The Bible is free of contradiction

Thank you for the challenge! Firstly, I would like to point out that because the Bible is an ancient work of literature, there will be mistakes (such as spelling or name mix-ups) due to interpretations and translations by various authors in different periods of time. So I will make an effort to not include those. For the sake of clarity (taken from Oxford dictionary): accuracy: the quality or state of being correct or precise. inaccuracy: the quality or state of not being accurate. contradiction: a combination of statements, ideas, or features of a situation that are opposed to one another. In my argument, I will be using my annotated Bible. There are countless example to expose, amassed during a summer of research. I will begin. ------ Concerning the order of the creation of Earth's inhabitants, Genesis contradicts itself. In Genesis I, God made the beasts of the earth before he created the man. [Gen 1:25] - "And God made the wildlife of the earth after his kind, and livestock after their kind, and creatures that crawl upon the ground after his kind: and God saw that it was good." [Gen 1:26] - "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and the creatures that crawl upon the earth'." In Genesis 2, however, God made man before the beasts. [Gen 2:18] - "Then the LORD God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper as his complement'." [Gen 2:19] - "So the LORD God formed out of the ground every wild animal and every bird of the sky, and brought each to the man to see what he would call it." The animals had already been made in Genesis 1. It does not make sense for God to create them again in order so that Adam could name them--which, by the way, must have taken an awful long time. ------ Concerning Jesus's last words, Matthew, Luke, and John all say different things, which wouldn't be contradictory had they, the eyewitnesses, not written such vastly different accounts. [Matthew 27:46, 50] - "About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani?' that is, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?' ...Jesus shouted again with a loud voice and gave up His spirit." [Luke 23:46, 47] - "And Jesus called out with a loud voice, 'Father, into Your hands I entrust My spirit.' Saying this, He breathed His last." [John 19:30, 31] - "When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, 'It is finished!' Then bowing His head, He gave up His spirit." They were all present at the crucifixion, so why is there deviation? ------ Another contradiction is seen in the Proverbs. [Proverbs 26:4] - "Don't answer a fool according to his foolisness or you'll be like him yourself." The very next line: [Proverbs 26:5] - "Answer a fool according to his foolishness or he'll become wise in his own eyes." What sense does that make? It's an obvious contradiction and a lose-lose. If you answer him, you're a fool. But if you don't, then the fool will think himself right, and that does no one good. ------ Here is a contradiction from several sources regarding whether God changes His mind. [Genesis 6:6] - "the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grived in His heart." [I Samuel 15:29] - "the Eternal One of Israel does not lie or change His mind, for He is not one who changes His mind." [Malachi 3:6] - "Because I, Yahweh [LORD], have not changed..." Here we have God changing His mind about humans and having Noah build his ark, but later we have God telling people that He's never changed. And there's Samuel, but he could be wrong. I digress. ------ According to John, Jesus says about bearing his own witness: [John 5:31] - "If I testify about Myself, My testimony is not valid." Yet in [John 8:14], "Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is valid, because I know where I came from and where I am going." Oh, come on, Jesus. What was all that about taking the log out of your own eye before taking the speck out of your neighbor's? ------ When Saul was on the way to Damascus, he saw a light and heard a voice. Did his companions hear the voice? According to [Acts 9:7] - "The men who were traveling with him [Saul] stood speechless, hearing the sound but seeing no one." But later, in [Acts 22:9] - "Now those who were with me saw the light, but they did not hear the voice of the One who was speaking to me." Clearly wrong. ------ Here's another instance of God supposedly changing His mind--or outright lying. In Genesis, Adam was informed that if he ate the forbidden fruit he would die that very day. However, he lived to the ripe old age of 930. [Genesis 2:17] - "but you must not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die." [Genesis 5:5] - "So Adam's life lasted 930 years; then he died." Seriously? Not only that, but it is impossible to live for 930 years. Most people don't even make it to 100! ------ Regarding Saul's death. [I Samuel 31:4, 6] - "Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, 'Draw your sword and run me through with it, or these uncircumcised men will come and run me through or torture me.' But his armor-bearer would not do it because he was terrified. Then Saul took his sword and fell on it." [2 Samuel 1:8, 10] - "He [Saul] asked me, 'Who are you?' I told him: I'm an Amalekite. Then he begged me, 'Stand over me and kill me, for I'm mortally wounded, but my life still lingers.' So I stood over him and killed him because I knew that after he had fallen he couldn't survive." ------ According to [Genesis 11:1] - "At one time the whole earth had the same language and vocabulary." This is impossible because around 2400BCE (at the time this is implying) there were many languages, each unintelligible to the other. ------ If you do as God says, he won't send disease or disaster down upon you like he did to the Egyptians. [Exodus 15:26] - "He said, 'If you will carefully obey the LORD your God, do what is right in His eyes, pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am Yahweh who heals you." Really? All that happened during the Ten Plagues in Egypt can be scientifically explained...here: http://forum.bible-discussion.com... ------ According to [Matthew 2:16] - "Then Herod, when he saw that he had beeen out-witted by the wise men, flew into a rage. He gave orders to massacre all the male chidren in and around Bethehem who were two years old and under, in keeping with the time he had learned from the wise men." Strange that Josephus, who documented Herod's life, never mentioned this. Surely if this mass slaughtering had occured, historians would note it? And really, wouldn't you think they'd retract his title of "Herod the Great" if he ordered the death of infants? ------ [Matthew 4:2] - "After He had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, He was hungry." First of all: Duh, Jesus was hungry! Secondly: The science of how long a human can survive with no food or water: http://www.lb7.uscourts.gov... If you don't want to read it, you can go approximately three weeks with no food and three to seven days with no water. ------ I think I will, for now, leave it at this. Again, thanks for the challenge. And good luck.