The Bible - infallible?

[natedgreat3]

I thought this would be an interesting topic to discuss with everyone.

The Bible, as you all know, is the controversial book that claims to be the Holy Word of God. Christians use it as a basis for living their life, some even refer to it as instructions from God to humankind.

This topic exists to discuss a certain aspect of the Bible: Accuracy.

With the book being written starting 4,000 years ago, its obviously very primitive. But its strange that you don't hear very much about supposed "errors" with it.

The Koran, for instance, has dozens of contradictions with science today and even within itself, and Muslims don't attempt to challenge this, they just say that Allah changed his mind and whatever the last thing written was, thats what we should follow.

But you don't hear that about the Bible. Historical works written at the same time are riddled with errors, is the Bible the same way? You'd definitely think it would be. But IF the Bible is the "Holy Word of God" then it pretty much HAS to be error free. God doesn't make mistakes, and one of the ways He could best prove it was written by Him (IF He did actually write it) is by not having any errors.

Discuss and debate the Bible, and any errors you may find within the book.

===========================

A word of warning though: I would stay far, far away from this topic if you haven't read the Bible, or have read it very little. Its like having an indepth conversation about the plot twists and/or possible plot holes of the movie Saw III, if you didn't see it, your gonna make yourself look like an idiot because you won't have a clue what your talking about ;)

The strongest evidence you could use is direct verses from the Bible itself. People have interpreted and stretched the Bible in so many different directions its not funny. Don't necessarily trust outside sources.

Even if you know only a fragment of the verse, you should be able to find it at www.biblegateway.com (http://www.biblegateway.com). Its got a pretty nice search tool. If you want to look up different translations of a verse, you can do that: 50 different versions. Its also got a bunch of different bible tools like a topical dictionary.

Ready - Set - GO!!

[DKR1138]

Infallible? yes because it works on faith, faith is infallible to its believers. The day the believers stop believing becomes the day the book is fallible. So yes its possible... but the chance is very small in this day and age. I think extinction might make it pretty fallible also.

The Book I will say as you've already mentioned has so many contradictions in it that its undeniable to not state that it has its problems... but to its believers comes its power to remain infallible to its audience.

[natedgreat3]

I've found several errors in the book as well that I can't explain. This thread is for people to discuss the errors they've found. Care to name any? :)

[DKR1138]

I had written some down a while back, I might try and dig them up.

[DarkFlood]

Actually, the bible contradicts itself on a regular basis. But I don't do all that religion stuff, so I can't really tell you where.. But it is true.

[natedgreat3]

If you can't give a specific example (for instance RedGrass gave "rabbits chewing the cud") then don't bother posting :) your claim that the Bible contradicts itself may be true, but until you have the evidence to prove it, no one will believe you.

Let me start it off:

Genesis 4:17: "Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch."

Cain and Abel were, besides Adam and Eve, the first people on the face of the earth. Where did Cain get his wife?

Contradiction? Or something else perhaps?

[e-freak]

The very same question as "Evo or Crea?". The Bible - at least the beginning is a symbolic book. It is like speaking with little children and teaching them what war is. You won't tell a child that bullets will nail through it's head and you won't start a big political discussion with it. You will just tell him about beating in the sandbox and such things. Though: You know what war is while the writers of the old testament didn't know about evolution - the picture is lacking there a "little" bit.

Most of the bible though is more or less re-constructable on time-context and should be always seen in this context. Remember the story then Abraham was send to kill his son as a sacrifice? Look at the parallels in the time context: The other cultures made human-sacrifice as a normal thing. God stops Abraham and tells him to save his son - God presents himself as a god who is with the humans and not against them. He doesn't want theyr lives - he wants to help them and free them.

[Flarty]

i went to a catholic school, and i find it funny how christians protest against acts such as marilyn manson, saying its violent etc etc, yet the bible is one of the most violent pieces of litreture one could read.

[natedgreat3]

haha I know :D the New Testament alone.. well.. watch Passion of the Christ and you'll get a taste of just how violent the Bible is. And even in that movie they didn't go far enough.

But the Bible has pretty much every sin and violent act imaginable contained in it. Sex, adulterous sex, rape, polygamy, child sex, orgies, countless murders (a lot of them in ghastly ways), horrific violence, and even God Himself sent plagues and judgements that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. He even wiped out the entire world once except for Noah and his family in Noah's flood.

If they were to go all the way, most of the Bible probably couldn't be made into a movie.

[bluseychris]

I've found several errors in the book as well that I can't explain. This thread is for people to discuss the errors they've found. Care to name any? :)

Thou Shall Not Kill

This is actually a mistranslation from the Torah. The commandment is Thou Shall Not Murder. Killing in time of war or self defence or to eat is fine. Just don't murder.

[natedgreat3]

ahh you are 100% correct. The KJV of the Bible had several pretty inaccurate words substituted. Considering that one man did the whole thing though, its quite an extraordinary achievement.

The NIV version of the Bible translates it "You shall not Murder"

[sig220]

If you can't give a specific example (for instance RedGrass gave "rabbits chewing the cud") then don't bother posting :) your claim that the Bible contradicts itself may be true, but until you have the evidence to prove it, no one will believe you.

Let me start it off:

Genesis 4:17: "Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch."

Cain and Abel were, besides Adam and Eve, the first people on the face of the earth. Where did Cain get his wife?

Contradiction? Or something else perhaps?
My theory to this is that there were other people on the earth at the time, but the Bible only talks about Adam and Eve.

[e-freak]

But the Bible has pretty much every sin and violent act imaginable contained in it. Sex, adulterous sex, rape, polygamy, child sex, orgies, countless murders (a lot of them in ghastly ways), horrific violence, and even God Himself sent plagues and judgements that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. He even wiped out the entire world once except for Noah and his family in Noah's flood.


You know the difference between Old Testament and New Testament?

The old testament is full of violence - mankind is a child which fights in the sandbox.

The new testament is the message of Jesus - Forgive and get forgiven. He even dies for all of mankind sins. God becomes human and lift all sins upon himself, let him cruzify and send to hell but he resurects from the death - the sins left in hell and the sinners into the heaven - forgiven. This love is bigger than anyone could understand - why does god take the victims of the holocausts into the heaven as well as he takes the wehrmacht-soldier - they are all his children - they come back - and the father forgives. He dislikes what they have done but he forgives in the end.

[Lupus]

Well, you don't have to have read any/all of it to raise certain points.

It was written by man, claiming (by man) it is the word of god. Whether God dictated it or not doesn't matter too much, as man actually wrote it. Man is fallible, therefore the link is broken. God wouldn't need to actually exist for it to be written (though that brings up questions of how people could have known some of the stuff in it).

And with all the rewrites, translations, different versions and whatnot, they vary between each other in places (frequently seen people debating and then go on about how their version says something different).

I think one of the main problems, over contradictions and errors, is how it (like the Koran) is intepreted in so many different ways. Some people take everything literally, others take it as metaphors. If you see the stories as metaphors then errors aren't too important for the most part, as it's really about the moral of the story or whatnot.

Not a specific contraction per se, but interesting none the less. In other texts the first woman created was Lilith, who basically was having none of it and ran off, getting turned into a demon. There is a reference to a female demon in the bible (though not naming it as Lilith, I think). If this demon and Lilith are one and the same, then Eve was not the first woman, and thus there is a contradiction. Fraid I don't know specific passages (something being talked about with friends).

[natedgreat3]

@e-freak: you've pretty much nailed the descriptions of the Old and New Testament, but the New Testament was still very violent, which was the point Flarty and I were making.

@Lupus: People have interpreted the Bible a million different ways, but that doesn't mean the book itself is a contradiction, that means the people who interpret the book are contradicting others who interpret the book :P

The Bible does claim to be written by God, and yet every bit of it was written by fallible man. What its basically claiming though is that even though man is fallible, God is not, and when God instructs man to write, the result is God's infallible words, written by man.

II Peter 1:21: For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Peter said some pretty stupid stuff in his life, including denying Jesus as the Messiah 3 times after telling Jesus earlier he would die for Him. Clearly, he is fallible. However he wrote I and II Peter which are included in the Bible. So, according to the book, God temporarily overrode his fallible nature and used Peter to write out the words of God.

The translations are another thing, we have to be careful about certain translations. The Today New Internation Version (TNIV) for instance, purposefully changed several things about the Bible, such as changing the Holy Spirit to "it" instead of He in an attempt to include women more in the Bible. Revelation, the last book in the Bible, warns that if anyone changes the words in the book that the same judgements described in Revelation will be passed onto them. That sentence was removed as well.

In general, the New International Version and the American Standard Version are deemed to be the most accurate. But even those are sometimes mistaken. Translated by fallible man, there's no doubt the English version of the Bible suffers from translation and opinion errors.

[e-freak]

While the old testament states it self as a word of god (which it is not - at least the most is plain historics as seen through the eyes of israel) the new testament is, and it states it, not the word of god but a write down of the way of the messiah and the first christian communities. If it would be the pure word of god - why would it have been called "Matthew's" or "Mark's" or "John's"

[Lupus]

That's kinda my point though (in response to Nate), the bible says God is infallible and was written with his words, but the bible was written by man, who is fallible. So the source saying that God is infallible, is fallible, meaning they may be wrong therefore there is nothing solid showing that God is infallible.

