GakuseiDon

Fair points, Doc. But I'm sure you'll agree that this cuts both ways, i.e. there are some who will go to extraordinary lengths to try to concoct a contradiction (I'm thinking SAB here).

I wonder if it is possible to develop a methodology such that both apologists and contradictionists can disinterestedly discuss passages in the Bible? Or do our blinders make this impossible?

Secular Pinoy

No disrespect meant also, but, wasn't that certain poster who defended the Elisha and the bears story... you, GakuseiDon?

I agree with you, though, about the Skeptics' Annotated Bible. They use the KJV bible exclusively, which is a bit annoying, as more reliable translations have shown that several of the "contradictions" simply aren't. Perhaps they need a "fair and balanced"(tm) editor to clean up their lists. We should strive for quality, not quantity.

Doctor X

GakuseiDon::

It does. I do not use the SAB--no slight to it--but I heard "good" and "bad" regarding it--going nuts trying to make everything a contradiction. Secular Pinoy notes its use of the KJV. This is a problem for scholarship, of course, but the SAB is really, in my mind, a "popular" work. Most people encounter the KJV and quote the KJV--even on these pages. Sometimes it is not that bad of a translation. However, as one mentor put it, we have to recognize the influence of the KJV--"it ain't a god if he don't smite thee!"

The "best" example of "the other side" was a book I wish I bought at a "magic" store in, of all places, Salem, Massachusetts. This guy was convinced that YHWH was REALLY Satan--even 666=YHWH somehow--and the various biblical authors all knew it! This was some grand conspiracy to make us worship Satan when we really should all be atheists.

Okay. . . .

The critical gymnastics would make a Young Earth Creationist seem positively scientific.

Tough question . . . can one ever be completely subjective? I have seen people try--critics who are practicing Christians and Jews discuss the history of violence and sacrifice in the OT and NT, for example. Most of the scholars I have had the fortune to meet are "deistic" at best, consider the texts range between myth and historical fiction, but--and I think this is important--their intention is not to "find contradictions."

Certainly, if the only reason one reads anyone's scripture is to "prove it wrong" methinks they have better things to do. Why learn the languages and all of that? When I look at a text I am interested in what it meant to the author(s), what it was intended to mean to his audience, and how meaning shifted. The same mentor expressed it by stating that their are few multi-authorship books in the world's literature that argue with itself!

--J.D.

-DM-

Were I perfect, omniscient, omnipotent, and concerned about not misleading people, and were I writing a book (or inspiring a book) about myself, I would preclude problems such as Jim Meritt thought he saw (perhaps as a result of not reading the whole Psalm) by putting the qualifying words right with the "good" statement, where they belong. Further, even though I might destroy the wicked, I would nevertheless do so as mercifully as possible; certainly I would not claim to be merciful at one time and then at another time assert that I would show no mercy. I don't think that there is anything ridiculous about that, but if you do, so be it.

-DM-

-DM-

A perfect "God" would not claim to be a merciful "God" and then later assert that "he" was going to show no mercy. The message certainly could be consistent: "I am a merciful God. Although I will destroy the wicked, I will do so mercifully. I will take care to spare children below the age of accountability. [Etc.]" An omnipotent "God" would have no difficulty seeing to it that this inconsistency did not exist in a work that he inspired. Your statement, if true, would deny the perfection and/or the omnipotence of "God."

If that is what you believe, then you are mistaken. There has been a lot of reasoning going on, on both sides of this issue. The question is which reasoning is more reasonable.

I do not defend the man. In fact, I have said that this is a minor inconsistency (rather than what I would term a contradiction). I do defend that there is an obvious inconsistency here. A merciful "God" would not boast about showing no mercy.

I have said that there is an inconsistency here. A merciful "God" is not one who would show no mercy.

The accusation does not fit. Remember, I was once on your side of the fence. I am open to what you are saying, but you apparently cannot see what seems quite obvious to me. A merciful "God" is not one who would show no mercy--even when destroying the wicked.

You misrepresent my position. I demand no such thing.

There has to be an error to concede before one is justified in conceding an error.

I have known all along what you were saying. I say that those two passages are inconsistent with each other. A merciful and punishing "God" should be able to destroy the wicked and nevertheless do so mercifully; a merciful "God" would not assert that he would show no mercy in doing so. That should be obvious to you and anyone else reading those two passages.

You won't discuss until we concede a point which you have not made, yet you accuse me/us of not being open. That is a strange way of being open.

