compilation of biblical inconsistinceys

by candidlynuts 21 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  OldSoul

  Dave: Is there such a list?

  I have only one example to state, and a brief comment.

  e.g. Flat-earthers.

  Comment: There is no evidence that can overcome an earnest desire to believe.
• 

  Spook

  It's immense. What is even more certain are those errors that reveal fallacy of assumptions. For example, having a phrase like "Before there were kings in Israel" contained in a book that fundamentalists want to claim was written down before there was a nation of Israel and certainly before there were kings in it.
• 

  tijkmo

  23

  And now here Jehovah has put a deceptive spirit into the mouth of all these prophets of yours;

  i kings 22:23

  God, who cannot lie

  titus 1:2
• 

  Narkissos

  Fulfilling the terms of the Israelites, Jesus is reported to have perfectly remained faithful to the law.

  Where ?

  I'd like to see a list like this with the explainable ones filtered out

  The problem is that every single one of the hundreds of "Bible inconsistencies" is "explainable" (that is, by people who want to explain them away hard enough). However, the cumulative effect of the demonstration stands. The probability for all of the farfetched fundamentalistic attempts at "resolving apparent contradictions" to be correct is very, very close to 0.
• 

  Bubbamar

  My personal favorites: (Certainly, No One has ever explained this for me to accept the bible as the word of GOD.)

  GE 4:15, DT 32:19-27, IS 34:8 God is a vengeful god.
  EX 15:3, IS 42:13, HE 12:29 God is a warrior. God is a consuming fire.
  EX 20:5, 34:14, DT 4:24, 5:9, 6:15, 29:20, 32:21 God is a jealous god.
  LE 26:7-8, NU 31:17-18, DT 20:16-17, JS 10:40, JG 14:19, EZ 9:5-7 The Spirit of God is (sometimes) murder and killing.
  NU 25:3-4, DT 6:15, 9:7-8, 29:20, 32:21, PS 7:11, 78:49, JE 4:8, 17:4, 32:30-31, ZP 2:2 God is angry. His anger is sometimes fierce.
  2SA 22:7-8 (KJV) "I called to the Lord; ... he heard my voice; ... The earth trembled and quaked, ... because he was angry. Smoke came from his nostrils. Consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it."
  EZ 6:12, NA 1:2, 6 God is jealous and furious. He reserves wrath for, and takes revenge on, his enemies. "... who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? His fury is poured out like fire, and rocks are thrown down by him."
  2CO 13:11, 14, 1JN 4:8, 16 God is love.
  GA 5:22-23 The fruit of the Spirit of God is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
• 

  OldSoul

  I apologize, Narkissos. I overlooked that you responded.

  1 Peter 2:21-25 In fact, to this [course] YOU were called, because even Christ suffered for YOU, leaving YOU a model for YOU to follow his steps closely. He committed no sin, nor was deception found in his mouth. When he was being reviled, he did not go reviling in return. When he was suffering, he did not go threatening, but kept on committing himself to the one who judges righteously. He himself bore our sins in his own body upon the stake, in order that we might be done with sins and live to righteousness. And "by his stripes YOU were healed." For YOU were like sheep, going astray; but now YOU have returned to the shepherd and overseer of YOUR souls.

  1 John 3:4-8 Everyone who practices sin is also practicing lawlessness, and so sin is lawlessness. YOU know too that that one was made manifest to take away [our] sins, and there is no sin in him. Everyone remaining in union with him does not practice sin; no one that practices sin has either seen him or come to know him. Little children, let no one mislead YOU; he who carries on righteousness is righteous, just as that one is righteous. He who carries on sin originates with the Devil, because the Devil has been sinning from [the] beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was made manifest, namely, to break up the works of the Devil.

  Respectfully,
  OldSoul
• 

  Narkissos

  OldSoul,

  I'm aware that some NT texts declare Jesus sinless -- you could have added Hebrews 4:15.

  But those texts do not equate "sinlessness" with "obedience to the Law". In the Johannine texts in particular, Jesus appears as above the Law (which btw he calls "your Law," John 8:17; 10:34; 15:25).

  Moreover, the argument "Jesus puts an end to the Law by being completely obedient to it and thus fulfilling it" is found nowhere in the NT afaik. This is a facile attempt at harmonising two really opposite stances, namely "Christ is the end of the Law (and was never subject to it)" (Paul) and "Jesus fulfills the Law (by providing its ultimate interpretation, but the Law remains to be observed all the more)" (Matthew). The controversies in Mark reflect a remarkably law-free Jesus.
• 

  hmike

  Rather than address all the individual listings here, I'll just say that the writers/editors of the texts we have in the Bible didn't seem to have a problem with the seemingly inconsistent characteristics of God, neither did the early worshippers, nor the men who selected the books for canonization, so why should we?

  To me, this argues against the idea that God is a human fabrication and the Bible is fiction, because if this were the case, men would certainly have designed a better God.

  So many people have a problem with God because he doesn't fit the model they create of him, and their problem is with that God, not the God of the Bible. Why not just let God be who the Bible says He is and accept Him with His various characteristics?

