A third category of supposed contradictions results from misunderstanding the background behind passages in God's word. When we don't have the full picture, we distort the parts we do see.

It is unfair to any book to ask questions it does not intend to answer. We don't use a cookbook to repair a car, or a poem to mow the lawn. If a biblical writer did not intend chronological, historical, geographic, or scientific precision, it is unfair to criticize him for failing by such standards. A meteorologist can predict the time of tomorrow's "sunrise" without intending to take us back to the Ptolemaic universe in which the sun rotates around the earth.

Let's consider some examples of "contradictions" which are explained by remembering the intention of the biblical authors.

Matthew 4 records Jesus' temptations in this order: turn stones into bread (v. 3), jump from the temple (vs. 5-6), and worship Satan on a mountain (v. 9). Luke 4 records the same temptations, but in a different order: turn stones to bread (v. 3), worship the devil on a mountain (vs. 5-6), and jump from the temple (vs. 9-11).

Aristotelian logic requires that we ask: which order is correct? Which writer is wrong? If one is wrong, maybe they're both wrong. Maybe Satan is mythical. Maybe Jesus' temptations are symbolic. Once we start down the slippery slope of contradiction, where do we stop?

In their intentional context, there is no such contradiction here. Neither Matthew nor Luke claimed to be writing historical chronology, so the order of Jesus' temptations is immaterial to their purpose.

Let's say a staff member asks me what I did today, and I tell him that I taught Men's Bible Study this morning, attended our Thursday prayer meeting, and worked on my sermon for this weekend. Then tonight my wife asks me what I did, and I tell her that I taught Men's Bible Study, worked on my sermon, and attended Thursday prayer meeting. Have I contradicted myself? Only if I promised to state the activities in their proper chronological order each time I recounted the events. If such was not my intention, my retelling of the day is correct in each account.

In the same way, Matthew and Luke contradict each other regarding Jesus' temptations only if each of them stated their intention to record chronological precision. Since they don't, it is clear that the order of the temptations stands outside their intention and thus our criticism.

The Bible is the product of some fifteen centuries of authorship and another fifteen centuries of handwritten transmission. Not until the Gutenberg Bible was it possible to copy and transmit the Scriptures mechanically; not until this generation was such possible electronically.

As we will see in have seen, the manuscripts for the biblical texts are astoundingly accurate and trustworthy. However, it is inevitable that human hands, copying such a large text, would make occasional scribal errors. Such problems are far less common with the Bible than with any other ancient literature. And not one affects a single doctrine or faith practice.

Let's look at some "contradictions" which result from copyist errors. 2 Samuel 10 tells us that in conflict with the Aramean army, "David killed seven hundred of their charioteers" (v. 18). When 1 Chronicles 19 records the same event four centuries later, it states that "David killed seven thousand of their charioteers" (v. 18). It would be easy for a scribe to make a mistake by either reducing the 1 Chronicles number or adding to the one recorded in 2 Samuel.

Of course, the two accounts are not technically in contradiction, since 700 is a subset of 7,000. David killed 700 charioteers, if he killed 7,000. But most likely the difference is the result of a copyist mistake. And this mistake changes absolutely nothing about the intended message of the two passages--David led his armies to victory and his nation to peace.

Another example of copyist error is in the well-known 23rd Psalm. The NIV renders the last phrase, "and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (v. 6). The Masoretes (scribes who copied the Old Testament) rendered the verb as "I will return," from the Hebrew verb wesabti. But the verb weyasabti ("remain") was likely the original. The "w" (Hebrew waw) and the "y" (Hebrew yod) looked so much alike that the Masoretes saw the "y" as a repeated "w" and dropped it, rendering the verb wesabti. Because Hebrew scholars believe the original verb was weyasabti, they translate the phrase "I will dwell."

Before you decide that these kinds of mistakes in transmission disqualify biblical authority, apply such a test to any other means of communication. A single typographical error in tomorrow's newspaper means that you cannot trust anything it reports. A mistake in tonight's television newscast means that every story is unreliable. My first mistake in typography or syntax disqualifies everything you read in this book.

By such standards no literature or communication medium can be trusted. No phone book or dictionary should be consulted. No doctor should practice medicine, since medical books are not free from error. And no medical practice is immune from mistakes. If a single doctor misdiagnoses a single ailment, none of us should ever consult a physician again.

At issue is the intention of the text. As we have seen, the Bible does not intend to be a book which meets 21st-century standards of scientific, geographic, or historical precision. No ancient book does. And few if any documents in current literature can stand such scrutiny perfectly. But the Bible, as transmitted to us across 35 centuries, retains complete accuracy in all it intends to accomplish. It shows us how to find Jesus (John 20:30-31), and how to be equipped for faith and service in the Kingdom of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17).