diana

I understand it may be time to start another good contradiction thread. So...you're welcome in advance.

I thought I'd begin with one I don't hear discussed very often that I find intriguing. Perhaps I'll get a good, rational, explanation of how it isn't really a contradiction, even. Or not. We'll see.

Anyhow...

This one is from Exodus 6:1-3. Here's what the reliable KJV says:

Then the LORD said unto Moses, Now shalt thou see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let them go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land. And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I [am] the LORD: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by [the name of] God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.

Really?!

To the untrained reader, that makes Abraham's activities in Genesis seem, at the very least, like quite a coincidence:

Gen 22:14 And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said [to] this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen.

That's probably difficult enough to explain away with any level of aplomb, but let's add this observation before you begin. The Hebrew word "Jehovah" is routinely translated as LORD throughout Genesis and beyond. Before this instance in which the translators were careful to translate it at "Jehovah"--because the contradiction would be too blaring if they translated it faithfully--it appears 195 times (by my count) as "LORD" or "GOD." In addition to the Abraham snafu I just mentioned, which the translators perhaps couldn't justify altering so easily (Lordjirah?), the earliest instance of someone showing that "by this name" he was known is Eve, when she gives birth to Cain and says, "I have gotten a man from the LORD" (4.1). (That is, being translated, Jehovah.)

I dug this jewel out special for those who are fond of claiming the original Hebrew/Greek must be understood in order to see there really is no contradiction.

You're welcome.

d

Loomis

Yahweh, Yahveh, or just YHWH, will probably bring you more credibility than “Jehovah.” “Jehovah” is wrong. It’s the vowels of “adonai” combined with the consonants of YHWH.

Exodus 6:3 is absurd. It is proof of the very thing it’s trying to deny: El and Yahweh were originally worshipped as two different gods.

Atheos

I think my personal favorite "smoking gun" in this regard is Deuteronomy 32:8-9, where we read that Which, of course makes me wonder how many trade negotiations went down before the real holy wars started.

Baal: Okay, I'll give you Moses and throw in his siblings Aaron and Miriam, but I get Jethro and no less than 10 Egyptian pharoahs.

Yahweh: I can live with that but you'll have to sweeten the pot with Joshua, Caleb and a Messiah to be named later.

Baal: Deal. **Yawn** I'm feeling sleepy. Will you promise to wake me if my prophets start hollering for me to send fire down to light a burnt offering?

Yahweh: Suuuuure.... no problemo....

diana

Cool. I took what Strong's had as their entry. I appreciate the correction.

d

hatsoff

Hmm, I don't think I've ever heard that one before. Was that your own discovery, Diana?

DBT

Logic anyone?............

Ps.92:12: "The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree."
Isa.57:1: "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart."


"And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend." (Ex. 33:11)
"No man hath seen God at any time." (John 1:18)


"The Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works." (Ps. 145:9)
"I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy." (Jer. 13:14)

Atheos

Well it's in the Skeptics Annotated Bible, which arguably often goes overboard with its criticisms of scriptures. I thought that one particularly clever when I first saw it there.

gstafleu

There is something called the JDEP theory. I did a search, both here and a general Google, and didn't come up with much. I think the letters stand for the first letters of the names of the Jewish gods, before the collapsed into the tetragrammaton. Apparently wherever it says "LORD" in the current translations, in the originals, or perhaps in the originals originals, you find one of those four names. Does anyone know more about this?

Gerard Stafleu

The Evil One

Gerard, you are a bit confused. You are thinking of the Documentary Hypothesis, which accounts for many of the contradictions in the Pentateuch. JEPD are the initials of the "names" given to the writers of the four documents that were merged together into the Pentateuch. They are Jahvist, Elohist, Priestly, and Deuteronomist. "Jahvist" and "Elohist" are so called because of the names they used for God.

While these documents contain hints of the earlier two-gods situation, their final form was given at least one redaction *after* Yahweh and El had come to be seen as the same. This is where the discussion about God having two names comes in.

In most modern translations, you get LORD wherever the original has Yahweh, and God where the original has Elohim. This is because of the JEwish tradition of only saying Adonai ("lord") aloud at points where "Yahweh" occurs in the text, because there was and is a taboo against saying Yahweh.

diana

I wish I could claim it, but no. I read that one years ago and of course had to look up the sources to satisfy myself. Can't remember where I saw it (it wasn't the SAB, which I generally avoid for the very reason Atheos mentioned).

d