Sort of like writing "God says Lupus is always correct." On a bit of paper. Then I say stuff and when people disagree, I point them to the bit of paper. "But you wrote that." they say, "Yes, and as it says, I am always correct, so I was correct when I wrote that".

We've been told by man (fallible) that the bible is written with god's words. This is essentially hearsay. As there is doubt (because man was involved in it's creation) it shouldn't be seen as infallible. It might be all correct but, given the doubt ,it would be unwise to see it as infallible.

[optional]

In reply to 6,

I believe the person you are thinking of is Lillith? Or is this an incorrect memory from VTM? I don't care.

[natedgreat3]

In response to Lupus: I see what your saying. But unless God took it upon Himself to physically construct the Bible out of nothing (which He actually did for the 10 commandments, inscribed them in stone that is) then there's no other way then man to inscribe the words :)

The only problem I see with the piece of paper example is the writers of the Bible never claim they're always right. In fact Paul repeatedly denounces himself in his own letters, as he used to kill Christians before he was converted to a Christian.

On the other side of the coin however, you are right.. aside from them CLAIMING the written words are from God, there's no way for us to tell for sure. In fact, if you've ever heard of the apocrifia (hope I'm spelling that right) its books of the Bible, some even written by apostles of Jesus, that were deemed "not of God" and removed. They were removed because there were several glaring contradictions in the books. The ones that were left were only left because of no contradictions.

[El]

If you can't give a specific example (for instance RedGrass gave "rabbits chewing the cud") then don't bother posting :) your claim that the Bible contradicts itself may be true, but until you have the evidence to prove it, no one will believe you.

Let me start it off:

Genesis 4:17: "Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch."

Cain and Abel were, besides Adam and Eve, the first people on the face of the earth. Where did Cain get his wife?

Contradiction? Or something else perhaps?
Inbreeding perhaps?* We already know that that was quite common at that time.

Not to mention that the Bible doesn't go into that much detail, it is possible that Adam and Eve had a daughter, but the writers of the Bible didn't care to mention it -we must also remember us men were quite sexist and discriminatory

ahh you are 100% correct. The KJV of the Bible had several pretty inaccurate words substituted. Considering that one man did the whole thing though, its quite an extraordinary achievement.

The NIV version of the Bible translates it "You shall not Murder"
This is not God's fault, simply the translators of the Bible. Anyone with the proper knowledge (and a Hebrew copy of the Bible) can translate it to English


Well, you don't have to have read any/all of it to raise certain points.
I'd advise you to read a good bit more before making claims.

In response to Lupus: I see what your saying. But unless God took it upon Himself to physically construct the Bible out of nothing (which He actually did for the 10 commandments, inscribed them in stone that is) then there's no other way then man to inscribe the words :)

The only problem I see with the piece of paper example is the writers of the Bible never claim they're always right. In fact Paul repeatedly denounces himself in his own letters, as he used to kill Christians before he was converted to a Christian.

On the other side of the coin however, you are right.. aside from them CLAIMING the written words are from God, there's no way for us to tell for sure. In fact, if you've ever heard of the apocrifia (hope I'm spelling that right) its books of the Bible, some even written by apostles of Jesus, that were deemed "not of God" and removed. They were removed because there were several glaring contradictions in the books. The ones that were left were only left because of no contradictions.
I never knew that books in the New Testament were removed. I'll have to do some more research on that.



*By this, I mean that perhaps Cain lay with Eve

[natedgreat3]

To be fair, I'll revise my statement slightly, I don't think they were "removed" so much as never added :) I don't know for sure though. Catholics still hold the apocrifia (once again could be bad spelling) on the same level with the rest of scripture. I have a copy of it at home.. but never really read it.

Its got stuff like the gospel of Thomas in it, etc.

The "sayings of Jesus" in the book of Thomas alone are hugely contradictory to the rest of the Bible. For instance:

14 Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits.

16 Jesus said, "Perhaps people think that I have come to casy peace upon the world. They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war.

38 Jesus said, "Often you have desired to hear these sayings that I am speaking to you, and you have no one else from whom to hear them. There will be days when you will seek me and you will not find me."

112 Jesus said, "Damn the flesh that depends on the soul. Damn the soul that depends on the flesh."

114 Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

========

This stuff is exactly what I'm talking about would happen if someone tried to write a book of the Bible without the Holy Spirit to guide them. It reeks of contradiction and personal opinion. I suggest you read the whole thing, its very interesting :) http://www.misericordia.edu/users/davies/thomas/Trans.htm

[Flarty]

i like how the dead sea scrolls wont be added in to the bible/gospel collection, considering it blows the church out of the water, and makes worshipping god and jesus more personal, and rightfully so.

[El]

To be fair, I'll revise my statement slightly, I don't think they were "removed" so much as never added :) I don't know for sure though. Catholics still hold the apocrifia (once again could be bad spelling) on the same level with the rest of scripture. I have a copy of it at home.. but never really read it.

Its got stuff like the gospel of Thomas in it, etc.

The "sayings of Jesus" in the book of Thomas alone are hugely contradictory to the rest of the Bible. For instance:

14 Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits.

16 Jesus said, "Perhaps people think that I have come to casy peace upon the world. They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war.

38 Jesus said, "Often you have desired to hear these sayings that I am speaking to you, and you have no one else from whom to hear them. There will be days when you will seek me and you will not find me."

112 Jesus said, "Damn the flesh that depends on the soul. Damn the soul that depends on the flesh."

114 Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

========

This stuff is exactly what I'm talking about would happen if someone tried to write a book of the Bible without the Holy Spirit to guide them. It reeks of contradiction and personal opinion. I suggest you read the whole thing, its very interesting :) http://www.misericordia.edu/users/davies/thomas/Trans.htm

Is it more of quotes taken out of context and blown out of proportion or misled disciples attempting to write the Bible?

EDIT: Ah, it resembles best my first idea -cryptic sayings and codes yet to be decoded

[Lupus]

I wasn't meaning to imply that the writers claimed they were always right, I was just trying to show how the situation can be quite circular :).

For the commandments in stone, that is something similar. We are told they were actually written by God, but we can't know for sure.

I view science in a similar way; there are theories, they seem to make sense. I think (or am quite sure) that x theory is probably true, but always leave a bit of doubt. I don't believe in god, I do believe in evolution, but just because I (and many others) have those beliefs, doesn't mean they are true (same for everything).

[e-freak]

As every part of the New Testament the Thomas part has an author and listeners. While John, Mark, Matthew and Luke wrote to different groups the nearly same thing, thomas seemed to be of an radical and very traditional group of ex-jews which were in the fight. A Sicarier and Zelot.

[natedgreat3]

hmm here's a much tougher contradiction ;)

Matthew 1:16: and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.

Luke 3:23: Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli,

So apparently, Joseph has 2 fathers? This one stumped my girlfriend, who is a Christian, and the guy who cornered her on it was able to successfully argue this is indeed an error in the Bible. What do you think?

[e-freak]

Historical mistake or wanted interpretation - dunno. The bible is human word and i suppose they all wanted jesus to be in theyr family ^^ Though they both go on jacob, the gran son of abraham.

[your evil twin]

Since the Bible is made up of so many different books, there's no reason why the whole Bible should be assumed to be correct. I am a Christian, yet I believe Genesis to be a load of nonsense. (Though I find Milton's Paradise Lost hugely enjoyable, as well as being a bit more rational that the original Genesis.)

The way I see it, the bit of the Bible that really matters is the New Testament - it's what makes Christianity different to Judiasm. Christians that get hung up on stuff from the earliest stuff in the Old Testament are missing the point, since Jesus heavily contradicts lots of Old Testament stuff.

Contradictions in the New Testament are much more important. Though errors about who someoen's father was do not matter much, disagreements over what Jesus said or did are crucial.

[amd2800barton]

I've found several errors in the book as well that I can't explain. This thread is for people to discuss the errors they've found. Care to name any? :)

ah yes, i once sat down with the free bible provided by my church and simply began highlighting every time i found something that just didn't make sense with something i had already read. Not too far in, (we're taking pages here) i was marking every other sentence.

just to give a taste, i was marking everything down to the stupid and mundane complaints like god having to call out to adam and eve asking where they were after they took the fruit from the snake. my beef with that tale was that he was a Friggin Omniscent God! He shouldn't even need to ask where they were:P

perhaps i should see if i can find that now waterlogged bible. it got soaked when our basement flooded. i may have thrown it out.

[natedgreat3]

@Your Evil Twin, if Genesis, is rubbish and the entire Old Testament is contradicted by Jesus, and yet the whole Bible was written by God, what makes the New Testament true? Especially since 2 of the books seem to contradict themselves in the first chapter :) Not to mention that Jesus claimed to be God, but yet He was contradicting His works He claimed to have written in the Old Testament.

I'd like to see some of these contradictions you've found though :)

@amd2800barton: yes God in the Old Testament is kindof strange. He asks where Adam is. Abraham, Moses and others talked Him out of doing violent acts against humanity (especially Israel, His "chosen people.") He creates man, then turned around and was grieved He created them, and thus sent a global flood, wiping out everything but one family. Very strange indeed.

Here's an answer to your question though: Its not like God didn't KNOW where Adam was. Its not like He didn't know exactly what was going on with the fruit. But He would have gotten a completely different reaction from Adam if He had said: "Adam your hiding in the bush and you've just taken and eaten the forbidden fruit from Eve and your all cursed and your all going to die." Indeed, by asking questions, God asks Adam and Eve to basically explain themselves. This is a logical way of doing it, no?

