I was thinking about how science claims the likelihood of a multiverse and the different stories of the Gospels. Couldn’t it be that the reason they are contradictory is that one Gospel writer is telling of the events in one universe while another writer tells what happened in another universe etc. etc. Indeed, perhaps the whole Bible is a story meant to be written so that we can get the spiritual truths from it and apply it to our lives in this universe but the history of the Bible takes place in the multiverse. Different stories take place indifferent universes. This would resolve the contradictions.
I once gave a similar theory. Let me repeat it here.
Well, I subscribe to the scientific theory…that we live in a world, of multiple dimensions and parallel universes…and each person on this forum…is theologically and philosophically correct…in some alternative dimension or parallel universe!
I was also thinking of when you first told me that. It influenced my thought.
Here’s a artistic illustration, to help forum folks visualize this.
Also, some short videos will help. Including one from the BBC.
Here’s some simple science, to put it all into perspective.
I doubt it, I think a lot of atheists scientists are desperate to believe in the idea to counter the fine-tuning argument for theism. If people are desperate to believe in an idea, they will likely rationalize reasons to believe it or even state or believe falsehoods as facts. I am not saying that it is inherently atheistic, I am just saying that there are a lot of people desperate to believe it and evidence or claims from those people can’t be considered reliable.
Also, if the theory of multiverses is true, which I can’t imagine being provable one way or the other, there is still a problem with the idea that it resolves contradictions. The Bible writers would have no way of knowing what happened in alternate universes and it would be deceptive to record those events without clarifying that they did not take place in our universe. It would be like me claiming that I wore a tye-dye shirt today when I know that I wore a grey shirt, and then saying it is true because it happened in an alternative universe. With that kind of reasoning we would could rationalize any deception by saying to ourselves that it is true in an alternative universe.
Many supposed Bible contradictions are not actual contradictions and many of them are relatively or completely inconsequential if they were.
I find it amazing that many believers so easily, even gullibly, believe non-believer’s assessments of the bible that said non-believers claim not to believe in. Like why do variants need to be considered as contradictions — can’t variants be considered additional information and usually with some given rationale? Race-callers will describe and call the same race albeit with variations… does that make them contradictors?
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Well, I believe there’s contradictions because I’ve read them myself. It’s naïve and gullible to believe there are no contradictions. This is what is called a psychological projection. Reality itself in this universe clashes and contradicts. Quantum mechanics and Relativity is just one example. Indeed, it’s string theory and the multiverse that bring these two facts of science together.
God is transcendent and very easily could have revealed these events to Bible writers. Indeed, this is the very evidence that the Bible comes from another dimension. It contains paradoxes that can only be explained with extra dimensions and multiverses. A paradox is an apparent contradiction, something that seems contradictory but has the possibility of resolution when examined in all possibly existing time, space, and contextual frames of reference. An example would be a man aging only 30 years as he makes a round trip to the Andromeda Galaxy at relativistic velocity while back home his friends on earth would experience the passing of 4 million years. It depends on the frame of reference or context you are in. You can experience paradoxes from different frames of reference. Here’s an example from Proverbs:
Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. - Proverbs 26:4
On the one hand it says answer NOT a fool according to his folly. Yet in the next sentence it tells us TO answer a fool according to his folly. It depends on the context and frame of reference you are in. What is logically contradictory can be seen to be true within different frames of reference. It depends on the perspective. Take the contradiction:
Triangles cannot be circles and triangles can be circles
In a 2 dimensional reality triangles cannot be circles. But if we add an extra dimension of space a triangle can be rotated on it’s axis. In a different frame of reference we get:
Triangles and circles become one. What seems impossible in a 2 dimensional context or frame of reference becomes possible in 3 dimensional context or frame of reference. Given the likelihood of extra dimensions God is not confined to our dimensional frame of reference. What seems absurd (3 and 1 trinity, human and divine) becomes possible when extradimensional reference is taken into account. To read more about the paradoxes of God I recommend “Beyond The Cosmos: The Trans Dimensionality of God” by Christian Astrophysicist Hugh Ross:
Beyond the Cosmos brings the reality of God more fully before our minds and helps us love him with our whole being. We cannot love or believe a blank, but many parts of God s revelation of himself and his world remain little more than a blank until qualified and gifted teachers lead us to a greater clarity. Hugh Ross does that, giving the most difficult ideas in Christian teachings gripping new relevance to the realities of time and eternity. --Dallas Willard, professor of philosophy, University of Southern California
HOW CAN IT BE?
How can my choices be totally free if God is in control of all things at all times and knows the end from the beginning?
How can God hear my prayers while listening to billions of others around the world at the exact same time moment?
How can God be all-powerful and all-loving yet allow so much suffering and evil?
These complex paradoxes hold far-reaching implications that have troubled people for centuries. Drawing on biblical teaching and scientific evidence that supports it, Hugh Ross invites us to know and experience God in a way we may never have considered before. As a result, our love and appreciation for God will be dramatically deepened, and the way we relate to him and to others both believers and nonbelievers will be changed forever, for good.
Well, that’s fair enough… so which singular most self-obvious text do you see as a glaring contradiction? And is there or could there be some other explanation for this other than just claiming such to be a contradiction?
A real contradiction is when both events can’t be true but many of these so called contradictions are supplementary information to an event.
