Contradictions in the Bible?
Last week in the comments, Major Freedom shared a long list of alleged contradictions in the Bible. I thought some of them weren’t very convincing–like wondering why an omniscient God would ask Cain where his brother was–so I asked MF to pare down the list to the ones he thought were really smoking guns. Now I’ll go through and see if they sound contradictory to me…
GE 11:12 Arpachshad [Arphaxad] was the father of Shelah.
LK 3:35-36 Cainan was the father of Shelah. Arpachshad was the grandfather of Shelah.
Assuming “Salah” is an alternate spelling for “Shelah,” I agree that this seems to be a contradiction. I suppose one way to reconcile it would be to say that people back then might have skipped a generation (or more), e.g. by saying Jesus is the “son of David” or that Abraham was a “father” to all of the Israelites even though those statements wouldn’t be literally true. But, as I say, I concede the plain reading of the text makes this seem a contradiction.
GE 11:26 Terah was 70 years old when his son Abram was born.
GE 11:32 Terah was 205 years old when he died (making Abram 135 at the time).
GE 12:4, AC 7:4 Abram was 75 when he left Haran. This was after Terah died. Thus, Terah could have been no more than 145 when he died; or Abram was only 75 years old after he had lived 135 years.
That also seems like a contradiction. What’s worse, you don’t have to flip around; the apparent contradiction is in consecutive chapters. I’d be curious to hear what (say) an orthodox Jewish rabbi thinks about these passages.
GE 19:30-38 While he is drunk, Lot’s two daughters “lie with him,” become pregnant, and give birth to his offspring.
2PE 2:7 Lot was “just” and “righteous.”
OK this one I don’t think is a problem. I have two responses:
First, the way I’m reading the story, Lot didn’t know what was happening. I guess you could say it’s a bit weird that he lets his daughters get him that smashed, but the writer goes out of his way in both cases to say that Lot “did not know when she lay down or when she arose.” (Also to get the full context, the daughters are worried about preserving the family line. This isn’t like they just have some weird urge to sleep with their father.)
Second, the idea that we’re going to catch the Bible in a contradiction by finding a “good” guy who did bad things is misguided. From a Christian viewpoint, nobody is really just except Jesus. Even King David (“a man after God’s own heart“) had two whoppers of sins. (He slept with another man’s wife and then, when she was pregnant and King David couldn’t convince her husband to come home from battle and be with his wife, David had the guy purposely put in a position where he’d be killed in battle to avoid a scandal.)
Moses isn’t perfect either. Indeed, Moses is privileged to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land, but Moses doesn’t get to actually set foot in it because of his earlier impatience and lack of faith.
So, even if Lot had intentionally slept with his daughters, that wouldn’t necessarily mean it would be a contradiction to later call him “just.” I fully understand that sounds crazy from a modern standpoint, but I don’t think that’s a contradiction if you really read the Bible. (I also don’t think it’s a monstrous miscarriage of justice. To repeat, nobody is actually just; only Jesus is. So all of this stuff means, relative to human standards.)
GE 50:13 Jacob was buried in a cave at Machpelah bought from Ephron the Hittite.
AC 7:15-16 He was buried in the sepulchre at Shechem, bought from the sons of Hamor.
I understand why the plain reading here suggests a contradiction too, but this one doesn’t bother me much. First of all, there might be some issue where the same transaction could correctly be described as purchasing the land from both Ephron and also from the sons of Hamor. I’m not saying I can give the resolution, but I’m wondering if it’s something like saying, “I bought that from Microsoft” versus “I bought it from Bill Gates.”
More important, this example doesn’t have the “narrator” of one book of the Bible contradicting the narrator of another book. Rather, in Acts 7:15-16, we are reading the quotation of the words spoken by Stephen (who would soon become the first Christian martyr). In context, Stephen is trying to show his Jewish audience that he knows their history too, to then plausibly argue that Jesus is the Messiah that the prophets had promised.
So I’m admitting I’m not solving the apparent contradiction, but this one is odd in that it has Stephen apparently summarizing scripture improperly, in order to show what a knowledgeable Jew he was.
I imagine a lot of my agnostic readers will feel disappointed, thinking I either had to (A) defend these passages using arguments they considered absurd, or (B) throw in the towel and admit Christianity is based on quicksand.
Sorry to disappoint, but I already conceded that there are apparent contradictions. The one I found on my own (meaning nobody pointed it out to me, I just noticed it myself) was the story of Jesus healing the centurion’s servant. In Luke’s account, the centurion never talks to Jesus directly; he sends out others. But in Matthew’s account, the centurion himself comes and talks with Jesus. (Also, it has to be the same guy, because in both accounts Jesus says He has never seen faith like this before.)
Of the alleged contradictions above, the only one that really bothers me is the second one, about Abram’s age. It bothers me because (a) I can’t see any way to “soften” it, the way I can with the other ones, and (b) the apparent contradiction appears so close in the text, it worries me that the author and then the people who passed it down didn’t scratch their heads at some point and at least mention parenthetically what the deal is.
In closing let me say that the reason I became a Christian is that I independently became convinced of the power of the mind over the body, and then it “suddenly made sense” to me how this historical guy Jesus of Nazareth could have gone around actually healing people. At first I didn’t think Jesus was God, I just thought he was a well-meaning guy who convinced himself he was special. And since Jesus really believed it, others believed it, blah blah blah.
But the more I went down that path, the more ridiculous the knots into which I tied myself. For example, I think the best hypothesis to explain the proliferation of Christianity is that Jesus really was nailed to a cross and was buried, and then some of His followers saw Him walking around days later. (I have mentioned before that I got this idea from H.L. Mencken, who wasn’t a Christian.) So it got really hard for me to say, “This is all just a big coincidence, there really isn’t a God, but this guy bought into these ancient superstitions, thought he was God’s son, then he went around healing the sick and correctly predicted that he would rise from the dead. But Jesus just got lucky; there were probably thousands of people throughout history who did the same thing, but since they stayed dead we don’t know about them.”
My point is, it was never the compelling rigor and logical consistency of the Bible’s various books that made me convert from atheism. Admitting that there are possible contradictions bothers me, for the obvious reason that it casts doubt on the other passages that are the foundation of my faith. And I hate to say this for those who want to “settle this” one way or the other by next Thursday, but I know that for my own satisfaction, I will have to study A LOT more to learn about the Bible, its history, what it says in the original languages, etc.
Obviously if other believers want to take a crack at the above apparent contradictions, feel free. By no means do I claim that I’m the best apologist to do so.
Although I am a Christian, I have always felt there was a contradiction between the writings of Paul and the writings of James. Paul wrote in Romans that man is justified by faith whereas James wrote that by works man is justified, and not by faith alone. I am summarizing the views but I have always had a problem with these different viewpoints. Can this be reconciled?
Another argument I have been struggling with lately also includes a contradiction. I read a book a few months back called God’s Problem. He puts forth this paradox in his book:
God is all powerful (check)
God is all loving (check)
People suffer (ouch)
Dr. Murphy, your thoughts?
Matthew,
If I may. With regards to Paul and James, Both are dealing with the same coin, but are coming to it from two different sides.
Paul and James both believe that genuine (aka saving) faith leads to salvation. However, James notes that this “saving” faith will necessarily produce good works. (As Christ said, you will know a tree by the fruit it produces.) Though Paul, too, is clear that “saving” faith will also produce good fruit. Furthermore, Jesus, too, notes faith will produce good fruit, as well. The regeneration of the person will necessarily bring forth good works.
I appreciate the reply. That makes sense.
There’s a potential explanation of the Abram/Terah issue here.
I am not an orthodox Jewish rabbi, but I do study under one, and I can probably give a decent Jewish orthodox take on matters.
The first is a contradiction. This is not much of a problem in the orthodox rabbinic tradition, although I can see why contradictions would be much more challenging to a Christian, with their different conceptions of faith and religion. Orthodox Jews don’t have to rationalize this so much.
The second is the same as the first.
The third (Lot) is not a contradiction. Lot was just and righteous. He was also raped by his daughters. Squicky, but not a contradiction.
The fourth involves a book from the Christian canon. We don’t care about it.
Contradictions aren’t as big a deal to orthodox rabbinic Jews as they are to Christians. God, in Jewish mythology, is something of a raging stupid jackass. It’s hardly a surprise that he gets things wrong. We also are much more cognizant of the fact that although the bible is definitely the word of God, it was also written by many different humans at many different times and places, and copied by more humans at other times and places. Of course things will get out of whack.
Christians need to understand that the Jewish books are Jewish books. They should not be read with a Christian eye. It’s simply nonsensical to do so.
Tzadik wrote:
Contradictions aren’t as big a deal to orthodox rabbinic Jews as they are to Christians. God, in Jewish mythology, is something of a raging stupid jackass. It’s hardly a surprise that he gets things wrong.
Uh, how orthodox is your statement right there? Like, would you get in trouble if your rabbi read that, or would he say, “Well put”?
He agrees with the point, although it’s not his choice of phrase. It is an argument that is very strongly backed up by the text–and he knows this better than me. In orthodox Judaism, the text is God (not literally). If you can back up an argument with the text, anything goes.
Tzadik,
Does tradition not play any role in the interpretation of the text, in Orthodox Judaism?
Jarett,
Certainly. But not because of TRADITION! but because past rabbis were wise and knowledgeable and made text-based arguments. You don’t contradict them willy-nilly.
I agree. Tradition in other various religions are also made from reflecting on their Scripture.
The point I was trying to make is that certain stances on issues will be given higher credence because of tradition. Even if another view comes along that’s compatible with the text, if it doesn’t go with tradition, it might not be as readily accepted (if at all).
Certainly. And we kicked Spinoza out for being a pain in the ass.
