The most significant contradiction or inconcistency?

[shnarkle]

There are no shortage of online sites providing numerous examples of contradictions and inconsistencies from the biblical texts. While some of these are quite simply the result of poor reading comprehension skills or an unfamiliarity with the texts, others seem legitimate. Many of those that are legitimate are inconsequential, but some could be quite controversial and may have significant ramifications.

Of all the contradictions found in scripture, which ones could prove to be most disturbing, or have the most serious ramifications for "believers"?


One that I think fits this bill is Paul's view on eating food sacrificed to false gods. He doesn't seem to have a problem with it if it doesn't have a negative effect over a fellow believer's faith. While I can see his point, and also agree that none of those pagan deities are real, I do wonder how he is able to disregard the law which he upholds; a law that forbids eating anything that is sacrificed to idols.

The reason this could be looked at as disturbing is because it indicates to me that Paul has attributed capriciousness to Paul's God.

[shnarkle]

You are clueless about what Law is and what a covenant is.

Laws are what the covenant consists of. They are the guiding principles of the covenant. They are the borders or parameters of the covenant. They are what give shape to the covenant. A covenant can be established on laws, or in Paul's case, faith establishes the covenant, but the new covenant establishes the law as he says in Romans 3:31 To establish means to "make to stand". That means it's not going anywhere.

Laws are what they are. We can't change them. Covenants can be drawn up and torn down. We can put whatever we want into them, but whatever we put into them doesn't necessarily disappear when the covenant itself is annulled. I have a well on the back 40 of my property. When I sell this place that well will be included in the deed. If the prospective buyers decide that they don't want to buy the property with that well, then that breaks the deal (covenant), but the well doesn't disappear just because the deal is broken.

Paul is clear when he says 'to the Jew first then the Gentile". He never says what's for the Jews isn't for the Gentiles. There is only one God, one Lord, one baptism, one covenant with different principles guiding it, and one gospel for all.


To say that some of the gospel is for Jews and other parts are for Gentiles would be no different than saying that when Paul writes his letter to the Romans, it doesn't apply to the Ephesians or the Corinthians etc.

as long as they won't say that these customs need to be observed strictly in order to be saved.

Yes, this is the crux of Paul's argument against those who say one must observe the commandments in order to be saved. Paul keeps the commandments, not to be saved, but because he has become a new creature in Christ; and Christ keeps the commandments.

A great way to break through all the numerous examples is to take Christ's summation of the law and hand it to a legalist who believes that they must love God and their neighbor as themselves in order to be saved. Of course, Paul would categorically deny that. Those who think that they must love God and love their neighbor as themselves in order to be saved are engaging in a works based salvation program that can never save them. From this it should be evident that Paul isn't doing away with the dietary laws, or the Sabbath, or usury, etc. He's simply pointing out that those things won't save anyone. So they are kept because that's what saved children of God do.

[Willum]

[Replying to post 27 by shnarkle]

Hmmm... an excellent job of taking specific sentences and taking them out of context. Such deliberate effort to do so, however means you have understood my objectives and are consciously making other points.
Being popular, for example, does not make you a judge in any legal system.
We were talking about Jesus condoning adultery. If he was this new rabbi, as you claim, then he abrogated the law against adultery, a sin in itself, against the Commandment.
Period.

Jews hear: Give to the God Caesar what is his, before you give to the God Yahweh what is his.

Perhaps some Jews heard that, but that's beside the point Jesus and John are making.

I am sorry, the point he is making is the one the crowd hears. A wise rabbi would understand that, and not hope a different message is received.

False dichotomy. Back then as now, they were teaching the Mosaic law, and they were in competition with each other.

Nooo! They had an established legal system, of which Jesus was no part. There is no false dichotomy at all.

So, in this scenario you propose, he was being tricked in to trying to get someone stoned? Well the trick worked, because he let an adulterer go free, and so violated a Commandment. If he had said "stone her," the jig would have been up, and he would have looked bad. There were really two options to the wise rabbi - expose the jig, or make some wise statement about not tempting the lord thy God.