And while trying to explain themselves, they blow it again actually, Adam blames Eve for making him eat the fruit and Eve blames the serpent for tempting her. Blame Game ftl :P

And oh, about the understanding of the Bible, I can't remember the exact verse but it basically says you need the Holy Spirit to be able to understand it completely. In other words you need to be a Christian.

[irockyou]

The Bible is most certainly fallible. If I had a dollar for every contradiction in the Bible, I'd be richer than Bill Gates, and that is not an exageration. Here are some sites with lists of contradictions:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html
http://www.evilbible.com/Biblical%20Contradictions.htm


Enjoy.

[Heyman]

Lets start off with irockyou.

While I agree on the point that the bible is fallible, it indeed does not have THAT MANY contradictions.

I will work on this page for a bit: http://www.evilbible.com/Biblical%20Contradictions.htm

1. God is satisfied with his works
Gen 1:31
God is dissatisfied with his works.
Gen 6:6

Whoever agrees with this has not read all those paragraphs.

When god first creates the world, skies, seas, creatures, and the humans, he sees that the fruit of his works are good.

Later, after Eve is coaxed by the serpent to eat the apple, later Adam eats the apple. Doing so, man is capable of sin. Hundreds of years passed and man sinned and sinned.

This is the point where god is not satisfied.

The reader who listed this did not contemplate the word chronology at the moment

2. God dwells in chosen temples
2 Chron 7:12,16
God dwells not in temples
Acts 7:48

In Chronicles, he does indeed instate a temple built by Solomon.

In Acts, The twelve apostles proclaim Jesus' word in the city of Jerusalem. Acts 7:48 is part of their discussion with the men and women of Jerusaleum says:

"However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:

Once again, the reader has forgotton about the passing of time.
The Old Testament is the first book Torah, mostly unscathed. The New Testament introduces a changing of God's rules, portrayed through Jesus Christ.

3. God dwells in light
Tim 6:16
God dwells in darkness
1 Kings 8:12/ Ps 18:11/ Ps 97:2

In both Psalms, darkness is purely symbolic, representing his anger.

For Kings - This is also another a matter of chronology in the Bible.

4. God is seen and heard
Ex 33:23/ Ex 33:11/ Gen 3:9,10/ Gen 32:30/ Is 6:1/
Ex 24:9-11
God is invisible and cannot be heard
John 1:18/ John 5:37/ Ex 33:20/ 1 Tim 6:16

I don't even have to read these again.
This is a matter of God's will. If you can remember, God is GOD .
He does what he pleases, and can do what anything.

So basically, if he wants to be seen, and wants to be heard, then he WILL be seen and heard.
If he wants to be invisible, and wants nobody to know, then it WILL be done.

5. God is tired and rests
Ex 31:17
God is never tired and never rests
Is 40:28

Not even a contradiction to speak of. Does it say he is tired? I think not.
In Isiah, does it say he never rests? I think not.


I can go on still, but the previous proofs I have given have taken a good chunk of time from me.

[John Clabo]

One thing you all must understand is that anyone can take anything out of the bible and place it out of context. If I had a penny every time someone took something in the bible and placed it out of context I'd be richer than....oh heck that's been done already hasn't it?


Half of religion and belief is based on pure faith ladies and gents. It's really that simple.


While I'm not going to get into it with everyone here, I do ask that you keep this thread mature and pleasant. We can all argue and debate things without attacking each other personally. :)

[Heyman]

I understand all too well. :dry:

[TREG]

That's really a ludicrous site. I could find 'contradictions' like that on a carton of milk.

[Flarty]

now im not a christian or catholic, but its prettu obvious that a boook with several authors is going to contradict itself,

P.S Jesus was a hippy and a true rebel. much <3 :P

[MickyD]

of course you do all realise the bible as been rewritten hundreds of times over the course of history to suit those in power, therefor just about everything in the bible is questionable just on that fact alone.

[Flarty]

not mentioning its translation from hebrew, to latin to english,
ever heard the phrase lost in translation?

[irockyou]

Thank you for responding.

Whoever agrees with this has not read all those paragraphs.

When god first creates the world, skies, seas, creatures, and the humans, he sees that the fruit of his works are good.

Later, after Eve is coaxed by the serpent to eat the apple, later Adam eats the apple. Doing so, man is capable of sin. Hundreds of years passed and man sinned and sinned.

According to the Bible, God is all-knowing; he knows the past, present and future. What your saying is he is content, gets new information, then is not content.

The reader who listed this did not contemplate the word chronology at the moment

God exists outside of time, remember?

Once again, the reader has forgotton about the passing of time.

Once again, God does not feel or acknowledge the passing of time.

So basically, if he wants to be seen, and wants to be heard, then he WILL be seen and heard. If he wants to be invisible, and wants nobody to know, then it WILL be done.


I think you should have reread them. In one, he says that he never has and never will be seen or heard by other people. He knows the past and future, therefore this statement is undoubtably correct, unless he is lying here. Then, not too long later, he has a "face to face" discussion.

I encourage you to go on, you only seemed to pick 4 from one website, whilst it has over 100, and the other website has about 500. I will admit though, the evilbible.com has some bad ones (like light vs. dark). Which is why I posted it second, hoping you'd read the other first.

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't mean to post the evilbible.com twice. That post was edited.

[your evil twin]

Actually, says you that God does not ackowledge the passing of time, and exists outside of time. Doesn't say that in the Bible. It says he is eternal. Just because something exists forever that doesn't mean it doesn't experience the passing of time.
Of course, God may indeed be timeless/outside time - I rather like that idea - but that's a bit of metaphysical thinking, and doesn't have much biblical evidence.

@Your Evil Twin, if Genesis, is rubbish and the entire Old Testament is contradicted by Jesus, and yet the whole Bible was written by God, what makes the New Testament true? Especially since 2 of the books seem to contradict themselves in the first chapter :) Not to mention that Jesus claimed to be God, but yet He was contradicting His works He claimed to have written in the Old Testament.

I'd like to see some of these contradictions you've found though :)

I personally don't believe that God wrote the Bible. Some Christians believe that God wrote the Bible, but the fact is that people wrote the Bible. I do not believe that God posessed people or directly dictated what to write in the Bible.

God did a bunch of stuff over the ages, and witnesses wrote down what occured. The writings of these witnesses are as flawed as the writings of any historical witnesses.

The life of Jesus is recorded by several witnesses - his disciples - so we can be pretty sure about stuff about Jesus. Nevertheless, there are disagreements between the accounts of Jesus' life and resurrection.

Genesis is just an old creation myth. And the fact that different chapters of Genesis directly contradict each other is a good indicator of its unreliability - there was more than one version of this particular creation myth.

Scientists frequently point out the flaws of Genesis in order to demolish the whole Bible and argue an atheist standpoint. I however see no problem in humanity evolving from animals over millions of years, and when humanity evolved enough to become intillgent and sentient enough to be able to directly affect the world, and understand right and wrong, God started to interact with humanity to try and guide us. Just cause Genesis says the world was made in 6 days, we shouldnt' abandon the rest of the bible.

Early humanity's understanding of things was more simple and so God interacted more. (Hence lots of instances of God speaking to people in Old Testament.) As human civilisation advanced, humanity grew up. Since humanity is now an "adult" race, we shouldn't need "dad" interferring in our lives all the time. Jesus was God's last big act, and now we're left pretty much to our own devices.

Oh, as for Jesus contradicting Old Testament... his "turn the other cheek" philosophy seems quite contrary to the Old Testament's "eye for an eye" viewpoint. Most of the world's suffering has resulted from people responding to violence with violence... and I don't recall God ever having a problem with that in the Old Testament. That's probably because God couldn't expect humanity to act that responsibily in the old days.

[John Clabo]

Oh, as for Jesus contradicting Old Testament... his "turn the other cheek" philosophy seems quite contrary to the Old Testament's "eye for an eye" viewpoint.

One of the most misunderstood parts in the bible I must say. :(


Exodus 21:22


"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [e (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2021%20;&version=31;#fen-NIV-2100e)] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. 26 "If a man hits a manservant or maidservant in the eye and destroys it, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the eye. 27 And if he knocks out the tooth of a manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the tooth.
28 "If a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and its meat must not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held responsible. 29 If, however, the bull has had the habit of goring and the owner has been warned but has not kept it penned up and it kills a man or woman, the bull must be stoned and the owner also must be put to death. 30 However, if payment is demanded of him, he may redeem his life by paying whatever is demanded. 31 This law also applies if the bull gores a son or daughter. 32 If the bull gores a male or female slave, the owner must pay thirty shekels [f (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2021%20;&version=31;#fen-NIV-2110f)] of silver to the master of the slave, and the bull must be stoned.
Leviticus 24:20

fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has injured the other, so he is to be injured.Matthew 5:38-48


38"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[g (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205;&version=31;#fen-NIV-23273g)] 39But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

43"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor[h (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205;&version=31;#fen-NIV-23278h)] and hate your enemy.' 44But I tell you: Love your enemies[i (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205;&version=31;#fen-NIV-23279i)] and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.I actually recommend everyon read Mathew chapter 5. It explains a lot of things I think. :salute:

[irockyou]

Actually, says you that God does not ackowledge the passing of time, and exists outside of time. Doesn't say that in the Bible. It says he is eternal. Just because something exists forever that doesn't mean it doesn't experience the passing of time.