Tzadik wrote:
He agrees with the point, although it’s not his choice of phrase. It is an argument that is very strongly backed up by the text–and he knows this better than me.
Would you say that’s the message of the book of Job or Psalms? Or are you saying it comes through in other places?
Where does the Bible say God is “stupid”?
Message? Ah…which particular lines of the book of Job? The ones written by the priests or the ones written by the lawyers? Or the message from God himself?
The Bible never explicitly calls god stupid, although it does call his actions evil occasionally. No, we know he’s stupid because he acts stupidly. Insects do not have four legs. Not showing up, full of fire and rage, until AFTER your worshipers screwed up , and doing this repeatedly, is stupid. And so on.
Of course, part of the rabbinic tradition is vigorous disagreement and back-and-forth, so some would disagree with my take.
The Jews are the people specially chosen by God, who have a unique relationship with him. We can argue and disagree with him. This is only sensible if God gets things wrong occasionally.
Tzadik wrote:
We can argue and disagree with him. This is only sensible if God gets things wrong occasionally.
Or, we are consistently wrong whenever we disagree with God. I would guess that’s what most orthodox rabbis would say too, but I am willing to be corrected on that account.
It depends on the rabbi. There isn’t an orthodox line on this one. The exact verses and lines escape me, but Moses tells God off a couple of times and evil calls his plans evil. A few other places in the bible the text also criticizes God for being evil. Samuels? I think. I’m nowhere close to memorizing the entire bible like an orthodox rabbi.
In general, because the text asserts it and God’s actions imply it, most orthodox rabbis, to the best of my knowledge, think that God can be wrong on occasion and humans can call him out and correctly criticize him.
“Just as Genesis 5:32 does not teach that Noah was 500 when Shem was born, Genesis 11:26 does not teach that Abraham was born when Terah was 70. This verse basically means that Terah began having children at age 70, not that all three children were born at that age. According to other passages, Terah was 130 when Abraham was born. Those who allege these passages contradict Genesis 11:26 simply are misunderstanding the text by not taking into account that certain Hebrew phrases possess a wider connotation than what might be perceived in modern-day English.”
http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=758
I can make a case for the contradictions above. Throughout the Gospels, there are also discrepancies between the four apostles. But this actually gives credibility to the four accounts, because if all the apostles had the same story it would seem as if someone just copied the first version (Mark). By having a story that is different can actually mean the basis of the story is true. For instance, A man robs a store. The police come and take reports from all the people who were present at the time. The stories are not going to match one hundred percent, but that doesn’t mean the robbery didn’t happen. The same goes for the Gospels. The resurrection has many discrepancies between who saw Jesus first. This might pose a problem for Christianity at first glance. Bur I see it differently though. I see four differing accounts of the resurrection.
The same can apply for the above contradictions.
Matthew, right, that’s why I don’t have a problem with the centurion stories. As you say, that’s what you would expect if two eyewitnesses (even) wrote down their versions of the event, years after it happened.
However, like I said the thing about Abram’s age bothers me, because there the apparent contradiction presumably comes from the hand of the same writer, and very close to each other. So either the original language renders it in a way that says Terah wasn’t actually 70 when Abram was born, or there is something odd going on that makes us doubt the care of the writer.
Are you sure you will deliver cold fusion by 2016 if you add the Bible contradictions to Krugman’s kontradictions?
Mam, cold fusion ideas are more promising than any Bob has, or any Austrian for that matter.
I should note:
In the Jewish orthodox rabinnic tradition, we take the text very seriously. We read it literally. What it says, it says. So take a fake line, “And then God smote random people because he was bored.” Whereas a Christian or Reform Judaism apologist might read the line as “And then God [gave puppies to] people because [it assisted in the great battle against evil],” an orthodox Jew would read the line as “And then God smote random people because he was bored.”
Also, “God works in mysterious ways” is not an acceptable argument among rabbis unless you’re REALLY desperate, although you can use it to comfort the “Jew on the street,” so to speak, if he has suffered a tragedy, or if he is confused about why we worship a God who kills random people and you don’t have much time.
I stopped reading when I started laughing uncontrollably. You rationalized incest. lmao Well, but you are in the south.
YAWN. That’s the best you have?
There are many who believe that the Bible is perfect the way it is. I have never felt that that had to be the case. The Bible makes no such claims about itself. Indeed, the Bible itself was not complied until long after the individual books were written so individual books do not speak for the whole of the Bible. I see no reason to have to believe that it has to be perfect in every way for it to be a true book. Even if it were, every individual is imperfect and will always misunderstand parts of it. The purpose of the Bible is not prove that God exists, it is a tool to help us to come to God by teaching us true principles.
God uses us as His instruments to help others. In doing so we make mistakes. God used men to write His teachings. Things they did not fully understood. Why would we expect these prophets to be perfect when we are not? The documents were transmitted and copied from generation to generation by people who were imperfect. Why would we expect them to not make some mistakes?
What I did not understand as an Athiest was that God lets us do His work to so that we can improve ourselves, but then makes up for our shortcomings. The messages and principles of the Bible can be taught through the power of the Holy Spirit, facilitated by the Bible. Mistakes and minor contradictions are irrelevant.
The original comment listed a lot of creation story contradictions too. I am always amazed that so many American Christians still cling to young earth creationism despite the plainness of those contradictions. Just like the one you mention here, its not like the contradictions are hiding. A couple pages after the account they claim to be what actually happened, the same book of Genesis provides a completely different account.
Of course, not all Christians are young earth creationists – but it amazes me that there are any left given that. It does make you realize, it’s probably not God’s word that’s stopping them from accepting evolution since they clearly aren’t interested in grappling with the contradictory Genesis accounts – which are both God’s word. I imagine the root of it is the same thing that causes a lot of people to reject social science as a real science: they’re afraid to acknowledge that they are just another animal… a very special animal, but just like all the rest on this planet.
The depth of the problem depends on your view of the Bible as inerrant or not. Personally, I think the only tenable position from a believer’s viewpoint is that the Bible must be inerrant otherwise there really is no point to the whole exercise. After all, if we don’t really know what God said how can we make any claims as to whether or not we are doing what God commands.
I understand that many mainline Protestants and Catholics have a problem with inerrancy but, as with Catholics, you end up once removed from the inerrancy problem in that, while the Bible may have problems, the Church itself is inerrant. Again, I think that just removes the divine command problem one step further.
Major Freedom pointed out inconsistencies which should pose a problem for inerrantists in particular and the Christian generally but, as with Bob’s post, the harmonization process engaged in by believers means never having to say your sorry.
I, and others, have continually pointed out the manifest problems with belief in God generally and with the Bible specifically and the response is typically the same – an unwillingness to admit that your belief is faith based and not reason based.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNv2cwLwqEY
Bob, read up on the Talmud. Judaism has very little to do with the Old Testatment (O.T.) (first five books are the written Torah). The real action is in the Talmud and oral Torah.
The contradictions in the O.T. are the result of multiple human hands editing the works over the centuries, early on.
The Levites (priestly class) wanted a stand alone nation centered on the southern tribe of Judah, and considered themselves the chosen people. The northern tribes, collectively called Israel, intermarried with neighboring tribes, and had a much more peaceable disposition. The Levites wrote the Torah to serve their political needs — creating a standalone nation — while interweaving the existing peaceable, moral Israeli traditions. Because of this interweaving by the Levites, there are glaring contradictions in the O.T.: in Deuteronomy, you will find ‘Do not kill (murder)’ and an account of the slaughter of every single man, woman, and child in a tribe whose sole offense was not allowing free passage of the tribe of Judah through their land.
Suggested books:
Jesus and the Talmud by Peter Shafer (Princeton professor)
Jewish History, Jewish Religion by Israel Shahak
The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed (lead correspondent for The Times of London in the ’40s)
The Talmud Unmasked by I.B. Pranaitis (Catholic priest)
I am a practicing Catholic. I now view the violent passages in the O.T. as not figurative and helping set the stage for Jesus, but as menacing and threatening.
The contradictions in the Bible are endless, as you would expect from a text compsoed by many different authors in different times.
Forget the minor contradictions. Here are the major ones undermining the fundamental event in the New Testament: Jesus’s alleged resurrection and exaltation:
(1) In Matthew 28.18, Jesus’ appearance in Galilee seems to be after his exaltation, since according to the author of the Gospel Jesus already has power over all things in heaven and earth. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’ exaltation occurs on the same day as his resurrection, though it happens after the appearance to the eleven in Jerusalem. Yet, in the Acts of the Apostles, the exaltation occurs forty days after the resurrection – this is a major contradiction.
(2) Paul’s notion of the “soma pneumatikos” (pneumatic body) is radically different from the resurrected body of Jesus in the gospels:
In Luke and John, and at Luke 24.36–43 Jesus’ resurrected body was one of flesh and blood: i.e., a resuscitated corpse, since Jesus says that he is not a spirit (pneuma), and that he has flesh and bones, and also invites the disciples to touch his body.
Yet in St Paul, 1 Corinthians 15.37 (which is written long before the Gospels) it is clear beyond any shadow of a doubt that the resurrected body of Jesus is not one of flesh and blood: it is radically different body, something like the form/body of angels, composed of some substance totally different from flesh and blood or bone. Paul says explicitly: “what you sow is not the body that is to be” (1 Corinthians 15.37). That is, what is buried (the dead body of flesh and blood) is NOT what is resurrected. For St Paul, the resurrected body is a glorious, non-corruptible one, that is not made of any flesh, blood or bone.
In fact, Paul probably envisages a resurrection of Jesus direct from the grave and exaltation to heaven at the same time. All subsequent “appearances” of Jesus were just visions, like Paul’s hallucination on the road to Damascus, and Paul puts Jesus’s post-resurrection appearances, such as Peter and James etc., in the same category as his own.
