So many bible contradictions that can't be explained away - Page 6

aragonjohn1 · #76 Jul 6, '12, 10:36 am

this is a great article on "bilbe contradictions"

- http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/bible.htm

SHALOM
GOD BLESS YOU ON YOUR JOURNEY!!!

MarkInOregon · #77 Jul 6, '12, 12:37 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justinian III

Who was at the Empty Tomb? Is it:

MAT 28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.

MAR 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.

JOH 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.

Why are these statements contradictory?

In all three we are told Mary Magdalene was at the tomb.
Matthew provides additional information that the other Mary was there also and Mark lets us know that Salome was there also.

Just because John doesn't tell us that anyone else was there--doesn't mean they were not. John provides the details he feels are important for what he is communicating. For all we know there could have been other women present also who simply are not mentioned in the Gospels.

It seems a stretch to call these contradictory.

Peace of Christ,
Mark

Gaber · #78 Jul 6, '12, 6:37 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by MarkInOregon

Why are these statements contradictory?

In all three we are told Mary Magdalene was at the tomb.
Matthew provides additional information that the other Mary was there also and Mark lets us know that Salome was there also.

Just because John doesn't tell us that anyone else was there--doesn't mean they were not. John provides the details he feels are important for what he is communicating. For all we know there could have been other women present also who simply are not mentioned in the Gospels.

It seems a stretch to call these contradictory.

Peace of Christ,
Mark

No, but it'a kind of like saying on one hand that your girlfriend was at your birthday party, and someone else says, oh yeah, your Mom was there, and someone else saying , oh yeah, there were some friends, too. What? Do they have to remind each other what happened, or were some discounted as not being important? And where's Luke in all this? He just says "the women," as if we knew who they were. But that brings to the fore the whole idea of witnessing, retention, filtering, reportage, etc. In other words, we likely don''t have a completely accurate account, or there is another explanation, or a combination of those.

Another reason it all can only be taken on faith.

Mintaka · #79 Jul 6, '12, 6:45 pm

If you read people's memoirs, you'll find that they do, in fact, list who attends an event by whether or not there's a story attached to them being there. If Disraeli said something witty or did something weird, they'll mention him. If Disraeli just put in some face time, noshed on appetizers, and then called his carriage and went home, they won't mention him because he's boring and irrelevant. (Even though he was one of the most powerful men of his day.)

If there's more than one memoir, Lord Clever MP is going to be a lot more likely to put down the important bits of his conversation on politics with Disraeli, than Lady Augusta Fluffchick, who not only wasn't there to hear the conversation, but only cares to write down who she danced with and who had a gorgeous new dress. That doesn't mean they're lying, or mistaken. It just means that different things are relevant to their memoirs' intended points.

Historians, OTOH, are interested in printing a full guest list -- in the appendix notes, not in the main body of the story. If they don't have a guest list, they collate documents together (like memoirs, surviving party invitations, newspaper accounts of guests, etc.) to get as full a list as they can.

You never see anyone listing the names of all seventy disciples, because that would be boring, and because they didn't all have relevant stories or wordplay names. You do see people listing topically-relevant patriarchs and matriarchs in Jesus' genealogy, because they go with the story.

The only exception I can think of is Homer's Iliad, where he has a long, long list of all the ships who supposedly came to the Trojan War, and where they came from, and who led them. But Homer does this as a sort of "roll call of local heroes from legendary legends," and he writes it so that it is phonetically and poetically beautiful. And it's not at all clear that it has any relationship to history, although it's useful for figuring out where Mycenaean settlements may have been.

Gaber · #80 Jul 9, '12, 6:13 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mintaka

If you read people's memoirs, you'll find that they do, in fact, list who attends an event by whether or not there's a story attached to them being there. If Disraeli said something witty or did something weird, they'll mention him. If Disraeli just put in some face time, noshed on appetizers, and then called his carriage and went home, they won't mention him because he's boring and irrelevant. (Even though he was one of the most powerful men of his day.)

