Panamon777

Whenever I read or quote an apologist's work, I operate under the assumption that they are interpreting the written words in the most convenient way. In other words, the manner that best conforms to the overall "Christian message," if you can let me call it that. I do NOT expect them to lie, or be ignorant of that which they describe - I merely expect that of the people who don't publish things on real paper. ;-)

I wasn't sure how accurate the quoted passage was - I should have made that clearer in my post, for which I apologize. And I'm aware that Strobel's work is far from scholarly, but I'm new to theology so my library is limited. I'll move on to more boring stuff as time goes on. No rush there. I'm also in no rush to pass judgement on that passage - I'll do that when someone unearths the original manuscripts, when I learn Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, and read them all for myself. And then I still won't be sure.

I'm in no position to debate how this particular event - the bears - affects arguments for or against YHVH's or God's omniscience or omnipotence. So, on that topic, have at it, y'all.

Good times.
Evan

theophilus

Well, this is one of the problems with alleged "contradictions" in the Bible.
To be a contradiction, it would have to be shown that the issue under discussion was univocal in all cases.

Thus, your example, in order to qualify, would have to say explicitely (not conjecturally) that the first verse and the second verse were talking about exactly the same thing in exactly the same sense.
Otherwise, you are merely assigning a unitary meaning to both verses.

Now, if you can show such explicit contradiction, then you might have something. As it is, you're just expressing your prejudice for what each verse means.

Note to the moderators: I hope you exercise the same standards towards those who post "alleged" contradictions as you've indicated would be necessary to remove them.

theophilus

But this is grossly unfair.

Do theists bear the burden of proof in ALL disputes?

We are told that the burden is on us to "prove" God's existence. Are you now suggesting that we must prove that an "alleged" contradiction is NOT a contradiction?

No reasonable person would accept this standard. The person asserting the state of affairs has the burden in ALL cases of proving his claim. Thus, the person alledging a contradiction must show that it is so.

Simply pulling random verses out of context from clearly different genres and declaring that a contradiction exists is not proof. It falls the most elemental standards of scholarship and intellectual integrity.

There is no ambiguity over what we mean by contradiction. This is just an attempt to "muddy the water" to take the burden off the assertion of contradiction. Even if this were the case, the burden would still be on the person making the allegation to be explicit as to the nature of the contradiction in order to remove any ambiguity.

Coming along after the fact and saying "Oh, well, I didn't mean 'contradiction' in that sense" is childish. It certainly wouldn't be acceptable from a thesit, would it.

So, it is Mr. Merrit's responsibility to explain exactly what standard of contradiction he is asserting and then show how each set of verses satisfies that standard. Simply pointing out that verses "seem" to be saying different things without proving that they are addressing the same idea in the same sense does not meet any standard of contradiction.

This standard should be applied to ALL the claims contained in your library or else you're just playing at being a serious resource.

You've got to uphold the standards you demand of your opponents.

Yahzi

1. Your passage did not offend me. The fact that you posted it without thinking about it did. If you had simply substituted "king" for "god" you would have seen that the argument is not worth posting.

2. The point of my post was that even granting all assumptions, the argument fails. Instead of responding to that logical assertion, you decided to ramble off about hostility.

3. If you are going to post things here, we are going to assume you agree with them. Unless you mention that you disagree in the post. It's called "context."

4. It's not off-topic in the least. But of course you don't like my tone, so you can ignore everything I say.

5. Why should I be tolerant or patient with someone who wastes my time posting arguments he hasn't considered and doesn't agree with?

theophilus

This is nothing but an expression of an unsupport assignment of meaning to each verse. What is your authority?

Can you show that in the context of the first verse, he is NOT good to all? Does he not "make the sun to shine and the rain to fall" on all his creatures, whether good or bad?

Can you show that executing judgement is inconsistent with goodness.

In short, can you show that you have any basis for your opinion other than prejudice?

Contradiction: "A is A and not A."

verse x "God is good to all"
verse y "God is not good to all."

