When was Jesus crucified?

    Mark 15:25 "And it was the third hour, and they crucified him."

    vs.

    John 19:14-15 "And about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But
    they cried out . . . crucify him."

Answer: Remember that they did not have watches strapped to their wrists in those days. Time was doubtless mostly calculated by observing the sun, which could have been obscured by haze or clouds, and at best would be only an a guesstimate. We should remember that John wrote his account some 65 years after these events happened. So put all these factors together and you have a time discrepancy. The impalement/crucifixion procedure happened in stages(Luke 23:26; John 19:17) Different persons might give different times for the impalement/crucifixion, depending on the particular stage of the procedure when they might note the time.

Shall we obey the law?

    I Peter 2:13 "Submit yourself to every ordinance of man . . . to the king, as supreme; Or unto
    governors."
    Matthew 22:21 "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." See also
    Romans 13:1,7 and Titus 3:1.

    vs.

    Acts 5:29 "We ought to obey God rather then men."

Answer: I don't see the problem here. Christians are to be good citizens, they obey the laws of the land and they pay their taxes. But in Acts 5:29, the apostles were brought before the Sanhedrin because they were preaching, and that was something that was forbidden by law, but commanded by God(Matthew 28:19,20). God's law supercedes human laws.(1 Corinthians 11:3) If not, God's people would still be Egyptian slaves.See Acts 4:19

How many animals on the ark?

    Genesis 6:19 "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into
    the ark."
    Genesis 7:8-9 "Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every
    thing that creepeth upon the earth, There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the
    male and the female, as God had commanded Noah."
    Genesis 7:15 "And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is
    the breath of life."

    vs.

    Genesis 7:2 "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female:
    and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female."

Answer: The Hebrew frequently indicates distribution merely by repeating the number used. Harper's Introductory Hebrew Method and Manual, in discussion of Genesis 7:2, 9, says on page 176: "Words are often repeated in order to express the distributive relation." Under the heading "Syntax of the Numerals" Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar (Second American Edition), on page 409, also states that one way of showing distribution is to repeat the number. The repeated numbers are not to be added together, but only indicate a distribution.
In 2 Samuel 21:20 there is a giant that has six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. The Hebrew repeats the number "six," not meaning each hand has six pairs of fingers, or twelve fingers, or that each foot has six pairs of toes, or twelve toes. The number is repeated because a distribution is involved, and the repetition shows this. In Numbers 13:2 and Joshua 3:12 it speaks of taking one man from each tribe, and the Hebrew literally reads "one man one man," repeating to show distributive relation, and not meaning a pair of men or two men from each tribe. Numbers 34:18 instructs to take one prince from each tribe, but the Hebrew literally is "one prince one prince," showing the distributive relation, and not meaning two princes.

Were women and men created equal?

    Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him;
    male and female created he them."

    vs.

    Genesis 2:18,23 "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will
    make him an help meet for him. . . . And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and
    flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

Subject:The first chapter of Genesis gives us a general description of the creation process, while the second chapter deals with man specifically. These 2 seemingly differing accounts of the creation process also leads some to believe that there were 2 different authors. The author if the first chapter being the Elohist(because God is referred to as elohim) and the author of the second chapter being the Yahwist or Jehovist(because God is referred to as Yahweh/Jehovah there). This is all an interesting theory and not one that I subscribe to as the second chapter uses elohim anyways, but it does point out the different overall view that is taken in the creative process.

Did Paul's men hear a voice?

    Acts 9:7 "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but
    seeing no man."

    vs.

    Acts 22:9 "And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard
    not the voice of him that spake to me."

Answer: Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words says "In Acts 9:7, 'hearing the voice,' the noun 'voice' is in the partitive genitive case [i.e., hearing (something) of], whereas in Ac 22:9, 'they heard not the voice,' the construction is with the accusative. This removes the idea of any contradiction. The former indicates a hearing of the sound, the latter indicates the meaning or message of the voice (this they did not hear)."
It is for this reason that modern translations clarify this fact more:  "The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one." "Those who were with me beheld the light, to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the One who was speaking to me."NASB

Is God omnipotent?

