Atticus_Finch

First, it is not apparent from your post how this question relates to biblical contradictions. Please enlighten me if it does. Do the scriptures take a position? If so, tell me where and I will engage the subject.

Second, I am not readily familar with the text of that event, but does it have to be one or the other? Is there a third option? Like David's own pride.

Regards,

Finch

Atticus_Finch

First, it is not apparent from your post how this question relates to biblical contradictions. Please enlighten me if it does. Do the scriptures take a position? If so, tell me where and I will engage the subject.

Second, I am not readily familar with the text of that event, but does it have to be one or the other? Is there a third option? Like David's own pride.

Regards,

Finch

Jeremy Pallant

Big D is referring to the following accounts, Atticus.

1) Satan gets David to perform a census, and subsequent events:

1 Chronicles, Chapter 21, Verses 1 - 13.

2) Same event, but God gives the order so that he has an excuse to punish Israel:

2 Samuel, Chapter 24, Verses 1 - 17.

(Edited because I managed to invent a book of Samuel no-one has ever heard of.)

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: J. Mordecai Pallant ]</p>

spin

Finch:
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With respect to the genealogy of Christ, there are a number of excellent, reasonable explanations for this "apparent" contradiction. See <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06410a.htm" target="_blank">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06410a.htm</a> which discusses them and candidly discusses the limitations of each.
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This stuff deserves a grin. Finch's support of it well represents how he uses his criterion of two explanations. He is prepared to use anyone who clutches at straws as this Maas person does. Maas looks at the two lists' Salathiel and Zerubbabel and gives 1) levirate marriages explain the jump from one line to another or 2) they are not the same people, just same names. Read the convolutions regarding the two different fathers for Joseph. It's riotous fun. 1) It's either Mary's lineage or 2) it got mixed up in the tradition and Julius Africanus writing 150 years later knows how to get it unmixed up!

Forget the challenge, folks. If Finch cites this stuff, he'll cite any stupidity.

spin

While we're solving the mysteries of the universe, perhaps someone can tell me how the gospel writers knew what Jesus said while he was praying in the garden at Gethsemane.

We know according to the story the three fellahs that were with him, were so dull that they didn't understand a word he was saying beforehand warning them of what was to come and they proceeded to fall asleep. Yet, miraculously we have Jesus's dramatic monologue to his god. Who recorded it? Obviously no-one could have. And no-one, according to the story, had the opportunity to interview Jesus before he was stuck up.

"Excuse me, Mr Christ, while you're up there with nothing better to do, could you tell your reading audience what you said in your last remaining moments of freedom over at Gethsemane? I'm sure it'll make good reading. And while we are at it, what was your last meal?"

CX

I didn't really want to get into the differing genealogies discussion since I know how it will end up, but I am very disappointed with the Catholic Encyclopedia for this:

Firstly this is based on the Textus Receptus, an inferior Greek text based entirely on late Byzantine manuscripts. Secondly, what we see in the NA27 is:

WN hUIOS WS ENOMIZETO IWSHF TOU HLI

"was [a] son it was supposed [of] Joseph the son of Heli."

Given the word order, the predicate nominative case of hUIOS and the genitive article following IWSHF it is inconceivable that this could be translated to mean anything but that the author was referring to Jesus as the supposed son of Joseph who was the son of Heli.

[ April 09, 2002: Message edited by: CX ]</p>

big d

Originally posted by Atticus_Finch:
I would think that a Holy Book, directly inspired by God, would not allow for such "apparent" contradictions. Can't He write better than that? Maybe he should have hired better transcriptionists!

hezekiah jones

How often do you get away with asserting, "The bible is true because the bible says it's true; besides, the bible is the 'word of god,' therefore it can't possibly be contradictory" at your trials?

Come on Finch. This is a joke. It conveniently ignores the related genealogies of Jesus' alleged forebears in the Old Testament, especially those in Genesis, Ruth, and 1 Chronicles. There's more to this than comparing Matthew and Luke, which is bad enough, and there are a whole slew of contradictions, not just one "contradiction," as you suggest.

You want excellent, reasonable explanations, try David Friedrich Strauss, The Life of Jesus, Vol. I, pp. 92-104.

Atticus_Finch

You obviously did not read the entire article or read it closely. It points out the very thing you are raising as criticism of that particlar agrument.

Regards,

Finch

hezekiah jones

Proposition: Jesus walked on water.

Reasonable explanation # 1: Accept the following, a priori: Jesus was god, because the bible says so. Therefore, of course he could walk on water, unlike any other similarly configured 175-pound object. Anyway, Jesus could do anything. He was god, so what's the big deal.

Reasonable explanation # 2: Jesus, or any other similarly configured 175-pound object, cannot walk on water. Were he to attempt to walk on water without extraneous support, he would fall in the water. Jesus' followers probably thought he was walking on water when they observed him traversing several barely submerged rocks, as can be found at numerous coastal areas.