He didn't do very well in avoiding their smokescreen. Oh, well.

And Jesus plainly pointed out that getting rid of it all is giving yourself to Yahweh.

No, Jesus plainly pointed out that revering a foreign and false god, was OK.
That is another reason the Jews insisted he was crucified. He was far worse a criminal to the Jews than Barabbas.

This is effectively the "True Scotsman fallacy" so it

It certainly is the TSF, but I am not the one creating the fallacy, the Bible is... why is the Bible creating what you've identified as a logical fallacy?
Because it is a lie, and its hero encouraged blasphemy by endorsing the use of graven images.

I agree that's why giving him all of your money informs him...

You keep making this about the money. It is not about the money, it is about graven images of foreign gods, and revering gods with those images. Please focus.
It bears repeating it is not an issue of money.

...you presented a logical fallacy,

It bears repeating that it isn't my fallacy. I just identified the one from the Bible and made you aware of it. Since you've acknowledged it, I imagine I have changed your mind, and made you realize Jesus cannot be a true religious figure.

Welcome to enlightenment!

[Elijah John]

Elijah John wrote:

1) Position a Paul's negative attitiude toward the Law, vs position b the positive attitude of "Old" Testament writers, that of Jesus himself.

2) Position a. Whether Jesus is God Himself, an uncreated being as John and Paul suggest, or position b. Jesus too, was a created being, a human man. There is no notion of Jesus "pre-existance" in the Synoptics.

3) Position a.Whether shed blood is needed for the forgiveness of sins as taught by Moses, Paul and the author of Hebrews or position b. forgiveness is based on the merciful nature of the Father who accepts simple repentance. This was taught by the Prophets, John the Baptist and by Jesus.

4) Position a Jesus is sinless and perfect, as claimed by Paul and the author of Hebrews vs. position b Jesus is a righteous, but imperfect human being, as demonstrated in the Synoptics.

Ramifications?

If position "a" is maintained, we have what we have today. Conventional Trinitarian, blood-based Christianity which, arguably Jesus himself would not recognize.

If position 'b" is adopted, we have something very different. A simpler, arguably more believable faith which Jesus and most of his early followers would more likely recognize and endorse

.

Could you please provide specific verses from the Bible to back up both positions for each of your points?

Thanks! O.

I'll try to get back to you on those. But for now, suffice it to say that I have, and others have as well, provided references on a few other threads.

So for the sake of argument, (if you'll indulge me the premise of those four points), I was really more concerned about the ramifications of the two contrasting positions.

But in order to do that, I had to lay out the contrasts first.

[benchwarmer]

Even just simply killing all the people would have been a better start. Or how about just killing the actual sinners?

See above. Killing everyone would have meant killing Noah and his family who weren't "evil continually". So as it turns out he actually did kill just those who were "evil continually".

You've completely missed my point.

Did God need to drown out kangaroos to get rid of sinners? How about those iguanas?

You think killing babies is merciful? Or loving?

My point was that a god could use a targeted solution and did not need to destroy the world "he so loved". As a matter of fact, that's what we see an attempt of in the NT. This time God decides that sacrificing his son will solve everything. I guess he didn't think of that the first time. Must have been too busy eating grapes or something.

Let's face it, the Bible paints an erratic picture of this god character and many, many apologetic attempts are required to save the whole thing.

[1213]

…Peter says nothing about unclean food becoming clean. There is nothing anywhere in these texts that suggests that God also decided to arbitrarily change the dietary laws. …

I don’t claim the law was changed, it is still wrong to eat unclean things. However, it is possible that God has cleaned some things so that it is not anymore unclean food. And I believe that is the message in NT, food was cleaned and therefore it was not wrong to eat it. Even if there was some bad idea behind it at first place, we can think it has been taken away and the food doesn’t have wrong meaning anymore.

