Aren't there contradictions in the Bible?

It helps to start with what the word means. A real contradiction asserts and denies the very same thing, in the same sense, at the same time - "the tomb was empty" and "the tomb was not empty." Most alleged biblical contradictions are not that. They turn out to be differences of perspective, emphasis, or detail - exactly the kind of variation you would expect from independent witnesses describing the same event. One Gospel mentions one angel at the tomb, another mentions two; that is not a contradiction, since mentioning one does not deny a second. Each writer is simply highlighting the angel who spoke.

Many other puzzles dissolve once we read the texts the way their first readers did. Ancient writers routinely used round numbers, arranged material by theme rather than strict chronology, compressed or paraphrased speeches, and described the same event from different vantage points. None of these were considered errors; they were normal conventions of careful ancient history-writing. A great many "contradictions" also rest on a particular interpretation of a passage, so when a different and equally natural reading is available, the supposed clash simply evaporates. Cultural and historical context resolves far more of these than sceptics expect.

There is a deeper point here that cuts the other way. The Gospels are not four fully independent sources - Matthew and Luke both draw on Mark, so they share a good deal of wording - but John writes largely independently, and where the accounts diverge, especially in the resurrection and empty-tomb narratives, they diverge in just the incidental ways truthful witnesses do. Had every account matched word for word everywhere, sceptics would - rightly - suspect a single copied script; the differences that look like a weakness are, in the places that matter most, a signature of genuine testimony. Courts and historians expect truthful witnesses to differ in their angles while converging on the central facts, and that is precisely the pattern the Gospels show: firm agreement that Jesus was crucified and that the tomb was found empty, with differing incidental details around the edges. This is not a claim that every passage is easy. There are hard texts worth wrestling with honestly, and faith is not threatened by admitting it. But the sweeping charge that "the Bible is riddled with contradictions" does not survive a careful, case-by-case look.