Is there a contradiction between Deuteronomy and Jonah?

I'm not deifying anything. I am just pointing out what the text says.I didn't say that God created a record that contradicted itself. I said that Deuteronomy contradicted Jonah and Jeremiah.And not one person ahs come up with an answer that does not invove saying that one is in some way wrong. If you agree with Percy you agree that Deuteronomy - which claims to be God's Law - can cause a true prophecy to be rejected and to wrongly condemn a genuine prophet to death. Don't you expect God's Law to be a little better than that ?Oh and since you claim that there is another alternative what is it ?
Nobody else has found oneHere's the argument again:Premise 1: God sends a prophecy
Premise 2: God changes his mind and the prophecy does not come to pass
Premise 3: Deuteronomy 18:22 : If the prophecy does not come to pass then God did not sent it
Conclusion God did not send the prophecy.This contradicts the initial premise - a logical impossibility.Therefore either:
Premise 1 is false - God did not send the prophecy
Premise 2 is false - God did not change his mind and the prophecy did come to pass
Premise 3 is false - and Deuteronomy 18:22 is false.There is no other alternative.This message has been edited by PaulK, 05-10-2004 06:39 PM

You're right that Deuteronomy talks about false prophets. It tells how to identify them. By that standard Jonah is a false prophet. Jeremiah denies the standard set up by Deuteronomy and says that even predictions that do come from God may fail to pass.Therefore when the Book of Jonah says that Jonah was a true prophet it contradicts Deuteronomy and when Jeremiah says that true prophecies may fail to occur he contradicts Deuteronomy.

Please specifically state what Premise 1 is ? (chapter and verse)

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

Premise 1 is not intended to represent a particular situation. The purpose of the argument is to demonstrate that Deuteronomy 18:22 denies that God will change His mind about a prophesied event as the Book of Jonah says he did and as Jermiah says He may do.If you wish to apply the argument to the Book of Jonah (which may be a useful exercise) the relevant verses are Jonah 3:1-4However the general arument also applies to Jeremiah's equally general statements in Jeremiah 18:5-10 { Extra post (mesg #42) deleted for PaulK. }This message has been edited by AdminSylas, 05-10-2004 07:20 PM

Jews have been having the same problem with Jonah for a couple thousand years or so.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Hi Percy,I realise that ‘prophecy’ has a range of meanings, however, in relation to the Old Testament the only definition applicable is ‘proclamation’, but that proclamation may include a prediction. In my opinion, in the context of this discussion, using this definition of prophecy is pointless, because prophecy is much more complex than this.For example, a prophecy (as prediction) does not need to come true for it to be a ‘true’ prophecy, the words of the prophet can come from God but may not come to pass, but this is still a prophecy as the words have been placed in the prophet’s mouth by God. The lying prophets of Ahab are a prime example of this. God told the prophets what to say, they spoke on behalf of God but the prediction was a lie. This is still prophecy, although it was a lie, it is still the passing on of God’s word.God also posed as another god and used prophets to test the loyalty of Israel. God would give a prophet a prediction that would come true, but the prophet would not be speaking in behalf of Yahweh, so the prophet should be executed by the people of Israel. I think this is pretty nasty to mislead a person like this, the prophet was essentially conned by Yahweh into thinking that a god had told him an accurate prediction, that prediction came to pass and because Yahweh had lied to the prophet by giving that prophet a false name, the people would then murder the prophet!Deuteronomy 13:1-5If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him. 5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he preached rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt and redeemed you from the land of slavery; he has tried to turn you from the way the LORD your God commanded you to follow. You must purge the evil from among you.The criteria for telling a true prophet from a false prophet are really all loaded in favour of Yahweh, the criteria are very problematic when other biblical passages are read.The two rules for a true prophet are:1. The prophet must say that he speaks for Yahweh
2. That which is spoken should come to pass.This is problematic when you consider predictions that come to pass that are not from Yahweh, and we know that Yahweh deliberately sends prophets in the name of other gods to test Israel’s faith. So we have a totally innocent guy, who Yahweh has misled, being murdered for passing on a prophecy that he has actually been told by Yahweh!The Deuteronomy 18-15-22 reference as well is not doing justice to biblical prophecy, taking prophecy as simply a prediction does not cover the complexity of this passage:The LORD said to me: "What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. 19 If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death."
21 You may say to yourselves, "How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD ?" 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.For the prophet to speak ‘presumptuously’ is not tantamount to that prophet deliberately misleading the people, that prophet believes that he is passing on God’s word.Also, there is no time limit on a prophecy coming true, so a prophet who wishes to con people could easily do so, he just has to say he is speaking on Yahweh’s behalf and then make up some vague prediction.I really think that prophecy is a fascinating subject to study as literature, but to use it as some sort of weapon for biblical accuracy is a total and utter waste of time. Prophecy is loaded; it is like prayer in a way, no matter the outcome, God has to win. I think that the definition being used is not appropriate for describing Old Testament prophecy. Anyone can feel free to disagree, but I think using the current definition does not deal with the intricacy of biblical prophecy. I can see how this definition is useful for dealing with the current question, but, IMO, the current topic needs to be understood in a much wider context and limiting it to simply a coming to pass, or not, of a prediction ignores too many factors.Finally, I think it is also good to point out to people reading this thread that prophecy does not equal prediction in the Old Testament because, in my experience, even undergraduates make this mistake.I do realise that I may be coming across as a bit picky here.Brian.

