Auki:
Bible is far from complete. Some stories you know as a child are entirely fabricated. Like the story of a prostitute and stoning issues and many more.

Do ur research, do not accept many postulating that the problem is your lack of understanding. Your brain is for a purpose

ogbeni calm down!!!
The writings of Apostle Paul according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is more than a million proofs that the Bible is very complete especially the 66 books(scroll up a little to see my opinion about other books outside the 66 books).
Apostle Paul gleaned through the Bible from Genesis to Malachi and it is seen in all his epistles and even came to the conclusion that "all scriptures are of the inspiration of God." Again, a critical examination of the Gospels was carried out and all were found to be VERY TRUE AND CONCRETE. To show that the epistles of Apostle Paul was also correct, Apostle Peter also gleaned through it thereby leaving no stone unturned and boosting a better confidence on the scriptures.
Lots of archaeological findings has been discovered and more are still being carried out even up to this moment and none has been able to discredit the authenticity of the HOLY BIBLE. Many prophecies has been fulfilled that history itself cannot deny and more will unfold in the future and when they happen the credibility of the HOLY BIBLE will once be revealed again.
God bless you.

Dvd4:
Good morning nairalanders! Knowing that the Bible is not the scriptures, but a collection of the scriptures. Now, Looking at some Bible passages; example: Between 1 Cor. 14:35 & 36, they seem to be some missing sentence(s), because both do not agree in sequence. Moreso, I have heard people say that THE SEVEN BOOKS OF MOSES is part of the Bible. Also I have come across some Bibles with other books which contain real and more indebt Bible stories like the book of TABITHA e.t.c. I can also recall of a certain time we heard that a new scroll had been found. Whether we may want to believe it or nay, some verses in the Bible SEEM contradictory which is a major reason we have herd of DENOMINATIONS everywhere(Bunch of christians that do not agree yet use the same BIBLE). It's just a thought that has been hitting me for a while now; what if they were actually missing scriptures, could they not be an answer to explain seemly-contradictory verses and end christian contention? #Note: Not concluding, just inquisitive.

Hi.

For what it is worth, I am a Christian, a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ Who is God Who put on real humanity to die spiritually on the Cross for our sins so that we can be saved. I believe completely in the Bible. I have absolutely no misgivings about what it says, and I try to follow it devotedly.

This introduction is to make sure that you know where my comments are coming from. I am a regular on this board. I post very frequently and check out a lot of the threads here even if I don't post on them. At least one of your responders here is an atheist. Now, it may be that in spite of your comments, you are really taking whatever you read here with a pinch of salt. Or you may actually just be laughing at those who respond because you created the thread for fun. But in the off-chance that you are really looking for answers, I am making this comment and advising caution in your evaluation of the answers you receive. Feel free to click on my moniker and see my profile and post history so that you can see if I am what I say I am. You can do that with other posters too in order to get an idea what their own perspective on things really is and why they give the answers that they do.

About your question, my introduction makes it rather obvious where I stand on the Bible. It is perfect and complete. Nothing is lacking in it at all and there are no mistakes.

I will just add that although none of the inspired originals exist today, we have excellent preserved manuscripts and very good translations that we can rely on more than 90% of the time. What mistakes exist in these copies and translations can be sorted out with the help of spiritually gifted and properly prepared Bible teachers and the Holy Spirit working through our conscience.

Your questions are specifically about the various books in the Bible though, so the foregoing is only necessary background.

To begin, there are far more books than you might imagine which are claimed or might themselves claim to belong in the Bible. Such material is called Pseudepigrapha. The Book of Enoch mentioned by others here is one such material. The sixth and seventh books of Moses,the book of Jasher, the Gospels of Peter, Thomas and Q, I believe it's called, are all pseudepigraphical. There are literally multitudes of such material. If all of them truly belong in the Bible, then just the sheer volume means that we can never learn "all the truth" which the Holy Spirit was given to guide us into. Additionally, the way that they contradict what the Bible actually teaches would also mean that we can never be sure what the Truth is, and that does not agree with the plans of the Lord Jesus for His Church after He left.

All of that leaves us with the question which you have at least hinted at in all you have said here:

how can anyone know or tell what is truly Scripture and what isn't?

There is a popular argument, which has also been reiterated here by at least one poster, that the Bible we have was compiled by some people with questionable motives, so these compilers left out books that truly belong in the Bible and added some that don't. This argument defeats itself since if a Canon were to be created in order to define a system of beliefs, then it stands to reason that the books selected to fill it must be

i) internally consistent with each other, and

ii) contribute in some significant way to defining the Faith.

Therefore, books will be left out either for contradicting the Faith in some way or for being redundant. Evidently, it is impossible to include all the pseudepigraphical books that exist even if they were all authoritative. A selection would be critical. The best that might happen is that books which are not selected but which are valuable would still be promoted for personal study but not necessarily canonized.

That is just common sense; but that is only assuming that that argument has any kind of legitimacy.

The true situation is that it would be ridiculous that a group of human beings with varying motives and interests would be needed at all to decide for others what God is saying and what He is not. The situation is different from when certain men are inspired by God to write the various books of the Bible. That makes sense for the purposes of humility, that is, only those who are humble enough to listen to God's emissaries will hear what God has to say because we are sinners who rebel against God. In the other situation, we have councils sitting to debate what God must have said and what He must not have said. If such a debate is necessary at all, then we cannot hope for better than guesswork and a patchwork of compromises brought about politically. But it is not necessary at all if God does exist and can speak for Himself.