[bjs]

[Replying to post 1 by shnarkle]

It strikes me as odd that you went the topic of food sacrificed to idols. If we are going to examine Paul’s view of the OT Law, it would seem that circumcision is a more appropriate topic. Circumcision was a far more important OT law. Paul went into much greater detail about the Christian’s response to this law. (Romans 2-8, 1 Corinthians 7:18-20, Galatians 2:3-3:29, Acts 15:1-35).

Take a look at what Paul wrote here, and I think our response to his statements about eating meat sacrificed to idols will rightly flow from that. If Paul was right about circumcision (we are free from it) then he was right about eating meat sacrifice to idol (it is not sin). If Paul was wrong about circumcision then he was wrong about meat sacrificed to idols.

Also, I think Jesus words in Mark 7:17-19, where “Jesus declared all foods “clean� also apply.

[shnarkle]

[Replying to Divine Insight]

Well, if the Canaanites understood that Yahweh, Jehovah, (or whatever people want to call the God of the Old testament) was indeed their creator, and the creator of all that exists, AND they had decided to refuse to obey him. Then they would know that there are no other Gods to which they could appease by sacrificing their babies to.

There are a number of problems with these assertions. Understanding that Yahweh is the creator of all that exists doesn't negate the existence of other gods. The texts themselves confirm this, and I hasten to point out that what we're looking for are inconsistencies or contradictions within the texts rather than false assumptions injected into the texts from our own imagination. The texts speak of other gods, e.g. "sons of god"

Their decision to obey or disobey Yahweh doesn't negate the existence of the other gods. The fact that the texts themselves indicate that they are offerieng sacrifices to these other gods supports the fact of their existence within the framework of these narratives.

The mere fact that the Canaanites were sacrificing their babies to Baal, proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that, at the very least, they could not have understood that Yahweh or Jehovah was indeed the one true God.

A claim stated as "beyond any shadow of a doubt" is the Argument from Incredulity. Whether they understood or not doesn't negate the existence of the gods. Your claim also presumes at the very least, that understanding is a necessary criteria for following Yahweh's commands. Counterintuitive though it may seem, this isn't necessarily the case as is evidenced in the Adam and Eve narrative where we see that their existence isn't dependent upon the acquisition of knowledge at all, especially knowledge of good and evil. So they can do good without knowing what is good or knowing how to do good. This is probably one of the fundamental issues within this argument.

Adam and Eve are potential free agents, but they can never know this until they actually know it. In other words, they have an awareness that is not mediated by the intellect. This lack of mediation in no way negates their awareness of God. At this point, I must digress by pointing out that their awareness need not be an objective awareness as this would immediately negate the omnipresence of God. By parity or reasoning, the knowledge or understanding of God immediately negates the omniscience of God. This does not negate the presence of knowledge of any of the gods that were created or exist, therefore it makes sense for the Canaanites to offer sacrifices to the only gods they could possibly know.

With Adam and Eve's disobedience, they and their descendants now have an understanding of God, but have lost their previous awareness of God by removing themselves from his presence,e.g. they run,hide, and conceal themselves. So right from the start it is the knowledge of God that necessitates their disobedience. It is entirely consistent for their descendents to operate on this same principle.

How can there be anyone other than God who can understand the mind of God? Introducing the idea that their behavior necessitates their ignorance of the "one true God" is a variation of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy in that you are introducing a term, i.e. "true" that you haven't defined or distinguished from the other gods with regards to their existence or with regards to the relevance of their ability to understand.

Your claims don't take into consideration that they may have reasons for doing what they're doing that have no bearing on whether Yahweh was "the one true God"; whatever that may mean to you.

if this were the situation, then Yahweh himself would know it. And if he knew it than he would know that the Canaanites had misunderstood the situation.

A nice tight tautology, i.e. if Yahweh knows they misunderstood the situation, then he would know that they misunderstood the situation.

Moreover Yahweh would be the only entity who could clarify the situation.

