Contradictions in the bible

Here are a couple more that are my fav.

Remember that Judaism and Christianity believe in ONE God hence being part of the three monotheistic Religions.

Genesis 1:26

“Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

Genesis 3:22

"And the LORD God said, 'The man has now become like one of us..."

Then later in the Bible it states; Isaiah 45 vv. 5,6,18 “I am the LORD, and there is no other; there is no God besides Me”

reply to post by disfugured

Ya the bible is a bunch of non sense stories used to capitalize on peoples ignorance and manipulate them.

I was going to make a similar thread dealing with biblical contradictions, but focusing on other things. A main point being the acceptance of polytheism in a supposedly monotheistic religion. A couple examples: The first commandment says you shall not have any other gods beside the christian god. Isn't this a bit redundant in a faith that only believes in one supreme being? That's like me telling someone not to eat my unicorn sausage ( I don't have any, in case you don't get that). Even if people tell me they are eating my sausage I do not care, because it does not affect me.

Now I know you may say "Wait! People DO worship other gods and ours is the RIGHT one and the ONLY one, the bible just wants people to stay away from bad influences and false prophets and the like!"
Well if that is true, and there is only one god, how would you explain such an occurrence as Pharaohs staff? Where would the power to change it into a snake have come from? You may say that they are simply worshiping the devil in disguise, though I would tend to disagree as they were part of a religion that would have predated a religion inclusive of the devil.

And then there is the whole "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" thing. Why bother keeping that in the bible if you are going to simply absorb heretical religions and continue their religious rites? Point in case: Easter. Where do you think the easter bunny and eggs are from? Pagan fertility symbols, in case you didn't know. It was a spring celebration in honor of the changing of the seasons (that's a very rough description, sorry). Not to mention the glaring similarities that anyone who does a bit o research can't help but notice (assuming they aren't wearing blinders) between older characters in other religions, myths, etc. (i.e. Gilgamesh and Dionysus) and Jesus.

W/e, I can keep on and on, but I feel I am rambling and not too sure it will do any good to any one that needs it.

Either way, thanks for making the thread!

reply to post by ganja
Your welcome!



and I think we're in total agreement




By the way I like your signature

reply to post by XxRagingxPandaxX


I think I may have clearly expressed myself not ..heh heh

I agree that religion for the most part is to prevent "gnosis" (know) or self knowledge or spirituality.
I agree that it is a mechanism for control of the peeps..
the word "flock" kinda gives it away...
the catholic mass is full of the same brain washing techniques as is found in cults everywhere..
now why would GOD need to do that?

"Give us a child till he is seven and he is ours for life" _ Jesuit Maxim
Talk about contradictions...would the "creator of all" need children to be given to him for the admitted application of brain washing...
Sounds more like baal or a molock, this need for children...that's some bad religion right there....

Me, I get my spirituality in the bush..

contradiction:
question:
what did Christians do before the bible?
did they get to heaven OK?
then why do they need it now?

BTW
since Christians keep giving me bibles I feel entitled to interpret it anyway I want too.
its quite a contradiction to teach some one to read or to give a person a book
just to TELL him what it means.
If God can't make him self clearer then that

I realize that these are vague condradictions..I was hoping to stay away from the common ones...
but I feel they are at the hheart of the controvercy.

Christian may call this line of reasoning persecution but to me any GOD worth his salt would have good answers
without contradicting himself or being a hypocrite
My Father always said being a Hypcrit was the greatest sin...

there is another contradiction that isn't in the bible..enoch
they took his concept of sin which is what the fallen did TO man
and made man the victim, guilty.
just like a modern rape trial where the victim is on trial....

right
a just god that hangs a sin on just born babies
OK, now thats just going too far

Originally posted by Danbones
reply to post by XxRagingxPandaxX

 

I think I may have clearly expressed myself not ..heh heh

I agree that religion for the most part is to prevent "gnosis" (know) or self knowledge or spirituality.
I agree that it is a mechanism for control of the peeps..
the word "flock" kinda gives it away...
the catholic mass is full of the same brain washing techniques as is found in cults everywhere..
now why would GOD need to do that?

"Give us a child till he is seven and he is ours for life" _ Jesuit Maxim
Talk about contradictions...would the "creator of all" need children to be given to him for the admitted application of brain washing...
Sounds more like baal or a molock, this need for children...that's some bad religion right there....

Me, I get my spirituality in the bush..

contradiction:
question:
what did Christians do before the bible?
did they get to heaven OK?
then why do they need it now?

