Is there a contradiction between Deuteronomy and Jonah?

If we are willing to treat the bible like a normal book, and acknowledge that what is written in the form of an absolute statement might actually not be quite that absolute, and fails to anticipate some other circumstances, then the major point at issue in the matter of "contradictions" is already conceded.I don't worry about contradictions all that much. For me, the bible was written over a long period of time by a range of different people and with a number of different perspectives. Some of those perspectives are in tension with each other. We might even say they show conflicting views of the writers.But there are folks who down play the role of human authors, and deny any possible impact of human subjectivity to compromise the status of the bible as a word direct from God.The issue of "contradictions" is brought up to refute that extreme perspective.This example succeeds in showing the vacuity of that extreme view of the bible. The law recorded in Deuteronomy does indeed does not anticipate the circumstances which are described in the story of Jonah. Yet there is no hint in Deuteronomy of limited scope; it is a blanket uncompromising statement; and by the standards of that statement, Jonah would be condemned to die as a false prophet.Part of what bothers me about "contradictions" is that the reaction is to deny the possibility of contradiction, and use that as a basis for interpreting the story. For example, we have attempts to express the story of Jonah as if Jonah was merely passing on a conditional threat. But part of the impact of the story is the very fact of God changing His mind. And the act of God changing His mind is the very circumstance not anticipated in Deuteronomy, in the expression of a law which would indeed unjustly have condemned Jonah as a false prophet.The question which establishes the formal contradiction is a simple one; and you can answer this if you like, Percy. In your opinion would the application of the law in Deuteronomy have unjustly condemned Jonah to death?The answer I give is yes. Of course it would.Jonah is one of my favourite books in the bible. I love the lesson it gives to the hard hearted prophet. It is a lesson which could stand to be learned by many people today. It is an anticipation of the gospel and the principle of love for enemies.I see in the history of Israel a history of many conflicts; military, religious, ethical. Some of those conflicts find their way into the bible. If we insist that the bible is the work of one single mind, the force of the story of Jonah is, in my opinion, lost. The real conflict here is not an absolute conflict of logical propositions. It is a tension between two disparate ways of relating to outsiders.There are passages in the bible which show an extreme xenophobia and intolerance of other peoples than tribe of the writer. There are passages relating to the anguish of defeat in war and bitter anger at the conquerors, and a desire for terrible revenge. Yet there are at the same time passages which show a desire and value for reconciliation, and the worth of all God's people of every nation. These views are not consistent with each others; but they are expressed by different people at different times, so this is not surprising, and not a problem with the bible. In fact, it is a strength that various views are incorporated, for those who regard the bible as a compilation; the religious literature of a people who were learning about God. For those who treat the bible as one book by one author, this gets a bit more difficult; but I think that approach obscures what the bible can offer a serious reader.The book of Jonah was written for people for whom the Ninevites (Assyrians) were their bitter enemies. The lesson is clear; don't hate your enemies; they are people also, of value to God. Actually, the book of Jonah is one of the clearest examples of a parable in the old testament. It is not history. It is fiction; just like the parables of Jesus. Many people take that as criticism; but it isn't. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with parables, any more than there is anything wrong with the parables of Jesus.And indeed, there is scope here for a perfectly legitimate way of reconciling the apparent formal conflict. The resolution is that Jonah is fiction. The literary device of God changing His mind is part of the story, and gives considerable dramatic impact. But it is not intended to teach that God changes his mind. It is intended to teach a hard lesson to listeners, who will identify with the prophet Jonah, about the humanity of their enemies.But I don't like that resolution, because it loses the dimension of the anonymous author of Jonah being in plain conflict with the religious presumptions of the time, and speaking a confrontational prophecy to the Israelites about their heart heartedness. We can see the need for that prophecy in the intolerance of certain other passages in the bible.Cheers -- Sylas(edited to make this from my non-admin id)This message has been edited by Sylas, 05-10-2004 08:41 PM

