his own death. Or a fireman who
rushes into the Twin Towers on 9–11 knowing he may die but that his death will allow others to live.

It ought to be noted that this principle would not apply to so–called suicide bombers or
kamikaze style military attacks. A fundamental principle of double–effect is that the evil act is
tolerated as an unavoidable consequent of the primary action; the agent would avoid the evil act
if he could. In a suicide bombing or a kamikaze attack, the evil of self–destruction is not merely
tolerated as an unavoidable evil that the agent would avoid if he could, but is in fact the primary
means by which the end of the act is attained. It is intimately bound up with the act itself. It thus
is no longer an effect but a means, and a primary means at that. In our above example about a
military bomber, it is the difference between a pilot tolerating the unfortunate potential death of
a non–combatant as a secondary effect and a pilot intentionally killing non–combatants as a means
of his attack.

In all this we can clearly deduce that Samson’s death is not suicide in the strict sense. Yes, he
knows that his action will bring about his own death, but he does not will this as the primary end
of his act. Thus his death should be seen more as an act of self–sacrifice rather than of suicide.

Chapter 8: Two Accounts of Saul’s Death

The Scriptures tell us that Israel’s first king, Saul, began his reign as a man of God but very quickly
turned aside from the Lord and became wicked. His disastrous reign ended with the death of
himself and his son Jonathan on Mount Gilboa in battle with the Philistines. There is considerable
confusion regarding what actually happened on the mountain that day.

The death of King Saul is narrated in two places, 1 Samuel 31:1–6, the story of the Battle of
Gilboa, and also in 2 Samuel 1:1–16, when David hears the battle narrated second hand from an
Amalekite who claims to have witnessed Saul’s death. In the first and probably most well–known
passage, Saul – upon seeing the battle against the Philistines going poorly and being wounded by
Philistine archers – falls upon his own sword and kills himself. In the second passage, however, an
Amalekite finds Saul wounded on the ground and Saul begs him to thrust a sword through him. The
Amalekite obliges and dispatches Saul upon the latter’s request. It seems we have a cut and dry
instance of a biblical contradiction: 1 Samuel says Saul committed suicide but 2 Samuel says he was
slain in a mercy–killing by an Amalekite.

Before looking at these passages and attempting to reconcile them, let us remind ourselves of
a few points: First, as we have noted in the introduction, a contradiction occurs when two
statements are in relation to each other in such a way that if one is true, the other must be false;
they cannot both be true at the same time. “All men have beards” and “some men do not have
beards” are contradictory statements. If all men have beards, then it cannot be true that some men
do not have them; similarly, if it is true that some men do not have beards, then it cannot be true
that all men have them. The truth of one necessitates the falsity of the other. This means that the
essence of contradiction is that there is no way to reconcile the two statements. The truth of one
means the other is false and there is no other possibility or way around it. We have observed that
sometimes the word “contradiction” is applied too loosely in biblical scholarship to refer to
passages that are merely problematic or confusing. This is certainly one of those instances. But to
say the two accounts of Saul’s death are problematic is a far cry from saying there are contradictions
in the logical sense.

Second point: If the Scriptures are inspired by God, there can never be a true contradiction in
the logical sense. All saints and orthodox theologians affirm this. So there must always be a manner
of reconciling the two texts. Problematic texts, or confusing texts, can be reconciled with one
another if they are not truly contradictory. One could always object that an infallible and
all–knowing God ought not to give mankind revelations that are “problematic”, “difficult” or in
need of “reconciliation”, but now one is not objecting against alleged contradictions per se as much
as against the manner God has chosen to reveal, which is a tremendously arrogant statement and
one that cannot be answered at any rate, since human beings have no way to answer questions
relating to why God chose to create or act in one way and not another.

Now, let’s examine the texts in question. First, the famous account of Saul’s suicide from 2
Samuel 31:1–6:

And the Philistines fought against Israel, and the men of Israel fled from before the
Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. And the Philistines fell upon Saul, and
upon his sons, and they slew Jonathan, and Abinadab and Melchisua the sons of Saul. And
the whole weight of the battle was turned upon Saul: and the archers overtook him, and he
was grievously wounded by the archers. Then Saul said to his armor bearer: “Draw thy
sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come, and slay me, and mock at me.” And his
armor bearer would not: for he was struck with exceeding great fear. Then Saul took his
sword, and fell upon it. And when his armor bearer saw this, to wit, that Saul was dead, he
also fell upon his sword and died with him. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armor
bearer, and all his men that same day together.

We should take note of a few things. First, that Saul was grievously wounded by arrows. An arrow
wound in the ancient world was a terrible thing; most likely Saul was hit randomly, as most archers
in ancient armies fired random volleys, not unlike the famous English long bowmen of later ages.
It would be a very painful wound, probably not severe enough to kill him outright, but enough to
incapacitate him from the battle and kill him slowly by infection, if he were to escape the battle.

Yet, seeing the battle pressed hot around him with no chance of escape and his kin all slain, Saul
opts for death, but note that he does not at first try to kill himself. Rather, he begs his armor bearer
to run him through. It is only when the armor bearer refuses that Saul falls on his own sword in an
attempt to take his own life.

Now let’s look at the second account, from 2 Samuel. In this passage, David is king, and he is
anxiously waiting for some word about how the battle has gone, for he is very concerned for the
welfare of his companion Jonathan. Here is how the Scripture tells it:

Now it came to pass, after Saul was dead, that David returned from the slaughter of the
Amalekites, and abode two days in Ziklag. And on the third day, there appeared a man who
came out of Saul’s camp, with his garments rent, and dust strewed on his head: and when
he came to David, he fell upon his face, and adored. And David said to him: “From whence
comest thou?” And he said to him: “I am fled out of the camp of Israel.” And David said
unto him: “What is the matter that is come to pass? Tell me.” He said: “The people are fled
from the battle, and many of the people are fallen and dead: moreover Saul and Jonathan
his son are slain.” And David said to the young man that told him: “How knowest thou that
Saul and Jonathan his son are dead?” And the young man that told him, said: “I came by
chance upon Mount Gilboa, and Saul leaned upon his spear: and the chariots and horsemen
drew nigh unto him, and looking behind him, and seeing me, he called me. And I answered,
‘Here am I.’ And he said to me: ‘Who art thou?’ And I said to him: ‘I am an Amalekite.’ And
he said to me: ‘Stand over me, and kill me: for anguish is come upon me, and as yet my
whole life is in me.’ So standing over him, I killed him: for I knew that he could not live after
the fall: and I took the diadem that was on his head, and the bracelet that was on his arm
and have brought them hither to thee, my lord.” Then David took hold of his garments and
rent them, and likewise all the men that were with him. And they mourned, and wept, and
fasted until evening for Saul, and for Jonathan his son, and for the people of the Lord, and
for the house of Israel, because they were fallen by the sword (2 Samuel 1:1–12).

As in the first passage, Saul is presented as being wounded in the battle. Seeing no hope of recovery,
Saul asks the Amalekite to thrust him through, which the Amalekite does.

The pivotal question is this: Does the account in 2 Samuel contradict, in a logical sense, the
account in 1 Samuel? That is, if one is true, must the other be false?

The obvious answer is no. The account of 2 Samuel can be reconciled with that in 1 Samuel if
we presume that Saul’s attempt to kill himself in 1 Samuel was unsuccessful. This would mean that
when the Amalekite came upon him, not only was Saul wounded by arrows, but he had also tried
to fall on his sword and yet still had life in him.

From a common sense standpoint, this is very believable. It is a very difficult and challenging
thing to take one’s own life even in regular circumstances, let alone when laying on a battlefield
riddled with arrows. According to a report released by the American Association of Suicidology,
there are 25 attempts at suicide for every one success; in young people, the odds are actually close
to 200:1 that the suicide attempt fails^1. In a 2008 study done by the National Survey on Drug Use
and Health, it was reported that 1.1 million people actually attempted suicide in the United States
that year, but only just over 33,000 succeeded.2 And this is in the age of powerful firearms and
lethal drugs; what must have been the chance of success when one was relying on driving a sharp
piece of metal into one’s abdomen when already wounded and worn down from battle?

So, from the standpoint of common experience, rather than ask “What justification do you have
for presuming Saul’s attempt to fall on his sword failed?” we should ask rather, “Why should we
automatically presume it succeeded?” Statistically, Saul was way more likely to fail than to succeed.
Couple this with the fact that Saul failed at most other things he tried, and we do have a strong
circumstantial case that he totally biffed his attempt to fall on his sword and just ended up injuring
himself worse.

In addition to this, we can look at the textual evidence presented in 2 Samuel 1. Note that in 1
Samuel, Saul’s decision to kill himself is more motivated by despair that his sons have been killed
and he does not want to be mocked by the Philistines. Yet in 2 Samuel, his case is presented as more
desperate; he seems to want to die in order to end his pain, which would make sense if he had tried
unsuccessfully to stab himself. Look at his language to the Amalekite and the Amalekite’s response:

Stand over me, and kill me: for anguish is come upon me, and as yet my whole life is in me.
So standing over him, I killed him: for I knew that he could not live after the fall (2 Sam.
1:9).

Saul laments that he is in great pain and points out that his “whole life” is still in him. In other
words, he is in severe pain and can’t believe that he is still living after the wounds he has received.
The Amalekite clearly sees this and realizes that, though Saul is living, he cannot live long. Thus he
slays him. Compare this with Saul’s words in 2 Samuel 31:

Saul said to his armor bearer: “Draw thy sword, and kill me: lest these uncircumcised come,
and slay me, and mock at me” (1 Sam. 31:4).

This is quite a contrasting motivation! Here his concern is much different. Ultimately, what the
textual evidence reveals is that the nature of his wounds in 1 Samuel 31 and 2 Samuel 1 are different;
in the former, he is wounded but still viable; his decision to take his own life is motivated by fear
of being dishonored and knowledge that tactically speaking there is no escape. But in 2 Samuel he
is not only wounded but terribly wounded, such that his motivation for wishing for death is to end
his physical pain, for, as he says, “anguish is come upon me, and as yet my whole life is in me.” The
difference in the nature of these two statements only makes sense if his suicide attempt in 1 Samuel
31 did not kill him but only further wounded him, placing him in even greater pain, such that he
was willing to ask the first person who walked by to thrust him through and put him out of his
misery.

So then, here is how the death of Saul probably played out, reconciling 1 Sam. 31 and 2 Sam. 1:
While fighting on Mount Gilboa, Saul witnessed all his sons fall in battle around him. The battle
pressed hot, and Saul was struck by enemy arrows – maybe in the legs, maybe shoulders, who
knows. He was wounded in such a way that he was still alive and could have survived, but he saw
no tactical way to get out of the battle. Seeing this, and seeing his house destroyed, he asked his
armor bearer to kill him so he could save himself from being mocked and tormented by the
Philistines, as they had done to Samson. This would preserve his dignity. Yet the armor bearer
refused, and so Saul attempted to fall on his own sword. The armor bearer saw this and killed
himself as a consequence, apparently with better effect than Saul, because after falling on his sword,
the king realized that he had botched his suicide attempt and was now in even greater pain and in
even more danger of being taken alive. Not long after, the Amalekite wandered by and Saul begged
him to end his misery, seeing that despite all the wounds he had endured from the Philistines and
by his own hand, “my whole life is yet in me.” The Amalekite, seeing Saul riddled with arrows and
suffering terribly from the botched suicide attempt, knew it was futile to try to save him and thus
acceded to his request, thrusting him through and finally ending the king’s life.

Note that this explanation does not do any damage to the text, for it is not only in keeping with
what the Scriptures narrate but actually is the only explanation that really addresses the nuances
in Saul’s language satisfactorily. It also makes sense from an experiential viewpoint, since the
research supports that most suicide attempts are unsuccessful. Furthermore, this explanation is
the one that has traditionally been offered when scholars and theologians have attempted to explain
these passages. Thus we can certainly not say there is a contradiction here, since asserted one does
not make the other impossible. In fact, they are complementary and give us two pieces of the story
that fit together.

However, supposing one did not like this explanation, there is actually a second theory that
could easily reconcile these passages. The Amalekite could have been lying.

Scripture is absolutely inerrant in everything it affirms to be true. But the statements the
characters in Scripture say are not necessarily true. Sometimes Scripture records the lies of the
people it describes. This happens throughout the Bible, for example, in Gen. 31:33–35 and Acts
5:1–6, among many other examples. So Scripture may record the lie of a person. The lie is not
affirmed to be true, but the fact that the character told a lie is inerrantly true.

Scripture clearly affirms as a historical fact that Saul fell on his own sword in an attempted
suicide on Mount Gilboa in 1 Samuel 31. This must be true, because it is an assertion made in the
narrative of the Scripture itself. The tale of the Amalekite in 2 Samuel 1, however, is not in the
narrative of Scripture itself; rather, it comes from the mouth of another person, who may or may
not have been telling the truth. It certainly could have been the case that Saul’s attempt at killing
himself in 1 Samuel 31 was successful. After his death, the Amalekite wanders by and takes the
king’s diadem and armlet from Saul’s corpse, thinking to present them to David in hopes of getting
a reward. Hence he fabricates the story about the killing of Saul in the vain hope that David will
exalt him. In fact, David slays him for killing the Lord’s anointed (2 Sam. 1:15–16).

So we see that it is possible the Amalekite could have been lying. In this case, Scripture affirms
inerrantly that the Amalekite lied, preserving the inerrancy of the Bible as well as reconciling the
two accounts.

Thus we have two possible scenarios, depending on whether or not we believe Saul’s attempted
suicide in 1 Sam. 31 was successful. If it was not, then the Amalekite must have killed Saul in a
mercy killing; if it was successful, then it infers the Amalekite was lying about his part in Saul’s
death in hope of gaining a reward.

As in other cases we have examined, there is no real contradiction, and people who say
otherwise are simply not willing to exert the mental effort to examine the texts critically, nor
exercise the faith to presume that a satisfactory resolution actually exists.

Notes

1. USA suicide 2006 Official final data: JL McIntosh for the American Association of Suicidology 2009. Many figures
there taken from Reducing suicide: a national imperative, Goldsmith SK, Pellmar TC, Kleinman AM, Bunney WE, editors.

2. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2009). Results from the 2008 National Survey on
Drug Use and Health: National Findings (Office of Applied Studies, NSDUH Series H–36, HHS Publication No. SMA
09–4434).Rockville,MD. http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/2k9/165/Suicide.htm
andhttp://oas.samhsa.gov/nsduh/2k8nsduh/2k8Results.cfm.

Chapter 9: The Census of David

Our next apparent contradiction comes near the close of the reign of King David, when David
decides to conduct a census of the people of Israel. God is displeased with the census and punishes
David with a pestilence.

The census of David is recorded in two places: 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21:1–27. The
passages are quite lengthy; we will cite them in their entirety and then focus in on the differences.

First, 2 Samuel 24:1–15 records how God was angry with Israel and David’s census incurred His
wrath:

Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against
them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.” So the king said to Joab and the commanders
of the army, who were with him, “Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba,
and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.” But Joab said to the
king, “May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while
the eyes of my lord the king still see it; but why does my lord the king delight in this thing?”
But the king’s word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the army. So Joab and
the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to number the people
of Israel. They crossed the Jordan, and began from Aroer, and from the city that is in the
middle of the valley, toward Gad and on to Jazer. Then they came to Gilead, and to Kadesh
in the land of the Hittites; and they came to Dan, and from Dan they went around to Sidon,
and came to the fortress of Tyre and to all the cities of the Hivites and Canaanites; and they
went out to the Negeb of Judah at Beersheba. So when they had gone through all the land,
they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. And Joab gave the sum
of the numbering of the people to the king: in Israel there were eight hundred thousand
valiant men who drew the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand.

But David’s heart smote him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the
Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, I pray thee, take away
the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.” And when David arose in the
morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David’s seer, saying, “Go and say
to David, ‘Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you; choose one of them, that I may do
it to you.’” So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall three years of famine
come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue
you? Or shall there be three days’ pestilence in your land? Now consider, and decide what
answer I shall return to him who sent me.” Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress;
let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand
of man.” So the Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning until the appointed
time; and there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba seventy thousand men.

Now let us look at the same episode as recorded in 1 Chronicles 21:1–14:

Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel. So David said to Joab
and the commanders of the army, “Go, number Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, and bring
me a report, that I may know their number.” But Joab said, “May the Lord add to his people
a hundred times as many as they are! Are they not, my lord the king, all of them my lord’s
servants? Why then should my lord require this? Why should he bring guilt upon Israel?”
But the king’s word prevailed against Joab. So Joab departed and went throughout all
Israel, and came back to Jerusalem. And Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people
to David. In all Israel there were one million one hundred thousand men who drew the
sword, and in Judah four hundred and seventy thousand who drew the sword. But he did
not include Levi and Benjamin in the numbering, for the king’s command was abhorrent
to Joab.

But God was displeased with this thing, and he smote Israel. And David said to God, “I
have sinned greatly in that I have done this thing. But now, I pray thee, take away the
iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.” And the Lord spoke to Gad, David’s
seer, saying, “Go and say to David, ‘Thus says the Lord, three things I offer you; choose one
of them, that I may do it to you.’” So Gad came to David and said to him, “Thus says the
Lord, ‘Take which you will: either three years of famine; or three months of devastation by
your foes, while the sword of your enemies overtakes you; or else three days of the sword
of the Lord, pestilence upon the land, and the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all
the territory of Israel.’ Now decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.” Then
David said to Gad, “I am in great distress; let me fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy
is very great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.” So the Lord sent a pestilence upon
Israel; and there fell seventy thousand men of Israel.

The passages are very lengthy; in case the allegedly contradictory passages were not readily
apparent:

Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against
them (2 Samuel 24:1).

Satan stood up against Israel, and incited David to number Israel (1 Chr. 21:1).

As we can see, we have what appears to be a serious problem. What 2 Samuel 24 attributes to
the inspiration of God, 1 Chronicles 21 clearly attributes to the agency of Satan. If any two principles
are mutually contradictory, they are God and Satan. In what sense can these two passages possibly
be reconciled?

Before we begin, let us examine the reason why God was so angry about David’s census. Neither
2 Samuel nor 1 Chronicles give a rationale; however, they both seem to speak as if the sacred author
assumes the reader will understand why the census was wrong. In 2 Samuel 24:3, Joab protests
against the census without explaining his reasoning. It is as if Scripture assumes we will understand
the problem.

When this happens, it is often because we are missing something in plain sight. In this case, we
have to go back to Genesis, as well as to the Law of Moses, which lays down a basic code of conduct
that Israelite kings were expected to abide by.

Let us go all the way back to Genesis 15, where God appears to Abraham and tells him that he
will be a father of many nations. When he describes to Abraham how multitudinous his offspring
shall be, it says:

And God brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven and number the stars, if
you are able to number them.” Then he said, “So shall your descendants be” (Gen. 15:5).

The implicit answer is that they are innumerable; no one can count all the stars. They are
innumerable, and the Israelites will be just as innumerable.

This aspect of the Israelites being innumerable occurs many other places in Scripture. For
example, these passages which compare the multitudes of Israel to the sand of the sea:

I will do you good, and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be
numbered for multitude (Gen. 32:12).

For though your people Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant shall return (Is.
10:22).

Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, which can neither be
numbered nor measured (Hos. 1:10).

The original equation of the hosts of Israel with an innumerable multitude came from God to
Abraham in Genesis 15. That same passage says, “And [Abraham] believed the Lord; and he
reckoned to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6). Belief that God will make Israel an innumerable host
was intrinsic to Abraham’s faith; it was part of what he believed that caused him to find favor with
God.

This belief in the innumerability of the Israelite host passed into the broader faith of Israel, into
the prophets (as we have seen), and into the Law as well.

To acknowledge the innumerability of Israel was seen as an act of faith in God; their
innumerability was a fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. When the hosts of Israel were in a
state of unity, they are connected to the Lord their source and do not need added protection. When
they are counted as individuals, however, they become “separated.” Such was the rabbinical
tradition, at least. Thus innumerability becomes an exercise of trust in God’s providence.

But if the hosts of Israel were truly supposed to be considered innumerable, how then, could
they ever be counted in a census? Notice that when God gives the Law, He stipulates the manner
in which a census is to be taken:

The Lord said to Moses, “When you take a census of the people of Israel, then each shall give
a ransom for himself to the Lord when you number them, that there be no plague among
them when you number them. Each who is numbered in the census shall give this: half
shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary…half a shekel is an offering to the Lord.
Everyone who is numbered in the census, from twenty years old upward, shall give the
Lord’s offering…And you shall take the atonement money from the people of Israel, and
shall appoint it for the service of the tent of meeting: that it may bring the people of Israel
to remembrance before the Lord, so as to make atonement for yourselves” (Ex. 30:11–16).

Note that it is not the people who are counted directly; it is a sort of indirect census. A half shekel
is collected from every Israelite and taken to the sanctuary; it is the shekels that are counted, not
the people. Thus the number of Israelites becomes known, but out of reverence for God’s promise
to multiply Israel, they are not counted directly, thus remaining formally “innumerable.”

For what it is worth, the rabbinical tradition also notes that other episodes of counting in the
Old Testament were done indirectly, such as in 1 Sam. 11:8 and 15:4, where the numbering of men
was supposed to be done indirectly, such as by having each soldier contribute a shard of pottery and
then counting the pottery shards.

At any rate, there is a clear biblical precedent that Israelites are not supposed to be counted
directly, their innumerability being a sign of God’s fidelity. This is attested in the Jewish tradition
as well. It seems that David’s sin in taking a census was not that he wished to number his people,
but that he did not obey the prescriptions of the Law by counting them indirectly. This could be why
Joab protests in 2 Sam. 24: 3.

This is not the only interpretation, however. Some interpreters posit that it is the reason for
David’s census that is so offensive to God. The only reason, biblically, Israel would conduct a census
would be to number their men for war (cf. Num. 1:1–4). Thus David’s motive in numbering his
people might have been self–aggrandizement – marshaling troops for some kind of war of
conquest. This is certainly possible, but it seems unlikely, given that it was God Himself who told
David “the sword shall never depart from your house” (2. Sam 2:10). David had always been a man
of war, and it seems improbable that after a life time of war, God would suddenly, in David’s old
age, object to him marshaling an army.

There is always the possibility that David’s disposition was incorrect before God. Even if David
was conducting the census in accordance with Israelite custom and for the proper reason, his
disposition may have been one of pride, hence making it displeasing to God. This, too, is unlikely,
as when David announces his resolution to conduct a census, Joab immediately tries to dissuade
the king. This indicates it was something about the census itself that was problematic, not some
internal disposition that Joab would have no way of deducing.

Thus, let us suppose that the most likely reason the census was problematic was because David
was not carrying it out according to the prescriptions of the Mosaic Law.

Having examined the various theories as to why the census was offensive to God, we are now
in a position to examine the apparent contradiction between 2 Sam. 24 and 1 Chr. 21, the former
which attributes the census to God and the latter to Satan.

We know that God and Satan can both be present simultaneously in the circumstances of our
lives. In other words, there is not such a strict dualism in our circumstances that we can always say,
“Such–and–such came from God, but this came from Satan,” as if every occasion must be
attributed to one or the other. It often happens that God and Satan are both present in a single
circumstance.

A biblical example of this would be the sufferings of Job. The Book of Job records that God
willed to allow Job to be tested in his faith, and that the agency of this test was the destructive
action of Satan. Hence Job’s suffering could be attributed to both God and Satan. God’s decree was
the final cause, but Satan’s activity was the efficient cause.

A similar example is furnished by the crucifixion of our Lord. Scripture is very plain that it was
the will of God that Jesus go to the cross, but it is also true that the agency by which His death was
facilitated was the action of Satan (cf. Luke 22:3, John 13:27). Again, God was the ultimate architect
of the crucifixion, which was carried out in the manner He willed and for His ends, but Satan’s
activity through the actions of sinful men was the efficient cause.

This is helpful in examining the case of the census. Though 2 Sam. 24 and 1 Chr. 21 name God
and Satan as the cause of the census respectively, they both agree on one point: David was culpable
for the census. In other words, while the two books name different causes for the census, both teach
that God was displeased with it. “Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and He
incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah” (2 Sam. 24:1). The census
happened because “the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.”

Thus we see a situation similar to the one in Job. God willed to punish Israel, and he used the
devil’s action as the agency of His will. Thus, when 2 Samuel 24 says the Lord was angry and stirred
up David to conduct a census, the Scripture means that God willed to punish Israel. In His
providence, He had determined that the census was the means by which David would incur
punishment. The entire episode and all its consequences were part of God’s will. When 1 Chronicles
21 says that Satan stood up against Israel and incited David, it means that it was Satan who
immediately drew David’s will to conduct the census. Just like God willed to test Job and allowed
Satan to attack him as a means to that end, so God willed to punish Israel and allowed Satan to
tempt David as a means to that end.

It is a worthy thing to meditate on that the Lord and Satan can both be present in our
circumstances, although in different ways. While the devil may be the immediate agent of a fall or
mishap, all things happen within the larger context of God’s providence and to accomplish His
purposes.

