Equinox

Spam-

Showing that a bible was free of contradictions would be a necessary , but not sufficient, condition for a divine origin. So it’s not a pointless discussion since showing that a bible is contradictory does show that it can’t be of divine origin, though I agree that even if a bible were shown to be non-contradictory wouldn’t prove anything. I’ve got all kinds of things I’ve written that are non-contradictory, and of course, many other sacred texts (like the Qu’ran, the Vedas, the Book of Mormon, etc.) are much less contradictory than most bibles.


Equinox

spamandham

It isn't even a necessary condition. It is possible for the Bible to be of divine origin, and also chock full of contradictions - of course, that implies something about the author that the fundies who take inerrantist positions won't accept.

To them, proving it has no contradictions is sufficient to prove it's divine. I agree this is flawed reasoning, but what would you expect from people who start with such an absurd position as Biblical inerrancy anyway?

We can not convince them it has errors, because any text can mean anything you want it to mean if you throw enough speculation into the mix. So by merely participating in the argument, we are enabling the continuation of that fallacious thinking.

evangelical

So far as I know, there has never been anybody in the history of the world, that has both claimed to be a Christian and also denied that the Bible was written by men. Again, everyone agrees that the Bible was written by men. But, I believe, along with many (perhaps most or all) professing Christians, that it is also the Word of God. Some of the posts in this thread seem to attribute a denial, by conservative Christians, that the Bible was written by men. Yet again, nothing could be further from the truth.

evangelical

haitu, what are the three "very good contradictions" that you are alluding to?

Cege

I didn't look back over the other posts in this thread, but I will venture to ask if conflations are considered contradictions and/or errors? For example, Mark 1:2-3 the quotations are credited only to the prophet Isaiah when they are actually a combination of verses from Exodus 23:20, Malachi 3:1, and Isaiah 40:3.

I've been told that conflation in the NT is a common occurence (and it is fairly common, credited even to Jesus himself) and therefore considered an acceptable and legitimate practice.

Conflation looks more to me like misquotation/misattribution, and would certainly be cited as an error in modern citations.

What say ye?

evangelical

Evil is a privation of good. In other words, evil does not exist at all. A lack of a thing (in this case, goodness) is not a thing per se. Did the creator of all things create "that" which does not exist? To ask the question is to answer it. Of course He did not create such a "thing".

Furthermore, free will is just that-free will. It is literally meaningless to say that God made somebody do something independent of Him. This is what you are implying in your objection. The Bible teaches human freedom, at least by implication, else God would not hold sinners accountable. But He does hold sinners accountable so there must be, at least according to the Bible, free will in humankind. But in that case, God did not make them to sin (else, to repeat, it would not truly be free will). So then, we see that it is man to blame and not God. That man has a free will is a part of God's creation but the abuse of that free will (i.e. sinning), was truly free (i.e. not authored by God).

And there was no human evil in man at the beginning. There was the potential to do evil in humankind for we were free to choose against God. But a potential to do evil is not evil. How many people do you know that have been arrested for the possibility that they may later commit a crime? If it made sense to speak of the creation of evil, and it does not, then it is mankind alone who gets the blame.

What you are discussing here is the logical problem of evil which is normally considered unsound even by atheists. At least atheists that are up on current trends in philosophy of religion. The logical problem of evil is a different issue from the one I was addressing in the above quote. Right or wrong, I took the original claim I was responding to, to be that Genesis 1 speaks of the world as good and the rest of the Bible speaks of the selfsame world as evil. That is not contradictory if context is kept in mind. We must remember that the law of non-contradiction says that p and not-p cannot both be true at the same time. It is entirely possible that they are both true at different times. At the time of Genesis 1, p was true, and, at the later time of Genesis 2ish-Revelation 22ish, not-p is true. The contexts are radically different.

evangelical

After looking around on the internet for a while, it seems the argument, for contradiction between one aspect of Matthew and Luke's nativity stories is the following

1. Matthew says Jesus was born in the days of Herod the Great.
2. Herod the Great died in 4 BC.
3. Luke says Jesus was born when Quirinius, then governer of Syria, held a census.
4. Josephus says that Quirinius held census in 6 AD which may, or may not, be the same census Luke mentions in chapter 2 of his Gospel.
5. Therefore, it may, or may not, be the case that Luke contradicts Matthew on this point.

It seems that this is really all the argument is saying (if there is a compelling reason to link the Josephus census with the Luke census or any other primary sources than Josephus for the 6 AD census, please let me know). This argument is not terribly persuasive. If one really wants to find contradictions in the Bible-whether they are there or not-it is easy to see how one might propound such an argument (worded in a way that sounds much stronger, of course). Nevertheless, I think that it is extremely easy to suppose that there may have been another census held by Quirinius. He did it once, in 6 AD, so it is not implausible to suppose he did it again (before that, I mean, while Herod the Great was still alive). But we have no record of it, you may object. Perhaps that is true. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And it is not quite true that we have no record of it. Luke, who is an historian, tells us it happened. Keep in mind that he tells us this briefly after asserting how carefully he is in his historical reporting (Luke 1:1-4). May he have lied about this? Perhaps, but so may have Josephus about the 6 AD date presumed in the above argument. Special pleading just won't do. But Luke had a religious bias, you may say, and we cannot use the Bible to prove the Bible. I answer that, secular historians have a secular bias when they report history, but we still believe them. And Bible or no Bible, Luke is a historian and we ought to believe historians in general. They can make mistakes and even intentionally lie, but to reject a source at all points, just because it is part of a religious document, and you are not religious, is, again, special pleading. What is important here is, is it plausible that Jesus was born while Herod the Great was alive and also while Quirinius was holding a census? The answer can only be yes.

So then, in conclusion, this apparent contradiction may very easily be not a true contradiction in the Bible. I would say it is, without qualification, not a contradiction.

evangelical

I answer that we must keep context in mind. Linguistic convention changes over time. That there was a different system of quotation in biblical times than today is obvious by merely looking at the system therein used. People in the New Testament did quote Bible verses in a way that we would consider at least imprecise today. That was okay back then but considered sloppy today. They would, as you say, take several verses, from different authors, and apply the synthesis to a single author. The idea was not to put words in another's mouth. Rather, one of the authors actually quoted, was given credit for the whole as a short hand. Today we might, somewhat similarly, append "et al.". It is only a difference of convention. In and of itself, in other words, it does not make an actual contradiction.

Toto

I think this is a bad rule to follow, whether the historican is trying to sell you a used bridge for investment purposes or the True History of his religion.

Richard Carrier has examined every possibility for reconciling the birth narratives in Luke and Matt, and has concluded that it is impossible - there was no other census, and there is no other out.

The Date of the Nativity in Luke

thentian

The simple point is that as long as Herod the Great was alive, it was he who was the king of Judea, and no roman governor of Judea could possibly be there to take a census. Only after the death of the king did roman governors arrive in Judea. Therefore, either Matthew or Luke is simply wrong.