Be ready always to give an answer — 1 Peter 3:15
Answers Index
A growing index of careful responses to the objections and questions people raise, with links to the sermons and articles behind it.
Reliability of the Bible
Text, transmission, translation, and claims of contradiction.
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Do Matthew and Acts contradict each other about Judas’s death?
“Matthew says Judas hanged himself, while Acts says he fell headlong and his body burst open; how can both accounts be true?”
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Do Paul and James contradict each other about faith and works?
“Paul says justification is by faith apart from works, while James says a person is justified by works and not faith alone. Do Romans 4, Ephesians 2 and James 2 disagree?”
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Does fulfilled prophecy show the Bible is from God?
“Skeptics say biblical 'prophecies' are either vague enough to fit almost anything, were written or edited after the events they describe, or were deliberately acted out by people who knew the texts. On that view, fulfilled prophecy proves nothing about divine origin or about Jesus being the Messiah.”
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How Do We Know the Bible Has Not Been Changed?
“The Bible was copied by hand for centuries and translated over and over. Whatever the original authors wrote, what we have now is a corrupted, edited text that cannot be trusted to say what they said.”
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Is the Bible Full of Contradictions?
“Skeptics circulate long lists of passages that supposedly contradict each other. If even one of them is a real contradiction, the Bible cannot be the word of a God who does not lie, so the honest thing is to admit the book is full of errors.”
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Who Decided Which Books Belong in the Bible?
“The Bible's table of contents was settled by politics. Constantine and church councils centuries after Christ picked the books that suited them and suppressed the rest, so the canon is a human invention.”
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Why do Matthew and Luke give different genealogies for Jesus?
“Matthew names Jacob as Joseph’s father and traces Jesus through David’s son Solomon, while Luke names Heli and traces the line through Nathan; how can both genealogies be true?”
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