One particular challenge for understanding the Bible is that it seems to be full of internal contradictions and missing pieces of information. This is perplexing for the Christian who is convinced of the gospel and therefore knows the Bible to be divinely inspired. How to account for the seeming weakness of the Bible’s way of telling its own story?

There are several options for addressing this, ranging from denying the integrity of Scripture to assuming that God filled the Bible with mysteries that mortal men cannot comprehend. However, the approach that I have found most fruitful is to assume that the Bible has hidden layers of meaning. The most basic truths are available on the surface, but God also designed the Bible to encourage deeper analysis and exploration. Such endeavors will reveal insights and interpretations that are simply not present on the most superficial level.

This option is the only way I have found to interpret certain confusing prophecies or to reconcile conflicting narratives. It allows us to resolve two major problems we encounter in studying the Bible: apparent contradictions and missing information.

Contradictions

Bible critics will state forcefully, “The Bible is full of contradictions!” This is often directed specifically toward the New Testament, but it also can apply to the Old Testament. The simple logic is: “The Bible is full of contradictions. A true account does not contradict itself. Therefore, the Bible is not a true account.”

If you are convinced of the gospel, however, then you know that the Bible is a true account. Therefore, it cannot contradict itself. Therefore, it must not contain any contradictions at all.

What it is full of, however, are apparent contradictions. Let’s look at an example:

Matthew 8:5-13

Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.” And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that same hour.

Luke 7:1-10

Now when He concluded all His sayings in the hearing of the people, He entered Capernaum. And a certain centurion’s servant, who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die. So when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to Him, pleading with Him to come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they begged Him earnestly, saying that the one for whom He should do this was deserving, “for he loves our nation, and has built us a synagogue.”

Then Jesus went with them. And when He was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to Him, saying to Him, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof. Therefore I did not even think myself worthy to come to You. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him, and turned around and said to the crowd that followed Him, “I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!” And those who were sent, returning to the house, found the servant well who had been sick.

So… did the centurion come out to meet Jesus personally, or did he send friends because he did not consider himself worthy to come to Jesus personally? These passages are obviously two different accounts of the exact same story, so we have an apparent contradiction.

Your instinct as a Christian might be to be embarrassed that the Bible authors would miss such an obvious disagreement in their accounts. If, however, you trust that the Holy Spirit is the author of all Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16), then you should consider the possibility that not only is there no conflict, but God deliberately put this seeming disagreement into the text. It is there for a purpose. After all, the issue of whether the centurion came personally to meet Jesus doesn’t seem pertinent to the narrative. Why be so particular about it for no good reason?

Now, before we attempt to solve this problem, I should clarify that there is no limit to the number of layers of the Bible (as it was written by an infinite God), and therefore there won’t be an ultimate solution that removes the necessity for further pondering. The more we dwell on Scripture, the more we develop and mature, with no end to the additional insights we can glean. But what we can do here is try to find the first layer under the surface, which can be deepened by further exploration later.

One possible resolution goes as such: the centurion initially sent friends to Jesus and brought Him his request, per Luke’s account. However, Jesus sent the friends back to the centurion to ask him to come personally, despite his feelings of unworthiness. So the centurion came personally, per Matthew’s account, and repeated his request, at which point Jesus sent both him and the friends back to the house, where they all found the servant healed.

In this interpretation, we are getting two halves of a bigger story in two different accounts. We have to combine them to get the full account. Now, while this is certainly a plausible solution, the real question is: why? Why split the account up at all?

The answer is that our diligent analysis and reconstruction of the account reveals something beneath the surface. In this case, we should consider the centurion’s words: Jesus is a Man under authority (God the Father’s) with soldiers (bondservants) under Him. Like the centurion, Jesus tells His servants to come and go and do things, and they obey.

So how did Jesus respond to this message? He told the centurion to come. He tested the centurion to see if he really believed his own words, or if he was just flattering Jesus to get his servant healed.

And what did the centurion do? He came. No hesitation, no dragging his feet, no hemming and hawing. He obeyed. Jesus’ response that He had not found such faith in Israel makes sense when you consider that the Jews Jesus dealt with, even amongst His disciples, were constantly pushing back, dragging their feet, objecting, betraying, obeying half-heartedly, or forgetting earlier instructions. The centurion, however, just did what he was told. He “got” it. And in so doing, he modeled the faith well, for doing what God says is the essence of the Christian walk.

In this way, the two passages from Matthew and Luke are like two eyes looking at an object from two different angles. When they sync up, they provide depth perception. Likewise, by carefully comparing multiple accounts of a single event, we can see things that aren’t explicitly made clear in Scripture. Most importantly, we are meant to find these hidden interpretations. It is not conjecture; on the contrary, it is the reward for diligent study.

For other examples of deeper insights coming from apparent contradictions, see The Last Days of Judah for an analysis of whether Jehoiakim was taken into exile or not and The Divided Kingdom from Jehu to the Assyrian Exile for an analysis of whether Tiglath-Pileser of Assyria helped Ahaz or distressed him.

Missing Pieces

Sometimes information below the surface of the Bible account is revealed not through apparent contradiction but rather through prophecies, numerology, timeline details, etc. Following the finer details in the relevant texts exposes the unexpected.

For example, in The Millennium and the Future, I explored how the Second Coming of Jesus in 70 AD occurred exactly 500 years after the original Purim described in the Book of Esther, which I showed is the most likely beginning of the millennium of Revelation 20.

Given the exact language of Revelation 20:4, I concluded that an event mentioned by Jesus but not described elsewhere in the Bible, the martyring of Zechariah son of Berechiah, occurred just before the events of Esther and was in fact the most likely reason that God allowed Haman to secure a death sentence against Jews everywhere.

If I’m right, then this provides greater clarity for the stories of the Restoration period (when the temple was rebuilt after the return from exile), despite not being spelled out on the surface level. Once again, this detail was meant to be discovered. But it could only be revealed through careful study of the Bible timeline.

For other examples of hidden interpretations revealed through careful study, see 70 Years in Babylon for an argument that Solomon first rebelled against the Lord by ignoring the Jubilee immediately after the completion of the First Temple, as well as The Divided Kingdom from Jehu to the Assyrian Exile (again) for an argument that Ahaz deposed his father Jotham.