If there's more than one memoir, Lord Clever MP is going to be a lot more likely to put down the important bits of his conversation on politics with Disraeli, than Lady Augusta Fluffchick, who not only wasn't there to hear the conversation, but only cares to write down who she danced with and who had a gorgeous new dress. That doesn't mean they're lying, or mistaken. It just means that different things are relevant to their memoirs' intended points.

Historians, OTOH, are interested in printing a full guest list -- in the appendix notes, not in the main body of the story. If they don't have a guest list, they collate documents together (like memoirs, surviving party invitations, newspaper accounts of guests, etc.) to get as full a list as they can.

You never see anyone listing the names of all seventy disciples, because that would be boring, and because they didn't all have relevant stories or wordplay names. You do see people listing topically-relevant patriarchs and matriarchs in Jesus' genealogy, because they go with the story.

The only exception I can think of is Homer's Iliad, where he has a long, long list of all the ships who supposedly came to the Trojan War, and where they came from, and who led them. But Homer does this as a sort of "roll call of local heroes from legendary legends," and he writes it so that it is phonetically and poetically beautiful. And it's not at all clear that it has any relationship to history, although it's useful for figuring out where Mycenaean settlements may have been.

So you are saying that each of the evangelists had their own agenda in reporting the discovery at the tomb, wrote the "guest list" accordingly, and it was the assembly of the four g's and extracting commonality or more complete inventory or descriptions is what constitutes history? OK, then what of the rather long span of time with the hole in the middle that is recorded as the time of Jesus birth, if we add together the accounts of that?

Lady Augusta Fluffchick?

stevekehl · #81 Jul 9, '12, 8:33 am

Read anything by Norman Geisler. He's spent his life researching apparent biblical contradictions and written several books on topic. I am currently reading I Don't Have Enough Faith to be An Atheist. If you can trust a Protestant writer they are well worth the effort.

**LilyM** · #82 Jul 9, '12, 10:20 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaber

No, but it'a kind of like saying on one hand that your girlfriend was at your birthday party, and someone else says, oh yeah, your Mom was there, and someone else saying , oh yeah, there were some friends, too. What? Do they have to remind each other what happened, or were some discounted as not being important? And where's Luke in all this? He just says "the women," as if we knew who they were. But that brings to the fore the whole idea of witnessing, retention, filtering, reportage, etc. In other words, we likely don''t have a completely accurate account, or there is another explanation, or a combination of those.

Another reason it all can only be taken on faith.

But John's account of the Wedding at Cana is very much that kind of off-the-cuff roll call. 'There was a wedding ... and Mary was there ... oh yeah, and Jesus too ... and some of the disciples tagged along as well.'

It's very reminiscent of the way such an account might be orally told, years after the event, by someone who was there - but whose account is written for them by a scribe who is more interested in getting down the story accurately than putting it in a pleasing written form.

Bravo 6 · #83 Jul 11, '12, 6:29 am

There may be "apparent" contradictions or inconsistencies which is normal off face value. There are however,many key points to consider.Firstly,The Old Testament "Barbaric?"Things were permitted in the Old Law not keeping with the more perfect New Law.There is nothing which violates any attribute to God,save of course the sins of men described in the Old Testament.These latter are recorded,not with approval,but as evil to be reprehended,and as motives of repentance.It is a fallacy to measure the simple blunt standards of more primitive times by modern standards.These accounts prove the trust-worthiness of the reports.They're not out to say only the best of Jewish heroes,but narrate exploits far from flattering to the vanity of the Jews,though written by members of the race,not by enemies?

St Matt. gives 42 generations;St Luke gives 72. Why?Neither intended to give all the generations.The Prince could say,"I was born of George V.,who was descended from Queen Victoria."Another writer could say."The Prince was born of George V.,who was born of Edward VII.,who was born of Queen Victoria."Both accounts would be right,although one would be inadequate.