Chapter 10: The Suicide of Razis

In Chapter 7 we examined the story of Samson and how Samson could be not considered a hero
of faith if he had committed the sin of suicide. Ultimately, we concluded – as have many
commentators over the centuries – Samson’s suicide was not a suicide in the proper sense because
his primary motive in pushing over the pillars was not to kill himself, but to destroy his enemies
and the Philistine temple. Per the principle of double–effect, he was willing to accept his own death
as an inevitable but unintended consequence of his actions.

We must now turn to the question of Razis in 2 Maccabees, which is a similar suicide story
but with a bit more complexity. Razis was a Jewish elder who committed suicide in order to escape
being captured by the Greek soldiers of Nicanor during the persecution of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
His gruesome death is recounted in 2 Maccabees 14. In the case of Razis, we are presented with a
greater difficulty because, unlike Samson, it is very hard to discern any principle of double–effect
at work. Let us look at the passage in detail from 2 Maccabees chapter 14:

A certain Razis, one of the elders of Jerusalem, was denounced to Nicanor as a patriot. A
man highly regarded, he was called a father of the Jews because of his goodwill toward
them. In the days before the revolt, he had been convicted of being a Jew, and had risked
body and soul in his ardent zeal for Judaism. Nicanor, to show his disdain for the Jews, sent
more than five hundred soldiers to arrest him. He thought that by arresting that man he
would deal the Jews a hard blow.

But when the troops, on the point of capturing the tower, were forcing the outer gate and
calling for fire to set the door ablaze, Razis, now caught on all sides, turned his sword
against himself, preferring to die nobly rather than fall into the hands of vile men and suffer
outrages unworthy of his noble birth. In the excitement of the struggle he failed to strike
exactly. So while the troops rushed in through the doors, he gallantly ran up to the top of
the wall and courageously threw himself down into the crowd. But as they quickly drew back
and left an opening, he fell into the middle of the empty space. Still breathing, and inflamed
with anger, he got up and ran through the crowd, with blood gushing from his frightful
wounds. Then, standing on a steep rock, as he lost the last of his blood, he tore out his
entrails and flung them with both hands into the crowd, calling upon the Lord of life and
of spirit to give these back to him again. Such was the manner of his death (2 Macc.
14:37–46).

So we clearly are dealing with a suicide here; there is no ambiguity that Razis clearly intends to take
his own life. As in the case of Samson, it appears to be affirmed as the morally appropriate course
of action. Unlike the case of Samson, Razis’ actions are apparently done solely for the purpose of
ending his own life. There is no distinct external end to his actions (such as destroying the Temple
of Dagon in the case of Samson). He is simply killing himself to avoid being shamed.

Some Bible commentators have noted this problem and tried to get around it. The NAB, for
example, amusingly calls Razis’ obvious suicide a “martyrdom.” If that were the case, it is a
completely novel definition of “martyrdom.” By that definition, St. Agnes could have just slit her
own wrists to avoid the impure intentions of her persecutors, or St. Cyprian could have taken
cyanide in his villa and both still be considered martyrs. The NAB footnote ultimately ends up
skirting the real issue.

Presuming we are working under the assumption that the moral law is universal and that it is
not acceptable to suggest that Scripture contradicts the Church’s moral teachings, it seems there
are three possible ways we can look at this passage:

1) The Bible merely reports Razis’ suicide without affirming it as morally acceptable.

2) The Bible affirms Razis’ suicide as morally acceptable, but in fact it is not.

3) The Bible affirms Razis’ suicide as morally acceptable, and in fact it is, because it is not
suicide in the proper sense.

Option 1 would have us take the position that the suicide of Razis is not actually being affirmed at
all; the Bible is merely reporting that it happened without making a judgment upon it. This is a
common interpretive principle when dealing with morality in Scripture, and sometimes it is sound.
For example, the Old Testament merely reports the existence of slavery and polygamy without ever
morally affirming them as positive institutions. If this principle applies in the case of Razis, we have
no difficulty. It is in the same category as the polygamy of Jacob or the slavery Solomon imposed
upon some of his subjects.

The problem with this position is that the text seems to actually affirm Razis; it says he acted
“nobly”, “courageously” and was “gallant.” The presence of these descriptors makes it difficult to
say that the Scriptures are not affirming Razis’ actions.

Of course, one could save this position by noting that while affirmative language is used, none
of it is used with reference to Razis’ suicide directly; rather, it is used with reference to the way he
runs, jumps, and refuses to allow himself to fall into the hands of his captors. While this might be
technically true, no language really allows for this sort of thing in practice. For example, can you
imagine describing how a bank robber “courageously” leaped out the window, “skillfully” ran down
the street from the police and “dexterously” handled his firearm? Even if these descriptors did not
apply to the act of the bank robbery itself, anyone reading such an account would naturally presume
the author was affirming the deeds of the robber. It would be difficult to suggest that the presence
of such affirmative language did not constitute an affirmation of the robbery itself. Therefore, if
affirmation, silence or condemnation are our only options, it seems that Option 1 is not tenable.

Option 2 would solve the difficulty by appealing to the differentiation between Jewish and
Christian thinking on the problem of suicide. The ancient Jews had a society in which shame was
a considerable disincentive to certain actions. Because of this, the ancient Jews viewed suicide as
a licit way to escape situations that were considered extraordinarily shameful. In this case, Razis
fears the shame that would follow if he were to “suffer outrages unworthy of his noble birth.”
Therefore, he prefers suicide. This was acceptable in Razis’ time, but today it would not be
acceptable. Christianity, in contrast to Judaism, fears sin much more than shame, and Christians
from the New Testament on have frequently allowed themselves to be shamed and debased by their
persecutors but would refuse to do anything that might lead them to sin. Therefore, we are dealing
with two different moral systems, and this explains the difficulty.

This is a very common solution to the problem of Razis’ suicide, but it assumes that there are
two distinct moral systems for the Old and New Testaments. While Catholic Teaching affirms that
the New Testament revelation is more complete than the Old, it is not permissible to posit that Old
and New Testament moralities may actually contradict one another. This is why Christ makes a
point to emphasize that while the Old Testament tolerated divorce, it was never affirmed as good
(cf. Matt. 19:8). It is one thing to say the New Testament completes the Old; it is another thing to
say it contradicts the Old. To say the suicide was noble in the Old Testament but a sin in the New
is a blatant contradiction. Jewish culture at the time of Christ may have viewed suicide as a noble
option, but Divine Revelation never has. Since Divine Revelation in the New Testament teaches
unambiguously the immorality of suicide, we must affirm this as true in the Old as well. Therefore,
we cannot seriously consider Option 2, since it presupposes that natural law can change from one
age to another. It is a Modernist solution to the problem.

In Option 3 we have the pretty straightforward solution that the reason Razis’ suicide is
presented positively is because it was a morally acceptable act. Like the “suicide” of Samson, Razis’
suicide was not suicide in the strict sense. If we invoke the principle of double–effect it would mean
no suicide actually happened.

The principle of double–effect is a moral concept from Catholic Tradition which states that it
is permissible to cause harm as a side–effect (or “double–effect”) of bringing about a good result
even though it would not be permissible to cause such harm as a primary means to bringing about
the same good end. Let us recall the passage from St. Thomas Aquinas cited in Chapter 7:

Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the
other is beside the intention. Now moral acts take their species according to what is
intended, and not according to what is beside the intention, since this is accidental as
explained above (43, 3; I–II, 12, 1). Accordingly the act of self–defense may have two effects,
one is the saving of one’s life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor (II–II, Q. 64, art. 7).

As mentioned in Chapter 7, Samson’s primary goal is to bring down the Temple of the Philistines
and defeat his enemies; he accepts his death as a predictable but unavoidable “double–effect” of
his primary act, similar to the way a soldier falls on a grenade to shelter a comrade. He knows the
action will cost him his life, but the purpose of the action is not to take his own life, but to save his
comrade.

Similarly, so one could argue, Razis did not fall on his sword, jump off a building, disembowel
himself and hurl his guts at his oppressors because he wanted to end his own life; rather, his
purpose was to avoid having to “suffer outrages unworthy of his noble birth.” Therefore, this act
was not suicide and hence does not present a problem.

This may be a bit of a stretch in the case of Razis. When the principle of double–effect is
invoked, there is a primary end that is intended and a secondary effect that is merely tolerated.
Typically, the primary end is something extrinsic to the agent. Samson’s primary end is the
destruction of the temple, which is something extrinsic to himself, as is the situation with the
soldier who falls on the grenade – the end goal of saving his comrade’s life is extrinsic to himself.

Why is this distinction important? If we allow that double–effect can be invoked if the primary
end is intrinsic to the agent, then almost anything becomes permissible. For example, consider all
the ways this could be twisted as applying to the question of suicide:

“His primary end was not to end his life, but to escape his mental suffering.”

“His primary end was not to end his life, but to get out of the punishment he was afraid of.”

“His primary end was not to end his life, but to spite his enemy.”

“His primary end was not to end his life, but to escape the pain brought on by his terminal
illness.”

“His primary end was not to end his life, but to end the boredom of his existence.”

“His primary end was not to end his life, but to get out of the heartache brought on by his unfaithful
lover.”

As we can see, everything becomes acceptable. Catholic Tradition has never accepted any of these
situations as valid applications of the principle of double–effect, for the simple reason that all of
them are intrinsic to the agent. To admit otherwise would be to deny the fundamental unity of
human action. When the primary end is intrinsic to the agent, the primary end and the tolerated
“double–effect” are too difficult to distinguish, especially when the primary end is supposed to be
morally desirable while the double–effect is not.

This is similar to the reason why, according to Aquinas, a man may not commit a sin whilst
simultaneously repenting of it; repentance must follow sin sequentially because a man might not
at the same time will evil while willing to repent of the evil he is committing.

There is also the matter of proportionality. The unintended consequence must not be out of
proportion to the primary end; a man may not blow up his city in order to destroy a single hornet’s
nest, nor may he take his head off in a wood chipper in order to give himself a hair–cut. In the
example of Razis, it is questionable whether it is proportional to commit suicide in order to avoid
being shamed in a manner not befitting one’s noble birth.

So none of the three options present above are acceptable. Have we been totally stumped here?
Fortunately, no. It seems there is an Option 4, and that the solution is found in the text itself, in
conjunction with an important caveat on the Church’s teaching on suicide: The Bible neither affirms
nor condemns Razis, but sympathizes with his plight; while not affirming the objective evil
(malum) of his suicide, it nevertheless acknowledges it was a very difficult position for any man to
be in and holds out the hope that Razis’ culpability (culpa) for this act may have been diminished
or even eliminated by virtue of the difficulty of his circumstances.

It has always been understood that nobody takes their own life unless something is gravely
wrong, either with themselves or in their circumstances. The Catechism states that certain
circumstances can mitigate the guilt of one who has committed suicide:

Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture
can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide (CCC 2282).

The Catechism mentions fear of suffering or torture as factors that can diminish responsibility. The
persecution of Antiochus IV Epiphanes chronicled in 2 Maccabees was exceptionally brutal; the
tortures inflicted on obstinate Jews were horrendous, as anyone who has ever read the text of 2
Maccabees 7 of the widow with her seven sons knows.

Because the persecution was so harsh and the tortures inflicted by the persecutors so horrible,
the sacred author goes beyond a mere cold recitation of the simple facts; he clearly sympathizes
with the plight of Razis, who through fear of what might be inflicted upon him, seems driven to a
course of action he never would have contemplated in normal circumstances. Because Razis was
so noble in character, the Scripture mentions his bravery, gallantry, etc. His suicide is recorded
neither affirmatively nor with condemnation, but as a tragedy in the life of a man who was put into
a moral dilemma no person should have to endure.

Can we say for certain that in this case the culpability for his suicide is wiped away? The
Scripture text stops short of explicitly affirming the moral acceptability of Razis’ suicide, as we have
seen above. There is no doubt, however, that Razis believes his actions are pleasing to God. This is
clear because it says that, after flinging away his entrails, he called upon God to return them to him
again at the Resurrection. Were he conscious of committing a grave sin, he would not have done
so. That is, he ends his life with a clear conscience, and the Scriptures seem to affirm that he was
a just man and that we can have hope for his salvation.

Therefore, the ultimate solution to the problem is that Razis provides us with an example of a
suicide where culpability may be diminished. If Samson is an example of the principle of
double–effect as relating to losing one’s own life, and Saul and Judas are examples of culpable
suicide, Razis is an example of a suicide which remains a malum but where the culpa is mitigated,
a hypothesis the Church has always acknowledged possible.

This is different from the double–effect hypothesis we looked at with Samson; in Samson’s case,
due to the principle of double–effect, there is no suicide in the formal sense. In Razis’ case, there
is a formal act of suicide, but the Scripture seems to hold out the possibility that Razis’ culpability
for this act was diminished due to his circumstances. This is also different from the “Scripture is
merely recording, not affirming” argument, because the Scriptures are in fact sympathizing with
Razis, though they stop short of affirming the act of suicide itself. Its affirmative language and
statements about the Resurrection give us grounds for hope; its silence on his act of death itself
leave the traditional condemnation of suicide intact.

One other thing to consider in why Razis’ suicide is not a suitable example of double–effect: In
the principle of double–effect, the double–effect must be tolerated but not positively willed. If we
apply double–effect to Razis, his death must be the unintended double–effect. Yet Razis goes so far
out of his way to terminate his own life that it is very hard to admit that his death is “unintended”
or “tolerated.”

An example: A classic case of the principle of double–effect is a naval commander attacking an
enemy ship during war time. When preparing to fire a torpedo at the enemy ship, he knows there
may be non–combatants on board. It is always possible. But he does not will to kill
non–combatants. He wills only to sink the enemy ship and tolerates that non–combatants may be
injured or killed. Yet he does not will their injury or death; it is unintended and merely tolerated.
So he orders the enemy ship torpedoed, willing only to destroy the ship and praying that there be
no unnecessary loss of life.

So far, so good. This is a classic example of double–effect at work. But suppose after the ship
is torpedoed, the commander takes some men and goes out to survey the damage. There are many
survivors floating in the water. Suppose whenever that commander comes across any survivors, he
orders his men to shoot them dead. Some survivors try to swim and cling to the ship to stay afloat,
but the commander orders their hands hacked off with axes. So not only has the ship been sunk,
but the commander has methodically slaughtered all the survivors as well.

Now, suppose that commander was later found out and charged with war crimes. In the case
we have just laid out, would it make sense for him to plead the principle of double–effect? Would
anyone accept the argument that he had only meant to sink the ship and did not intend to kill
non–combatants? Indeed, his defense that he merely “tolerated” the unintended but necessary
killing of non–combatants would be farcical and insulting. We can imagine a prosecuting judge
saying to him, “Sir, it is impossible to believe you did not intend to kill non–combatants when you
went so far out of your way to slaughter the survivors.”

In other words, the very deliberation and detail with which the killing of survivors was carried
out would indicate a sort of positive intentionality that would seem to preclude an appeal to
double–effect.

Similarly, we cannot apply double–effect to Razis’ case because of the deliberateness and
thoroughness with which he went out of his way to make certain that he killed himself. He stabbed
himself with a sword, leaped off a building, and upon finding himself still alive, ripped his own
entrails out until he died. He demonstrated a clear intentionality in his purpose that makes it
difficult to apply double–effect; how can one say his death was “unintended” or merely “tolerated”
when he went to such extraordinary lengths to ensure its accomplishment?

Samson accepted his death as inevitable, but there is no indication he went out of his way to
ensure it. Had Samson survived the collapse of the temple, he presumably would have been very
satisfied. But had he survived the collapse of the temple and then began repeatedly bashing his head
on the fallen stones until he killed himself, we would have a much harder time accepting his death
was merely “unintended.”

This does not mean there is no solution to Razis’ case, only that it is not an appeal to
double–effect. As said above, Razis is an example of a suicide which remains an objective evil but
where the responsibility is mitigated, a hypothesis the Church has always acknowledged possible.
It provides a scriptural example for this traditional understanding.

It is an admittedly difficult problem, but not insoluble given traditional Catholic moral theology.

Chapter 11: The Genealogy of Christ

Moving from the Old Testament to the New Testament, we see that the Gospels begin with a
difficulty that has probably become the most famous example of an alleged biblical contradiction.
We speak, of course, of the different genealogies of Christ given in the Gospel of Matthew and the
Gospel of Luke.

Before going any further, we should cite the genealogies of Christ as found in Matthew and Luke
in their entirety. First, the genealogy as found in the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 1:1–17:

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of
Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the
father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and
Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the
father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of David the king.

And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of
Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa, and Asa the
father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of
Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the
father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos,
and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the
time of the deportation to Babylon.

And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel
the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of
Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father
of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the
father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the
husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David
to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon
to the Christ fourteen generations.

Now let us consider the genealogy of Christ as presented in St. Luke 3:23–38:

Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was
supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi,
the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of
Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son
of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda, the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son
of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri, the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the
son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the
son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the
son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the
son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the
son of Boaz, the son of Sala, the son of Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin,
the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the
son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, the son of Serug, the
son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, the son of Cainan, the son
of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah,
the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, the son of Enos,
the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

The two genealogies share some similarities, but they are also very different in many respects. The
genealogy of Matthew begins at Abraham and works its way forward to Christ; the genealogy of
Luke begins with Christ and works its way backwards to Adam. Matthew divides the generations
from Abraham to Christ into three sets of fourteen each for a total of forty–two generations; Luke
has no such divisions.1 Both genealogies are identical from Abraham up to David, but it is at David
that the two family trees diverge. The Gospel of Matthew says Jesus was descended from David’s
son Solomon, where Luke has him descend through an obscure son of David named Nathan.
Nothing is known of this Nathan son of David except that he was the son of a concubine (2 Sam.
5:13–14). In both genealogies, the names of the family tree are completely different from David on
down to Christ, although both Gospels have the family tree converging a second time in the persons
of Shealtiel and his son Zerubbabel (Matt. 1:12, Luke 3:27), but the lines are then traced through
different sons of Zerubbabel (Abiud in Matthew, Rhesa in Luke).

These differences carry right on down to the parents of St. Joseph. Matthew says the father and
grandfather of St. Joseph were Jacob and Matthan, respectively (Matt. 1:15–16); Luke says St.
Joseph’s father and grandfather were Heli and Matthat (Luke 3:23–24).

A skeptical reading of the two drastically different genealogies in Matthew and Luke would posit
that the entire Davidic ancestry of Jesus is a complete fabrication. Although the different
genealogies do present a formidable conundrum, they are by no means irreconcilable.

One explanation that has been put forward is that Matthew’s genealogy is an abridgement while
St. Luke’s genealogy is complete. This is inferred from the fact that from David to Jesus, St.
Matthew lists twenty–eight names while St. Luke uses forty–two. Given that the period covers
approximately a thousand years, twenty–eight names does not seem long enough to account for
that time period, while St. Luke’s forty–two names seems more realistic.

This explanation immediately fails, however, when we note that it is not merely a matter of extra
names added to Luke that are not found in Matthew. For example, the above explanation would not
account for why Matthew traces Jesus’ lineage through David’s son Solomon while Luke says he
came through David’s son Nathan. Clearly this is not a matter of a mere omission of names; the
Gospels appear to disagree on which son of David Christ was descended from.

Some have posited that the genealogy of St. Matthew is that of St. Joseph while the genealogy
of St. Luke is that of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This seems an attractive way to solve the problem
because it simply makes the two genealogies belong to different persons who were distantly related.
This would handily answer the question in what sense Christ could be born of the house of David
(cf. Luke 2:11, Rom. 1:3) if he was not biologically related to St. Joseph. It should also be noted that
the father of St. Joseph in Luke’s Gospel is named Heli, a shortened variant of Eliakim, which
corresponds closely to Joachim, the traditional name for the father of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Of course, Joachim is Mary’s father, not Joseph’s, which seems problematic. This difficulty
could be explained by the Greek in the Gospel of Luke, where it states that “Jesus, when He began
His ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed), of Joseph, the son of
Heli” (Luke 3:23). The Greek here reads on (os enomizeto ouios Ioseph) tou Heli, which could be
rendered “the son, as it was supposed, of Joseph, but really of Heli.” In this case, what is being
stated is that Jesus was popularly assumed to be biologically descended from Joseph, but in reality
his biological descent came through Heli, the father of Mary. Thus the remainder of the genealogy
would be Mary’s, not Joseph’s.

This theory also has a few strikes against it. For one thing, most scholars do not read the Greek
in the manner explained above. Most take it to say on ouios, hos enomizeto, Ioseph tou Heli, “being
the son, as it was supposed, of Joseph, son of Heli”, which renders the above parenthetical reading
unlikely. Furthermore, the idea that Luke’s genealogy could belong to the Blessed Virgin was not
widely advocated until the Renaissance; St. Hilary mentions that some held this position in the 5th
century but he considers it unlikely. Thus, while interesting, this theory has no substantial patristic
support and depends on a questionable reading of the Greek.

The problem of whether St. Joseph is the son of Heli or Jacob can be solved by recalling the
Levirate marriage of Jewish tradition. We discussed this concept in depth in Chapter 4. To recap,
the Levirate marriage was the obligation of a man to marry his brother’s widow in circumstances
where that man had died childless. The purpose of this was to continue the legal lineage of the
departed brother. The offspring of a Levirate marriage are considered legally the offspring of the
dead brother even though they were biologically conceived by the other brother. This can result in
the child having two genealogies, depending on how it is considered. This is especially so given that
the Levirate obligation did not merely apply to brothers, but to the closest male relative of the
deceased. We can see this in the Book of Ruth, where Boaz notes that there is a kinsman of his who
has a prior legal claim to perform Levirate marriage with Ruth (Ruth 3:12) though this kinsman is
not a brother. In cases where the Levirate was performed by a relative more distant than a brother,
it is not difficult to see how wildly different the genealogies could become.

To return to the question of Joseph being the son of Jacob or Heli, the most favored explanation
has been that put forward by Julian Africanus (c. 240) and subsequently adopted by St. Augustine.
Matthan, a descendent of David through Solomon, took a wife and became the father of Jacob.
Matthan subsequently died, and his widow was remarried to Matthat, a descendent of David
through Nathan. She bore Heli by her second husband, making Jacob and Heli uterine
half–brothers. Heli married, but died prematurely and without children. According to the Mosaic
Law, his widow would become the Levirate wife of his half–brother Jacob. Once married to Jacob,
she conceived and gave birth to St. Joseph. This means that St. Joseph would be the biological son
of Jacob, but the legal son of Heli by virtue of the Levirate marriage. Thus, St. Joseph would have
two genealogies, one legal and one biological. This explanation suffices to explain the parentage of
St. Joseph and reconcile the two branches of the house of David in the person of St. Joseph.

There is, however, a second difficulty, in that the two lineages of David appear to converge, not
only in St. Joseph, but in the names of Zerubbabel and Shealtiel, which occur in both genealogies.
Zerubbabel and Shealtiel are eminent personages in the Davidic dynasty and were political leaders
of the post–Exilic Jewish community. Zerubbabel is mentioned frequently in the Book of Zechariah
and also appears in the Book of Nehemiah. Zerubbabel was the senior representative of the house
of David and was a direct lineal descendant of King David.

That being the case, it is clear that this Zerubbabel is the same mentioned in the genealogy of
Matthew, which traces Zerubbabel and Shealtiel directly through the kings of Judah. The real
question is what are we to make of the occurrence of these names in the Gospel of Luke, where a
more obscure parentage is assigned that comes not through Solomon, but through Nathan?

There are two possibilities: Either the Zerubbabel and Shealtiel mentioned in Luke are different
than the Zerubabbel and Shealtiel mentioned in Matthew, or we must posit two Levirate marriages.
Since the latter theory is more complex, let us consider it first.

If we go to Luke 3:28, we see the name of Melchi, whose son is given as Neri. This Melchi would
have been a contemporary of King Jeconiah, who reigned briefly in 598–597 BC and is mentioned
in the genealogy of Matthew. Melchi could have begotten Neri by the widow of Jeconiah’s father,
King Josiah. This would not be implausible, since Josiah died young (2 Chr. 35:20–37). Thus Neri
and Jeconiah would be uterine half–brothers.

Now, if Neri subsequently died childless, Jeconiah would have been obligated to perform a
Levirate marriage with Neri’s widow, and by her gave birth to Shealtiel. This would make Shealtiel
the legal son of Neri but the biological son of Jeconiah. Shealtiel gave birth to Zerubbabel, as both
genealogies attest. Zerubbabel was the biological father of Abiud (Matt. 1:12), but he, too, may have
subsequently been obligated to contract a Levirate marriage with a widow of a childless legal
relative of the house of David through Nathan’s line, begetting Rhesa, who legally continued
Nathan’s line.

