Apologetics of contradiction

[Difflugia]

There are absolutely no contradictions in the Bible. Nowhere does God ever contradict Himself.

When dismissing contradictions in the Bible, are there any apologetic arguments that are considered out of bounds or beyond the pale?

Are there any contradictions in the Qur'an, the Book of Mormon, or any other holy work that can't be reconciled even by biblical standards?

Or is it a case of, to misquote Syndrome from The Incredibles, when everyone's inerrant, no one is?

[JehovahsWitness]

But the point holds true even in thise case that Goose's fixation on A and ~A is an arbitrary/meaningless goalpost when the all-too-predictable response that "not A is using A in a different snse" lingers always on the horizon.

Sometimes things are predictable because they follow the dictates of logic or proven reality. If you ask someone what will happen if an apple is thrown in the air the "all-too-predictable" responses will likely be that it will come back down. You can of course keep asking in the hope that someone will tell you that it will be eaten by a passing cloud of migrant bats but you may have to be asking the same question for some time.

When discussing contradictions the issue of language and how it works is as central as gravity is to the question of tossing up an apple. If you find the whole thing "arbitrary/meaningless" I can only advise you stop bringing it up.



JW

[otseng]

But the point holds true even in thise case that Goose's fixation on A and ~A is an arbitrary/meaningless goalpost when the all-too-predictable response that "not A is using A in a different snse" lingers always on the horizon.

If you find the whole thing "arbitrary/meaningless" I can only advise you stop bringing it up.

I can sympathize with Mithrae and believes his point should be rationally addressed rather than to advise him on stop bringing it up.

As far as addressing contradictions in the Bible, it takes a lot to unpack this. In a society that seeks a simple black and white answer to things, there is not a simple answer to this issue. Not that I understand everything about this, but the issue of contradictions is not really a major issue for me. I believe there are reasonable responses to this apparent problem.

Here's one response to the whole idea of contradictions...

What is light? Is it a particle or a wave? Light has properties of both, but it appears to be a contradiction to say light is both a particle and a wave. Yet, we have to accept it is both, even though it is an apparent contradiction. We do not throw out light all together since we cannot resolve the contradiction. Likewise, we see apparent contradictions in the Bible (is Jesus God or man?) and we believe it's impossible for it to be resolved. So, the skeptic then says the entire Bible must be rejected. But, though we do not really understand it, we cannot just reject it out of hand. Perhaps someone in the future will be able to truly explain how light can be both a particle and a wave and someone can truly explain how Jesus is both God and man, at this time, we should accept it by faith.

[JehovahsWitness]

As far as addressing contradictions in the Bible, it takes a lot to unpack this. In a society that seeks a simple black and white answer to things, there is not a simple answer to this issue.

My point exactly, things are not black and white, people do not express themselves like lawyers, there is nearly always an alternative way of understanding a passage especially in a book given to poerty, symbolism and bursts of hyperbole. If one is looking for biblical contradictions you will probably find them, if one is looking for explanations for those "contradictions" those are usually just an internet click away as well.

As far as repeatedly bringing up an issue, you are right, I think debating involves presenting argumentation around a given topic and would hesitate to label those that do so as having "fixation" as I am not a mental healthcare professional. (That is my personal option as to how I self regulate my own behaviour. This comment carries no judgement whatsoever as to anyone else). I hope I will be forgiven to devoting a few lines to talking about myself.

But the point holds true even in thise case that Goose's fixation on A and ~A ....

FIXATION
: the act, process, or result of fixing, fixating, or becoming fixated: such as
a: a persistent concentration of libidinal energies upon objects characteristic of psychosexual stages of development preceding the genital stage
b: stereotyped behavior (as in response to frustration)
c: an obsessive or unhealthy preoccupation or attachment

Anyway the bottom line is people have their work cut out for them pinning anything in scripture down as being a true contradiction, but it's a bit of a hobbie of mine to watch them try. (Of course I don't let my hobbie interfere with any of my posts on this forum where I devote myself to debates).