    Jeremiah 32:27 "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for
    me?
    Matthew 19:26 "But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but
    with God all things are possible."

    vs.

    Judges 1:19 "And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain;
    but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron."

Answer: It was not the Jehovah personally, but his army. They were still men and fearful as we can see at Deutoronomy 20:1, "When thou goest forth to battle against thine enemies, and seest horses, and chariots, [and] a people more than thou, thou shalt not be afraid of them; for Jehovah thy God is with thee, who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Also Joshua 17:16, "And the children of Joseph said, The hill-country is not enough for us: and all the Canaanites that dwell in the land of the valley have chariots of iron, both they who are in Beth-shean and its towns, and they who are in the valley of Jezreel. And Joshua spake unto the house of Joseph, even to Ephraim and to Manasseh, saying, Thou art a great people, and hast great power; thou shalt not have one lot only: but the hill-country shall be thine; for though it is a forest, thou shalt cut it down, and the goings out thereof shall be thine; for thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have chariots of iron, and though they are strong.

Does God live in light?

    I Timothy 6:15-16 " . . . the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality,
    dwelling in the light which no man can approach . . ."
    James 1:17 " . . . the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of
    turning."
    John 12:35 "Then Jesus saith unto them, . . . he that walketh in darkness knoweth not wither
    he goeth."
    Job 18:18 "He [the wicked] shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the
    world."
    Daniel 2:22 "He [God] knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him."
    See also Psalm 143:3, II Corinthians 6:14, and Hebrews 12:18-22.

    vs.

    I Kings 8:12 "Then spake Solomon, The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick
    darkness." (Repeated in II Chronicles 6:1)
    II Samuel 22:12 "And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick
    clouds of the skies."
    Psalm 18:11 "He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark
    waters and thick clouds of the skies."
    Psalm 97:1-2 "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice . . . clouds and darkness are round
    about him."

Answer: The mention of darkness comes from 2 hebrew words namely, "araphel" which can mean "gloom, thick cloud" and "choshek" which can mean "obscurity". For God to obscure himself is a loving provision as "there shall no man see me and yet live." Ex. 33:20
LIGHT is often used metaphorically like, "In the light of the king's countenance is life; And his favor is as a cloud of the latter rain." Prov 16:15
"That I may walk before God In the light of the living?" Ps 56:13
There is no need to mix up the 2 to make an alleged contradiction.

Does God accept human sacrifice?

    Deuteronomy 12:31 "Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to
    the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their
    daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods."

    vs.

    Genesis 22:2 "And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and
    get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the
    mountains which I will tell thee of."
    Exodus 22:29 "For thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors;
    the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me."
    Judges 11:30-39 "And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without
    fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hand, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh
    forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of
    Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering. So Jephthah
    passed over unto the children of Ammon . . . and the Lord delivered them into his hands. . . .
    And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet
    him with timbrels and with dances: . . . And it came to pass at the end of two months, that
    she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed."
    II Samuel 21:8-14 "But the king [David] took the two sons of Rizpah . . . and the five sons
    of Michal . . . and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them
    in the hill before the Lord: and they fell all seven together, and were put to death in the days
    of harvest . . . And after that God was intreated for the land."
    Hebrews 10:10-12 " . . . we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ . .
    . But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand
    of God."
    I Corinthians 5:7 " . . . For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.

Answer: I fail to see how the bottom examples(some of which have not even led to death(Jepthah's daughter,Isaac) compares to the BURNT SACRIFICES of HUMANS to pagan gods in the above example. Such a sacrifice was something God never even though of:"For the children of Judah have done that which is evil in my sight, saith Jehovah: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to defile it. And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire; which I commanded not, neither came it into my mind.

Who was Joseph's father?

    Matthew 1:16 "And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus."

    vs.

    Luke 3:23 "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was
    supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli."

Answer: Heli was really the father of Mary, so it might be better to paraphrase that scripture by son(in-law) of Heli. Luke's account traces the geneaology of Christ through Mary, thus proving Jesus' natural right to be the Messiah, and still Son of David.

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Heinz Schmitz