The foregoing explanation certainly works, although it is complex. Complexity alone, however,
is not an argument against it, as anyone who considers family arrangements in the real world know
that they can be dizzyingly complex. It is not news that the nuclear family is less and less common
today given the prevalence of divorce; what may be news is that it was not common in the old days
either. Shorter life expectancies and the ubiquity of mortality during childbirth often cut marriage
short. In most of human history, the average marriage lasted 12 years. Remarriage was extremely
common, and many families would have been mixed. This gets even more complex when we
consider the family arrangements that arose in polygamous marital arrangements, which certainly
happened in ancient Israel. The complexities of these theories are no argument against them; real
families are complex.

But supposing we want to work with something simpler, we could simply entertain the other
possibility: that the Zerubbabel and Shealtiel of Luke’s Gospel are different than the Zerubbabel and
Shealtiel of Matthew. If Zerubbabel and Shealtiel were such eminent persons in the Jewish
community – which we know they were – it is not at all a stretch to imagine that two members of
a lesser branch of David’s house might be named after them. This happens all the time, even in our
own day; a father called Jesse names his son David, or a mother called Elizabeth names her son
John. This is especially common in famous families, where a name is reused continually in various
branches of the family. Just ask Jean–Christophe Napoleon, Martin Luther King III, or Theodore
Roosevelt IV. If we look for an example within Scripture, however, we need look no further than the
very genealogy we have been discussing, where we see St. Joseph as the son of Jacob, which
obviously calls to mind the Joseph son of Jacob from the Book of Genesis.

This sufficiently answers objections raised based on the genealogies of Christ. One question
remains, however: why do the Gospels of Matthew and Luke have separate genealogies to begin
with?

If the explanations based on the Levirate marriages in the genealogy are correct, essentially
Matthew preserves the biological genealogy of Christ while Luke gives a more intricate genealogy
that includes the legal (but not biological) ancestors who maintained their family trees through the
institution of the Levirate.

The easiest explanation as to why Matthew and Luke used these different genealogies is that
they each used different sources. Because the genealogy of Luke is much more complex, this
probably came from a source closer to the family of Christ, whereas the genealogy of Matthew may
have been more a matter of public record, especially given that Matthew’s genealogy is much more
eminent as it traces Christ’s lineage through the royal house of Judah. This fits nicely with the
traditional belief that St. Luke obtained the information for the first three chapters of his Gospel
from the Blessed Virgin Mary. Luke probably obtained his genealogy from the Blessed Virgin,
whereas Matthew may have obtained his from a public record somewhere, as we know genealogies
were matters of public record – and, as far as we know of, there was no personal connection
between St. Matthew and the family of Jesus.

The genealogies of Christ in Matthew and Luke are admittedly confusing at first glance. But so
are real family relationships, especially when second marriages are involved. Ultimately the
different genealogies in the gospels of Matthew and Luke do not prove that Jesus’ family tree was
fabricated; they prove that Jesus had an authentic family with all the complexities that implies.

Notes

1. Scholars are divided on why Matthew attributes importance to the three sets of 14. Seven being the perfect number, 14,
being twice seven, indicates a double measure of perfection. By mentioning 14 three times, Matthew could mean that
Christ is the absolute perfect fulfillment of the Davidic–Messianic promises, as Matthew’s Gospel depicts Christ as the
fulfillment of Old Testament messianic prophecy – and as Christ’s Davidic lineage is front and center in Matthew’s
genealogy. Another possibility is that with the number 42 (three times fourteen), Matthew is calling to mind the forty–two
sojourns or wanderings the Israelites made in the desert until they were finally given rest (cf. Num. 33:1–50). Thus Christ
would be the final “rest” promised to Israel, akin to the argument made in Hebrews 4:8.

Chapter 12: On Seeking and Finding

Let us now turn our attention to two verses that are often cited by those who attempt to prove that
the Scriptures contain mutually contradictory statements or principles. First we have a statement
made by the Lord in the Gospel of Matthew:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be
opened (Matt. 7:7–8).

Then we have the words of God in the first chapter of Proverbs, apparently stating the opposite:

Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but will not
find me (Prov. 1:28).

So on the one hand God is promising that everyone who seeks for Him will find Him, but on the
other hand He is apparently contradicting Himself by stating that He will not answer those who
seek Him. Which is it? Do we seek or not seek? And if we seek do we find? And how can God
promise that we will find if we seek when He also says that He will conceal Himself from us if we
seek?

This is an example of something that is not a real “contradiction” or exegetical problem at all.
Not to say there are not real exegetical difficulties – looking at the issue of the apparent genocide
of the Canaanites in the Book of Joshua was a much more real difficulty than these verses (and even
that was not an insurmountable problem). What we have here is two verses just pulled out of
context based loosely on the common themes of seeking and finding without any reference about
to whom God is speaking or the conditions of these promises of God. These are not contradictions,
but errors that come from quoting the Bible without really knowing it. Let’s look a little deeper at
this.

The problem comes in taking our Lord’s words “seek and you shall find” to be unqualified and
absolute. This passage comes from the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus is addressing the crowds
and laying out for the first time His moral/ethical teachings. Those He is speaking to are the “poor
in spirit...the meek...the pure in heart...the merciful”, etc. as in contradistinction to the Pharisees,
who are “hypocrites...blind guides...blind fools” and “whited sepulchers” (Matt. 23:1–27). In short,
the words of Jesus “seek and you shall find” are addressed to the humble and the faithful.

Whom is God addressing in the verse from Proverbs, which reads “they will call upon me, but
I will not answer”? Those who cite this verse as somehow in opposition to Matthew 7:7–8 are guilty
of gross misinterpretation, for a cursory reading of the verses immediately preceding and following
Proverbs 1:24 shows that the context is entirely different. Remember, Jesus is addressing the
humble and the faithful in Matthew 7 when He says “seek and you shall find.” Let’s see to whom
God is speaking in Proverbs1:

Because I have called and you refused to listen, have stretched out My hands and no one
has heeded, and you have ignored all My counsel and would have none of My reproof, I also
will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when panic strikes you, when panic strikes you like
a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon
you. Then they will call upon Me, but I will not answer; they will seek Me diligently but will
not find Me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would
have none of My counsel and despised all My reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of
their way and be sated with their own devices (Prov. 1:24–31).

Is it not evident that Proverbs 1:24–27 is addressed to the wicked? God is basically telling us,
between these two verses, what holy men and women have always known: God is found by the
humble but is hidden to the eyes of the arrogant and proud. “God opposes the proud, but gives
grace to the humble” (Jas. 4:6). The promise that those who seek shall find is not unconditional and
universal but comes with qualifications. So is there no hope for the wicked then? Not unless they
humble their hearts, as we are told by the prophet Jeremiah:

I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give
you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will hear
you. You will seek me and find me; when you seek me with all your heart, I will be found by
you, says the Lord (Jer. 29:11–14).

The man who is wise in his own sight is a “fool” who “walks in darkness” (Ecc. 2:14). The Lord
resists the arrogant and the prideful and refuses to be found by them. It is when a man humbles
himself and seeks the Lord sincerely and with humility (“to seek with your whole heart”) that God
is found. Then the words of our Lord apply, “seek and you shall find.” St. John’s Gospel puts these
two ideas together (seeking coupled with trusting obedience and humility) in a single passage where
our Lord is speaking to the disciples before His Passion (notice the conditional “if”):

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will and it shall be
done for you (John 15:7).

There are those who seek after God, but either do so insincerely, with incomplete trust, out of pride,
or with many other impure motives (like King Herod Antipas, who wanted to see Jesus do a miracle
just for entertainment). For these, though they may seek God, there is nothing to be found, for God
is hidden from them.

Going back to Matthew 7, what is it exactly that the Lord is promising us that we will find if we
seek sincerely? We ought not to read our Lord’s words “seek and you shall find” as universal in
themselves; i.e., that whatsoever one seeks universally and unequivocally will always be found.
What is it we should be seeking? Jesus explains a little further on in Matthew 7:

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will
your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! (Matt. 7:11)

What are these “good things” that we are promised? Let’s look to the corollary of this passage in the
Gospel of Luke:

Ask and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you...If
you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will
the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him! (Luke 11:9, 13)

It is evident that the thing that Jesus is telling us to look for, that which He promises that we will
find if we seek it with humble trust, is nothing other than the Holy Spirit. It is not an unequivocal
promise that each and every thing we ask for we shall undoubtedly receive, much less a promise
that any person who seeks God under whatever disposition will find Him. If we want to find God,
we must seek Him diligently with our whole hearts, in humility, faith and trust. Then we shall find
Him – or rather, He will allow Himself to be found by us – and this finding is done with the help
and through the agency of the Holy Spirit, who gives us the gift of faith and stirs up our zeal. All the
gifts and graces of God are present if we have the Holy Spirit.

But if we ignore God and become arrogant in the pride of our hearts, refusing His counsel and
His reproof, then our minds become darkened, our hearts hardened and He resists us; then is it
rightly said of such persons that God refuses to be found by them, as He says in Proverbs 1.

As stated above, this is not really a difficulty with Scripture, only an issue with persons making
claims without attempting to look at the context. The solution doesn’t require any leap of faith or
certain exegetical approach, just a straightforward reading of what the Bible actually says.

Chapter 13: Praying to be Seen

In the Gospel, our Lord gives us the following warning:

And when ye pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, that love to stand and pray in the
synagogues and corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men: Amen I say to you,
they have received their reward. But thou when you shalt pray, enter into thy chamber, and
having shut the door, pray to thy Father in secret: and thy Father who sees in secret will
repay you (Matt. 6:5–6).

How often this verse is trotted out by smug atheists whenever Christians try to make any sort of
public demonstration of their faith! Any public demonstration of Christianity can elicit it; a prayer
chain outside an abortion clinic, a controversy over a manger scene in a public place, prayers of
protest outside an adult nightclub or bookstore. Always, this verse is brought out by the opponents
of the Church, as if it absolutely prohibits Christians from doing any sort of prayer or evangelizing
in public.

What does the Bible say about prayer? This would be too great a topic to take up here, but it
suffices to say that there is plenty of “public prayer” throughout the Scriptures, such as those at
which Solomon dedicated the Temple, for example. Prayer in the New Testament is often public as
well, as all the Temple liturgies that the Apostles participated in were in public (Acts 3), not to
mention the greatest manifestation of the Spirit in the New Testament on the day of Pentecost saw
the Apostles praying publicly in front of thousands. Many of the most memorable prayers of the
early Church were those uttered by the martyrs while they stood exposed to thousands in the arena
waiting for death. In the coming centuries, public processions and public acts of prayer and
penance were not only common, but lauded by the Church as an especially efficacious way of
securing God’s blessing upon a people. One of the most famous public demonstrations of prayer
in the early Middle Ages occurred on February 24, 591, when a procession led by Pope Gregory the
Great was efficacious in halting a plague in Rome; there were many other similar processions
throughout the history of Christianity. Clearly, Christianity, both apostolic, patristic, and medieval
never understood public prayer to be forbidden by Matthew 6:5.

As with the following verse about not praying with “vain repetitions” (Matt. 6:7) – where the
emphasis is not so much on repetition as with the repetitions that are vain – Matthew 6:5–6 does
not prohibit prayer in front of others in an absolute sense, but rather warns against people praying
“that they may be seen by men.” This is evident by the verse that precedes this statement where
Jesus clarifies the reasoning for the prohibition, applying it this time to almsgiving:

Take heed that you do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise you have no
reward of your Father which is in heaven (Matt. 6:1).

The same applies to the following verse about prayer. The problem is not when it is in public but
when it is done for the sole purpose of being praised by men. This is evident by the contrast Jesus
makes between praying “as the hypocrites” and praying sincerely. The prayer of the sincere disciple
is “in secret” and seen only by the Father; this contrasts with the prayer that is done to be “seen by
men” and is done by the hypocrites. The structure and syntax of the verse makes it clear that what
is being condemned here is not praying in front of others, but praying for the purpose of being
praised by men and thought pious.

Furthermore, if we were to take this verse in the absolute sense that many atheists would like
to attribute to it, it would prohibit us from ever praying in front of anybody. Husbands would not
be allowed to pray with or in front of their wives or children, teachers at religious schools would not
pray before class in front of their students, a minister or bishop could not give an invocation at a
college graduation ceremony, nor could a priest even offer the prayers of the Mass. These occasions
all involve praying in the presence of others and the words of the Gospel, if interpreted in an
absolute sense, leave no exception; all prayer must be done “in thy chamber” and offered “to the
Father in secret.” Obviously, no Christian of any denomination has ever suggested such a scenario.

The verse does, however, stress the importance of maintaining a private prayer life and
returning to a kind of vital, one–on–one encounter with the Lord that is the inner source of joy and
spiritual wholesomeness. Even Jesus was used to retreating to a “remote place” when He wished
to pray (Mk. 1:35). We certainly do not mean to suggest that Jesus’ admonition to pray in secret is
to be completely interpreted away. Every Christian should have a private, intimate prayer life, and
we should never pray in front of others solely for the purpose of being thought pious.

But we do need to interpret in context. This context, coupled with a unanimous tradition,
demonstrates that Matt. 6:5–6 in no way prohibits prayer in front of others. Like Christ’s other
injunctions in the Gospels, it asks us to consider our motivations for whatever we do. Anything that
we do just to be seen by men is always done out of pride and is to be avoided. But there is nothing
wrong with prayer in public or prayer with others for honorable or pious motives. As in most other
cases when atheists try to use the Scriptures against Christian practice, they are grossly misreading
the text.

Chapter 14: Conflicting Passover Chronologies

Though the Gospels all record the ministry and death of Jesus in one way or another, no two
Gospels give the same details uniformly. This is logical, of course, given that the Gospels are
historical eye–witness accounts, and it is general knowledge that eye–witnesses accounts typically
do not agree in all details. Some eye–witnesses note one detail, some notice another; some choose
to emphasize particular points over others.

Of course, the fact that one witness says the robber wore a red shirt and the other says he wore
blue pants is no contradiction; it means different witnesses are recounting different aspects of the
robbery. We see the same phenomenon with many of the Gospels, some of which record some
sayings and miracles of Jesus, some others. For some biblical skeptics, one alleged proof for the
falsity of the Gospel narratives is the apparent contradiction in when Jesus was put to death, as the
Gospels appear to not only give different details about Jesus’ death but actually contradictory
accounts. In this chapter, we will examine the chronology of the death of Christ in the four Gospels
and propose an account that harmonizes them all.

First, let’s look at the narrative of the Last Supper from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22:

Then came the day of Unleavened Bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.
So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat
it.” They said to him, “Where will you have us prepare it?” He said to them, “Behold, when
you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the
house that he enters and tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says to you, where is the
guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large
upper room furnished; prepare it there.” And they went and found it just as he had told
them, and they prepared the Passover (Luke 22:7–13).

Here we see the Passover being prepared probably on Wednesday evening but sacrificed and eaten
on Holy Thursday. This is evident by our Lord’s reference to the meal consumed on Holy Thursday
as “this Passover” (Luke 22:15). But now let’s look at the account in the Gospel of John:

Then they led Jesus from the house of Caiaphas to the governor’s headquarters. It was early
morning. They themselves did not enter the governor’s headquarters, so that they would not
be defiled, but could eat the Passover (John 18:28).

Here it is “early morning” on Good Friday and Passover still had not happened yet, for the Pharisees
would not enter the Praetorium lest they defile themselves before the Passover. We see other things
in the Gospel of John that suggest that the Passover still had not happened yet as of Friday
afternoon:

Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross
on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might
be broken and that they might be taken away (John 19:31).

Here we have Jesus dying on the cross at the very time that the Passover lambs around Jerusalem
would have been being slaughtered. How could this be if Luke says the Passover lambs were being
slain the night before, when Jesus was eating the Last Supper?

Later, we see Jesus hastily buried so that the Jews can return to Jerusalem and celebrate
the Passover for which they had been preparing:

So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial
custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the
garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of
Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there (John 19:40–42).

We are left with two chronologies: one has Jesus eating the Last Supper on the eve of the Passover,
the other has Jesus dying the afternoon before the Passover even begins, which is apparently
celebrated Friday evening going into Saturday. Which one of these accounts is true?

Well, the biblical skeptic quickly says that two contradictory accounts disprove the story, but
the historian understands that maybe the problem is not two contradictory accounts but two
Passovers.

In Israel in the first century AD there were multiple different Passovers being kept that were
calculated using differing calendars. The original Jewish calendar (called the “Creation” calendar)
dates the beginning of a new day from the setting of the sun, recalling Genesis 1 where a day is
defined as the time from when the sun rises to when it sets, based on a separation between darkness
and light. All of the original mandates for the Feasts in the Old Testament were based on this
understanding of the calendar. So for the Creation calendar, a new day is commenced at sunrise,
and furthermore, a new month is commenced at the beginning of a new moon (see Numbers 28:14;
1 Samuel 20; Isaiah 66:23).

But when the Romans came into Palestine they introduced a differing calendar – the Julian
calendar – one where a new day was reckoned from midnight. Thus a Wednesday night and
Thursday morning share the same darkness but midnight splits the night into two dates. The
adoption of the Julian calendar was slipshod and piecemeal; certain Roman provinces adopted it
quicker than others, while in Palestine it varied from city to city. Cities with higher populations of
Gentiles adopted the Julian calendar, while those of a primarily Jewish demographic would most
likely have retained the Creation calendar.

Another factor is that while in Babylon, the Jews adopted the practice of reckoning the new
months not from the new moon but from the sighting of the first crescent of a new moon. This
Babylonian practice modified the interpretation of the traditional Creation calendar. After the
return from Babylon, the Jewish priesthood adopted the Babylonian system to determine when
Passover should begin. This was the national Passover that was kept by the Pharisees, Temple
authorities, and most Jews. It took place the evening of Good Friday going into Holy Saturday, as
recorded in the Gospel of John.

There was also a third calendar in use in 1st century Judea, the so–called Essene calendar. The
Essenes were a very small sect of Jewish ascetics who rejected the authority of the Pharisees and
the Temple establishment and lived in their own distinct communities. The beliefs and disciplines
of the Essenes were outside the bounds of mainstream Judaism, but they were very influential in
the time of Christ among reform minded Jews awaiting the Messiah. The Essene calendar was a
solar calendar (unlike the lunar reckoning of the Creation calendar). The Essene Passover was
always celebrated on a Tuesday evening.

Thus we see that there were many different calendars and ways of reckoning Passover in the
time of Christ. Which calendar was used by the disciples?

Jews were divided on the date of the observance of Passover. Some Jews insisted on following
Creation’s calendar, that is, Nisan 1 began on the day of a new moon. Jewish leaders, however,
insisted on using the Babylonian method for determining the first day of each month. The High
Priest waited until the first crescent of the new moon was sighted before declaring the
commencement of Nisan 1. Because the conjunction of a new moon and the sighting of the first
crescent of a new moon in Jerusalem is typically 16 to 40 hours later, the celebration of two
Passovers on two different days in Israel was not uncommon.

Many Jews regarded the date of the Passover as celebrated by the High Priest to be sacrilegious
because of the Babylonian computation, and thus continued to keep the Passover according to the
Creation calendar, which would have been celebrated on Holy Thursday night. Any conservative
Jew who dissented from the Pharisaical establishment probably kept this Passover.

Three things of interest: First, Jesus chose to celebrate the Passover according to the original
Creation calendar, not the modified Temple calendar. This may suggest an implicit approval of this
calendar, but it may also be a prophetic way to fulfill both the sacrificial and sacerdotal elements
of His offering: in the Passover of Holy Thursday we see him officiating and offering the Passover;
the following day, we see Him as the victim, being killed while all the Passover lambs are being slain
in Jerusalem. Both are fitting.

Second, one reason the Jews rejected the Temple dating is because it was predicted in Daniel
that in the time of the Antichrist (or, the “Abomination” in the language of that book) that the dates
and times of feasts would be altered:

After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three
kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set
times and the laws (Daniel 7:24–25).

This did in fact happen in post–Exilic Judaism, and it did in fact herald the coming of the Messiah
and the destruction of the Temple.

Finally, it was common knowledge in the ancient world that the Jews celebrated two
Passovers. This fact was even noted by the Emperor Constantine, who took it as evidence against
the veracity of the Jewish calendar when looking to determine the date of Easter:

They [the Jews] do not possess the truth in this Easter question; for in their blindness and
repugnance to all improvement, they frequently celebrate two Passovers in the same year.1

Since St. John was a companion of the High Priest and educated in the Temple establishment (cf.
John 18:15), he would have naturally regarded the national Passover of the Pharisees as the true
Passover. This is why St. John records the Passover as being celebrated at the moment Jesus is
being put to death, because this was the time the Temple Passover was being observed.

As we have noted, however, Jesus observed the Creation calendar, without the Babylonian
modifications inserted by the Temple authorities. So did the other Evangelists, who were quite
disassociated from the Temple establishment. And hence Matthew, Mark and Luke regard the feast
of Holy Thursday as the proper Passover.

Thus the multiple times given for the Passover in the Gospels are not due to inconsistencies
or untruths on the part of the Evangelists but rather to the existence of divergent dates for
celebrating the Passover in ancient Judea.

Notes

1. Eusebius, Vita Const., Lib iii., 18–20

Chapter 15: Resurrection Appearances of Jesus

One unfortunate element of living in a post–Christian secular society is that every Easter Season,
while we Christians are celebrating the Resurrection of our Lord, we have to contend with a
multitude of secular reports questioning the historicity of the Resurrection. You can be sure that
anytime a secular institution does a report on the “historicity” of any mystery of the faith, we know
what the verdict will be. One year on NPR, I heard a Jewish professor of New Testament history at
Oxford repeating the tired old explanation that the Resurrection could be explained as a mass
hallucination. He cited as his evidence for the falsity of a historical Resurrection the supposed
“contradictions” in the Resurrection narratives presented in the four Gospels.

The mass hallucination theory fails for a multitude of reasons, but the problem of divergent
Resurrection accounts referenced by the Jewish professor provides a good starting point for the
subject of this essay. Are there contradictions in the Gospel accounts of the Resurrection? By now
you should be far enough into this book to know the answer. At any rate, let us look at each of the
Resurrection stories, summarized below:

Matthew (28:1–10)

Mary and the women come to the tomb. As they are on their way, there is an earthquake, the stone
is rolled back and an angel sits upon it (the guards apparently pass out). He sends them away to tell
the disciples that Christ is risen. On the way back, they encounter the risen Christ, clasp His feet
and worship Him. He reiterates the angel’s command and tells them to go back to tell the disciples.

Mark (16:1–11)

Mary and the women come to the tomb. When they get there, the stone is already rolled away. They
find an angel sitting inside the tomb on the right side who sends them away to tell the disciples of
the Resurrection. They go. No encounter with Christ is recorded.

Luke (24:1–12)

Mary and the women come to the tomb. They find the stone already rolled away. While they are
examining the scene, two angels in dazzling apparel appear. They tell them to leave and go tell the
disciples. They do, and Peter runs back to the tomb to verify the story.

John (20:1–18)

Mary Magdalen, apparently alone, goes to the tomb, sees the stone turned away and the tomb
empty and runs to tell the disciples. Peter and John run to the tomb together and both look into the
tomb. Mary lingers outside, sees two angels, then sees Jesus, whom she at first does not recognize.
Jesus and is warned by Him not to touch her. He sends her back to tell the disciples that He is truly
risen.

Now, it is true that none of these accounts, taken at face value, seem to line up with each other. In
two accounts we have one angel mentioned, and in two accounts two angels. In Matthew the angel
sits on the rock while in Mark he is in the tomb. In Luke the two angels are simply standing before
the women. In Matthew, it says explicitly that the women clutched Jesus’ feet and worshiped Him;
in John, Jesus commands Mary not to touch Him. In Matthew, the stone is miraculously rolled
away by an angel, accompanied by an earthquake. In all of the other Gospels, the stone is presented
as already having been rolled away when the women arrive. Are these true contradictions, as many
claim?

The answer, of course, is no. But before we can resolve this issue, we need to understand a
certain Scriptural principle that we may call the Principle of Non–Exclusion. This means that when
the Scriptures mention a certain event as occurring, other possible events not mentioned in the text
are not thereby excluded, unless they directly contradict what is written. For example, the Gospel
of John seems to say that Mary Magdalen went to the tomb alone: “Now on the first day of the
week, Mary Magdalen came to the tomb early, while it was still dark” (John 20:1). Nothing is
mentioned of anybody else. However, the fact that only Mary is mentioned does not exclude the
possibility that others were with her, and we know from the other Gospels that she was in fact not
alone: Luke mentions “Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women” as being there,
as well (Lk. 24:10). So, the fact that Mary alone is mentioned by John does not conflict with the
account of Luke for one simple reason: though Mary alone is mentioned by John, John nowhere
asserts that Mary only was at the tomb. This is the flip–side of the Principle of Non–Exclusion:
while nothing is excluded that would not contradict what is recorded, anything that would
contradict it must be excluded.

How does this apply to the Resurrection narratives? It means we must look not at what the
accounts don’t say but what they do say. Then, we fill in the gaps. Let’s start with the issue of the
stone.

