Bible Difficulties

There have been a lot of people that oppose the Bible due to the fact that there are difficulties in it. How can we believe a book that has problems? It seems to me that the problems are not so much with the book, as just our understanding of it.

One that has been pointed out to me is that the Bible talks about unicorns, which are mythical creatures. Are they? As far as the horse-like creature with a pretty horn protruding from its forehead, yes, that's a mythical creature, but that's not what the Bible is talking about. What is it talking about? The term unicorn simply means, one horn. So it is (or was) some creature with a single horn, or maybe an animal with its horns arranged in a row in the middle of its head, rather than on either side. Something like a rhinoceros, perhaps? I don't know; that's just a suggestion. I can certainly understand if rhino's were not well known to the Jews at the time, and none of them had stuck around one long enough to realize that it had more than one horn.

Another is that the gospels give two different genealogies for Jesus. Jesus had two parents, didn't He? Joseph wasn't His father, though. True, but Jesus' lineage through Joseph is important because it was a royal lineage. Joseph was descended from the kings of Judea, and, in fact, would have been king if Judea had not been under Roman occupation. So, Matthew lists Jesus' lineage through his adopted father (and an adopted son would still be considered royalty), and Luke lists Jesus' lineage through Mary.

In Habakkuk 2:3 it says, talking about 'an appointed time,' "...though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." See there? It contradicts itself, right there in the same verse! Wow. You dug pretty deep for that one. Most people never even read the book of Habakkuk, but, okay, let's consider this. As I mentioned earlier, this is talking about 'an appointed time.' God hasn't given us any indication as to when this appointed time will be. As a matter of fact, in Matthew 24:36, Jesus said that no man knows the day or the hour. So how would we know if the appointed time did tarry? But certainly, if things continue as they were, as they always have been, it becomes easy for us to think that the time has been delayed, and that it tarries. I heard a cute announcement on the radio recently where a bomb squad technician gets called out to deal with an explosive device that has no timer on it. He takes the attitude that, since he doesn't know when the bomb is set to explode, it could be days, while another police officer tries to impress on him that it could just as easily be minutes. If you don't know what the appointed time is, then you may convince yourself that it is a long way off, but you just don't know. Maybe Habakkuk should have written, "...though it seem to tarry..." but I think anyone who is reading the Bible in an attempt to understand it will get the meaning, but people looking to form an argument will just jump on that as a 'clear contradiction.'

Mary and Elizabeth were cousins, and yet, Mary was a Judean, and Elizabeth was a Levite. How is that possible? Let me ask you a question: Do all of your cousins have the same last name that you have? If Mary's father was a Judean, then she would be considered Judean, wouldn't she? And if Elizabeth's father were a Levite, then she would be considered a Levite, right? But that doesn't say anything about their mothers' lineage. They could have both been Benjamites, for all we know. By the way, some of you may be saying, "But Jews figure their lineage differently than we do--they trace lineage through their mothers" (which makes sense; there's rarely any question about who a baby's mother is). Okay, so reverse the parents in the above example. Maybe Mary's father and Elizabeth's father were brothers; it doesn't really matter. The point is that cousins are not necessarily of the same tribe (or have the same last name).