BTW
since Christians keep giving me bibles I feel entitled to interpret it anyway I want too.
its quite a contradiction to teach some one to read or to give a person a book
just to TELL him what it means.
If God can't make him self clearer then that

I realize that these are vague condradictions..I was hoping to stay away from the common ones...
but I feel they are at the hheart of the controvercy.

Christian may call this line of reasoning persecution but to me any GOD worth his salt would have good answers
without contradicting himself or being a hypocrite
My Father always said being a Hypcrit was the greatest sin...

there is another contradiction that isn't in the bible..enoch
they took his concept of sin which is what the fallen did TO man
and made man the victim, guilty.
just like a modern rape trial where the victim is on trial....

right
a just god that hangs a sin on just born babies
OK, now thats just going too far

I think you hit the nail on the head man.

reply to post by Danbones
okay nvm were in 100% agreement as usual.



Stared your post, I really like the quetion of where people went before the bible was written I'll have to ask that to a Christian sometime!





your friend, RP

Originally posted by XxRagingxPandaxX
Heres the link:www.infidels.org...

your thoughts?

Atheists dismiss Christianity because they find inconsistencies in their fundamentalist reading of the text? Well that seems a little obvious.

Factual inconsistencies and questions about seemingly glaring mistakes in the Bible are, in fact, attestations to the genuine nature of the text. The fact that these inconsistencies exist, and remain to this day demonstrates that Matthew and Luke weren't written in collaboration, and that the early church did not edit the texts to eliminate problems that would result in later persons finding flaws in the written account of Christ's life.

Early Orthodox Christians weren't idiots, they were perfectly capable of finding flaws like those you cite, so one has to come to the conclusion that they weren't contradictions in their mind. You may think like a 21st Century Westerner, but you cannot assume that the authors of the New Testament think the same way -- they were First Century Jews.

The "who was Jesus' grandfather bit", for example, is answered by looking at Levite Law in the time of Christ.

In Luke (Heli) is said to be the father of Joseph, while in Matthew 1:16, Jacob was Joseph's father. The most probable explanation of this seeming contradiction is afforded by having recourse to the levirate law among the Jews, which prescribes that when a man dies childless his widow "shall not marry to another; but his brother shall take her, and raise up seed for his brother" (Deuteronomy 25:5). The child, therefore, of the second marriage is legally the child of the first (Deuteronomy 25:6). Heli having died childless, his widow became the wife of his brother Jacob, and Joseph was the offspring of the marriage, by nature the son of Jacob, but legally the son of Heli. It is likely that Matt. gives the natural, and Luke the legal descent.

(Source)

To the people in the early Christian Church, this made perfect sense, as it was a part of their culture. Two thousands years later, we look at the text and say "Huh? How can Jacob have two different fathers?"

And your right, different sects can't agree on ANYTHING, catholics and baptists even have separate 10 commandments!

No, they don't. Where did you come up with this one? Catholics and Baptists differ on a number of points, but they are issues of doctrine, not Law. The Ten Commandments are Law, and they are not "pick and choose", per denomination.

Because almost every war that has ever been fought has religion involved.

Not even close.

The "War Audit" (a research piece you can read here) charted the religious motivation behind the various major wars in history, on a scale of 0 to 5 (0 meaning no religion at all, 5 meaning the sole motivation was religion.) They found a grand total of three "5" wars -- the Muslim wars of 632-732, the Crusades, and the Reformation Wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. Over 60 percent of wars, however, rated a "zero", meaning that there was no religious factor AT ALL.

In reply to the question of whether wars have recently had an upturn in religious influence (the study was funded by the BBC to answer that question in the modern age,) the authors concluded:

After reviewing historical analyses by a diverse array of specialists, we concluded that there have been few genuinely religious wars in the last 100 years. The Israel/Arab wars from 1948 to now, often painted in the media and other places as wars over religion, or wars arising from religious differences, have in fact been wars of nationalism, liberation of territory or self-defense.

Historically, in only ten percent of all wars studied did the religious motivation score a three or higher -- so your claim that "almost every war" was due to religion is utterly wrong.

So, although the evangelical atheist wants to find fault with this, and blame religion for that, when the facts are evidenced, it's not quite so black and white. To answer your OP, my "thoughts" would be that I hope you keep this in mind when you encounter such issues in the future.