JW

[Difflugia]

Likewise, we see apparent contradictions in the Bible (is Jesus God or man?) and we believe it's impossible for it to be resolved. So, the skeptic then says the entire Bible must be rejected. But, though we do not really understand it, we cannot just reject it out of hand.

While there are a number of voices here, that's not what I'm saying. I am, though, denying the corresponding Christian extreme that claims that the entire Bible can (and indeed must) be accepted as trustworthy in all of its details and that it has a single, unified theology.

I think what is being rejected out of hand is a number of resolutions that many Christians find theologically distasteful (are there conflicting theologies of Jesus' divinity within the New Testament?). The bending of Scripture required to support inerrancy isn't applied to any other doctrinal question that I can think of (can anybody else think of one)?

It's interesting to me, in fact, that creationists seem to work both ends of the spectrum simultaneously. A young Earth requires a six-day creation, brooking no contention that "day" is an allegory for a long period of time. As Ken Ham writes in chapter 8 of The New Answers Book 1:

In every instance where someone has not accepted the “days� of creation to be ordinary days, they have not allowed the words of Scripture to speak to them in context, as the language requires for communication.

Considering the directions this thread has gone, I think the phrase "as the language requires for communication" is very salient, indeed.

[Mithrae]

You may insist as much as you like but the language of the bible is simply not explicit enough to establish many real contradictions (and any apparent contradictions are more often than not the result of copies errors and most inconsequential).

This implies that you believe there are some, just not many, real contradictions and of those the majority but not all are the result of copying errors or the like. Could you provide a few examples of those so we can see what a "real contradiction" in the bible looks like? (Or any of the non-copyist errors in the bible for that matter?)

My point exactly, things are not black and white, people do not express themselves like lawyers, there is nearly always an alternative way of understanding a passage especially in a book given to poerty, symbolism and bursts of hyperbole. If one is looking for biblical contradictions you will probably find them, if one is looking for explanations for those "contradictions" those are usually just an internet click away as well.

Which brings us back to the point raised in the OP - which I don't think any Christian has addressed, certainly not you or BJS when I brought it up with each of you earlier in the discussion - that the available range of ad hoc rationalizations and dubious speculations which biblicists bring to bear in discussion of this topic makes it virtually meaningless to claim that anything else in the bible is actually true (or that anything else ever written is false). The author of Matthew makes a false claim in literal content - that the number of generations from David to Jeconiah was 14 - but no, he was just talking about some particular generations he was interested in and that's okay because he was making a "theological point." Consequently when Matthew claims in an apparently literal story that there were guards at Jesus' tomb, we must accept as plausible the view that the claim of guards is literally false but there to serve as some kind of theological point; indeed perhaps the resurrection itself is literally false (there's certainly plenty of reason to question its historicity!) but, like Matthew's 14 generations from David to Jeconiah, has a theological purpose.

Conversely if someone else claims that there are 14 miles from NY to LA, rather than viewing it as a false claim we should accept as plausible the explanation that they were just talking about some particular miles they were interested in.

[otseng]

While there are a number of voices here, that's not what I'm saying. I am, though, denying the corresponding Christian extreme that claims that the entire Bible can (and indeed must) be accepted as trustworthy in all of its details and that it has a single, unified theology.

I can partly sympathize with this. As I've argued, I don't claim to be a Biblical inerrantist. Though some things in the Bible I accept literally, I also acknowledge there exist errors in the Bible. However, I do accept the Bible as authoritative and trustworthy.

I think what is being rejected out of hand is a number of resolutions that many Christians find theologically distasteful (are there conflicting theologies of Jesus' divinity within the New Testament?).

What I would take issue with is anyone claiming their theology is the absolute truth and any other theology is categorically false. I believe everything should be up to analysis and critique. Nobody knows absolute everything and everyone should acknowledge perhaps they could be in error. What we should all be open to however is rational arguments and evidence.

It's interesting to me, in fact, that creationists seem to work both ends of the spectrum simultaneously.

I'm a six day creationist, but I'm not dogmatic about it. As a matter of fact, if a Christian wants to believe in evolution, I'm not going to label him a heretic. What we should both be willing to do is be willing to defend our positions through Biblical and non-Biblical evidence.