  JWs are good at quoting individual passages, but they have problems getting the big picture.
• 

  OldSoul

  Narkissos,
  

  How would a former Jew understand the difference between sin and sinless, according to the Pauline texts? In Paul's opinion, without the Law he would not have known sin. The expression "without sin" automatically necessitates a measure by which sin could be determined. Jesus was born a Jew, lived his entire life as a Jew, and would have been measured sinful or sinless at least by adherence the Mosaic Law, and by many he would be measured by adherence to the rest of the requirements added as law.
  

  Luke 16:16-17 "The Law and the Prophets were until John. From then on the kingdom of God is being declared as good news, and every sort of person is pressing forward toward it. Indeed, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one particle of a letter of the Law to go unfulfilled.
  
  Luke 24:44 He now said to them: "These are my words which I spoke to YOU while I was yet with YOU, that all the things written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms about me must be fulfilled."
  
  Luke 10:25-28 Now, look! a certain man versed in the Law rose up, to test him out, and said: "Teacher, by doing what shall I inherit everlasting life?" He said to him: "What is written in the Law? How do you read?" In answer he said: "'You must love Jehovah your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole strength and with your whole mind,' and, 'your neighbor as yourself.'" He said to him: "You answered correctly; 'keep on doing this and you will get life.'"

  (Using NWT for the benefit of any lurkers)

  In what way did he mean that the Law would be fulfilled? When talking to the Pharisees he ascribed ownership of the Law to the Pharisees because they "seated themselves in the seat of Moses." (Matthew 23:1-12) He did not refer to the Law as "your Law" on many other occasions.

  I did not initially understand that we were disagreeing over whether Jesus was under the Law of Moses. (Romans 7:21-8:8; Galatians 4:1-4:5) I supposed that would seem a moot point to someone who is not sure Jesus even existed/exists.

  Respectfully,
  OldSoul
• 

  Narkissos

  hmike,

  Rather than address all the individual listings here, I'll just say that the writers/editors of the texts we have in the Bible didn't seem to have a problem with the seemingly inconsistent characteristics of God, neither did the early worshippers, nor the men who selected the books for canonization, so why should we?

  I'm not so sure of that: in many cases, both the editing of old texts and writing of new versions (such as Chronicles which were clearly designed as a substitute to Samuel-Kings, Matthew or Luke which were meant to replace the earlier Mark for their respective audiences) show that the editors or writers were struggling with things they found inadequate in older texts. And these were often moral issues, e.g. David's wars (the Chronicles first say that for the bloodshed he was not allowed to build the temple), Yhwh causing David's sin at the census (the Chronicles first say Satan did it), or the bad king Manasseh allowed a very long reign (the Chronicles first say he repented). Completely new writings such as Ruth or Jonah, with a positive vision of non-Jews, can be construed as a contradictory response to the exclusivism of the Deuteronomy. The story of apology for the ancient tradition is a very long one in Judaism and Christianity (not so different from the attempts of later Greeks to explain away "inappropriate" features in the stories of Homer). The fact that conflicting books eventually happened to be gathered in the Jewish and Christian canons (because they had become too sacred to be rejected) doesn't mean that the original writers wanted it that way.

  To me, this argues against the idea that God is a human fabrication and the Bible is fiction, because if this were the case, men would certainly have designed a better God.
  
  

  So many people have a problem with God because he doesn't fit the model they create of him, and their problem is with that God, not the God of the Bible. Why not just let God be who the Bible says He is and accept Him with His various characteristics?

  On the other hand, monotheism cannot be really satisfied with anything less than the best possible God, can it?

  OldSoul

  How would a former Jew understand the difference between sin and sinless, according to the Pauline texts? In Paul's opinion, without the Law he would not have known sin. The expression "without sin" automatically necessitates a measure by which sin could be determined. Jesus was born a Jew, lived his entire life as a Jew, and would have been measured sinful or sinless at least by adherence the Mosaic Law, and by many he would be measured by adherence to the rest of the requirements added as law.

  First, none of the texts which declare the earthly Jesus "sinless" is from Paul.

  In the Pauline texts, it is possible to "sin apart from the law" (Romans 2:12; 3:9; 5:12ff). The law just provides "knowledge" (Romans 3:20; 7:7,13) and "reckoning" of sin (5:13), with its subsequent "increase" (5:20; 7:8ff; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:56). The Pauline Jesus is God's heavenly "Son" who as such "knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21) yet was "sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin" (Romans 8:3), "made sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21), to be freed from sin only through death (6:7,10). My main point, however, was that nowhere in the NT is it written that Jesus fulfills the law, in the sense of putting an end to it, by obeying it perfectly (as the WT states). A rhetorical analysis of Jesus' controversies about the law in Mark shows that the point is not the interpretation of the law, but rather that Jesus and his disciples are above the law (2:23ff; 3:1-5).

  I did not initially understand that we were disagreeing over whether Jesus was under the Law of Moses. (Romans 7:21-8:8; Galatians 4:1-4:5) I supposed that would seem a moot point to someone who is not sure Jesus even existed/exists.

  This is, on my part, a purely scriptural argument -- which I think suits the topic being discussed.