Actually, multiple dimensions is a key component of string theory. Which is worked on, by some of the world’s brightest physicists,
So whatever we as lay people think…I really don’t remember anyone on this forum…say they had a PhD in physics. But I have been friends with PhD physicists, who worked at Argonne National Laboratory](https://www.anl.gov/). So they would agree with what I say here.
But, then again. I did include a link before, of an scientific article - written in layman’s term. Which nobody here read, Ill bet.
Yes I agree, I do not hold that the bible is some kind of a magical elixir… To me the bible is simply a historical document that has vast implications. As I personally unravel the biblical narrative, I see a great story about a God who loved His creation and chose a particular group to see that the said creation would flourish, and that as others both saw How he dealt with his chosen and realized that he truly was the real deal, (by sending a son to die for the transgressions of everyone) that creation would at some point realize that God is both good and enduring.
Obviously, this is just my take on things.
I agree that there are rhetorically paradoxical or contradictory statements. If a statement is seemingly contradicted in the same sentence, chapter, or letter, I just assume it is rhetorical or meant to help us make distinctions or so on.
Then there are things that appear to be contradictions to many people but are not even rhetorical and are just a result of sloppy thinking or not paying enough attention or putting too much emphasis on one sentence(all of which, we are all guilty of at some point, I know I make such mistakes at least). For example,
“Whoever is not against us is for us”-Mark 9:40
vs
“He who is not with me is against me”-Matthew 12:30
I was actually going to use that as an example of what I mean by a “rhetorical contradiction” but after searching and reading this article, I changed my mind and decided that it is probably not even rhetorically contradictory. Here is the article, if you are interested in what it said or think that there is a contradiction there(I found it in a search so I have no idea what the rest of the site is like for better or worse) https://www.kencollins.com/answers/question-43.htm
I am just saying that I don’t believe that Bible authors would knowingly make claims that are non-factual in our universe or dimension or whatever, unless it is rhetorical or of little consequence. Of no consequence meaning if(hypothetically) the Bible were to say that there were 540 people at one of Jesus’s speeches/sermons, when the was actually 543 [gasp!] or even 600(if it was an estimate or something). I am guessing most of us would not consider that a lie and not even truly false except in terms of mathematical precision which is not the point.
I think it is lying(if there is intent to deceive or mislead rather than an honest error) to tell someone a version of a story that is not true in our own universe or dimension, so I don’t think the Bible authors would willfully do this unless they were liars or unless they believed that their audience understanding and believing in theories about quantum physics lol. That would be like the story of Abraham lying about Sarah by intentionally implying that he wasn’t married to her when he said that she was his sister. Is it possible that what he said wasn’t false because he might not be married to her in some alternate universe? No, it would still be misleading. Of course, you could argue that there is a difference in intention there but as I said, they were not speaking to quantum physicists or people that could see into alternate universes(even if they could). Why would they give accounts of alternate universes, without informing their readers? That would be damaging to their testimony because people living in those universes might discover that it didn’t happen that way in the only universe they know of.
It would make them deceivers just like dang Obi Wan telling Luke that his dad is dead! 
lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSOBeD1GC_Y (I am not sure I would recommend Robot Chicken for watching BTW, I have only seen a few clips)
The fact that they contradict and are resolvable with trans dimensional realities is the authors’ way of stating that they come from another dimension (they’re Divinely Inspired). In fact the Bible says that God sends strong delusions at times.
Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false ~~ 2 Thes. 2:11
The Bible says that all scripture is inspired only in the sense of spiritual truths for correction and truth for righteousness.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness ~~ 2 Tim. 3:16
Look at how many scientists don’t believe the Bible because of Genesis Chapter one contradicting science and the fossil record. If the Bible speaks of a reality outside ours (the multiverse) the problem is resolved. As being inspired by God surely He knows about quantum mechanics and trans dimensional realities. He’s the Creator.
Science is not static and has changed it’s conclusions many times & as for Genesis I am open to the Old Earth theory using Genesis so i’m not aware of any contradictions.
…and I guess that gives a whole new meaning to ‘multi-verse’ 
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You’re an idiot davo.
There could be different Bibles. Maybe that explains all the different books of different religions we have in this universe. I just know that the order of events in Genesis one contradict the fossil record and science. Animals in Genesis one eat only plants. Fruit trees appear before fish and land animals in Genesis. This is reversed in the fossil record. Creeping things appear before fruit trees and seed bearing plants in the fossil record. Appearance of the sun, moon, and stars is before fruit trees and seed bearing plants in Genesis. This also contradicts fossil record. This just scratches the surface. Science has reached practical certainty on the evidence, It’s not absolute certainty but evidence that is beyond reasonable doubt. It’s here to stay.
I’ll take that
But as for some apparent contradiction, well… methinks science and the bible are simply poles apart, or to cover all bases, as far as the east is from the west. IOW, I don’t see ANY contradictions at all as the two have nothing to do with each other, i.e., science isn’t about explaining the bible nor vice versa.
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You think that because you know they contradict one another. Unless we bring in the multiverse. In fact science has reached practical certainty on the evidence. Evidence that is beyond reasonable doubt. It contradicts all holy books around the world.
I was thinking about this. You might even have “potentially” different zombies from Z-Hell (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)…in different dimenions and parallel universes.
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Some can be Biblical zombies.
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Some can be Scientific zombies (AKA - Science run AMOK).
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Some can be black magic zombies.
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Some can be “slow” and “stupid”…like those on The Walking Dead and Fear The Walking Dead
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Some can be evolving via evolution and might be fast and smart.
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Etc.
The sky’s the limit, folks! 