The Gospel of Matthew says that the stone was rolled away miraculously by means of an
earthquake and an accompanying angel. Therefore, since the Scriptures specifically assert an
earthquake, we must believe that the movement of the stone was due to an earthquake. Do the other
accounts contradict this? Not at all: none of the other three Gospels mention how the stone was
moved, they only say that the women found it turned away when they got there. This leaves us free
to make the obvious connection that the stone was rolled away by means of the earthquake
mentioned in Matthew. To claim otherwise would be to accuse Sacred Scripture of being
untrustworthy.

The time the stone was rolled away is also in question. Matthew seems to say that the stone was
rolled away before the eyes of the women:

On the first day of the week, Mary Magdalen and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And
behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and
came and rolled back the stone and sat upon it (Matt. 28:1–2).

However, if we examine the text minutely, we will see that it does not imply that these two events
(the women coming to the tomb and the earthquake) were simultaneous. We only assume it to be
so because of the order in which Scripture relates these events. But sentence order does not
necessarily imply anything chronologically; look at a similar passage a chapter earlier from the
death of Jesus:

And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the curtain
of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom; and the earth shook, and the rocks were
split; the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were
raised, and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they went into the holy city and
appeared to many. And the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over
Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly,
this was the Son of God!” (Matt. 27:51–54)

The sentence order of this section text to insinuate that all of these events happened right after
Jesus’ death, especially since Matthew uses the word ‘Behold’ to draw our attention. But if we look
at the section about the tombs of the saints opening, the Gospel says that they came out of their
tombs “after His resurrection”; i.e., three days later at least. But Matthew puts this event in the
same section as the centurion’s act of faith and the splitting of the temple curtain, both of which
occurred at the very time Christ died. So we see, events sometimes appear simultaneously in the
narrative which were not simultaneous chronologically.

Applying this to the stone, we see that it is not necessary to maintain that the stone was rolled
away by an earthquake in the presence of the women. Mark, Luke and John all say that they found
the stone rolled away when they got there. Probably we ought to interpret Matthew as saying that
while the women were setting out, or while they were on the way there, the earthquake happened,
leaving the stone rolled away for them to find. Using our Principle of Non–Exclusion, we see that
Mark, Luke and John all specifically mention that the stone was moved when the women got there,
and so this we must believe. Matthew is ambiguous on the time, and so we interpret the gap in
Matthew using the information provided by the other three Gospels.

What about the angels? Matthew has one, Mark one, Luke two, and John none. In Matthew, the
angel sits upon the rolled back stone. In Mark, the angel is sitting in the tomb. In Luke, there are
two angels, both of them simply “appearing” before the women and standing there. Well, if Luke
mentions two, then there must have been two. The fact that Matthew or Mark mention one angel
does not exclude the possibility of a second one not mentioned by them, as John’s exclusion of any
angels does not mean they were not there, only that he chose not to mention them.

If we take Luke’s statement that there were two angels, then the fact that the angel in Matthew
sits on the stone while Mark’s angel is in the tomb need not trouble us, for we simply agree with
Luke that there were two angels, each in a different location. But what of the fact that Luke says that
the angels “stood” by them, while Matthew and Mark both have their angels sitting? Linguistically,
“stood” is a pretty all–encompassing verb. For example, if I say that I and my friends were
“standing” around outside my apartment, it could mean that two of us were standing, one was
sitting on the front steps, one was reclining on the grass, and one was leaning up against a tree. Still,
the phrase “standing around” would be appropriate for this scenario. “Standing” may simply mean
lounging about or being stationary in a place. The fact that Luke uses the word “stood” need not
force us to accept that the angels were literally standing up.

But even if they were, this would not compel us to believe they stood the whole time. Who is to
say that the angel in Mark’s Gospel, who was sitting in the tomb, could not have gotten up and
stood when he saw the women walk in? We cannot derive too much from what the Gospel says
about the posture of the angels. In the past five minutes, as I have been typing this, I have sat,
reclined in my chair, got up, paced around, went to the bathroom, ran upstairs, etc. But if you were
to ask me what I’ve been doing for the past ten minutes, I would say, “Sitting around”, and it would
be true.

Another problematic issue is Mary Magdalen’s encounter with Jesus. Matthew records it, as
does John, but the sequence is different and the events surrounding it are different. First, in
Matthew, the women are specifically said to have clung to Jesus’ feet. In John, Jesus tells Mary, “Do
not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father” (John 20:17). How can she hold Him in
Matthew and be told not to hold Him in John?

Matthew specifically affirms that they did hold Jesus, so we must accept that He was touched
by the women. But what does John say? Although most commentators tend to interpret John in the
sense that Mary tried to touch Him but Jesus pulled away from her before she was able, the text
does not actually say whether Jesus was touched or not. Actually, Jesus’ words seem to imply that
she did indeed touch Him. He does not say, “Do not touch me,” but, “Do not hold me,” the use of
this verb “hold” seeming to imply that she had in fact been holding Him before He gave her this
command. This is affirmed by the Greek word for hold, which is haptomai (άπτομαί) and literally
means “to fasten oneself to; to adhere; to cling to.” Therefore, Matthew and John are reconcilable.
Matthew records that Jesus’ feet were clasped, John records that Jesus told Mary to let go of Him.

Matthew’s Gospel records that Mary Magdalen and the women ran into Jesus after fleeing the
tomb and the encounter with the angel (Matt. 28:10). There He repeats the message of the angel
and tells them to go tell the disciples about His resurrection.

John presents a more difficult sequence (20:11–18). Mary comes to the tomb and sees it empty
(no angels are mentioned); she runs back and tells the disciples and Peter and John race to the
tomb to investigate. Mary encounters Jesus, does not know who He is at first, but subsequently
recognizes Him and is commanded to go back and tell the disciples that He is risen.

Peter and John’s race to the tomb is not problematic; this is mentioned in Luke as well. What
is problematic is Mary’s meeting with Jesus. In Matthew – the only other Gospel to mention this
meeting – she encounters Jesus after leaving the tomb the first time. He there commands her to
go tell the disciples that He is risen. In John’s Gospel, she apparently accompanies Peter and John
back to the tomb to show them and has her encounter with Christ after they leave, which would
make this her second time seeing the Risen Lord. He gives her the same command to go tell the
disciples that He is risen, and she again does so. What are we to make of this? There are only two
possibilities:

1) Mary went to the tomb twice (once with the women, once with Peter and John), saw the Risen
Lord twice, received the same instructions twice and carried them out twice.

2) Mary only saw Jesus once: the meeting of Jesus and Mary in Matthew is the same meeting as
described in John.

The second theory is more likely. If we look at John’s Gospel, though Mary’s encounter with Jesus
is mentioned after Peter and John go to the tomb, it does not specifically say that this is when it
occurred. Remember the example with the saints rising after the Resurrection? It is mentioned in
the text at the time of the Resurrection, but clearly did not occur at that time. The same holds in this
case. Mary’s encounter with Christ could have happened on her first visit and is recorded in this
place only because John wanted to emphasize Peter’s visit to the tomb instead of Mary’s visit from
Jesus. Thus it appears afterward, as a kind of footnote to the episode with Peter and John.

If we postulate two appearances to Mary, we are stuck trying to explain the awkward position
of Jesus commanding Mary to go tell the disciples about His Resurrection, Mary doing so, bringing
two of them back to the tomb, and then being again commissioned by Jesus to do the same thing
she had already done and her going to tell the disciples again that Jesus rose even though they had
already visited the tomb and seen it for themselves. It seems easier to simply say that John’s
narrative of Mary’s visit with Jesus in non–sequential while Matthew’s is.

If we put the harmonized narratives altogether, what really happened Easter morning?

Mary Magdalen, Joanna, the other Mary, and some other unnamed women arose early to go to
the tomb. While they were on their way (but before they arrived), there was an earthquake and the
stone was rolled away by an angel. The guards were stricken “like dead men.” The women probably
heard the earthquake or felt it from a distance and rushed to the tomb to see what occurred.

When the women arrived, they found the guards passed out and the stone rolled away. Curious,
they went inside the tomb to investigate and found the body gone. At this point, two angels
appeared, one on the stone, another in the tomb. They told these women that Jesus was not dead,
but had risen, and that they ought to go and tell the disciples. The women fled in fear.

On the way out, they ran into Jesus and did not recognize Him (Mary Magdalen thought He was
the gardener). When He said Mary’s name, they recognized Him and clasped His feet in worship.
However, He commanded them to cease holding Him and commanded them to go, as the angel had
said, to tell the disciples the good news about the Resurrection.

The women went back, and Mary Magdalen told the disciples. Most of them did not believe, but
Peter and John raced to the tomb. John got there first, but he waited for Peter. They went into the
tomb, saw the linen cloths, and went away marveling.

This sequence is consistent with all of the Gospels.

Chapter 16: 191 Brief Difficulties Reconciled

Our preceding fifteen chapters have taken us from Genesis through the Gospels studying some of
the most oft discussed difficulties people have reconciling biblical texts. In this chapter we will look
at a whole series of 191 smaller biblical difficulties that are often put forward as evidence of
contradictions in the sacred text.

These contradictions – their verbiage taken directly from an atheist website – are brief and simple
enough that they do not merit separate essays.1 Each contradiction is numbered; the allegedly
contradictory passages are bolded, followed by the explanation of each below.

1. Jesus’ lineage was traced through David’s son Solomon. (Matt.1:6).

Jesus’ lineage was traced through David’s son Nathan (Luke 3:31).

This is an ancient objection that has been answered satisfactorily by St. Augustine and others based
on the concept of the Levirate marriage as found in Deut. 25, which we addressed in Chapter 11. In
Jewish Levirate marriage, the brother of a deceased man is obliged to marry his brother’s widow,
and the widow is obliged to marry her deceased husband’s brother. In the case of Jesus’
genealogies, one is traced through Heli, one through Jacob; one is Joseph’s biological father, one
his legal father. Some have also contested that one is a genealogy of the Blessed Virgin. At any rate,
the important thing is that Christians have been able to reconcile these accounts at least from the
3rd century, so it hardly constitutes a true contradiction.

2. The announcement of the angel came before conception (Luke 1:26–31).

The announcement of the special birth came after conception (Matt.1:18–21).

The announcement in Luke was made to Mary prior to conception. The announcement in Matthew
was made to St. Joseph after the conception. These are two different announcements. Mary was told
beforehand, Joseph after the fact.

3. Jesus’ parents were told of their son’s future greatness (Matt. 1:18–21; Luke
1:28–35).

Jesus’ parents knew nothing of their son’s potential (Luke 2:48–50).

The former verses indicate that his parents knew that Jesus would be the Savior; the latter verse
is from the episode of the finding in the Temple where they do not understand that Jesus calls God
His Father and leaves them for three days. To know your son is the Savior is not the same as to
know He would leave and go to the Temple for three days. In the latter account, Joseph and Mary
are mystified by Jesus’ behavior, but there is no indication that the fact that their Son went missing
for three days without their knowledge means they “knew nothing of their son’s potential.” Just
because they knew He was special does not mean they had foreknowledge of every single thing He
would ever do.

4. The angel told Joseph about the conception of Jesus (Matt. 1:20).

The angel told Mary about the conception of Jesus (Luke 1:28).

The angel told both of them, Mary before the conception, Joseph after the fact. See number 2.

5. There were 28 generations from David to Jesus (Matt. 1:17).

There were 43 generations from David to Jesus (Luke 3:23–31).

Well, these are two different genealogies so we would not expect them to be exactly the same. That
being said, many have suggested that the genealogy of Matthew does not include every single
ancestor but mentions only certain important heads of families. A similar argument has been made
with regards to the Patriarchs of Genesis 11.

6. Jacob was Joseph’s father (Matt. 1:16).

Heli was Joseph’s father (Luke 3:23).

The most common explanation is that Jacob and Heli were uterine brothers and that we have an
example here of a Jewish Levirate marriage. See number 2 or Chapter 11.

7. Jesus was to be called Emmanuel (Matt. 1:23).

He was to be called Jesus (Matt. 1:25).

Emmanuel was never understood to be a proper name. It is a prophetic title originating with the
prophet Isaiah (Is. 7:14) and denotes the Messiah as a manifestation of God’s presence among His
people. No one, either Jewish or Christian, ever understood “Emmanuel” to be a proper name. This
is just ignorance.

8. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus flee to Egypt while Herod slaughters all males under two
years old (Matt. 2:13–16). (Note: Jesus’ cousin, John, was also under two and
survived without having to flee.)

Joseph, Mary, and Jesus did not flee to Egypt, but remained for temple rituals. No
slaughter of infants is mentioned! (Luke 2:21–39).

Herod did not order the slaughter of “all males under two years old”, but of all males in Bethlehem
under two. According to Scripture, John the Baptist was not from Bethlehem. The Temple ritual
mentioned occurred on the eighth day after Christ’s birth. The flight to Egypt happened after this,
possibly sometime after, which is why Herod commanded children under two to be killed. Had
these events all occurred immediately, Herod would not have had to kill everyone under two. He
gave the two–year leeway because such a span of time had passed since the birth.

9. Jesus was tempted during the forty days in the wilderness (Mark 1:13).

Jesus was tempted after the forty days in the wilderness (Matt. 4:2, 3).

Matthew mentions Jesus was tempted at the end of the forty–day period; Mark is not specific when
the temptation happened. It only says Jesus was in the desert forty days and that He was tempted.
Matthew is simply more specific than Mark in saying that this happened at the end of the forty day
period. If I say, “I went to the store with my wife and we saw Bob,” but my wife says, “While we
were coming out of the store, we saw Bob,” both are accurate, but one is more specific.

10. The devil first took Jesus to the pinnacle, then to the mountain top (Matt. 4:5–8).

The devil first took Jesus to the mountain top, then to the pinnacle. (Luke 4:5–9).

In neither Gospel does the language suggest any succession or sequence. It just states “again, the
devil took him to a high mountain...again, the devil took him to the pinnacle of the Temple.” In
neither case is a strict chronology asserted. The Gospels are merely recording that these events
happened without commenting on their chronology.

11. Satan tempted Jesus (Matt. 4:1–10; Mark. 1:13; Luke 4:1)

Satan had no interest in Jesus (John 14:30).

This is one of the stupider “contradictions.” In this one, the temptation of Christ in the wilderness
is contrasted with Jesus’ statement in John 14:30 that “the prince of this world cometh, and he has
nothing in me.” The traditional understanding and interpretation of this latter clause is that “he has
no power over me,” as is translated in the Vulgate. St. Thomas Aquinas notes that the devil only has
power over those who commit sin, and as Christ was free from sin, the devil, strictly speaking, had
no power over Christ: “But he has no power over me, for he has no power over us except because
of sin: Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin” (8:34). Now in Christ there was no sin: not in
his soul, “He committed no sin” (1 Pet 2:22), nor in his flesh, because he was conceived of the Virgin
without original sin through the Holy Spirit” (Commentary on John, Lecture 8, § 1975). Satan
wanted to tempt and destroy Jesus, as we see in the Gospels, but because Jesus was pure, the devil
had no power over Him, as Aquinas states.

12. The baptism of Jesus was with the “Holy Ghost” (Mark 1:8; John 1:33).

Fire was also added to the baptism (Matt 3:11; Luke 3:16).

The baptism with fire is the baptism with the Holy Ghost, as fire is one of the symbols of the Holy
Spirit. See the Catechism of the Catholic Church § 696.

13. John the Baptist knew of Jesus before he baptized him (Matt. 3:11–13; John 1:28,
29).

John knew nothing of Jesus at all (Matt. 11:1–3).

Matthew 11 does not suggest that John knew “nothing of Jesus at all”, only that he was uncertain
what the arrival of the Messiah was supposed to look like. John clearly had a revelation from God
that Christ was the Messiah, but he was not sure what the coming of the Messiah would entail, and
in his imprisonment may have questioned Jesus’ timing in inaugurating the kingdom. This is why
Jesus reassures Him in Matthew 11 by pointing out all the messianic signs He is fulfilling. John does
not ask Jesus who He is, as if He never knew Him, but rather asks, “Hey, what is taking so long in
inaugurating the kingdom?”

14. Jesus begins his ministry after John’s arrest (Mark 1:13, 14).

Jesus begins his ministry before John’s arrest (John 3:22–24).

Jesus began His ministry in Judea prior to John’s arrest (John 3:22–24) but did not begin in
Galilee until after (Mark 1:13–14). Remember, Judea and Galilee are two different territories.

15. It is recorded that Jesus saw the Spirit descending (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10).

It is recorded that John saw the Spirit descending (John 1:32).

Then...that would mean they both saw the Spirit descending.

16. The heavenly voice addressed the gathering (Matt. 3:17).

The heavenly voice addressed Jesus (Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22).

In none of the Synoptic Gospels does it say to whom the voice was addressed; neither Jesus nor the
crowds are mentioned one way or another.

17. Immediately after the baptism, Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness. (Matt.
4:1, 2; Mark 1:12,13).

Three days after the baptism, Jesus was at the wedding in Cana (John 2:1).

Here there is too much emphasis on the word “immediately” in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus was in
Cana three days after the baptism, per the Gospel of John, but we have no way of knowing how soon
He went into the desert; how soon is “immediately” or “straightaway”, as Mark says? The Greek
word, eutheos, simply means “forthwith” or “soon thereafter”, and the word is imprecise in Greek
even as it is in English. For example, suppose I say, “Immediately after college he went to work for
IBM”, while at the same time saying, “Immediately after his college graduation he went out to eat
at Applebees.” Both statements can be true, and immediately is appropriate in both cases but can
denote differing periods based on context. We can certainly say that three days after the baptism
He was in Cana and then shortly thereafter went into the wilderness to be tempted.

18. Jesus went to Bethphage and the Mount of Olives, then left for Bethany (Matt.
21:1, 17).

Jesus went to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives (Mark 11:1; Luke
19:29).

Jesus went to Bethany and then Jerusalem (John 12:1,12).

These verses all say the same thing; the confusion arises from confusing Bethphage and the Mount
of Olives as distinct places. The villages are in such close proximity to one another, and both at the
base of the mountain, that they are often referred to collectively. But no Gospel denies this
fundamental chronology: Jesus paused at Bethphage at the Mount of Olives, then sent His disciples
to Bethany before entering Jerusalem. Mark’s Gospel simply omits the name of the city of
Bethphage, where Jesus paused.

19. Jesus and his disciples taught in Capernaum (Mk.1:20, 21).

Only Jesus taught in Capernaum (Lk.4:30,31).

Mark is a more condensed version of the events of Christ’s life. Christ was in Capernaum many
times, and the episode in the synagogue related in Luke 4 is not necessarily the same visit
mentioned in Mark 1. Even if they were the same, Luke does not deny that any disciples were
present, so there is no contradiction in the strict sense. If one verse says “Jesus came to Jerusalem”
and another says “Jesus and the disciples came to Jerusalem”, nothing is being contradicted; one
is merely more descriptive.

20. Peter was chosen, with Andrew, by the Sea of Galilee (Matt. 4:18–20; Mark
1:16–18).

Peter was chosen, with James and John, by the Lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:2–11).

Andrew chose Jesus and then recruited Peter (John 1:35–42).

For one thing, Lake Gennesaret and the Sea of Galilee are the same body of water. The Synoptic
accounts are not problematic; all of this group of disciples were fishermen of Galilee, we simply
have a more expansive list of who was present in Luke’s Gospel. The real question is reconciling
John with the Synoptics, since this is the only Gospel that mentions Andrew had been a follower
of John the Baptist. The probable explanation is that Jesus had multiple meetings with Peter before
Peter officially joined the band. Andrew most likely told him about Jesus, so Peter was more
disposed to follow later when Christ came to the Sea of Galilee. The chronology of these episodes
as presented in the film Jesus of Nazareth seems to be a fair representation of this, with multiple
encounters of Jesus, Andrew, and Peter before Peter finally becomes a disciple.

21. Peter was to preach to the Jews (Matt. 10:2,5,6; Gal. 2:7).

Peter was to preach to the Gentiles (Acts 15:7).

Peter’s ministry was to the Jews. The “preaching to the Gentiles” Peter relates in Acts 15:7 refers
not to his specific ministry, but to the fact that God chose Peter to deliver the message that salvation
was now open to the Gentiles. This revelation came through the mouth of Peter (Acts 10).

22. Jesus cured Simon Peter’s mother–in–law after he cleansed the leper (Matt.
8:1–15).

Jesus cured Simon Peter’s mother–in–law before he cleansed the leper (Mark
1:30–42; Luke 4:38–5:13).

This is an example of confusing the order of narration in the Gospel for a strict chronology when
none is intended. The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ miracles are, by and large, compilations of different
episodes clustered together broadly as occurring in the same general vicinity and the same general
time, but not necessarily in any particular order, save when the Gospel specifically mentions an
order (e.g., that Jesus was touched by the woman with the issue of blood after He had spoken with
Jairus). As the Gospel writers recount the miracles of Jesus, it is as if they are saying, “There was
that one time Jesus cured the leper. Oh, then there was that other time he healed Peter’s mom. Oh,
and remember that other time he healed the sick?” The purpose is to recount everything Jesus did,
not necessarily present a chronological order. That’s not to say that chronology isn’t ever specified,
but it is to say that unless it is specifically given, the relating of sayings or deeds in sequence is not
meant to be a chronology. Rather than a contradiction, we have an ignorance of the writing style
of the Gospels.

23. Peter’s mother–in–law was healed before Peter was called to be a disciple (Luke
4:38, 39; 5:10).

Peter’s mother–in–law was healed after Peter was called to be a disciple (Matt.
4:18, 19; 8:14,15; Mark 1:16, 17, 30, 31).

See number 22.

24. James and John were with Jesus when he healed Simon Peter’s mother–in–law
(Mark 1:29–31).

James and John were not with Jesus when he healed Simon Peter’s
mother–in–law (Luke 4:38, 39; 5:10,11).

The account in Luke does not deny James and John were there; it simply omits mention of them.
The fact that the calling of the disciples occurs in chapter 5 does not mean that it happened
chronologically after the events in chapter 4. Besides, it is not established that Luke 5 was the first
time James and John had ever been with Jesus; it merely recounts that they were there and that
Jesus called them.

25. Thaddaeus was the name of an apostle, but not Judas, brother of James (Matt.
10:3).

Judas, the brother of James, was an apostle, but not Thaddaeus (Luke 6:16; Acts
1:13).

Thaddaeus is Jude. That is why he is known in tradition as Jude Thaddaeus.

26. The centurion’s servant was healed in between the cleansing of the leper and the
healing of Peter’s mother–in–law (Matt. 8:2–15).

The centurion’s servant was healed after the cleansing of the leper and the healing
of Peter’s mother–in–law (Luke 4:38, 39; 5:12, 13; 7:1–10).

See number 22.

27. The people were not impressed with the feeding of the multitude (Mark 6:52).

The people were very impressed with the feeding of the multitude (John 6:14).

The citation from Mark refers not to the people but to the disciples, and it does not say that they
were not impressed but that they did not understand. Big difference.

28. After the feeding of the multitude, Jesus went to Gennesaret (Mark 6:53).

After the feeding of the multitude, Jesus went to Capernaum (John 6:14–17).

Capernaum is on Lake Gennesaret. To go to Capernaum is to go to Lake Gennesaret.

29. A demon cries out that Jesus is the Holy One of God. (Mark 1:23, 24).

Everyone who confesses that Jesus came in the flesh is of God (1 John 4:2).

To confess that the Word of God has become incarnate in flesh is different than to confess that
Jesus is “the Holy One of God”; even Muslims confess something akin to the latter while denying
the former, so these are two different confessions. But even if they were the same confession, there
is a difference between a confession made in faith and one of simple fact. This is why even the
demons believe intellectually in God, but it does them no good, as St. James points out (Jas. 2:19).

30. Jesus cursed the fig tree so that it would not bear fruit (Matt.21:19; Mark 11:14).

It wasn’t time for the fig tree to bear fruit (Mark 11:13).

Jesus did not curse the fig tree so that it would not bear fruit; He found no fruit on it and therefore
cursed it that it would never bear fruit again. But why did Jesus expect the fig tree to bear fruit if
it was not the right season for figs? The answer to this question can be determined by studying the
characteristics of fig trees. The fruit of the fig tree generally appears before the leaves, and, because
the fruit is green it blends in with the leaves right up until it is almost ripe. Therefore, when Jesus
and His disciples saw from a distance that the tree had leaves, they would have expected it to also
have fruit on it even though it was earlier in the season than what would be normal for a fig tree to
be bearing fruit. Also, each tree would often produce two to three crops of figs every season. There
would be an early crop in the spring followed by one or two later crops. In some parts of Israel,
depending on climate and conditions, it was also possible that a tree might produce fruit ten out
of twelve months. This also explains why Jesus and His disciples would be looking for fruit on the
fig tree even if it was not in the main growing season. The fact that the tree already had leaves on
it even though it was at a higher elevation around Jerusalem (and therefore would have been
outside the normal season for figs), would have seemed to be a good indication that there would
also be fruit on it.

