Saturday, June 10, 2000 2:28 PM

From: Oswald Crinklepot

The challenge: Name one thing that is unique to Jesus that cannot be found elsewhere and in most cases earlier.

Jesus' teachings for one thing. Most religious leaders teach people to "look within" and so forth. Christianity is the only religion that says we are forgiven and saved not because of who we are or what we do, but because He loved us and we believe in Him.

There's also that raising from the dead thing. I can't think of another religious leader that didn't die and stay dead.

And now on to these "contradictions" that I've seen millions of times..

1. How many Gods? There is none other God but one. - I Corinthians 8:4

And God said, Let us make man in our image. - Genesis 1:26

Easy. Let us make man in "our" image... you ever heard of the trinity? The Father, the Son and the Spirit? Each performs diferent roles. How is man made in "Our Image" - man is a trinity too. The body, the soul(Mind) and the spirit.

Well... looking at the number of "contradictions"... I can't begin to answer all of them at the moment - not enough time. But I will try to finish answering most of them this evening and get back to you. Glancing over them right now I see quite a few that have easy answers without having to stretch or bend over backwards to make sense of it.

Just remember this: Even though the scriptures were "breathed" or "inspired" by God (it's debatable what that means exactly) - doesn't mean that they're going to make sense 100% of the time. Why? Because they have been written by the hand of man, over and over again. Man has translated it over and over again into different languages and versions. There are plenty of "contradictions" that are usually mentioned by people (I'm sure some of them are on your list) that are explained by translation errors. Most "problems" vanish when you look at the original text (or as close to it as we can get). Often times the "Original" text was very vague about certain things. Man made it complicated. Man felt the need to be specific even when the scriptures were not and often times screwed up the real meaning of the verse but "filling in the gaps".

One example (which may be on your list) is when two different cities are named in connection with a single event. It's still in our Bibles today. But - if you look at the "original" text - only one city was named. The second time the event was mentioned, it refered to the city by a "nick name" (The City of such and such...) man decided to translate the nick name literally... and because of that it appeared to be an actual city name. That's a good example of some of the translation problems.

I'll get back to you this evening,
Crink.