This presumes that he didn't clarify the situation; whatever it is you mean by "clarify".

There's no way that it would be reasonable to expect the confused Canaanites to repair the misunderstanding.

Or that repairing it would even matter, especially if an intact and perfect understanding doesn't stop them from sacrificing to Baal.

Therefore this story of the Canaanites "rejecting God", and going off to sacrifice their babies to appease another "God" that doesn't even exist, is absolute nonsense. It demonstrates an extreme contradiction in a monotheistic theology.

You've begged the question. You haven't demonstrated any contradictions or inconsistencies within the texts themselves. You've suggested that assuming that other gods don't exist proves a contradiction or internal inconsistency; it doesn't. Strict biblical Monotheism suggests a self-sufficient solitary and transcendent Supreme Being. The fact that the texts refer to other gods who are not only created and exist, but are explitely commanded not to be placed in a position "before ME" only spotlihgts the fact that the texts are entirely consistent with monotheism.

This would only make sense in a polytheistic setting. And that probably was the case when this ancient story was written.

Strict polytheism isn't essentially any different. There may be a percieved effective difference, but the worshipper isn't under the impression that he is worshipping different gods, but the same god in different places, times, and aspects or attributes of the deity. Biblical texts are right in line with this as well with numerous names for the same God; all of which describe differing aspects of the deitie's attributes, events, places, etc. Again, the fact that monotheistic cultures produce texts which attribute characteristics to the transcendent shows that it makes little effective difference to the fact that these attributes are not God, anymore than the names of other deities are "the one true" God.

The God of the Bible would need to be a complete idiot to have created such a confused situation...

The biblical God didn't create that situation. The situation evolved through disobedience from what he created.

... that the Canaanites didn't even know that they had reject the only God that actually exists.

Again, if we are to take the strict monotheistic perspective, a transcendent God is undoubtedly the only God that doesn't exist.

So this is a deadly serious contradiction, IMHO.

There's definitely a contradiction, but it isn't being articulated in your argument. Your claims are contradictory, and I just introduced probably one of the biggest potential contradictions imaginable in biblical scripture. Did you catch it?


Here's another one:

The Biblical God drowns out sinners when Jesus is the only possible way to salvation

I'm not sure what you're trying to suggest here. Are you suggesting that God drowns out sinners in the flood narrative as a means of salvation? This seems to be what you're claiming becuse of this:

then this should have necessarily been true from the very beginning.

The biblical narratives don't seem to indicate this idea that God is attempting to save them by drowning them. The texts indicate that God was displeased with them because they were "continually evil". However, one could see this as a type of salvation in that they are being put out of their misery. Again, an argument could be made to show that God does have two salvations: one for the just and one for the unjust. This is consistent with the New Testament's apocalyptic themes.

You then conclude:

And therefore drowning sinners out via a Great Flood would have been an absolutely futile event that would have served no purpose at all.

Presumably because the only way to salvation is Christ, right? Here's essentially what you're saying:

Premis: Salvation is only through Jesus
Premise: drowning serves no purpose
Conclusion: Christ's salvation is incompatible with drowning sinners.

Your conclusion is in need of deductive proof. I don't think I'm mischaracterizing your claims as you state:

Christ as the only way to salvation is not compatible with drowning sinners out.

I don't know of anyone who is making the claim that salvation through Christ is compatible with drowning unless one include the rare and unfortunate botched baptisms.

Your next point assumes something that hasn't been proven.

Moreover, if this was the plan from the very beginning, then Adam and Even should have been giving the option to accept Christ as their savior as well, right there in the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve are given the option with the sacrificial system which foreshadows Christ's sacrifice. Moreover, prior to their disobedience, they are "walking with God" which means that at that point they didn't need the option as they were still in no need of salvation. The sentence upon Even and the devil are fundamental to, as well as the origin of; the sacfrificial method of atonement.

raising Christ from the dead without healing his body to pristine condition makes no sense in terms of a magical God who can supposedly do such miraculous feats.