It is clear that the whole “bodily resurrection” of Jesus in the gospels and his appearances in the flesh are fictions: the “bodily resurrection” is denied by St Paul, and is an invention of later Christian cultists.
Thus the whole Christian religion is based on little more than the dreams, delusions, hallucinations – false “visions” – of the early Christian followers of Jesus, and those of Paul (who never even met the earthly Jesus at all). I’ll bet that all these “visions” were nothing more than delusions, just like the delusions of any number of mentally human beings science can observe today.
Some reading for you:
Segal, A. F., 1998, “Paul’s Thinking about Resurrection in its Jewish Context,” New Testament Studies 44.3: 400–419.
Lüdemann, G., 1994, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology (trans. John Bowden), SCM Press, London.
See 1 Corinthians 15:35-49:
“But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”
(1 Corinthians 15:35-49 ESV)
The words “spiritual body” are a translation of the Greek “soma pneumatikos” (pneumatic body).
It is perfectly clear from Paul that a pnuematic body is what Jesus should have after his resurrection; it is
(1) it is not the body that is buried: “what you sow is not the body that is to be”
(2) God gives a new body during the resurrection: “But God gives it a body as he has chosen”.
(3) it is not made of dust: “The first man was from the earth [Adam], a man of dust; the second man [Jesus] is from heaven. ” It follows from this that Paul is talking about the substance of the resurrected body: Adam’s body is composed of flesh and blood,animated by a soul, but is made ultimately of dust/earth. Jesus’s resurrected body is made of a heavenly substance (from Heaven), not dust/earth.
(4) the resurrected body cna never decompose: “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”
Yet in the Gospels Jesus has a body of flesh and bone, and he eats. This crude “revived corpse” view of Gospels is completely contradicted by St Paul.
In closing let me say that the reason I became a Christian is that I independently became convinced of the power of the mind over the body, and then it “suddenly made sense” to me how this historical guy Jesus of Nazareth could have gone around actually healing people. But the more I went down that path, the more ridiculous the knots into which I tied myself. For example, I think the best hypothesis to explain the proliferation of Christianity is that Jesus really was nailed to a cross and was buried, and then some of His followers saw Him walking around days later. (I have mentioned before that I got this idea from H.L. Mencken, who wasn’t a Christian.) So it got really hard for me to say, “This is all just a big coincidence, there really isn’t a God, but this guy bought into these ancient superstitions, thought he was God’s son, then he went around healing the sick and correctly predicted that he would rise from the dead. But Jesus just got lucky; there were probably thousands of people throughout history who did the same thing, but since they stayed dead we don’t know about them.”
What exactly was the event or series of events that convinced you of the mind’s power over the body, and given this, how does “God exists” follow?
What was it that converted you from atheism? If it is an event or series of events, then why rule out a rational, “secular” explanation? You must have already been psychologically “willing” before these events took place, if these events could serve as a reason to abandon atheism. As such, I doubt the veracity of your position (not saying you’re lying, just saying maybe you are simply mistaken) that you were an atheist before these events took place. I think your mind was already open to it, and it just so happened that you lived in a predominantly Christian nation, so you chose that one. I mean, suppose you were living in downtown Tehran and you had the same events happen to you. Are you really saying that you would have still chosen Christianity and not Islam? What if you never even heard of Christianity? Can’t adopt what you don’t even know about!
My point is, it was never the compelling rigor and logical consistency of the Bible’s various books that made me convert from atheism.
Logic is what compelled you, and what still compels you, you to reject Keynesianism and Krugman’s worldview. You make this very clear through weekly, sometimes daily, “Kontradictions.”
If Keynesians aren’t rationally permitted to believe in a contradictory school of economics, if your readers should reject Keynesianism on the basis of logic, then why are you rationally permitted to believe in a contradictory school of metaphysics and why should your readers adopt Christianity? Aren’t you talking out of two faces?
Why is logic enough for us to reject Keynesianism, but not Christianity? Aren’t you undercutting the very foundation of your rejection of Keynesianism? Aren’t you telling your readers: “OK guys, logic only applies to arguments when I say it applies. All other arguments, especially metaphysics, logic does not apply. Don’t ask me to explain why, because “it just occurred to me one day” alright? Stop pestering me. I had an epiphany, and that’s that. No, Krugman and all others talking about economics are not allowed epiphanies. I am allowed them because this is beyond mere human life. This is something beyond human comprehension. No, when I say beyond human comprehension, I also mean it’s beyond my comprehension too, but you still have to take me seriously because….I had an epiphany. A revelation.”
Why is Krugman “wrong” for believing in a contradictory school of economics, whereas you are not wrong for believing in a contradictory school of metaphysics?
If you permit me to reject Keynesianism on the basis of logic, why not the bible too? Is it because rejecting the bible is “too risky”, a la Descartes? That’s just fear guiding that idea. Fear is caused by ignorance, so the solution is thinking, not believing.
What if Krugman or some other Keynesians said to you, “Bob, yes, Keynes contradicted himself, but that is not what attracted me to Keynesianism and it is not what converted me away from economics. One day, , through an independent event that happened to me, it just “suddenly occurred to me”. Then after some time, I thought some more, and concluded there is no way that Keynesianism could have spread around the world like it did, if it wasn’t right. I mean, what are the chances of that? Therefore, no matter how many contradictions in Keynesianism you identify, you will not convert me, because I have “faith” that it is right.”
Then I’ll point you to human society being “misled” for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years prior to Christianity appearing in 30 AD, and say “Bob, it’s possible for the entire human race to be wrong.”
Why do you consider Krugman wrong, when you could have said darn, we should instead let Krugman continue to say contradictory things, because he had a Hari Seldonian “epiphany”, and we should shut up and go sit in the corner and read the General Theory in its original form until we puke, so that we can find some heretofore hidden meaning that has since been lost in translation to us idiots, and instead spread the gospel of Krugman in the meantime?
Admitting that there are possible contradictions bothers me, for the obvious reason that it casts doubt on the other passages that are the foundation of my faith. And I hate to say this for those who want to “settle this” one way or the other by next Thursday, but I know that for my own satisfaction, I will have to study A LOT more to learn about the Bible, its history, what it says in the original languages, etc.
In the original languages? Why should that matter? It shouldn’t, unless….unless one wanted to reconcile the contradictions!
So 99% of all practising Christians today, who do not read the original documents, are obeying a morality and living a life according to a text that is contradictory and most probably not consistent with the original documents. How could any good come out of this mess?
Shouldn’t that be disturbing to one who values and calls for logical rigor in economics? Or is this something that enables one to put just one foot through the door of megalomania that is necessary to believe in it in the first place, just to find some “release”, some “escape”, some “fresh air”, away from the perceived “limitations” to human life, the “stuffiness”, the “trapped” feeling, that logical rigor can potentially invoke in those whose subconscious refuses to accept reality as it is? This “spirit” of wanting to be free not only from human violence, but objective reality itself, is the necessary component in adopting a religion. Think back. Was there some physical impairment, some physical entrapment, some physical barrier, that was intolerable, or which you you interpreted as “an illusion,” brought about by a refusal to “understand” that your mind does not have to be in line with physical reality if it doesn’t want to, that made it seem like there is another “dimension” that has true reality?
Here’s more “smoking gun” biblical contradictions:
EX 20:13, DT 5:17, MK 10:19, LK 18:20, RO 13:9, JA 2:11 God prohibits killing.
EX 32:27, DT 7:2, 13:15, 20:1-18 God orders killing.
EX 3:20-22, DT 20:13-17 God instructs the Israelites to despoil the Egyptians, to plunder them.
EX 20:15, 17, LE 19:13 God prohibits stealing, defrauding, and robbing.
DT 24:16, EZ 18:19-20 Children are not to suffer for their parent’s sins.
EX 20:5, 34:7, NU 14:18, DT 5:9, IS 14:21-22 Children are to suffer for their parent’s sins.
RO 5:12, 19, 1CO 15:22 Death is passed to all men by the sin of Adam.
1SA 17:50 David killed Goliath with a slingshot, and David had no sword.
1SA 17:51 David killed Goliath with a sword.
NU 15:24-28 Sacrifices can, in at least some cases, take away sin.
HE 10:11 Sacrifices can never take away sin.
NU 33:38 Aaron died on Mt. Hor.
DT 10:6 Aaron died in Mosera.
DT 23:1 Castrates may not enter the assembly of the Lord.
IS 56:4-5 Castrates will receive special treatment and not be sent away from the Lord.
JG 4:21 Sisera was sleeping when Jael killed him.
JG 5:25-27 Sisera was standing when Jael killed him.
The following two sets of verses are contradictions between OT law and NT law:
DT 24:1-5 A man can divorce his wife and both he and his wife can remarry.
MK 10:2-12 Divorce is wrong, and to remarry is to commit adultery.
and
EX 20:8-11, 31:15-17, 35:1-3 Do not work on the Sabbath, don’t even light a fire. The commandment is perpetual (permanent), and violators must be killed.
MK 2:27-28 Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, after his disciples were criticized for breaking the Sabbath.
RO 14:5, CN 2:14-16 Paul says that the Sabbath commandment was temporary, and that people should decide for themselves whether to follow that commandment.
If you say the NT law overrules the OT law, then THAT response would contradict Matthew 5:17, Matthew 5:18-19, Luke 16:17, 2 Peter 20-21, John 10:35, 2 Timothy 3:16, and Mark 7:9-13.
MF wrote:
What was it that converted you from atheism? If it is an event or series of events, then why rule out a rational, “secular” explanation? You must have already been psychologically “willing” before these events took place, if these events could serve as a reason to abandon atheism. As such, I doubt the veracity of your position (not saying you’re lying, just saying maybe you are simply mistaken) that you were an atheist before these events took place. I think your mind was already open to it, and it just so happened that you lived in a predominantly Christian nation, so you chose that one.