[Goose]

But for the sake of argument let’s grant your argument and say Matthew was intending to write a full and exhaustive genealogy but missed a few names thereby made an error in his genealogy. This seems to me to be such a minor error in comparison to how many names he got right (14 out of 18 is 78%) that I have to ask, what’s the point of pressing this “contradiction� so hard? It seems to me the only point amounts to no more than an attempt to scrounge up a counter example, no matter how trivial it may be, in order to falsify the doctrine of inerrancy. Is that your end game as well?

As when you and I spent many pages discussing whether "none of you can be my disciple if he does not renounce all his own possessions" 'really means' that all would-be followers of Jesus must renounce their possessions, or when you insisted for several pages that civilian casualties in the Allied bombing of Dresden are equivalent to aggressively attacking entire ethnic groups determined to kill every many, woman and child among them (that either both are genocide or neither is, that they are fundamentally equivalent), it's a discussion which holds a certain fascination for its own sake: The lengths people will go to in order to persuade themselves and protect themselves against any critique of their beliefs, however valid.

I’m detecting a pejorative undertone in this last comment as though I have had to go to irrational lengths to defend my position. I suppose it’s only natural to think the guy on the other side of the fence is irrational for being over there otherwise we would probably hop over and join him on his side. All I can say is that I made every attempt to work within the rules of inference and standard definitions used by logicians and philosophers. I’m not the one who, in this debate, had to go to the irrational length of trashing the formal definition of a logical contradiction such that A and ~A as “an arbitrary/meaningless goalpost� in order to undermine the other guy’s argument. Think, for just a moment, about how absurd it is to imply that definition is “meaningless� and “arbitrary.�

But since that phenomenon is obviously nothing new to me (or any of our readers, I'm sure), after a couple of posts about Matthew's genealogy with both JW and BJS I tried to bring their attention back to Difflugia's original point: Accepting the apparent impossibility of some folk ever acknowledging an error in their Book, what happens when we apply those 'standards' more generally? Neither JW nor BJS were willing to continue that discussion, but perhaps you will.

Maybe they didn’t continue the discussion because they weren’t interested in discussing what you thought was minor error, but were instead interested in discussing bonafide contradictions.

If someone says that there are 14 miles from New York to Los Angeles that's not incorrect; they're just talking about certain particular miles which they find interesting, right?

But all we have here is the utterance, “there are 14 miles from New York to Los Angeles.� I’ve been given no surrounding context by which to establish what this utterance is intended to convey. Who said it? Where was it said? Why was it said? Was it said in a Road Atlas of the U.S.? Was it said in a comic strip? Is it a song title? Is it the punch line of a joke? Without surrounding context I can’t definitively say this was an error. If I were to make the starting assumption it was asserted as an explicit statement of fact concerning the distance from New York, New York to Los Angeles, California then it prima facie appears incorrect. But what if my starting assumptions are wrong?

Consider another example. What if someone says, “the distance from London to Paris is 45 miles�? You say that’s incorrect because it’s more like 212 miles from London to Paris (as the crow flies). But this statement was taken without surrounding context and because of that you’ve falsely assumed the person meant the distance from London, England to Paris, France because that’s the obvious meaning, right? But this statement was made by a resident of London, Ontario to another resident of London, Ontario and it was actually made in regards to the distance from London, Ontario (Canada) to Paris, Ontario (Canada), which is about 45 miles.

Context matters. And this is the problem with ripping statements out of their surrounding context and not taking background information into consideration. And that’s exactly what often happens in these debates when the laundry list of “contradictions� is trotted out and dumped on the Christian. Out of context quotes juxtaposed to one another and voila look at all the contradictions! It’s low level stuff.

By the criteria being applied to the bible there is literally nothing which could be said to contain errors.

The criteria demands context be taken into account.

You're making a big fuss about text explicitly containing A and ~A in formal logical terms, but of course even those examples will not be acknowledged - surely one of the passages must be "figurative" or "hyperbole" or mean something "in a different sense."

