contradiction?

oscartheduck

anyone care to unify 2 samuel 24:1 with 2 Chronicles 21:1 for me?

============================
The Watchtower, April 15, 1928, p. 126 "As every one knows, there are mistakes in the Bible "

logical

They were eyewitness accounts written by men, not scripture, so dont worry about it.

oscartheduck

If that's a given, then how can they justify mentioning that, in one, "Jehovah" motivates the census, in the other "Satan" motivates it?

Seems like someone's adding a personal spin to an account that eventually made it into the canon that eventually some people claimed was wholly divinely inspired...

============================
The Watchtower, April 15, 1928, p. 126 "As every one knows, there are mistakes in the Bible "

SixofNine

Oscar, do you have the right scriptures listed? I don't see the connection.

Farkel

: If that's a given, then how can they justify mentioning that, in one, "Jehovah" motivates the census, in the other "Satan" motivates it?

Because it's all bullshit, that's why.

Farkel

"I didn't mean what I meant."

Larsguy

2 Chronicles 21:1 says: "Finally Jehoshaphat lay down with his forefathers...." It has nothing to do with David? What is the true scripture you want to compare?

Larsguy

I don't think this is a contradiction. After reading both references, which are 1 Chronicles 21:1 (not 2 Chron) and 2 Sam 24:1.

What it looks like to me was that God got mad at Isael, just as he said, and so he got David to number Israel, apparently something he shouldn't have done, but he used Satan to do it.

After David committed this sin, then God gave him three choices as to what the punishment would be, including famine, pestilence or running from enemies. Jehovah must have known David didn't want to run from enemies and would choose either the famine or pestilence which would have been punishments against Israel and not David. So David chose pestilence and it came against Israel, but then God halted it prematurely when it was enough.

So I don't think there is any problem here. Jehovah has used Satan from time to time to do various things Satan is good at and on other occasions have sent deceptive spirits to trip up people.

So I don't think there is any problem here. Jehovah was mad at Israel. He intended to punish him. He sent Satan to tempt David to number Israel which he must have known David wanted to do. Then he gave David three choices of punishment, two of which would be brought upon Israel and David choose pestilence. But God likely knew very well David didn't want to die in the hands of his enemies more than anything, so it was a safe bet.

So I think the overall was just Jehovah setting David up to decide what kind of punishment Israel would suffer next and this might have been his way of involving David, as well as showing David's true heart condition about his insecurity over trusting Jehovah.

Something similar happened before with Ahab (1 Kings 22:20): "And Jehovah proceeded to say, 'Who will fool Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?' And this one began to say something like this, while that one was saying something like that. Finally a spirit came out and stood before Jehovah and said, "I myself shall fool him' At that Jehovah said to him, 'By what means?" To this he said, 'I shall go forth, and I shall certainly become a deceptive spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.' So he said, 'You will fool him, and, what is ore, you will come off the winer. Go out and do that way.' AND NOW HERE JEHOVAH HAS PUT a deceptive spirit into the mouth of all these prophets of yours; but Jehovah himself has spoken calamity concerning you."

Of course, related to this is the challenge of Satan to temp Job where God allowed it, but it was with God's permission that Satan tested Job.

So even though individual spirits may be involved, the Bible often speaks of Jehovah as doing it. So there is no conflict between the two accounts; one just gives more specifics.

I can see from these accounts that Israel was often a huge headache for Jehovah. He had lots of patience.

LG

oscartheduck

So God often uses Satan as his tool?

Hmm. SOunds like a deliberate attempt to make Satan into an agent of God, to me.

============================
The Watchtower, April 15, 1928, p. 126 "As every one knows, there are mistakes in the Bible "

Larsguy

Jehovah using Satan is not a big deal. Satan is often seen next to Jesus at important events. Satan is to be used to test mankind after the millennium. Satan has been allowed to "do his thing" until his time is up. This is not unusual. The Bible doesn't hide this.

LG

JosephAlward

Logical writes,

They were eyewitness accounts written by men, not scripture, so dont worry about it.

But you should worry about it, because Paul said

All Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16)

If the accounts in Samuel and Chronicles are not scripture, then what is?

Furthermore, if all scripture is God-breathed, then the all-powerful, all-knowing God would certainly have had the perfect good sense to know that readers would be confused about who incited David. Since it is obvious that there is an apparent contradiction between 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles, we should conclude that these words could not have come from the all-knowing, infinitely precise god described in the Bible. He would have known how to communicate without leaving behind so much confusion. Thus, Paul was wrong about all scripture being God-breathed, so the Bible is in error.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

* http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

contradiction?

Share this