Does the Bible contain any true information?

Ain't it boring when the Christians won't come to the collosseum? All us lions just sitting around ....

If you have a concrete example of what you refer to as a perceived contradiction which is not in fact an actual contradiction, i'd be interested to know what it is.

God is to be found by those who seek him
Matt 7:8/ Prov 8:17

- God is not to be found by those who seek him
Prov 1:28

Question: Why does Luke present a different ancestral tree for Jesus than the one in Matthew? For instance, why does Luke 3:23 say Jesus' grandfather was Heli, and Matthew 1:16 says it was Jacob? And why are there so many other differences?


Answer: It is hard to match for fullness and clarity the answer given by R. A. Torrey:

1. The genealogy given in Matthew is the genealogy of Joseph, the reputed father of Jesus, his father in the eyes of the law. The genealogy given in Luke is the genealogy of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and is the human genealogy of Jesus Christ in actual fact. The gospel of Matthew was written for Jews. All through it Joseph is prominent, Mary is scarcely mentioned. In Luke, on the other hand, Mary is the chief personage in the whole account of the Saviour’s conception and birth. Joseph is brought in only incidentally and because he was Mary’s husband. In all of this there is a deep significance.

2. In Matthew Jesus appears as the Messiah. In Luke He appears as “the Son of man,” our Brother and Redeemer, who belongs to the whole race and claims kindred with all kinds and conditions of men. So in Matthew the genealogy descends from Abraham to Joseph and Jesus, because all the predictions and promises touching the Messiah are fulfilled in Him. But in Luke the genealogy ascends from Jesus to Adam, because the genealogy is being traced back to the head of the whole race and shows the relation of the second Adam to the first.

3. Joseph’s line in Matthew is the strictly royal line from David to Joseph. In Luke, though the line of descent is from David, it is not the royal line. In this Jesus is descended from David through Nathan, David’s son indeed, but not in the royal line, and the list follows a line quite distinct from the royal line.

4. The Messiah, according to prediction, was to be the actual son of David according to the flesh (2 Samuel 7:12-19; Psalm 89:3-4, 34-37; 132:11; Acts 2:30; 13:22–23; Romans 1:3; 2 Timothy 2:8). These prophecies are fulfilled by Jesus being the son of Mary, who was a lineal descendant of David, though not in the royal line. Joseph, who was of the royal line, was not His father according to the flesh, but was His father in the eyes of the law.

5. Mary was a descendant of David through her father, Heli. It is true that Luke 3:23 says that Joseph was the son of Heli. The simple explanation of this is that according to Jewish usage (as seen in Ezra 2:61; Nehemiah 7:63) Mary’s name, being a woman, could not appear in the genealogy [as an actual link, that is—T.T.], males alone forming the line. So Joseph’s name is introduced in place of Mary’s, he being Mary’s husband. Heli was his father-in-law, and so Joseph is called the son of Heli, and the line is thus completed. While Joseph was son-in-law of Heli, according to the flesh he was in actual fact the son of Jacob (Matthew 1:16).

6. Two genealogies are absolutely necessary to trace the lineage of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the royal and legal, and the natural and literal. We find the legal and royal genealogy in Matthew’s gospel, the gospel of law and kingship; the natural and literal in Luke’s, the gospel of humanity.

7. We are told in Jeremiah 22:30 that any descendant of Jeconiah could not come to the throne of David. Joseph was of this line, and while Joseph’s genealogy furnishes the royal line for Jesus, his son under the law, nevertheless Jeremiah’s prediction is fulfilled to the very letter, for Jesus (strictly speaking) was not Joseph’s descendant and therefore was not of the seed of Jeconiah. If Jesus had been the son of Joseph in reality, He could not have come to the throne, but He is Mary’s son through Nathan and can come to the throne legally by her marrying Joseph and so clearing His way legally to it.




Norm Geisler and Thomas Howe note some further details:

...that Luke would record Mary's genealogy fits with his interest as a doctor in mothers and birth and with his emphasis on women in his Gospel which has been called “the Gospel for Women.”


Finally, the fact that the two genealogies have some names in common (such as Shealtiel and Zerubbabel, Matt. 1:12; cf. Luke 3:27) does not prove they are the same genealogy for two reasons. One, these are not uncommon names. Further, even the same genealogy (Luke's) has a repeat of the names Joseph and Judah (3:26,30).