I am trying to figure out the point to this post/discussion. Of course, there are contradictions in the Bible. We have no originals to view and translate. The oldest known manuscripts are late 1st century and early 2nd century, and these are only fragments. Literal interpretation would be futile and naive in my opinion. However, the Bible is still filled with great stories and lessons.

reply to post by TruthTakesTime


Trumpets are a strange thing to imagine sounding from heaven, because we imagine the metal kind that jazz players use today, but the trumpets written about in the Bible are called 'shofar'...they are made from rams' horns. they were originally used to rally the armies of Israel against their enemies....now they are blown by the priests on the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Head of the Year and the Day of Atonement respectively. The days between are called the Days Of Awe, which are a time of repentance for sins until the Day of Atonement when it's believed that Israel is absolved of her sins and wedded to the Lord. Just as Christ's shedding of blood at the Crucifixion on the Passover actualized what was forshadowed by the Israelites' release from bondage to Egypt when they crossed the Red Sea, the appearance of the angels blowing the shofar in Revelation represents that Christ's Second Coming will be the great Days Of Awe, when Christ will return to conquer His enemies, forgive sins and be wedded to his bride, the Church.
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians
' these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.'
the inconsistencies in the Bible are miniscule in contrast to the overall message. it could only be that way seeing as the Bible, though inspired, was written by fallible human beings over a period of nearly a thousand years....considering such a great span of time, there are far fewer internal inconsistencies than you'd expect. It's also something that you need the Holy Spirit to understand...if you aren't called by Christ to repent, you can't recieve the Spirit and therefore have no hope of understanding it. The sad thing is the institutional churches have squandered the true Gospel...rather than go out and feed the poor and clothe the naked and set a good example, they've chosen to scare people into filling their coffers every sunday and succeeded in alienating the the large mass of people today...Jesus called those preachers 'wolves in sheeps clothing.'
The unconscious' language is myth and symbol...to me it makes sense why so much of prophecy is clothed in symbols like the shofar and the Lamb....God's ways are not our ways. To ask why if there is a truth why God wouldn't make it simple enough for humans to understand ....cutting rungs off of the ladder won't get you any closer to the roof I imagine...though how much plainer can he make it to us than "Love Me, and one another. Trust Me, don't rely on your own understanding' I can't say. The problem with people is not that they sin or screw up, it's their persistence in making gods out of their sins and their own understanding. "I don't get this, so it's bull#...lets go build a nuclear reactor on a major fault line, screw the potential cost in human life, we can make an a$$load of yen....' thats the kind of thing that following your own understanding earns everybody eventually, the world as we have it today.
The answers are in the Bible.... start with the words in red. The elites by way of the CFR and occult brotherhoods are engineering society into paganism, atheism ,materialism....don't believe their bull#, theres not much time. also the 'Jesus is an alien' idea is a lie taught by the elemental spirits of the world posing as extra-terrestrials. heres a vid explaining it all
www.youtube.com...
don't H8 please, peace

Interesting thread, im sure there are contradictions in the bible but keep in mind a good portion of what you read in the bible are just stories. The bible is not historical reference or fact.

right
a just god that hangs a sin on just born babies
OK, now thats just going too far

This is just a Karma reference my friend...

Original sin is your own Karma..

All the religions "of the Book" (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are presently sliding down the "reality scale" from RELIGION to MYTHOLOGY. Some faster than others.

There is a reason why the Mythology section in most book stores is right next to the Religion section, as a set of beliefs becomes impossible to support by people who are honest with themselves, that belief system ceases to be a religion and becomes myth and legend.

Yesterday's religion is todays mythology and legend.

I'm not so concerned with the contradictions as I am about what is stated as fact. Christians love and worship their god of the bible. They consider this god to be all-loving and all-merciful (all things good). This same god that drowned everyone on the planet except for Noah's family. This same god that turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt merely for turning to see how this god killed everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah. This same god that told Abraham to kill his son in a sacrifrice to him, then stopped Abraham and told him it was a test (Don't they do this in, like, the mafia?).

If some people had never heard of a god, and was presented with these parts of the bible, instead of loving and worshipping this god they would shiver in fear.

reply to post by XxRagingxPandaxX


Most of these and much, MUCH more are already answered in my thread on:

Bible Answers to Bible Questions

Add some more questions if you have any.

The bible is not supposed to make sense to unbelivers. Speaking to his disciples, the Lord said:

'And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.'

Without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, scriptures do indeed make little sense. Picking verses that you think are contradictory, from other website no-less as you obviously did not read the bible from cover to cover so you could share your 'discoveries' with us, is a perfect waste of time and a glaring display of superficial 'thinking'.