That's right; and for some reason that eludes me entirely, you don't consider that contradictory.If the book of Jonah is a historically accurate description of the actions of God and his prophet, then we have events that show that the plain statement of Deuteronomy 18:22 is incorrect. You are, of course, correct that the verse in Deuteronomy does not take into account the circumstances of Jonah. But in failing to take those circumstances presented in Jonah, the syllogism in Deuteronomy is formally incorrect.That is what contradiction means. It means that the two statements can't both be "true". Yes, there are. The writer of Deuteronomy may not have felt that those stories were valid, or perhaps the writer of Deuteronomy forgot that possibility, or chose to write something that was formally speaking incorrect for some rhetorical purpose.It is a crashing error to take the bible as written with one voice, or to take as a premise for exegesis that there can be no conflict or difference between the various writers.Cheers -- Sylas

This is my final comment on the comparison with Deuteronomy 18. It's only useful in response to an inerrantist, and it never works, because inerrantists are not consistent in their treatment. The notion of inerrancy is presented as holding the bible in high regard; but I think it does no such thing. It obscures the bible, and forces one to distort its meaning in the effort to maintain the inerrant perspective. I don't consider that giving honour to the bible -- just the opposite, in fact. But I digress...Percy is correct that laws don't anticipate all contingencies; but people who recognize that (lawyers, for example) don't make the mistake of calling their codifications "inerrant". Once you recognize that you can't sensibly have an inerrant legal or moral code, the whole point of discussion is moot.But what strikes me as weird in this is that questions of whether the law meets all contingencies or not misses the point. Whether Deuteronomy functions as a legal code or not is beside the point. The statement I have identified as conflicting with Jonah is not a statement of the law. It is the commentary justifying the law. This is a different thing.There is, in principle, no reason why a legal code could not be supported by carefully qualified statements to maintain accuracy. If a legal opinion in modern times included definite statements of fact like the passage in Deuteronomy, which turned out to be inaccurate over-generalizations, we would quite rightly identify it as a point on which the opinion was inaccurate, or wrong.Once again, here is the critical sentence. It is the first sentence of the verse Deuteronomy 18:22. That is not a law. It is a statement. It is used to justify the law. Furthermore, nothing in the context qualifies the statement or limits its scope. It is not out of context or unfairly quoted. It is given as a stark, plain statement of fact. And (assuming Jonah is accurate history) that statement as expressed is false.This is what contradiction means. Pointing out circumstances in which the statement does not apply MEANS pointing out contradictions. All Percy is really saying is that we should expect contradictions. I don't think his examples do anything to refute or address the contradiction. The most Percy's examples do is suggest that contradictions should be expected. Shrug. I'm okay with that.I think my post in Message 29 was a good attempt to get at the more important issues of tension in Jonah; and I'm a bit sorry it did not attract more comment. The matter of whether Jonah's message to Nineveh came true or not is a mere bagatelle contrasted with the really glaring contrast, which I believe is the whole reason Jonah was written. Jonah is a prophetic message or proclamation aimed squarely at the Israelites. The message is "love your enemies" — even the Assyrians. God loves them, just as He loves you. The reason that prophetic message needed to be spoken is the hatred of enemies and of the Assyrians, which is seen in other parts of the bible. This is not a formal contradiction in the sense of conflicting propositions. It is a major difference in attitude which existed within the nation; as they struggled with what it means to be God's people.Cheers -- Sylas

It has been interesting; although the phenomenon you describe seems to me common. The whole point of contradictions is to show up flaws in the strict literal inerrant mode of interpretation, and so of course that is what is used by those arguing against inerrancy.Breaking my earlier vow of silence on this, if Jonah is historically accurate, then the passage in Deuteronomy -- taken literally, of course -- is false. It is weird that you won't recognize this as a contradiction. I read your articles, and I simply don't see any argument at all against this; but rather an argument that contradictions should be expected, and an implicit notion that they don't seriously devalue the text. I agree with that, by the way; but find that this insight on the triviality of conflicts is only obscured by a refusal to recognize their existence.There are many ways to deal with this conflict, tension, contradiction, difference, contrast, whatever. I'll omit worrying about the need to prove other persons "wrong", or to refute someone else's view. The question for any student of the bible is this: what does this tension mean for you and your own attitude to the bible?

