Example of a biblical falsehood - King Ahaziah's age.

[AgnosticBoy]

One member stated the following in another post:

Ok, what in the Bible has ever been shown to be false?

That conversation started here:

Should Christians expect God to grant prayers?

Over the last 2 years, I've had to deal with a lot of friends/family that lost loved ones due to Covid-19. Many of them are Christians and they of course prayed for their loved one to be healed. Many of them expected God to act. It was common to hear, "God will heal her". I question if...

theagnosticforum.com

To answer Chapabel question, let's use Ahaziah's age as an example.

Here's some background...
2 Kings 8:26 NIV:

Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king and he reigned for one year in Jerusalem. His mother was Athaliah, the granddaughter of King Omri of Israel.

2 Chronicles 22:2 KJV:

Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Athaliah the daughter of Omri?

Do you see the difference. One passage says that Ahaziah was 22 when he became king, but another passage says 42. One is obviously false, but I'll offer it up for debate.

So for debate,
Does the Bible contradict itself when it comes to Ahaziah's age at the time he became king? If so, then that shows at least one falsehood.

 

[Chapabel]

Ok, let's look at your "falsehood". It is interesting to note that you quoted from two different English versions of the Bible. One being the NIV and the other the KJV. Had you quoted both scriptures from the NIV, CSB, ESV, ASV, NASB or any other modern version you would find this:
II Chron.22:2 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah, granddaughter of Omri.
II Kings 8:26 Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Athaliah, granddaughter of Israel’s King Omri.

Low and behold, no contradiction. As was explained in the video I shared, in the literal tens of thousands of manuscripts available today, they all agree down to the letter in over 95%. (I had said over 90%, but according to the experts it is over 95%). Of the remaining 5% that do not agree, the majority of the discrepancies are spelling and word order. However, there are some direct contradictions. Again, as was explained in the video, this is where textual criticism comes into play. By tracing the different lines of manuscripts, it becomes clear when and where a copyist made an error. In this case, the discrepancy is found in the Masoretic text that the KJV is translated from. However, the Syriac, the Arabic, at least one Hebrew manuscript, as well as the Septuagint manuscripts have the correct age as 22. In the Masoretic texts, numbers were not written in Arabic numerals (1,2,3,4...etc). They were spelled out (one, two, three...). Look at the similarities in the Hebrew 42 and 22: שְׁנַיִם אַרְבָּעִים ;שְׁנַיִם , עֶשְׂרִים. A scribe replaced a אַ with a עֶ. An easy mistake. Yet, there are hundreds of other manuscripts with the correct rendering of 22.

Also, anyone with a third grade education could see that Ahaziah could not have become king at 42. His father died at the age of 40 which means Ahaziah would have to have been two years older than his father. So an error in copying a number made its way into some translations. A number only. Was any doctrine affected by this copist error? No. Every manuscript still has Jesus crucified, buried and raised on the third day. Every manuscript shows God's love for mankind and His plan of salvation. The Bible was inerrant and infallible in the originals, but some mistakes were made in copying. When the vast majority of scripture agree 100%, it is reasonable to believe we have the truth of God's word available for mankind today.

I stand ready to answer any other so-called fallacies of the Bible.

 

[AgnosticBoy]

It is interesting to note that you quoted from two different English versions of the Bible. One being the NIV and the other the KJV. Had you quoted both scriptures from the NIV, CSB, ESV, ASV, NASB or any other modern version you would find this:

Low and behold, no contradiction.

[Emphasis mine]

You can't simply claim that the Bible contains nothing false (contradictions point to something being false) when different Bibles say different things. Since you've already acknowledged that there are copyist errors then you obviously can't say that all of them are true or without error.

This is why Christians tend to only accept the original manuscripts as being error free.

As was explained in the video I shared, in the literal tens of thousands of manuscripts available today, they all agree down to the letter in over 95%. (I had said over 90%, but according to the experts it is over 95%). Of the remaining 5% that do not agree, the majority of the discrepancies are spelling and word order. However, there are some direct contradictions.

All it takes is just one error to show that your point is wrong. You've acknowledged that there are errors. If your claim refers to the autographa or originals, then I can agree that pointing out copyist errors is irrelevant since your claim is not about the copies, and then there's your valid point about using the copies to figure out mistakes (since not all copies would make the same mistake).

I stand ready to answer any other so-called fallacies of the Bible.

What does the Bible say about the age of the Earth?

 

[Chapabel]

Sure I can. I posted the verses from the CSB that reveals both passages affirm the age as being 22 when Ahaziah became king. Again, there were copyist errors in some manuscripts, but when all the manuscripts are taken collectively, the absolute truth can be determined. As I posted earlier (not sure what happened to the post) I have a Bible that has a word missing. The word was omitted from the publisher. That does not mean every Bible coming from that printing press is false. With the tens of thousands of manuscripts, it is not difficult to determine the truth.

The Bible does not speak to the age of the earth.

 

[Bill]

The Bible does not speak to the age of the earth.

Tell that to the Discovery Institute and you will be out of there and back on the street in a trice.

 

[Bill]

To be fair, I should point out that the Discovery Institute is manned by young earth evangelicals and not mainstream Christians, Chap may have it right.