cpickett

In I cannot believe in the existance of a GOD anymore (bolding added by me) :

The SAB (Skeptic's Annotated Bible) is NOT 100% accurate, I would be interested to hear your systematic debunking of them. I've heard very little refutation of the Penatuch contradictions, and I think this could be very interesting.

To get you started, Genesis Chapters 1-3 - SAB Contradictions:

1:1-2:3 The first of two contradictory creation accounts. Compare with Gen.2:4-25 in which the order of events is entirely different.

The Genesis 1 account also conflicts with the order of events that are known to science. In this account the earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. From science, we know the true order of events was just the opposite.

1:3-5 God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them?

The JW book "Let God Be True" (1946) says that each of the seven days of creation was 7,000 years long. And that since Adam was "created toward the close of the sixth day, he was put on earth toward the end of 42,000 years of earth's preparation." (p. 155) And since "[a]ccording to reliable Bible chronology Adam was created in the year 4026 B.C.E., likely in the autumn of the year, at the end of the sixth day of creation" (April 1, 1968, Watchtower), we know that the universe was created in 46,026 BCE.

1:6-8 God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters.

1:11 In chapter 1 plants are created on the third day before humans are created on the sixth day. But in chapter 2 the order is reversed. (2:4-7)

Plants are made on the third day before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes (1:14-19). Notice, though, that God lets "the earth bring forth" the plants, rather than creating them directly. Maybe Genesis is not so anti-evolution after all.

1:14 In an apparent endorsement of astrology, God places the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used "for signs". This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do: read "the signs" in the Zodiac in an effort to predict what will happen on Earth.

1:16 God makes two lights: "the greater light [the sun] to rule the day, and the lesser light [the moon] to rule the night." But the moon is not a light, but only reflects light from the sun. And why, if God made the moon to "rule the night", does it spend half of its time moving through the daytime sky?

"He made the stars also." God spends a day making light (before making the stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes the trillions of stars.

1:17 "And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth." Really? Then why are only a tiny fraction of stars visible from earth? Under the best conditions, no more than five thousand stars are visible from earth with the unaided eye, yet there are hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy and a hundred billion or so galaxies. Yet this verse says that God put the stars in the firmament "to give light" to the earth.

1:20-21, 2:19 From what were the fowls created?

1:24 In verse 11, God "let the earth bring forth" the plants. Now he has the earth "bring forth" the animals as well. So maybe the creationists have it all wrong. Maybe God created livings things through the process of evolution.

1:25-26 In the first creation story, God makes humans (male and female) after the other animals; in the second, God makes a man first, then the other animals, and then a woman.

1:26 The use of the plural (us, our) implies that there is more than one god, contrary to many monotheistic biblical statements.

God gave humans dominion over every other living thing on earth. This couldn't be true, of course, since millions of other species existed for millions of years before humans existed. But this verse is used by fundamentalist Christians to justify their mistreatment of other species and disregard for the environment. After all, they believe that God created the other species just for them, so they can do whatever they please with them.

1:27 "According to reliable Bible chronology Adam was created in the year 4026 B.C.E., likely in the autumn of the year, at the end of the sixth day of creation." (April 1, 1968, Watchtower) This was the basis of the failed 1975 prophecy: that Armageddon would occur in 1975, 6000 years after Adam's creation. The basis of the "reliable Bible chronology" was never explained, and the whole 6000 years thing was promptly dropped and forgotten after 1975 passed uneventfully.

1:28 God commands us to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over ... every living thing that moveth upon the earth." This verse is used to justify Christian opposition to birth control, to concern for the environment, and to animal rights. The earth was made for humans, and they can do as they damn well please with it.

1:29 God tells Adam that he may eat from "every tree," but in 2:17 he contradicts himself by saying there is one tree that he may not eat from.

Is it okay to eat meat?

1:30 All animals were originally herbivores. Tapeworms, vampire bats, mosquitoes, and barracudas -- all were strict vegetarians, as they were created by God. But, of course, we now know that there were carnivorous animals millions of years before humans existed.

1:31 In Genesis 1 the entire creation takes 6 days, but we know from modern science that the universe is at least 15 billion years old.

2:4-25 The second creation account. Notice that the order of creation is entirely different from the account given in 1:1-2:3.

2:4-7 In chapter 1 plants are created on the third day before humans are created on the sixth day. But in chapter 2 the order is reversed. (1:11-13, 27-31)

2:7, 18-22 In the first creation story, God makes humans (male and female) after the other animals; in the second, God makes a man first, then the other animals, and then a woman.

