Bible contradictions or user error?

I was previously engaged in an argument on the Contradictions between the two Genesis creation stories thread. I was unimpressed by the allegation and was curious to know why people were making a big fuss about the alleged contradictions of the creation story.The arguments seemed specious to me. This got me thinking.Of all the alleged contradictions that people can choose from in the Bible, (and there are many objections), why this one when its so banal?I will give a real contradiction that will test the very meaning of Biblical inerrancy.First, lets define our terms:What does biblical inerrancy even mean? I only ask because there are varying opinions on what it means.I understand biblical inerrancy to mean that the bible has an unbroken, common thread running through the entire text, lending itself to divine inspiration.However, some people interpret biblical inerrancy to mean that there are no textual errors within the Bible, or if there appear to be some, that its only an error on the part of the reader, or that a particular word or phrase has been effectively lost in translation.Personally, I don't ascribe to the notion that Bible is impervious to textual inaccuracies, especially given the fallibility of man. Therefore, I prefer the first explanation in favor of the latter.As an illustration of an actual contradiction, I give you the book of Acts. If anyone has any objections to it, please feel free to correct me, as it is entirely possible that I am neglecting a few variables.I should caution though, that I've never heard a plausible explanation for the latter definition of "biblical inerrancy" as it relates to the specific verses found in the book of Acts. I would be very curious to hear other people's interpretations, particularly from other believers.Anyhow, without further delay, lets pick up on Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus:"As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

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"Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked.

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"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."

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The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything." -Acts 9:3-9Juxtapose this with the following verse:"About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, 'Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?'

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" 'Who are you, Lord?' I asked.

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'I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,' he replied. My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me." -Acts 22:6-9Now, we have what appears to be a straightforward contradiction here. In chapter 9, Luke (the author of Acts) says that Paul's entourage heard the voice of Jesus, but did not see the emanating light. But in chapter 22, where Luke is recording Paul in his own words, says the exact opposite.Which is it? Did they see the light, but not hear the voice, or did they hear the voice, but see the light?If you are a diehard biblical literalist and ascribe to the latter definition of Biblical Inerrancy, I would say this presents a significant problem.Anyone know how to reconcile this?The simple way to reconcile this is to pay close attention to the words being used. For instance, in the first verse it says the companions heard a sound, but did not see anyone. In the second verse it says they saw a light but didn't understand the voice.This could be interpreted in a few ways. They could have heard the voice, but it could have been indiscernable to them. As well, they could have seen the light, but not seen the person enveloped by the light. This thread is open to all supposed contradictions of the Bible, however, I ask the participants to please first go over my proposed contradiction.Edited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : edit to add

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

Can I get some love?

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

The originator of the thread wanted to discuss the creation accounts rather than Biblical inerrancy.

I think that while one is considering any contradiction in the book of Acts about Paul's convsersion, one should spend at least equal time to the question "Well, why then did Luke not FIX the decrepancy?"The writer was obviously given to detail in a careful manner. Could Luke not have seen that the two records might cause a potential problem? Why didn't he do a little editorial fixing of the problem ?Should we automatically assume that we're more careful than Luke and that he missed the apparent contradiction?The question I ask is this: " Could it be that Luke just faithfully recorded WHAT PAUL SAID?" In other words "This is exactly what the man Paul SAID. Worry about contradictions latter."In that case Luke is to be commended for his faithfulness to record what was said by Paul regardless of the problems it may pose to our idea of total consistency of the two records.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

That's a pretty useless "definition". You could pick 66 books at random from the Library of congress and claim that they have "an unbroken, common thread" but all you'd be doing is handwaving any discrepancies away. And how many people actually deny the possibility of divine inspiration? That would certainly be the more common attitude at EvC. Some people even start new threads to sidestep the contradictions in other threads.A proper definition of inerrancy would have to include the a priori assumption that there aren't any genuine errors in the Bible, that four-legged insects, bat-birds and cud-chewing rabbits are errors on the readers' part and not the writers'.

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Disclaimer: The above statement is without a doubt, the most LUDICROUS, IDIOTIC AND PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WILLFUL STUPIDITY, THAT I HAVE EVER SEEN OR HEARD.

Biblical literalism and inerrancy are unsustainable. Apologetics is full of explanations of how the many, many prima facie contradictions aren't; and if you want to believe in literalism you can doubtless accept their twists and turns. But, in doing so, you defeat lieralism because the bible can no longer be understood by reading it and taking what is written as literal truth. You also need to take into account the body of 'explanations' that goes with it.

I think part of the problem was folk assuming that contradictions implied error. I did not see it that way. The various creation myths highlighted in the other thread were different tales by different peoples with different purposes, and trying to pretend that they are all one consistent story misses the impact of what the tales meant to the initial audiences.It is not so much a matter of "proving the Bible wrong" as of searching for what the folk were really trying to say.

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Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

quote:

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In 1999, the Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops published the results of a conversation between scholars and church leaders of the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention. They emphasized limited inerrancy, and rejected the literal inerrancy of Fundamentalist Protestants. The Secretariat wrote:

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"For Roman Catholics, inerrancy is understood as a consequence of biblical inspiration; it has to do more with the truth of the Bible as a whole than with any theory of verbal inerrancy. Vatican II says that 'the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God wanted put into the sacred writings for the sake of our salvation" (Dei Verbum 11).

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Ah, inerrancy. For the record, the above definition comes close to what I feel when I hear the word. Of course, as usual, it is so ambiguous a statement that every denomination can feel justified in their own interpretations of 'truth'.What truth did God want put into the writings? That is for the individual to discern. Personally, I don't think your famous example of a contradiction is too interesting, because it is sooooo simplistic that it does not even have the element of evolved mythos or comparative mythos that the creation stories have. It is a simple reversal of two events, IMO, easily done when copying or when taking record of verbal communication.

If the Bible is inerrant, without textual error, then why would Luke ever need to fix it? Obviously, either the inerrancy of Bible does not incorporate human errors, or it is a case where we aren't fully understanding the text. Again, that's immaterial. If this is a masterpiece of God, then there should be no errors ever, right? Whether Paul said it wrong or Luke wrote it down wrong, I think it presents a problem for Inerrantists.

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

Hi Ana!I've been thinking of you lately. Hope you are well and that you had a good birthday.

Interesting view point. So it seems that biblical inerrancy and biblical literalism are incompatible?

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“This life’s dim windows of the soul, distorts the heavens from pole to pole, and goads you to believe a lie, when you see with and not through the eye.” -William Blake

The first factor to determine an error is to eliminate the possibility of multiple meanings from a text, and seperate the 'lost in translation' occurences. This will enable an original work to be tested for actual errors. This is done by rendering the text with a numerical value, so that if even a single alphabet is corrupted, the entire work is corrupted, by virtue of an incorrect sum total of all its texts.This is exactly what the original hebrew bible does: the alphabets are also numbers, and thus verifiable for errors before being given a clean bill of health. If the sum total is different, the entire work is rejected.

Well...last year I got all dolled up and went to a Handel oratorio, with drinks to follow, and was full of plans for joining a local choral group in the new year.Ironically, this year I had half of my tongue removed due to a tumor. A friend of the family asked if I would be wearing a prosthesis. I AM getting better every day, and finally mentally and physically just about ready to debate it up. Thanks for thinking of me!

Very few people are true literalists. The majority of Bible readers are looking for explanation via symbol, metaphor, historical understanding, cultural understanding, etc. Can you tell me that an allegorical depiction of a truth is less true than a literal one? As far as image, yes. The message will be just as true. If there is a message in the Bible, it is that which is to be believed as literal truth, and inerrant.