As it is, He does exist and He does speak for Himself. So, we really don't have to depend on a council or councils to tell us what God has said. We can just read what is claimed to be written by Him and see if it sounds like anything God could conceivably say.

Now, that is considered a problem in some quarters. Some people believe that it would result in chaos if we left human beings to decide for themselves individually what is Scripture and what isn't. This is not false but it only demonstrates what we find to turn out to be true with councils. There are many different Bibles, some including a given collection of books and others including another. These were created by councils too. Which council should we believe? Some think that age should determine which we should believe, so the oldest council should be the authority. If that is true, what about the believers that followed Christ before that council? How did they do so without that council? Or do we assume that there were no such believers before that council?

The fact is that very few people are ever confused about who penned a letter to them if they are accustomed to the person. What I mean is this: if your dad wrote you a letter, his specific handwriting and the unique way that he uses words and the unique things he tends to talk about all come together to assure you that the letter is truly from him, even if he forgot to sign it. The same thing is true of Scripture. God made the whole universe. In it, His Unique Essence shines through. That is, we have an idea what He is like from what we see in ourselves and in the world around us. That idea of Him is to be expected to shine out from anything that He Himself writes. If it is lacking in a writing, then that writing is not Scripture. If it is present, then that writing is Scripture. That is how we know what is Scripture and what isn't Scripture.

As you can see by now, if we have flawed ideas about Who God is, then we will find it hard to tell whether what we are reading is Scripture or whether it isn't. It is possible to develop such ideas, and most people do. The reason is that we are sinful, and we tend to want to justify our sinfulness, so we allow ourselves to ignore what is obvious about God and even distort such things so that we can feel comfortable in our sin. This is what leads to a difficulty identifying Scripture.

In short, whenever we are willing to be honest, any reader can tell whether what he is reading is Scripture.

Having said that, only the 66 books accepted in the Protestant tradition are actually true Scripture. Everything else is pseudepigraphical. The Apocrypha (a specific set of books preserved through the Roman Catholic Canon) is also not inspired. It does not belong in the Bible at all.

Now, are there contradictions in those 66 books? No, there are not. There are puzzles, difficult things to understand, but no contradictions. Why do the puzzles exist? In order to test and refine the Faith of readers, and also really as a result of the way the Bible was written. Regarding the second, several authors wrote over a span of two millennia: it can only be expected that it would be a challenge to connect what they say to each other.

About the first, on the other hand, sin is rebellion against God. It is the antithesis of willing submission to God. Rebellion is founded on the assumption that God cannot be trusted and should not be listened to. Anybody, then, who wishes to submit to God would be responsible to demonstrate that desire by doing what God tells them to in absolute confidence that God never gets it wrong. This is why the Bible is written the way it is: the reader is required to prove that they really care about what God has to say by taking the trouble to seek to understand what is written in the Bible. It has to be important enough to them to really make the effort.

If that effort is honest, then eventually, the reader will go wherever God tells them that they must go in order to learn what they want to know. According to the Bible in Ephesians 4:11-14, that place is to specially gifted and prepared men called pastor-teachers. These people have a unique ability to see the connections between different parts of the Bible and describe it to others so that the entire book makes sense to them. The ability is not their only tool. They have to be trained too in order to better see and describe these connections. They are trained in ancient history, that is, the times when the various books of the Bible were written and when most of the events documented there occurred. They are trained in church history so that they understand especially how whole doctrines have been lost or, more accurately, preserved in spite of relentless attacks on the Bible, and how whole heresies and lies have been perpetuated and changed with passing time. They are trained in the original languages of the Bible so that they can read the original manuscripts and escape the errors in translation which tend to be inevitable. They are trained in textual criticism to escape the errors in manuscripts which come from different factors including the copyist. These are key among their preparatory responsibilities.

When these men have been thoroughly prepared, then they are responsible to teach fellow believers accurately what the Bible says. It is impossible for any believer (including these men) to learn the Bible independently. One may learn the Gospel, the primary truth of the Bible, just by reading the Bible. But beyond that truth, everything is extraordinarily difficult to understand and some things simply cannot even become apparent until a teacher starts to show them to you.

This is God's test then: will the reader humble himself and learn from men that God has gifted and prepared for the business of teaching him? Or will he rebel and do things as he pleases without reference to God?

Everything in life is about tests like that: obey God and do things His Way or disobey Him and do them yours.

Finally, regarding the Bible passage you mentioned, I have read it many times in my life, and this is the first time I am hearing that there is a contradiction there. I read it twice again just now and I still did not catch any hint of a contradiction. I am not sure what you think is there. Perhaps explain a little?

@Ihedinobi3, thank you! But I was talking about SEQUENCIAL OMISSION not CONTRADICTIONS.

Dvd4:
@Ihedinobi3, thank you! But I was talking about SEQUENCIAL OMISSION not CONTRADICTIONS.

Forgive me. I think your other posts confused me.

Could you explain why you think something is missing there then? I also don't quite see how the connection between their two verses is not clear.