This isn't a bad argument especially within the framework of mainstream Christianity which claims a physical bodily ressurrection. However, the texts themselves offer too many descriptions of a ressurrected Christ that couldn't possibly be in a physical body; e.g. walking through locked doors; people unable to touch or see him; mysteriously appearing and vanishing without a trace; etc.

The fact, that rumors of Jesus have him surviving the crucifixion complete with his wounds suggests that he was merely a mortal man who survived a botched crucifixion.

There is nothing from the texts to suggest a botched crucifixion. Again, I'm simply looking for internal contradictions or inconsistencies within the texts themselves. It makes no sense to introduce these external ideas especially if one considers that these are all fictional narratives.

This makes even more sense since this wasn't an official Roman crucifixion in any case, according to the Gospel rumors.

I'm not sure what you mean by "official". Only Rome had the power to carry out capital punishment, and the texts indicate that his crucifixion as well as the others there with him were all sanctioned and carried out by the Roman government, albeit with reservations from the curate. The nation of Israel was only there in their role as plaintif, hostile witness, and witness to the execution.

Jesus then ascends to a "spiritual" heaven taking his wounded physical body with him like as if he's going to need that body when he gets to heaven.

Again, this seems to be inconsistent if one assumes that Jesus is resurrected in a physical body, especially when the themes within the gospels deal with self denial. There really can be nothing more illustrative than an empty tomb. There simply is no body at all in Mark's gospel.

Then the Gospels have Jesus sitting down at the right-hand of God. That's proclaiming Jesus to be a demigod, not God himself.

This makes some sense within our western mindset, but not within the internal logic of the texts themselves. A strict monotheism doesn't allow for a transcendent God to have a self. Jesus transcends himself, and Christ "returns to the father", or transcends existence as well.

They also clearly thought of heaven as being in outer space. They had Jesus 'ascending' to heaven in the sky. If heaven is an actual spiritual place in a totally higher-dimensional plane, it would have made more sense for Jesus to have just faded away.

This is a common literary device. As I said before, this is a great way to show Christ transcending the world. Heaven can't be an actual place because that would negate God's transcendence. The texts also point out that one cannot observe the kingdom. Depicting Christ ascending into the heavens reinforces the texts claims that he must leave, return, etc as well as showing that he is beyond this world. Simply fading away doesn't have the same effect. Then he would be here, but invisible which again only spotlights the inablity of mainstream Christianity to comprehend these texts.

[Danmark]

[Replying to Divine Insight]
....

if this were the situation, then Yahweh himself would know it. And if he knew it than he would know that the Canaanites had misunderstood the situation.

A nice tight tautology, i.e. if Yahweh knows they misunderstood the situation, then he would know that they misunderstood the situation.

Moreover Yahweh would be the only entity who could clarify the situation.

This presumes that he didn't clarify the situation; whatever it is you mean by "clarify".

Tautology or not, DI's statement holds because of the claim of the Biblical God's omniscience.
Regarding the use of the word 'clarify,' the definition is no mystery. You might as well deflect ala' Bill Clinton by saying "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is."

[shnarkle]

[Replying to Divine Insight]
....

if this were the situation, then Yahweh himself would know it. And if he knew it than he would know that the Canaanites had misunderstood the situation.

A nice tight tautology, i.e. if Yahweh knows they misunderstood the situation, then he would know that they misunderstood the situation.

Moreover Yahweh would be the only entity who could clarify the situation.

This presumes that he didn't clarify the situation; whatever it is you mean by "clarify".

Tautology or not, DI's statement holds because of the claim of the Biblical God's omniscience.

The biblical god's omniscence is irrelevant when his argument is based upon the assumption of their ignorance as the deciding factor.

[shnarkle]

Regarding the use of the word 'clarify,' the definition is no mystery.

The definition is only of secondary importance until he can show that God actually didn't clarify the situation. His conclusion is based upon an assumption.