It does say that he knows past, present and future, which is all I need. And some Christians do use the excuse "he exists outside of time" when questioned: "What created God?".

biblical evidence.

God did a bunch of stuff over the ages, and witnesses wrote down what occured. The writings of these witnesses are as flawed as the writings of any historical witnesses.

Historical witnesses are flawed because they have different viewpoints on the matter; but when you have several hundred manuscripts written by different people in different places, you can safely assume it happened and put together what went on. Biblical "witnesses" contradict each other, themselves, and historical fact (or what we know to be true beyond resonable doubt).

The only reason you have to believe in the Christian God (as opposed to any other God) is the Bible, which is not reliable by any means. We don't even know the names of the people who wrote this stuff.

[Heyman]

Thank you for responding.
I encourage you to go on, you only seemed to pick 4 from one website, whilst it has over 100, and the other website has about 500. I will admit though, the evilbible.com has some bad ones (like light vs. dark). Which is why I posted it second, hoping you'd read the other first.


I didn't pick them at all, actually. I was planning to go through the list and disprove each and every one of them. To my dismay, they take lots of time to put into context and to put into comprehensible form for those who have never read the bible. Each of those took me at least 15 minutes to review passages from my own bibles.

Historical witnesses are flawed because they have different viewpoints on the matter; but when you have several hundred manuscripts written by different people in different places, you can safely assume it happened and put together what went on. Biblical "witnesses" contradict each other, themselves, and historical fact (or what we know to be true beyond resonable doubt).

The only reason you have to believe in the Christian God (as opposed to any other God) is the Bible, which is not reliable by any means. We don't even know the names of the people who wrote this stuff.

On the contrary. Several of the books from the New Testaments are named...after the people who wrote them...

Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and John again.

The first four of these listed speak only of their following of Jesus Christ as well as his post mortem

[irockyou]

Those are pen-names, and may not have actually been their real names. There are no records of a Matthew, Mark, Luke, John (2), or Peter witnessing those events. Or, that might be the name of the author who was writing a story.

[El]

Well, first off I'd like to thank all of you for keeping this thread under control. A great many of you have been pointing out that most of the "contradictions" that people come up with are taken out of context, which is greatly true.

And yes, seeing as the Bible was written by different authors AND misunderstood over time, I think that we must try to read deeper than the text, and try to understand how certain things might have been originally phrased, and how people may have changed them without realizing it.

In other words, the Bible has slightly eroded.

And speaking of misunderstandings, did you know that the Hebrew word for foot was the same as for groin*? So it's easy to see how we could've eroded text.

*I'm not 100 percent sure of this information. But I trust it.

[John Clabo]

*I'm not 100 percent sure of this information. But I trust it.


Faith, that's really all there is to it.

[your evil twin]

Er, El Carnemago said that, not me. Wrong name in the quote field.

[John Clabo]

How strange, fixed.


I clicked on his quote and it put your name in there. Sorry about that. :)

[Panther]

To be fair, I'll revise my statement slightly, I don't think they were "removed" so much as never added :) I don't know for sure though. Catholics still hold the apocrifia (once again could be bad spelling) on the same level with the rest of scripture. I have a copy of it at home.. but never really read it.

Its got stuff like the gospel of Thomas in it, etc.

The "sayings of Jesus" in the book of Thomas alone are hugely contradictory to the rest of the Bible. For instance:

14 Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits.

16 Jesus said, "Perhaps people think that I have come to casy peace upon the world. They do not know that I have come to cast conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war.

38 Jesus said, "Often you have desired to hear these sayings that I am speaking to you, and you have no one else from whom to hear them. There will be days when you will seek me and you will not find me."

112 Jesus said, "Damn the flesh that depends on the soul. Damn the soul that depends on the flesh."

114 Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven."

========

This stuff is exactly what I'm talking about would happen if someone tried to write a book of the Bible without the Holy Spirit to guide them. It reeks of contradiction and personal opinion. I suggest you read the whole thing, its very interesting :) http://www.misericordia.edu/users/davies/thomas/Trans.htm

Ahh but these things sound very gnostic in nature. Have you heard truth coming from contradiction otherwise know as a paradox?

One that I particularly like is "To have control your must forfeit it".

The whole "male" thing also requires a context. Back then male and female were used differently. Male and female denonted certain behaviours. To call someone a female is call them emotional, unstable and lacking the basic logical skills, the kind of stuff we associate with the Anima.

The New Testament introduces a changing of God's rules, portrayed through Jesus Christ.

He didn't so much change the rules but gave us a new approach. Jesus fullfilled those rules and through him we do the same. (If you believe. :D)

[Simple]

The Koran, for instance, has dozens of contradictions with science today and even within itself, and Muslims don't attempt to challenge this, they just say that Allah changed his mind and whatever the last thing written was, thats what we should follow.


The Koran does not contradict itself period. The Koran has NEVER been revised, changed, or manipulated. The Koran does not contradict science, it reinforces it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_L._Moore
Leading world expert on embryology converted to Islam after studying verses in the Koran that dealt with the growth of a baby inside a womb. The Koran is perfect and is the word of God.


But you don't hear that about the Bible. Historical works written at the same time are riddled with errors, is the Bible the same way? You'd definitely think it would be. But IF the Bible is the "Holy Word of God" then it pretty much HAS to be error free. God doesn't make mistakes, and one of the ways He could best prove it was written by Him (IF He did actually write it) is by not having any errors.

it is well known to historians that the bible has gone through countless translations, additions, revisions, and ommisions. Constantine, the emperor of Rome, a life long pagan and head priest of the cult Sol Invictus, simply united Rome under Christianity because it was on the rise. But this christianity isn't the ORIGINAL christianity which would be like Islam, no, this Christianity was a hybird of the Roman Pagan religion and the original Christianity. Proof?

Egyptian sun disks = Halos

Pictograms of Isis nursing her conceived son Horus = Virgin Mary nursing Jesus

The miter, altar, the doxology, and communions and the act of 'God eating' were
taken direcly from earlier pagan religions

The pagan God Mithras called the Son of God was born on december 25, died, was buried in a rock tomb, and then resurrected 3 days later.

Osiris, Adonis, and DIonysus were also born December 25.

The God Krishna when born was presented with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Christianity's holy day used to be Saturday but was switched to Sunday to coincide with the day in which paganists prayed to the SUN hence SUNday.

At the council of nicaea Jesus's divinity was debated and voted upon. One day he was a prophet (just a man) the next he was God.

You want to hear contradiction? How can Christianity be monotheistic but God consists of three beings? Jesus, the holy ghost, and God? Does this make sense? No.

[Psyborg]

You want to hear contradiction? How can Christianity be monotheistic but God consists of three beings? Jesus, the holy ghost, and God? Does this make sense? No.

Actually, as I understand it, God is more of a "three-in-one" kind of deal; difficult to describe, and I can't even pretend to know exactly how it works. But I believe it does.

One of the more famous contradictions is the timeline of the gospels; apparently some of them have a lot of things the others don't, etc. But basically an explanation for that can be summed up in that God inspired the gospels, so everything's true in them, but they are from different points of view.

I'm glad to see this thread is taking place in a mature manner! In a lot of boards I've visited, similar threads have... ah... not.

[Lupus]

A quote that I think raises a good point (can't remember the source I'm afraid):

"I contend that we are both atheists, I just believe in one less god than you."

On a different not:
I see the bible more like evidence from a crime (not meaning to imply it's evil or anything): When you get evidence from a crime scene, it goes through channels carefully to maintain it's integrity. It is sealed and given to specific people, signed by each as they receive it etc. Ends up at the lab, tested, results come in.

If this chain is broken, such as someone stealing the bags and breaking the seals, then the integrity is broken. You may get it back, but it may or may not have been tampered with. You could find DNA samples, fibres etc. that match certain people, but since the chain of integrity was broken, you can't know if they were actually from the scene, or ended up there from the tampering. Which means the evidence is inadmissable in court.

Which is pretty much how I see the translations, rewrites and whatnot (though I understand translations being necessary). Even if I believed the bible was originally written by God, the chain has been broken many times, which means the book itself would hold be fallible. And everything in it would be taken with at least a pinch of salt.


And yeah, it usually takes 2-3 pages before the insults fly and all manner of other rubbish is injected into the thread. A nice change seeing these several threads avoiding that.....so far.

[DKR1138]

Dogma has the best quote of them all "It doesn't matter what you have faith in, its as long as you have faith"

[natedgreat3]

@Simple: hmm are you saying the Koran has no contradictions at all? Its very commonly accepted that there are some "discrepancies" and thus, whenever there is one, the most recently written one is simply taken as the correct one. I have just some samples but won't list them here, as this is debating the Bible, not the Koran. We can open another thread for this if need be.

I'd like to see your evidence that the Bible was "rewritten countless times."

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html

Here are some quotes:

"The task [copying the scrolls] was usually undertaken by a devout Jew. The Scribes believed they were dealing with the very Word of God and were therefore extremely careful in copying. They did not just hastily write things down"

"During the early part of the tenth century (916 A.D.), there was a group of Jews called the Massoretes. These Jews were meticulous in their copying. The texts they had were all in capital letters, and there was no punctuation or paragraphs. The Massoretes would copy Isaiah, for example, and when they were through, they would total up the number of letters. Then they would find the middle letter of the book. If it was not the same, they made a new copy. All of the present copies of the Hebrew text which come from this period are in remarkable agreement."