Although I'm replying to PaulK, this is actual a reply to both PaulK and to Sylas in his Message 40.I am as puzzled by both your interpretations of what constitutes a contradiction as you apparently are by mine. The codification of law is subject to some very natural limitations in that it can't possibly anticipate all contingencies, even in the view of an inerrantist, which I am not. Here in the states we have a driving law that says you can't cross a double white line down the middle of the road, yet people do it every day as they avoid potholes, squirrels, cyclists, and so on, in violation of law, and right in front of policemen who see no problem with it. Few people obey the speed limit, but unless you're going 10 mph over, policemen for the most part don't care. These aren't contradictions, just normal people behaving normally and rationally.I agree that the Deuteronomy prescription is limited and flawed, but you can't make law perfect. It isn't possible. That you've found a situation in the Bible not covered by Deuteronomy isn't a contradiction but just a natural limitation of legal codification.If you really want a "contradiction" of this nature I suggest you focus on Thou shalt not kill. This one gets "contradicted" all the time, often by God's own command, and in one instance on the very day of Moses descent from the mountain and by Moses and his lieutenants themselves.--Percy

From what you say you DO see a contradiction, but you do not think that it is serious. That is you do not see it as a serious problem that the author of Deuteronomy did not anticipate the possiblity that God might change His mind.(That there is a contadiction is - as I have shown - not in doubt. It logically follows from Deuteronomy 18:22 that genuine prophecies must come to pass.)There are a two serious problems with such a view. Firstly according to Deuteronomy 18:17 the source of the law is God Himself. Unless Deuteronomy 18:17 is in error on that point we can reasonably expect if not perfection then an absence of serious errors and significant oversights.Secondly, even if we ignore that, and expect the law to have little concern for our ideas of justice it is surely reasonable to expect that the author would have seen rejecting a genuine prophecy and executing a true prophet as a serious matter. Failing to consider a reasonable possiblity is itself an error and arguably negligent.Given both these points together we see that if we take Deuteronomy at face value your view attributes a serious error of omission with potentially drastic consequences to God Himself. This is simply unacceptable to any Biblical inerrantist.

Rather than comparison with routine minor violations of petty law - which are accepted for good reason I think that any reasonable comparison must take into account the severity of the alleged crime and the sentence.So we need a serious case where death or at the least a long prison sentence is expected.Secondly since the issue is not that the prophet had really done anything wrong. The problem is that the law includes an evidential test that leaves out a relevant factor.Since I do not know of any cases where an equivalent test is written in modern law, I would say that a reasonable comparison would be where an expert witness puts forward a strong but erroneous claim as to the strength of the evidence. Even this is a lesser problem since the evidential test is not written into the law and does not require a legislative change to be corrected.There are cases of this sort and when it becomes known it is a scandal. For instance the case discussed here BBC NEWS | Health | Global experts slam cot death policy (and there are many more entries on the BBC news site relating to it).

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

Hi,
I meant to reply sooner but: Sure, the 120 000 children give an estimate of around 400 000 — 500 000 inhabitants in all, but Austen Layard excavated Nineveh in the 1840’s and 50’s, and he discovered a fairly small settlement which doesn’t resemble the biblical description at all. (Layard, Austen H. 1853 Discoveries in the ruins of Nineveh and Babylon : with travels in Armenia, Kurdistan and the desert, being the result of a second expedition undertaken for the Trustees of the British Museum John Murray, London.) Excavations beginning in the mid 1800’s reveal a walled city, somewhat trapezoidal in shape, with a perimeter of about seven and one half miles. (Lloyd S. 1984 The Archaeology of Mesopotamia Thames and Hudson, New York pp187-201) Its (Nineveh) special importance as capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire does not seem to be precisely known to the writer either, for at the time of the historical Jonah, Nineveh was not capital at all. Ashurnasirpal II and Shalmaneser III had held court there for a time in the 9th c BCE, but the city was only built up and fortified as the imperial capital by Sennacherib, after 705 BCE. In 612, the city was destroyed by the Medes and never rebuilt. (Wolff, Hans Walter, 1986 Obadiah and Jonah: A commentary. Ausburg Publishing House, Minneapolis page 99.)The longest distance across the city was about two and three quarter miles.( Limburgh, J 1993 Jonah, SCM Press LTD, London p78.)The narrator lends the city specific form by giving it dimensions which were unheard of in the world of the time ‘the extent of three days march.’ This means that the city had a diameter of about 40 to 50 miles. Sennacherib’s Nineveh was 3 miles wide at its greatest extent (from north to south). Attempts to verify these dimensions historically miss the point of what the writer is trying to say. The reader is not supposed to do arithmetic. He is supposed to be lost in astonishment so that he can take in the events that follow in an appropriate way. (Wolff. Page 148)The author of Jonah, whoever he was, was clearly writing to impress his audience, accuracy of detail, as with most of the biblical authors, was not high on his list of priorities. The message is far more important that the historiography of the story.Brian.

