Biblical scholars/experts: Please help! Are Christian children brainwashed?

Last Friday a Christian female friend and myself went for a drink. Some people close to us began discussing Adam and Eve and the Ark. My friend was immediately interested, although all they had to offer was that the Ark was built without nails. Next I was discussing literalism vs. symbolism in the Bible, and that the animals could only have been regional at best, and there must have been pre-Adamic people. My usually good-natured friend would have none of this - it was all literally true by her estimation. Then we mentioned the loaves and fishes in the Gospels, and how neither of us know the true figures or verses.
During the week I re-read the loaves-and-fishes narratives as well as the flood story. To my horror there were major contradictions. Nevertherless I sent my friend an e-mail of my findings, which upset her a great deal.
Why are there these contradictions?
What was constant between narratives were the numbers 7, 40 and 150.
What is the meaning of this code?
Perhaps everything happened twice, or it's really badly translated.
Somebody please explain...

Here is my e-mail snippet (with permission) of the relevant material:

"I recall us briefly touching on the loaves and fishes and the ark, so I went to check on the figures, just because I like to be accurate (it's trivia really).
In Matthew 15: 32-39 its four thousand men (not women and children, verse 38) being fed. There are seven loaves and a few small fishes and seven baskets left over.
In Mark 6: 30-44 it's 5 loaves and two fishes, and there were 12 baskets left over, and 5000 men were fed (according to verse 44).
The people sat in groups of 150.
I saw a documentary by the Nova Science Institute: blogs.orlandosentinel.com... which mentioned two interwoven flood narratives in Genesis 6-9. Mostly the flood continued for 40 days (Gen 7:17)
In Gen 8: 2-3 it took 150 days for the water to go down.
Interesting number 150, as it also appears in the feeding of the 5000 men in Mark.
I know 7 and 40 are also symbolic numbers throughout scripture.
Most of the ark narrative says Noah took a pair of each species (Gen 6: 19-20), but Genesis 7:2:
"Take with you seven pairs of each kind of ritually clean animal, but only one pair of each kind of unclean animal. Take also seven pairs of birds."
Kind of figures why he chanced sending out a raven and a dove, since he had more than one breeding pair of birds.

Anyhow, have a great day."

reply to post by halfoldman

I suppose it's upsetting because we have certain Biblical events carved into our minds since childhood.
Children's Bibles do give us a fixed picture.

Now the verses in Matthew and Mark on the mass feeding specifically claim it was only the men.
Were there no women? Did the women go hungry? Or is that what the leftovers in the disputed amount of baskets were for?

I've always seen ark illustrations of pairs of animals (even dinosaurs in some pics) strolling on to the ark.
Perhaps this was done to instill heterosexuality, heteronormativity and patriarchy into children.
That brainwashing - that one male and female can save from extinction - certainly seems to have worked.
But I've never seen seven pairs of clean animals and birds parading into the ark.
Christians eat pork and don't like the idea of clean vs. unclean animals.
Yet this is what the Bible says.
Why were we lied to?

Remember the 2 kids who shot themselves the day before Christmas eve and one survived and said they did it because of listening to Judas Priest?

That I think is a concrete example.

The kid now has half of his head blown off and has no choice but to do what his mom says cause no one else takes him seriously. And she says Judas Priest made him do it, not her never telling him who his birth father was and him running away over and over way before the music.

Raising a child "Christian" gives the parents an excuse for when they screw up, and they say to their friends "I don't know where I lost him, don't know where he strayed from the lord."

reply to post by Jeanius


What were those Christian kids listening to Judas Priest anyways?

Don't they know Rob Halford is gay?

reply to post by halfoldman




here's an interesting fact....concerning your mathematical formula:

In Mark 6: 30-44 it's 5 loaves and two fishes, and there were 12 baskets left over, and 5000 men were fed (according to verse 44).
The people sat in groups of 150.