Why did St Matt. choose to give 42 generations only?Because he wrote for the Jews and wished to show Christ was the Messiah,the son of David.In Hebrew David's name consists of three letters and those three letters numerically signify 14.Thus D_V_D have the numerical significance of 4-6-4.Following a Jewish custom,St Matt. gives three times 14,i.e,42 generations or Davidic generation.

St Luke gives 72 generations because he wrote for the Gentiles.Jewish tradition held that there were 72 races of men throughout the world and St Luke wished to show that Christ would call all nations to His religion.This may seem complicated to us,but it was not to the Jews of those times.

Inconsistency with the names?Also,how could Jacob be the father of Joseph(St Matt.)yet Heli be his father(St. Luke).
Many scholars relied that Jacob and Heli were half-brothers.Upon Heli's death without issue,Jacob married his widow in accordance with the Levitical law to provide children to Heli.Joseph would thus be the natural son of Jacob and the legal son of Heli.In this case,since St Matt. gives the natural genealogy and St Luke the legal genealogy we have two different yet correct lines of ancestry.

This is certainly food for thought on how and what you must do to study the bible.There is more to it than face value.

All the best.

Gaber · #84 Jul 11, '12, 6:36 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by LilyM

But John's account of the Wedding at Cana is very much that kind of off-the-cuff roll call. 'There was a wedding ... and Mary was there ... oh yeah, and Jesus too ... and some of the disciples tagged along as well.'

It's very reminiscent of the way such an account might be orally told, years after the event, by someone who was there - but whose account is written for them by a scribe who is more interested in getting down the story accurately than putting it in a pleasing written form.

Are you saying that accuracy and pleasing form are mutually exclusive, or that John, who wrote some of the most beautiful lines in the Bible isn't pleasing??? So this man who was Jesus' best friend just wrote an off-the-cuff note about what was the grandultimate relationship in his life?

HelenRose · #85 Jul 11, '12, 9:04 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by gtrguy155

Hello everyone,

Im worried tonight.

I know that's a lot. I know you may not want to respond to every single point I said, but even just one would be great.

Thank you in advance to anyone who responds.

I look at it this way. Police detectives may interview a number of people who have been involved in a crime. They will know for a fact that the suspects are not telling the truth if their stories match exactly.

Scholars know that the Bible has been written throughout 2000 centuries by a number of inspired writers. If everything matched exactly we would know that this would be impossible. It would be the writing of one person.

The Four Gospels are the same way. Yes, there are differences because each writer is expressing the truth from his point of view.

If each gospel was exactly the same we would know that it was one writer not four.

I have many reasons for believing that the Bible is God's word. One of those reasons is that the Bible does not "white wash" anything. The people in the Bible are shown in their true humanity - warts and all.

Roy5 · #86 Jul 11, '12, 11:28 am

The Bible contains many contradictions. That's the long and short of it. We can try to paper that over, but it's simply a reality.

Certainly, the ethical standards in the Old Testament contradict many in the Sermon on the Mount. "An eye for an eye" contradicts 'love your enemies" and the whole Christian concept of forgiveness. How could God's chosen people yell enthusiastically: "Saul has killed his thousands but David has killed his ten thousands!" How could the God of love order Joshua to slaughter the inhabitants of Jericho or send two she-bears to maul 42 youth who teased Elisha about his bald head? II Kings 2:23-24.

And we could go on and on.

Christians need to stop venerating a book and focus their worship on the Lord. Yes, there is considerable spiritual wisdom in the Bible but it also seems to justify such atrocities as 'killing witches' and "stoning to death rebellious sons". Re-read parts of Ex. 21, Lev. 20, and Deut. 22-23 and see how those Mosaic laws compare with the words of Jesus. Fathers can even sell their daughters into slavery! Give me a break.

Or, consider that 'great man' Gideon. How many Christians know that he took golden earrings from slain Midianites and made them into an idol? Judges 8:27, How many know that he had seventy sons with many wives, as well as a son, Abimelech by a slave concubine? Read this and more in that sad and murderous story in Judges 8-9.

