Did Michal have any children? One passage said she had none, but another said she had five. Could this be a contradiction in the scriptures? Let’s get into it.
In the account of the Book of Samuel it says:
“Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death.” (2 Samuel 6:23; KJV, 1611))
But afterwards in the same book, it says:
“But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she brought up for Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite” (2 Samuel 21:8; KJV, 1611)
There seems to be a contradiction here, for the first verse says that Michal had no children until her death. But the second verse says Michal had five sons.
Explanation:
The explanation this time requires a change of Bible translation. The Berean translation is more accurate in this verse and says:
“But the king took Armoni and Mephibosheth, the two sons whom Rizpah daughter of Aiah had borne to Saul, as well as the five sons whom Meraba daughter of Saul had borne to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.” (2 Samuel 21:8; BSB, 2016)
The BSB Bible translation writes “Merba” instead of “Michal”. Merba was Michal’s sister, but she died and so Michal (her sister) raised Merba’s five sons.
Conclusion:
Important Note: It is very often helpful to switch Bible translations and compare them at the same time. However, the above case is not a “mistake” in the Bible, for Michal was in fact Saul’s daughter and she raised her sister’s sons. Therefore, one must not consider such cases as “errors”. Also, even if the “translation” has an “error”, it doesn’t mean that the original contains an error. The original itself is and always will be error-free. And the proof of this is that in this case the solution was just found in another translation. If the original itself were wrong, then all translations (in all languages) would be wrong and thus the “problem” mentioned above would not be solvable.
Another very helpful tip is to often change the language in addition to the Bible translation.
In this example, the German Bible translation (Schlachter 2000) proves to be very helpful, as it writes the following:
„Aber die beiden Söhne, welche Rizpa, die Tochter des Ajas, dem Saul geboren hatte, Armoni und Mephiboset, dazu die fünf Söhne, welche Michals [Schwester], die Tochter Sauls, Adriel, dem Sohn Barsillais, dem Mecholathiter, geboren hatte, nahm der König.“ (2. Samuel 21:8; SCH2000)
The German translation, like the King James Version, writes Michal’s name but next to it in brackets is the word “Schwester” – which translates to English as “Sister”.
Consequently, the Bible contains absolutely no errors. However, should a verse “clearly contradict” another verse, the solution can (very) often be found by changing the translation and/or language.
You can find more articles dealing with the alleged contradictions in the Bible at the link below:
Category: Bible Difficulties
You’ll find our videos on this topic here:
@SaintPaulCopticApologetics
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