Do Fabulous Bible Stories Prove Errancy?

[JoeMama]

Do stories like the one in Numbers, about a donkey scolding his master, show that the Bible cannot be believed in its entirety?

Here is the donkey story:

Numbers 22:21-30

21 Balaam was riding on his donkey…23 When the donkey…turned off the road into a field Balaam beat it to get it back on the road. 25 When the donkey…pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it…he beat the donkey again. When the donkey lay down under Balaam, he was angry and beat it with his staff. 28 Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam,

“What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” 29 Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.” 30 The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”

[TRANSPONDER]

I think they do. Along with contradictory and plain wrong stories. We see a grudging recognition of this in trying to reinvent the stories to fit science, dismiss them as metaphor or just ignore them. I would guess we are going to get some more debates about these fables.

Take Balam's ass. We already saw the appeal to miracles with the serpent. They don't talk so we got one miraculously adapted so it could talk - more evidence (if any was needed) that the Eden scenario was engineered by God to make sure that man sinned. which is more evidence that Biblegod does this stuff and punishes man for it. Every time we run through the maze of Biblestories, we run face -first into the problem of evil in all its' manifestations.

But with Balaam's ass, we get (I suppose) a claim that the miracle was done to give the animal the vocal chords and intelligence to talk. Which is what the Bible says - God 'opened its'mouth'. To do what? To complain and make empty threats to its' owner. This has to go down as a 'metaphorical'story. And if so, the sun standing still and Eden too in many cases. And the Ark and Flood? Exodus? That looks dodgy, too.

And the NT. The nativity? The Shekel -eating fish? Who can take that seriously? The walking on water? The penitent thief? Satan tempting Jesus? How much of it should we consider'Metaphorical?

Oh - giving your money away before following Jesus. That one.

[Miles]

Do Fabulous Bible Stories Prove Errancy?

No. They convey ludicrous fabrications.

Do stories like the one in Numbers, about a donkey scolding his master, show that the Bible cannot be believed in its entirety?

They're one of many reasons the Bible cannot be believed in its entirety.


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[1213]

Do stories like the one in Numbers, about a donkey scolding his master, show that the Bible cannot be believed in its entirety?

Here is the donkey story:
...

So, you can't believe "Yahweh opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam", but you could believe God created everything?

[TRANSPONDER]

Do stories like the one in Numbers, about a donkey scolding his master, show that the Bible cannot be believed in its entirety?

Here is the donkey story:
...

So, you can't believe "Yahweh opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam", but you could believe God created everything?

I can't, that's for sure.You see, if one runs to the 'God can do anything' excuse, rather than try to argue a ...I don't know ...Something that could have Happened... we have the problem of why we need any of those events anyway? You don't need Eden, you don't need a Flood, you don't need a Jesus or crucifixion. You don't need any of it. It's all nonsense, really, it is.

Sure, of course, you can come up with any excuse you like to keep believing it, but how do you persuade me it's believable? Which is to say, how do you persuade anyone who has doubts?

[Purple Knight]

No. Anything could have happened.

It could be perfectly true, and people who disbelieve it can be perfectly justified.

But if you believe animals can't say anything, just look up pictures of "guilty dogs" and tell me they can't say that they know they've done wrong. Maybe just not out of their mouths.

[bjs1]

[Replying to JoeMama in post #1]

This is called the fallacy of an argument from incredulity. It is a form of circular reasoning. That is, it saying, “I don’t believe X because X is not true, and I know that X is not true because I don’t believe in X.” In this specific case X is “miraculous events.”

So this argument essentially says, “I don’t believe in miraculous events because miraculous events don’t happen, and I know any claims of miraculous events are false because I don’t believe in miraculous events.

[TRANSPONDER]

No. Anything could have happened.

It could be perfectly true, and people who disbelieve it can be perfectly justified.

But if you believe animals can't say anything, just look up pictures of "guilty dogs" and tell me they can't say that they know they've done wrong. Maybe just not out of their mouths.

