mdd344

Diana, and The Evil One,

Here is a thought I had. How is it that anyone, including you and me, can actually go to the Bible and read it objectively, without bias?

For example, some see a contradiction in that passage that was given. My question is, how is it supposed to be a contradiction? Just because one read it and said 'there, a contradiction'?

Isn't it the case that in order to recognize a real, verses an apparent, contradiction, one would have to look at all the evidence surrounding the verses in question?

For example, what if I turn to the Bible and find where God hates something. From that, I determine that God is a God of hate, and thus, not love. If I do that I could argue for a long time that 'God is a God of hate and not love' and could even flower it up with all manner of syllogisms, etc. They would be valid, but not sound---but I would believe they were both.

But, the fact would be that if I drew my conclusion from that one verse alone I would be mishandling the evidence, and in that event would not be being rational.

You might say, 'well it says it right there.' Well perhaps it does, but what are the other mitigating circumstances? What is the context? What is the history of the use of so and so word in that verse? What is the teaching in the Bible as a whole on this subject? What was the point of the author in stating this as he did? What is meant by it?

Wow, the questions could go on and on. How many people, religious or otherwise, are actually willing to do that kind of work to learn whether or not something is a real, or apparent, contradiction?

Did we go to the Bible and search for a name, and then try and piece together the contradiction we think we have found? Or was it through a diligent studious process that we found the contradiction? How was the evidenced handled? What other evidence was considered?

This is not far fetched btw. One poster on this forum recently argued for a long, long time that, based on one verse, the Lord taught that we were to maliciously hate family members, and treat them accordingly. He did not consider the evidence, he took one verse and created a 'doctrine' upon it. That is not good scholarship, I don't care who you are. It is essentially irrational, logically speaking.

And btw, there is a lot of that which goes on here, and in the religious world too. So it is not unusual.

So what is the criteria? I asked earlier on some other thread about what could be the objective standard of truth? What is the parameters about which we will agree to pursue truth--to find out if the Bible claims are true, or not?

And who would agree to such rigorous study to determine it? It is my opinion that the majority of this country are too wrapped up in their lives to do much more than surface read the Bible. I think that can apply to some that are atheistic as well.

I wonder how many of you who are atheists have actually invested tons of time and hours and honest effort into studying what the Bible claims? I wonder how many religious people have?

Two people sat on a park bench. Both had jobs and were busy people. Neither had studied the Bible more than just on the surface over their 35 year life spans cumulatively.

1. One says, ' I have studied the Bible and I don't believe it, I am an atheist.'
2. The other says, 'I have studied the Bible and I believe it, I am a Christian.'

What is the difference? Nada. Neither have what they need to know what they believe and why, they merely are existing doing what they felt most comfortable doing. But in our world both, typically, will argue "to the death" if you will, about who they are and what they believe. That is where you get arguments based on one verse, or a few---on both sides.

Anyway, those are my thoughts as I read the posts you both wrote.

RexT

mdd344,

Basically, what you are saying is that unless we have studied the bible for many years, and unless we are above avarage intelligence, and unless we already believe the bible is the inspired word of god, then, we are not entitled to claim what would otherwise be obvious contradictions.

In other words, god has written a manual for the intellectual zealot. But for the rest of us, we simply need to trust the zealot to guide us. According to your explanations and excuses for perhaps the worst piece of human literature ever written, the most convoluted, confusing and contradictory compliation of ideas ever spewed from the mind of man, it is our fault that it does not make sense because we are not studious enough, not rational enough, not intelligent enough, not believers enough, not reading it the right way. Did I leave anything out?

Rex

The Evil One

We all have biases. This is why one should do one's best to base one's opinions on the evidence, not on presupposition.

It is supposed to be a contradiction if it makes a claim which conflicts with a claim made in the passage it is contradicting. If the two claims are such that both can't be true, then it's a contradiction. This is very basic logic.

Exodus claims that God said "by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them" where them = Abe, Isaac, and Jacob.

Genesis claims that "Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh".

These cannot both be true. It cannot be true that Abraham did not know the name Jehovah (YHWH) but somehow managed to use that name in a placename he assigned. therefore it is a contradiction.

The only way to argue that it is not a contradiction is to argue that one of the passages doesn't actually mean what it appears to be saying. You tried to do this by arguing that when in Exodus God says "by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them" it doesn't ACTUALLY mean that they didn't know the name Jehovah.

I personally do not consider this a very convincing argument up against the plain words of the text. Apologists have arguments of this sort for many of the Biblical contradictions, as I'm sure you know. Some are more convincing than others.

However, there are more than enough contradictions whose meaning cannot be explained away in this way. My favourites are, (NT) the name of Joseph's father, (OT) who incited David to take the census.