Rigid fundamentalism, whether in its Christian, Muslim or Jewish form, is an enemy of reason, an enemy of peace, and an enemy of the gospel.

HelenRose · #87 Jul 11, '12, 12:16 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roy5

The Bible contains many contradictions. That's the long and short of it. We can try to paper that over, but it's simply a reality.

Certainly, the ethical standards in the Old Testament contradict many in the Sermon on the Mount. "An eye for an eye" contradicts 'love your enemies" and the whole Christian concept of forgiveness. How could God's chosen people yell enthusiastically: "Saul has killed his thousands but David has killed his ten thousands!" How could the God of love order Joshua to slaughter the inhabitants of Jericho or send two she-bears to maul 42 youth who teased Elisha about his bald head? II Kings 2:23-24.

And we could go on and on.

Christians need to stop venerating a book and focus their worship on the Lord. Yes, there is considerable spiritual wisdom in the Bible but it also seems to justify such atrocities as 'killing witches' and "stoning to death rebellious sons". Re-read parts of Ex. 21, Lev. 20, and Deut. 22-23 and see how those Mosaic laws compare with the words of Jesus. Fathers can even sell their daughters into slavery! Give me a break.

Or, consider that 'great man' Gideon. How many Christians know that he took golden earrings from slain Midianites and made them into an idol? Judges 8:27, How many know that he had seventy sons with many wives, as well as a son, Abimelech by a slave concubine? Read this and more in that sad and murderous story in Judges 8-9.

Rigid fundamentalism, whether in its Christian, Muslim or Jewish form, is an enemy of reason, an enemy of peace, and an enemy of the gospel.

As I mentioned before this is one reason why I believe that the truth is in the Bible. What other religious or historical work so starkly and honestly portrays the history of its people.

The people in the Bible are real human beings trying to survive in a harsh and cruel environment. God works with the weaknesses of human beings.

There is no other civilization whose history which can claim a more honest existence.

I maintain that the rigid form of fundamentalistic secularism is going to prove itself the worst of all. All ready an enemy of reason - it is a killer of more than 50 million babies in this country alone.

I

Roy5 · #88 Jul 12, '12, 5:39 am

HelenRose

One can fret about both Christian fundamentalism and secular fundamentalism.

If one is opposed to abortion, how can one defend those stories from the Old Testament that tell of God-ordered genocide, even starting with Noah? How many babies and babies in the womb would have been murdered by such a flood? And would a loving God order the wholesale killing of entire tribes when the ancient Hebrew invaders were seizing their land?

Christians need to be consistent. How can we proclaim the love of God and then call such unethical, horrendous murder the divine will and act of God!

Gaber · #89 Jul 12, '12, 6:06 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roy5

The Bible contains many contradictions. That's the long and short of it. We can try to paper that over, but it's simply a reality.

Certainly, the ethical standards in the Old Testament contradict many in the Sermon on the Mount. "An eye for an eye" contradicts 'love your enemies" and the whole Christian concept of forgiveness. How could God's chosen people yell enthusiastically: "Saul has killed his thousands but David has killed his ten thousands!" How could the God of love order Joshua to slaughter the inhabitants of Jericho or send two she-bears to maul 42 youth who teased Elisha about his bald head? II Kings 2:23-24.

And we could go on and on.

Christians need to stop venerating a book and focus their worship on the Lord. Yes, there is considerable spiritual wisdom in the Bible but it also seems to justify such atrocities as 'killing witches' and "stoning to death rebellious sons". Re-read parts of Ex. 21, Lev. 20, and Deut. 22-23 and see how those Mosaic laws compare with the words of Jesus. Fathers can even sell their daughters into slavery! Give me a break.

Or, consider that 'great man' Gideon. How many Christians know that he took golden earrings from slain Midianites and made them into an idol? Judges 8:27, How many know that he had seventy sons with many wives, as well as a son, Abimelech by a slave concubine? Read this and more in that sad and murderous story in Judges 8-9.