I’m making a fuss about the text explicitly containing a logical contradiction such that A and ~A because that’s the standard definition of a contradiction. And if one of the passages is meant as hyperbole or metaphor or meant in a different sense that’s a valid objection to the claim it’s a logical contradiction such that A and ~A. Attempting to poison the well with some sarcasm doesn’t invalidate those valid objections to the claim two particular juxtaposed statements constitute a logical contradiction.

You bear the burden to prove the contradiction in your examples beyond merely juxtaposing two statements that have the prima facie appearance of a contradiction. Don’t just do the typical thing the Bible Is Full of Contradictions crowd does and rip two statements out of their surrounding context, juxtapose them, and declare a contradiction. Then expect the Christian to prove you wrong. Show me why they are a contradiction. Prove it.

But let’s look at the first one just to show how context matters.

"with God all things are possible (dynatos)" ~ Matthew 19:26, Mark 10:27
"it is impossible (adynatos) for God to lie" ~ Hebrews 6:18

The context of Matthew 19:26 is a statement made in relation to God’s ability to effect salvation in contrast to people’s inability. By extension God’s power to effect change in his creation and the universe which is otherwise impossible for people.

�23 And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.� 25 When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?� 26 And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.�

The context of Hebrews is in regards to God’s moral character.

�17 In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, 18 so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.�

But whereas those direct contradictions really are quite trivial - presumably either the author of Hebrews or Jesus simply misspoke, for example - the direct contradiction of Matthew's claim that all the generations from David to the exile are 14 generations against the Tanakh's record that in fact there were 19 is not a simple mistake but rather a direct manipulation of the facts for theological ends. It's obvious, as both you and BJS have agreed, that this magic number 14 was intended to make a theological point, so this 'error' is not simply a mistake; rather the three adjustments made by Matthew, all plausibly understood as those most likely to go unnoticed by a casual reader, are a case of complete disregard for truth and fact (an ongoing pattern throughout the gospel with the invented massacre of the innocents, false prophecies of Jesus returning before Israel had been evangelized, mass resurrection on Good Friday and so on).

This is something of Red Herring from your original claim that Matthew/Chronicle was an example of the kind of explicit logical contradiction such that A and ~A that I was asking to see. Your argument here is a suggestion that Matthew’s manipulation of genealogical lists “is not simply a mistake� but rather “a case of complete disregard for truth and fact.� I agree that Matthew’s manipulation of the lists by omitting a few names was not simply a mistake but done with the intention of making a theological point. However, this was an acceptable practise. Jews didn’t think omitting names from a genealogical list or reworking them to make a theological point was always some kind of error or intent to deceive. If Matthew was writing to Jews who were already aware of these practises with genealogies exactly who do you think Matthew was trying to deceive?

Obviously, and again as I pointed out to both JW and BJS, an ardent defense of Matthew's false claims about literal content as nevertheless somehow being valid would imply that any literal content in the bible for which there is some reason to question veracity could be legitimately presumed to be literally false... yet still some kind of valid "theological point." Such absurd defenses of biblical contradictions, taken seriously, would not only mean that everything in the whole world is inerrant but also that 'truth' becomes all but meaningless.

I don’t think that’s what is being done. No one is trying to infer a valid theological point from a known or presumed falsehood. Certainly it could be the case that a false theological point is inferred from the facts. But that’s something different. Look, ancient biographers shaped the image of their subject by including particular facts and omitting others. It’s just how it was done. No one thought this was dishonest, an error, or false. Read Plutarch’s intro to his biography of Alexander the Great.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/r ... er*/3.html

And then read Plutarch’s opening line of Alexander the Great’s lineage.

�As for the lineage of Alexander, on his father's side he was a descendant of Heracles through Caranus, and on his mother's side a descendant of Aeacus through Neoptolemus; this is accepted without any question.�

Lineage in ancient biographies implied something meaningful about the subject. They didn’t include lineage just for the sake of writing a lineage.

[Goose]

Here's one response to the whole idea of contradictions...