MF since you asked in reference to my previous post if anyone else “giggled” at certain things I had written, let me turn around and ask the class, “Does anyone else see a problem for MF, the self-avowed champion of reason and evidence, in the above?”
“As such, I doubt the veracity of your position (not saying you’re lying, just saying maybe you are simply mistaken) that you were an atheist before these events took place.”
Well, of course, MF, since we have a natural knowledge of God’s existence, no one is *really* an atheist. Some people just wish to shield themselves from their knowledge of God.
This is making me feel kind of terrible. Why is that you are allowed to retain a self-avowed image of humbleness when pointing out logical problems of Keynesianism, but when I point out the rather explicit contradictions in the bible, then I have to be a “self-avowed champion of reason and evidence”?
I mean, it’s not like I am going around actually thinking or saying that I am any sort of champion of reason or evidence. When it comes to economics, you and many others kick my butt. Why can’t I be a humble occasional correcter of religious contradictions, the way you are a humble occasional correcter of Keynesian contradictions? Or is it the case that pointing out the contradictions in a text you believe in, automatically make them the champion of reason and evidence, in which case you considered yourself a champion beforehand? I giggled again.
I look forward to seeing someone point out the problem in that passage if it exists.
MF go look at that except I pulled out. You are almost saying explicitly that atheism is non-falsifiable. I know that’s not what you “mean,” but look at what you wrote. Replace “atheism” with “Keynesianism” if you like, and see how it sounds.
And replace “Christian” with “Austrian,” and suppose you were reading Daniel Kuehn talk to someone who used to be a Keynesian but switched to being Austrian.
OK, I’ve read:
“What was it that converted you from Keynesianism? If it is an event or series of events, then why rule out a rational, “secular” explanation? You must have already been psychologically “willing” before these events took place, if these events could serve as a reason to abandon Keynesianism. As such, I doubt the veracity of your position (not saying you’re lying, just saying maybe you are simply mistaken) that you were a Keynesian before these events took place. I think your mind was already open to it, and it just so happened that you lived in a predominantly Austrian nation, so you chose that one.”
something like 8 times, and maybe it’s because I didn’t mean to say what you are saying it looks like I’m literally saying, so I *can’t* see it, but I’m trying to see how the above implies Keynesianism is non-falsifiable, and I’m drawing a blank.
Now, to anticipate your response, suppose for the sake of argument that I did agree with you, and I accepted that I did literally say that atheism is non-falsifiable. Well, I *still* don’t see a problem. Maybe you’re making an argument that is over my head, but I always held the position that non-falsifiable propositions, or worldviews, or ideas, are not inherently flawed just because they are non-falsifiable.
Non-falsifiable propositions are only problematic if you have already adopted and accepted the “positivist” epistemology. If you adopt positivism, then sure, making non-falsifiable propositions is a faux pas, because it’s a rule of positivism that non-falsifiable propositions are “non-scientific.”
But what if we don’t presume positivism? After all, Austrian praxeology is not based on positivism, but on rationalism.
For example, “action” is non-falsifiable. It is non-falsifiable because any attempt to falsify it, would itself be an action.
Another example is that A is A and cannot be anything other than A (law of identity). This proposition is non-falsifiable, because it is impossible for us to even contemplate A being A and not A at the same time.
Non-falsifiable propositions, worldviews, ideas, etc, are those propositions the contra-positives of which are nonsensical and absurd.
It is this latter category of nonsensical and absurd ideas that I put the concept of “God” into. More on this below.
Now you said that it is wrong to consider atheism as a non-falsifiable worldview. Is it though? I would argue no. Why? Because I consider the contrapositive of atheistic ideas to themselves be nonsensical/absurd, because it is based on a nonsensical/absurd concept. My mind cannot even grasp the concept “God” and give meaning to it. Is that position itself flawed? I would argue no again. Why?
Well, I adhere to the “theological non-cognitivism” position, and I have yet to be shown any argument that can give meaning to “God” that that would shake that position. So I don’t actually consider myself atheist, because that would imply that there is something meaningful for me to not believe in. But because I don’t even consider God to be meaningful, or coherent, there is nothing for me to not believe in, thus justifying the label a-thing, or a-theist, or atheist. I just use the term because that’s how theists label myself and others who think like me, and rather than constantly point this out, I just usually go along with it.
Secondly, and along with this, my actual position is that I am still waiting for a coherent, meaningful, definition of the concept “God”, so that I can then go ahead and take the next step and talk about whether this “God” exists or not.
As I hope that you know, the attributes omnipotence and omniscience, two attributes commonly given to the concept God, make that conception of God an inherently contradictory concept. For an all knowing God who sees the past, present and future, cannot be omnipotent, and an omnipotent being cannot foresee his future choices, lest he lose the attribute of omnipotence. Now, I distinctly recall you trying to reconcile that contradiction, and I was not convinced, so as of now, I’m still waiting for a coherent and non-contradictory definition of “God” from you.
Lastly, over the millennia, many attempts to reconcile inherent contradictions in the concept of God have been made, the most important of which, in my view, is the irreconcilable notions of unchanging absolute self-sufficiency and singularity (God), with contingent temporal multiplicity (Creation, universe, etc).
Nicholas of Cusa, circa 15th century, and Jakob Böhme, circa 17th century, are two of the more prominent figures who made this problem explicit, and tried to reconcile it, and both admittedly failed to do it. They gave up and said it is beyond human comprehension.
The difference between these two theologians (and I will include yourself with them) and myself, at root, is my position that if something is inherently contradictory to human understanding, then I won’t continue to accept the ideas anyway on the basis of putting myself and all of human reason down into the gutter solely because humans are physically and intellectually unable to comprehend theological contradictions. I won’t take the lazy cop out route and say “God works in mysterious ways.”
My position is that ideas which are necessary for human thinking, like non-contradiction, are in fact understandings of real objective truths about the natural world. We are, after all, a PART of the natural world. For rationalists, what is necessarily true about our thinking can tell us something true about reality itself.
If our thinking categories do not permit contradictory concepts, then that means anyone who says a contradictory concept exists, is speaking nonsense to me.
Major – you, obviously, can do what you like but I think your time (and mine for that matter) may be better spent on other things than engaging in “debate” on these topics. There is no evidence you can offer against the validity of the Bible that will take the blinders off the believer. As you can see for yourself, you pointed to gross contradictions in the Bible and the response by Bob et al. was in the nature of “I can reconcile that” or “that can be harmonized with this” – there is no way to punch through the force field of wish fulfillment in this regard.
I only post on these topics when something is grossly overstated and even then it is fruitless. Two separate accounts of the fall – no problem, they can be harmonized. Jesus had a fleshly resurrection yet suddenly appeared through a locked door in the upper room – did he transport a la Star Trek or was he actually not flesh? The inconsistencies boggle the mind and beg so many questions and yet the believer just trots along blindly “reconciling” all the way. This, in any other context, would be a sign of mental illness.
Major – as I said (and we have disagreed in the past) you can obviously tilt at windmills here and I will welcome your thoughts but I’m not sure that there is room for headway here.
I am not diagnosing mental illness in anyone on this thread with the exception of Gene. 🙂
Knoxharrington wrote:
There is no evidence you can offer against the validity of the Bible that will take the blinders off the believer. As you can see for yourself, you pointed to gross contradictions in the Bible and the response by Bob et al. was in the nature of “I can reconcile that” or “that can be harmonized with this” – there is no way to punch through the force field of wish fulfillment in this regard.
Knox, I’m having trouble reconciling a gross contradiction between my statements that on 3 of them, I agreed they were contradictions, with you “quoting” me in ways that (a) aren’t actual quotes from me and (b) isn’t even in the spirit of what I was saying. Not only did I agree with (some) of MF’s claimed contradictions, I gave him an extra one as a bonus.
My point in doing that was precisely to show you guys that I’m not turning my mind off. I’m not trying to be the stereotypical “you can’t trust reason!” Bible thumper. So, now that I’m trying to extend an olive branch to you guys, maybe you can actually grapple with the things I write instead of rolling your eyes over me “saying it’s faith and not reason” week after week.
“I suppose one way to reconcile it would be to say that people back then might have skipped a generation (or more), e.g. by saying Jesus is the “son of David” or that Abraham was a “father” to all of the Israelites even though those statements wouldn’t be literally true. But, as I say, I concede the plain reading of the text makes this seem a contradiction.”
“OK this one I don’t think is a problem. I have two responses:
First, the way I’m reading the story, Lot didn’t know what was happening. I guess you could say it’s a bit weird that he lets his daughters get him that smashed, but the writer goes out of his way in both cases to say that Lot “did not know when she lay down or when she arose.” (Also to get the full context, the daughters are worried about preserving the family line. This isn’t like they just have some weird urge to sleep with their father.)
Second, the idea that we’re going to catch the Bible in a contradiction by finding a “good” guy who did bad things is misguided. From a Christian viewpoint, nobody is really just except Jesus. Even King David (“a man after God’s own heart“) had two whoppers of sins. (He slept with another man’s wife and then, when she was pregnant and King David couldn’t convince her husband to come home from battle and be with his wife, David had the guy purposely put in a position where he’d be killed in battle to avoid a scandal.)”
Those are the first two reponses after the quotes (I didn’t include more because of the scrolling).
My point, I think, is proved. I said that the believer reconciles and harmonizes to avoid confronting the, it seems to me, fact that the Bible is all over the map in terms of consistency and is therefore unreliable as a guide to both life and any potential salvation. You acknowledged the apparent problem and then proceeded to attempt to explain it away as if you were a New York policeman saying “alright, shows over.” The contradictions are a PROBLEM and my statements regarding how believers cope with those problems was ably born out by you. I’ve seen this all my life – the believer posits a “well maybe this” statement and goes on about their business. Christians have no problem pointing to logical and factual error in Mormonism but when it comes to their own faith they give it a pass. It’s a little odd to say the least.
