Dan McClellan's "Unanswerable Contradictions" - Part 1- Intro

Where Dan McClellan Is Wrong on Basic Logic

Introduction

In biblical scholarship and online apologetics debates, few topics generate more heat than the question of biblical contradictions. Popular scholar Dan McClellan often argues that apologists "define contradictions out of existence" by retreating into the realm of what is merely "not impossible" - inventing scenarios out of whole cloth just to force contradictory texts together. 

In the video Five Bible contradictions you can’t make go away (Parts 1–5), biblical scholar Dan McClellan discusses the following five contradictions.

But before McClellan even unpacks his five allegedly irreconcilable contradictions, his foundational argument runs into a serious hurdle: basic logic. By brushing aside the classic standard that a true contradiction requires two mutually exclusive claims in the exact same sense and context, McClellan misidentifies standard Aristotelian logic and conventional historical methodology as mere theological "sleight of hand". When examined through the lenses of formal logic, ancient historiography, and forensic evidence, harmonization isn't desperate ad hoc storytelling - it is standard critical thinking. The very thing he thinks Christians lack!

Dan McClellan and the definition of "Contradiction"

But before he gets to the five contradictions, he says something very interesting. About one minute in, he says this: 

I'm not interested in trying to define contradiction in a way that makes it impossible for texts to contradict because frequently, what apologists will do is insist that a contradiction must State precisely P, and then another text must State precisely non-p in the exact same context, and in the exact same sense and in the exact same way, and anything short of that is not a contradiction, and that's just defining contradictions Aways. {Auto-transcribed directly from the video}

McClellan dismisses the requirement that P and non-P must occur "in the exact same sense and at the exact same time/context" as a rhetorical trick to define contradictions away. However, this formulation is not an ad hoc apologetic invention; it is the classical definition of the Law of Non-Contradiction formulated by Aristotle (Metaphysics IV, 1005b): 

"The same attribute cannot at the same time belong and not belong to the same subject and in the same respect."

The law of noncontradiction is one of the 3 laws of logic that you learn in a basic critical thinking course on the first day. 

So McClellan is absolutely dead wrong here. If someone is pointing out that X is not the in the exact same sense and at the exact same time/context as Y, then no it isn't a contradiction. 

He goes on to say that apologists define contradictions out of existence by claiming a contradiction only exists if reconciliation is completely impossible. This allows them to invent unsupported scenarios to connect contradictory texts, reducing the standard of evidence to whatever their imagination can devise.

McClellan concludes by saying retreating to what is merely "not impossible" rather than what is historically or textually plausible, apologists tacitly admit that their harmonizations are not the most likely explanations. Ultimately, their approach serves only to reassure like-minded believers that their dogma remains technically possible.

However, in formal logic and legal testimony, a contradiction requires two statements to be mutually exclusive in the exact same respect, time, and sense.

• Two witnesses providing differing accounts of the same event - one reporting details the other omits - do not contradict unless their claims cannot logically coexist.

• If a critic asserts, "These two texts cannot both be true," the critic has made a universal negative claim. In logic, demonstrating that a scenario is possible directly disproves the claim of impossibility. Apologists do not need to prove that their specific harmonization definitely occurred; they only need to show that mutual exclusivity has not been demonstrated.

This is all just logical, reasonable, critical thinking at its most basic level. Dan McClellan says in the video,  "that the notion that the Bible contains no contradictions...is it deeply unserious position marked by a rank lack of critical thinking..."

Given the rules of formal logic and historical analysis, charging apologists with a 'rank lack of critical thinking' seems misplaced. Reconciling non-exclusive claims isn't intellectual evasion - it’s how standard critical reasoning actually works. 

2. Historical Methodology Regularly Deals with Incomplete Data

Ancient historiography (e.g., Polybius, Tacitus, Plutarch) is characterized by compression, selective focus, and distinct rhetorical goals. Ancient historians did not write modern, minute-by-minute police blotters.

In classical scholarship, when two ancient sources report on the same war, treaty, or monarch with divergent details, historians do not automatically declare one or both to be false. Instead, standard historical method applies the principle of charity: historians evaluate whether differences arise from independent perspectives, thematic arrangement, or partial knowledge before declaring an irreconcilable error.

Filling in gaps with unstated context is standard forensic practice, not special pleading. In any courtroom, when Witness A says "I saw John leave through the front door" and Witness B says "I saw John running across the backyard," the jury does not reject both accounts as a fatal contradiction. They deduce that John went through the house and exited to the yard. Hypothesizing plausible connecting events is how all historical reconciliation works.

3. Presuppositions Influence "What is Most Likely"

The claim that apologists "tacitly admit their explanations are not the most likely" assumes that historical probability is judged from a purely neutral, non-theistic framework.

To a critic who presupposes the Bible is merely an arbitrary collection of disjointed ancient legends, the "most likely" explanation is always that the authors disagreed or erred. See the link below on "Presuppositions". 

To a reader operating with reason to believe in the general historical reliability or inspiration of the texts, a harmonized reading is internally coherent and contextually plausible. What counts as "most likely" is dictated largely by whether one starts with a presupposition of fragmentation or a presupposition of coherence.

When evaluating texts that have been preserved together by an ancient community, it is historically naive to assume the original editors and audiences were completely oblivious to obvious differences. If those ancient communities recognized complementary aspects where modern critics see stark conflict, assuming modern skepticism is the only "objective" lens commits a chronological fallacy.

4. Harmonization is Supported by Undesigned Coincidences

Critics charge that connecting dots requires purely made-up scenarios. However, many biblical accounts exhibit what 19th-century philosopher William Paley termed undesigned coincidences - subtle, interlocking details between independent texts that naturally resolve tensions without any apparent collusion.

• When Matthew and Luke describe Jesus's early years or Passion week from radically different vantage points, their details frequently dove-tail into known Roman, Jewish, and provincial legal practices rather than directly conflicting.

• Far from being an exercise in pure fantasy, serious historical harmonization relies on ancient cultural customs, geographic realities, and linguistic idioms to evaluate whether two testimonies fit into a unified historical reality.

Conclusion

Ultimately, declaring an ancient text "irreconcilable" often reveals more about a modern reader's starting assumptions than about the texts themselves. If one begins with the rigid premise that differing perspectives equal definitive factual errors, then every omission becomes a contradiction and every harmonization looks like dishonest evasion. But real-world testimony and ancient history don't work that way. Historians routinely expect divergent angles, selective details, and complementary reports from independent witnesses. Holding biblical accounts to an artificially brittle standard - where differing details are condemned without allowing for reasonable historical synthesis - disregards the very principles of critical thinking McClellan claims to champion. Rather than defining contradictions away, responsible harmonization simply lets the historical evidence speak on fair and logical terms.

I will address each of McClellan's contradictions at a later date, but link to them here. Stay tuned...

For Further Reading

The Presuppositions of the Historical-Critical Method - Sources