The Bible has no contradictions

There is no need for doubt. "He knew his wife and she conceived," means he got her pregnant just like, "It's raining cats and dogs," means it's raining hard."He knew his wife and she conceived," is the equivalent of, "They got married and two months later she was pregnant." It's just silly to interpret it as, "He knew his wife and by sheer coincidence she got pregnant."By the definition you cited, skepticism means "questioning, probing, testing." What did you question, probe or test to come up with the conclusion that two halves of the sentence are completely unrelated?

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

ringo, Reason or no reason, I question it. Mere questioning is skepticism. Doubt is skepticism. Testing is skepticism. It is all Skepticism. In your mind there is no REASON. That is called faith and hence is not being skeptical. You're not being skeptical."He knew his wife and she conceived,This is the full context though and is much different than"He knew his wife".Edited by III, : Added message.

Yes, that's what people are telling you. You need to look at the context.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

ringo,No, that is what I am telling you people. LOL.You all need to read the context... And if you have to, refer BACK to the Hebrew words for that context...FYI: You could just simply refer back to MY post. Edited by III, : Added message.Edited by III, : Added message.Edited by III, : Added message.Edited by III, : errEdited by III, : err

there is such a thing as too much skepticism, as idiotic ideas like solipsism can show us. actually, this is the real genesis 4:1.

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וְהָאָדָם, יָדַע אֶת-חַוָּה אִשְׁתּוֹ; וַתַּהַר, וַתֵּלֶד אֶת-קַיִן, וַתֹּאמֶר, קָנִיתִי אִישׁ אֶת-יְהוָה

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so, frankly, english definitions are irrelevant. you won't find many answer about what the bible means if all you're going to look at are the meanings of the words the translators chose. indeed, you might not even get much from knowing literally what each word in the text means in the original language. there are idioms, expressions, and obscure non-literal meanings. in this case, יָדַע happens to be a very basic word for "knowing" in much the same sense it is in english. it's the "know" as in עֵץ, הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע (the tree of knowledge), and the same "know" as in,

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כִּי, יֹדֵעַ אֱלֹהִים, כִּי בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְכֶם מִמֶּנּוּ, וְנִפְקְחוּ עֵינֵיכֶם; וִהְיִיתֶם, כֵּאלֹהִים, יֹדְעֵי, טוֹב וָרָע

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"for god knows that when you eat from it, and you will be like gods knowing good and evil"

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the thing is, it's also the same word as:

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וַיֵּדַע קַיִן אֶת-אִשְׁתּוֹ, וַתַּהַר וַתֵּלֶד אֶת-חֲנוֹךְ

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"and qayin (cain) knew his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to chanuk (enoch)"

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and

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וַיֵּדַע אָדָם עוֹד, אֶת-אִשְׁתּוֹ, וַתֵּלֶד בֵּן

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and adam knew his wife again, and she gave birth to a son

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and

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And they called unto Lot, and said unto him: 'Where are the men that came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.'

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and

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Behold now, I have two daughters that have not known man;

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lot, btw, is clearly a man. (they're also evidently married, but whatever) it's also the same "know" as in judges 19, which repeats a story very similar to sodom -- only they mob outside the door does indeed accept the trade, and "knows" their rape victim all night long, until she dies. and then there this, a few chapters later:

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וְזֶה הַדָּבָר, אֲשֶׁר תַּעֲשׂוּ: כָּל-זָכָר, וְכָל-אִשָּׁה יֹדַעַת מִשְׁכַּב-זָכָר--תַּחֲרִימוּ&# 1493;ַיִּמְצְאוּ מִיּוֹשְׁבֵי יָבֵישׁ גִּלְעָד, אַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת נַעֲרָה בְתוּלָה, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יָדְעָה אִישׁ, לְמִשְׁכַּב זָכָר; וַיָּבִאוּ אוֹתָם אֶל-הַמַּחֲנֶה שִׁלֹה, אֲשֶׁר בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן.

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"And this is the thing that ye shall do: ye shall utterly destroy every male, and every woman that hath lain by man.' And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins, that had not known man by lying with him; and they brought them unto the camp to Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.

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i think it's pretty clear not only that it can sometimes be talking about sex, and when it is. sort of the same way how we english speakers will sometimes that we slept with someone, even though no sleeping was involved. some skeptic! count them again! your point is clearly nonsensical. how do you know that you've understood what i mean? your posts means to make language nonsense. since your post is largely semantics, this is biting the hand that feeds you.

