Pip: If you have ever been handed a list of supposed Bible contradictions and thought, “well, someone has clearly never heard of context,” then the Updated American Standard Version’s blog is basically your vindication in long form.

Mara: Christian Publishing House has been digging into exactly that territory — how to read Scripture carefully, how apparent conflicts dissolve under proper interpretation, and what a consistent biblical framework actually looks like across both Testaments.

Pip: Let’s start with the contradictions question itself.

Answering Supposed Biblical “Contradictions”

Pip: The central claim here is that most alleged contradictions in Scripture aren’t contradictions at all — they’re misreadings, and there’s a precise logical reason why.

Mara: The post opens by defining the terms: “A contradiction occurs when two statements affirm and deny the same thing in the same sense, at the same time, and under the same conditions.” That definition does a lot of work.

Pip: It does — because once you apply it, most of the famous examples simply don’t qualify. A shorter account isn’t a denial of a fuller one.

Mara: The Proverbs 26 case makes that concrete. Verse four says don’t answer a fool according to his folly; verse five says do. The post explains these address two different situations — one warns against mimicking foolish reasoning, the other warns against letting foolishness go unchallenged.

Pip: Paired wisdom sayings requiring discernment, not a copy editor’s nightmare.

Mara: The Gospel resurrection narratives get the same treatment. John 20:2 records Mary Magdalene saying “we do not know,” which the post notes naturally points beyond herself — selection is not denial.

Pip: And the inscription over the cross, where Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each give slightly different wording — the post points out that all four agree on the central accusation.

Mara: The Old Testament and New Testament relationship gets its own section. Matthew 5:17 records Jesus saying He came not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it, and Hebrews 10:1 frames the Law as “a shadow of the good things to come.” The ceremonial system was pointing somewhere.

Pip: Which means the end of animal sacrifice isn’t Scripture contradicting itself — it’s the system arriving at its intended destination.

Mara: The post also addresses the portrayal of God as wrathful in the Old Testament versus loving in the New. Exodus 34:6-7 describes Jehovah as merciful and slow to anger, while Romans 11:22 speaks of both kindness and severity. The character is consistent across both Testaments.

Pip: Genealogies get their own careful treatment too — Matthew’s selective grouping of fourteen generations isn’t deception, it’s a recognized ancient literary structure. And the post walks through why Matthew and Luke’s differing lines for Jesus aren’t in conflict.

Mara: The closing argument is about Scripture’s human and divine authorship together. Different styles, different genres, different writers — but one coherent revelation guided by the Holy Spirit. As the post puts it, the differences in Gospel style “display the varied human instruments through whom God gave one coherent revelation.”

Pip: So the next time someone hands you that list of contradictions, you have homework.

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Mara: The thread running through all of this is interpretive responsibility — reading according to grammar, context, and covenant rather than importing modern assumptions onto ancient texts.

Pip: Careful reading as an act of faithfulness. That framing will carry into the next episode too.

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Answering Supposed Biblical “Contradictions”

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