Bible Contradiction? What must a congregation do if it sins through ignorance?

 

For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: What must a congregation do if it sins through ignorance?

Here are the two answers which the skeptic believes shows a Bible contradiction:

Kill a young bull.

“‘Now if the entire congregation of Israel does wrong unintentionally and the matter [a]escapes the notice of the assembly, and they commit any of the [b]things which the Lord has commanded not to be done, and they become guilty; 14 when the sin [c]which they have [d]committed becomes known, then the assembly shall offer a [e]bull of the herd as a sin offering and bring it in front of the tent of meeting. 15 Then the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord, and the bull shall be slaughtered before the Lord. 16 Then the anointed priest is to bring some of the blood of the bull to the tent of meeting; 17 and the priest shall dip his finger in the blood and sprinkle it seven times before the Lord, in front of the veil. 18 He shall then put some of the blood on the horns of the altar which is before the Lord [f]in the tent of meeting; and all the rest of the blood he shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering which is at the doorway of the tent of meeting. 19 And he shall remove all its fat from it and offer it up in smoke on the altar. 20 He shall also do with the bull just as he did with the bull of the sin offering; he shall do the same with it. So the priest shall make atonement for them, and they will be forgiven. 21 Then he is to bring the bull out to a place outside the camp and burn it just as he burned the first bull; it is the sin offering for the assembly.” (Leviticus 4:13-21)

Kill a young bull and a young goat.

“then it shall be, if it is done unintentionally, [a]without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one bull as a burnt offering, as a soothing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and its drink offering, according to the ordinance, and one male goat as a sin offering. 25 Then the priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and they will be forgiven; for it was an unintentional wrong, and they have brought their offering, an offering by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord, for their unintentional wrong. 26 So all the congregation of the sons of Israel will be forgiven, as well as the stranger who resides among them, for guilt was attributed to all the people through an unintentional wrong.” (Numbers 15:24-26)

(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)

Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:

1. When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction.  A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time.  To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
2. One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the Skeptic Annotated Bible’s track record of inaccurately handling the Bible.  See the many examples of their error which we have responded to in this post: Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions.  Of course that does not take away the need to respond to this claim of a contradiction, which is what the remainder of this post will do.  But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages cited by the Skeptic Annotated Bible to see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that it is a Bible contradiction.
3. I want to say right off the bat that Christ is ultimately the Sacrifice for all our sins, intentional and unintentional.  Old Testament sacrifices are typological, pointing to Christ’s work on the Cross to forgive us and save us.  What follows is a look at Old Testament passages in its context and Old Testament background.
4. The skeptic teries to pit Leviticus 4:13-21 as affirming the claim “A congregation if it sins through ignorance must kill a young bull.” against Numbers 15:24-26 as affirming “A congregation if it sins through ignorance must kill a young bull and a young goat.”
5. Taking the Skeptic Annotated Bible’s summary sentences for both Leviticus 4:13-21 and Numbers 15:24-26 at face value we already see there’s not a contradiction.  In fact the two claims the skeptics make are logically compatible.
   1. Logically speaking the proposition “A congregation if it sins through ignorance must kill a young bull” is not logically contradictory with the proposition “A congregation if it sins through ignorance must kill a young bull and a young goat.” 
   2. In terms of the laws of non-contradiction, the contradictory propositions for the sentence “A congregation if it sins through ignorance must kill a young bull and a young goat” would have to be the following three propositions: “A congregation if it sins through ignorance must NOT kill a young bull and a young goat.” or “A congregation if it sins through ignorance must ONLY kill a young bull” or “A congregation if it sins through ignorance must ONLY kill a  young goat.”  But the proposition “A congregation if it sins through ignorance must kill a young bull” is not any of these three propositions.  
   3. The skeptic seems to make the mistake that the proposition “A congregation if it sins through ignorance must kill a young bull” is the same thing as ““A congregation if it sins through ignorance must ONLY kill a young bull” but that’s not the case.  They are not the same claim.
6. I have in the past written about how Steve Wells, the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible, does not know the Biblical languages and that is a liability with his project.  See Ignorance of the Biblical Language and the Skeptic Annotated Bible.  I think in this instance this issue arises as well.
7. When we look at Numbers 15:24 we see there are different Hebrew terms used for offering.  These different types of offerings indicate sacrifices with different functions and if we understand that we see less of a contradiction given the different functions.
   1. Numbers 15:24 call the bull offering as a “burnt offering.”  In Hebrew it is the term עֹלָה.  It is meant to be an offering to God that is totally burned up and consumed. Leviticus 4:13-21 does not use the technical term for burnt offering in the Hebrew but the description of the bull sacrifice matches that of burnt offering where there is fire (Leviticus 4:21) and it is totally consumed with fire including the fat (Leviticus 4:19).  Leviticus 1:4 shows how burnt offering are meant to atone for sins: “And he shall lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, so that it may be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.”  Atone has the idea of “cover” in which the sins and the penalty are dealt with.
   2. Numbers 15:24 call the young goat offering as a “sin offering.”  In Hebrew it is the term חַטָּאָה.  While it is often translated as “sin offering” I think it is better to understand it more as purifying offering since it is used in Leviticus 15:13-15 for purification of a man’s discharge of semen and offered at the end of a woman’s menstrual period in Leviticus 15:28-30, and these things are not sinful in of itself but there’s a ceremonial cleaning associated with it (Longman III, Immanuel In Our Place, 94).
   3. When we understand there’s two types of sacrifices, one for forgiveness of sins and another to purify we don’t see these are contradictory but rather shows various facets that different types of sacrifices indicate about spiritual reality with life with God.  Even in the Christian life we understand Christ saves us by forgiving us through the death of Christ on the Cross as an atonement, but then the Spirit of God does His work of purifying us to make us Holy offerings to God; we don’t confuse the two (that would be blasphemous!).  But those distinctions and categories have its roots with even the two types of sacrifices covering atonement and purification.
   4. One might wonder why Leviticus’ account looks different than Numbers.  Leviticus which have a heavy emphasis on the Levitical priesthood would focus on more the technical ritual while Numbers with seeing the people of Israel as a whole would mentioned other offerings involved such as grain offering, etc.  But we must not think different focus as inherently contradictory.
8. There is no contradiction here.  Seems the skeptic needs to learn of How to Handle Bible Contradictions.
9. We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity.  The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible.  In other words for him to try to disprove the Bible by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview.  Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”