1) <Genesis 1:25-26> says

"And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

But then in <Genesis 2:18-19> we have:

"The LORD God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him."

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name."

So which is it? Did God create all the other animals, and then create man as per the first passage? Or was man created first alone, and then God created the other animals as potential "helpers" as the second passage says?

2) Here's another one I spotted back when we were arguing of Noah a while back. In <Genesis 7:2>, it says that Noah was told to collect <seven> of each "clean beast":

"Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female."

But then in <Genesis 7:8-9>, it says Noah collected them in groups of <two> (one male, one female):

I think a good sign of an open minded person is the recognition this or that point they espouse is tenuous. While I greatly disagree with <what> sometimes, I recognize some sense of willingness to change a position. I think everyone here who's disagreed with me has been civil, etc. I struggle with my own conduct, in particuar my propensity to play the smart aleck. Anyway, I am reminded of this passage:

<The fool hath said in his heart, [There is] no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, [there is] none that doeth good. The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, [and] seek God. They are all gone aside, they are [all] together become filthy: [there is] none that doeth good, no, not one. >

I agree the John the Baptist issue isn't so easily resolved. However, Jesus' odd hestitation strongly implies he's making a rhetorical point. We do such things in English all the time. I can pull up posts from this site that reference a move as "shades of Fischer". If I said someone was playing like the ghost of Nimzo, you'd know what I meant. Or if someone played Na1 and I said, "That's Petrosian Jr.", you wouldn't think I meant that in a literal sense. In the same way, I am not real impressed with language lawyers who comb through the Bible and find things that do appear on their face to be contradictions, while ignoring the fact everyone uses figurative language at times. Of course, that invites the charge of appealing to figurative language every time an apparent contradiction might appear. But such things must be addressed on a case by case basis.

I agree - after you brought up the issue of websites I had a look around at some online lists of Biblical contradictions, and was able to refute about half of them myself with very little effort.

<FWIW I felt funny making a previous post about you, uncomfortable speaking of you in the third person, but I figure you can take it.>

God created the animals and then man. The "helper" in Gen. 2:18 references Eve. You stopped one verse too soon in quoting Gen 2. Here's verses 18-20:

And the LORD God said, [It is] not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought [them] unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that [was] the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; <but> for Adam there was <not> found an help meet for him.

Who was the help meet?

V. 21-22 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

As for Genesis 7, God's first statement to Noah was to bring the animals in by 2's. When God got further down the line, He gave more details in that Noah was to bring 7 (possibly 14, but that's a different matter) of clean animals. The clean animals were used by Noah for sacrifices after the Ark landed.

I declared my ways, and you answered me;
teach me your statutes.
Make me understand the way of your precepts,
and I will meditate on your wondrous deeds.

The problem is that you are a priori assuming that the God described is infallible, and then interpreting the text only in ways that are consistent with that presupposition. If we are trying to look at the text critically then there is no more reason to assume the Bible is the word of God than any other mythology - and the Gods of other mythologies made plenty of blunders too.

Noah was a righteous man COMPARED TO other mortal men.

But no one is so righteous as to justify himself in God's eyes. Original Sin makes us filthy. No one is so righteous that his actions would compel God to grant him salvation. (The Pelagian heresy teaches otherwise.)

Hence the need for the New Covenant, in Christ's blood. Men continually broke the Old Covenant--starting with Aaron (the established church) fashioning the Golden Calf.

Young's Literal Translation
Jesus saith to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one doth come unto the Father, if not through me;

Let your heart be kept with full trust in God. Christ's disciples, more than others, should keep their minds quiet, when everything else is unquiet. Here is the remedy against this trouble of mind, Believe. Christ is the sinner's Way to the Father and to heaven, in his person as God manifest in the flesh, in his atoning sacrifice, and as our Advocate. He is the Truth, as fulfilling all the prophecies of a Saviour; believing which, sinners come by him the Way. <He is the Life, by whose life-giving Spirit the dead in sin are quickened. Nor can any man draw nigh God as a Father, who is not quickened by Him as the Life, and taught by Him as the Truth, to come by Him as the Way.

John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.> --- John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. --- John 10:9 "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. --- John 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, --- Romans 5:2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. --- Ephesians 2:18 for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.

That's you reading your own meaning into the text. What it actually says is:

"Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God."

This is clearly in contradiction with:

"There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God."

If you disagree, then please explain to me how one can be neither righteous nor seeking God, while at the same time being righteous and walking with God.

<Ignoring your snide reference to me as a "true believer," which I might equally apply to you>

So Jesus said to them,
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven;
my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

All? I don't doubt that an answer has been invented to address every contradiction, but many of these answers are totally flimsy, tenuous, or illogical. It's not true that all of the contradictions rely on a literalist interpretation of the text; many are simply unambiguous contradictions.

<Now, if I do you an injustice, I'm sorry--but I deduce from your comments that you are a humanist and that the thing that impresses you most is your own wisdom.>

<This is not consistent with the other gospels stating that the Last Supper *was* a passover feast.>

Sounds like a contradiction to me.

<Looking at the specific passages, not only does John refer to the day of the Crucifixion as the preparation for passover (which as you say could be reconciled if he were simply working to a different calendar) [<John 19:14> "And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour" and similarly <John 18:28>], he also:

1) Clearly refers to the Last Supper as being the day *before* the passover feast [<John 13:1> "It was just before the Passover Feast."]

2) Refers to Jesus and the other disciples buying food for the Passover Feast *after* they have eaten the Last Supper [<John 13:29> "Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the Feast"].>

He could have been getting dessert.

About that righteous / not righteous thing, I never saw any contradiction there. There are a number of prophets who include those complaints in their speeches - I've always taken it for the traditional "kids these days..." bitchin', referring only to the particular prophet's own generation, not a declaration about the totality of human history.