What is light? Is it a particle or a wave? Light has properties of both, but it appears to be a contradiction to say light is both a particle and a wave. Yet, we have to accept it is both, even though it is an apparent contradiction. We do not throw out light all together since we cannot resolve the contradiction. Likewise, we see apparent contradictions in the Bible (is Jesus God or man?) and we believe it's impossible for it to be resolved. So, the skeptic then says the entire Bible must be rejected. But, though we do not really understand it, we cannot just reject it out of hand. Perhaps someone in the future will be able to truly explain how light can be both a particle and a wave and someone can truly explain how Jesus is both God and man, at this time, we should accept it by faith.

This is a very good point about how we work with a contradiction. With this kind of reasoning Evolution ought to be thrown out because there are two contradictory models for the rate at which the evolutionary process unfolds – Phyletic Gradualism and Punctuated Equilibrium (PE). This is explained by saying both models do occur but occur at different times in different contexts. Evolutionary event A is said to be an example of gradualism whereas evolutionary event B is said to be one of PE. Even though both gradualism and PE can offer a plausible interpretation of both events A and B. Which of course can’t logically be the case since they are contradictory models.

[Mithrae]

As when you and I spent many pages discussing whether "none of you can be my disciple if he does not renounce all his own possessions" 'really means' that all would-be followers of Jesus must renounce their possessions, or when you insisted for several pages that civilian casualties in the Allied bombing of Dresden are equivalent to aggressively attacking entire ethnic groups determined to kill every many, woman and child among them (that either both are genocide or neither is, that they are fundamentally equivalent), it's a discussion which holds a certain fascination for its own sake: The lengths people will go to in order to persuade themselves and protect themselves against any critique of their beliefs, however valid.

I’m detecting a pejorative undertone in this last comment as though I have had to go to irrational lengths to defend my position. I suppose it’s only natural to think the guy on the other side of the fence is irrational for being over there otherwise we would probably hop over and join him on his side. All I can say is that I made every attempt to work within the rules of inference and standard definitions used by logicians and philosophers. I’m not the one who, in this debate, had to go to the irrational length of trashing the formal definition of a logical contradiction such that A and ~A as “an arbitrary/meaningless goalpost� in order to undermine the other guy’s argument. Think, for just a moment, about how absurd it is to imply that definition is “meaningless� and “arbitrary.�

I didn't say that's an arbitrary or meaningless definition, I said that the way in which you're using that criteria is arbitrary and meaningless. In this case of Matthew where the words and meaning conveyed by one author directly contradicts the clear meaning conveyed by other authors you've gone to great lengths to deny it by fixating on what exact words and sentences are explicitly written in one of the texts (ie. "The Tanakh makes no explicit claim as to the number of generations from David to Jeconiah" even though it does explicitly list each father and the age at which their sons were born, leaving no real room for additional generations and certainly not less!). But when examples are provided in which the exact words explicitly written in the texts matches the formal A and ~A definition of a contradiction you immediately and predictably appeal to some alternative meaning which is not found in the text (ie. Matthew didn't really mean "with God all things are possible"). Conversely when you want there to be a contradiction, you apparently don't care in the slightest that there is no explicit A and ~A contrast between the models of phyletic gradualism and punctuated equilibrium - you'll declare a contradiction straight off the bat there, no worries!

You bear the burden to prove the contradiction in your examples beyond merely juxtaposing two statements that have the prima facie appearance of a contradiction. Don’t just do the typical thing the Bible Is Full of Contradictions crowd does and rip two statements out of their surrounding context, juxtapose them, and declare a contradiction. Then expect the Christian to prove you wrong. Show me why they are a contradiction. Prove it.

Yes, as expected, when your goalpost is met by multiple examples of A and ~A pairings explicitly written in the text, suddenly that goalpost isn't enough any more: Now what I have to do now is prove - and not just to standards of probability or even beyond reasonable doubt, as in the case of Matthew, but beyond any possibility of ad hoc speculation to the contrary - exactly what was going on in the authors' minds as they wrote those words.

If someone says that there are 14 miles from New York to Los Angeles that's not incorrect; they're just talking about certain particular miles which they find interesting, right?