If you state that Jonah is a false prophet then you are sayng that God is a false prophet,as it was under Gods direction and by Gods wording that Jonah was to deliver the proclamation.Jonah 3:2.."Get up go to the great city and proclaim to her the proclamation that >> i am speaking to you "<< These words did not originate with Jonah.Jonah 3:4 "Only forty days more and Ninevah will be overthrown."Gods words.Nothing new here,God does clean up debased people,but always shows mercy to those that repentMany years later Ninevah was eventually destroyed and by the means of Gods prophecy.Applying false prophet to Jonah,in line with the context in Deutronomy 18:20-22 is incorrect.Deutronomy is a warning to all of us to look out for false prophets.Is God a false prophet? It was God that was prophesying to Ninevah.Jonah was a pawn.Does Jonah really come under the context found in Deutronomy 18:20 "The prophet that presumes to speak in my name a word that i have not commanded him".....Jonah was commanded to speak in Gods name.We must remember that Jonah was frightened.On Gods first command to Jonah,he fled to Tarshish on a boat.This is not a display of an arrogant presumptuous false prophet.If God had not been involved then we would never have heard about Jonah..Jonah didn't want to face up to a whole warrior race of Assyrians.Why would he have chosen to prophesy to such an aggresive people.The Assyrians would skin their captives alive,God hated the practices of the nations outside of the Israelites.The Worshipping of myriads of Gods and sacrificing children to them.
Jonah does not fit the words presumptuous prophet at Deutronomy.Your written premises
Premise 1.God sends a prophecy.
The word prophecy isn't used in the account of Jonah,however,it was a proclamation.Premise 2 God changes his mind. ....
No...The proclamation of destruction of the Ninevites was proclaimed to them.God is always merciful to repentant ones.His intentions of dislplaying his mercy remained constant.Gods display of love overides the proclamation. It was one of the ten commandments from Gods own law.Ex 20:5,6 False gods and displaying love as a premise over everything that was paramount.
"You must not bow down to them nor be induced to serve them, because I Jehovah your God am a God exacting exclusive devotion, bringing punishment for the error of fathers upon sons, upon the third generation and upon the fourth generation, in the case of those who hate me; 6 but exercising loving-kindness toward the thousandth generation in the case of those who love me and keep my commandments".Premise 3.If the prophecy does not come to pass God did not send the prophecy....
Prophecy is basically "inspired expression" from God.God expressed to the Ninevites that they would be overthrown.By understanding Gods will,as one of love,Gods love for his creation comes second only to his expectation that we show devotion to him first.Once that devotion is shown God will then show love and mercy to us (and hence also to the Ninevites)
Although God proclaimed "overthrow",it was only on the basis that the Ninevites would not repent.This is seen throughout the whole context of Jonah .
There is no contradiction,This is not applicable to Deutronomy.God is supreme and he chooses how he will conduct results from his proclamations,but these are always in line with his own laws given to us and through his merciful ways.

As I have already stated I do not make any judgement on whether or not Jonah is a false prophet. I don't need to to point out a contradiction.And it is no good to say that since Jonah was a true prophet the test of Deuteronomy 18:22 does not apply. The whole point of the test is to tell true prophets from false. There is NOTHING "incorrect in the context of Deuteronomy" that prevents us applying the test to Jonah.As to your genral answers.1) As Brian has discussed a proclaimation is a prophecy. In this case it also includes a prediction.2) You contradict Jonah 3 which clearly states that God had said he would send calamity and then relented.3) Your answer here contradicts the understanding of Jonah - which God does not correct (see Jonah 4). The Book of Jonah in no way endorses your point.So on no less than three (i'd say four) points you disagree with the Bible and on at least two you add your own opinions to the Bible. SO your point is that the Bible as we have it is wrong but if we add your words to it it will be inerrant ?

I actually think when studying prophecy that a good exercise is to take God out of the equation for a minute. Imagine that the text is written solely by human hand.What I think this does is to show that the testing of a prophet is a rigged one, set up as a sort of self preservation strategy. For example, the text that says that a false prophet can tell of a forthcoming event, and that event may happen suggests to me that there were prophets who made true proclamations but in the name of other gods. So how could the Isralite leaders deal with this when it was they who were meant to be following the one true God? Fairly easily, all they do is to say that all prophecies that don't come from Yahweh are false prophecies and shouldn't be listened to. But this doesn't answer the problem of accurate predictions by these 'false' prophets, so what is the solution, they say that Yahweh is testing Israel's loyalty. This effectively eliminates that opposition prophets who may have had a higher strike rate that the Yahweh prophets. It is simple self protection.Biblical prophecy is highly over rated.As for God changing His mind, how ludicrous is that?Brian.