What about the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered many centuries of copying later? They compared these to the earlier texts:

"What was learned? A comparison of the Qumran manuscript of Isaiah with the Massoretic text revealed them to be extremely close in accuracy to each other: A comparison of Isaiah 53 shows that only 17 letters differ from the Massoretic text. ... We are told by biblical scholars that this is typical of the whole manuscript of Isaiah."

etc etc. It was insane how careful these guys were. It could take half a lifetime to write just one copy. 17 letters is hardly what I'd call "rewritten countless times."

[mike016256]

God killed all men in a great flood because they were evil except for Noah because he was good. Then Noah and his wife repopulated the Earth. So... God made a mistake?

[Simple]

@Simple: hmm are you saying the Koran has no contradictions at all? Its very commonly accepted that there are some "discrepancies" and thus, whenever there is one, the most recently written one is simply taken as the correct one. I have just some samples but won't list them here, as this is debating the Bible, not the Koran. We can open another thread for this if need be.

I'd like to see your evidence that the Bible was "rewritten countless times."

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html

Here are some quotes:

"The task [copying the scrolls] was usually undertaken by a devout Jew. The Scribes believed they were dealing with the very Word of God and were therefore extremely careful in copying. They did not just hastily write things down"

"During the early part of the tenth century (916 A.D.), there was a group of Jews called the Massoretes. These Jews were meticulous in their copying. The texts they had were all in capital letters, and there was no punctuation or paragraphs. The Massoretes would copy Isaiah, for example, and when they were through, they would total up the number of letters. Then they would find the middle letter of the book. If it was not the same, they made a new copy. All of the present copies of the Hebrew text which come from this period are in remarkable agreement."

What about the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered many centuries of copying later? They compared these to the earlier texts:

"What was learned? A comparison of the Qumran manuscript of Isaiah with the Massoretic text revealed them to be extremely close in accuracy to each other: A comparison of Isaiah 53 shows that only 17 letters differ from the Massoretic text. ... We are told by biblical scholars that this is typical of the whole manuscript of Isaiah."

etc etc. It was insane how careful these guys were. It could take half a lifetime to write just one copy. 17 letters is hardly what I'd call "rewritten countless times."
Problems of translation can cause issues - while the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states that inerrancy applies only to the original languages, many believers simply trust their own translation to be the accurate one. Similarly, for whatever reason, translators may choose to add their own words, some translations even paraphrasing to produce their opinion of what it means, and others inserting words that are awkward. For example, Isaiah, mentions lilitu, which the King James Version translates as Screech Owl rather than the little known but more accurate Lilith mentioned in the Midrash.

For instance the word used in the masoretic text at Isaiah 7:14 to indicate the woman who would bear Emmanuel is alleged to mean simply young, unmarried woman in Hebrew, while Matthew 1:23 follows the Septuagint version of the passage which uses the Greek word parthenos meaning virgin, thus slightly changing the meaning, and appears to support the Christian idea of virgin birth. If you view the masoretic text, which forms the basis of most English translations of the Old Testament, as being more accurate than the Septuagint, and trust its usual translation, this becomes an inconsistency, whereas if you take the Septuagint to be accurate, it does not.

In the History of the English Bible, there have been many changes to the wording, leading to several competing versions. Many of these have contained Biblical errata - typographic errors, such as the phrases Is there no treacle in Gilead?, Printers have persecuted me without cause, and Know ye not that the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God?, and even Thou shalt commit adultery.

More recently, several discoveries of ancient manuscripts such as the Dead Sea scrolls, and Codex Sinaiticus, have led to modern translations differing somewhat from the older ones, removing verses not present in the earliest manuscripts, some of which are acknowledged as frauds, such as the Comma Johanneum, others having several highly variant versions in very important places, such as the resurrection scene in Mark 16, and others still having a large degree of doubt under textual criticism such as John 21. The King-James-Only Movement advocates reject these changes and uphold the King James Version as the most accurate.

As Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of the Bible, have idioms and concepts not easily translated, there is an on going critical tension about whether it is better to give a word for word translation or to give a translation that gives a parallel idiom in the target language. For instance, in the English language Catholic translation, the New American Bible, as well as the Protestant translations of the Christian Bible, translations like the King James Version, the New Revised Standard Version and the New American Standard Version are seen as literal translations (or "word for word"), whereas translations like the New International Version and New Living Version attempt to give relevant parallel idioms. The Living Bible and The Message are two paraphrases of the Bible that try to convey the original meaning in contemporary language. The further away one gets from word to word translation, the text becomes more readable while relying more on the theological, linguistic or cultural understanding of the translator, which one would not normally expect a lay reader to require.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Bible

Thats not all. The protestants bible is different from the orthodoxed or the evangalists one. There are tons of different versions of the bible I don't even know which one we're arguing about here.

There is no such problem with the Koran, there is one Koran written in one language which has never been translated or changed.

[John Clabo]

NEVER, I repeat, NEVER use Wiki as a source for anything...just fyi. :(

[Simple]

Why shouldn't people quote from wikipedia?

[natedgreat3]

The Bible has indeed been translated into English, and has thus lost some of its meaning. I agree.

But, you neglected to mention the Koran has also been translated into English.... I have an English version at home. Logically, that version has lost some of its meaning too, am I right?

But, just as with the Koran, we do have the original language of the Bible as well. I gave evidence on how meticulously copied the Bible was, you gave evidence of how certain translations to DIFFERENT LANGUAGES (namely English) have been messed up. Thats a completely different, irrelevant issue.

The point is, the ORIGINAL language of the Bible has remained intact. We have over 4000 ancient copies of the New Testament, either partial or whole, all saying the exact same thing.

As to your evidence about a word being changed... firstly I want to make sure anyone reading understands we're talking about a single word in a book the size of a dictionary.

Now that we're clear on that, I'll take wikipedia's word on it (John's right about its accuracy btw) and we'll say 2 different translations of the Bible differ on one word over hundreds of years of copying. If your using that as leverage for saying the whole Bible should be classified as inaccurate, I think you might be taking it a bit too far B)

[klaymore]

Why shouldn't people quote from wikipedia?

because pretty much nothing on there is proven fact

its all posted by random poeple

[klaymore]

The Bible has indeed been translated into English, and has thus lost some of its meaning. I agree.

But, you neglected to mention the Koran has also been translated into English.... I have an English version at home. Logically, that version has lost some of its meaning too, am I right?

But, just as with the Koran, we do have the original language of the Bible as well. I gave evidence on how meticulously copied the Bible was, you gave evidence of how certain translations to DIFFERENT LANGUAGES (namely English) have been messed up. Thats a completely different, irrelevant issue.

The point is, the ORIGINAL language of the Bible has remained intact. We have over 4000 ancient copies of the New Testament, either partial or whole, all saying the exact same thing.

As to your evidence about a word being changed... firstly I want to make sure anyone reading understands we're talking about a single word in a book the size of a dictionary.

Now that we're clear on that, I'll take wikipedia's word on it (John's right about its accuracy btw) and we'll say 2 different translations of the Bible differ on one word over hundreds of years of copying. If your using that as leverage for saying the whole Bible should be classified as inaccurate, I think you might be taking it a bit too far B)

95% of all variations of the bible are spelling errors and grammer quirks

and thats a low estimate

out of about 150 million variations

[natedgreat3]

what is this now? 150 million variations of what? :P

[klaymore]

ze bible

[natedgreat3]

work with me here :haha: what in the Bible has 150 million variations? You mean like translations into different languages?

[klaymore]

I actually might be wrong, it could be something broader.

i suddenly think there is about 3.5k variations now

[klaymore]

work with me here :haha: what in the Bible has 150 million variations? You mean like translations into different languages?

I mean like a print of the bible where like 2 words are switched or something


like christ jesus instead of jesus christ

then times that by how ever many languages it was made into

[-58]

As irrelevant as this may seem to the overhead subject . . . .

Wikipedia is extremely accurate. While it's true that any ol' fellah can come and edit it, citing of information is encouraged - if you take issue with something said in an article, you can scroll down and see where the info was acquired from and check that. Apart from that, inaccurate information is swiftly removed or revised.

Now, for something pertaining to the subject. As faithfully as I believe the Bible (I tend to take the earlier portions more metaphorically, and the more recent portions more historically, but it's still to be viewed as a historical document in addition to a religious one), I don't see any point in poking at the Koran (a copy of which I happen to have - an English copy) . . . conversely, I see no reason for a faithful Muslim to shoot at the Bible, as they're rather similar when it comes down to reliability. They're both rather old documents that have had equal chance of revision by who-knows-who.

[El]

How strange, fixed.


I clicked on his quote and it put your name in there. Sorry about that. :)
Must have been my crazy, impossible to remember name.


And as for variations of the Bible, I'm sure there are well over a million. It's the most widely purchased book in the world!

Hey, nobody is argueing any more. Does that mean we've come to a consensus?

[-58]

When you say "variations", do you mean different versions (such as the difference from NIV to KJV), or do you mean the aforementioned typographical errors? If the former, then you are well off the mark, as there aren't quite that many versions, and if the latter, the few different words per printed copy aren't enough to declare the book "infallible", as copies exist without those errors.

[irockyou]

I tend to take the earlier portions more metaphorically, and the more recent portions more historically, but it's still to be viewed as a historical document in addition to a religious one

Just out of curiosity, why would you take some parts as symbolic and others as fact? 100 years ago, they would have told you everything was fact; now, alot of people believe its symbolic. Huh? 0.0. This has me confused.