1. The usual approach of the person who argues in favour of contradictions is that this discredits the bible or means it can't be trusted. That is not my own position, however; and in this I am probably fairly close to Percy.
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2. My own view is that tensions arise from genuinely different views and approaches by the authors of the bible. It enhances the value and scope of the bible that it includes such diversity. I frankly don't find much in Deuteronomy in isolation that is admirable. It represents (crudely) the "fundamentalist" stream within the Israelites. The book of Jonah, on the other hand, represents something from a more "liberal" theologian. The important conflict (in my opinion) is not over God changing His mind on things. It is about attitudes to enemies. But in any case, the author of Jonah would most likely have had some major theological disagreements with the author of Deuteronomy; even though he would have been unlikely to think of it in those terms.
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3. The inerrantist, of course, cannot recognize the contradiction. The analysis of the strict inerrantist invariably ends up actually denying some passages, but never admitting this.

For example, Cromwell in Message 50 responds to the claim that God changes his mind with the word "No", followed by a lot of text about how God should be expected to change His mind. What is that about? Of course God is described in Jonah as changing his mind. It is there is black and white. So somehow the inerrantist ends up in this rather bizarre position of justifying the fact that God is changing his mind, without actually recognizing this as something which can be brought out as an implication to be used if that might show a contradiction with something else.Cromwell says the message of the prophet Jonah is "not applicable" to Deuteronomy, whatever that means. The real problem is, of course, that Jonah's story makes the sentence in Deuteronomy false; which means that you can't actually risk putting them side by side; or quoting the passage next to the relevant extracts of Jonah. He asks "Does Jonah really come under the context found in Deutronomy"; the simple answer to that, if we are honest to Deuteronomy, is "yes, of course". The context of Deuteronomy is any prophet making a prediction.Cheers -- Sylas

I'm not as up on this as I could be, and I'm no legal expert. But I've read a couple of legal opinions, including some by Brennan. In fact, I even introduced one into a thread here, in Message 66, and expressed a rather uninformed and naive opinion that I preferred the view of the dissenting opinions -- Brennan was one of these.In Australia we have justice Michael Kirby, who may be a kind of parallel in some respects. I'm not sure if that is a good comparison, but Kirby is big on interpretation as well, and a generous understanding of imputed rights; which some folks have found contentious. Sure; I understand all of that. But as I have already noted, I see you saying that the contradiction is trivial, or inconsequential; not that there is no contradiction.I continue to observe that the verse which is in contradiction with Jonah is not the law itself, but a statement about prophecy introduced as a justification for the law. The statement is false as given. Perhaps we can rephrase it, or apply it by use of something other than the strict meaning of the text. That would be a way of dealing with the contradiction; but it fails as a way of saying that the contradiction is not there in the original text.Indeed to deal with it adequately by an interpretation is to recognize that there is a contradiction, and a need to have an informed application which goes beyond the simple text.Cheers -- Sylas

I don't think that is a valid implication. The fact is that the application and interpretation of Jewish law has, traditionally, been such that the strict penalties are effectively never applied.It is harder to draw inferences about how things worked out in ancient Israel; but that is not the point.It is most certainly not an implication of Percy's perspective that execution of the innocent is trivial. It is (I gather) that law is invariably interpreted in a larger context that the immediate text, and so that the conflict implicit in a putative execution of Jonah would, most likely, never arise.Excuse me jumping in Percy; and feel free to correct any misunderstanding. But I want to be on record that although I agree with PaulK that he has shown a contradiction; I don't agree that considering the contradiction unimportant implies the execution of the innocent is unimportant.Cheers -- SylasThis message has been edited by Sylas, 05-11-2004 11:54 AM

(Off topic warning) That's the invitation I must have been fishing for... Justice Michael Kirby is big news in Australia. What he should be known for is that he is an internationally recognized expert on law and human rights, celebrated for his insights into theory and jurisprudence; and awarded many times over for his work. Here is an extract from my link: Kirby is very big indeed on human rights. But what really made him hit the popular news media a couple of years back was a scandal in which he was falsely accused in parliament of misuse of government cars to pursue sex. The whole thing was a crude frame-up that blew up badly in the face of the politician who pursued it. Kirby's open homosexuality and long term stable relationship makes him a target for many, especially the religious right. Fortunately they are not as influential here as in the USA, I think; but they certainly around. Sorry for going off topic... but I find the whole thing rather interesting in a sad kind of way.Cheers -- SylasThis message has been edited by Sylas, 05-11-2004 12:03 PM