But humans were not created instantaneously from dust and breath as in the Gen.2:7, but evolved over millions of years from simpler life forms.

2:17 In verse 1:29 God told Adam that he could eat from "every tree," but now he changes his mind and tells him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God says that if Adam eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then the day that he does so, he will die. But later Adam eats the forbidden fruit (3:6) and yet lives for another 930 years (5:5).

2:18 God creates a woman to keep Adam company saying; "It is not good that man should be alone." Paul offers a dissenting opinion in 1 Cor.7:1.

2:18-22 God makes the animals and parades them before Adam to see if any would strike his fancy. But none seem to have what it takes to please him. (Although he was tempted to go for the sheep.) Note that in these verses, God makes the animals after making Adam, whereas in the first creation story (1:25-27) the order is reversed. After making the animals, God has Adam name them all. The naming of several million species must have kept Adam busy for a while.

But we know that the animals were not created instantaneously from the ground, but rather that they evolved over millions of years. And we still don't have names for all of them. Ten thousand new species of insects are discovered and named each year.

2:20-22 God fashions a woman out of one of Adam's ribs. This was necessary since Adam couldn't find a "help meet" in any of the animals that God made for him.

2:22 Jehovah ends his sixth day of creation by fashioning Eve from Adam's rib. The seventh day of creation began in 4026 BCE and will last 7,000 years. Armageddon will occur in "the autumn of 1975, fully 6000 years into God's seventh day, his rest day." (April 1, 1968, Watchtower) It should be noted that JWs deny that the Governing Body ever taught that Armageddon would happen in 1975. But they are just employing the Theocratic War Strategy (otherwise known as lying). Here is what the Watchtower said in "Making Wise Use of the Remaining Time" from the same April 5, 1968 Watchtower: "Within a few years at most the final parts of Bible prophecy relative to these "last days" will undergo fulfillment, resulting in he liberation of surviving mankind into Christ's glorious 1,000-year reign."

2:24 God made only one woman to be Adam's helpmeet. Does this mean that God disapproves of polygamy?

3:1-5 A clever serpent (God's most "subtil beast") talks to Eve about trees, death, and the knowledge of good and evil. He persuades her to eat the forbidden fruit. She takes the first bite and gets the full blame (3:12, 16).

3:6 In 2:17 God said that if Adam eats from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, then the day that he does so, he will die. But in this verse Adam eats the forbidden fruit and yet lives for another 930 years (5:5).

3:8-11 God walks and talks (to himself?) in the garden, and plays a little hide and seek with Adam and Eve. God's inability to find Adam shows that, contrary to many Bible passages, he is neither omnipresent nor omniscient.

3:12-13 Adam blames Eve and Eve blames the serpent.

3:14 God curses the serpent. From now on the serpent will crawl on his belly and eat dust. One wonders how he got around before -- by hopping on his tail, perhaps? But snakes don't eat dust, do they?

3:16 God punishes Eve, and all women after her, with the pains of childbirth and subjection to men.

3:17 Adam is also punished, although less severely. He now will have to work for a living because he "hearkened unto the voice" of his wife.

3:17-18 But God is not done cursing yet. He curses the ground and causes thorns and thistles to grow. Before this, according to the (false) Genesis story, plants had no natural defenses. The rose had no thorn, cacti were spineless, holly leaves were smooth, and the nettle had no sting. Foxgloves, oleander, and milkweeds were perfectly safe to eat.

3:20 Is everyone descended from Adam and Eve?

3:21 God kills some animals and makes some skin coats for Adam and Eve.

3:22 God expels Adam and Eve from the garden before they get a chance to eat from that other tree -- the tree of life. God knows that if they do that, they well become "like one of us" and live forever. A spooky thought indeed for an insecure god. Notice that God refers to himself (themselves?) in the first person plural, suggesting, contrary to many other Bible verses, that there are several gods.

Notice that although God told Adam not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (2:16-17), he never told him not to eat from the Tree of Life. God said that Adam would die the day that he ate from the forbidden tree (2:17). Well, Adam ate from that tree (3:6), so why was God worried that Adam might eat from that other tree (the Tree of Life) and live forever.

3:24 Where are the cherubim, flaming sword moving back and forth, and the tree of life? Surely if they existed, we would have found them.

