by AK - Jeff 35 Replies latest watchtower bible
The Bible is a heterogenous book, an anthology.
Exactly - different time periods, different authors, different audiences, different agendas, evolving religious beliefs....
Trying to reconcile Bible accounts is about as easy, and about as beneficial, as trying to harmonize an 18th century blacksmithing manual to a 21st century microwave oven instruction booklet.
Trying to reconcile Bible accounts is about as easy, and about as beneficial, as trying to harmonize an 18th century blacksmithing manual to a 21st century microwave oven instruction booklet.
I really like this analogy because it explains the "clunkiness" of the Bible. Many fundamentalists will say "No challenge is too much for God/Jehovah." But it's obvious when you read the Bible that it suffers from Historical Train-Wreck Syndrome. It could be much worse, but perfect? Please...
-Sab
Its not so much contridictions per say as just a different story telling, as you can tell, Genesis 2 doesn't really have a chronology to it per say.
It is a contraditction (i'd say plot-hole) to merge two myths into one without fixing the logistical errors created when merging. Especially when not informing your readers that the merging even happened.
-Sab
Many of these issues have been the subject of discussion by scholars for hundreds of years.
I accepted it as inerrant because I am a born-in and it was inculcated into me. The first thing I remember reading at age 3 is a Bible verse. Now I view it as interesting commentry on life 2000 - 3500 years ago.
Revelation I just dont get - which annoys me. I dont understand what the author's point was. Is it just a polemic against Rome, or an old man's hallucination? Or an early version of sci-fi?
Revelation I just dont get - which annoys me. I dont understand what the author's point was. Is it just a polemic against Rome, or an old man's hallucination? Or an early version of sci-fi?
So far in my studies, I have to deem Revelation as a pointless addition to the Bible, definitely the most useless and socially dangerous book in there. It feels so much like an after thought.
-Sab
Sapphy: John which apparently was not th same John, wrote revelations and initialy some did not accept it as part of the canon, Revelations was not written by some hardcore LSD muncher, it was written in the same manner as Daniel and Enoch.
As for the rest, I got ask you Jeff, WHY did you ever take the bible to be inerrant?
But, be assured I have gotten over both reasons to take either the god-concept or the book that supposedly explains him with any seriousness.
Jeff
Jeff, I know where you are coming from. If the Bible isn't "inerrant" then it cannot really be communication from God.
If Genesis contains two different creation stories, then at least one of them is in error.
The "sins of the father" part is really inconsistent.
I have decided that any belief system based on anything that makes certain people secondary to others (such as women secondary to men or slaves secondary to free people or the outsiders secondary to the chosen people) could not be from a benevolent "God." I understand cultures that do that and I don't try to judge people that live in them, but "God" is supposed to be above all that.
Um... not going into the many other contradictions, but as for the first one:
Genesis 2:18 - 22 (NIV)
"The LORD God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone I will make a helper suitable for him. Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name... But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So... (God made Eve)."
This doesn't show a contradiction (the italicized part is past tense - had - ) Then Adam named the animals, but no suitable helper is found, then God made Eve.
Just sayin'
Tammy
