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Contradictions in the bible


Bling

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And why weren't later authors able to review an entire book for consistency after they made their additions to it?

What would be the value of that "consistency" to the later authors? I don't follow. The point is to have a conversation about what remain open questions ("remain open" as in still open today, never mind still open more than 1500 years ago).

How is the later author supposed to comment on the earlier one if he erases what the earlier one said? That makes no sense to me. Sorry.

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Whenever i would bring up contradictions in the bible, my pastor would say, "there are none"

and be able to dismiss it because i couldn't remember where they were,

I wonder.....what shall his response be now that i can finally flag it in his face.

I stopped believing a year ago and had a discovery.......my life is better now than ever and i am a lot more at peace of mind.

also, i asked another religious leader a question like this : "if you were a mass murderer but still 'christian' and believed in Christ and then there was a little atheist girl who's family refused Christ but each member of the family volunteered for community service, helping the homeless and taking care of the elderly, you would go to heaven but they wouldn't, why?"

him: because only Christ can bring purity and save people from hell

me: but only Christians worship Christ, by that definition, only Christians are worthy of heaven, and everyone else to hell by that definition, So even if you were a mass murderer, and she was a sinless little girl, she would go to hell because she didn't believe despite her good while you get to go to heaven even doing such wrongs?

me:So in other words she is condemned just for not being a Christian?!?

the response that came back was: Exactly

I stopped believing after that, that was terrible and i felt sick thinking about all the people i condemned for not being christian.

I got to tell you, whoever had such conversation with you, is poor at handling truth about Christianity. But that is understandable, because as in all other endeavors of human mind, people who read something once believe they understand everything, and only by becoming more and more acquainted with some subject, more and more you realize modest borders of your knowledge.

Mass murderer CAN be saved only if he was murderer before knowing Christ and his repentance. If he continues in his wicked ways after receiving testimony from the Holy Spirit, and after understanding and accepting Christ as a saviour, he cannot be saved, because in his heart, he knows murder is against God principles, and that knowledge utterly condemns him. [Mk. 3:29; Mt. 12:32; Lk. 12:10]

Sinless little girl cannot be thrown into hell, because in essence God has no legal basis to do so. Humans are born innocent (Mk. 10:13) and when grown, they all are judged by their hearts, not be their brains or knowledge or sense of belonging to this group or another. Why were her atheist parents involved into community work? Because they believed it was right thing to do? Then they are just before God (Rom 2:11-15).

So please, consider that there is something more in Christianity, then some sorry poor minded people can explain.

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What would be the value of that "consistency" to the later authors? I don't follow.

Follow this: contradiction creates confusion, confusion leads to disagreement, disagreement leads to fragmentation.

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Follow this: contradiction creates confusion, confusion leads to disagreement, disagreement leads to fragmentation.

Maybe, but contradiction arises in the first place because of disagreement. Disagreement over time may reflect changes in the overall situation.

For example, in the New Testament, an early author like Paul expects to be alive to see Jesus' return, but later ones (like the pseudo-Paul who wrote the Pastoral epistles) know that it didn't happen. There is no way that earlier and later authors can agree to continue theorizing about this central concern of the earlier authors. It didn't happen. See John 21 for a comment criticizing Peter or his followers on this very point.

Also, the authors aren't necessarily the people running the organization. Paul ran his outfit, but his writ plainly didn't run in Jerusalem. There's no reason to think that any of the Gospel writers was an administrator. So organizational "fragmentation" isn't necessarily an authorial concern. Paul seems to revel in it. Ditto whoever wrote John. An administrator's fragmentation may be an author's telling it like it is, baby.

And as for the Old Testament, why should Jews fragment over religious beliefs? They're Jews by circumstance of birth, no mere disagreement can change that. Judaism can survive merely opinionated fragmentation. Blood is thicker than ink.