Knoxhoarrington wrote:
My point, I think, is proved.
And so is mine. I said that of the apparent contradictions (including the one I provided myself), two were blatant, one clearly wasn’t, and the other two were iffy.
Then you characterized me as saying there were no contradictions.
I corrected you, and then you quoted me talking about how two of them might not be contradictions.
I don’t know what this is, but it’s not a man of reason versus the illogical Christian.
Bob – the contradictions aren’t apparent. You won’t even grant the MF provided examples where the Bible flat contradicts itself. You reconciled and harmonized just as I said. It is obfuscation on your part and the stock in trade of the apologist to try to explain away the problems. I didn’t characterize as saying there were NO contradictions. On the contrary, I characterized you as engaging in apologetics – the harmonization of disparate accounts and the reconciiation in your own mind that they aren’t important. I think that is a fair characterization. If not, then simply say yes MF you are right these are contradictions that I cannot explain away – try as I might.
knox wrote:
If not, then simply say yes MF you are right these are contradictions that I cannot explain away – try as I might.
MF, if you’re reading this, do you agree that I said that to at least two?
Knox wrote:
Bob – the contradictions aren’t apparent.
Knox, you’re saying that if a girl gets her father drunk and lies with him with him not knowing what is going on, that he must not be just? You don’t think that someone might object to this conclusion?
Knox, are you upset over my use of the word “apparent”? That’s the only way I can read my blog post, and see you claiming that I’m playing hard to get.
The reason I’m saying that is that I don’t know the original languages and the history of these texts. So yes, there is a flat out contradiction in Abram’s age, and the story about the centurion, in the English version that I can read. I concede that now, and I conceded it in my original blog post.
MF, if you’re reading this, do you agree that I said that to at least two?
Of course. I’ll vouch for you on this. You made it perfectly clear that you accepted two of them as being contradictions.
knox is obviously just trying to antagonize rather than understand.
Bob,
You qualify with two “seems” and a “suggest.” I was pointing out that by qualifying “apparent” contradictions, circling around and trying to explain them in a way that qualifies them as such is an exercise in apologetical harmonization which, in any other context, would be seen as dissembling.
“Assuming “Salah” is an alternate spelling for “Shelah,” I agree that this SEEMS to be a contradiction.”
“That also SEEMS like a contradiction.”
“I understand why the plain reading here SUGGESTS a contradiction too, but this one doesn’t bother me much.” (emphases added).
Again, I understand why the faithful always attempt to “square the circle” as in (paraphrasing) “this suggests a contradiction but let me explain why that’s not a big deal.” I’m not saying your playing hard to get – I’m saying your engaging in apologetics which is a form of dissembling or reduction in cognitive dissonance. You KNOW this to be true therefore there must be some explanation for why there is an apparent discrepancy rather than there are all these discrepancies maybe this isn’t true.
Knox wrote:
You KNOW this to be true therefore there must be some explanation for why there is an apparent discrepancy rather than there are all these discrepancies maybe this isn’t true.
Well thanks for telling me what I think, even though I never said that. My best guess is that Jesus really did heal a centurion’s servant, and at least one of the gospel writers botched the story.
Have you ever seen me use the argument, “The Bible says…” to prove the truth of something? Do you see how I’m saying the Abram thing worries me, because it calls into question…?
It seems unless I say, “That’s it, I’m an atheist!” you will continue to treat me like a televangelist.
“Well thanks for telling me what I think, even though I never said that.”
Fair enough.
“My best guess is that Jesus really did heal a centurion’s servant, and at least one of the gospel writers botched the story.”
Botched the story? Please explain how a work – that makes the claims that it does – can contain botched stories and still make a claim to be believable? You are basing your belief in an entity, that makes claims on our lives, on a guess? This is my problem with believers – not their belief – but their claims of certainty based on “botched stories” and “guesses.” Unfathomable grandiosity.
“That’s it, I’m an atheist!” you will continue to treat me like a televangelist.”
I don’t mean to treat you like a televangelist if that’s how it comes across. I don’t think you are trying to bilk the credulous out of their money by knowingly telling lies and committing fraud. I just think that believers, such as yourself, make great claims based on a total lack of evidence, other than subjective experience, and that such believers should be marginalized insofar as they effect the lives of non-believers. I don’t care what you believe but stop knocking on my door and bugging me with nonsense (obviously, I mean the royal “you” – you know the editorial, see The Big Lebowski).
At any rate, again, no headway is being made. You, Bob, can grant contradictions, discrepancies, and outright falsehoods found in the Bible – will that change your belief in God and the Bible? I’m “guessing” not – so how fruitful is making arguments to people such as yourself? MF – help me out. Is this fruitful?
knox:
You qualify with two “seems” and a “suggest.” I was pointing out that by qualifying “apparent” contradictions, circling around and trying to explain them in a way that qualifies them as such is an exercise in apologetical harmonization which, in any other context, would be seen as dissembling.
Again, I understand why the faithful always attempt to “square the circle” as in (paraphrasing) “this suggests a contradiction but let me explain why that’s not a big deal.” I’m not saying your playing hard to get – I’m saying your engaging in apologetics which is a form of dissembling or reduction in cognitive dissonance. You KNOW this to be true therefore there must be some explanation for why there is an apparent discrepancy rather than there are all these discrepancies maybe this isn’t true.
knox, that’s Murphy’s way of talking. You’re arguing about semantics.
Murphy also says words like “seems” and “suggests” when talking about Krugman’s kontradictions, and I’m sure you’ll agree that he is probably one of the more likely candidates to be eager in pointing them out, which means he could be using more strong language such as “is” and “must be”, etc.
But he refrains from being 100% assertive, because that’s his style (well, I am sure there were some cases where he was 100% assertive, but they are less common).
You have to be more emotionally mature. Maybe Murphy is struggling to be so assertive when admitting the existence of biblical contradictions, and reluctantly agrees, which shows up as “seems” and “suggests.”
After all, as a former Christian, I can assure you that the level of one’s mental certainty is VERY important. Biblical contradictions and/or errors is something that must be dealt with very sensitively. We’re talking about people’s convictions on metaphysical reality, the afterlife (if there is one), and eternal, permanent concepts that the Christian believes is the difference between an eternity of torment and an eternity of bliss.
Yes, you can think it’s all crazy, but I must say (and coming from me this should tell you something), you have too much of an acerbic and off-putting demeanor for your arguments to be taken seriously.
Did you know that 80% of effective communication is THE WAY you say things, and only 20% is WHAT you say?
You have it almost completely reversed. You expect people to agree with your arguments, when you are serving them deep in a stinking festering pile of cow manure. Sure, what you’re saying might be true, but who wants to psychologically and emotionally soil themselves dealing with you?
Wow you’re a former Christian MF? I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, since you know the subject pretty well. What happened?
“You have it almost completely reversed. You expect people to agree with your arguments, when you are serving them deep in a stinking festering pile of cow manure. Sure, what you’re saying might be true, but who wants to psychologically and emotionally soil themselves dealing with you?”
Physician heal thyself. Who’s with me on that?
It’s hard to tell inflection and tone from the written word as in a post or email. I may come off as acerbic or mean spirited – I can’t help that.
Wow you’re a former Christian MF? I guess it shouldn’t surprise me, since you know the subject pretty well. What happened?
Well, for me, it was realizing that all those years, I was taking what I WANTED to be true, and taking all the feelings and emotions and self-awareness, and turning them into what I could legitimately KNOW to be true.
I don’t know if it was the philosophy I read, or the novels, or the economics, or if it was my time spent in university, but at some point, at it was gradual to get there, I came to learn the difference between what I wanted to be true and what I knew to be true.
At that point, I ceased being a Christian.
Major – as I said (and we have disagreed in the past) you can obviously tilt at windmills here and I will welcome your thoughts but I’m not sure that there is room for headway here.
I appreciate your position towards the concept of “God”, but I will have to disagree with “there is no room for headway”. I take the Confucian, Socratic position that everyone, save the brain damaged and mentally defective (Callahan?) is capable of rectifying any contradictory beliefs they hold, through dialogue.
I do not consider humans to be chained to their ignorance even in the presence of truth. I do not hold that humans are incapable of learning something if they put their effort into it. Anyone can learn general relativity for example, if they put enough time and effort into it. The only thing that holds humans back in this respect is economic scarcity (time, resources, etc).
Humans are capable of learning and changing. It’s a part of our nature. This is true even for the most devout of mystics.
So I will not give up and pretend that I am somehow privy to some special knowledge that is inaccessible to those I am trying to reach. For that would be the exact position that many mystics take, wouldn’t you agree? I hope you aren’t going to claim that you have access to some special atheistic knowledge that current theists are physically incapable of understanding. For if you truly believed that, then you would have to accept the possibility that theists are also capable of being privy to some special knowledge about metaphysical reality that nobody else are privy to.
Bob, you can ding any atheist with that last one, because it’s a good one. Any atheist who argues that theists are physically or mentally incapable of accepting atheist arguments, like knox here is doing, then you can say that they are contradicting themselves, by holding the position that it is silly for theists to claim to have special knowledge that atheists are not physically or mentally capable of being privy to, and holding the position that they themselves have special knowledge that theists are somehow not physically or mentally capable of being privy to.
Major,
Please keep plugging away. I’ve been posting on these threads for some months and no amount of evidence has ever moved any other commenter off zero that I can recall. Witness your own catalog of discrepancies and the responses. No apologist on here has said “you know what MF, your right, you have shown me the problems, I don’t have answers, and I am now an atheist/agnostic.” I just don’t see any headway being made. I freely admit I could be wrong and if you are a former believer who saw the error of your ways by reading these threads please speak up now. You may be able to disabuse me of my notion that believers are engaged in a massive damage control operation bordering on mental illness.