The act was also prophetic; in the prophets, the fig tree is a symbol for Israel (Jeremiah
8:13; 29:17; Hosea 9:10, 16; Joel 1:7; and Micah 7:1–6). Furthermore, the prophets speak of the
destruction of the fig tree as a metaphor for judgment upon Israel (Hosea 2:12; Isaiah 34:4), so this
action had a prophetic significance relating to the rejection of Christ by the people of Israel and
their subsequent judgment by God.

31. The fig tree withers immediately, and the disciples are amazed (Matt. 21:19, 20).

The disciples first notice the withered tree the next day (Mark 11:20, 21).

See number 17 on the word “immediately.” Matthew offers a more condensed account; in any case,
the tree withering the next day would certainly qualify as immediate since the withering of a tree
would normally take considerable time. People who have trees that have succumbed to various
fungi or invasive diseases know that sometimes it can take years for a tree to wither and die. By any
standard, a tree withering the next day would certainly be considered “immediately.”

32. Jesus is the mediator of the “Father” (1 Tim.2:5; 1 Jn.2:1).

Jesus sits on “his” right hand (Mark 16:19).

Jesus and the “Father” are one (John 10:30).

It is precisely because Jesus sits “at the right hand of the Father” that He is the perfect mediator.
Jesus’ oneness with the Father in substance while preserving a personal distinction is not a
contradiction; it is the doctrine that Christians call the Trinity, whereby God the Father, Son and
Holy Spirit are one being, one substance but three distinct hypostases, or persons. It is a mystery,
not a contradiction; it goes beyond reason, but is itself reasonable, and though it cannot be fully
comprehended it is in no way a contradiction in any sense.

33. There is one “God” (1 Tim. 2:5; Jas. 2:19).

There are three (1 John 5:7).

1 John 5:7 does not say there are three “gods” but that there are three who bear witness. This is just
sloppy argumentation by people who didn’t bother to read the passage.

34. Jesus said to honor your father and mother (Matt. 15:4; Matt. 19:19; Mark 7:10;
Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20).

Jesus said that he came to set people against their parents (Matt. 10:35–37; Luke
12:51–53; Luke 14:26).

Jesus said to call no man father (Matt. 23:9).

While Jesus urges us to honor our parents, our duties to God are superior to those to our parents.
We must obey and honor them, but if this obedience would stand in between a man and his duty
to honor God, God must be honored above parents, and so the call to follow Christ will frequently
put believing children at odds with non–believing parents and vice–versa. The Catechism says:
“Family ties are important but not absolute. Just as the child grows to maturity and human and
spiritual autonomy, so his unique vocation which comes from God asserts itself more clearly and
forcefully. Parents should respect this call and encourage their children to follow it. They must be
convinced that the first vocation of the Christian is to follow Jesus: “He who loves father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy
of me” (CCC 2232).

The statement “call no man father” is not meant in a literal sense; it is a warning against
those Jews who believe they are righteous in God’s sight because they claim Abraham as their
ancestor. Christ warns that God will not be pleased with someone just because they are a
descendant of Abraham.

35. Jesus/God said, “You fool…” (Luke 12:20; Matt. 23:17).

Paul calls people fools (1 Cor. 15:36).

Call someone a fool and you go to hell (Matt. 5:22).

Jesus is using hyperbole (literary exaggeration) in the Sermon on the Mount, just as he does when
He advises people to “pluck out your eyes” or “cut off your hands”. He does not mean that you go
to hell if you utter the words “you fool”; sometimes it is good to tell a person they are behaving
foolishly, provided it is done in charity, as St. Paul does to the Corinthians. The entire Book of
Proverbs revolves around calling idiotic men fools.

The foolishness of the man in the parable of Luke 12 is that he put all his hope in his earthly
goods, which Jesus rightfully describes as a foolish act. The prohibition in the Sermon on the
Mount is against slanderous and malicious behavior towards our neighbor, and clearly telling a
person he is acting like a fool is not always a malicious act.

36. Anger by itself is a sin (Matt. 5:22).

But not necessarily (Eph. 4:26).

The implication is that the angry person mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount is angered without
just cause. Some biblical translations will even add the gloss “without cause” to this verse because
this is clearly what is implied. If anger itself were always sinful, Jesus could not have gotten angry
at the moneychangers in the temple. Anger becomes sinful when it comes from motives other than
righteous indignation or when it gives way to wrath, but it is not always intrinsically bad.

37. Ask and it shall be given. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to
you (Matt. 7:7, 8; Luke. 11:9, 10).

Ask and you shall be refused. Seek and you won’t find. Knock and you will be
refused entrance (Luke 13:24–27).

Whether we are answered or whether the door is opened depends upon the disposition with which
we seek. In the former verses, Christ is speaking to the faithful, in the latter He is speaking to those
whose commitment is lukewarm or who are lax in their obligations to God. We refer the reader to
Chapter 12.

38. Do not judge (Matt. 7:1, 2).

Unless it is necessary, of course (1 John 4:1–3).

These verses are two totally different contexts. Matthew refers to the faithful not being judgmental
and condemnatory towards other people, 1 John refers to the necessity of Christians understanding
the difference between good and evil spirits, or what has been called “discernment of spirits.”

39. Jesus is thankful that some things are hidden (Matt. 11:25; Mark 4:11, 12).

Jesus said that all things should be made known (Mark 4:22).

The first verse refers to the fact that the truths of the Gospel are incomprehensible to the prideful
and those who are wise in their own sight; the latter verse refers to the fact that at the Last
Judgment every secret, both the good and the bad, will be revealed. The former refers to the
manner in which the Gospel is received in this life, the latter to God’s judgment at the end of time.
In other words, two totally different situations.

40. Jesus said that no sign would be given (Mark 8:12).

Jesus said that no sign would be given except for that of Jonah (Matt. 12:39; Luke
11:29).

Jesus showed many signs (John 20:30; Acts 2:22).

The verses in Matthew and Luke are more specific explanations of what was summarized in Mark.
The “many signs” given were given to those who believed; those who did not believe did not receive
signs, such as Chorazin and Bethsaida (Luke 10:13), and King Herod (Luke 23:8).

41. Jesus stated that the law was until heaven and earth ended (Matt. 5:17–19).

Jesus stated that the law was only until the time of John (Luke 16:16).

The moral teachings of the law are always valid always and everywhere, but the ceremonial aspect
of the law passed away with the coming of the New Covenant. See Chapter 3.

42. The “Sermon on the Mount” took place on the mountain (Matt. 5:1).

The “Sermon on the Mount” took place on a plain (Luke 6:17).

Both Matthew and Luke agree that Jesus was on the mountain, except Luke mentions that Jesus
came down and stood on a level place while He delivered His sermon; it does not say He was on a
plain. Jesus had spent the night in prayer on the mountain (Luke 6:12); presumably when it was
time to preach He came down the mountain somewhat to find a level spot to speak from.

43. The “Lord’s Prayer” was taught to many during the “Sermon on the Mount” (Matt.
6:9).

The “Lord’s Prayer” was taught only to the disciples at another time (Luke 11:1).

Presumably our Lord gave this instruction on more than just one single occasion. If Jesus thought
this prayer was the exemplification of how we are to address God, it stands to reason He repeated
His teaching on multiple occasions. Who has never heard a pastor repeat himself or hit on the same
theme on multiple occasions?

44. Jesus had his own house (Mark 2:15).

Jesus did not have his own house (Luke 9:58).

The house referred to in Mark 2:15 is the house of Levi the tax collector, not the house of Jesus.

45. Good works should be seen (Matt. 5:16).

Good works should not be seen (Matt. 6:1–4).

It is a praiseworthy thing if good works are witnessed and men praise God because of them; good
deeds done in public are condemned only when they are done “to be seen by men” (Matt. 6:1); i.e.,
for the purpose of winning the praise of men. See Chapter 13.

46. Jesus said that salvation was only for the Jews (Matt. 15:24; Matt. 10:5, 6; John
4:22; Rom. 11:26, 27).

Paul said that salvation was also for the Gentiles (Acts 13:47, 48).

None of the passages suggest salvation is only for Jews; the passages from the Gospel note that the
ministry of Jesus while on earth was confined to the Jews (Matthew) and that salvation would come
from the Jews (John). The passage from Romans mentions “all Israel will be saved” and says
nothing about salvation belonging exclusively to the Jews. God willed Christ to preach at first only
to the people of Israel, but after the Ascension, through the message granted to St. Peter and the
ministry of St. Paul, the message was to spread to the Gentiles. We have not a contradiction but a
chronology: God wanted the message announced to the Jews first, then afterward, to the Gentiles.
Jesus Himself notes that many who are not of the house of Israel will inherit eternal life (Luke
13:29, John 10:16).

47. Repentance is necessary (Acts 3:19; Luke 3:3).

Repentance is not necessary (Rom. 11:29).

The verse cited from Romans says, “the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance”, and
refers not to the repentance by which man repents of his sins but to the fact that God does not go
back on the good gifts He gives. It is said with reference to God, not man. Most translations will say
“the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable.” Again, two totally different contexts.

48. Non–believers obtain mercy (Rom.11:32).

Only believers obtain mercy (John 3:36; Rom. 14:23).

Only baptized believers obtain mercy (Mark 16:16).

Mercy cannot be predetermined (Rom. 9:18).

Non–believers receive mercy by becoming believers and by accepting baptism (the “sacrament of
faith”– CCC 1236); “believe and be baptized” (Acts 2:38). Why some come to faith and some don’t
is a mystery of God’s providence. Next.

49. All who call on the Lord will be saved (Rom. 10:13; Acts 2:21).

Only those predestined will be saved (Acts 13:48; Eph. 1:4, 5; 2 Thess. 2:13; Acts
2:47).

This is the mystery of predestination, something that, like the Trinity, cannot be fully
comprehended. The Scriptures and the Church both teach that while nobody can be saved apart
from God positively enabling it, God also has given every man true freedom to reach out to call
upon the Lord. Free will and predestination do not cancel each other out. They are reconciled in
God’s omnipotence and in His Providence, which we cannot comprehend. Like the Trinity, it goes
beyond our reason, but does not contradict it. But this is more of a theological problem, not a
textual contradiction.

50. Jesus said he would not cast aside any that come to him (John 6:37).

Jesus said that many that come to him will be cast aside (Matt. 7:21–23).

The former verse refers to those who have truly come to Christ and given their lives over to Him.
The latter refers to those who claim His name but do not truly seek His face, those who “are in the
Church in body only”, to use St. Augustine’s phrase. Those referred to in Matthew are basically
non–believers who go through the motions of accepting Christianity but without actually doing so.

51. Salvation comes by faith and not works (Eph. 2:8, 9; Rom. 11:6; Gal. 2:16; Rom.
3:28).

Salvation comes by faith and works (Jas. 2:14, 17, 20).

The “works” referred to in St. Paul are the ceremonial “works of the law”, rituals of the Old
Covenant no longer binding on Christians. The “works” referred to in St. James are good works,
works done in charity, which are obligatory for Christians. These are two different types of works.

52. The righteous have eternal life (Matt. 25:46).

The righteous are barely saved (1 Pet. 4:18).

There are no righteous (Rom. 3:10).

The righteous enjoy eternal life, but no human can merit the initial grace of justification. The
righteous are made righteous by God’s grace, and in that sense every one of us, even the saint, is
“barely saved”. The quote from Romans is a quote of Psalm 14 and refers to the fools who deny God
(see Ps. 14:1). No one is righteous apart from God’s grace.

53. Believe and be baptized to be saved (Mark 16:16).

Be baptized by water and the spirit to be saved (John 3:5).

Endure to the end to be saved (Matt. 24:13).

Call on the name of the “Lord” to be saved (Acts 2:21; Rom. 10:13).

Believe in Jesus to be saved (Acts 16:31).

Believe, then all your household will be saved (Acts 16:31).

Hope and you will be saved (Rom. 8:24).

Believe in the resurrection to be saved (Rom. 10:9).

By grace you are saved (Eph. 2:5).

By grace and faith you are saved (Eph. 2:8).

Have the love of truth to be saved (2 Thess. 2:10).

Mercy saves (Titus 3:5).

None of these are contradictions. These are all things that are necessary to be saved. The only way
one could think these are contradictions is by interpreting them in a minimalist way; “Hope and
nothing but hope saves”, etc.; the Bible never speaks this way. There is no one simple thing to do
to “get saved.” Being saved requires turning one’s whole life over to God, and all of these things are
aspects of that. They are all necessary.

54. Backsliders are condemned (2 Pet. 2:20).

Backsliders are saved regardless (John 10:27–29).

No one can pluck the sheep out of our Lord’s hand; the sheep can wander away of their own accord.

55. Forgive seventy times seven (Matt. 18:22).

Forgiveness is not possible for renewed sin (Heb. 6:4–6).

The former verse from Matthew refers to men forgiving other men; the latter from Hebrews refers
to God’s forgiveness of man. They are two different contexts. Man is always called to forgive man,
but in Hebrews the reference is to the sacrament of baptism (the word “enlightenment” is an
ancient term for the sacrament); it states the simple fact that one cannot be baptized for remission
of sins more than once.

56. Divorce, except for unfaithfulness, is wrong (Matt. 5:32).

Divorce for any reason is wrong (Mark 10:11, 12).

Divorce is always objectively wrong, but it is not divorce that makes one an adulterer, but rather
divorce and remarriage. Our Lord teaches that divorce is always wrong, but allows that in the case
of unfaithfulness, a man may “put away” his wife. This is not divorce in the strict sense, but
“separation from bed–and–board” (divortium imperfectum), a situation in which the spouses
physically separate but without formal divorce. Mark’s Gospel simply omits mentioning this but
without denying it.

57. Jesus approved of destroying enemies (Luke 19:27).

Jesus said to love your enemies (Matt. 5:44).

Jesus orders men to love their enemies, but the reference in Luke is not to men but to God and
God’s enemies. Men ought to love their enemies, but God will destroy the unrighteous at His
coming, which is what the parable in Luke refers to.

58. God resides in heaven (Matt. 5:45; Matt. 6:9; Matt. 7:21).

Angels reside in heaven (Mark 13:32).

Jesus is with God in heaven (Acts 7:55, 56).

Believers go to heaven (1 Pet. 1:3, 4).

Heaven will pass away (Matt. 24:35; Mark 13:31; Luke 21:33).

This is stupid. God, Jesus, the angels and the saints are all in heaven; this is no more a
contradiction than to say “Mom lives in the house” and “Dad lives in the house” are contradictions.
Obviously more than one being can reside in heaven. The heaven referred to in the final citation is
not the heaven where God dwells but is a generic name for the physical sky (“the heavens”), which
will indeed pass away at the end of time.

59. Pray that you don’t enter temptation (Matt. 26:41).

Temptation is a joy (Jas. 1:2).

The verse from James speaks of “trials”, not “temptations.” We are to count it all joy when we suffer
because suffering refines our character and makes us more Christ–like if it is borne patiently. But
Christ warns us against falling to temptation to sin. Temptation to sin and external trials are two
different things.

60. God leads you into temptation (Matt. 6:13).

God tempts no one (Jas. 1:13).

God does not tempt anyone to sin. But the petition “lead us not into temptation” in the Lord’s
Prayer does not imply that God does. Our sins result from our consenting to temptation; we
therefore ask our Father not to “lead” us into temptation. It is difficult to translate the Greek verb
used by a single English word: the Greek means both “do not allow us to enter into temptation” and
“do not let us yield to temptation.” In any case, it is a plea to God to give us grace to withstand
temptation, not an implication that God Himself is the active agent of temptation.

61. Take no thought for tomorrow. God will take care of you (Matt. 6:25–34; Luke
12:22–31).

A man who does not provide for his family is worse than an infidel (1 Tim. 5:8).

A man is to look to providing for those God has entrusted to His care, but he should not let worldly
cares dominate his concerns. He ought to remember that the present is the most important
moment, because it is only now that we have the chance to say yes to God. Prudent, humble
foresight in providing for one’s family is not opposed to placing one’s will into the hands of God’s
holy Providence. Also, this teaching in Matthew–Luke has traditionally been applied more strictly
to those in religious life.

62. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21; Rom. 10:13).

Not everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Matt. 7:21).

Only those whom the Lord chooses will be saved (Acts 2:39).

One cannot interpret “calling on the name of the Lord” in a minimalist sense, as if merely
pronouncing the name of the Lord is sufficient. “Calling on the name of the Lord” implies giving
oneself to the Lord with all that entails. See number 53, 51, 49 and 29.

63. We are justified by works and not by faith (Matt. 7:21; Rom. 2:6, 13; Jas. 2:24).

We are justified by faith and not by works (John. 3:16; Rom. 3:27; Eph. 2:8–9.; Gal.
2:16).

Didn’t we tackle this one already? See number 51.

64. Do not take sandals (shoes) or staves (Matt. 10:10).

Take only sandals (shoes) and staves (Mark 6:8–9).

In Matthew our Lord does not say to take no sandals, but to take no “extra sandals, or shirt or staff.”
Jesus is not commanding them to go barefoot, but to take nothing extra; one pair of sandals, one
staff, no more. Mark repeats the same command but phrases it differently.

65. Jesus said that in him there was peace (John 16:33).

Jesus said that he did not come to bring peace (Matt. 10:34; Luke 12:51).

Jesus grants supernatural peace to the faithful, which is the fruit of communion with God. But He
did not come to bring peace in the worldly sense. Sometimes, the choice to seek the peace that is
from God will result in the breaking of worldly peace. He is speaking of two different kinds of peace.

66. Jesus said that John the Baptist was a prophet and Elijah (Matt. 11:9; Matt. 17:12,
13).

John the Baptist said that he was not a prophet nor was he Elijah (John 1:21).

The Pharisees ask John if he is “the Prophet.” This is a reference to Deut. 18:15, in which Moses
promises that God will one day send Israel “a prophet like me.” John is not this Prophet. This refers
to Jesus Himself, as St. Peter says in Acts 3:17–26.

In Matthew 11, Jesus does not say that John is “the” Prophet, but that he is “a” prophet.
Regarding Elijah, the Pharisees and subsequent Jewish tradition have looked for a kind of fleshly,
physical return of Elijah. John was right in denying that he was Elijah in the physical sense. When
Jesus called John Elijah, He did so in a metaphorical sense, the same sense in which Luke says of
John: “And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17). John was not Elijah
after the flesh, but he did fulfill the prophetical role of one who comes “in the spirit and power of
Elijah”, which is the sense in which Christ refers to him, without, however, denying a physical
appearance of Elijah at the end of time (see Matt. 17:11).

67. Jesus said that he was meek and lowly (Matt. 11:29).

Jesus makes whips and drives the moneychangers out from the temple (Matt.
21:12; Mark. 11:15, 16; John 2:15).

To be meek and lowly is not the same thing as to sit idly by and tolerate evil. Meekness is patience
between man and man. It is related to the cardinal virtue of temperance, and is opposed to the sin
of anger. Anger is a sin when it is unjustified or when it leads to other sins; righteous indignation
is not the same thing as anger, and the acts of Christ at the Temple of Jerusalem are attributed not
to unrighteous anger, but to righteous zeal (John 2:17). Furthermore, the fact that Jesus says that
He is meek does not mean to preclude that He could exercise any other characteristic besides
gentleness. It is as if because we say “Bob is a happy person” means we are asserting he can never
be sad. Clearly Bob can still be sad while the statement “Bob is a happy person” is also true
generally. Jesus’ disposition is one of meekness, but this does not mean He is a pushover; He is still
aroused by righteous indignation at sacrilege, as we, too, should be.

68. Jesus said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees” (Luke 12:1).

Jesus said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees” (Matt. 16:6, 11).

Jesus said, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Herod” (Mark 8:15).

Then perhaps the assumption is…we should beware the leaven of all of them? This would not be
a contradiction unless Jesus had said something like, “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees and
Sadducees” but in another verse said, “Beware the leaven of the Pharisees but not the Sadducees.”
The fact that He lists other persons as well as the Pharisees does not mean He is contradicting
Himself.

69. Jesus founds his church on Peter (Matt. 16:18).

Jesus calls Peter “Satan” and a hindrance (Matt. 16:23).

At least these atheists recognize that the Church is in fact built on Peter! Jesus of course does not
mean Peter is Satan in a substantial sense, but that in opposing the will of God that Christ die on
the cross, Peter is acting as God’s adversary – and of course the word Satan literally means
“adversary.” The disciples often got it wrong, especially since Peter and the Apostles had not yet
received the Holy Spirit.

70. The mother of James and John asks Jesus to favor her sons (Matt. 20:20, 21).

They ask for themselves (Mark 10:35–37).

Jesus responds that this favor is not his to give (Matt. 20:23; Mark 10:40).

Jesus said that all authority is given to him (Matt. 28:18; John 3:35).

The mother of James and John initiates this request and puts her sons up to it. She approaches
Jesus with the sons, makes the request, and the sons echo their mother’s petition and encourage
Jesus to grant it. Matthew emphasizes the mother’s role in initiating the request while Mark
emphasizes the sons’ desires.

Regarding authority, Jesus has all authority insofar as He is Second Person of the Trinity.
But in becoming man, He laid aside much of this authority and took the form of a servant (Phil.
2:5–8). While Jesus was on this earth, He did only those things and said only those things
commanded Him by the Father (John 5:19). So while He has all authority, He does not always
exercise it as man, such as when He was being arrested and stated that He had the authority to call
ten legions of angels, if He so chose – but He chose not to (Matt. 26:53). He exercises this fullness
of authority only after the Resurrection, which is where the quote from Matthew 28 is taken from.

71. Jesus heals two unnamed blind men (Matt. 20:29, 30).

Jesus heals one named blind man (Mark 10:46–52).

Matthew chose not to include the name of one of the blind men, while Mark does record the name
of one. How is this a contradiction?

72. Jesus healed all that were sick (Matt. 8:16; Luke 4:40).

Jesus healed many that were sick – but not all (Mark 1:34).

Well first of all, St. Mark does not say that He did not heal all. The word “all” and “many” are very
fluid terms, words that we do not use strictly in our own day–to–day speech. For example, “The
parish festival was wonderful; all the kids from the parish were there.” When we say such a
sentence, do we mean to be understood literally that every single child in the parish was present?
In practice, we use words like “all”, “many”, “everybody” and “everyone” very generally. Since this
is how humans talk – and since the Bible was written by humans – we should not demand an
exactness of definition that we do not expect of our own speech. The fact is that both Gospel writers
are affirming that Jesus healed tons of people; every single sick person in the region may not have
come out, but everyone who did encounter Jesus was healed.

73. The council asks Jesus if he is the Son of God (Luke 22:70).

The high priest asks Jesus if he is the Christ, the Son of God (Matt. 26:63).

The high priest asks Jesus if he is the Christ the Son of the Blessed (Mark 14:61).

The high priest asks Jesus about his disciples and his doctrine (John 18:19).

Jesus was asked about His disciples and doctrine prior to being questioned about His identity as
the Son of God, which ended the interview. The word “Blessed” is a rabbinical word (in Greek,
eulogētos) that is a synonym for “God”; it is used only to refer to God and serves as a theonym, a
proper noun that refers to God but allows the speaker to refrain from saying the sacred name. The
word can be translated as “blessed” or as “God” because they functionally mean the same thing. The
high priest asked Jesus if He was bar barukh, translated into Greek as eulogētos. Matthew and
Luke chose to render this word as “God”, while Mark chose the more literal translation “blessed.”

74. Jesus answers to the effect of “You said it, not me” (Matt. 26:64; Luke 22:70).

Jesus answers definitely, “I am” (Mark 14:62).

What Jesus said in response to the question of the high priest was an Aramaic idiomatic expression
that is commonly translated as “You have said it!” Modern translators have had a hard time with
this phrase, as idioms are steeped in the context of a particular culture and don’t always translate
well, especially over millennia. For example, suppose you ask me how I like your cooking, and I
respond with the silly colloquial idiom, “It’s the cat’s ass!” meaning, “I like it a lot.” How would we
meaningfully translate “It’s the cat’s ass” into another language while accurately conveying the
meaning? What would people 2,000 years from now assume when they read that someone referred
to a dinner as “the cat’s ass”? If there was no knowledge of English idioms, one could actually get
the opposite meaning from the phrase (i.e., that I thought the food was so horrid that I referred to
it as feline anus).

We have the same problem here. Matthew, who wrote his Gospel in Aramaic, uses the actual
Hebrew idiom; it translates as “You say so” or “You have said it,” which is similar to the English
response “You got it!” or “You said it!” and ultimately means, “Yes.” St. Mark, as the secretary of
St. Peter, was writing for a Gentile audience who would have no knowledge of the Hebrew idiom.
He thus translates this difficult idiom as “I am”, which preserves the actual meaning of Jesus’ words
in a way the Gentile audience could understand.

75. At the Mount of Olives, Jesus told Peter he would deny him three times (Matt.
26:30–34).

At the Passover meal, Jesus told Peter he would deny him three times (Luke
22:13–14, 34).