I don't consider it a waste of time. On occasion, some believers who have come here and who have argued at length have eventually seen the point that was being made. My point is that what is and isn't a contradiction (remember, I prefer "inconsistency") is to some extent dependent on one's frame of reference and on the definition one has in mind of "contradiction." If one takes the liberal definition of contradiction, namely that two inconsistent statements are involved, then I say that "merciful God" vs. "show no mercy" are inconsistent, regardless of the circumstances. If you do not, so be it, but please realize that this is not a question of error, but of point of view and definition. However, if you want to take your ball and go home because you are not making any headway in attempting to convince me/us of your point of view, that is OK with me.

-DM-

Mike(ATL)

Jaelum, that's a very good point. It does indeed weaken his case to have something like this labeled a contradiction. Anyone that knows the bible can open his list, look at the verses, and dismiss them without much investigation. Those who organize that library are misleading their readers by having so many articles like this, presented as an abundance of evidence that the Bible contradicts itself and is therefore unreliable. Why not narrow it down to the most irrefutable claims? If you are so confident that you are right, then give us that and don't waste our time with candy like this.

DM, even though you didn't say it for some reason, it seems we agree that these two verses are not contradicting by the definition I was using. Both authors give a consistent message, your problem is that the message they are both giving is self-contradicting. A merciful God that doesn't show mercy.

So thank you, I can see that most of you do not agree that these two verses are an example of biblical errancy to the point where two authors are describing a different God. I think we can now concentrate on a merciful God with recorded instances where he shows no mercy. Since this does in a way relate to the original two verses let's continue in this thread.

So how can God claim to be compassionate, merciful, and loving but destroy the wicked without mercy, destroy a city that includes innocent children, and have bears maul some kids just for mocking someone?

I'm sorry for the length of this post, I tried to keep it short but the nature of the question requires a lot of explanation. Let's start by investigating the nature of God using the verse I referred to earlier where He describes Himself to Solomon.

Here God describes Himself with all of these good terms but then says that He will not leave the guilty unpunished. First note that the word "merciful" is not among the descriptors here. I've been looking and I cannot find a place Pre-Christ where God ever claims that he is merciful. Only in the Psalms is He described with that word, merciful (PSA 65:15, 145:8). This of course means that God is merciful, Jesus even described Him as such (Luke 6:36). Perhaps (my theory) God never made that direct claim about himself because that could be taken to mean that he must show mercy to everyone. To show mercy means to not give the punishment deserved. God certainly says we deserve punishment and punishes as such before the new covenant. Something about the nature of God cannot leave sin unpunished. He never denies this about himself, although we love Him we're also to have a reverent fear of Him (Deut 6:13). He punishes sin because sin deserves it. He created a perfect sinless world and we corrupted it.

That said, God can describe himself as he does in this passage from Exodus because he also displays those traits. For someone who hates sin as much as he does, it is remarkable that he can also be slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness, that we can even exist in his perfect creation, we who constantly forsake him and hate him and everything he does or says. He provided a way through sacrifices and other means of atonement before Christ that man could exist in His world. And He of course provided the perfect blameless sacrifice of Christ. He often allowed the prophets to intercede on behalf of their disobedient people. Although we sin against him, God loves us and wants to be compassionate and gracious towards us, so much to the point that inspired the beautiful Psalms of David (or whoever) that often go on and on about these characteristics of God. In that light the different verses in Psalm 145 are not conflicting at all.

David (or whoever) is praising God for keeping those who love Him and destroying the wicked. It's a praise of the power of God and that despite the fact that he must punish the wicked, he keeps those who love Him. I hope that this helps clarify the nature of God. To me, knowing this helps put everything else into perspective. If something seems unclear or incorrect please point it out. With this in mind, let's investigate the particular cases pointed out where God does not show mercy.

First let me make it clear that I am not the expert on this book that other people are. There are probably Christians on this forum more qualified than myself to detail exactly what was going on here. I have read the book though and am pretty familiar with the history so I can give you a pretty good idea of what's happening here. That said, let's make it clear that this particular passage is what God wants to do to Israel and Judah because of their wickedness. God gives his reason just before this passage and throughout the book of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 13:9-10
Thus says the LORD, 'Just so will I destroy the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. 'This wicked people, who refuse to listen to My words, who walk in the stubbornness of their hearts and have gone after other gods to serve them and to bow down to them, let them be just like this waistband which is totally worthless.

God was telling his prophet Jeremiah what He would do to His people because of their wicked ways. However Jeremiah pleads with God on behalf of his people to not turn his back on them. God of course never actually destroyed all of Israel and Judah since His people still exist today. However he did rain down some pretty serious punishment, especially to those who did not even listen to Jeremiah. I recommend reading the whole book of Jeremiah, it's very interesting to see how God and His prophet interacted and the weight His prophet's words carried with God.

That said however, God had every right to do this to His people and this would have happened had Jeremiah not interceded on their behalf. DM mentions that since He was threatening to destroy all of Israel and Judah that this would include children who had not yet reached the age of accountability. All that God specifies here is that He would be destroying "both their fathers and their sons together." So we're not sure if that's the case. He said he was punishing people for their worshipping other Gods and for turning against him. So here it would seem that he is punishing those accountable.