5000 persons sat in pods of 150 each..... that equals the repetive number 333.3333333333333333333333333....

several things just don't work out mathematically, i.e. 333 ea.150 man groups only approximates 5k persons
next, just how does one divvy out to 333 groups the dried fish & bread using 12 baskets, it would have taken ALL day... was the group of 12 disciples overseeing scores of followers in handing out the meal?
a person could not carry a basket with enough meal for 150 people at once, i'd say one could carry 1 fish per person and 1/3 of a loaf per eater & fit in say 30 fish and 10 loaves in a manageable basket


hence the servers had +1,500 of such filled baskets to deliver in say 10-20 minutes to the gathering


just not logistically feasible

reply to post by St Udio

Good point.
It's not my formula however, it's what the verse says in the Bible.

reply to post by Jeanius

Well thanks for the post.
I'm not sure on the relevance?
Perhaps about the dangers of brainwashing kids?

I believe those were distinctly two separate incidents. The first one was done on a mountain, the second was done in the desert.

And in the first case, women and children were fed as well

Mat 15: 38And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children.

Concerning the case of eating pork, being so stuck on laws and ordinances is the very reason Jesus had to come and show the way.

Mat 15:1Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,

2Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.

3But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?


Why don't they wash their hands?

Why do they eat pork?

Why do they pick ears of corn on the sabbath?


God had to restore common sense. The laws are good to keep but they shouldn't interfere or come before love and mercy. Eating pork is no longer an issue and making it one is just the devil trying to worm in undo a faith.

reply to post by iamnot

Thanks for that view.
Eating pork is indeed a trivial issue.
That's what I keep saying about the gay issue.

However, arguably the cleanliness laws on food were deliberately lifted based on the dream of one of the apostles.
My point was that there are two contradictory verses concerning the animals going on the ark.
The one verse says a pair (see my OP) the other says a pair of unclean, and seven pairs of clean animals.
However as children only the pair version is shown to us.

I didn't even know what an unclean animal was, and it was never explained.

I have a trick for any children who may randomly be reading this. When your dad comes in to take you to mass, start crying saying you hate mass and hold onto the nearest radiator. Even while your dad pulls on your legs and you're body is essentially horizontal to the ground, don't let go. Eventually he will give up as he will be late to mass himself if he doesn't leave you behind. Then you can go back to watching Thundercats or the contemporary equivalent!

Worked for me and I only had to do it once.

Thundercats! HOOOOOOO!

The problem is that you're taking things too literally and you are viewing the Old Testament and the New Testament in the same light. English translations of the Old Testament are severely lacking in very important ways and much is "lost in translation" as they say. As for the new Testament, much of it, especially concerning Jesus, is very esoteric, on the surface it seems the Bible is saying one thing, something fairly simple, but it is actually communicating something much deeper to those who understand it.

As for your friend, there does seem to be a plague of people interpreting the Bible literally, something that I can't understand for the life of me. Jesus spoke in parables, you don't take those literally, He wasn't offering farming advice when he mentioned planting seeds in fertile soil.

reply to post by Shadowflux

Thanks for that interesting view.

But then if nothing is literal, then how do we know God and Jesus aren't just parabels?

Also then it might be best for Children's Bibles to forgo illustrations completely?
It's quite obvious that a Christian illustrator would choose to paint the pairs of animals, rather then the seven pairs of clean animals. But that is an interpretative choice between two meanings.

Why not have two scenes of the ark in every Children's Bible and they can make their own minds?

reply to post by halfoldman

I suppose to give kids a choice one would first have to explain a "clean" animal, and rumination, or re-chewing.
Perhaps one could take them to a petting zoo to show them the animals, and then to a regular and kosher slaughterhouse. That could clarify things, although it's pretty gross.
Well it's easier to say there were seven pairs of cows and sheep, seven chickens and one pair of pigs.

reply to post by halfoldman

I recall however that there is a debate about rabbits - do they chew the cud or not?
It seems, rather, that they eat their own dung.
However, Biblically it appears they are clean, so there were seven pairs of suicidal bunnies that hopped onto the ark.
I'm just wondering about all the plants it must have taken to feed all these critters for 40/150 days.

Although it's clearly impossible to get all the animals on an ark that fact is never explained.

And then the loaves and fishes, how did they appear? I just recall images of people eating. I never saw how it actually happened. Did piles of fish and loaves just appear? Was it like a soup kitchen with men lining up?
I suppose breaking the bread is pretty symbolic in the NT, but did they break the fish?