As we have mentioned before, the Gospels do not necessarily present things in a chronological
narrative, the way, say, a police officer writing a report would do. Just because some saying is
mentioned earlier or later in a sequence does not mean the Gospel writer is necessarily insisting the
statement happened at that time. In this case, the Last Supper and the trip to the Mount of Olives
happened one after another, and the discrepancy here probably suggests that Peter and Jesus had
this conversation while they were heading from the upper room to the mountain. Or it is possible
that Peter reaffirmed his devotion multiple times and Jesus made the prophecy more than once.
At any rate, this is not a true contradiction, because there are a few ways to reconcile it. It would
only be a contradiction if Luke denied that Peter said this at the Last Supper, or vice versa. It is
sufficient from the Gospels to understand that the affirmations of Peter and Jesus’ prophesy were
made sometime between the Last Supper and the going to the garden, which is a time span of only
a few hours.

76. Peter was to deny Jesus before the cock crowed (Matt. 26:34; Luke 22:34; John 13:38).

Peter was to deny Jesus before the cock crowed twice. (Mark 14:30).

If the cock has crowed twice, then the cock has crowed.

77. The cock crowed once (Matt. 26:74).

The cock crowed twice (Mark 14:72).

This is stupid. Matthew does not say how many times the cock crowed, only that it crowed. If you
were to say, “The dog barked,” would the only possible interpretation be that it barked once and
only once? Does not the phrase “the dog barked” have a more general meaning that could refer to
a single bark, two barks, or five minutes of incessant barking? This is another example of how these
people are unwilling to extend the same common usages to words and phrases of the Bible that they
utilize in their everyday use of speech.

78. Peter makes his first denial to a maid and some others (Matt. 26:69, 70).

It was only to the maid (Mark 14:66–68; Luke 22:56, 57; John 18:17).

The maid was the primary individual Peter was speaking to, but there were many others standing
around. Even John 18, which is cited above as being in contradiction to Matthew 26, says this
plainly: “And the servants and officers stood there, who had made a fire of coals; for it was cold: and
they warmed themselves: and Peter stood with them, and warmed himself” (John 18:18). So even
if only the maid is recorded as speaking, clearly there were other people around who would have
heard Peter’s denial.

79. Peter’s second denial was to another maid (Matt. 26:71).

It was to the same maid (Mark 14:69–70).

It was to a man and not a maid (Luke 22:58).

It was to more than one person John 18:25).

Mark does not deny that it was the same maid mentioned in Matthew. Luke does not specify who
accosted Peter, but presuming it was a man and not a woman, this does not preclude both a maid
and a man, and perhaps others, from all making these inquiries. John 18:25 seems to imply this,
when it points out that many were standing around Peter asking him if he were a disciple. If we
understand that many were there and not just one maid, man, or whatever, then this all becomes
very simple.

80. Peter’s third denial was to several bystanders (Matt. 26:73–74; Mark 14:69–70).

It was to one person (Luke 22:59–60).

It was to a servant (John 18:26–27).

The third denial was primarily addressed to an individual, but an individual who was part of a
group of bystanders who all witnessed the denial collectively. See number 78 above.

81. The chief priests bought the field (Matt. 27:6–7).

Judas bought the field (Acts 1:16–19).

The statement in Acts is somewhat rhetorical. In saying Judas purchased a field “with the rewards
of his iniquity”, it means nothing other than that the money given to Judas was used to purchase
a field. Saying “he” purchased it is a rhetorical flourish. Consider the following scenario: Suppose
a man robs a bank and flees on foot with the money. But then suppose, in his flight, he drops the
money in a field and abandons it. Now suppose the field belongs to a church, and the pastor finds
the bag of money. Now suppose that the pastor uses the money to buy a new bell tower for the
church (notwithstanding everything we have ever heard about giving the money back to the
authorities, but just stay with me here). Now we have a new tower built from the funds the bank
robber dropped in the field. In this case, we could say rhetorically that the robber “built” the tower
with the funds of his iniquity. Of course, the robber did not build or buy anything; but through his
iniquity the money came into the hands of the pastor, and he thus used it for the tower. Similarly,
the money of Judas’ betrayal came into the hands of the priests, who used the money of his iniquity
to purchase the Field of Blood.

82. Judas threw down the money and left (Matt. 27:5).

Judas used the coins to buy the field (Acts 1:18).

See number 81 above.

83. Judas hanged himself (Matt. 27:5).

Judas fell headlong and burst his head open (Acts 1:18).

This is one of the most interesting of the alleged New Testament biblical contradictions. Unlike
most of them, it does present a real problem for exegetes because, like the question of Jesus’
genealogy, there are two different accounts here, and this cannot be denied.

The traditional reconciliation of these two passages is that Judas hanged himself, the rope
broke, and he fell down and burst open. The passage in Acts 1:18 does not say that the act of falling
is what killed Judas; it merely notes that he fell and burst open. This could very well be describing
what happened to his body after the events described in Matthew 27. This makes a lot more sense
if one visits the actual location of Akeldama, which is a field punctuated by jagged rocky walls and
precipices. Judas probably hanged himself from a tree on one of these many outcroppings; after he
was already dead, the rope broke and his bloated body fell and burst asunder on the ground. This
is fully in keeping with tradition and the wording of the two accounts.

Sometimes we get into trouble when an event is recorded incompletely that the author
presumes everybody knew. For example, take the death of Lincoln. Suppose one reporter covering
the events of April 14th, 1865, writes that Lincoln was assassinated in Ford’s Theater on Good
Friday, which is completely true. Now say another reporter, covering the events at the Peterson
House, where Lincoln was taken after being shot, and presuming that his public already knew the
now famous sequence of events, writes that Lincoln died in bed at the Peterson House on the
morning of April 15th, 1865. Now suppose many centuries go by, such that much precise knowledge
about the details of the day are lost; in fact, suppose so much time goes by that these two accounts
are the only information we have on the death of Lincoln. Now historians begin to speculate on
discrepancies and contradictions in the two accounts. After all, what we are left with is:

Reporter 1: Lincoln was assassinated in Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865.

Reporter 2: Lincoln died in bed at the Peterson House, April 15, 1865.

If this was all the information we had to go on, the accounts could look contradictory. One says he
died violently in one place, one that he died in bed at another. Without any other information at all
the accounts might seem contradictory – that is, until we realize that the two accounts are related
to each other. Account 1 does not say Lincoln “died” on April 14th, only that he was assassinated
on that date. If we know that he lingered on for some time and was taken across the street to the
Peterson House, Account 2 fits perfectly with Account 1. Lincoln was shot on Friday and was taken
across the street to another location, where he lingered until the following morning and died in bed.

Similarly, Luke presumes his readership knows of the infamous hanging of Judas; consequently
he does not mention it in Acts 1. He does, however, enlighten us as to what happened to the body
of Judas after the fact, notifying us that the bursting of the corpse of Judas was appropriate given
his treachery. The only way the verses can be seen to be in contradiction is if we make Acts 1 to say
not only that Judas burst, but that this bursting caused his death. But it does not say this, and hence
we have no contradiction, merely an account of what happened to his corpse after the death that
Matthew describes.

84. Jesus did not answer any of the charges (Matt. 27:12–14).

Jesus answered some of the charges (Mark 14:61–62).

Jesus answered all of the charges (John 18:33–37).

The trials of Jesus before Herod Antipas, Caiaphas, and Pilate are all jumbled together and
confused here. Jesus did not speak at all to Herod (Luke 23:9). Before Pilate, he did not answer the
charges of the Jews, but that does not mean he did not speak at all. He spoke to Pilate about the
nature of His kingdom, but did not enter into debate about the specific charges. Similarly, he did
not argue with the Jews about the charges against him, but that does not mean He did not speak
at all. When adjured by Caiaphas, He clearly proclaimed that He was the Messiah. When Scripture
says He did not “answer charges” it does not mean He did not speak, but rather that He did not
make a defense. Thus, when Caiaphas charges Him to answer whether He is the Christ, Jesus
proclaims the truth freely, but He does not make a defense or try to absolve Himself of the charges.
The Scriptures are simply telling us that He made no effort to free Himself. This is what it means
to “answer charges” in a legal context.

85. Jesus said that eternal life would be given to all that were given to him (John
11:27–29; John 17:12).

Jesus released Judas in order to keep this promise (John 18:5–9).

This one doesn’t even make sense. Jesus did not “release” Judas. And the “life” that Jesus mentions
in John 18 is referring to preserving the physical life of the disciples, while the life in John 11 and
John 17 is eternal life.

86. The chief priests and elders persuade the people (Matt. 27:20).

Only the chief priests persuade the people (Mark 15:11).

The chief priests and the people persuade themselves (Luke 23:13–23).

The elders are among the entourage of the chief priests. When the Bible mentions the chief priest,
it is implied that his entourage is with him; like when we say, “The President visited Pittsburgh”,
this means the President and his whole staff and entourage visited Pittsburgh. Nobody would
assume it meant the President and the President alone came to Pittsburgh; his entourage is
assumed even if it is not mentioned. Similarly, Mark does not mention the entourage; Matthew
does. In Luke, the chief priests and the entourage are lumped together with the people. This is
because Luke is addressing Gentiles, for whom the chief priests, the elders and the people are all
collectively “Jews”.

87. Jesus is given a scarlet robe (Matt. 27:28).

Jesus is given a purple robe (Mark 15:17; John 19:2).

Jesus is given a gorgeous robe (Luke 23:11).

How is there a contradiction between the color of the robe and whether or not it was gorgeous? At
any rate, the robe was a deep scarlet with a purple shade; it was purple enough to denote royalty
but still scarlet enough to be somewhat red. Given the location of Judea, the robe was probably a
color known as Tyrian Purple, which was a medium between scarlet red and royal purple. It was
extremely common in 1st century Judea, as Tyre was only a little ways up the coast. But anyway,
aren’t colors subject to a certain degree of subjectivity? Would we really say two witnesses were
contradicting each other if one said a shirt was indigo and one said it was blue?

88. The sign says, “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” (Matt. 27:37).

The sign says, “The King of the Jews” (Mark 15:26).

In three languages, the sign says, “This is the King of the Jews” (Luke 23:38).

In the same three languages, the sign says, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the
Jews” (John 19:19, 20).

We have noted before how Mark summarizes events that are given more description in the other
Gospels. Because John was the only witness to the Crucifixion, his description is the fullest. The
other three Gospels offer summaries. Suppose a sign says, “Do not feed, approach, touch, shout at,
aggravate or tantalize the bears in any way.” Then suppose, when asked what the sign says, I reply,
“It says leave the bears alone.” I have offered a summary of what the sign says, but I have not
contradicted what the sign says. Similarly, John, as an eye–witness, preserves the actual text of the
sign, while the other evangelists offer summaries.

It is also possible that, since the sign was written in three tongues, Mark, Luke and John might
be quoting from different languages Mark reporting the Aramaic, Luke the Greek, and John the
Latin. In any sense, this is not a contradiction.

89. Jesus asks God, The Father, why he has forsaken him (Matt. 27:46).

Jesus said that he and The Father were one and the same (John 10:30; John 17:11,
21, 22).

Jesus is one in being with the Father. In Matthew 27, He is quoting Psalm 22, a Messianic psalm
which prophesies the Crucifixion. He is in effect saying, “Look in your Scriptures and you will see
that what you are doing to me right now was prophesied in the Psalms.”

90. The centurion says, “Truly this was the son of God” (Matt. 27:54).

The centurion says, “Truly this man was the son of God” (Mark 15:39).

The centurion says, “Certainly, this was a righteous man” (Luke 23:47).

There was no centurion (John 19:31–37).

First of all, John 19 does not deny there was a centurion, so it is not clear where that objection came
from. It mentions the presence of soldiers, and a centurion is a soldier. The passage from Luke does
not contradict the passages from Mark and Matthew. The centurion says that Jesus was a dikaios
anthrōpos, which has a double–connotation. In Greek, to be faultless or innocent was akin to being
holy or blameless before the gods and was somewhat idiomatic. When the centurion proclaims
Jesus dikaios, he in effect says that He is a holy one, or a holy man, with “innocence” interpreted
as holiness before the gods. When this phrase is taken from Greek to Aramaic or Hebrew, it
becomes “Holy One” or “Holy Man”, which are similar to the Aramaic titles for the Messiah (for
example, Mark 1:24). There is thus some relation between the literal wording of the Greek with the
Aramaic meaning. As we have seen before, we have a situation where Matthew and Mark give us
the meaning of the words filtered through the idiomatic language, whereas Luke gives us what is
probably closer to the centurion’s actual verbiage. See number 73 above.

Another explanation is that the centurion said both of these phrases; Luke, writing to
Gentiles, records the phrase that would be best understood by the Gentiles. Matthew and Mark,
writing to Jews, include the passage about the Messiah, which might have been lost on Gentiles not
familiar with Jewish prophecy.

91. Jesus was crucified at the third hour (Mark. 15:25).

Jesus was still before Pilate at the sixth hour (John 19:13).

The Jews and Romans had different systems for reckoning the hours of the day. The Jewish hours
were very approximate; the “third hour” of the Jewish day encompassed 6am–9am. According to
Mark, Jesus is crucified somewhere between 6–9am. John writes in the Roman style, and the
Roman hours were marked precisely as modern English hours are. Thus for the Romans, the “sixth
hour” is the sixth hour past midnight, or 6am. So in John’s account, Jesus is crucified somewhere
between 6–7am, which brings it into harmony with Mark.

We also do not know whether these times refer to when Jesus was actually nailed to the
cross or when he began his walk to Golgotha. Tradition tends to view the crucifixion as occurring
near midday, which would mean Mark and John are describing when Jesus was sentenced to death
rather than when He was actually put to death. A further confirmation that John is using the
Roman system comes from John 4:52, when John mentions a “seventh hour.” There was no seventh
hour in the Jewish reckoning, but there was in the Roman.

92. The women looked on from “afar” (Matt. 27:55; Mark 15:40; Luke 23:49).

The women were very close (John 19:25).

This is clear from anyone who ever watched a Jesus movie. The woman were near the cross, as close
as they could be, but they were still “afar” in the sense that the soldiers maintained a perimeter that
prevented them from going right up to it. They were as close as they could be, closer than anyone
else, but still kept “afar” behind the boundary set by the soldiers.

93. The last recorded words of Jesus were:

Version 1: “Eli, Eli …My God, My God why have you forsaken me” (Matt. 27:46).

Version 2: “Eloi, Eloi…My God, My God why have you forsaken me” (Mark 15:34).

Version 3: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46).

Version 4: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Just because one phrase was the last recorded in any one Gospel does not mean it was the last in
an absolute sense. There is no contradiction here, unless one of the Gospels were to say, “and these
were Jesus’ last words, and He said nothing else after this but died immediately.” None of the
Gospels state this; Jesus said many things before He died, and each Gospel writer chose to report
that statement which he wished, without intending to deny that Jesus said anything more or less.

94. A guard was placed at the tomb the day after the burial (Matt. 27:65, 66).

No guard is mentioned (Mark 15:44–47; Luke 23:52–56; John 19:38–42).

The fact that no guard is mentioned does not mean that no guard was there. Mark, Luke and John
do not deny a guard was there, they simply are silent on the matter, and silence is not a
contradiction.

95. Only those keeping the words of Jesus will never see death (John 8:51).

Jesus’ disciples will be killed (Matt. 24:3–9).

All men die once (Heb. 9:27).

John refers to eternal life, which the faithful of Christ will inherit. Matthew and Hebrews refer to
physical death. A very cursory reading of the verses would make this painfully obvious, even to a
child.

96. Upon their arrival, the stone was still in place (Matt. 28:1).

Upon their arrival, the stone had been removed (Mark 16:4; Luke 24:2; John 20:1).

This is incorrect. Matthew does not say the stone was still in place. It says the stone was rolled back
and there was an angel sitting on it.

97. There was an earthquake (Matt. 28:2).

There was no earthquake (Mark 16:5; Luke 24:2–4; Jn.20:12).

The latter three Gospels do not deny there was an earthquake, they just fail to mention one. An
omission is not a contradiction. See number 92.

98. The visitors ran to tell the disciples (Matt. 28:8).

The visitors told the eleven and all the rest (Luke 24:9).

The visitors said nothing to anyone (Mark 16:8).

It’s hard to see how Matt. 28 and Luke 24 are in contradiction, unless “the disciples” are different
from “the eleven and all the rest.” The implication in Mark 16 is that the women said nothing to
anyone publicly (as for example, the Apostles did after the Resurrection), but they did speak to the
disciples privately, as the other Gospels affirm.

99. Jesus’ first resurrection appearance was right at the tomb (John 20:12–14).

Jesus’ first resurrection appearance was fairly near the tomb (Matt. 28:8, 9).

Jesus’ first resurrection appearance was on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13–16).

The distinction between “right at the tomb” and “fairly near the tomb” in John and Matthew is too
subjective to be meaningful. Both Gospels affirm that the appearance occurred in the vicinity of the
tomb; whether right next to the door or twenty feet away from the door is irrelevant, as in actual
speech nobody really insists on distinctions that specific. The Gospel of Luke never asserts that the
appearance at Emmaus is the first or only Resurrection appearance, so there is no contradiction or
even an apparent contradiction, just ignorance.

100. One doubted (John 20:24).

Some doubted (Matt. 28:17).

All doubted (Mark 16:11; Luke 24:11, 14).

These verses refer to three different occasions; John refers to Thomas, when all the eleven except
him had seen the risen Lord; Matthew refers to after all had seen Him, but who doubted is not
specified. It does not imply it was any of the eleven. Mark and Luke refer to the initial reports of the
Resurrection given by the women, before any disciples had seen Jesus. Thus, what happened was
this: After the Resurrection, the women relate the story to the disciples, who are inclined to
disbelieve them. After the Resurrection is confirmed by the empty tomb and the post–Resurrection
appearances, the disciples believe, except for Thomas, who was not present; we know Thomas will
later believe. Finally, all of the eleven, plus the other disciples (there were hundreds), came with
Jesus to the Mount of Olives. The eleven believed, but some of the other unnamed believers still
harbored doubts.

101. Jesus said that his blood was shed for many (Mark 14:24).

Jesus said his blood was shed for his disciples (Luke 22:20).

The “you” mentioned in Luke 22:20 has never, in the whole history of Christianity, been taken to
refer to the disciples only. It refers to humanity in general.

102. Simon of Cyrene was forced to bear the cross of Jesus (Matt. 27:32; Mark 15:21;
Luke 23:26).

Jesus bore his own cross (John 19:16, 17).

Jesus did carry His own cross for most of the way. John simply omits to mention Simon, perhaps
because by the time he wrote the story was already so well known. Again, an omission is not a
contradiction, because John does not deny that anyone helped Jesus carry the cross at any point;
it merely affirms that Jesus Himself did carry it, which Matthew, Mark and Luke also affirm.

103. Jesus was offered vinegar and gall to drink (Matt. 27:34).

Jesus was offered vinegar to drink (John 19:29, 30).

Jesus was offered wine and myrrh to drink (Mark 15:23).

There is some ambiguity on the word “vinegar” here. The word used in Matthew is oxos, which
means “sour wine” but can also mean “vinegar. It also refers to a specific drink made of sour wine
and vinegar together which the Roman soldiers were accustomed to drink, so either “vinegar” or
“wine” are appropriate terms; different translations will render this word differently. The word
“gall” is a very vague term, cholē, which simply refers to any bitter drink. Myrrh, because it is so
bitter, would be a sort of gall. The myrrh (smyrnizō, in Mark) would have been mingled with the
oxos to give it a more agreeable flavor. A good English comparison would be the word swill, which
can refer to the leftovers of any drink. So, if one statement says, “They gave him swill to drink”, and
another “They gave him beer to drink”, it would be understood that the swill he was given consisted
of beer. Similarly, Jesus was given cholē, and smyrnizō refers to the sort of cholē it was.

104. Jesus refused the drink offered him (Mark 15:23).

Jesus tasted the drink and then refused (Matt. 27:34).

Jesus accepted the drink offered him (John 19:30).

We know that Jesus drank some of the drink, but also refused some of it. As Matthew states, He
drank some, but then refused any more. So it is right to say He drank, but also right to say He
refused. Matthew mentions the whole episode, while Mark and John record only parts of it.

105. Both “thieves” mocked Jesus on the cross (Matt. 27:44; Mark 15:32).

One “thief” sided with Jesus on the cross (Luke 23:39–41).

The fact that the whole is mentioned does not mean a part could not have dissented; for example,
when it says “All the people yelled, ‘Crucify Him! Crucify Him!’” this does not mean to deny that
there were some in the crowd who were not yelling this, or who may have been yelling something
different. Similarly, when it says that those crucified with Him mocked Him, it cannot be taken as
a denial that one of the thieves may have also defended Him. One thief attacked him for certain, and
that one thief was certainly included in the statement “those crucified with Him.” We might also
remember that the crucifixion lasted for several hours; it is certainly possible that both thieves
mocked Him at first, but that the second thief came to repentance and only later changed His
disposition towards our Lord.

106. Joseph of Arimathaea boldly asked for the body of Jesus (Mark 15:43).

Joseph of Arimathaea secretly asked for the body of Jesus (John 19:38).

Joseph’s boldness in Mark is towards Pilate; his secrecy in John was towards the Jews. Joseph
boldly requested an audience with Pilate to request the body, but he went out of his way to keep this
meeting secret from the Jews.

107. Jesus was laid in a nearby tomb (Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53; John 19:41).

Jesus was laid in Joseph’s new tomb (Matt. 27:59, 60).

The Gospel of Matthew relates that Joseph’s tomb was nearby. How is this a contradiction?

108. A great stone was rolled in front of the tomb (Matt. 27:60; Mark 15:46).

There was nothing in front of the tomb (Luke 23:55; John 19:41).

The passage in Luke says only that the women watched Jesus being laid in the tomb. Of course
there was no stone when He was being buried. Prior to the internment, the tomb was open (John
19, Luke 23). After they buried Him, they rolled a stone in front of the tomb (Matt. 27, Mark 15).
That’s just common sense.

109. Nicodemus prepared the body with spices (John 19:39, 40).

Failing to notice this, the women bought spices to prepare the body later (Mark
16:1; Luke 23:55, 56).

Nicodemus’ preparation occurred on the day of the crucifixion, that of the women several days later.
In Jewish tradition, it was custom for the body to be anointed, prepared with spices and have the
linens changed for several days successively after death during the traditional mourning period.
This is why the women were so anxious to get to Jesus early Sunday morning; they had not been
allowed to buy spices and do the work on the previous day’s Sabbath, and hence they had missed
one of the obligatory days of caring for the body. This is no contradiction, just ignorance of Jewish
customs.

110. The body was anointed (John 19:39, 40).

The body was not anointed (Mark 15:46–16:1; Luke 23:55–24:1).

The passages from Mark and Luke do not deny there was an anointing; they simply do not mention
it. Next.

111. The women bought materials before the Sabbath (Luke 23:56).

The women bought materials after the Sabbath (Mark 16:1).

Given the vast amounts of spices that could be used in these burial preparations (Nicodemus alone
contributed seventy–five pounds according to John 19:39–40), it is likely that the women had some
on hand before the Sabbath but needed to go out and purchase more, which they could not do until
after the Sabbath.

112. Jesus was first seen by Cephas, then the twelve (1 Cor. 15:5).

Jesus was first seen by the two Marys (Matt. 28:1, 8, 9).

Jesus was first seen by Mary Magdalen (Mark 16:9; John 20:1, 14, 15).

Jesus was first seen by Cleopas and others (Luke 24:17).

Jesus was first seen by the disciples (Acts 10:40, 41).

Let’s get all this straightened out. First, the account in Luke does not say Cleopas and the others
were the first to see Jesus; this is simply the first account that Luke decides to relate, but it never
says it happened first chronologically. Neither does St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:5 assert that Christ
appeared first to Cephas (Peter), only that He appeared to Peter before the rest of the Twelve. Mary
Magdalen was among the two Marys who saw Christ on Easter Sunday, so there is really no conflict
between Matthew 28 and Mark 16 or John 20. Acts 10 is extremely vague and gives no hint of
chronology other than to say that Christ appeared to the disciples, which could have happened
anytime between Easter and the Ascension. Basically, it went down like this: Christ appeared to the
two Marys first, Mary Magdalen among them, who appears to have stayed behind and had more
interaction with our Lord than the other. She told the disciples, and sometime later that day our
Lord appeared to Peter, and near evening, to Cleopas on the road to Emmaus.

113. The two Marys went to the tomb (Matt 28:1).

Two Marys and Salome went to the tomb (Mark 16:1).

Several women went to the tomb (Luke 24:10).

Only Mary Magdalen went to the tomb (John 20:1).