Knox wrote:
You may be able to disabuse me of my notion that believers are engaged in a massive damage control operation bordering on mental illness.
You mean you haven’t converted people with that approach? What a bunch of blowhards these Christians must be.
Knox, do you think it might be annoying in a discussion/debate, when you keep misstating what the other side said?
MF himself agreed with me that I conceded two of his points. And yet, “no amount of evidence” can convince you.
You heard it here first – Bob Murphy has repudiated Christianity and is now back to being an atheist. Welcome back.
All facetiousness aside – you realize you concede two points made by MF and that you still believe. What approach will work when you point out blatant errors and the person still believes? It’s like dealing with Krugman. Belief means never having to say your sorry.
I’m sorry Bob but I pinpoint quoted your “seems” and “suggests” as showing your way of explaining away contradictions – leaving aside the Lot question which I think your explanation of is bordering on the absurd. I don’t want to get into the mechanics of a man having relations with a woman but I don’t know any man (and I was in a fraternity) who ever got so drunk he didn’t know he had sex or, if he did get that drunk, was capable of the act.
Witness your own catalog of discrepancies and the responses. No apologist on here has said “you know what MF, your right, you have shown me the problems, I don’t have answers, and I am now an atheist/agnostic.”
Well let’s back up a bit. I did get Murphy to explicitly write about his acceptance of contradictions in the bible. Granted, he said that he already knew of them, but even the act of writing about and saying what you already know, sometimes, SOMETIMES, can make you look at it differently, and result in putting more emphasis on it as a premise, thus altering your conclusions.
You’re right though, up until this point I haven’t changed minds on this blog about God, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible, or that things haven’t already been sent into motion the conclusion of which is a changing of minds.
I freely admit I could be wrong and if you are a former believer who saw the error of your ways by reading these threads please speak up now.
I have learned by reading this blog. It’s kind of why I come here. If I didn’t learn anything, I would find it a complete waste of time to do nothing but be antagonistic.
You may be able to disabuse me of my notion that believers are engaged in a massive damage control operation bordering on mental illness.
I wouldn’t call it a mental illness, not when the person is honestly trying to make sense of things, which I am almost positive Murphy is about.
If anyone is being dishonest, I am tending towards labeling you as such, because you claimed, despite Murphy’s repeated statements to the contrary, that ALL he did was attempt to reconcile every single contradiction in the bible. The total count I have is three for Murphy: two in the list I posted, and one he already knew about.
knox:
You heard it here first – Bob Murphy has repudiated Christianity and is now back to being an atheist. Welcome back.
All facetiousness aside – you realize you concede two points made by MF and that you still believe. What approach will work when you point out blatant errors and the person still believes? It’s like dealing with Krugman. Belief means never having to say your sorry.
knox, there is a HUGE difference between pointing out a contradiction in some text, and rejecting the entire text as incorrect solely on the basis of that contradiction. That’s called spoiling the well and it’s a fallacy.
If there is a text, then the identification of a contradiction within that text does not mean everything else is false. Only if ALL the other arguments and passages in that text depend on the contradiction being true, can you rationally reject the entire text.
Now, the three contradictions Murphy accepts, are not premises that can enable one to reject the existence of God, or Jesus’ divinity, etc, you know, the “big” issues. It’s not enough. The only thing that the three contradictions can do is CAST DOUBT on the veracity of the other claims made. It cannot serve to refute them.
You’re sitting there saying that Bob should become an atheist because a bible authors got some dates and ages wrong, or got some Christian laws wrong?
The rational position to take is not to be so eager in LABELING people as atheists that you skip important steps and declare “You should admit you’re an atheist!” to anyone who agrees that Terah was younger or older than a biblical passage states he was. I mean come on. You’re cheapening the dialogue here.
MF,
You listed quite a large number of discrepancies and as you say you got Bob to admit that three of them are contradictory. My point is not that one discrepancy or contradiction disproves the whole. I would simply put it the question this way – does the great number of discrepancies, contradictions and outright falsehoods represented in a text (like the Bible) lend one to think it is reliable? And, given the claims made in and on behalf of the Bible, shouldn’t the standard be slightly higher than for other texts?
We can nitpick the dates, ages, etc. or we can talk about grand falsities like the Exodus, Noah’s flood, etc. – either way the point is made – the Bible is unreliable.
Last thing, I pointed out that Bob was engaging in apologetical harmonization and reconciliation – which is an attempt to explain away the problems or say that they are unimportant. They may be unimportant in the “grand scheme” i.e., the small things don’t disprove Jesus divinity but, given the vast amount of “mistakes” doesn’t that beg a serious question. Somehow the apologists never seem to wrestle with one. Pick up any Lee Strobel book – the most popular apologist of our time – and it won’t take five pages to see what I mean.
You listed quite a large number of discrepancies and as you say you got Bob to admit that three of them are contradictory. My point is not that one discrepancy or contradiction disproves the whole.
Then why did you say that Murphy should conclude that he should take the atheist position, i.e. reject the bible, on the basis of those few contradictions he accepted?
I would simply put it the question this way – does the great number of discrepancies, contradictions and outright falsehoods represented in a text (like the Bible) lend one to think it is reliable?
He already said that he grants that identifying some contradictions does cast doubt on the other passages. But he wasn’t so wrong as to say that the whole thing should be rejected on the basis of those contradictions.
Which economics school do you adhere to? Suppose I identify one contradiction in it. Would you immediately reject the entire school, or would you do what Murphy did, and say “I don’t know everything about the bible, and I need to do some more reading in order to be sure that everything else is solid enough for me to retain my adherence to the other arguments/passages”?
I bet you’d do what Murphy did and not jump to conclusions, and not say the whole should be rejected and say “I have to do more reading to make sure where and how this contradiction implicates other statements in the school/text.
And, given the claims made in and on behalf of the Bible, shouldn’t the standard be slightly higher than for other texts?
I don’t think so. I think the standard should be reason.
The bible is utilized by people who treat others in all sorts of ways, good and bad. I think the bible should be held to the SAME standard that we judge all other texts, namely, reason, logic, and evidence, to the best of our ability.
We can nitpick the dates, ages, etc. or we can talk about grand falsities like the Exodus, Noah’s flood, etc. – either way the point is made – the Bible is unreliable
Well, this is the tricky part. Yes, the bible as a whole would be unreliable on the basis of identifying contradictions in it, but this unreliability cannot itself be a sound footing to conclusively reject it. There must be some sure thing that does it. Identifying contradictions does go a long way, but if you want to conclusively reject the more important convictions, like the existence of God, and Jesus’ divinity, then you won’t be able to do that by identifying incorrect dates, names, times, and what have you.
My method is to go to the core of the concept of “God”, what it is supposed to mean, and see if that concept is meaningful and coherent.
So far, I have not been presented with a coherent and meaningful definition of “God”, and the definitions that have been given, are inherently contradictory, so I can safely reject God as it has so far been defined.
Last thing, I pointed out that Bob was engaging in apologetical harmonization and reconciliation – which is an attempt to explain away the problems or say that they are unimportant. They may be unimportant in the “grand scheme” i.e., the small things don’t disprove Jesus divinity but, given the vast amount of “mistakes” doesn’t that beg a serious question.
That sounds like nails on a chalkboard when you say “beg the question”, because begging the question is not when someone says something that you believe needs to be explained further. It is when someone uses a premise for a conclusion that matches the conclusion.
At any rate, yes, the existence of contradictions does cast doubt on the rest of the bible. Murphy himself even stated this. But admitting the casting of doubt is not enough to conclusively reject one’s conviction on it. Yes, we have to deal with someone’s faith that it is true, so it probably sounds odd for me to propose that as a standard, because it is shifting the burden of proof, but we’re talking about dialogue and communication with people who are open to admitting such fallacies into their total worldview, which requires a little nuance rather than strict adherence to proper argumentation rules.
I mean, if you had the choice between being exactly correct in your logic, but not convincing the other person, versus making one or two purposeful fallacies, in order to nudge them in a way they understand, so that they actually do arrive at the conclusion you desire, after which you then gradually correct the purposeful fallacies made, which seals the deal, then which would you pick?
Somehow the apologists never seem to wrestle with one. Pick up any Lee Strobel book – the most popular apologist of our time – and it won’t take five pages to see what I mean.
It’s rather intimidating, isn’t it? There are so many people in the world who ought to have mental self-adjustments, and for the most devout and preach-like, it would take years, one on one, atheist to theist, to fix errors that one or both may have in the way they argue their case.
I don’t have the time or inclination to do that.
“Modern usage
Many English speakers use “begs the question” to mean “raises the question”, and follow that phrase with the question that is raised;[11] for example, “this year’s deficit is half a trillion dollars, which begs the question: how are we ever going to balance the budget?” Many philosophers and prescriptive linguists deem such usage incorrect.[12][13] Academic linguist Mark Liberman recommends avoiding the phrase entirely.” From WikiPedia
Obviously, I used the term in its popular usage. Nails on a chalkboard? That’s a slight exaggeration, right? 🙂
I have reasons other than the contradictions for rejecting the Bible but strategically if you can point to the contradictions, factual errors, discrepancies and falsehoods within a religious text hopefully the theist will begin to doubt the reliability of the text and possibly question the faith. Again, I really don’t care that people believe in this stuff but the fact that we live in a world with states, and religious people control many of those states, I think the more the religious are confronted with their nonsense the better off we will all be because somebody needs to keep calling BS on this stuff. Making voluntary choices illegal solely based on some religious conviction means the religious conviction must be attacked to either encourage a little more reflection or to stop the onerous hand of government enforcing purely religious concerns.