[klaymore]

I mean literally all variations hahaha combined with all the different versions and languages that makes up a pretty large number


I know for a fact that it is atleast 3.5k

[jackattack502]

Cain and Abel were, besides Adam and Eve, the first people on the face of the earth. Where did Cain get his wife?

Contradiction? Or something else perhaps?

After cain killed abel, he asked "the other will kill me, what can i do" or something to that extent.

bottom line: there were other people besides cain

[natedgreat3]

Well here's my answers to the two "contradictions" and we'll see whether my findings cut it :)

1) where did Cain get his wife?
According to the Bible, Adam and Eve were the first, and only people on earth. But it says in Genesis that besides Cain and Abel, they had "many other sons and daughters." So the answer, gross as it sounds, is quite simple: Cains wife was one of his sisters. Not like he had much choice since they were the first generation :P In fact, God didn't forbid this type of thing until I think it was Numbers.

2) Joseph has 2 fathers?
This one is much more tricky. The short answer is that Joseph was the biological son of Jacob but the adopted son of Heli. One must understand that in the culture of that time, if a man has a wife and died childless, it was his brothers duty to marry the widow and father a child on his dead brothers behalf. So here's what happened:

Joseph’s grandfather Matthan (mentioned in Matthew) married a woman named Estha, who bore him a son named Jacob. After Matthan died, Estha married his relative Melchi (mentioned in Luke) and bore him a son named Heli. Jacob and Heli were thus half-brothers. Heli died childless, so Jacob married his widow and fathered Joseph, who was biologically the son of Jacob but legally the son of Heli.

whew :P confusing to be sure, but makes perfect sense when you think about the culture of that time. This explanation was recorded by the second-century historian Julius Africanus, from information given by Christ’s remaining family in his day.

[-58]

Also, the verse in which his father is identified as Heli . . . .

". . . Luke 3:23: Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli . . . ."

Not stated as fact, but a supposition.

As much as I hate to restate what others have said, it is necessary to explain why I take portions of the bible literally and others not so much.

Firstly, and the foremost reason of all, the majority of the Torah and a good portion of the rest of the New Testament would have been passed down orally for generations before it was ever written down. I believe that God's hand in the bible is just firm enough that the message and story get across, while the specifics (such as folk living nine hundred years, or the Six Day Creation) may or may not be quite as literally accurate. Additionally, when the story was written, and before that when it was told, the Israelites - the rest of the world, for that matter - had very limited scientific knowledge. Evolution, the Big Bang or whatever, the vast majority of the scientific creation of the world and universe would have done nothing but complicate matters, especially when that's a specific that isn't eternally important - while I believe the earth and the surrounding universe was created through scientific (albeit divinely-influenced) means, were I to be incorrect, it would bother me little.

The most important thing in the bible is the message - the Good News, as it has been termed; that Jesus son of God came to earth to bear the weight of sin of the entire world that was and to come, and that we should do our best to live good lives without harming other folk. Thus far, I think that through all of the translations, rewrites, and suchwhat, the prime message of the bible has been carried through.

As to the replacing of the pronoun "He" with "It" in whichever version was cited; to my knowledge, at the time of the first translation to English (The King-James version), the pronoun "He" was used alternatively to mean a masculine presence or a non-gender based entity. I suppose "it" sounded rather rude, when referring to the Creator; also, from what I understand, the pronoun used in the Hebrew and Greek texts was similar, a masculine or neuter pronoun.

As an ethereal and non-physical being (yes, that's redundant, but redundancy is always more valuable than obscurity), God has no gender, being as gender is entirely a physical distinction with no bearing on the mind or soul. It is my belief that God chose Jesus to be male because of the current social condition; men were more respected, and a woman would have had an even harder time getting folk to listen than Jesus did, and his work was already rather cut out for him.

On another note - Adam and Eve were the first human beings (taking Genesis to the letter), but it is never stated that others are not created afterwards. If the entire human race were bred from a gene pool consisting of two donors, our biological construction would probably be so screwed up by now that we'd be an entire race of mentally deficient, physically deficient chowder-heads trying to figure out which end of the stick to hold so we could knock out some lucky animal and eat its insides.

Although, as an interesting note, there are certain genetic markers shared by every member of our little species that create evidence that we came from a relatively small group of female progenitors - but not necessarily just one.

One further addendum - in approximately ten hours, I will be leaving town to compete with the rest of my high-school drama team in the state theatre competition, and shan't be back until Wednesday. Regrettably, this means that I will likely be unable to contribute any more on this topic of debate for a while, as I probably won't have access to a computer, not to mention the time required to type out an intelligible and valid argument.

[klaymore]

Well here's my answers to the two "contradictions" and we'll see whether my findings cut it :)

1) where did Cain get his wife?
According to the Bible, Adam and Eve were the first, and only people on earth. But it says in Genesis that besides Cain and Abel, they had "many other sons and daughters." So the answer, gross as it sounds, is quite simple: Cains wife was one of his sisters. Not like he had much choice since they were the first generation :P In fact, God didn't forbid this type of thing until I think it was Numbers.

2) Joseph has 2 fathers?
This one is much more tricky. The short answer is that Joseph was the biological son of Jacob but the adopted son of Heli. One must understand that in the culture of that time, if a man has a wife and died childless, it was his brothers duty to marry the widow and father a child on his dead brothers behalf. So here's what happened:

Joseph’s grandfather Matthan (mentioned in Matthew) married a woman named Estha, who bore him a son named Jacob. After Matthan died, Estha married his relative Melchi (mentioned in Luke) and bore him a son named Heli. Jacob and Heli were thus half-brothers. Heli died childless, so Jacob married his widow and fathered Joseph, who was biologically the son of Jacob but legally the son of Heli.

whew :P confusing to be sure, but makes perfect sense when you think about the culture of that time. This explanation was recorded by the second-century historian Julius Africanus, from information given by Christ’s remaining family in his day.


where do you get all this stuff?

O_o

[El]

He's hardXcore, that's how. ;P

[John Clabo]

Also, the verse in which his father is identified as Heli . . . .

". . . Luke 3:23: Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,
the son of Heli . . . ."




What version of the bible was that?

[Psyborg]

One with really weird bits of sentences bolded and underlined, apparently.

[-58]

It was posted by someone else earlier in this thread; search through it if you want to know.

[El]

Hmm.

If you were wondering about the strange phrasing of that sentence, and why they said "so it was thought," as though they weren't sure, and somebody back the olden days didn't do enough research, than that's probably exactly what it was.

I can foresee several possible reasons for which that might occur.

1.)The person who wrote that book probably didn't know, and couldn't determine it for certain, so he wrote "so it was thought". This could have also been to help eliminate contradictions. Imagine what would have happened if one prophet/scholar wrote such and such about Jesus' ancestry*, while another wrote different?

2.)Somebody changed the phrasing of that sentence,
a.)because they knew that it was wrong, so they wrote "thought" to leave it open to change.
b.)by accident. Possibly not knowing complete structure/grammar of Hebrew (or whatever language it originally was*).

*Here's a fun fact: Did you know that one of Jesus' ancestors was a prostitute? Yep, the same prostitute that survived the fall of Jericho because she sheltered Hebrew spies.

*I think that the books of the Bible were written in various languages, and I think that Greek was one of them. I don't know for sure though.

[John Clabo]

"so it was thought, of Joseph," So it was thought, of Joseph...I think you guys aren't reading that right hehe.

[Yummy_Soap]

If this has been linked before in the thread then my apologies.

www.skepticsannotatedbible.com

Pretty much every contradiction you could find.

1303 direct contradictions in total.

Happy reading.

[-58]

We've seen those sort of sites before, and started to debunk them.

[El]

Ah, those sites are a load of bull****.

[Kester]

So is the bible in my opinion though. The problem with the bible is it's age, and many translations. It's like a game of Chinease whispers, it is inevitably going to get mixed around somewhere.

[-58]

Unless, of course, it has a divine hand keeping it from doing so. We've already noted that there are copies hundreds of years apart with such minor discrepancies that they can be considered null.

[El]

In other words, we should all learn Hebrew and Greek, and get ourselves a copy of the real deal!

[-58]

If you want to bother with that, yes.

Of course, I think that ministers and preachers are required to learn Greek in college.

[natedgreat3]

For those of us who don't want to learn Greek *raises hand* the English version does quite well, thank you B) You just have to look at it this way: if there's a seeming contradiction in the English language, instead of jumping all over it.. maybe explore online what that contradiction means in Greek and get some alternative opinions. I can guarantee you that with every possible contradiction in the Bible, SOMEONE has tried to explain it.

[Panther]

So is the bible in my opinion though. The problem with the bible is it's age, and many translations. It's like a game of Chinease whispers, it is inevitably going to get mixed around somewhere.

That statement completely ignores the translation process. It's far, far, far away from Chinese whispers.

[John Clabo]

That statement completely ignores the translation process. It's far, far, far away from Chinese whispers.

QFT :dry:

[maty]

Ditto that.

And, of course, the Bible will have contradictions - it was written by humans, all living in different societies, locations and historical contexts. Poeple are not perfect, so contradictions will appear naturally, but its not the smalll differences in the Bible that matter - its the many, many meanings within it.