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אָרַח

there's an old adage that he who appeals to the dictionary first, loses.in any case, sometimes things are commonly accepted for a reason. this happens to be one of those things. it's perfectly fine to question commonly accepted notions -- indeed, quite a lot of the commonly accepted theological ideas regarding biblical teachings happen to be wrong.this, however, is a simple matter of looking at context. not just individually, but as i have above: across multiple verses. this is where a tool like a concordance comes in handy. crack it open, find yada, and check every other verse that it appears in the bible. you'll find that some of them are obviously referring to sexual intercourse, though a great many aren't.

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אָרַח

arachnophilia,You can pretend to think you know something all you want but what you know is mere faith. You have faith in your last post to be true. This is faith not skepticism...My point, when dealing with history or reality we all build what we think around what we want to think. If you're a naturalist you want to be, if you're a christian you want to be. If you want to believe this, you will. Skepticism has its intended use and I am using it perfectly. There MAYBE a contradiction in gen 4-5. Gravity may not exist. We learn as we go. Humanity is primitive.

i never thought this was particularly an issue. the reason cain isn't listed is somewhat obvious: he's cursed. the people writing this genealogy aren't interested him. the reason abel isn't listed is even more obvious.cain killed him. so, a note on the above. concordances can be useful tools, but they are not dictionaries. a concordance is simply a listing of each word in a text, and where it appears. they do not actually included definitions -- though for texts in another language, being read in translation, they can be useful to see how a translator has translated a word in various contexts.and the dictionary attached to BLB is not the end-all-be-all of hebrew meaning. indeed, it occasionally defines things inappropriately for doctrinal reasons (see leviathan or behemoth), and it can be easy to misuse if you do not understand what it's for. indeed, if you try, you can do very silly things with it.

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אָרַח

ah, but see, you don't actually know that i wrote what i wrote, or what i meant by it. and invite you to prove otherwise. you are under the potentially mistaken impression that you are speaking to a real person.

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אָרַח

arachnophilia,This is a decent argument. I have not heard this one before and actually it's almost adoptable but yet it still does not subtract from the other argument that Cain and Abel may not have been descendants of Adam.This is pretty much a wasted post so I will respond to post 189. "Exactly".Edited by III, : errEdited by III, : No reason given.Edited by III, : errEdited by III, : Corrections!

That's really simple to do. All you have to do is convince someone you're right by lying to them. Or do you think the Bible can actually defend itself? If you do, then you believe your one year old child is talking to you when he's babbling and spitting up. Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

You people argue whether or not the Bible has any contradictions without knowing who the true God is. Only God can interpret the scriptures because he knows where all the lies were added by the Jews and Romans. He's the only one who understands the symbolic meanings that he had written by his prophets and saints. For a sinner to argue something he has to lie about in order to be right is not done with the truth. It's done by the sinful flesh that deceives their thoughts.

It is totally irrelevant who the real God is to say whether or not there are any contradictions in the Bible.If only God understands "the symbolic meanings that he had written by his prophets and saints" then it was both a pointless effort and a useless tome.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Sure I have. Anyone but the strictest pedant can see it. Not really... "he knew her and she conceived" can only mean that he had sex with her.And it doesn't even really matter what the word is: "he smurfed her and she conceived" means the same thing. No, that is solipsism <-- know anything? Wait, how can you claim its the real one if you're so "skeptical"!? That's a stinking pile of bullshit. You're just trying to interpret away a perceived error. Its not honest. What? Everytime I leave for work in the morning, I loose my awareness for my girlfriend!? That's just silly. How old are you? (I'll be 30 this year.)You're comming off as immature because you're arguing for solipsism and have to bust out the dictionary to make semantic arguments. Quit wasting my time. False. And shouldn't you be "skeptical" of that? That's got to be one of the stupidest interpretation I have ever read.Everytime someone walks out of the room, I no longer know them If that were true then nobody could communicate. How about this: Fuck skepticism! Who says I have to be skeptical? Why would you want to be so skeptical to the point where you can't know anything? And then contradict yourself and claim that your interpretation is the real one Its blatantly obvious that the Bible uses the idiom "to know" to trefer to sex and that its done it in the passage you're trying to chop up and twist to fit your needs.And what you're refering to is solipsism. Do you think we can know anything at all?Edited by Catholic Scientist, : spellingEdited by Catholic Scientist, : No reason given.

The scriptures were only meant for God, not religious people who don't even know who God is.