Biff the unclean

You should keep in mind Evan that an Apologist's job is to present the Bible so that it best conforms to the current Christian message. It is not to find the truth or to reach a conclusion that conforms to the evidence. The conclusion has already been reached and if the evidence does not support it...then too bad for the evidence. It is the antithesis of the scientific method.

Do NOT expect them to be concerned with telling the truth.

Yahzi

They bear the burden in all cases where they make a claim.

Nobody is asking you to prove that the non-contradictory parts of the Bible are non-contradictory.

Doctor X

Panamon777:

Fair enough.

Unfortunately, to contort passages involves lies. Indeed, I shall demonstrate an example of such willful misrepresentation below. This is perhaps what Martin Gardner considers a "loyal liar"--telling a small lie to preserve the overall theology.

As for the rest, no one is an expert with everything [Certainly not him.--Ed.]. So when you note:

I appreciate your honesty. EVERYONE [No shouting!--Ed.] started somewhere. It is very difficult to "vet" references when you do not know the field--I frankly started by asking around from mentors and worked my way from there.

If your wish good, accessible references, I do strongly recommend the Recommended Reading list at the top of the topic list here. I do not know what you know, but if I had to recommend a great place to start, it would be Who Wrote the Bible? The amazon links to another good book on recent archaeology--The Bible Unearthed, but I prefer Archaeology and the Bible as a great concise introduction. Finally, The Mythic Past is a great overview of the myths of the Patriarchs and Exodus.

As for the NT, many of the titles listed are also good.

Now, as promised:

Theophilus:

If only the addition of the word "alleged" made your misrepresentation:

valid. You have been shown numerous contradictions which, to date, you have yet to resolve . . . remind me, have you explained whether or not Judas hung himself or exploded, reconciled the birth narratives of Junior, reconciled the competing genealogies of Junior, explained how the Chronicler did not actual rewrite the Deuteronomistic Historian, or even explain where all the water came from and went?

You have not?

Until that time, kindly dispense with the pathos:

. . . or, as a friend remarked, "please climb down from the cross, we need the firewood."

--J.D.

Family Man

I thought one of the assumptions of this thread is that the entirely of the Bible is univocal -- that is, God's voice. Of course, if the Bible is the work of many fallible humans -- which is the position most if not all infidels take -- then, of course, we'd know why there were contradictions: the bible isn't God's word, but merely the efforts of various humans to explain their ideas about the god they choose to invent and worship.

That's the whole point of discussing the contradictions, Theo. The Bible is multivocal (to use your terminology), not the consistent voice of God it is often and mistakenly portrayed as being.

K

Mike(ATL):

I read exactly what you wrote. You made an extra-Biblical assumption that thos things must not have been unjust because God must have had a reason. Don't you see that you have in no way eliminated the Biblical contradiction?

In the Bible, God acts unjustly. You've tried to deflect that obvious fact with the extra-Biblical assumption that God must have known what He was doing. You haven't even explained why those actions were just - you've only made the assumption that they must have been!

We don't know what else those kids MAY have done, but we do know what the Bible says. Why are you suddenly allowed to go outside of the Bible to resolve an internal contradiction? Assuming that God had other reasons than those clearly listed in the Bible does not remove the internal contradiction. It only attempts to explain away the obvious inconsistency.

If your assumption is, "I don't know what God's reasons were, but I know He must have had some," how is that any different than the argument you deny - "well the Bible says God is just?"

The ONLY reason you have to assume that His actions are just is that the Bible says He is just. Now, isn't it plainly obvious to see that you can't use that to eliminate the contradiction? It's one half of the contradiction being investigated!

The actions of God in the Bible must be examined on their own merit. Any way you slice it, God acts unjustly in the Bible.

Yes, tired and familiar.

I'm not ignoring it. I and others have explained several times why your extra-Biblical assumptions that God must have had reasons to act in a way that seems unjust are just that - extra-Biblical assumptions. They in no way deflect the internal inconsistency in the Bible.