Of course there is animal communication even if just visual signals, but that is not the same as being able to convey complex information using words, which is what the talking animals in the Bible do.

[Replying to JoeMama in post #1]

This is called the fallacy of an argument from incredulity. It is a form of circular reasoning. That is, it saying, “I don’t believe X because X is not true, and I know that X is not true because I don’t believe in X.” In this specific case X is “miraculous events.”

So this argument essentially says, “I don’t believe in miraculous events because miraculous events don’t happen, and I know any claims of miraculous events are false because I don’t believe in miraculous events.

The incredulity is justified; snakes and donkeys do not talk. Not in the way I said above. Thus the evidence supports incredulity and to propose that it is true demands belief in the incredible - in fact, that a miracle happened. And with all miracle claims we require extraordinary evidence, and a narration in a book that we know has things wrong (by all reason) is not good enough to overcome incredulity.

[Purple Knight]

The incredulity is justified; snakes and donkeys do not talk.

It is justified. That doesn't mean it didn't happen but we all have a baseline of things we know to be at least possible, and we tend to classify anything not in that library as fantastical. It's perfectly reasonable; it's the way we all do things. And people doing this are wrong all the time but they're still 100% justified in their doubt.

That said, I get in trouble for doing this in my daily life, because there are exceptions we're expected to trust with little to no evidence, and I don't. It's to the point where I have to lie and say I do trust, just to get along. One example is that which foods are healthy and which foods are bad for you changes every day and yet I'm expected to trust "the experts" on it. You know who I think the experts are? People who are doing, where I can bloody see it. Bodybuilders ignored the slander cast upon eggs and ate them anyway. Now the experts don't say those bad things about eggs anymore, not with the certainty they once did. I always ignored the "experts" and trusted the bodybuilders.

This is called the fallacy of an argument from incredulity. It is a form of circular reasoning. That is, it saying, “I don’t believe X because X is not true, and I know that X is not true because I don’t believe in X.” In this specific case X is “miraculous events.”

So this argument essentially says, “I don’t believe in miraculous events because miraculous events don’t happen, and I know any claims of miraculous events are false because I don’t believe in miraculous events.

If I tell you I have a unicorn in my back yard, you will not believe me, because a unicorn is not in the library of things you know can exist. If I tell you there's a dog in my back yard, there's not the same reason to doubt.

Yes it is a fallacy, in that you're correct, Argument from Incredulity is a fallacy, but it probably shouldn't be. It's something logicians don't really want to touch with a ten-foot pole because we're all doing it, all the time, as we can see with the unicorn, but they'd have us believe it's never justified.

[Adonai Yahweh]

Do stories like the one in Numbers, about a donkey scolding his master, show that the Bible cannot be believed in its entirety?

Here is the donkey story:

Numbers 22:21-30

21 Balaam was riding on his donkey…23 When the donkey…turned off the road into a field Balaam beat it to get it back on the road. 25 When the donkey…pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it…he beat the donkey again. When the donkey lay down under Balaam, he was angry and beat it with his staff. 28 Then the Lord opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam,

“What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” 29 Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.” 30 The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”

The bible is meant to be read with spiritual understanding not human wisdom ( 1 Corinthians 2:14 ) . Animals have better instincts than humans and are able to see and feel when their is danger . In this story the donkey could sense and see the Angel of the Lord . This was to show that God grants visions to those who are interested in him ( Daniel 10:7 ) (Acts 9:7 ) . Balaam was so concerned about him stature and promotion that he was unable to see yet being a prophet that has been given spiritual gifts . The donkey was symbolic of being a servant of God in which it was sensitive to God direction by not being disobedient and was a victim of the wrath of the ungodly which was Balaam . The donkey being given the ability to speak because it was facing repeated abuse without a reason from someone that was a prophet . This was to show Balaam that the treatment of the donkey was unholy and ungodly . The other instances in which animals have spoken in the bible was the serpent in Genesis and the Eagle in Revelations .