Born in a small town in the rural hills of southeast Missouri, I grew up in an area that was decisively biblically based; my background was the Southern Baptist crowd, though I had a lot of mingling of the “backwoods Pentecostals” in my family too. Our life was simple with minimal crime, the kind of place you could leave your houses unlocked and your rifles on the rack in the back windows of your pickup trucks with the windows rolled all the way down (even sitting in the parking lot of the high school).
We were surrounded by trees, open fields, rivers, creeks, deer, raccoons, coyotes, ‘possums, and all the other wildlife that were just second “nature” for us; never could we have imagined life without that. Thinking nothing of getting in the car (or climbing onto a horse or a bicycle), the closest town might be 10 miles away, and it probably only had one small grocery store and not much else. I remember travelling over 40 miles just to get to the nearest town of over 2,000.
It was an enjoyable, carefree life (compared to today’s world) that gave you the foundation of belief in God and what the Bible taught. However, you were never told about how things might not have “melded” completely in the Bible, much less have it explained. So when one went out into the larger world, and it was then expediently explained to you by new friends as to why you really should lock all your doors, you could come up against other beliefs or disbeliefs that do not agree with what you were taught.
As a youth, without the tools and the reasons why we believe the things we do, one can fall away quickly. Colleges are especially handy for this, where the young adult mind is ready to absorb most anything told to it as a “truth”, be it that or not. Without having a solid basis on which to fight the contradictions that are brought up, our Christian youth are left vulnerable and unable to explain.
15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, -1 Peter 3:15 NIV
With this verse in mind, we need to prepare our youth, and ourselves, for that matter, to know why we believe what we do. This includes knowing how to solve the so-called conflicts that are in the Bible. This is what I hope to do with this series.
You’re probably asking where it was I received my training. All I can tell you is my history and my research. I ask that you subscribe, read through some of these contradictions I have posted, and see if you agree or not. Please feel free to leave a comment. Believe me, I am open to all civil and logical discussions.
So here is my history in a nutshell and how I got into researching the contradictions. Back in 1993, I was bitten by a tick in the middle of Missouri which resulted in a bull’s eye rash on the back of my left thigh. At that time, the CDC refused to admit that Lyme was in the state, so I went undiagnosed for almost 9 years. During this time, I became more and more incapable of doing normal daily activities, so I ended up reading a lot.
Just when I was becoming truly disabled from Lyme, I happened to read this book that was extremely convincing that God Yahweh was nothing more than a Sumerian archer god. Though I was so much in turmoil from the book that I threw it away, I still lost all my preconceived notions right there. I remember it well.
Trying to pack for a trip to Ireland with my mother, sister and aunt, I had been in bed for the whole previous week, too sick to get up until the day before. I had to leave at 4:30 a.m. in order to get to the airport in time for the flight. Having just reached the midnight hour, I finished the last few pages of that book. In desperation, I prayed that same ol’ prayer to God that if He was truly real to send me a sign. A Christian friend in Michigan would always help me with things, though not usually this big. At about 1:00 am., I sent her an email, asking her to contact me ASAP; however, I did not expect to hear back from her that night.
Nevertheless, God saw fit to answer my prayer, and within two hours, she answered me. She told me she woke up suddenly and saw a light on in the room where she kept her computer. Knowing she never left her computer on, she went to it to shut it off. When she got there though, she decided to check her email. And there was my email shouting out for help. By her replying in the middle of the night, I knew that God existed. Now, I just had to find out who He was. And it made my trip to Ireland a whole lot nicer, having my belief back in God.
To make this long story short, after a bit of researching, I found the Bible trustworthy enough to check into it. I started reading it from the beginning using the NIV translation. As I got deeper, I found my own inconsistencies without any help and started researching them online. (Oh, by this time, I was bedridden, so I had plenty of time to do a lot of research.) That’s where I found other people’s arguments against the Bible and how it contradicted, as well as, other errors. I started researching those as I really wanted to know what was The Truth: God’s Truth, not man’s.
The “contradictions” and other inconsistencies that I found online after an exhaustive look, though this was way back at the beginning of the millenium, seemed to be translation errors or just people taking verses out of context, that sort of thing. That’s when I decided I wanted to document what I had found online and study it as deep as necessary. Going back as far to the original Greek or Hebrew as was available, I was able to find things that I had never realized before.
There are many questions I have found in reading the Bible, using the original language, that do not seem to click with some of the doctrines I was told in my youth. But as to contradictions or inconsistencies-nah, nothing that really changes anything important. Anything man touches is going to have an error here or there, but I’ve found God has made sure His Truth is still consistent through it all.
I hope you enjoy reading my articles about each contradiction; some are more serious than others. The first few I’m doing will be light, but hopefully entertaining. I hope to post weekly, or at least, biweekly. Remember to subscribe if you’d like to receive my newsletter containing my musings!
©2024 Kelly L. Hartley
Kelly L. Hartley, a new author, writes Bible studies, devotions, fiction, and poems. She focuses on Bible contradictions for her “Spare Time Musings” on Substack. She’s a member of Ozark Chapter of American Christian Writers and Springfield Writer’s Guild. Social media: Substack, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
I’m excited to see your research on this!