Mary Magdalen was among the two Marys, but as her encounter with the risen Christ was more
profound, John focuses in on her experience, though he does not deny that the other Mary was with
her. The same can be said of Salome. It needs to be stressed that failure to mention each and every
member of a party does not constitute a denial that they existed. Suppose last summer I led a hiking
trip up north with my companions Jon, Brian and Daniel. Now suppose when speaking to one
friend who is mutual friends with my acquaintances, I say, “Last summer John, Brian, Daniel and
I went hiking up north.” Now suppose I am speaking to another friend who is not mutual
acquaintances with my companions. To him, I simply say, “I went hiking up north last summer”,
since he does not know Jon, Brian, or Daniel and the inclusion of this information would not be
helpful to him. The latter comment does not constitute a contradiction of the former; rather, the
amount of detail I choose to include is modified based on the knowledge of the listener. We all
understand this simple fact of language. If I were to say, “I went hiking up north,” my friend might
ask, “Did you go alone?” because he understands that when I say “I went hiking” it could easily
mean I alone or I and some friends. Similarly, the statement that Mary Magdalen went to the tomb
does not affirm or deny that she had others with her. It simply states that she went without
commenting on anything else. We know from the other Gospels that she was not alone.

114. It was dawn when Mary went to the tomb (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2).

It was dark when Mary went to the tomb (John 20:1).

Dawn means when the sun first begins to come into view on the horizon in the morning. It is
usually still kind of dark at dawn. Duh.

115. An angel sat on the stone at the door of the tomb (Matt. 28:2).

A man was sitting inside the tomb (Mark 16:5).

There was both an angel on the rock and in the tomb. We recommend the reader to Chapter 15 on
this particular question. This is an admittedly difficult matter, but remember, for there to be a real
contradiction, one account has to specifically deny what is asserted by the other, and that clearly
does not happen here.

116. Two men were standing inside the tomb (Luke 24:3, 4).

Two angels were sitting inside the tomb (John 20:12).

Is it too much of a stretch to imagine that perhaps the angels changed their posture during the
appearance? That they either were seated and then rose or else were standing and then seated?

117. Peter did not go into the tomb but stooped and looked inside (Luke 24:12).

Peter did go into the tomb, and another disciple stooped and looked inside (John 20:3–6).

Luke does not deny that Peter went into the tomb. It just says that he bent or stooped over to
examine the clothes. This very easily could have taken place inside the tomb as Peter stooped over
the slab upon which Jesus lay. Taking into account the text of John 20, it appears that this is exactly
what did occur.

118. After the resurrection, the disciples held Jesus by the feet (Matt. 28:9).

After the resurrection, Jesus told Thomas to touch his side (John 20:27).

After the resurrection, Jesus said that he was not to be touched (John 20:17).

These are three entirely different occurrences with different circumstances. Jesus never said He was
not to be touched, but only told Mary Magdalen not to touch Him right then and there.

119. Mary first saw Jesus at the tomb (John 20:11–15).

Mary first saw Jesus on her way home (Matt. 28:8–10).

As everyone knows, the tomb was in a large garden enclosure. Mary saw Christ while leaving the
grave itself to go home but while still within the garden enclosure. Thus she was still “at the tomb”
because she was still in the cemetery, so to speak, although on her way out.

120. The women entered the tomb (Mark 16:5; Luke 24:3).

The women stayed outside the tomb (John 20:11).

John 20 does not deny that Mary Magdalen went into the tomb. It merely says that she happened
to be outside the tomb weeping when Jesus appeared to her. As we know from Matt. 28, Mary was
already making her way out of the garden, but the fact that she was on her way out is not a denial
that she was ever in. If I say, “While standing outside the pizza store, I got a phone call,” I am not
denying I was ever in the pizza store, only saying that I got the phone call while outside the store.

121. The disciples were frightened when they saw Jesus (Luke 24:36, 37).

The disciples were glad when they first saw Jesus (John 20:20).

When the disciples initially saw Christ in Luke 24, they were afraid because they were not certain
it was really Him; they thought He may have been a ghost (Luke 24:37). After seeing convincing
proofs that it really was our Lord in the flesh, they rejoiced. After this, their fear turned to “joy and
amazement”, as the same account in Luke says (v. 40–41). But consider also, if you witnessed
someone you loved rise from the dead and appear before you, would you be able to easily sum up
what sorts of emotions you would be feeling at that moment? Would not you be experiencing joy
and fear simultaneously? Do people not often experience different emotions at once?

122. Twelve disciples saw Jesus (1 Cor. 15:5).

Eleven disciples saw Jesus. Thomas was not there (Matt. 28:16, 17; John
20:19–25).

All the disciples did see Jesus. He appeared to the eleven first, and then later, to the eleven plus
Thomas. So no matter how you slice it, He appeared to all twelve ultimately, although at first only
to the eleven.

123. The disciples doubted that Jesus had risen from the dead (Matt. 28:17).

The Pharisees and chief priests believed it possible (Matt. 27:62–66).

How on earth is this a contradiction? That the Pharisees and disciples thought two different things?
At any rate, it’s not even true; the Pharisees did not believe He was capable of rising, but feared His
disciples might steal the body.

124. Jesus ascended on the third day after the resurrection (Luke 24:21, 50, 51).

Jesus ascended the same day as the crucifixion (Luke 23:42,43).

Jesus ascended forty days after the resurrection (Acts 1:3, 9).

This confuses the Resurrection on the third day with the Ascension on the fortieth day. For one
thing, the passage in Luke 24 describes only the appearance on the road to Emmaus, which is
hardly the same thing as the Ascension. And it was not the third day after the Resurrection, but on
the very day of the Resurrection, as it says in verse 22, “They went to the tomb early this morning
but didn’t find his body.” The passage cited from Luke 23 refers to the Lord’s words to the thief,
“This day, you shall be with me in paradise,” but this does not mean that Jesus ascended bodily into
heaven on that day. It simply means that the thief would enter into the beatific vision that day, not
that the physical body of Christ would ascend into heaven. The Resurrection occurred on the third
day, but Christ did not ascend into heaven until the fortieth day, as stated in Acts 1. Confusing the
Resurrection appearance and the beatific vision promised to the thief with the Ascension
demonstrates an astonishing degree of ignorance.

125. At the time of the Ascension, there were about 120 brethren (Acts 1:15).

At the time of the Ascension, there were about 500 brethren (1 Cor. 15:6).

Acts 1 does not deny there were 500 believers who had seen Jesus; it merely states that only about
120 were gathered in the upper room at that particular time. Suppose I say, “My baseball team has
about 20 players,” and then later I say, “I went out to eat with my baseball team at Denny’s; there
were about 12 of us.” Does the latter statement contradict the former? Of course not. It simply
means that not all 20 were present. The same applies here.

126. The money changers incident occurred at the end of Jesus’ career (Matt. 21:11,
12).

The money changers incident occurred at the beginning of Jesus’ career (John
2:11–15).

Many theologians and scholars have commented on this. The traditional explanation is that Christ
actually drove the money changers out twice; modern scholars, however, point to the fact that the
Gospels present Christ’s life topically, not necessarily chronologically, and that you cannot infer
from John 2 that this was at the beginning of Christ’s life and not at the end just because it comes
earlier in the Gospel. At any rate, this would not be a contradiction unless the account that placed
it later actually denied it happened earlier and vice versa.

127. Zachariah was the son of Jehoida, the priest (2 Chr. 24:20).

Jesus said that Zacharias was the son of Barachias (Matt. 23:35).

The name Barachias or Barachiah does not appear in the Old Testament.

This alleged “contradiction” forgets that there is more than one Zachariah in the Bible, and that
different translations spell names differently. The “Zachariah son of Barachiah” Jesus refers to is
not Zachariah son of Jehoida from 2 Chronicles, but the Prophet Zechariah, of whose father was
Berekiah. The Book of Zechariah begins, “In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the
word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah...” (Zech. 1:1). Apparently it never
occurred to these folks that Zacharias and Zechariah are the same name, as are Barachias and
Berekiah. Zachariah son of Jehoida was indeed murdered within the temple, but so was Zechariah
son of Berechiah son of Iddo. This is written in the Jewish Targum gloss on the Book of
Lamentations 2:20, which says, “Is it right to kill priest and prophet in the Temple of the Lord, as
when you killed Zechariah son of Iddo, the High Priest and faithful prophet in the Temple of the
Lord on the Day of Atonement because he told you not to do evil before the Lord?”

128. The coming of the kingdom will be accompanied by signs and miracles (Matt.
24:29–33; Mark 13:24–29).

It will not be accompanied by signs since it occurs from within (Luke 17:20, 21).

In Matthew and Mark, Jesus is referring to the definitive establishment of God’s eternal reign at
the end of time, the eschaton. In Luke, Christ refers to the kingdom in seed form, that which is
planted in the heart of the believer by faith and matures. In the latter, He speaks of the kingdom
as the mustard seed planted within, in the former, the kingdom as a fully matured tree in its
definitive and final state. Catholic tradition has always interpreted Luke 17 to refer to the
indwelling of the Holy Spirit that was made possible by the Incarnation and death of Jesus. The
two passages are referring to two different things.

129. The kingdom was prepared from the beginning (Matt. 25:34).

Jesus said that he was going to go and prepare the kingdom (John 14:2, 3).

Then this means that the kingdom is always being prepared, which is in keeping with what Christ
says in John 5:17, “My Father works until now; and I work.” The whole purpose of man’s creation
is to know, love and serve God and spend eternity with Him, and so long as man or the world
exists, God is preparing this great kingdom, this great plan, for those who love Him. The kingdom
is prepared from the beginning in the sense that God foreknew and foreordained its establishment
(cf. Rom. 8:29) but the plan foreordained by God was not brought to fulfillment until done so by
Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension. An analogy: Suppose one is building a house. Before the first
brick is laid, the design is drawn out to the last detail by the architect. Then it is built. In one sense,
the house was “prepared from the beginning” because it was planned before it was actually built.
But still, the builder had to “go and prepare” the house that the architect had ordained “from the
beginning.” This is common sense.

130. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin (Mark 3:29)

All sins are forgivable (Acts 13:39; Col. 2:13; 1 John 1:9).

God will forgive any sin that is repented of. To be forgiven, a desire to be forgiven is necessary.
Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is a refusal to repent, and hence a frustration of the work of
the Spirit. The obvious solution is that God will forgive any sin which is repented of; but obviously
God does not forgive sins which people refuse to repent of. To refuse repentance is to blaspheme
the Holy Spirit.

131. The ascension took place while the disciples were seated together at a table
(Mark 16:14–19).

The ascension took place outdoors at Bethany (Luke 24:50–51).

The ascension took place outdoors at Mount Olivet (Acts 1:9–12).

Catholic Tradition is unanimous that Jesus was taken into heaven from the Mount of Olives. The
passage in Mark 16:19 does not say Jesus ascended while the disciples were seated together at a
table, only that Jesus ascended “after He had spoken to them”, which is certainly true. As we have
noted elsewhere, after need not mean immediately after. If I say “I spent Christmas dinner with
my family in Minneapolis. After that, I flew out to Phoenix”, it does not in any way mean that I
stepped onto an airplane immediately after rising from dinner, let alone that the dinner table was
the location from whence I flew out.

As for the reference to Bethany, Bethany is a village located on the slopes of the Mount of
Olives. It is the same place. Luke uses the name of the town, Acts the name of the mountain, but
they are one and the same location.

132. The Holy Spirit was with John from before he was born (Luke 1:15, 41).

The Holy Spirit was with Elizabeth before John’s birth (Luke 1:41).

The Holy Spirit was with Zechariah (Luke 1:67).

The Holy Spirit was with Simeon (Luke 2:25).

The Holy Spirit is obtained by asking (Luke 11:13).

The Holy Spirit did not come into the world until after Jesus had departed (John
7:39; John 16:7; Acts 1:3–8).

The first four clauses are not contradictory because, being divine and hence omnipresent, the Holy
Spirit can be with many people at the same time. That Jesus says the Holy Spirit can be asked for
in Luke 11:13 is not to say that asking is the only way to receive the Spirit, as clearly the Holy
Spirit also sometimes “falls” or “comes upon” people in the Bible without their having asked (cf.
Jdg. 14:6, 1 Sam. 11:6, Acts 10:44). It also must be reminded that not everyone receives the Spirit
equally; God may grant more or less “portions” of the Spirit to different people (cf. 2 Kings 2:9,
Mal. 2:15, 1 John 4:13). These “allotments” of the Spirit are for the purpose of empowering God’s
people to do certain tasks or charisms and were given out even before the coming of Christ. As in
the cases of Samson or Saul, they “came upon” people when God wanted them to perform a task
– such as work miracles or, in the case of Elizabeth, speak prophetically – but went away when
the task was over.

This must be distinguished with the sending of the Holy Spirit that only happened after the
Ascension of Jesus, beginning on the day of Pentecost. This was a “giving” of a different order; on
Pentecost, Christ gave the Spirit to abide with the Church forever as the very “soul” of the Church,
as well as to indwell believers in an indwelling that was perpetual through their union with the
Church as perfected in the sacrament of Confirmation. This is notably different from the
manifestations of the Spirit prior to the day of Pentecost. It is in reference to this total outpouring
that Christ said He gives His Spirit “without measure” (John 3:34).

133. Sometimes God is responsible for unbelief (2 Thess. 2:11).

Sometimes Jesus is responsible for unbelief (Mk 4:11–12).

The devil causes unbelief (Luke 8:12).

All things are either willed by God positively or else permitted by Him. Even the temptations of
the devil are permitted by God, who allows the devil to tempt people as a means of testing them
but never allows the temptations to go so far that they cannot be resisted (cf. 1 Cor. 10:13). Now
when someone gives in to a temptation to unbelief, it is by their own will, since faith is both an
intellectual act as well as an act of the will. When this happens, God “gives them over” to their
punishment, which is nothing other than persisting in the state of unbelief with all the negative
consequences that follow. The devil, insofar as he wills to drag men away from God, can be the
instrument by which God inflicts His just punishments. Hence, St. Paul, when excommunicating
a man from the Church, calls it “handing him over to Satan” (cf. 1 Cor. 5:5, 1 Tim. 1:20). Thus it
happens that God, because of hardness of heart, allows men to fall into unbelief, or in Paul’s
words, hands them over to Satan, who is the instrumental cause of unbelief. This is a great
mystery, bound up with questions about freedom and grace, but at any rate, it is a theological
difficulty, not a contradiction. We refer the reader back to Chapter 2 on the hardening of
Pharaoh’s heart.

134. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer (1 John 3:15).

If anyone claims to love God but hates his brother, he is a liar (1 John 4:20).

No one can be a disciple of Jesus unless he hates his brother (Luke 14:26).

St. John’s use of the word “hate” in his epistles is employed in a totally different sense from the
way Jesus uses it. Quite simply, Jesus is using a hyperbole, a literary exaggeration to make a
point. This is common in Aramaic, like when Christ counsels believers to poke out their eyes and
chop off their hands rather than sin. Just as in those cases, Jesus is here using a hyperbole to make
the point that one’s relationship with God must take precedence over human relationships and
that, if necessary, a man must be willing to leave home and family for the sake of the kingdom.
He does not literally counsel us to hate our family members.

135. Believers do not come into judgment (John. 5:24).

All people come under judgment (Matt. 12:36; 2 Cor. 5:10; Heb. 9:27; 1 Pet. 1:17;
Jude 14–15; Rev. 20:12–13).

To “come into judgment” in John 5 refers to being condemned. All men are judged and tried by
God, but believers are not condemned. All people come into judgment, but believers are acquitted.

136. Jesus says that, if he bears witness to himself, his testimony is true (John. 8:14).

Jesus says that, if he bears witness to himself, his testimony is not true (John.
5:31).

This first phrase is a misquotation. Jesus does not say that if He bears witness to Himself His
testimony is true; He says, “Although I give testimony of myself, my testimony is true.” In other
words, His testimony is not true because He gives it of Himself; rather, because He is the Son of
God, His testimony is true in spite of Him giving it of Himself.

In 5:31, Jesus is referencing a precept of the Mosaic Law which does not allow a man to testify
on his own behalf. Jesus essentially says in 5:31, “According to the Mosaic Law, if I bear witness
to myself, my witness is not true. So I appeal to the testimony of John the Baptist.” He is making
His case within the parameters of the Mosaic Law, which does not allow a man to bear witness
to himself because men are untrustworthy. In John 8, however, Jesus notes that even if He does
go outside the bounds of the Mosaic Law and testify on His own behalf, His testimony is
trustworthy, because He is above moral suspicion.

An example: Everybody knows that in card games, you are not supposed to look at your
opponents’ cards because it is considered cheating. Imagine a morally upright person saying,
“According to the rules of the game, I am not allowed to look at your cards because it would give
me an unfair advantage. But even if I were to look at your cards, I would not have an unfair
advantage because I am so honest it would not cause me to cheat.” This is not a contradiction; it
is positing two different potential courses of action under two standards, one abiding by the rules
of the card came, the other without. Similarly, in these two passages Jesus essentially says, “You
want testimony of me? Fine, I bear witness to myself. But if that’s not good enough since we’re
going by the Mosaic Law, then here’s other witnesses, too.”

137. Men can choose whether or not to believe (John 5:38–47).

Only God chooses who will believe (John 6:44).

This is not a contradiction; this is a theological difficulty relating to the relationship between God’s
foreknowledge and man’s free will. Faith is a gift. We do not know, in the inscrutable designs of
God’s providence, why He offers the gift of faith to some at one time and others at some other time.
But when the gift of faith is offered, man is obligated to respond to the promptings of grace. God
summons; man must respond. Both God and man, grace and will, play a part in the act of faith.

138. None of Jesus’ followers would be lost (John 10:27–29).

Some of Jesus’ followers would be lost (1 Tim. 4:1).

No follower will be lost who continues to abide in Christ (John 10:29, 15:7); however, a follower
of Christ who abandons Him and separates Himself from God’s grace without repentance will
certainly be lost; in other words, he is no longer a follower of Jesus. Those mentioned in 1 Timothy
4 who are lost are specifically mentioned as those who “give heed to spirits of error and doctrines
of devils.” In other words, they have forsaken Christ. Essentially, then, these passages teach that
all followers of Jesus will be saved who persevere unto the end, which is what Jesus Himself
teaches as well (cf. Matt. 24:13).

139. Jesus is the ruling prince of this world (Rev. 1:5).

The prince of this world will be cast out (John 12:31).

Jesus is the rightful prince of this world. His place was usurped by Satan. Jesus casts Satan the
impostor out and takes His rightful place as Prince of the World. This is a simple failure to read
the Scriptures in context.

140. Jesus says all men will be saved (John 3:17).

Only 144,000 virgin men will be saved (Rev. 14:1–4).

For one thing, John 3:17 does not say all men will be saved. It merely says God sent His son to
save the world, not condemn it. Nor does Revelation 14:1–4 say only 144,000 virgin men will be
saved. Rev. 14:1–4 says that St. John saw 144,000 virgin men standing with Jesus on Mount Zion
and that these men had been redeemed. It also calls them “first fruits.” It in no way suggests they
are the only ones to be redeemed, merely that they are redeemed. In fact, neither passage here
says what the atheist interlocutor claims.

141. God wants all men to be saved (1 Tim. 2:3–4; 2 Pet.3:9).

God does not want all men to be saved (John 12:40).

God wills all men to be saved, but on His terms. He does not will to save men who do not submit
themselves to Him. I love my children. I want to give them all dessert. I will give them all dessert
if they eat their dinner. Though I want to give them all dessert, I will not give dessert to any child
who does not finish their dinner. What’s so difficult about understanding this?

142. Peter asks Jesus where he is going (John 13:36).

Thomas asks Jesus where he is going (John 14:5).

Jesus said no one asked where he was going (John 16:5).

Peter asked Jesus where He was going. Jesus gave a cryptic answer, and so Thomas asked the
question again. Regarding Jesus’ last comment, that “yet none of you ask me ‘where are you
going?’” Peter and Thomas knew Jesus was going away, but they were asking where He was
going in a worldly sense; they did not realize what our Lord really meant – that He was going to
die. Both men asked where Jesus was going, but neither of them asked where He was really going,
because they could not comprehend what Jesus meant by “returning to the Father.” This is similar
to Acts 1, where Jesus had been promising the coming of the kingdom. The disciples think He
means a worldly, political kingdom and inquire as to whether the political kingdom of Israel will
be reestablished. They had asked about the coming of the kingdom, but not about the real coming
of the kingdom, because Jesus meant “kingdom” in a different sense than they understood.

Similarly here, since Jesus had not yet died and ascended, the disciples understood “going
away” in a different sense than Jesus meant it. This sort of misunderstanding also occurs in John
11 when Jesus says Lazarus is “asleep” and in Matthew 16 where the disciples understand the
word “leaven” carnally while Jesus means it allegorically. This proves nothing other than that the
disciples were real, fallible human beings who were capable of sometimes misunderstanding what
their Lord was saying to them.

143. Jesus lost only one disciple (John 17:12).

Jesus lost no disciples (John 18:9).

Based on His words in John 17:12, Jesus clearly means Judas to be the exception. But because this
exception was foreknown “that the Scriptures might be fulfilled”, nothing has truly been lost. If
a man is given $12 but knows ahead of time that $1 will have to be spent and incorporates this
projected expense into his budget, then when the time comes and he loses the $1, nothing has really
been lost, in the sense that he is right where his budget predicted he would be. Nothing unexpected
has happened. The man, giving an account of his money at the end of the year, can truly say, “Of
the money you gave me, I haven’t lost any – except the $1 that we budgeted for,” but since this was
pre–planned, it doesn’t really count as a true loss.

144. Jesus came into the world to bear witness to the truth (John18:37).

The truth has always been evident (Rom. 1:18–20).

So the truth can never be stated more than once or in more than one method? The truth referred
to in Romans 1 is the truth that God exists and has created the world. The truth of which Christ
came to bear witness is that He is the Son of God and that salvation comes through Him alone.
The former truth can be known from reason alone, but the latter from divine revelation only.
These are both aspects of the truth, but ultimately the verses are talking about two different
things.

145. During his first resurrection appearance, Jesus gave his disciples the Holy
Spirit (John 20:22).

The Holy Spirit was given to the disciples after his ascension (Acts 1:3–8).

The giving of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles in John 20 was a special outpouring to them alone
which would empower them to forgive sins and confer the other sacraments; it is the source of
Apostolic Succession and the sacrament of Holy Orders. The outpouring in Acts 1 was when the
Spirit was given to indwell the Church as a whole, as Pope Pius XII taught in Mystici Corporis:
“Let it suffice to say that as Christ is the Head of the Church, so is the Holy Spirit her soul.”2 There
are certainly two gifts of the Spirit in the New Testament: one was meant for the Apostolic College
alone to grant them sacramental powers, the other was to the Church as a whole. See question 131.

146. The world could not contain all that could be written of Jesus (John 21:25).

All was written (Acts. 1:1).

This is simply stupid. As if St. Luke’s words “The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all
that Jesus began both to do and teach,” should be taken to imply that every single thing Jesus
Christ ever said or did was written down is absurd. This would mean He literally did not say a
single word until He was 12, since that’s the first time the Gospels record Jesus speaking. Would
any other document be held to this level of absurd literalism? If Julius Caesar were to say, “I have
written about all the things I did in Gaul,” would anyone be so dense as to think he meant every
single last little action he did in Gaul was written down? This only shows that the people who float
these contradictions have no interest in actually understanding the Scriptures, nor in applying
the same standards they would apply to any other historical work; they only care about hurling
out pathetic objections and moving on.

147. Obey the laws of men for it is the will of God (1 Pet. 2:13–15).

The disciples disobey the council (Acts 5:40–42).

Obey God, not men (Acts 5:29).

Obey men. It is God’s will (Rom. 13:1–4; 1 Pet. 2:13–15).

Obedience to God is manifest by obedience to legitimate authorities; this is the meaning of 1 Pet.
2 and Rom. 13. However, since God is a higher authority than any human law, human laws may
be disobeyed in situations where they contradict God’s law, which is an even higher authority. The
disciples disobeyed the council because it contradicted Christ’s law to preach to all men. Christians
obey all laws insofar as they are in accord with God’s law, but when they are not, God’s law must
be obeyed above human law, which is the meaning of Acts 5:29.

148. God hated Esau and loved Jacob even before they were born (Rom. 9:10–13).

God shows no partiality and treats all alike (Acts 10:34; Rom. 2:11).

Acts 10:34 and Rom. 2:11 are speaking about who can enter the Christian Church; these verses
teach that any person can become a Christian, regardless of race or nationality. This is a different
issue from what is being discussed in Romans 9. Romans 9 quotes Malachi 1, which does not state
that God hated Esau before he was born. Malachi 1:2–4 states that though Esau was also born
of the faithful seed, as was Jacob, God blessed Jacob’s land but made Esau’s land desolate. All that
was predetermined before birth was that “the older shall serve the younger” (Rom. 9:12). The
word ‘Esau’ in “Esau I have hated” refers to the land of Esau (i.e., Edom), as is made clear by
reading Malachi 1:3, which says “...I have hated Esau, and I have made his mountains a
desolation and appointed his inheritance for the jackals of the wilderness.” This is clearly referring
to a land, not a person. Whoever came up with this “contradiction” is ignorant of the fact that
Esau/Edom is a place name, just like Jacob is used as a place name.

149. All who have sinned without the law will perish without the law (Rom. 2:12).

Where there is no law there is no sin or transgression (Rom.4:15).

