Book of Contradictions: A Challenge

[Doubting Thomas]

Yeah, D-T. As this pile of shit from CARM shows, they simply define the obvious contradiction away.

http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/matth...lling-down

There is no contradiction here at all because both are true.

Yeah, I've heard that "Judas hanged himself and then his body fell and burst open" idea before. Curious, though, why Acts conveniently omits the all-important information about Judas hanging first, and Matthew conveniently omits the falling down & bursting open part. Nor do they explain the contradiction of what happened to the 30 pieces of silver. In Matthew, Judas threw it into the temple and the high priests took it and bought a field to use as a cemetery for foreigners (IIRC). But in Acts, Judas himself buys a field with it. I know apologists like to claim that this, too, is not a contradiction because it was Judas' money that the priests used to buy the field, but I think it's very clear that these are two different stories and to try to claim they're not is just using ad hoc hypotheses.

It's that kind of constantly having to jump through mental hoops and make up explanations to explain inconsistencies in Christian beliefs that made me become an atheist. I was glad I didn't have to lie to myself any more.