“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” Romans 13:1
Bob, I love your work as an economist, but surely you can’t defend all of the teachings in the Bible. Aren’t there many passages that condemn the very things austro-libertarians support?
Ok, so I’d read about Romans 13:1 on the internet. I then pulled a copy of the bible off my shelf and actually read the passage in context. It is far worse than I thought.
Apparently, ALL governments are put in place by God. (13:1)
And, governments only do bad things to people that deserve it. (13:3)
And, everyone must pay their taxes. (13:6-7)
How in the world can a libertarian support this statist dribble? Bob, please let me know how you can reconcile these passages with your (supremely principled) libertarian views.
Thanks.
The passage is correct. The state would be unnecessary without the fall, but, given the fall, it is ours by an act of divine providence, so that some minimal order may be retained in our fallen world. You DO owe taxes to any legitimate government. Taxes are not theft: it is the act of withholding them that is aggression. There were probably anarchists kicking around amongst the early Christians, and St. Paul wanted to be very clear what the Christian position on the issue is.
I never read the word “legitimate” in those passages….but I do like how you slipped it in your post.
According to those passages, ALL governments are legitimate because they are established by god.
But I do agree that it seems the christian thing to do is pay your taxes and obey all government dictates. Lucky for me, I’m not christian.
Yes, Tom, me and 2000 years of history of Christian political thought just “slipped” that qualifier in.
Come on, where do you see the word “legitimate” in those passages? Please don’t be dishonest. I looked at a dozen versions of Romans 13:1 and all of them clearly state that ALL governments are established by God.There is a huge difference between your comments and the actual biblical text. It is fine if you disagree with the teachings of Romans 13:1-7, but please don’t pretend doesn’t mean what it says.
Here is a link of many different translations….
http://bible.cc/romans/13-1.htm
What if you were living under Hitler or Stalin?
Legitimate government? Why or why not?
If legitimate, then there would be no Christian basis for rejecting totalitarianism.
You DO owe taxes to any legitimate government. Taxes are not theft: it is the act of withholding them that is aggression.
You do NOT owe taxes to any government. Taxes are theft: it is the act of taking them that is aggression.
Tom, you’re not the first to ask me about Romans 13. Maybe I’ll handle that next week. (Don’t worry, my answer isn’t Gene’s.)
I am interested in your interpretation of Romans 13:1-7 and look forward to reading your response.
Thanks for initiating an interesting conversation.
You’d better write fast! I predict that < 6 months it will be.
“What was it that converted you from atheism? If it is an event or series of events, then why rule out a rational,”
Oh, and God being the source of reason and order, God is *the* most rational explanation possible! You do know that “logos” is probably translated better “reason” than “word,” so John begins “In the beginning was reason, and reason was with God,” right?
I think the best hypothesis to explain the proliferation of Christianity is that Jesus really was nailed to a cross and was buried, and then some of His followers saw Him walking around days later.
Why isn’t there a comparable Church of Elvis Presley? Because he wasn’t nailed to a cross?
Mammoth, how many people who have claimed to see Elvis, were willing to die for that belief?
As suicide bombers? I don’t think Elvis ever asked for such a thing.
“‘And, now the end is near’… here’s one to you, brand new Cadillac. ‘I’ve lived a life that’s full’, for you, brand new Cadillac. ‘Regrest, I’ve had a few’…The lady in the back, brand new Cadillac.
This will no doubt settle the issue once and for all.
http://www.project-reason.org/gallery3/image/105/
That’s pretty cool, but I’m betting a lot of them aren’t actual contradictions. However, I also bet some of them are, at least upon a plain reading of the text.
We need Gary North to weigh in on this discussion.
Suggested reference:
Gleason L. Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, Archer was an Old Testament scholar and a master of ancient languages. Take a look.
thx
I couldn’t believe it when I read you admit to having faith in Christianity! For someone with such a reasoned approach to market forces, it’s baffling that you appeal to faith when defining your life philosophy. And — all based on very old stories which tell of miracles that are baseless and obviously false on face value alone. [Gee whiz! — edited by RPM]
Keep reading, James N. Maybe after a few Sunday posts (that’s when I do the religious ones) you’ll stop being baffled.
It will never cease to baffle me how anyone can appeal to faith — the absence of reason — as the “explanation” to anything. Moreso in severe cases of compartmentalization like yourself, being *extra* rational in other important areas of your life — your work. Come on! You’re a really smart person!
Hey, isn’t James putting forth the “argument from personal incredulity” that evolutionists like to mock so much? I think he is.
More like the “argument against lack of reason in matters of metaphysics when establishing belief.”
It ceases to be baffling when you come to terms with the fact that Austrian Economics is based on faith as well.
What Austrian propositions must be taken on faith? Oh that’s right, that would presume you actually know Austrian economics enough to actually back up such assertions. Oops.
As I discovered while arguing with him some months back, Knox adheres to the curious notion that unless a text is error-free we can never have grounds for crediting anything in it. Though in many respects I am sure he is an intelligent fellow, his mind is handicapped by a bizarre epistemology that makes argument with him futile.
Not so. The Bible makes demonstrably false claims and I want to know how we weed out the bad from the good. How do we know which is correct and which is not? It seems to me that given the claims being made – and the origin of the claims and how the claims are derived – it is reasonable to demand some level of reliability. I never have said there is not value in the Bible – their is value in many works of literature – what I have said, and will continue to say, is that as far as being a reliable guide to some salvation and as proof of a divine entity or origin the Bible is excrementally sloppy and wholly unreliable.
My epistemological requirement is only that the a book derived from God be consistent and supported by the evidence. Your right – that’s bizarre. If God can’t get his revelation to us right where else has he botched the job? I know that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds but please do yourself the service of acknowledging that this is faith and not reason and that the truly bizarre epistemology is knowledge claims based on faith and not on reason.
You argued that the gospel accounts do not qualify as evidence of the existence of Nazareth in the first century AD. And your justification for this strange position was that the gospels contradict each other on an entirely unrelated point.
They don’t qualify and the archaelogical record, the claim for the existence of synagogues in Galilee and other related “facts” are anachronisms written back into the text by redactors. That position is far from strange – it may be strange to you who has not looked into this but too many it is widely accepted even if controversial. Once again, examine the Q theory, the date the Gospels were written, the later additions to Mark, the Marcionite and Pauline redactions to the Gospels, etc. I’m sure these are “new” to you but that doesn’t make them strange. I’m not saying there is not room for debate – just that your case is not so open and shut as you would like.
I am perfectly familiar with the Q hypothesis and the (for the most part painfully inconclusive) debates over when the various books of the New Testament were written. But those controversies, though interesting in their own right, have no bearing on this subject.
The later redactor you postulate would have no more incentive than the original authors to tie Jesus to an obscure city outside the region from which the Messiah was expected to come. But even setting that to the side, the possibility of corruption only weakens the evidentiary value of a text—it does not destroy it.
Even the maximal conservative Biblical scholar will not have Mark written any earlier than around 70. I don’t want to retrod the “oldest game of telephone on record” routine with Luke and Matthew being redactions from Mark and Q which shows that at most you have one extant source for three Gospels which itself was heavily redacted (that being Mark). Mark didn’t even mention the resurrection until it was added in later.
Debates like the Q theory are directly on point. If you look outside the Bible to verify its contents you are holding an empty sack. If you examine the Bible and its origins from within you run into problem after problem. There was no census that required Mary and Joseph to travel to Bethlehem. That was added in to satisfy some perceived prophecy. There is no record of Herod ordering the first born to be killed – that is a regurgitation of the Passover story. All this stuff is just made up out of whole cloth.
The “evidence” has been altered so many times it hardly qualifies as evidence – if it ever did in the first place given that it was written so long after the events depicted.
There are so many anachronistic pieces written back into the text it boggles the mind. “Take up your cross and follow me” – what does that mean to anyone listening at the time? It doesn’t have meaning until after the crucifixion. Obviously, it was written back in – there were no scribes recording Jesus’ teaching so it is of entirely human construction. The Gospels are replete with this kind of stuff. It doesn’t prove that this stuff isn’t true but it kind of reminds one of Jon Lovitz’ congenital liar character – yeah, that’s the ticket!
My favorite is the zombie story in Matthew 27. It’s awesome. At Jesus’ death the tombs rolled open and the dead walked around Jerusalem. Stan Lee couldn’t write this stuff. Does anybody really believe that? If it’s the case that you think it’s metaphor what is metaphor and what is real? Who decides? What criteria? Why are we believing in a savior which is the product of metaphor? How do we know he didn’t really teach premarital intercourse and smoking pot? Was the theology written to serve the men in society? What had a greater impact on the spreading of Christianity? Constantine or the holy spirit?
What you have just done is exactly what I accused you of doing earlier. We are talking about whether a particular claim of the gospels has evidentiary value. Your rejoinder is to bring up totally unrelated objections to the general veracity of the gospel accounts.
If you sincerely think that “[e]ven the maximal conservative Biblical scholar will not have Mark written any earlier than around 70,” then you need to read more widely. Some would place Matthew, Luke, and Acts considerably earlier than that (c. 62 AD), with Mark having been composed in the mid-50s. Those dates are as plausible as later ones, but no dating scheme is utterly compelling. The evidence is just too fragmentary.
“What had a greater impact on the spreading of Christianity? Constantine or the holy spirit?”
Is the insinuation that the religion owed its success to the Roman Empire? Christianity grew rapidly during its first three centuries—which is the only reason the prospect of a Christian emperor was ever viable to begin with.
The evidence may be fragmentary but even under your best reckoning the Gospels and Acts were written 20 years after the events they purport to report on.