Bobzammel

It is believed by many that the reason there are two different creations in Genesis is due to the JEDP theory, basically in which various documents were edited together post-exile. One presumabely is more Caananite in origin while the other is a bit more 'evolved' theologically.

DivineOb

Jason Gastrich from jcsm.org has written a 'refutation' of all of the difficulties in the SAB (http://sab.jcsm.org). Given the quality of his scholarship in general I doubt it is worth the electrons it's printed on, but just so you know that someone has gone through the entire SAB before...

Magus55

The most common explanation for the two creation accounts is: The first one is God describing Creation from day 1 to 6, in generic terms. An overview of Creation. Gen 2, gets more in depth and gets specific in relation to day 6, when humans are created. The reason that it states that things were created in different orders, is because Gen 2 is taken from the perspective of Adam. Notice where it says, God brought the animals to Adam to name? Since when Adam first had conciousness, He was the only one in the area, He assumed, or believed himself to have been created before the animals, because when God brought them to Him, He figured God just created them, after Him and thats why He was only seeing them at that point.

Also, alot of supposed contradictions, are just based on semantics. Alot of words in Hebrew, don't translate well into English. For example, in the english translation when referring to the earth's spherical shape, it states circular. Many people use that as a contradiction because it can refer to the earth being flat, as oppose to a sphere. There is no Hebrew translation for sphere, so circle is generally used to refer to the Earth's globe shape.

Toto

Warning: Christian midi music on this site.

He wants $15 for a CD of his work, which includes his own photography of the holy land, and more Christian music.

His favorite word is awesome.

The free sample did not entice me to purchase the entire package.

In the quotes, the SAB is in black, the alleged refutation is in red

So what does "long ago marked out for this condemnation" mean? He doesn't even try to wiggle around it

No refutation here.

And some fallen angels sing country western and have infiltrated the entertainment industry.

So why should I pay $15 to read that the SAB is correct?

So it's the *Truth* but not the *whole Truth*?

cpickett

I've heard that explanation before, but quite frankly where in the bible does it give cause to reason that? I also don't see how it holds up.

(ASV Bible) Genesis: "2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven. 2:5 And no plant of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for Jehovah God had not caused it to rain upon the earth: and there was not a man to till the ground; 2:6 but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. 2:7 And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul"

These verses clearly state that it happened on day one, a contradiction to Chapter 1 where man was created on day 6.

Magus55

No its not talking about day one. Genesis 2 is the past tense of creation, that we see in Genesis 1. It says in the day that God made the Heavens. Its from Adams prespective, briefly summarizing what God did in Genesis 1. We use the same language today. Don't we say things like " in the days of my parents", or "back in those days". Its the same thing. Its not talking about day 1, its talking about Day 1-5, from Adams prespective, as a history of what God did before Adam was created.

chimaira

In truth there does not need to speak about the first chapters the genesis you do not have who on the first verse of the genesis CH 1 v 1 has to remain, God in genesis 1 is written "elohim" whereas élohim wants to say God in the plural and that is found in genesis 1,26 and 3,22, but translators although his knowing Hebrew one translate "for elohim" God in the singular whereas they know that they is false .
Thus the first error of the Bible is in genesis 1,1.

PS; forgiveness with the fact I am French and I know one can the English.

mark9950

The verses that he highlights are all in the bibles.

Now what I get out of his spin of the subjects deals with my understanding of what his main points are.

His main points are anomolies that does not make sense.As we understand things.The bible was originally written in hebrew and maybe akkadian at one time before being written in hebrew.

Maybe in translations meanings get lost,but I am not going to learn and other language than american english to understand any GOD.I am not going to accomidate any GOD,any GOD will have to accomidate me.

The bible is not written as a novel from steven king,It basically are fragmented writings of ancient peoples that believed in one or more religions.

Can fragments be put together to create a book without editing
so it could make sense? Maybe yes maybe no.

Magus55

First of all, the Bible wasn't written in Akkadian, it was written in Hebrew, and only Hebrew. No clue where you got Akkadian from.

Second, assuming God does exist - its quite arrogant of you to expect Him to accomodate you don't you think? You don't order the President to accomodate you at your leisure, so why the heck would you expect the Creator of the Universe to bow to you? Check that ego at the front door please...

And no its not fragmented writings from a bunch of different religions. The Bible is from dozens of authors, over thousands of years, that coincide and work in harmony with each other like no other book in history.

And btw, you still haven't shown us how you proved that the SAB is 100% accurate