Alleged contradictions in the Bible #2 - How many were slain in the plague?

Continuing on with our series of alleged contradictions in the infallible word of God we come now to one that, at first glance, looks like a glaring error but, on closer inspection, explains itself.

In Numbers 25  we read of God wiping out 24,000 people for wickedness.  Being a sovereign God He is perfectly just in doing so.  After all, He is the one in control, He makes the rules, and if people wilfully disobey Him, despite being repeatedly warned, then they can't complain if He deals with them.

However, the problem arises when, after having read (in Number 25 v 9) that 24,000 were killed, we come to the New Testament and read (in 1st Corinthians 10 v 8) that 23,000 were killed.

This is another "Gotcha" moment from the unsaved.

"Your Bible claims to be God's word and yet we have an obvious error" - not so fast, my friend, read the wording very carefully:

" Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day, twenty and three thousand".

Did you notice the words "in one day"?

This shows, once again, that when reading the Bible it is imperative to read every word (after all, doesn't the Bible say "every word of God is pure"?).  It is quite obvious what has happened here - 23,000 died in one day, and the other 1,000 died later.

So, once again, the Bible is proved to be correct and the efforts of puny men to disprove it fail, and fail miserably.

Watch this space for the next instalment as we prove that the Bible is what it claims to be, the inspired and inerrant Word of God.

Alleged contradictions in the Bible #1 - the timing of Jesus' crucifixion.

Following on from my last blog post when I answered the question "Aren't there contradictions in the Bible?" I am intending to write a series of articles on alleged discrepancies in God's infallible word.

Of course, because the Bible is both infallible, and inerrant, there are NO discrepancies or contradictions; indeed, there has never been a proven fact of science or archaeology that has shown the Bible to be in error.

The subject I've chosen for this article is on the timing of Jesus' crucifixion.  The order of events over that time was that Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, was brought before various people and, when he was brought before the governor Pilate, He was led out in front of  a crowd who howled for His blood. After Pilate pronounced sentence viz. that Jesus should be crucified, He was then led through the streets to His execution.  From the moment Jesus was brought before the crowd to the time He was put on the cross would have been several hours and yet there appears to be a serious problem as I will now explain:

In John 19 v 13-14 we are told that Jesus was brought out before the crowd at the  6th hour; however, in Mark 15 v 25 we are told that Jesus was crucified at the 3rd hour.  How could he have been put on the cross 3 hours before being brought out to the crowd?

This seems to be a"gotcha" moment as far as the opponents of the Bible are concerned.  However, there is a simple answer and it runs like this:

In Mark's Gospel the times given are all in line with the Jewish reckoning of time; that is - the day starts at 6am and the 3rd hour is 9am, the 6th hour is noon, the 9th hour is 3pm.

In John's Gospel the timing follows the Roman reckoning, that is -  there are 2 blocks of 12 hours as in our own clocks today.

Bearing that in mind we see that Jesus was brought out before the crowd at 6am (the Roman time mentioned in John 19 v 14) and was crucified at 9am (the Jewish time mentioned in Mark 15 v 25); therefore, there is no problem, and certainly no contradiction or discrepancy.

Once again, the Bible is proved to be trustworthy and we can depend upon it as being true in every detail.