Between Us – Response to a Reader’s Question

By Rev. Dr. Clyde Grubbs, January 11, 2026

I received a note from a reader of our web page who asked a question. He wrote “You say in your column that there are many contradictions in the Bible.” I know of no contradictions in the Bible. You are causing a ‘schism’ by saying that there are contradictions in the Bible.” He challenged me by finishing his note with: “What’s your answer?”

My answer is read the Bible. If you still have questions after reading the very different Nativity scenes of Matthew and Luke, or Mark and John’s very different resurrection scenes, we can talk.

There are many contradictions in the Bible: read the different narratives and take notes on each scene and compare it to the other scene and the contradictions become apparent. But, of course, our friend’s note to me was not about an actual examination of the Bible. He was defending a question of faith. The orthodox believe that the different accounts of the Bible were eyewitness accounts, and the eyewitnesses just saw different things and reported different things.

So, we need to step back and ask a question. What good is the Bible if it’s full of contradictions? First of all, as we have studied in our Second Sunday of the month group study, the Bible was written over thousands of years by different people in different places and then added together to be edited into one document. But the one document was not originally considered to be one. It was originally considered to be a collection of different writings. And therefore, we appreciate the reason Matthew and Luke, for example, are different accounts. Because Matthew and Luke are trying to say different things.

So, these are the kinds of things that we look at carefully in our study group called What’s Up with the Bible? We look at the questions not from the stance of trying to shoot them down or shoot them up for historical accuracy, but to look at them as an ancient effort to create a transformative religiosity relevant to the writer’s unique cultural context.

The question raised, in the wake of examining this collection of writings, is: If the Bible isn’t the definitive word on Christianity, then what good is it? It’s the most influential book in so-called Western civilization. To understand Western civilization, it is useful to know this collection of writings called the Bible and to have a critical understanding of them, So, what they meant then and what they come to mean now helps us understand why good things and bad things come out of religious communities. We’re always open to more conversation. So, if you have any thoughts, let me know.