What the cited verses actually say

Where the text disagrees with itself

• How old was Ahaziah when he began to reign?

  Numbers
  2 Kings 8:26

  “Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he began to reign.”NRSV

  2 Chronicles 22:2

  “Ahaziah was forty-two years old when he began to reign.”NRSV

  The usual answer: Widely treated as a copyist’s slip in the transmission of Chronicles; some manuscripts of the Septuagint and the Syriac read twenty-two there too.

  The NIV and ESV print twenty-two in both places; the NRSV, KJV and NKJV preserve the difference. Either way the received text disagrees with itself.

• How many stalls of horses did Solomon have?

  Numbers
  1 Kings 4:26

  “Solomon also had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots.”NRSV

  2 Chronicles 9:25

  “Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots.”NRSV

  The usual answer: Usually explained as a numeral miscopied by a factor of ten in Kings.

  A reasonable explanation — and an admission that a number in the received text is wrong.

• How many years of famine was David offered?

  Numbers
  2 Samuel 24:13

  “Shall seven years of famine come to you on your land?”NRSV

  1 Chronicles 21:12

  “Either three years of famine...”NRSV

  The usual answer: The Septuagint reads three in Samuel as well, so the Hebrew of Samuel is often judged the corrupted witness here.

  The NRSV footnotes the Greek reading at 2 Samuel 24:13 for exactly this reason.

• Who incited David to take the census?

  Narrative
  2 Samuel 24:1

  “The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, "Go, count Israel and Judah."”NRSV

  1 Chronicles 21:1

  “Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to count the people of Israel.”NRSV

  The usual answer: Commonly harmonised as God permitting what Satan directly instigates — the Chronicler writing later, with a developed idea of a tempter.

  That developed idea is itself the point: the two books describe the same event with different agents.

• Who was Shelah’s father?

  Genealogy
  Genesis 11:12

  “When Arpachshad had lived thirty-five years, he became the father of Shelah.”NRSV

  Luke 3:35–36

  “...son of Shelah, son of Cainan, son of Arphaxad...”NRSV

  The usual answer: Luke follows the Septuagint, which includes a generation (Cainan) the Hebrew text does not.

  Both readings cannot be the inerrant record of the same lineage; one tradition has a generation the other lacks.

• Through whom does Jesus descend from David?

  Genealogy
  Matthew 1:6–16

  “David was the father of Solomon... and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary.”NRSV

  Luke 3:23–31

  “Jesus... was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli... son of Nathan, son of David.”NRSV

  The usual answer: The traditional answer is that Matthew gives Joseph’s legal line through Solomon and Luke gives Mary’s line through Nathan, with Heli as Joseph’s father-in-law.

  Neither text says so. Luke names Heli as Joseph’s father, and the two lists differ in length as well as in names.

• How did Judas die, and who bought the field?

  Narrative
  Matthew 27:5–7

  “Throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself. But the chief priests... bought with them the potter’s field.”NRSV

  Acts 1:18

  “Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.”NRSV

  The usual answer: Harmonised by supposing the rope or branch gave way after death, and that the priests bought the field on Judas’s behalf with his money.

  A possible sequence, but neither writer describes it; each account reads as complete on its own.

• Was the stone already rolled away when the women arrived?

  Narrative
  Matthew 28:1–2

  “An angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.”NRSV

  Mark 16:4

  “When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.”NRSV

  The usual answer: Often read as Matthew narrating out of sequence — describing an earlier earthquake and opening rather than something the women watch.

  The four accounts also differ on how many figures were at the tomb, and on whether the women told anyone (Mark 16:8 says they said nothing).

• When did Jesus drive the traders from the temple?

  Narrative
  John 2:13–16

  “The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem... he drove all of them out of the temple.”NRSV

  Mark 11:15–17

  “Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling.”NRSV

  The usual answer: Some hold that it happened twice, at the start and again at the end of the ministry.

  The Synoptics place it in the final week and make it the trigger for his arrest; John places it at the opening of the ministry.

• Is Jesus’s testimony about himself valid?

  Teaching
  John 5:31

  “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true.”NRSV

  John 8:14

  “Even if I testify on my own behalf, my testimony is valid.”NRSV

  The usual answer: Read as addressing different situations: what would count as valid in a court, against what is true in fact.

  The same Greek word (ἀληθής) stands in both verses; the NRSV renders it "true" in one and "valid" in the other.

• Did Jesus come to judge the world?

  Teaching
  John 9:39

  “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see.”NRSV

  John 12:47

  “I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.”NRSV

  The usual answer: Distinguished as purpose against effect: he comes to save, and the encounter itself sifts those who refuse.

  A coherent reading — but it is a reading, not what either sentence says on its own.

• Is a person justified by faith alone, or by works?

  Doctrine
  Galatians 2:16

  “A person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ... for no one will be justified by the works of the law.”NRSV

  James 2:24

  “You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.”NRSV

  The usual answer: The classic answer is that Paul means works of the Mosaic law before faith, and James means the works that follow from a living faith.

  Both writers argue from the same example, Abraham, and reach opposite conclusions about him. Luther called James "an epistle of straw" over precisely this.

• Are children punished for the sins of their parents?

  Doctrine
  Exodus 20:5

  “...punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me.”NRSV

  Ezekiel 18:20

  “A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child.”NRSV

  The usual answer: Read as consequence against guilt: sin damages the generations that follow, while legal culpability stays with the sinner.

  Deuteronomy 24:16 states the same limit as a rule of law, and Jeremiah 31:29–30 presents the change as something new.