Rigid fundamentalism, whether in its Christian, Muslim or Jewish form, is an enemy of reason, an enemy of peace, and an enemy of the gospel.

All this is very true. And much more. There are library shelves filled with contrasts and criticisms, some of the more obvious ones which you have left out, for decency's, sake, no doubt. Thank you for that. Children are watching.

Actually, one wonders, other than the connection of Jesus as being of the culture He was, why is the OT part of the Christian Bible at all??? They are radically different. One is the history of a people and their adventure in a patriarchal monotheism much modeled after their own social norms of male dominance. The other, from the standpoint of the mystery philosophies that were essentially in agreement with each other, is a success story in Transformation that went awry. The root of it's going awry is that it was attempted to take what is necessarily private in essence, public in its entirety, This might be indicated by Mark 4:33,34. That is a vastly under-examined pointer text, imo.

One only need read TE Lawrence to see clearly that the return of a person from the desert preaching a new insight was de rigueur in that time and place, and indeed over time in that general culture. One of them stuck, no doubt in my mind, because He had actually accomplished what His Passion, Death, and Resurrection point to as a possibility. But it is meant potentially for all, based on the fact of each one being made in the image and likeness of God, as it is described in Christian culture. And it is due to the intervention of Paul's argument winning out over Peter, the first Pope, that non-Jews were preached to at all. And that was the beginning of the Westernization of what was originally an Eastern movement. Yes, folks, Christianity is originally an Eastern religion. The events of the third century took it from there to here.

So if there is any validation for retaining that older collection of Bedouin books, it is twofold: one, Jesus quoted it, and two, there are texts in it that are used as "proofs" that He is the one foretold as the Messiah.* That is kind of unfortunate that such was deemed necessary, because the OT could as well been an apocryphal addendum to Christian teaching, as a reference, and not included as bieng what it seems to be today and taken to such extremes in bits of extrapolation verging on absurd by various fundamentalist movements. Heck there are two denominations each of which are based each on a half of one line!!! One has to wonder, given the radical differences in the two parts, what they were thinking when they canonized the Bible.

~~~

*A messiah is a savior or liberator of a people in the Jewish, Christian, Islamic or other religion.
In the Hebrew Bible a messiah (or mashiach) is a king or High Priest traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil. However, messiahs were not exclusively Jewish kings, and the Hebrew Bible refers to Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, as a messiah. Following the death of Simon bar Kokhba, a messiah came to be a Jewish king who would rule at the end of history. In later Jewish messianic tradition and eschatology, a messiah is a leader anointed by God, and in some cases, a future King of Israel, physically descended from the Davidic line, who will rule the united tribes of Israel and herald the Messianic Age of global peace.
The translation of the Hebrew word Mašíaḥ as Χριστός (Khristós) in the Greek Septuagint became the accepted Christian designation and title of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians believe that prophecies in the Hebrew Bible (especially Isaiah) refer to a spiritual savior and believe Jesus to be that Messiah (Christ).
Islamic tradition holds the view that Isa, son of Maryam, was the promised nabi (Prophet) and masih (Messiah) sent to the Israelites, and that he will again return to Earth in the end times, along with al-Mahdi, and they will defeat Masih ad-Dajjal (lit. "false Messiah"; cf. antichrist).

(I know, it's Wiki, but it is compact and aids the point)

Interesting as well is the relationship of that word and "Moses," used in Egyptian in some cases to denote royalty, as in Thutmose ll, Pharaoh at the time of the exodus, and other Egyptian royals. It is possible that Moses got that name as being adopted into the royal family, due even to the circumstance of his discovery.

Ignatius · #90 Jul 15, '12, 5:36 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by gtrguy155

- there are a lot of contradictions in the bible. Yes, some contradictions people list can be explained away, but A LOT can't be explained away at all..

No there are not. It is your erroneous understanding that makes you think that there are contradictions.