All who have committed sin will still be judged for their sin, whether or not they have the law, as
Romans 2:12 says. Romans 4:15, however, is referring to not every sin but to those specific
transgressions which come about from violating the Levitical law, such as failing to be
circumcised or eating forbidden foods. This is made clear by the previous discussion in Rom.
4:1–12 about Abraham and circumcision. The Pharisees accused Jesus of breaking “the Law”, by
which they meant the Levitical law. St. Paul’s point in Romans 4 is that without the Law, these
sorts of transgressions would not exist. In Romans 2, his point is to establish that there is a
natural law which is universally binding, prior to the Levitical law. The argument he sets up in
Rom. 2 is actually setting the stage for the argument in Rom. 4.

150. Doers of the law will be justified (Rom. 2:13).

Doers of the law will not be justified (Rom. 3:20; Gal. 3:11).

To the extent that anyone is justified under the Law, it is because of the faith that is implicit in any
act of worship carried out under the dictates of the Law. This is what it means to truly be a “doer
of the Law.” This is why the Church Fathers said those who were justified under the Law were so
by an implicit faith in Christ. But the Law considered apart from faith – i.e., the Law understood
merely as a series of rules and external precepts, does not have power in itself to justify anybody.
That is why God was not pleased with those who carried out the letter of the Law without the
necessary interior dispositions, as in Isaiah 1:11–17, where God calls the sacrifices of the Law
“vain” and “abominations” and says He detests them until the people “cease to do evil” and “learn
to do good.”

151. The law does not have dominion (Rom. 6:14).

The law has dominion (Rom.7:1).

In Romans 7:1 St. Paul is speaking of those who are still under the Law. In Romans 6:14 he is
speaking of those who have been freed from the precepts of the Law by grace.

152. The law was the result of sin (Gal. 3:19).

Sin is the result of breaking the law (1 John 3:4).

1 John 3:4 does not say that sin is the result of breaking the law. It says that everyone who sins
is a lawbreaker. Galatians 3:19 says that it was because of original sin that God gave the Law.

153. Those of God cannot sin (1 John 3:9).

Those of God can sin (1 John 1:7–8).

1 John 3 refers to abiding in a state of mortal sin. 1 John 1:7–9 refers to the fact that even among
Christians nobody is absolutely sinless. The message is that while even Christians will fall into sin
from time to time, one cannot claim to be a follower of God while habitually living in unrepentant
mortal sin.

154. The anointing of Jesus teaches right from wrong (1 John 2:27).

The law written on the heart and conscience teaches right from wrong (Rom.
2:15).

The law written on the heart (conscience) is the first teacher of right from wrong. This moral sense
is then enlightened, elevated, and sharpened by the anointing of Christ in the Holy Spirit.

155. Abraham was justified by faith (Heb. 11:8).

Abraham was justified by works (Jas. 2:21).

Abraham was not justified by works (Rom. 4:2).

Hebrews 11:8 is in the famous “Heroes of Faith” chapter of the New Testament where various Old
Testament characters are praised for their faithfulness. Hebrews 11:8 does not say Abraham was
justified by faith; it merely says that his actions were motivated by faith: “By faith he that is called
Abraham, obeyed to go out into a place which he was to receive for an inheritance.”

Regarding the passages in James 2:21 and Romans 4:2, St. Paul and St. James use the phrase
“works” in a different way from each other. Paul, preaching to Jews about the Christian’s freedom
from the Mosaic Law, refers to “works of the Law”, which denote such Jewish rituals as
circumcision, the dietary laws, etc. Paul rightly says Abraham was not justified by these things,
since he lived prior to the giving of the Law (cf. Gal. 3:17). St. James, on the other hand, refers to
the law in the sense of the moral law. If we are referring to the moral law, then of course Abraham
was justified by the law, because obedience and faithfulness to God are two precepts of the moral
law written in the heart of every man. This is the foundation of the virtue of religion (CCC 1807).

156. It is not good to eat or drink anything that might cause your brother to stumble
or be offended (Rom. 14:21).

Let no one pass judgment on you in matters of food or drink (Col. 2:16).

The New Law has done away with the Jewish dietary law, so there are no longer any foods that
are intrinsically good or bad for Christians to eat, as taught by Jesus (Matt. 15:11). In this sense,
no one can pass judgment on a Christian for what he chooses to eat or drink since we are not
under the dietary law. That’s not to say one cannot be guilty of sinning through food and drink
in other ways; in Romans 14, St. Paul gives the example of scandalizing a weaker brother through
one’s choice of food. Thus, while no food is in itself bad, we should avoid scandalizing others
through our food if we know it could offend them.

157. It is better that widows should not remarry (1 Cor. 7:8).

It is better that young widows should remarry (1 Tim.5:11–14).

St. Paul says it is better for old widows not to remarry but better for young widows to remarry.

158. The god of this world blinds people to the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4).

There is only one God (1 Cor.8:4).

There is only one God. The phrase “god of this world” is a euphemism for the devil.

159. The powers of this world are wicked, so fight against them (Eph. 6:11–13).

All powers are ordained of God and, if you resist, you are damned (Rom. 13:1–2).

The “powers” referred to in Ephesians 6 are evil spirits. The powers referred to in Romans 13 are
legitimately constituted political authorities. Two completely different ideas.

160. Bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2).

Bear your own burdens (Gal.6:5).

Galatians 6:5 says that every man will have to individually answer for his behavior to God. One
of the things he will have to answer for is how well he helped his neighbor, as stipulated in Gal.
6:2. These verses complement, not contradict each other.

161. Anyone who even greets a non–believer shares his wicked work (2 John
1:10–11).

Always be ready to answer any man concerning your faith (1 Pet. 3:15).

First of all, it is generally admitted that those whom John is speaking of in 2 John 1:10–11 are not
non–believers, but heretics. Whether a heretic is admitted to one’s home or greeted is irrelevant
to whether or not one gives answers concerning his faith. One may make answers to a heretic
without greeting him or inviting him into one’s house.

162. All of the grass on the earth is burned up (Rev. 8:7).

The army of locusts are instructed not to harm the grass (Rev. 9:4).

Christian tradition does not take all of the symbols of Revelation in a strictly literal sense, so we
should feel under no compulsion to make every single image in Revelation line up in a strictly
literal interpretation.

But for the sake of argument, even if we were taking this literally, it is not stated how much
time elapses between the events of 8:7 and 9:4. Burned grass starts to regrow rather quickly.
Perhaps the grass is protected in 9:4 because it is recovering from the first destruction in 8:7? The
point is this is nowhere close to a contradiction.

163. Only “The Father” knows (Mark 13:32).

“Jesus” and “The Father” are one (John 10:30; 17:11, 21–22).

Christ is God, the Second Person of the Trinity. As such, by His nature, He possesses all knowledge
of everything that is, was, or could be. But when the Second Person of the Trinity came to earth
and became incarnate, He voluntarily divested Himself of many of the prerogatives of divinity,
such as His glory, omnipresence, etc. This is what Philippians 2:7 calls Christ’s “emptying” of
Himself. One of the things He emptied Himself of was all knowledge that was not related to His
mission; so, for example, in His manhood, Christ did not know calculus, HTML, or Mandarin, as
this knowledge was not necessary for His mission. One of the pieces of knowledge that was
similarly not necessary was the time of His return, which He professes ignorance of according to
His human nature, though of course this time is within the scope of the divine knowledge.

164. Jesus said that he would judge (John. 5:22, 27–30; John 9:39).

Jesus said that he would not judge (John 8:15).

Jesus said that the Father judges (John 12:48–49).

Jesus said that The Father does not judge (John 5:22).

Jesus said that his disciples would judge (Luke 22:30).

To begin, John 12:48–49 does not say that the Father judges, but that “the word that I have
spoken shall judge him on the last day”, which is essentially the same as saying Jesus will judge.
But note that the time of the judgment is given as “on the last day.” Jesus did not come in the flesh
to judge the world (John 12:47); that is reserved for the end. This is the sense in which Jesus will
judge in John 5:22 and 9:39, which in Christian eschatology is known as the “Last Judgment” and
spoken of in the Creed: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ...who will come again in glory to judge
the living and the dead.”

In John 8:15, Jesus is engaging the Pharisees over the woman caught in adultery. He says that
the Pharisees “judge according to the flesh” (v. 15), that is, they judge in a purely external, worldly
manner. Jesus follows this comment by saying “I judge not any man”; that is to say, Jesus does
not judge anybody in this manner. Jesus judges in a spiritual sense, discerning the heart, which
is why he immediately says in verse 16, “And if I do judge, my judgment is true: because I am not
alone, but I and the Father that sent me.” Jesus is the instrument through which the judgments
of God the Father are meted out to mankind, and because Christ and the Father are one, their
judgment is one.

The judgment Jesus speaks of in Luke 22:30, where the disciples will “sit on thrones” judging
the twelve tribes of Israel, is a mediation of Christ’s judgment, something all believers will
participate in; hence St. Paul says that the faithful will participate in the judgment of the fallen
angels (1 Cor. 6:3–4). Because the Father is one with the Son, the Son’s judgment is united to His;
because the Church is the Body of Christ, the Body takes part in the judgment committed to the
Son. This is classic ecclesiology, not a contradiction.

165. He that does not believe is damned (Mark 16:16).

Thomas did not believe and was not damned (John 20:27–29).

Thomas’s disbelief was momentary, for after he saw the risen Lord he cried out, “My Lord and my
God!” (John 20:28). He clearly had faith after his disbelief. But those who persist in disbelief until
the end will be damned.

166. “When his branch is yet tender” (Matt. 24:32).

“When her branch is yet tender” (Mark 13:28).

This is just a translation issue related only to those texts which trace themselves back to the King
James Bible. Most Bibles render both the passages from Mark and Matthew as it. Greek, like Latin
and many other languages, is a gendered language, and sometimes there is uncertainty as to
what gender a specific word ought to take. But since such gender designations do not literally
mean the branch is feminine or masculine, this is really a question of linguistics and translation,
not asserting anything contradictory. Both Matthew and Mark speak of a tender branch. What
gender designation the Greek assigns to each phrase is irrelevant to the meaning.

167. Jesus is God (John 10:30).

Jesus is the “image” of God (2 Cor. 4:4).

Jesus was a man approved by God (Acts 2:22).

Jesus and God are one in the same (John 1:1).

Jesus sat down beside himself (Mark 16:19; Acts 2:32–33; 7:55; Rom. 8:34; etc).

This is simply ignorance of the Incarnation, Hypostatic Union, and Trinitarian theology. The
Second Person of the Trinity – the Son – is co–equal and co–eternal with God. The Son is God, just
as the Father and the Holy Spirit are God; yet, He is also a distinct Person. That Person came to
earth and was incarnate in the womb of the Virgin Mary and was born Jesus Christ on this earth.
Because the invisible God appeared in human likeness, Jesus is said to be the very image of God
(2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15). Jesus Christ was true God but also true man. It is right to say He was man
because He was truly a man (though without sin); it is also right to say He was God insofar as
the Second Person of the Trinity was joined to human flesh; it is also right to say He is the Son of
God because the Second Person of the Trinity proceeds from the First as a son from a father or as
an idea from the mind. The union of the divine and human natures is not undone after the
Resurrection; Jesus forever remains God and man, and as a glorified man, He is able to ascend
into heaven to “sit down at the right hand of the Father.” Jesus is one with the Father; He is God
with the Father and the Spirit, but He is a distinct Person. This is basic Trinitarian theology.

168. Jesus is the Son of God (John 6:69; John 20:31).

Jesus is the Son of Man (Matt. 18:11; Luke 21:27).

The “Son of Man” is an Old Testament title for the Messiah taken from the Book of Daniel
(Dan.7:13). Apocryphal Jewish works, such as the Similitudes of Enoch, also interpret Daniel 7
in a Messianic sense (1 Enoch 37–71). The Pharisees clearly understood it as a claim to divinity,
which is why the Chief Priests were so scandalized when Jesus referred to Himself as the Son of
Man in their presence (Mark 14:62–63).

169. Paul states that he does not lie (Rom. 9:1; 2 Cor. 11:31; Gal. 1:20; 1 Tim. 2:7).

Paul states that he does lie (Rom. 3:7).

St. Paul is speaking rhetorically in Rom. 3:7, as he states in verse 6 when he says “I speak
according to man”, or literally, “I speak in a human manner.”

170. Paul said that he does not use trickery (1 Thess. 2:3).

Paul admits to using trickery (2 Cor. 12:16).

In 2 Cor. 2:16, St. Paul does not say he was practicing trickery but says that others accuse him of
practicing trickery.

171. Paul says that circumcision profits nothing (1 Cor. 7:19).

Paul says that circumcision is profitable (Rom. 2:25; Rom.3:1–2).

Circumcision has no value for a Christian and profits nothing. The only sense in which it is
profitable is if one is under the Law, which is what Paul says in Romans 2:25. Circumcision is
profitable if one is a Jew under the Law (Rom. 2:25, 3:1–2) but has no value for a Christian who
has been released from observation of the Jewish law.

172. Do not covet (Rom. 7:7; Rom. 13:9).

Paul says covet (1 Cor. 12:31; 1 Cor. 14:39).

Let’s look at what these passages actually say. 1 Cor. 12:31 says, “Earnestly desire the greater
gifts” and 1 Cor. 14:39 says “Be eager to prophesy.” Now, not all desire is coveting, much less is
merely being “eager.” In his commentary on the Ten Commandments, St. Thomas Aquinas says
that desire becomes the sin of coveting when the desire leads us to serve iniquity. Thus, if the desire
does not lead towards iniquity (either to jealousy or envy), then it is not covetousness. This is
especially true when what we desire is charity, grace, or other supernatural goods. For this to be
a “contradiction”, one must equate covetousness with mere desire or eagerness, which is absurd.

173. Paul teaches not to steal (Eph. 4:28).

Paul admits to stealing (2 Cor. 11:8).

In 1 Cor. 11:8, Paul is using hyperbole when he says he “robbed” other churches; this is just an
exaggerated way for him to say he accepted voluntary donations, as anybody would see if they
simply read the second half of 1 Cor. 11:8: “I robbed other churches by accepting support from
them in order to serve you.” A similar expression would be the saying “I made out like a bandit.”
If an author selling books at a conference says “That was a great conference. I made out like a
bandit,” he is not saying he stole money; he is saying he made a lot of sales. Similarly, when Paul
says he “robbed” churches, he means he received a copious amount of donations.

174. Paul was assured that he would not be hurt (Acts 18:9–10).

Paul was often physically abused (2 Cor. 11:23–27).

In Acts 18:9–10, while St. Paul is preaching in Corinth, God says to him in a vision, “Do not be
afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man shall attack you to harm
you; for I have many people in this city.” Note the last clause, “for I have many people in this city.”
God’s promise to St. Paul was that he would not be harmed in Corinth. And he was not. He
preached there peacefully for a year and a half (Acts 18:11), and though the Jews made an
attempt to silence him, he was not harmed. None of the episodes related in 2 Cor. 11:23–27 were
in Corinth.

175. Paul states that the law is necessary (Rom. 3:31).

Paul states that the law is not necessary (Rom. 6:14).

Both of these verses speak of the Levitical law but neither say what our interlocutors assert them
to imply. Romans 3:31 does not say the Law is “necessary”; it says that by our faith we uphold the
divine origin of the law because, by faith in grace, we fulfill the heart of the law. Romans 6:14 does
not say the Law is unnecessary but only that Christians are not bound by it.

176. Jesus said to go and baptize (Matt. 28:19).

Paul said he was not sent to baptize (1 Cor.1:17).

When Paul says he was not sent to baptize, this does not mean he never baptized. Obviously, even
in the passage cited above Paul mentions he baptized several in Corinth. Paul simply means that
the essence of his mission was not baptism but preaching. Baptism follows faith, which in turn
comes by hearing the word of God preached (Rom. 10:17). However, the special mission Paul was
given by Jesus was not to baptize but to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles and their kings (Acts
9:15).

177. Paul said he was not sent to baptize but to preach (1 Cor.1:17).

Paul baptized (1 Cor. 1:16).

Again, Paul did not say, “I never baptized anyone,” but “I was not sent to baptize.” See answer to
number 175 above. A person who goes to a business luncheon can rightly say, “I did not come here
to eat,” because the lunch is merely an occasion for talking about business, but this does not mean
that he will not eat while he is there, only that the primary purpose of his attending the meeting
is not merely to eat.

178. Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the law (Matt. 5:17–19).

Paul said otherwise (Eph. 2:15).

Christ did not come to abolish the Levitical law but to fulfill it. He fulfilled it by His death on the
cross, and when He died the demands of the Law upon believers expired; hence Paul says that our
Lord’s death “abolished” the law with its ordinances. Paul speaks from the point of view of the
subject (believer), who is no longer obligated to keep the law. It is important to note that the fact
that Christ did not “abolish” the law does not mean it did not go away; it went away because it
was fulfilled – not abolished – but it still went away, and hence its demands are no longer
binding.

A simple analogy: There are two ways to make a debt go away. One can either repudiate it
and walk away, or pay it to the last penny. These methods are both radically different, but they
result in the same end (no longer paying on the debt). One can say, “I have not come to repudiate
my debt, but to pay it.” However the end result is the same as if one would have repudiated it; i.e.,
the balance of the debt is no longer paid, but in one case it is because the debt is repudiated, in the
other because one has paid it to the last penny.

Similarly, Jesus did not abolish the law as if the New Covenant were a repudiation of the Old
or in fundamental opposition to it. Rather, He fulfilled it by living its commands perfectly, offering
Himself as a spotless sacrifice, and hence bringing to an end the demands of the law upon
believers. This is complex – the relationship between the Old and New Testaments is one of the
trickiest parts of New Testament theology – but it is not a contradiction in any sense.

179. Jesus said that God did not condemn the world (John 3:17).

Paul said that God did condemn the world (Rom. 5:18).

This is a misquotation. Jesus does not say God did not or does not condemn the world, only that
it was not the mission of the Son to condemn the world (“God did not send His Son into the world
to condemn it”). God will always judge sin, and even Christ will judge the world at the Last
Judgment. See number 163 above.

180. Those present at Paul’s conversion stood (Acts 9:7).

They fell to the ground (Acts 26:14).

Presumably they stood speechless at first and then fell to the ground. Everybody who “falls to the
ground” was by definition standing before they fell.

181. Those present at Paul’s conversion heard a voice but saw nothing (Acts 9:7).

Those present at Paul’s conversion saw a light but heard nothing (Acts 22:9).

Let us compare the two passages. Acts 9:7 says, “Now the men who went in company with him,
stood amazed, hearing indeed a voice, but seeing no man.” Acts 22:9 says, “And they that were
with me, saw indeed the light, but they heard not the voice of him that spoke with me.” Acts 9:7
does not deny that the men saw something, only that they saw a man. They very well could have
seen a light, but did not see a man. So at least in this respect, these verses are not contradictory.

Regarding whether the men heard the voice, the word “voice” in both passages is phōnē, which
can mean “voice” but has an equally primary meaning as “tone” or “sound.” Similarly, “hear” and
“hearing”, akouō, can mean to hear, but can also mean to understand what is heard; some Bible
translations will thus render Acts 22:9 as “They understood not the voice of him that spoke with
me.”

This leaves us two possibilities (a) that the men who were with Paul certainly heard some
sort of phōnē; Paul perceived it as a clear voice, but the rest of the men only heard some kind of
noise. There is precedent for this in the Scripture, where Jesus and the disciples heard the clear
voice of God speaking from heaven but those who stood nearby only heard the noise as thunder
(John 12:28–30). Another possibility is (b) that the experience was not uniform among all the men
with Paul. Some heard the voice and understood it, some heard a mere noise with no voice, and
others heard nothing. A similar thing occurred in the episode quoted above with Jesus in John 12,
which states that “The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an
angel had spoken to him” (John 12:29). Some perceived a heavenly voice, others thought they had
heard thunder.

182. Shortly after his conversion, Paul went to Damascus where he spent some time
with the apostles (Acts 9:19).

Paul went to Damascus three years later and saw only Peter and James (Gal.
1:18–19).

Galatians 1:18–19 says Paul went up to Jerusalem, not Damascus.

183. Shortly after his conversion, Paul went to Damascus and then to Jerusalem
(Acts 9:18–26).

Shortly after his conversion, Paul went to Arabia, then to Damascus, and then,
three years later, to Jerusalem (Gal .1:17–18).

Acts 9:26 does not say Paul came to Jerusalem immediately after leaving Damascus. It merely
says, “When he came to Jerusalem.” Paul’s journey to Arabia took place between verse 25 and 26.
Since St. Luke composed the Book of Acts in order to give an account of the growth of the Christian
Church, Paul’s three year solitary, contemplative sojourn in Arabia did not fit in his narrative and
was omitted. Acts is not the biography of Paul; it is an account of the growth of the Christian
Church. Consequently we often find other details about St. Paul’s life in his letters that are never
mentioned in Acts, such as his intention to travel to Spain mentioned in Romans 15:24.

184. In Damascus, the governor attempts to seize Paul (2 Cor. 11:32).

In Damascus, the Jews attempt to seize Paul (Acts 9:22–23).

The Jews of Damascus were the ones who stirred up the governor to go after Paul, just like it was
the Jews of Jerusalem who instigated the Romans against Jesus. The governor sought to
apprehend Paul, but he was egged on by the Jews.

185. The Holy Spirit forbids preaching in Asia (Acts 16:6).

Paul preaches in Asia anyway (Acts 19:8–10).

The Holy Spirit forbade Paul to go into the province of Asia at that particular time. It was not a
universal command to never go to Asia ever. We know from Acts 18:11 that a minimum of one
year and six months elapsed between Acts 16 and Acts 19, perhaps much longer given all the stops
Paul made. God willed Paul to travel through the cities of Greece before going into Asia.

186. Paul said he would not be a servant of Christ if he tried to please men (Gal.
1:10).

Paul said that he tried to please men (1 Cor. 10:33).

In Galatians 1:10 St. Paul warns Christians of not letting the praise of men be the ultimate end of
their religious observance. To do so is to be a “man pleaser” who cares more for human respect
than the Gospel. But just because the approval of men is not to be the end of our religion does not
mean it cannot be used as a means to an end. In 1 Cor. 10:33 Paul famously says that he tries to
“please all men in all things” for the sake of the Gospel. This refers not to being a “man pleaser”
in the sense of subordinating religion to human respect, but in the sense of not needlessly putting
stumbling blocks in front of the Gospel by offending people without reason. This is why although
Paul fiercely argues that circumcision is unnecessary – and those who suggest otherwise are
merely trying to please men (Gal. 1:10) – he has the disciple Timothy circumcised in order to
remove a stumbling block from the Jews, who would not listen to uncircumcised men preach (Acts
16:1–3). There is a difference between being a “man pleaser” and simply trying to not needlessly
offend people.

187. Paul says that he was the chief of all sinners (1 Tim. 1:15).

He who commits sin is of the devil. Children of God cannot sin (John 3:8–10).

Paul was a grave sinner before he converted and became a child of God, at which point he ceased
being a grave sinner.

188. Paul said that Jesus is the judge (2 Tim. 4:1).

Paul said that God is the judge (Heb. 12:23).

Paul said that the saints would judge (1 Cor. 6:2).

See no. 163 above.

189. Paul said that Jesus was the Son of God (Rom. 1:3–4).

Paul said that Jesus was just a man (Heb. 7:24).

Hebrews 7:24 says Jesus was a man, but it does not say He was just a man. Jesus is both fully
God and fully man. See no. 166 above.

190. Do not boast (Luke 18:14).

Do not be proud (Rom. 11:20; 1 Pet. 5:5).

Paul proudly boasts (2 Cor. 11:16–18; Gal. 2:9–11).

Christ condemns boasting in the sense of proudly attributing one’s blessings to oneself. When Paul
does use the word “boast”, he makes it very clear that he is boasting in the work of the Lord (1 Cor.
1:30–31). Paul is proud of the work God has done through him and makes his boast in Christ. This
is why St. Paul says, “Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves: but
our sufficiency is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5). We may never boast in our own sufficiency (which would
be prideful) but we may certainly boast and glory in the triumphs of the Lord.

191. Jesus commends the church at Ephesus for discerning the lying apostles (Rev.
2:1–2).

Paul was the apostle to Ephesus (Eph. 1:1).

The fact that there were apostles at Ephesus whom Jesus accuses of being liars does not implicate
anyone in particular. This is especially true since Paul was a true apostle of Ephesus and Jesus
condemns false apostles. This alone puts them in different categories.

For example, if we hear on the news, “The governor commended local law enforcement for
arresting illegal weapons traffickers in Phoenix,” it would be understood that those who were
legally and legitimately selling guns in Phoenix would not be included in the statement. Similarly,
Paul and the true apostles are not included in Jesus’ condemnation of false apostles.

Notes

1. This particular list of contradictions is taken from www.skeptically.org
(http://www.skeptically.org/bible/id6.html)

2. Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 57 (1943)