note that this is not a flame thread, nor i am trying to belittle a belief. i am not trying to hurt anyone's feelings either. i recently saw a webpage. which listed the contradictory facts in the bible. i haven't read the bible(s) in detail myself so i'm not an expert. also, we muslims know better than anyone that picking out certain passages out of context and using them for a particular purpose is just ignorance mixed with bad intentions. but as i went through the passages, it seemed like there are way too many contradictions; and they looked like... well, contradictions or inconsistencies or overall incoherence. to us (and to you too in fact): "for God is not the author of confusion but of peace..." (1 corinthians 14:33) in other words: 1) God cannot be the author of confusion. 2) God cannot the author of the book that underwent revision 3) God must have sent down the truth intact, for genuine guidance so my question is why are there so many passages that say the complete opposite about certain subjects? how do you know which detail or view to rely on? etc... here are some examples:
Why don't you link the webpage. The Bible was written over many hundreds of years by as many as 40 scholars and scribes. The only way the contradictions can be understood would be in the text of the contradictory passages.
i wanted the discussion to stay objective. is it the word of God? or the 40 scholars? how do you know they got it right? reminded me of this: chinese whispers is one name for a game played around the world, in which one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. errors typically accumulate in the retellings, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly, and often amusingly, from the one uttered by the first. some players also deliberately alter what is being said in order to guarantee a changed message by the end of it. that's what i was looking for. wanna have a go? (i also pasted the passage references for each quote.) i don't see this as a waste as long as we can discuss properly. please share a better list if you have any. as i said i'm not a bible expert.
Yes.. I think they got it mostly right.. They were devout in faith and seeking God, so you could say they were inspired. Its only been in the last 100 years or so that Christians began to take the Bible literally as science and history... I don't think the Bible is wrong, I think we often read it wrong... especially when we take it literally.
you mean they were inspired by God, still they made those errors? it's not rocket science really, i was merely focusing on the consistency. because every universal law that God has created and put around us is consistent. they don't change. thus, his own written laws for mankind must be coherent too. no? how should we read it, as humanity? because then everyone can give another meaning.
As sacred text.. as teaching narrative about the relationship between God and man.. As a history of the Jewish struggle to become monotheists. Luke wrote the Book of Luke and Acts. Galations was a letter to the Galations.. I can't recall the author. It may have been Paul.
that's exactly what i don't get. if 40 devout men -with good intentions- sat down and wrote bible(s), which is full of incoherence; how is the text then "sacred"? they weren't sent by God either. thus the text becomes man-made, not divine. it becomes altered, not intact and sacred. only the subject they processed is sacred, and maybe some of the actual teachings of jesus (pbuh), if they got it right. thus, back to square one. "for God is not the author of confusion but of peace..." (1 corinthians 14:33)
In contrast to the Koran and all the Hadiths that were written by Muhammed? http://www.politicalforum.com/religion/223965-new-torah-modern-minds-nyt.html
this is not another "let's list our misconceptions about islam" thread. if curious; open another one and discuss, and i will answer. so please let's stay focused. back to the subject; still, i haven't got one single reasonable answer.
Skeptics Annotaed Bible, Quran and Book of Mormon. http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/ http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/index.htm http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/index.htm Is this the site you used?
There is NO reasonable answer if you read the Bible literally. The stories of the Pentateuch were not written by Moses who likely never existed... They were during and after the Babylonian Exile... based on the older mythos of Sumer and Babylon. This may help you with understanding the New Testament. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/ THE STORY OF THE STORYTELLERS.
Even primitive man knew some things were unnatural... I don't think the sages got it wrong, I think we read it wrong. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/
If four men wrote down what people remembered/had recorded even one year after an event, you would get all sorts of contradictions, and whatever the time-gap the gospels took a lot more than that. It those men were sure that the central character was the Messiah and that therefore every messianic prophecy must have been true of Him, even if not recorded, you will get guff. That said, don't we get a very strong image of a person and his message? It seems to me that the notion of absolute texual truth is - in this case anyway - childish. We see through a glass, darkly, but we've enough information to know which side to be on.
theories. everytime you give me a website and say "here it may help you understand", it gets more confusing. they've had more theories, and interpretations. i haven't encountered any substantial belief system. just like these guys here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea
Nope.. has nothing to do with theories. The Exodus and the great Flood are morality tales of redemption.. They aren't history.. They are sacred literature, not moden journalism. They aren't written as biographies or eye witness accounts.
This guy tackles all the contradictions you posted here: In response to New Testament contradictions... If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. In the future, it might be better to just post one or two of what you perceive to be contradictions rather than nearly 200. That's a difficult number to manage in a thread.