No, its not perfect, no its not completely infallible - but that doesn't mean its not applicable or that some - if not most of it, is true. :)

[El]

A good 99% of it is true. The only lacking 1% is the few (if any) legit contradictions which were accidentally created by historians.

[DarkFlood]

99%, really? Then where does the walking on water/creationism part come into play? :dry:

[TheTaxidermist]

I really wish I had time to go over every contradiction in that website that was posted but I'll just go over a few:


"Genesis 1:25-27
(Humans were created after the other animals.)

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And God said, Let us make man in our image.... So God created man in his own image.

Genesis 2:18-19
(Humans were created before the other animals.)

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. "

In the second verse, it does not state if the beast came AFTER Adam. It only re-emphasizes that he formed the bests and only after Adam was created were the animals brought forth to be named.

Next:

"Genesis 1:27
(The first man and woman were created simultaneously.)

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.



Genesis 2:18-22
(The man was created first, then the animals, then the woman from the man's rib.)

And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.... And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man."

Well, the first verse is just stating that men and women were both created in God's image, not that they were created at the same time.



"Adam will die on the day that he eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam eats from the tree, yet lives another 930 years.

Genesis 2:17
But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.



Genesis 3:6
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food ... she took of the fruit therof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Genesis 5:5
And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died."

Adam started to die on the day he ate of the fruit. The aging process was a result of him eating the fruit. Back then, the aging process was a lot longer. Think about it this way, when a criminal is sentenced to death, he may as well be considered dead from that day on because death will be inevitable. But of course, they aren't executed immediately.

[natedgreat3]

This Bible website, in an attempt to show as many "contradictions" as was humanely possible, as stretched itself so much that it just collapses with the slightest pressure on any of its points.

TheTaxidermist has pointed out quite a bit, thats great :D

The other thing to remember that this website goes only from the King James Version, which was translated by one man in medieval times. Quite an extraordinary achievement really, but he did make some small errors. I would estimate that fully 3/4 of this websites points would just fall flat if they used a different translation, such as the NIV.

For instance, the very first point says
And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. "

This looks to be in the present tense, but when I went to look up the verse, low and behold it says
"19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air."

A quick search on google later, and a Bible professor is explaining how the Hebrew verb "yatsar" should be translated "had formed" instead of "formed." Ridiculously easy to demolish, really.

[TheTaxidermist]

Being as I have read the entire Bible, I would just love to go through EVERY one of those points and give them a prodding but that would just take too much time. Yes I believe there may be some small errors in the Bible but just take a look at when products are translated from Chinese here in America. The english is terrible! I'd say they did a damn good job of translating it. If you look back at how they used to copy the scripts, if one mistake was made, they had to make a whole new script and start over again. They were very very very careful to keep the Bible in it's original form. I'm sure the same was done with the translating work. The way I look at it, there were some words in Hebrew that could not be translated into other languages.

[El]

99%, really? Then where does the walking on water/creationism part come into play? :dry:
By my book it does. Remember that this is the same God that created us, do you doubt he can walk on water?

EDIT:@Taxidermist: Very wise words indeed.

[DarkFlood]

Bouyancy seems to state otherwise. I'd rather go with proven fact then some random people who may/may not have existed.

[-58]

Jesus existed.

This is a historical fact. Historically, he lived, ministered, and was sentenced to die and promptly executed. There's no doubt on this matter.

It's what he did and how he did it that comes into question.

Think about it this way, DarkFlood: God is this super-natural being who created all the laws in the universe. Using that logic, he can break them at will, since he has the power to create them in the first place. Please note; I am not trying to convert you to the Christian faith, I am simply attempting to make clear how it is seen by members of such. An informed argument is always better than the contrary.

[DarkFlood]

I know that, but I don't believe in that one bit.:dry:

Consider if you, yourself were an all-powerful deity.. Would you:

A: Perform miracles to the people who believe in you
B: Not care about an insignificant number of people when comparing to the whole universe
C: Since you are all powerful, you could use that power to entertain yourself.

B and C seem to be the logical answers here. As for Jesus, he did exist, but how can you prove that he walked on water? How can you even prove he was a diety at all? He may have just come at the right opportunity to spread his version of the "truth".

[-58]

As absurd as it may seem, I shall now pull an argument from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. First, I shall have to provide some background information: the Bable Fish is a creature that feeds off of brainwaves. The interesting effect of such is that, if one is to place the Bable Fish into one's ear, the subject can instantly understand any coherent thought said in any language as a by-product of the Bable Fish's feeding.

Now, the argument goes something like this . . . .

God: "I refuse to prove I exist, for proof denies faith and without faith I am nothing."

"Ahhh," says Man, "but look at the Bable Fish. Something so insanely useful could not possibly have evolved by chance. Therefore, you created it, thereby proving your existence, thereby denying yourself."

"Oh, my," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

Man then goes on to prove that Black is White and gets run over at the next zebra crossing.

Again, as absurd as this may seem, it has a real relevance. God doesn't prove himself; he relies upon Faith - unprovable, physically and scientifically ungrounded Faith - from his followers.

Don't presume to ask me, a mere mortal and one not possessing of much in the way of wisdom, to explain God's actions. All that I can tell you is that, yes, you are correct in that you cannot prove that Jesus of Nazareth walked on water, nor that he was the son of an all-powerful deity. However, I, along with many others, have Faith that he did, and that is enough for us. Perhaps you require a greater and more concrete scientific evaluation; well, I cannot give you one, nor, I would wager, could anyone else. What matters is less that Jesus walked on water, and more what he asks us to do - live well, be kind to your fellow Mankind, and enjoy fellowship. In my opinion, that is not too much to ask anyone, no matter your religious beliefs - or lack of them. Jesus' message is one of brotherhood (a term I use to include all of mankind, simply because I am not possessing the inclination to come up with a non-gender biased word to represent us; suffice to say that when I say "brotherhood", I mean the lot of us, not specifically males); if you believe he was deity or loon matters not, in my eyes. If you accept his message does - and you need not even claim to accept his message, simply as long as you do as he has asked. Jesus is not the only man in the history of the world to suggest that we be nice to one another.

[DarkFlood]

I really just think that they don't have to go through all of this fairytale "walking on water" nonsense when they could simply just get straight to the point. Then again, people were a lot easier to fool back then.

[TheTaxidermist]

I really just think that they don't have to go through all of this fairytale "walking on water" nonsense when they could simply just get straight to the point. Then again, people were a lot easier to fool back then.

Why would walking on water be nonsense? If God created all of the earth and the laws within, why could he not allow for Jesus to walk on the water? Obviously God has control over the elements. Ever hear of the instance where Jesus calmed the sea?

[Panther]

Bouyancy seems to state otherwise.

Your assuming that was the only phenomenon present.

[-58]

The point, DarkFlood, is that doesn't matter how scientifically improbable the event is, people believe it because they have no reason not to. Remember: Faith denies improbability, by definition.

[Kester]

More like faith causes ignorance, that is all. People who blindly believe something through faith are ignorant to outside views and scientific proof, always trying to find ways around scientific research.

[DKR1138]

OH snap. Kester for the knock out blow.

[Mad Scientist]

Why would walking on water be nonsense? If God created all of the earth and the laws within, why could he not allow for Jesus to walk on the water? Obviously God has control over the elements. Ever hear of the instance where Jesus calmed the sea?

Ho Ho i do chuckle at this. You are trying to justify a point by relying on a justification that assumes the same point that needs to be justified! I've heard of circular arguments, but this is so circular it would make pythagoras cry tears of joy.

[TheTaxidermist]

All I have to do is look at the prophecies in the Bible to believe what it says. I'll cite one example. Isaiah wrote finished his book in 732 BCE. The first 6 chapters of his book dealt with the judgement of Judah and about how they bowed down to "valueless Gods" or idols. It wasn't enough for Isaiah to fortell being led into their captor's hand, but he also fortold of salvation and release from captivity by Babylon. As we read in Isiah 44: 26 - 45:1:
"who confirms the word of his servant, and fullfills the prediction of his messengers, who says of Jerusalemn, "It shall be inhabited," and the cities of Judah, "They shall be rebuilt, and I will raise up their ruins." who says to the deep, "Be dry... I will dry up your rivers." who says of Cyrus, "He is my shepherd, and he shall carry out all my purpose", and who says of Jerusalem, "It shall be rebuilt," and of the temple, "Your foundation shall be laid." Thus says the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him and strip kings of their robes, to open doors before him, and the gates shall not be closed."

Here's how the actual destruction of Babylon went down. Cyrus dried up the river Euphrates to allow for crossing in the shallow waters of the once mighty Euphrates. Low and behold, the Medes and Persians get across and the gates to the city have been left open! This was in 537 BCE, nearly 200 years after Isaiah penned those words. Not only did he prophecy the name of the ruler that would take Babylon (Cyrus), but it also revealed how Cyrus would go about getting into the gates of Babylon. These kinds of prophecies are enough for me to view the Bible as infallible.

[Mad Scientist]

But what of instances where facts we can observe in real life, and the bible come into direct conflict. For example, radiocarbon dating?

[TheTaxidermist]

But what of instances where facts we can observe in real life, and the bible come into direct conflict. For example, radiocarbon dating?

Personally, i do not believe the the days in which the earth was created were literal 24 hour days. I believe they refer to thousands, millions of years each. And I also believe that the 7th day of rest, is still going on right now.

[Mad Scientist]

So you are saying some parts of the bible can be taken literally as infallible truth, and that others require a certain amount of interpretation, before they become palatable?