The two genealogies can be summarized as follows:

MATTHEW LUKE

David David
| |
Solomon Nathan
| |
Rehoboam Mattathah
| |
Abijah Menan
| |
Asa Melea
| |
Jehoshaphat Eliakim
| |
. . . . . . . . . .
| |
Jacob Heli———
| |
Joseph—Mary—legal wife Joseph—Mary—actual mother
(legal father) (legal husband)?
| |
| |
Jesus Jesus

According to the bible, the earth is 7,000 y/o. According to science, the earth is 4.5 billions y/o.

Young Earth creationism (YEC) is a form of creationism that asserts the Heavens, Earth, and all life was created by direct acts of the Abrahamic God during a relatively short period, sometime between c. 5,700[1] and 10,000 years ago.[2] Its adherents are those Christians and Jews[3] who believe that God created the Earth in six 24-hour days, taking a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative as a basis for their beliefs,[4][5] and include around 10-45% of American adults, depending on various polls.[6] Some adherents hold that this view is supported by existing evidence in the natural world. Those adherents believe that the scientific evidence supporting evolution, geological uniformitarianism, or other theories which are contradictory to a literal interpretation of this creation myth, is misinterpreted.[7]

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
The earth is approximately 4 1/2 billion years old.

And Carbon Dating is used past 60,000 years (despite a previous posters comments), it's just not quite as accurate to the day/year then (meaning there is a margin of error, not meaning it doesnt work).

There is no scientific conspiracy. The earth is not 6 or 60 thousand years old. That is straight up propoganda with no basis in any kind of reality.

I believe faith doesnt have to make you stupid. It's should not be used as an excuse to ignore facts.

Science and spirituality need not be mutually exclusive. It's just as impressive if God or whomever made the earth 4.5 billion years ago and that evolution was part of the grand scheme.

But unfortunately it's easier to just to blindly believe, rather than use the brain god gave you.

As far as what the bible says? According to creationists they deem it 6,000 years old from certain texts. It's interesting what you say regarding time in the eyes of god. Maybe a thousand years is a day in gods eyes?

Who knows.... but know this. The bible is a book. An important book, but a book none the less.... written not by jesus, compiled not by his followers. But by ecclecastial conference some hundreds of years after the death of christ. Then re-translated, and re-edited a gazillion times since. It's a great & important story, but a story none the less.

Chronology
Main article: Ussher chronology

Ussher now concentrated on his research and writing and returned to the study of chronology and the church fathers. After a 1647 work on the origin of the Creeds, Ussher published a treatise on the calendar in 1648. This was a warm-up for his most famous work, the Annales veteris testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti ("Annals of the Old Testament, deduced from the first origins of the world"), which appeared in 1650, and its continuation, Annalium pars postierior, published in 1654. In this work, he calculated the date of the Creation to have been nightfall preceding 23 October 4004 BC. (Other scholars, such as Cambridge academic, John Lightfoot, calculated their own dates for the Creation.) The time of the Ussher chronology is frequently misquoted as being 9 a.m., noon or 9 p.m. on 23 October. See the related article on the chronology for a discussion of its claims and methodology.

Ussher's work is sometimes associated with Young Earth Creationism, which holds that the universe was created several millennia ago. But while calculating the date of the Creation is today in some circles considered a controversial activity, in Ussher's time such a calculation was still regarded as an important task, one previously attempted by many Post-Reformation scholars, such as Joseph Justus Scaliger and physicist Isaac Newton.

Ussher's chronology represented a considerable feat of scholarship: it demanded great depth of learning in what was then known of ancient history, including the rise of the Persians, Greeks and Romans, as well as expertise in the bible, biblical languages, astronomy, ancient calendars and chronology, Ussher's account of historical events for which he had multiple sources other than the Bible is usually in close agreement with modern accounts – for example, he placed the death of Alexander in 323 BC and that of Julius Caesar in 44 BC.

But Ussher's last extra-biblical coordinate was the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, and beyond this point he had to rely on other considerations. Faced with inconsistent texts of the Torah, each with a different number of years between Flood and Creation, Ussher chose the Masoretic version. Partly his reasons were sound scholarly ones – the Masoretic text claims an unbroken history of careful transcription stretching back centuries – but his choice was confirmed for him because it placed Creation exactly four thousand years before 4 BC, the generally accepted date for the birth of Christ; moreover, he calculated, Solomon’s temple was completed in the year 3000 from creation, so that there were exactly 1000 years from the temple to Christ, who was the fulfilment of the Temple.[7]

Consider the lack of education of its writers.