2 Peter 2:8

Contradictions (3)

Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.

• Has there ever been a righteous person?

  Job 15:14, Isaiah 64:6, and Romans 3:10 deny anyone is righteous — all our righteousness is as filthy rags, there is none righteous, no, not one. Hebrews 11:4, 2 Peter 2:5-8, Ezekiel 14:14, Luke 1:6, and Matthew 23:35 name specific righteous people — Abel, Noah, Lot, Daniel, Job, Elisabeth, Zacharias.

  Critical scholarship: Leans toward reconciliation.

  Theology

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• Was Lot a righteous man?

  2 Peter 2:7-8 calls Lot "just" and "righteous" and describes his soul as vexed by the wickedness of Sodom. Genesis 19 shows the same Lot offering his virgin daughters to a rape mob and later getting drunk enough on two consecutive nights to impregnate both of them.

  Critical scholarship: Leans toward a genuine contradiction.

  Theology

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• What was Sodom's sin?

  The Bible names at least six different sins as the reason Sodom was destroyed: same-sex intercourse (Leviticus 18:22 read into Ezekiel 16:50), inhospitality (Matthew 10, Luke 10, Wisdom 19:13), seeking sex with angels and 'strange flesh' (Genesis 19, Jude 7), pride and neglect of the poor (Isaiah 1, Ezekiel 16:49), adultery and lying (Jeremiah 23:14), and generic ungodliness (2 Peter 2). The 'homosexuality' reading is a late interpretive overlay that the Hebrew Bible's own internal cross-references don't support.

  Critical scholarship: Usually considered reconciled.

  Historical detail

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  The proposed answers and sources for each reading are on the question page.

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