[TheTaxidermist]

So you are saying some parts of the bible can be taken literally as infallible truth, and that others require a certain amount of interpretation, before they become palatable?
I believe most of the Bible should be interpreted as something not literal, but figurative. If you take the entire Bible literally you had better be worried about giant beasts coming out of the water.

The laws and guidelines set out in the Bible are obviously literal. And it's also not just, as some call it, "a good book". You should look deeper at the things that aren't literal and try to find the true meaning behind what it says. I also believe you can't interpret the Bible in any ole way and have your interpretation be acceptable and then you use that as an excuse to do whatever the hell you want.

[Mad Scientist]

But why? The principle of a divinly ordained system is that it takes moral desicions out of human hands. The strength of this idea is that humans mess things up, so if you give the responsibility of creating amoral system to a deity who is presumably perfect, then presumably your moral system is also perfect.

However as there is no definitive and universally acceptible divinly code of morals that EVERYONE can agree on, then we have the problem of interpretation. Different people will take differnt passages to mean different things. This means that once again, you have humans makeing the rules again, as they are putting their own interpretations on things.

However you are saying that in aspects of moral judgment, the bible should be taken literally, so as to avoid these conflictions. IN which case i would ask you a question:

[16] And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife.[17] If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.
King James version, Exod 22.

Here we have a moral judgment made. I would ask you simply that in this case, as it is defined as a moral judgment, relating to premarital sexual relations, would you take this literally. You have stated that all moral componets of the bible, as well as all laws and guidlines should be taken literaly. I ask simply for clarification, if you would have this law enforced nowadays.

[TheTaxidermist]

Here we have a moral judgment made. I would ask you simply that in this case, as it is defined as a moral judgment, relating to premarital sexual relations, would you take this literally. You have stated that all moral componets of the bible, as well as all laws and guidlines should be taken literaly. I ask simply for clarification, if you would have this law enforced nowadays.


Well that law there was in the Mosaic Law Covenant along with a lot of other laws (such as not eating of swine and shellfish). Christians do not adhere to certain parts of the Mosaic Law Covenant such as the typical Sabbath where not so much as killing a fly was to be done. Of course there are certain things in the Bible such as "do not murder" that you obviously want to follow. The laws I refer to are the ten commandments which are

You shall have no other gods before me...
You shall not make for yourself an idol...
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God...
Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy...
Honor your father and your mother...
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor...
You shall not covet your neighbor's wife...house...


The Sabbath as most Christians view it now is not so much a day free from work, but a day to worship God. These laws are basic and you can see when people follow all of these laws, it makes for a much happier and better place to be. And it's not just the ten commandments that are set out in the Bible that we should follow. There are tons of guidelines set out in the Bible such as in the books written by Paul. You also have to understand which laws are no longer practical to follow guidelines for. The guidelines are what can be put up to interpretation. But at least 9 of the commands everyone should follow to aid towards a happy and peaceful society. But sadly, not everybody does adhere to these laws.

[-58]

The Sabbath is Saturday, not Sunday.

[natedgreat3]

Mad Scientist does bring up a good point. Since the Bible, all of it, claims to be the word of God, if some parts of the Bible are wrong... what does that say about God?

Furthermore, if some parts of the Bible are wrong, how can we be for sure the whole thing isn't wrong? It would certainly put the whole Bible in doubt.

It also would kind of make pointless the condtradictions TheTaxidermist defended in Genesis just a few posts ago, because Genesis is all wrong now because it clashes with the scientific evidence. So of course it should be riddled with contradictions elsewhere.

EDIT: btw Mad Scientist sorry about my dropout from the evolution vs. creation debate.. too busy on Black Mesa to do that much research... don't know enough about your points to effectively debate :P

[TheTaxidermist]

Well it's all on how you look at the days. You know, how some older people say "back in my day", it wasn't a literal day. Day could refer to a long period of time.

[DarkFlood]

That, however, is but a simple metaphor to describe what it was like in their time. would you have rather the people said "Back in my time..." or "back when I was young..."?:dry:

[-58]

If that's just a metaphor, then why can't Genesis also be?

As a general rule, humans way back when weren't especially scientifically-minded; meaning that if God had gone and inspired at whoever wrote down his message "y'all evolved from this and that and the universe was built using this and those methods", they would have thought him - or themselves - insane. There is also the fact that any story near the beginning of the Old Testament (the Torah, pretty much) would have been orally passed down for generations before it was ever written. The way I see it, God made sure that the general message got through and left the rest to us. Better to have a message that we can understand that may not be literally the happenstance than one that we have no capacity to understand that is exactly what happened, when they both convey the same message.

[TheTaxidermist]

That, however, is but a simple metaphor to describe what it was like in their time. would you have rather the people said "Back in my time..." or "back when I was young..."?:dry:

A "day" in the Bible can mean many things. Just think about this, in 1 Peter 3:8 :"But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day." Not to mention that the Hebrew word translated "day" has multiple meanings, such as 'a long time; the time covered in an extraordinary event.

And saying that he would put the Bible into more simple terms doesn't make sense. Just look at the book of Revelation, if you think that's simple, then I suggest you write a book of prophecy and I'll believe whatever you say. And do not forget the point that God says in Hebrews that it's impossible for him to lie. So, if you put any faith into what his word says, you would not possibly believe that God would "stretch" the truth.

[-58]

It isn't a stretch of the truth. Metaphor and a lie are two completely separate and entirely unrelated things. It's quite possible for God to declare metaphor without lying - to turn your own example back on you, take a look at Revelation, it's chalk-full of metaphor.

[TheTaxidermist]

but how does the creation account as set up in the Bible, work as a metaphor towards what you were proposing as creation? What you were saying, is that he told them of a different creation account then what really happened because they couldn't comprehend it. That would be lying.

[Mad Scientist]

And yet this happens all the time in education. How many times have you been told or taught something in the past, only to find out that it was not true, yet the person who told it to you simplified things so that you could understand?

To clarify, i seek neither side of this particular argument. Merely to pick holes if i see them.:P

[-58]

The bible was written by Mankind. Inspired by God, perhaps - but inspiration never turns out exactly as the original image appeared in the artist's mind. It is not a fallacy; simply a different view of looking at it.

I propose that it may have been the Israelites themselves that simplified it - over the hundreds of years in which the story was passed down orally, it would have been subjected to minor changes for the simply fact that it was passed down orally. The time it was written down, there was a six-day creation and that's that. God, perhaps, decided that it was "close enough" (meaning that it doesn't matter whether he created the world in six days or a millennium), and it went on as it's going.

A lie is a fallacy. A half-truth is revealing some but not all. A metaphor is declaring that something is what it is not for the sake of literary sense. A metaphor can only be a lie if either it's a poor metaphor or the subject to which the metaphor is applied is a lie, as well.

I don't understand why people have trouble taking Genesis' beginning as a metaphor, but not Revelation. The majority of people that I know who understand the six-day creation as fact do not expect for holes to open in the ground and locust-men to devour the earth when we get near the end of time.

[Kester]

So are you trying to say, as the bible was written by man, inspired by god, that the entire bible is inaccurate? As inspired work never turns out how the original artist, in this case god, envisioned.

[TheTaxidermist]

A lie is a fallacy. A half-truth is revealing some but not all. A metaphor is declaring that something is what it is not for the sake of literary sense. A metaphor can only be a lie if either it's a poor metaphor or the subject to which the metaphor is applied is a lie, as well.

I don't understand why people have trouble taking Genesis' beginning as a metaphor, but not Revelation. The majority of people that I know who understand the six-day creation as fact do not expect for holes to open in the ground and locust-men to devour the earth when we get near the end of time.

Look at the difference in old testament and new testament. The old testament (except for the books of prophecy, Isaiah, Jeremiah) are more of historical accounts than anything.

And I'm not saying a metaphor is a lie, I'm saying, how is giving a false account of the creation to dumb it down not lieing? To me I don't see giving a false account of the creation as a metaphor.

[-58]

I find it difficult to understand how the things I type can become so convoluted when they enter your brain.

So are you trying to say, as the bible was written by man, inspired by god, that the entire bible is inaccurate? As inspired work never turns out how the original artist, in this case god, envisioned.

I am saying that what matters is the message, not the format. The message is this: "I am God and I created you," not "I am God and I created you like this: . . . ." The rest is pretty much immaterial.

Look at the difference in old testament and new testament. The old testament (except for the books of prophecy, Isaiah, Jeremiah) are more of historical accounts than anything.

Neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament were written as coherent pieces; they are a collection of chronologically similar writings pertaining to the same subject. Thus, one cannot say "the New Testament is more historical"; perhaps "the New Testament is mostly more historical" would be better. Revelation was a dream; hence, it is not far-fetched to presume it metaphor.

And I'm not saying a metaphor is a lie, I'm saying, how is giving a false account of the creation to dumb it down not lieing? To me I don't see giving a false account of the creation as a metaphor.

To this, I give the same answer that I put in the beginning of this post.

[TheTaxidermist]

What I'm just saying is that, you may see it as a metaphor, but I don't of course. But yes, I do understand what you are saying.

Anywho, I look at the Bible like this: the writers are like secretaries. God is like the boss telling them to write down a letter to someone. Sure, it's the secretary actually doing the writing, but the boss is the one actually telling the secretary what is to be written.

That's just the way I look at it.