For an apologist, "all the evidence" means "any excuse I can think of, no matter how tenuous, to avoid admitting this is a contradiction".

The Evil One

Incidentally, mdd, would you care for a formal debate on any of these issues? you might find it a more congenial way to construct responses than in the very long threads where everyone responds to you all at once.

diana

Many times in the past few days, people have asked you if you apply the same standard to the Quran as you do to the Bible. Are you able to read the Quran without bias? Why or why not? If you are able to read it without bias, then why can't you do the same with the Bible? If you cannot read it without bias, then you either presuppose it is true--in which case, you cannot decide whether the Bible or the Quran is right--or you presuppose it is false--in which case, you could be condemning yourself to the Muslim hell, which is nastier than the Christian one.

How did you decide the Bible was the right holy book and all the rest were mistaken? I mean, assuming you applied all the same standards of evidence and presupposition to them.

I assume you've read them, naturally. I mean, it is your soul, after all, riding in the balance. There is certainly nothing more important in this world than you making your calling and election sure, which would necessitate (I would think) diligent study and a fair shake to all the other religions. So? What's the verdict of your study? Why, exactly, do you reject the Quran in lieu of the Bible?

d

Doug Shaver

That is what Occam's razor is all about. You need to minimize your preconceived notions before beginning any investigation. You can read the Bible while assuming it's true, or assuming it's false, or assuming neither.

But you might think about this . . . If I read the Bible without assuming anything about whether it is true or false, I am not compelled to find any contradictions in it. Neither am I compelled to find any contradictions if i assume it is false. A book can be 100 percent false and still be perfectly consistent. Only the assumption of perfect truth forces any conclusions about contradictions, which is that there will not be any.

DBT

Perhaps an example?
How exactly do we aproach the following two verses? Reading the words as they written and presented, each sentence appears to make a clear and unambiuous statement - yet the respective meanings are clearly in contradiction.
Logically they just do not make sense.

"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)

Craigart14

mdd344,

I frequently hear or read people claiming that the Bible is without flaw, that it contains no mistakes or contradictions. This concept is known as "inerrancy," and it's one of the fundametals in "fundamentalism." To demonstrate the falsity of this claim, one need only find one mistake or contradiction. There are many of each, of course, but all we need is one of either to prove that Biblical inerrancy is false. To whit:

Judas Iscariot suffers two different deaths in the New Testament. In one version, he throws his thirty pieces of silver at the priests in the temple, then hangs himself out of grief over his betrayal of Jesus. In another version, he buys a field with the thirty pieces of silver, but while inspecting his new purchase, he falls down, bursts open, and his entrails spill out. Since a man only gets to die once, these stories cannot both be true, yet they are both found in the New Testament. This is clearly a contradiction. It has nothing to do with context, traditional usage of Hebrew vowels, bias, assumptions, whatever. The two stories contradict each other, period, end of report.

I suspect that the two different writers of these stories were both trying to make the point that you can't rat out the son of god and get away with it. But they made up different stories. I don't suppose we should be particularly surpised by the idea that the stories are made up, especially seeing as how Jesus himself (if we can trust the gospel writers) made up stories to get his points across, even though the disciples were too stupid to figure them out. Of course, that's an old literary device, used here to allow the character called Jesus to explain things to the characters called disciples so that we readers can get the message, too.

Contradictions are really easy to spot. Competing claims can't both be true.

Why does Jesus have three different sets of last words?

Craig

mdd344

RexT,
Rex, no, I was asking. But let's consider this from my own example. Some on this site are evidently either very well educated officially or very well read on some subjects. I am clearly not into studying some of those subjects to that level. Wouldn't they say that since I hadn't achieved some certain level that I could not even began to discuss and/or argue any position based on any evidence I might have observed? Because of my lack of study to their level, I would be somehow (and in a real way) limited on what I could do.

Now if that is true for those subjects, why then it is also not true for the Bible? What if a person doesn't know the difference between Old and New Testament? Between a Jew and a Gentile? Between various forms of language, speech? Or doesn't understand apocalyptic language, or any such thing?

Can that person be one who then critiques the Bible in depth--and if so, upon what does he base that critique? Those who took issue with my lack of study in biology (which, btw, I am thankful I have a lack of it if you must know, my subject is history and Bible) would say if it were I in the above scenario, 'you cannot speak to this.'

Now why not the same for the Bible? I do not believe one has to be 'led' as it were, as you indicated. I do believe one must grasp certain truths about the Bible though--or risk (high, high risk) coming to conclusions which "seem" to be real but are really not accurate at all.

Your thoughts?

mdd344

Craig,
Regarding Judas, he hung himself indeed. Then, after hanging for a while, rotted and burst----or, fell and burst open. There isn't a contradiction there.