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We can never tell what happened to these writings and why there are contracdictions. But as I have suspected it, the Bible has been interpreted, translated, and passed on from generations to generations by humans. We make mistakes and we have our very own interpretations of it. Sure thing, all these post to a lot of questions but as a Christian, it's enough that we live by faith though the truth is vague, right?

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Whenever i would bring up contradictions in the bible, my pastor would say, "there are none"

and be able to dismiss it because i couldn't remember where they were,

I wonder.....what shall his response be now that i can finally flag it in his face.

I stopped believing a year ago and had a discovery.......my life is better now than ever and i am a lot more at peace of mind.

also, i asked another religious leader a question like this : "if you were a mass murderer but still 'christian' and believed in Christ and then there was a little atheist girl who's family refused Christ but each member of the family volunteered for community service, helping the homeless and taking care of the elderly, you would go to heaven but they wouldn't, why?"

him: because only Christ can bring purity and save people from hell

me: but only Christians worship Christ, by that definition, only Christians are worthy of heaven, and everyone else to hell by that definition, So even if you were a mass murderer, and she was a sinless little girl, she would go to hell because she didn't believe despite her good while you get to go to heaven even doing such wrongs?

me:So in other words she is condemned just for not being a Christian?!?

the response that came back was: Exactly

I stopped believing after that, that was terrible and i felt sick thinking about all the people i condemned for not being christian.

It is like what Thomas Aquina said: "There is no salvation outside the Church." As far as I can understand, it doesn't matter what one does, as long as he or she belongs in the Church as a Catholic, there is always something to do to purge one's wrongdoing.

Ben

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We can never tell what happened to these writings and why there are contracdictions. But as I have suspected it, the Bible has been interpreted, translated, and passed on from generations to generations by humans. We make mistakes and we have our very own interpretations of it. Sure thing, all these post to a lot of questions but as a Christian, it's enough that we live by faith though the truth is vague, right?

IMHO, contradictions are due to many hands involved with the same cooking. Perhaps, if the Bible had had one single

author, contradictions would be almost nil. Truth is real, though. Vague is the human capacity to find the Truth or the method used is based on preconceived notions.

Ben

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  • 4 weeks later...

@Ben Masada

even though God is this force , this spirit, this energy that we can not ever explain nor understand, i do however think that if God wants to he can have a part of him . his identity, his nature, his will, to appear in human form , as in Christ. i don't believe Christ was the entire existence of God but i do believe in the story of the angel , Mariam and Christ.

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Do any of you feel that the God from the OT and the god from the NT are different dudes?

The OT god is a maniac while the one in the NT is all "Love, love love!" (with as bit of madness thrown in for plot purposes)

Of course in the OT he does show ability to 'change his ways' like when he says "Never again will I send floods to destroy life" - he must have realised soon after..." Hold up just a minute...I'm nuts!"

Edited by Sean93
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Also, the argument that 'Human Error is responsible for the flaws in the bible is a cop-out of the highest order.

Surely if the writers of the bible were inspired by God, then God would actually make sure they didn't go off on a tangent and start writing all manner of crazy stories; unless of course even the bible recordings were done with free will and god did not prevent them authors from misquoting him. ("Hey I never said that; you can wear that 50% polyester, 50% Nylon fleece if you want!)

I think it's fairly evident that it all fell into the classic game of Telephone. One guy tells a story, then another hears it and tells it and another tells it from the second guy who changes it slightly (intentionally or not) and the rest is (badly written) history.

Edited by Sean93
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Do any of you feel that the God from the OT and the god from the NT are different dudes?

The OT god is a maniac while the one in the NT is all "Love, love love!" (with as bit of madness thrown in for plot purposes)

I personally don't see that. This is the stereotype and it sometimes seems that people like to categorise the OT God as a violent maniac and the NT God as a cuddly teddy bear. I honestly don't think either of these views is correct. God in the Old Testament is a lot more loving than people give credit, and God in the New Testament is likewise a lot more judgemental than people give credit. God shows love and forgiveness constantly in the Old Testament. God preaches judgement and death constantly in the New Testament.

