An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD

Recently I came across an article by Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed. Apparently the Bible cannot be the Word of God. I can agree with the logic of the author:

A book written by God cannot contradict itself.
The Bible claims to be written by God.
The Bible contradicts itself.
Therefore the Bible cannot have been written by God.

This is a proper syllogism, and the conclusion is valid if the premises are true. The issue is obviously with the minor premise: does the Bible contradict itself?

Let me warn all those who try to find contradictions in the Bible: if the Bible really has no contradictions, and you claim you have found one, you could be making a fool of yourself!

The evidence Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed. presents is stunningly naive. He starts with quoting Deuteronomy 23:3:

An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever:

No Moabite was allowed to become a Jew. But David's great-grandmother Ruth was a Moabitess! So David is of mixed descend. He should never have become king, enter into the temple, or even by the ancestor of Jesus Christ

There's a lot more fluff in this article, but this is the gist of it. However this argument is just painful to read. In Hebrew every word is either male or female. So what a Jew would read in Deuteronomy 23:3 is:

An Ammonite man or Moabite man shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever:

Since Ruth was not a man, but a woman this command does not apply. It's that simple. Note for the author: the word “Moabite” as used in the Authorised (King James) Version always refers to a male. If the Hebrew reads a female the translation is “Moabitess”. If the Hebrew wanted to indicate both male and female it would have said that.

The whole argument is a stunning failure to understand the Bible.

Let me address one final issue as the author attempts to rescue his argument by quoting Nehemiah 13:23:

In those days also saw I Jews that had married wives of Ashdod, of Ammon, and of Moab:

This has nothing to do with Deuteronomy 23:3. This is an entirely different issue, given also wifes from Ashdod were mentioned. The issue here is marrying wifes who were not Jews. The children grew up as heathen:

And their children spake half in the speech of Ashdod, and could not speak in the Jews' language, but according to the language of each people.

If they could not understand Hebrew, how could do read or hear the Scripture? As the example of Ruth demonstrates, there was never an issue with a woman converting and then marrying a Jew. But there was always an issue with marrying “strange wives”, that is wives who continued to serve their idols and their gods.

Nehemiah continues in 13:26:

Did not Solomon king of Israel sin by these things? yet among many nations was there no king like him, who was beloved of his God, and God made him king over all Israel: nevertheless even him did outlandish women cause to sin.

What was the sin? Marrying outlandish, that is foreign, women? No! The issue is not marrying strange women, but marrying strange women who continue to serve their idols. Even Solomon could not do this. Nehemiah quotes here 1 Kings 11:1-11:

But king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites; Of the nations concerning which the LORD said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love. ... For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: ... For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. ... Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.

Solomon married idol worshipping women, and it ended with him worshipping idols. That's the issue Nehemiah has.