God does specify a little more who would be affected later on.

Jeremiah 18:21
So give their children over to famine;
hand them over to the power of the sword.
Let their wives be made childless and widows;
let their men be put to death,
their young men slain by the sword in battle.

Even if it is just the men old enough to fight that will be destroyed, certainly the widows and the other youngest children will be affected by losing their loved ones. There's another issue here, a people group sinned against God but their infant children hadn't, yet they would certainly be punished if not killed here. No one is blameless in the sight of God. We are connected to our forefathers more than we realize. Adam and Eve sinned, we inherit the world they created. We are accountable for our own actions and we can also hurt those around us. It is the nature of the world, our sin affects more than just us. I think the common misconception is that God is responsible for punishment of sin. Israel and Judah are the ones that sinned against God, God never changes, he always punishes sin, they knew this. Their sin brought about what was going to happen. The responsibility is often pushed back to God with the argument that God created us with the ability to chose sin, He knew sin would come about, He knew the circumstances would unfold that these people would turn against God, therefore He is responsible for the suffering brought about by their sin. If you want to get into that I guess we can. Let me just say that from our perspective we have free will, we choose to sin, we know the consequences, we do x and y happens, we are responsible.

I hope this clears that passage up a little. It is definitely a complex issue and reason for much deeper investigation. I think this goes far enough to explain how this is not an errant conflict in the nature of God though.

The classic passage was also brought up about Elisha sicking bears on some kids

This is popular with those trying to show how unfair and cruel God is because it seems like an over-reaction. It's hard to investigate any further because it's such a short account. We don't know how old the boys were. We don't know the circumstances surrounding what happened. We don't know if Elisha was in physical danger. All we know is that forty-two boys were mocking a prophet of God, Elisha cursed them in the name of God and God either killed them or injured them using two bears. What we do know is that God punishes the wicked, these boys were punished, they must have deserved it.

Again, sorry for the length of the post, I felt this was an instance that merited it though. I hope this clarifies how God can both be good to all of mankind and destroy the wicked.

beastmaster

Mike,

You appear to have established that

(1) Sometimes god is good to the good (the LORD is righteous)
(2) Sometimes god is good to the bad (the LORD is merciful, good to all, slow to anger)
(3) Sometimes god is bad to the good (Job)
(4) Sometimes god is bad to the bad (destroy the wicked)

Well, that conveniently covers all the bases, doesn't it?

I spose that if I am good sometimes and bad other times, then I can expect some good and some bad to happen to me. Or something.

God's mysterious ways end up resembling more the simple truism: "Shit happens!"

Surely it's no contradiction to say god is sometimes this and sometimes that. But we're growing none wiser.

Mike(ATL)

True true, but knowing that God is sometimes this and sometimes that (and He has that right) I don't see how these two verses are a contradiction. They just display different parts of the character of God.

Doctor X

Mike(ALT):

"We" do not know this at all . . . it is your claim that "they must have deserved it." No textual evidence for that exists, and what the text states demonstrates otherwise.

Compared to the preceeding passages, where the men treat the prophet nicely and receive a sewage treatment plant, this becomes a hyperbolic lesson. Nevertheless, it does not frame Big Daddy in a just or merciful light--nor is that the concern of the writer.

"We" also know that he does not punish the wicked he punishes the innocent. Note well the whole contradiction between the Deuteronomistic and Chronicler's David and the Census story. Whether you wish to believe the Chronicler's apology by bringing in Satan or not, the point remains a whole lot of innocent people get squished for David's "crime."

Similarly, Exodus loves killing Egyptians. Whenever the Pharaoh figures "hey, maybe keeping these slaves around is a bad thing," YHWH "hardens his heart."

Leave aside the historical evidence against the Exodus. Leave aside the ridiculousness of a king having seen his people blasted a number of times persuing the slaves . . . and the slaves forsaking their savior every page!--"Okay . . . he killed their first born . . . destroyed their army . . . but what has he done for us LATELY?"--this is a "set-up" story of "our god was better than theirs!"

The writers of the time were not interested in a just and merciful god.

--J.D.

Hawkingfan

Mike (ATL):

How do you account for the large number of infant fatalities as caused by drowning them in the flood?

And it really does not seem fair to destroy the entire world (excluding Noah's family) for their wickedness during the flood whenever god had planned on sending Christ to die for their sins at a later time. And it is unfair to those who drowned to give other sinners today a chance at forgiveness through Christ (and to refrain from drowning them). If he was planning on forgiving those who died in the flood at a later time, then it was cruel, unnecessary, and arbitrary to kill them.