If there is a difference in the two testaments I would put it down to a matter of expediency - God's judgement was often immediate in the Old Testament whereas in the New Testament the judgement is promised to come one day in the future when our eternal lives are at stake. That doesn't mean that God isn't less judgemental, and if you think about it it could even be said to be worse since our eternal souls are at stake - that was not at stake in the Old Testament.

Whichever way you look at it, I find the stereotype of God in the Old and New Testaments to be utterly false.

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I personally don't see that. This is the stereotype and it sometimes seems that people like to categorise the OT God as a violent maniac and the NT God as a cuddly teddy bear. I honestly don't think either of these views is correct. God in the Old Testament is a lot more loving than people give credit, and God in the New Testament is likewise a lot more judgemental than people give credit. God shows love and forgiveness constantly in the Old Testament. God preaches judgement and death constantly in the New Testament.

If there is a difference in the two testaments I would put it down to a matter of expediency - God's judgement was often immediate in the Old Testament whereas in the New Testament the judgement is promised to come one day in the future when our eternal lives are at stake. That doesn't mean that God isn't less judgemental, and if you think about it it could even be said to be worse since our eternal souls are at stake - that was not at stake in the Old Testament.

Whichever way you look at it, I find the stereotype of God in the Old and New Testaments to be utterly false.

I agree with you on God being both loving and violent in both books but he does seem more harsh to me in the OT and I think this is so because it was basically Yahweh Version 1.

Jesus came along and wanted to upgrade him and improve him and so decided to depict him as a little nicer while still maintaining some of the madness and authority E.G. Ananias and Sapphira, the Fate of King Herod and the entire book of Revelations. Those are the only major accounts of God killing or planning to kill people in the NT whereas it's clear the OT contains a lot more such as The Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, Onan, Lots wife, The first-born's of Egypt at the hands of the Angel of Death, a few plagues wiping out a thousands, kids being mauled by bears and a few other accounts but you get the idea...maybe he just had more reasons to rain down his 'justice'.

Of course you could just as easily say that God was slowly revealing himself and just by chance, never had to be as rough on the NT generation; Kinda' like conditioning us until we learnt, first he had to be tough and then when our rears had been spanked enough, they'd be nice and conditioned to gods big hand...until Revelations comes about that is.

I'm not saying God has to be fair to everyone, he doesn't...he's God after all, he can do what he likes as he has shown many ties before hand.

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Do any of you feel that the God from the OT and the god from the NT are different dudes?

The OT god is a maniac while the one in the NT is all "Love, love love!" (with as bit of madness thrown in for plot purposes)

Of course in the OT he does show ability to 'change his ways' like when he says "Never again will I send floods to destroy life" - he must have realised soon after..." Hold up just a minute...I'm nuts!"

I thought of them both as narcissistic madmen. The god of the NT sanctions the end of the world. That right their tells you something is wrong with him. The god of the OT seems like he is pure hate and the most sadistic person to have ever existed.

Edited by HavocWing
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I agree with you on God being both loving and violent in both books but he does seem more harsh to me in the OT and I think this is so because it was basically Yahweh Version 1.

Jesus came along and wanted to upgrade him and improve him and so decided to depict him as a little nicer while still maintaining some of the madness and authority

I can't agree with that. As I noted in my last post, if there is a difference it is in the immediacy of God's actions - the Old Testament showed judgement immediately whereas the New Testament shows judgement promised throughout eternity. I wouldn't call it an "upgrade", I'd say it's an entirely organic and natural progression that came about as a result of Jesus' death and (alleged) resurrection.

I'm not saying God has to be fair to everyone, he doesn't...he's God after all, he can do what he likes as he has shown many ties before hand.

True enough.
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If he truly is a just god (which he isn't I.M.O.) then he would have to treat everyone fairly.