With regards to Christianity being a monotheistic religion, the most educated amongst you might want to google 'the divine council'. It is extremely interesting to say the least.

Originally posted by D377MC

The bible is not supposed to make sense to unbelivers. Speaking to his disciples, the Lord said:

'And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand.'

Without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, scriptures do indeed make little sense. Picking verses that you think are contradictory, from other website no-less as you obviously did not read the bible from cover to cover so you could share your 'discoveries' with us, is a perfect waste of time and a glaring display of superficial 'thinking'.

With regards to Christianity being a monotheistic religion, the most educated amongst you might want to google 'the divine council'. It is extremely interesting to say the least.

There's something seriously wrong with your arguing.

1.

First of all, I doubt if all christian 'believers' would agree with you. There are 34.000 different types of 'believers' and while many claim to be THE true christians, the incessant quibblings between extremist christians give non-believers the impression of an umbrella religion of subsets, of which many are spearheaded by quarrelsome, self-appointed and authoritarian types often manifesting delusions of grandeur (sometimes being so unbalanced as to show signs of paranoia/megalomania psychosis).

General examples from ATS on the inter-christian inability to cooperate.

a/ It's a recurrent phenomenon, that (especially) protestants can be rather aggressive and derogative towards other christian denominations.

b/ Efforts are occasionally made on ATS to debate, who the 'real' christians are. The outcome is practically always confusion and meaningless babblings on the finer points on one bible-verse or another.

c/ You yourself are already involved in such an authoritative 'holier than you' argument elsewhere.

Please notice, that I have no problems with the ordinary, moderate christian, who is 'like people'.

2.

Recently it's become more common on ATS to stress the 'esoteric' aspect of 'true' understanding of the bible and what's associated with it. The opposition from atheist- and general sceptic direction has been rather massive and competent, so steamrolling repetitive bibleverse citation increasingly appears as ridiculous rather than supportive of the christian cause.

So a switch from this 'exoteric' approach to an 'esoteric' one is not surprising, especially as 'esoteric' methods can be even more suited for making unsubstantiated claims. Such unsubstantiated claims are common amongst religions with a long tradition of 'esoteric' practices and in new-age religions (there are scammers everywhere), and are easier to push.

But basically you've just upgraded the same situation, from the exoteric dishing out of pre-digested answers to the pseudo-esoteric dishing out of 'methods'. In this case the preliminary necessity of a 'holy spirit' to become member of your club of the elitists 'who know'.

What you probably hadn't counted upon is, that there do exist a small colony of esoterically minded people on ATS, who are both theoretically and experientally competent enough to call you out, if you move any of the christian evangelist scams with you to this new level.

3.

I visited this site you recommended. In quality, competence and credibility it's above a parlour clairvoyant or a soap-box orator. On par with those new-agers, who channel messages from the star system Orion etc or from the galactic council or have fringe theological models; and far, far below any authentic experiental or theoretical approach to trans-mundane methodology.

Why you recommended this site to the most educated is a mystery to me. It would go better home with the non-educated.

So until you have established any personal credibility (which ESPECIALLY in esoteric connections are of great importance), I suggest you store your 'holy spirit' somewhere, where the sun doesn't shine. The market is already overflowing with fake claims in this area, so these days you can get three gurus for the price of two.

reply to post by bogomil


Hahah nice!

Dude you are something... i can't wait to hear a response to this. That is assuming he understands what you just said...

Originally posted by 5StarOracle
They way you have failed to interpret me, prooves me right. I didnt say that there was different ways for it to be interpreted, I said you were incapable of doing it. Whats more it apears this problem does not exist only while you study the Bible. I hope you can come to comprehend what I have just told you...

Don't you all just Love being Told?

Even Theology experts can't agree on interpretation of the bible.

Sorry - - - but the bible and its interpretations are open to everyone.

reply to post by Annee


You wrote:

["Sorry - - - but the bible and its interpretations are open to everyone."]

This only seems to be the case, when you have some 'holy spirit' (afraid holy water just won't do).

I have this from a reliable source.

Originally posted by bogomil
reply to post by Annee

 

You wrote:

["Sorry - - - but the bible and its interpretations are open to everyone."]

This only seems to be the case, when you have some 'holy spirit" (afraid holy water just won't do).

I have this from a reliable source.

LOL

I guess not any old spirit will do either.