I’ll get back to you shortly, but in the meantime, just to demonstrate that the contradictions in the Bible are not confined to the few we are discussing, here’s a link to a fine site which lists ‘101 clear contradictions in the Bible’.

Enjoy!

http://www.islamway.com/english/images/library/contradictions.htm

I noticed a couple interesting things as I was re-reading Nehemiah 7. I was wondering if there was anything indicating that the census Nehemiah referred to was the same one Ezra referred to. What I found was that Nehemiah refers in 7:5 to a book of genealogy, while Ezra refers to the actual count. I also noticed that the lists of who brought people back from captivity (Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, etc.) were not exactly the same. It may be possible that Nehemiah was referring to a census conducted by Ezra, and then making his own count. This would explain some discrepancies in numbers. What we may have is two separate censuses!

Andrew

Your exact words were “intellectual integrity” (which I don’t differentiate from academic integrity). I am a follower of Christ before I am an intellectual. Therefore, my personal integrity takes precedence over how I am perceived by intellectuals. “Intellectual integrity” is too often judged by agreement or disagreement with ones findings more so than on the truthfulness of their findings and the methods of research.

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You throw around the fundamentalist label as if it is a straight jacket in which I must continue to believe certain propositions in spite of the evidence. This is just not the case.

I could use labels for your beliefs to fit you neatly in a category as well but have refrained from doing so. I don’t find them helpful in our discussion. You make far too many assumptions when calling someone you have never met a fundamentalist. The fact of the matter is, your beliefs are more to do with your interpretation of the evidence than with the evidence itself.

What I know about the Bible, and what I don’t and perhaps can’t know causes me to withhold judgment on the numerical differences of Nehemiah 7 & Ezra 2. The footnote in my Bible for Nehemiah 7 says:

Neh. 7:6–73 This list is virtually identical to the one in Ezra 2 (see notes there). Therefore, its purpose is not to give new information but to highlight Nehemiah’s next concern after completing the walls, namely, to repopulate Jerusalem (see Neh. 7:4). He may have had in mind such prophecies as Isaiah 62. Regarding the discrepancies in exact numbers between the list of returning exiles in Ezra 2:1–67 and Neh. 7:6–66, various solutions have been proposed, and several factors may have contributed to the differences. Since Nehemiah was reading from a copy of an older list (either the list in Ezra or an official list that both of them consulted), the list may have been updated and corrected to allow for a number of births and deaths that occurred shortly after the exiles returned, and perhaps in some cases people were counted or grouped differently or in different categories. Either or both lists may also have been corrected and supplemented by a number of relatives who had been delayed on the journey by illness or for other reasons, and were added later. Some of the differences may also be due to copying errors.

It makes some interesting points about updating certain numbers, and as I have previously mentioned, the possibility that numbers were altered later by scribes. These differences are not overly concerning to me for two reasons.

1) I trust Ezra & Nehemiah and have no reason to doubt their honesty.
2) These differences don’t create any theological difficulties in how I read the rest of the Bible.

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You stated that my dismissal of scholarship on Matthew 24 is a cheap shot, but I don’t think this is the case at all. I am under no obligation to accept the opinions of men based on their worldly credentials. Jesus did not accept the opinions of the religious teachers of his day, and I don’t necessarily follow the opinions of the religious teachers today. I have stated that I don’t follow the majority opinion, and with good reason. The truth is not up for a vote.

The fact of the matter is, there really isn’t a majority opinion. There are conservative opinions, moderate opinions, revisionist opinions, critical opinions, and a myriad of opinions within each school of thought. You have not addressed any conservative opinions in your posts. Have you investigated the other side? Who have you read that is conservative?

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Your final list of problems I have not responded to:

1) Augustine was wrong on his list of OT books. The Jews did not accept the Apocrypha according to the list we have from Josephus. In a footnote of On Christian Doctrine it is noted that Augustine withdrew some of these statements in his Retractions, but I’m having difficulty finding a copy of Retractions online to find exactly what he said.

2) I don’t know much about the Codex Sinaiticus and to address it would be disingenuous.

3) The Council of Trent dealt with the canonical status of the Apocrypha. They were declared as having the same weight as the rest of the Scriptures by the council. This was in response to the Reformation, and Luther’s Bible which placed the deuterocanonical books in the Apocrypha.

4) The Apocrypha was not so widely accepted as you intimate. Origen differentiated it from the Scriptures (Commentaries on Matthew, X. 18, XIII. 57). Many other church fathers did as well. The Jewish Scriptures, the Tanakh, include only what Protestants today call the OT. These are the books Jesus would have read from in the Temple (as noted by his referral to the Law, Prophets, and Writings in Luke 24).

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You have some responding to do as well. You have not addressed any of my possibilities for the harmonization of Ezra 2 with Nehemiah 7 and reject my suggestion to read NT prophecy in light of the interpretation of OT prophecy. You do so without giving any reasoning beyond what the university taught you. That sounds to me like you are sticking with ideology over what an honest look at the text might reveal. I find it frustrating that you demand responses from me while not offering me the same courtesy.

Andrew

I’ve put a post on my blog about our discussion…

http://bloggingtheology.wordpress.com/