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Does Blind Bartimaeus Expose a Contradiction in the Gospels?
Throughout the history of the church, faithful men and women have confessed that the Bible is inerrant—that it is free from error in all that it affirms. When Scripture speaks, it speaks truthfully. Whatever the Bible claims, whether theological, historical, or factual, is true. This conviction is not a later invention imposed on the text by theologians desperate to protect it. Rather, the doctrine of inerrancy arises directly from Scripture’s own claims about itself. Peter explains that “men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:21). Paul similarly teaches that “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim 3:16). In other words, God himself stands behind the words of Scripture; he is their ultimate source. And because God cannot lie (Titus 1:2; Heb 6:18), Scripture—being his Word—cannot err. If God is truthful, then what God inspires must likewise be true. Yet despite this historic confession,…
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Do Genesis 1 and 2 Contradict? Explaining the Order of Creation.
Many critics attack the inerrancy of Scripture by claiming that Genesis 2 contradicts the creation sequence of Genesis 1. Genesis 1 presents a broad, structured chronology: land animals are created, and then humanity is created as the climax of Day 6 (Gen 1:24–31). By contrast, critics often read Genesis 2 as a different chronological sequence: (1) the creation of the man (Gen 2:7), (2) the planting of the garden and the growth of its trees (Gen 2:8–9), and (3) the formation of the animals and birds (Gen 2:19). On a surface-level reading, that ordering can appear to conflict with Genesis 1. What should we make of this? The Relationship of the Garden to the Creation Account A key assumption in the “contradiction” argument is that when Genesis 2:8–9 describes God planting a garden and causing trees to grow, it must be describing the same event as the creation of vegetation…