• Has anyone ever seen God?

  Doctrine
  Genesis 32:30

  “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”NRSV

  John 1:18

  “No one has ever seen God.”NRSV

  The usual answer: Distinguished as seeing a manifestation or an angelic form against seeing the divine essence, which no one can survive (Exodus 33:20).

  Exodus 33:11 says the Lord spoke to Moses "face to face, as one speaks to a friend" nine verses before 33:20 says no one may see his face and live.

Passages readers find morally hard

Listed with the interpretive answer each is usually given. Several turn on whether a passage describes what happened or prescribes what should happen — a distinction worth holding onto while reading them.

• Warfare 5
• Slavery 3
• Women 4
• Punishment 3

• Deuteronomy 20:16–17 Warfare

  “You must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them.”NRSV

  A standing command to leave no survivors in the cities of the promised land.

  The usual answer: Commonly read as a bounded, one-time judgement on specific nations rather than a general law, and — following archaeologists and many Old Testament scholars — as conventional ancient Near Eastern war rhetoric rather than a description of what happened.

• 1 Samuel 15:3 Warfare

  “Now go and attack Amalek... kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.”NRSV

  Infants are named explicitly among those to be killed.

  The usual answer: Read as a judicial act against a people described as attacking Israel’s stragglers (Deuteronomy 25:17–19), and again as formulaic totality language typical of the period.

• Numbers 31:17–18 Warfare

  “Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.”NRSV

  Captive girls are spared and kept, after everyone else is killed.

  The usual answer: Defenders argue "keep alive for yourselves" means absorbed into households under the protections of Deuteronomy 21:10–14, not taken as concubines; the passage itself does not say which.

• Psalm 137:9 Warfare

  “Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!”NRSV

  A blessing pronounced on those who kill infants.

  The usual answer: A lament written in exile: the psalm records the cry of a traumatised people rather than prescribing conduct, and no command endorses it. Descriptive, not prescriptive — the standard and reasonable reading.

• Hosea 13:16 Warfare

  “Their little ones shall be dashed in pieces, and their pregnant women ripped open.”NRSV

  Stated as the punishment God brings on Samaria.

  The usual answer: Read as a prophetic announcement of what an invading army will do, in the vivid idiom of the prophets, rather than an instruction.

• 2 Kings 2:23–24 Punishment

  “He cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two she-bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.”NRSV

  Children mauled for mocking a prophet.

  The usual answer: Often argued that the Hebrew allows young men rather than small children, and that the mockery is a public rejection of the prophet — though the text still has the curse answered with mauling.

• Leviticus 25:44–46 Slavery

  “You may acquire male and female slaves from among the nations around you... you may keep them as a possession for your children after you, to inherit as property.”NRSV

  Chattel slavery, inheritable, explicitly permitted.

  The usual answer: Read as regulating an institution universal in the ancient world rather than instituting it, and as markedly more restrictive than surrounding law codes — with the trajectory of scripture running toward Philemon and abolition.

• Exodus 21:20–21 Slavery

  “When a slaveowner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property.”NRSV

  A beating that kills after two days carries no penalty, on the grounds of ownership.

  The usual answer: Defended as a limit on an existing practice — the first ancient code to punish an owner for killing a slave at all — with the delay read as evidence that death was not intended.

• Ephesians 6:5 Slavery

  “Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ.”NRSV

  The New Testament instructs slaves to obey rather than condemning slavery.

  The usual answer: Read as pastoral advice to people with no power to change their position, alongside Galatians 3:28 and Paul’s appeal to Philemon to receive Onesimus "no longer as a slave".

• Deuteronomy 22:28–29 Women

  “If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her... the man shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife.”NRSV

  The victim is married to her attacker, and the payment goes to her father.

  The usual answer: Argued to cover seduction rather than rape (the rape case being verses 25–27, where the man is put to death), and to secure a future for a woman who would otherwise be destitute — with the marriage permanent so that he can never discard her.

• Deuteronomy 25:11–12 Women

  “You shall cut off her hand; show no pity.”NRSV

  Mutilation prescribed for a woman intervening in a fight.

  The usual answer: Some Hebraists argue the idiom denotes a fine rather than literal amputation; the plain sense of the received text is amputation.

• 1 Timothy 2:11–12 Women

  “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.”NRSV

  Women barred from teaching and from authority, on the basis of Eve.

  The usual answer: Read by many as addressed to a specific situation in Ephesus rather than a universal rule, and set against Romans 16, where Paul commends Phoebe as a deacon and Junia as prominent among the apostles.

• 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 Women Text disputed

  “Women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak.”NRSV

  An absolute prohibition, three chapters after Paul regulates how women prophesy in the assembly (11:5).

  The usual answer: A significant body of scholarship treats these verses as a later marginal note that entered the text — in some manuscripts they appear after verse 40 — which would resolve the tension with chapter 11.

• Deuteronomy 21:18–21 Punishment

  “Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death.”NRSV

  Death by stoning for a stubborn and rebellious son.

  The usual answer: Rabbinic tradition set the evidentiary bar so high that the Talmud concludes the case never occurred and was given to be studied rather than applied; the requirement that both parents accuse him also limits it.

• Judges 11:30–39 Punishment

  “He did with her according to the vow he had made.”NRSV

  Jephthah’s daughter is offered after a vow to sacrifice whatever came out of his house.

  The usual answer: Some read the vow as fulfilled by lifelong celibacy rather than death; either way Judges narrates the period as one in which "all the people did what was right in their own eyes", and does not commend him for it.