Brian_iiiii

I think you have to judge the merits of Bible contradictions by the contortions they put a Fundie through when they try to reconcile them. And Fundies will, no matter what you come up with.

My favorite has to be explaining how Judas died, and what he did right before he died.

Acts 1:18
(With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out.

Matthew 27:5
So Judas threw the money into the temple and left. Then he went away and hanged himself.

Did he keep the money and buy a field, or toss the money and leave? Did he hang himself, or fall headlong and spill his guts?

No contraction here though. Obviously Judas changed his mind later, went back to the temple and picked up the money, and then bought the field. And obviously Judas hung himself over a cliff, the rope broke, and he fell to his death, intestines bursting.

demoninho

Joe,

none of the links you provided work, you have to register to enter. Maybe you could tell us in which forum they are and the thread names, because I can see the threads from the index.

Cheers

Magus55

And what is wrong with that explanation? Acts never says that by falling and having his intestines burst open is how Judas actually died, whereas Matthew said hanging is how Judas died. So Judas died by being hanged on the rope, and his body weight snapped the tree or rope, and he fell to the ground. No problem, no contradiction. Only Matthew states how He actually died, Acts never said He died from falling.

Brian_iiiii

>>>And what is wrong with that explanation?

1. I find this a very remarkable and unlikely event.

2. I find it doubtful that the authors of Matthew and Acts would have selectively left out complementary details of such an event.

>>>No problem, no contradiction.

TECHNICALLY no contradiction, no, but definitely a problem when I'm trying to decide if the Bible was just written by men, or inspired by God. I just can't imagine divine authorship could create two IMPERFECT accounts like that.

>>>Acts never said He died from falling.

And here is where you really make my point about "contorted Fundies". "his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out" sounds awfuly fatal to me, but then again, maybe another miracle of healing occured there. :-)

Magus55

The authors of Matthew and Acts were two separate people at different times. Why would you expect their accounts to be identical? Matthew saw Judas hanged from a tree. The author of Acts sees Judas laying on the ground with a rope around his neck below a tree with body burst open. Two different accounts, both accurate from the authors perspective.


Again, how is it imperfect? Why do Matthew and Acts need to have identical accounts in every detail at the same time to be accurate?



Suppose you were hanged from a tree. You would most likely die from suffocation or your neck breaking. Now awhile later, after putting a lot of stress on the tree/rope from your body weight, the tree/rope breaks and you fall onto a rock ripping open your abodomen. So you now have a rope around your neck, and intenstines spilled on the ground. But what actually killed you?

Doctor X

Joe:

Unless one is not interested in demonstrating to Christians that there are errors in the Christian, Jewish, Satanic, or even Macintosh bibles.

Now:
Magnus:

Oh my . . . you really go out on a limb on this one! Hoist by your own petard! "My poor fool is hanged!" [No Shakespeare!--Ed.]

Okay . . . okay. . . . Methinks you would do well to familiarize yourself with some forensic pathology and the way bodies rot off during a hanging.

Does not happen.

Leave aside that this is all made up by yourself and not in the texts. This is another example of the "Romeo and Julien" syndrome.

First, it is very hard to evicerate yourself. It requires considerable force which would require a considerable height. Now, unless Judas hung himself off a branch overlying a ravine . . . which is not supported by the text . . . unless he bought a field with a ravine in it. . . .

However, such a "long drop" tends to break the neck, or decapitate the person. Mere strangulation brings us to the "slow rot." With "slow rot" the body sits there and is picked appart by scavengers--also not mentioned in the texts. The force required to break a tree limb would decapitate Judas.

Self-hanging sans ravine generally does not break the branch--not enough distance for the force. This also means it is very unlikely to decaptitate the person--you need the length.

Now, let us say Judas found some razor wire, a tall tree--really tall--so that when he jumped he definitely decapitated himself.

His body would land "feet first." From such falls the extremities--the parts that can fly about and strike things--including the head--tend to suffer the most damage. Even if he "tumbled" as he feel into the chasm, his extremities or head would hit first.

Of course, the passage in Acts does not refer to hanging at all. It refers to a foward fall. Again, if the passage conveniently neglected, ". . . and fell into the ravine that came with the field . . . you are stuck with the same problem--it would result in massive other trauma to the body that the passage also conveniently neglects.

--J.D.

Mageth

The author of Acts sees Judas laying on the ground with a rope around his neck below a tree with body burst open. Two different accounts, both accurate from the authors perspective.

Where in Acts does it say the author saw Judas with a rope around his neck? For that matter, where does it say that the author saw Judas's body at all?

Here's Matthew 27:5 And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

And Acts 1:18 - Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity; and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out.

Notice the other contradiction between these two verses - what Judas did with the silver (in Matthew, the priests take the money and buy a field).

Also note that a hung body, if the rope broke, would not fall headlong but feet first.

Magus - your miraculous hanging-and-later-falling account is a possible (but not probable) explanation for the contradiction. But even so, the contradiction is still there - as is clearly indicated by the need to come up with your fantastical extrabiblical explanation to try to reconcile it.

Oh, and to your argument:

Acts never says that by falling and having his intestines burst open is how Judas actually died, whereas Matthew said hanging is how Judas died.

Note that neither account explicitly says that the particular means described is how Judas actually died. Matthew does not say hanging is how he actually died any more than Acts does. In both cases, the implicit assumption of the writer is that they are describing how he died, as both methods would appear to be fatal.

An equally valid explanation using your logic is that Judas first flung himself off the cliff and then hanged himself on a convenient tree. There's as much support for that as for your version.

JoeWallack

Demon IMHO:
"none of the links you provided work, you have to register to enter. Maybe you could tell us in which forum they are and the thread names, because I can see the threads from the index."

JW:
Demon, the operators of Theologyweb.com have put all my claimed errors in "The Locker Room" where they put everything they consider controversial (apparently they consider claims of errors in the Christian Bible controversial). As you've observed you have to be a member of Theologyweb.com to have access to The Locker Room. For those who want to see what I'm talking about but don't want to join Theologyweb.com I'll start to post what I consider to be the highlights and lowlights of my Adventures in Apologistland at my site:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Errors...yguid=68161660

which is freely available. I've decided to start with the "Mark"/one demon versus "Matthew"/two demon contradiction since I think it's one of the toughest for Apologists to defend. I've titled it "Matt's Demon". Quite Apollogistpro, wouldn't you say Demon?


Joseph

APOLOGIZE, v.i.
To lay the foundation for a future offence.

http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/abdulreis/myhomepage/

Amos

My wife thinks that his bungee cord was too long.

Unbeliever

Amos, you may want to remind her (gently!) that they didn't have bungee cords 2000 years ago. It took centuries of science to invent that particular bit of madness!