Did God Forget What He Wrote In The Old Testament?
- Rabbi Moshe Perets
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Rabbi Ariel Moyal
Since Christians agree that God is essentially the author of the Five Books of Moses in addition to their book (New Testament), it follows that their book must be consistent with the original. This is similar to how you would expect part two of a novel writer’s story to be consistent with the first part. Imagine a movie sequel which forgets the plotline or names of the characters from the first movie. It would be clear that the screenwriter of the second movie is either a different one from the first (who didn’t bother to read the first movie’s screenplay), or the same author who made a mistake.
These are the same options we are faced with in our situation when we find material inconsistencies between the Five Books of Moses and the New Testament. Either the author isn’t God (through divine inspiration), or God made a mistake. Since all religions would agree that inherently, God cannot by definition make mistakes, the only option left is that God isn’t the author.
Let us examine two examples of New Testament passages which contradict the Old Testament:
In the “Old Testament”, Abraham purchases the Cave of Machpela, which is in the city of Hebron, from Efron the Hittite in order to bury his wife Sarah within it.
“And Abraham listened to Efron and paid him the money of which they spoke and afterwards Abraham buried Sara his wife, in the Cave of Machpela, in the plains of Mamre in Hebron in the land of Canaan” (Genesis 23:15:19).
In the New Testament, the following story is recounted:
“Jacob and our forefathers went down to Egypt and died there; and were carried to Shechem and buried in the grave which Abraham had purchased from the sons of Chamor in Shechem” (New Testament - Acts 7).
This passage contains three major inaccuracies. The New Testament claims that the Cave of Machpela is in Shechem (modern day Nabulus), that it was purchased from the sons of Chamor (a different biblical character), and that Jacob is buried in Shechem. I would remind the reader that Christians believe that the book of Genesis in the Old Testament is the word of God, so the question must be asked, could it be that God forgot what He wrote in His first book? Christians who come to Israel today to visit the graves of the Patriarchs testify to this inaccuracy when they visit the Cave of Machpela in Hebron, not Shechem. Moreover, you cannot claim that Shechem and Hebron are the same place with different names since the Torah explicitly mentions both of them as separate geographical locations.
In another place in Acts 7 of the New Testament, it is claimed that the Jews were 75 souls when they went down to Egypt:
“Joseph sent and summoned his father Jacob and all his family to Egypt, 75 souls” (Acts 7).
In the Old Testament it is specifically stated that they were 70 souls:
“And all the souls of the house of Jacob that went down to Egypt were 70” (Genesis 41:27).
There are many more of these types of inconsistencies in the New Testament. If you are interested in learning about these topics, please join my live course on my new book Judaism: A Rational Approach.
Acknowledged as an accomplished litigator, Rabbi Ariel Moyal is a licensed attorney in both the State of California and the State of Israel. In addition to excelling in law school and academia, Attorney Moyal studied in Yeshivat Ohr Yisrael in Monsey, New York and continued his Judaic studies in Israel. Attorney Moyal lectured for the renowned Arachim organization for a period of seven years on various Jewish topics, such as Jewish philosophy, personality development, psychology, moral and ethical issues and lectures related to evidence for the validity of the Torah and Jewish tradition.