But all we have here is the utterance, “there are 14 miles from New York to Los Angeles.� I’ve been given no surrounding context by which to establish what this utterance is intended to convey. Who said it? Where was it said? Why was it said? Was it said in a Road Atlas of the U.S.? Was it said in a comic strip? Is it a song title? Is it the punch line of a joke? Without surrounding context I can’t definitively say this was an error. If I were to make the starting assumption it was asserted as an explicit statement of fact concerning the distance from New York, New York to Los Angeles, California then it prima facie appears incorrect. But what if my starting assumptions are wrong?

And you recognize that Matthew's claim that "all the generations... from David to the captivity in Babylon are 14 generations" is one which "prima facie appears incorrect," don't you? It is an obviously false claim made regarding literal content and, as we've discussed, introducing as a technicality a distinction between the names Matthew wrote and the actual historical lineage of David does not change that - in fact highlighting that contrast serves to emphasize the fact that Matthew was referring to the generations from David to the captivity, not the names he wrote! But in spite of these facts you're devoting pages and pages of effort to insisting that this false information in the atlas nevertheless is not 'wrong'; that because some other atlases also published incorrect distances that must be "accepted practice" and because it's supposedly accepted practice it somehow is not false information any more.

But whereas those direct contradictions really are quite trivial - presumably either the author of Hebrews or Jesus simply misspoke, for example - the direct contradiction of Matthew's claim that all the generations from David to the exile are 14 generations against the Tanakh's record that in fact there were 19 is not a simple mistake but rather a direct manipulation of the facts for theological ends. It's obvious, as both you and BJS have agreed, that this magic number 14 was intended to make a theological point, so this 'error' is not simply a mistake; rather the three adjustments made by Matthew, all plausibly understood as those most likely to go unnoticed by a casual reader, are a case of complete disregard for truth and fact (an ongoing pattern throughout the gospel with the invented massacre of the innocents, false prophecies of Jesus returning before Israel had been evangelized, mass resurrection on Good Friday and so on).

This is something of Red Herring from your original claim that Matthew/Chronicle was an example of the kind of explicit logical contradiction such that A and ~A that I was asking to see. Your argument here is a suggestion that Matthew’s manipulation of genealogical lists “is not simply a mistake� but rather “a case of complete disregard for truth and fact.� I agree that Matthew’s manipulation of the lists by omitting a few names was not simply a mistake but done with the intention of making a theological point. However, this was an acceptable practise. Jews didn’t think omitting names from a genealogical list or reworking them to make a theological point was always some kind of error or intent to deceive. If Matthew was writing to Jews who were already aware of these practises with genealogies exactly who do you think Matthew was trying to deceive?

It is an explicit logical contradiction, which by all appearances was not simply a mistake but a product of contempt for truth and accuracy and presented in such a way that the falsehood would least likely be noticed by casual readers.

And as I've already noted previously, the possibility that there may have been one or two other Jews who employed similar dishonesty (which you have not shown*) doesn't mean it was an "acceptable practice," and even if it was an acceptable practice that might mitigate the dishonesty but doesn't change the contradiction and falsehood.

* Your Ezra example is neither a 'direct contradiction' in the A and ~A sense by explicitly stating an incorrect number of generations, nor is there any apparent ulterior motive to suggest it as anything other than an error; but it's clear that one of the two genealogies you highlighted is indeed in error.

Lineage in ancient biographies implied something meaningful about the subject. They didn’t include lineage just for the sake of writing a lineage.

And the 'something meaningful' provided by the author of Matthew is a lie; in reality, there was no mystic pattern of 14/14/14 generations between Abraham, David, Jeconiah and Jesus.

I mean, we could go even further and note that Jesus probably wasn't descended from David at all; the earliest gospel makes no such claim and indeed arguably suggests that Christ was not David's descendant (Mark 12:35-37), while the apparently contrived nativity and genealogy stories of Luke and 'Matthew' conflict with each other. That's obviously the more 'meaningful' purpose of Matthew's genealogy, and also probably false. But the mystic pattern is demonstrably a lie.