Problem: The Jewish custom in Jesus’ day was to forgive someone three times—tops. Keener writes, “Judaism also stressed forgiveness, though some teachers saw the need to limit forgiveness to three instances of premeditated sin, pointing out that repentance was otherwise not genuine.”[1] While Peter was thinking that forgiving someone seven times was over the top, Jesus ups his standard to 77 times![2]
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Problem: After Jesus prophesied during His earthly ministry that some would live to see the establishment of God’s kingdom, the first two books of the New Testament indicate six days expired before Peter, James, and John were led up on a high mountain to witness the transfiguration of Jesus (Matthew 16:28-17:2; Mark 9:1-2). Luke’s account, on the other hand, says that Jesus’ transfiguration occurred “about eight days after” Jesus prophesied of the approaching kingdom’s establishment (9:27-29). Skeptics charge that this difference in the time elapsed between the two events constitutes an obvious error. They profess that such textual differences should lead the honest person to admit that the Bible contains contradictions, and thus is not the inerrant Word of God.
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Problems: According to The Skeptics Annotated Bible, in Mark 9:1, “Jesus falsely prophesies that the end of the world will come within his listeners’ lifetimes.” Skeptic Dennis McKinsey calls this prophecy “one of those classic predictions that has haunted his supporters ever since, forcing them to concoct an endless number of rationalizations to explain its failure.”
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Problem: Did Jesus fail to correctly predict that people standing with Him would “not taste death” until they saw the arrival of the kingdom of God? The answer is, of course, no, He did not fail. There are two reasons why what Jesus said did not fail. First, let’s examine the scriptures under consideration.
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Problem: Why did Jesus call Peter Satan in Matthew 16:23? It was because Peter was denying the very thing that Jesus came to do: die for our sins. Let’s look at the context. In the previous two verses, Jesus told the disciples that He would go to Jerusalem, be killed, and rise on the third day. Peter then said, “…God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” That is when Jesus rebuked him. Peter meant well, but he did not understand Christ’s purpose. Please consider the following statements about Jesus’ purpose.
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Problem: Though not a secret, the bible shows that the God-man Jesus ministered on earth to maximize the impact of His salvation message.
And He strictly warned him and sent him away at once, and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing those things which Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” (Mark 1:43–44; cf. Mark 1:23–25; Matthew 16:16; Luke 4:34; 5:14)
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Problem: According to Mark 6:5, while Jesus was in His hometown of Nazareth, “He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them” (emp. added). Based upon this statement, some have concluded that Jesus must have lacked the power to work all manner of miracles in His hometown.1 Allegedly, Jesus was not God and the Bible’s depiction of Him is contradictory.
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Problem: For Herod had laid hold of John and bound him, and put him in prison for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. Because John had said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” And although he wanted to put him to death, he feared the multitude, because they counted him as a prophet. (Matthew 14:3–5, NKJV)
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Problem: Roman Catholicism teaches that Mary was a perpetual virgin, that is, that she never had sexual intercourse, even after Jesus was virgin born. Is it true that when the Bible refers to Jesus’ “brothers and sisters” (Matt. 13:56) it means cousins or close relatives?
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Problem: In Matthew 13:31-32, the apostle recorded a brief parable that Jesus taught regarding His heavenly kingdom. “The kingdom of heaven,” Jesus said, “is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.” The central truth of Jesus’ lesson was that the kingdom of heaven (i.e., the church; Matthew 16:18-19; Colossians 1:13), would be very small in the beginning (Acts 2), but in time would become very large. Rather than be a movement that died with its leader (cf. Acts 5:33-39), history shows that Jesus was exactly right in His prophecy: since His death and resurrection 2,000 years ago, multiplied millions of people have become citizens of this heavenly kingdom of which Jesus foretold.
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Problem: Was Jesus wrong in Matthew 13:31–32 when He said that the mustard seed was the “least of all the seeds”?
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Problem: When Isaiah gets his calling to be a prophet, God tells him, “Render the hearts of this people insensitive, their ears dull, and their eyes dim, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed” (Isa. 6:10). Did God send Isaiah so that the people would not repent?
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Problem: “The book of Jonah reveals that “[t]he Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (1:17, emp. added). About 800 years later, Jesus alluded to this amazing event (Matthew 12:39-41). According to the King James translation of Matthew 12:40, Jesus referred to Jonah being “three days and three nights in the whale’s belly” (emp. added). Since fish and whales are different creatures, skeptics accuse Jesus and the Bible writers of making a mistake (cf. Wells, 2012). Longtime Bible critic Dennis McKinsey alleged that Matthew 12:40 is “[p]robably the most famous scientific error by Jesus” (1995, p. 142). “Apparently Jesus hadn’t read the Old Testament very closely… Anyone with even a minimum of biological knowledge knows that a whale is not a fish and a fish is not a whale” (pp. 142-143).
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Problem: The most frequent reference to Jesus’ resurrection reveals that He rose from the grave on the third day of His entombment. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus as prophesying that He would arise from the grave on this day (Matthew 17:23; Mark 9:31; Luke 9:22). The apostle Paul wrote in his first epistle to the Corinthians that Jesus arose from the grave “the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:4). What’s more, while preaching to Cornelius and his household, Peter taught that God raised Jesus up “on the third day” (Acts 10:40, emp. added). The fact is, however, Jesus also taught (and Mark recorded) “that the Son of Man” would “be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31, emp. added). Furthermore, Jesus elsewhere prophesied that He would be in the heart of the Earth for “three days and three nights” (Matthew 12:40). So which is it? Did Jesus rise from the dead on the third day or after three days?
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Problem: If Jesus was to be in the grave three days and nights, how do we fit those between Good Friday and Easter Sunday?
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