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big topic this one. But yes the bible has been altered by man, I gave up on the bible, but i haven't given up my faith!

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big topic this one. But yes the bible has been altered by man, I gave up on the bible, but i haven't given up my faith!

Well man did make it.
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If he truly is a just god (which he isn't I.M.O.) then he would have to treat everyone fairly.

Not at all. Divinity does not, IMO, necessitate that said being treats everyone "fairly". With that said, if I were to give a biblical answer as to God's treating us fairly then I would have to study and get back to you. My instincts say that God does treat us all fairly, but I honestly haven't looked at a biblical point of view on this before. I suspect that before the discussion would be over it would require at least a passing question to whether treating everyone "fairly" is the same as treating everyone "equally" (not always the same thing). But I'd have to study it before I gave it my "PA Stamp of Approval". But whatever I may find in my study on this, on a purely intellectual level, there is nothing in the characteristic of divinity that demands said being thus treats its creation fairly. That's all I was responding to in my previous answer. Best wishes, :)

~ Regards,

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@Ben Masada

even though God is this force , this spirit, this energy that we can not ever explain nor understand, i do however think that if God wants to he can have a part of him . his identity, his nature, his will, to appear in human form , as in Christ. i don't believe Christ was the entire existence of God but i do believe in the story of the angel , Mariam and Christ.

I agree with you 100%. God can do anything and all things but one; the thing we wish He did or should have done; at least just to satisfy our preconceived notions. If you read Deuteronomy 4:15,16, God has never been seen in any form of a man or of a woman. Therefore, to claim that God took the form of a man in Jesus is a contradiction to God's Word. Unless, you assert that these things

are to be accepted by faith. Then again, by faith, every thing is possible.

Ben

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Do any of you feel that the God from the OT and the god from the NT are different dudes?

The OT god is a maniac while the one in the NT is all "Love, love love!" (with as bit of madness thrown in for plot purposes)

Of course in the OT he does show ability to 'change his ways' like when he says "Never again will I send floods to destroy life" - he must have realised soon after..." Hold up just a minute...I'm nuts!"

God is absolutely One and He is not subject to time and space. He is the same either during the time of the OT or during that of the NT. And God is not like a man to change His mind or Himself for that matter. Therefore, all the adjectives you present above that point to changes of personalities and emotions in God are all in the agenda of the members of the literal interpretation club of believers of talking serpents. No wonder atheists laugh at their immature attitude.

Ben

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Also, the argument that 'Human Error is responsible for the flaws in the bible is a cop-out of the highest order.

Surely if the writers of the bible were inspired by God, then God would actually make sure they didn't go off on a tangent and start writing all manner of crazy stories; unless of course even the bible recordings were done with free will and god did not prevent them authors from misquoting him. ("Hey I never said that; you can wear that 50% polyester, 50% Nylon fleece if you want!)

I think it's fairly evident that it all fell into the classic game of Telephone. One guy tells a story, then another hears it and tells it and another tells it from the second guy who changes it slightly (intentionally or not) and the rest is (badly written) history.

Bad written history is a common trait everywhere and an all-time fact, including in the Bible. If we take that angle, we might as well quit all books on earth. The point is to know how to read in terms of just not to take everything literally.

Ben

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If he truly is a just god (which he isn't I.M.O.) then he would have to treat everyone fairly.

God has absolutely nothing to do with the way we are treated. We treat ourselves good or bad according with the law of cause and effect. Whatever we sow that's what we will harvest.

Ben

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Bad written history is a common trait everywhere and an all-time fact, including in the Bible. If we take that angle, we might as well quit all books on earth. The point is to know how to read in terms of just not to take everything literally.

Ben

But the bible is God's ultimate and powerful word...and he let it be tarnished in such a way?

Also people interpret different verses of the Bible as literal or metaphorical, there is no agreed consensus of which story is liter and which is not.

Edited by Sean93
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