You have to look at the general veracity because of the wide discrepancies between Gospels. What day and time was Jesus crucified? Who went to the tomb first? Did Jesus ascend just after the crucifixion or 40 days later as in Acts? The fact remains – and, please, open your eyes – that there is NO evidence outside the Bible for the events recorded in the Gospels and, when viewed for internal consistency, the Gospels are, putting it charitably, a mess.
We could look at every claim individually but I’m not sure where that gets us – the corroboratory evidence is the Bible – and as should be readily apparent from the discussion by Bob their are manifold contradictions which make the Bible grossly unreliable. I know you don’t want it to be so but wish in one hand and s*** in the other and see which one fills up first.
It’s not an insinuation at all. Christianity would have been just another religion of a dying and rising god like Isis, Dionysius and many other but for the fact that Constantine made it the official religion.
“the truly bizarre epistemology is knowledge claims based on faith and not on reason.”
ALL epistemological claims have an element of faith in them. This whole “faith versus reason” canard has been debunked so many times, Knox, that I’m starting to think that you have a… religious belief in your doctrines, and really don’t listen to… reason on these matters.
ALL epistemological claims have an element of faith in them.
False. Rationalist epistemology does not require any faith.
Obviously you have not read Kant, Mises, or Hoppe.
Didn’t you see where Gene called that a canard? QED
“Faith versus reason” is valid because faith is not a method of acquiring knowledge, ever, while reason is a person’s *only* method by which to acquire knowledge.
“My point is, it was never the compelling rigor and logical consistency of the Bible’s various books that made me convert from atheism. Admitting that there are possible contradictions bothers me, for the obvious reason that it casts doubt on the other passages that are the foundation of my faith. And I hate to say this for those who want to “settle this” one way or the other by next Thursday, but I know that for my own satisfaction, I will have to study A LOT more to learn about the Bible, its history, what it says in the original languages, etc.”
I just reread your post from beginning to end and want withdraw some of my apparent harshness based on the above quotation. I went in the opposite direction from you, Bob, and de-converted. My early in life “subjective experience” could not override my doubts and after a long study I realized that the God and the Bible were unbelievable. I may approach these topics with the “zeal of the newly converted” and if the tone or tenor of what I wrote came off as overly snarky I apologize for that. I don’t apologize for the substance and still think the Bible is no more reliable than The Odyssey or The Lord of the Rings but I understand that capable minds disagree. I don’t doubt, for example, that Gene or P.S.H. are bright guys – but we can agree to disagree on epistemological issues with regard to the religion, faith and the Bible. I think, given my recent comments to MF, I will bow out of further discussion on these topics. I see the rhetoric get ratcheted up and more heat than light being brought to the discussion – I acknowledge my part in that as well.
Thanks Knox. I know this sounds like a cop out but part of my weakness in this respect is that I don’t know what the best defense is that a Christian can give on such matters. It’s like a guy who believes in Austrian economics as a layperson, they email me stuff all the time, “My buddy said the gold standard hurt the countries that stayed on it back in the 30s, what is the Austrian response?” etc. I am quite sure that the guy who teaches a Bible study class I go to, would confidently give answers to the stuff MF said. And maybe one answer would be, “Yeah that one is a contradiction, somebody goofed along the way in transcribing it.” (I honestly don’t know what he would say.) It doesn’t mean he’s right, I’m just saying I don’t know what the best minds on either side would say.
Fair enough. I’ll leave it there. I think we’ve spilled enough bandwidth on this topic.
Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
Knox
“Contradictions aren’t as big a deal to orthodox rabbinic Jews as they are to Christians. God, in Jewish mythology, is something of a raging stupid jackass. It’s hardly a surprise that he gets things wrong. We also are much more cognizant of the fact that although the bible is definitely the word of God, it was also written by many different humans at many different times and places, and copied by more humans at other times and places. Of course things will get out of whack.”
I know I’m a bit late to the game on this one, but I had to respond to this.
Tzadik, I’m sorry, but I have to question what kind of “orthodox” Jewish rabbi you are studying under, because nearly everything you’ve said in these posts is utterly incompatible with orthodox Judaism. (I’m currently agnostic/unaffiliated, but used to be a frum [i.e., orthodox] Jew). The Talmud is positively replete with exercises in reconciling apparent contradictions!
I am not a scholar in these matters, but I have spent most of my life in the orthodox community, and was raised in an orthodox Jewish day school / yeshiva type background. And I am not aware of a single orthodox rabbi who would ever regard God as anything like a “raging stupid jackass” or say that he “gets things wrong sometimes.” In fact, that is exactly the sort of statement that could get you placed in cherem [i.e., excommunication] in a hurry.
As far as your comment that “We also are…cognizant of the fact that…the bible… was… written by many different humans at many different times and places, and copied by more humans at other times and places.” This is utterly absurd. Reform and Conservative Jews may accept the documentary hypothesis, as do many secular scholars. However, orthodox Jews consider this to be rank heresy. In fact this is one of the key elements of demarcation between orthodox and other denominations. Or has your rabbi never heard of the Rambam’s 13 iqqarim [root principles] of belief? 2 of which include:
I believe with perfect faith that the entire Torah that we now have is that which was given to Moses; and
I believe with perfect faith that this Torah will not be changed, and that there will never be another given by G-d.
And this one was shockingly bad, too: “In the Jewish orthodox rabinnic tradition, we take the text very seriously. We read it literally. What it says, it says.” This is just flat-out wrong. A central principle of rabbinic exegesis is ParDeS. You are implying that the text is read by orthodox Jews purely at the level of פְּשָׁט (plain meaning), when there are no less than THREE additional levels of interpretation that are considered fundamental to interpreting the Torah: רֶמֶז (allegoric/symbolic), דְּרַשׁ (midrashic/homiletic), and סוֹד (esoteric/occult).
As for the original post — I am not sure off the top of my head what the orthodox Jewish take on these contradictions are, but I could try to find out.
Mike B., if you could ask someone about the thing with Abram’s age, that would be great, thanks.
Oops. I copied the Hebrew words properly, but it looks like somehow the order of the letters got reversed when it posted, so they’re all backwards.
The transliterations are Peshat, Remez, Derash, and Sod (i.e., PaRDeS, which may be etymologically linked to “paradise”). Regarding Jewish exegesis, my favorite story from the Talmud involves “the four who entered paradise.” They were considered the four greatest sages of their generation (circa 1st century CE). Yet, of the four, one died as a result, one went insane, one emerged a heretic, and only one survived the ordeal. This is meant to be a warning against attempting to study the deepest secrets of the Torah/Prophets, and specifically, of the Merkavah mysticism of Ezekiel 1 (the vision of the chariots). There’s a whole tradition of this type of stuff going back for centuries, so it’s silly to say that orthodox Judaism only cares about plain text & obvious meaning.
By the way, I do not claim that every orthodox Jew, or even Rabbi, is going to understand all of these things properly today. But this gets to Gene’s point of taking care not to confuse what Pastor Bob believes with what Aquinas believed.
Anyway, the Abram timeline questions sounds familiar. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it before, but don’t remember what the answer(s) is supposed to be. I’m not regularly in touch with anyone who would be able to explain, and I have finals coming up soon, but I can try to find an answer. Feel free to remind me by e-mail. I’ve entered this post using my e-mail address, which I assume you have access to as the site host.
Double oops. I see now on my laptop that the Hebrew words in my initial post are not backwards, but seem to be properly displayed. Must have been an issue with my HTC evo reader before.
Tzadik, here is just one example to illustrate the patent absurdity of your presentation of orthodox Judaism. If what you are saying about orthodox Judaism is correct, then it logically follows that orthodox Jews today must believe (based on the plain text and simple math) that the universe is literally 5,772 years old.
But medieval kabbalistic cosmology held that the universe was 12.5 billion – 15 billion years old! A figure, by the way, that is strikingly accurate, considering that medieval kabbalists had no scientific basis for this estimate. A real orthodox Jew explains: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsC0TgrPEUE
I’m no expert on religion, atheism or even economics, but what I am is a 60 year old surgeon and chemist beforehand, and the more I learn about the body and the extreme complexity and integration of body systems and of life in general, the more evidence I see that there is a designer or creator. This is much easier to believe than random chemical reactions in some rock becoming life then evolving into higher, complex life forms through random mutations. Waynesword is a great biology website written by an atheist biologist for the general public and even he wonders how such marvel could occur through evolution.
http://fallenfromgrace.net/2011/11/21/who-determines-what-the-bible-says/
For Stephen in Acts 7:15-17 to contradict Genesis 50:13, he must be including Jacob when he refers to those who were buried in Sychem. I don’t think that that is necessarily the case. In the verses leading up to that point it’s clear that Stephen’s topic is the twelve patriarchs (“our fathers” in the KJV), and so it is plausible that he is only referring to their having been buried in Sychem, with his mention of Jacob’s death in Egypt as an aside. I’m not saying that this is the case, only that it is plausible. I’ll admit though that I haven’t looked at the Greek; it may be that the original text suggests that my point is wrong.
Josh Hanson and Ian Robertson in comments above link to plausible explanations that resolve the supposed contradiction involving Terah’s age, so I won’t go into detail on that point. A hint that one should not take the English translation of Genesis 11:26 (“And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.” KJV) too literally is that it mentions all three sons at once, when presumably there were lengths of time between their births. One might assume that the sons are listed in order of birth but this is not necessarily the case. As is pointed out at Josh’s link, Noah’s sons are listed “Shem, Ham, and Japheth” (Genesis 5:32, 6:10), with Japheth after Ham even though Ham is the youngest according to Genesis 9:22-24 (in the translations that I’ve seen, anyway). That said, I don’t know Hebrew so I hope that Mike B. or someone else can chime in with an explanation.
Happy Thanksgiving.
I am not sure whether anyone has posted this yet, but there is this amusing video on Youtube on Bible contradictions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk
Are these minor things or have you considered them as well?