What is the biggest bible contradiction?

Can you find me a word for spiritual children? Can you find me any reason why the word zera could not be used metaphorically?I am not buying this, and maybe it is my ignorance, but;In English, if I say 'he has a heart of stone' it is a metaphor. But 'heart' is the same word used in every other case to signify a bilogical heart, and 'stone' is the same word used in every other case to mean a physical stone. I am not sure why the Hebrews would have to have different vocabulary to whip out when speaking metaphorically. I am willing to understand if you have the answer.

Equinox,
Non-believers, I have noticed, jump from position to position depending on which one supports their arguments;Here, you question whether what we've recorded as the words of Jesus were ever actually spoken by Him. This is the usual way of looking at the Bible as if it's a curious old artifact and nothing more.Here, you use Scottness' position to argue against him, and you suddenly become this big inerrantist just to make this one point. Why can't you say "we have no clue how many antichrists there are" the same way you say "we have no clue about what Jesus actually said". Can't you at least stick to your own non-believer viewpoint to make your arguments?

Anastasia wrote:

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Can't you at least stick to your own non-believer viewpoint to make your arguments?

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Now, now, Anastasia. I have respect for you, and please let me know if I've been too blunt with you in the past. I never meant to masquerade as an inerrantist. I often do point out when a literalist is contradicting the Bible that they claim to respect. When I do so, I often don't bother to write "I'm not a literalist, I was raised Catholic, and went through a period of searching before coming to my current healthy spirituality, which does not include a dogmatic belief that any text is inerrant. I am mentioning an inerrantist position because I'm discussing things with an inerrantist who is appears to be ignoring (or more likely "creatively interpreting") their "inerrant" text in this discussion. I am doing so only so as to speak his language not to imply that I'm an inerrantist, nor to "jump around" or portray my views as anything but what they are."I think you can see why I don't write that every time an inerrantist comes along - because I'd get arthritis, and because it's pretty clear to anyone who's read my posts that I'm not an inerrantist, and that I'm openly stepping into their worldview so we can communicate with each other. I'm sorry if that came across as dishonest - I don't, and never have, hidden that approach or meant to sneak anything.Do you think it is unreasonable for me to follow the assumptions of an inerrantist during discussion with them? Is it any different from a protestant supporter of, say, women's rights saying to a Catholic "look, doesn't the veneration of Mary show that women should have rights?".I'm also a bit saddened to see that a normal conversational practice was turned into an occaision to claim that all "non-believers" (whatever that is) are dishonest.

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your own non-believer viewpoint

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That too, is a sticking point. I believe in a lot of things. I believe that we humans can make a better world for all. I believe that love is important. I believe that difference in belief are to be embraced as long as the beliefs aren't harmful. I believe that this world, including caring for my children and wife is more important than a hypothetical, selfish afterlife. I believe that worldviews should be based on reason and not on threats of torture. I believe we are part of a glorious universe, of which we've only glimpsed a small fraction.Is a Muslim a "non-believer"? What about a Hindu, a Buddhist, or someone who was raised shinto but is now questioning what they've been taught? To call someone a non-believer, first please state what they aren't believing in. For me, I won't believe anything without good evidence, but I fully respect different beliefs of others, as qualified above.Again, I'm sorry if I came across as intending to deceive. From that same post, as you pointed out, it's clear that I'm not an inerrantist. Take care-

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)

sort of.the book is called "in the beginning" or "genesis" and describes the beginnings or genesis of people, places, and practices. it's marginally coincidence, as this happens to be the first word. but it's also likely the first word because of the content of the story that contains it, and similar stories were compiled under that collection.regardless, it is a good title for the book.

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This is utter nonsense. The Trinity is not mentioned in the Bible. What the Bible says about Jesus is contradictory; to itself, to what we know about God, or to what we thought we knew about God.The problem is, even if it's not spelled out, the idea of the Trinity is in the Bible. You can tell me all about these goofy examples of religions who have finally 'figured out' that there is no Biblical Trinity. These religions are considered heretical even by protestant standards, and that puts them pretty far outside of orthodox christianity. The protestants hate Pentecostal's so much they try to blame them on the Catholics.The truth of the matter is, by denying the Trinity doctrine, Mormon's have become polytheistic, JW's have skirted around this by inventing their own Bible, and the Oneness Pentecostals have gone into complete heresy from the rest of christianity with their own extra-biblical interpretations and terms. To put things their way. Jesus and God are one and the same, yet not three. This means that when Jesus left the godhead and came to earth as man, he actually left His divinity behind! They have done their own butchering of the Bible like the JW's, and those darn Mormon's went and found their own book! Not one of these can be said to have taken an honest look at the Bible and created a theology based on it. Instead, they have changed the Bible to suit their viewpoints, and there is absoutely no ifs about it.BTW, they are also not considered christians anymore by christians.

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So... You're saying that in order to be human... (In other words to qualify)... one must sin???

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It isn't enough that we must endure the temptation?

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No. According to traditional (now fundamentalist) Christian doctrine, sin is an inescapable part of the human condidition. Humans cannot avoid sinning. All have come short of the glory of God, and all that. If it were possible for a human to avoid sinning, then I would have expected that among the billions of humans in the last 6000 years there would have been a few who haven't sinned.Therefore, no sin = not fully human.

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Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied. -- Otto von Bismarck

Since when do self-procalimed "christians" get to decide who is Christian and who is not? The very fact that they do so calls their understanding of the Bible into question.

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I haven't done much to deserve respect, but I know we have talked about this a bit before, this 'masquerade' thing. Not if you do it consistantly. If you make points from both sides of the fence it could get unfair for the person answering from one side.Still I was going to agree with you, till this came up; Recently I was emailed a page called 'How to Witness to a Catholic' by a non-denominational christian (I am Catholic). I found it so humorous that these other christians are asking witnesses to 'trick' Catholics into reading the Bible by telling them they will receive a plenary indulgence for it. It's true, there is an indulgence attached to reading of scripture, but indulgences are loathsome to reformists. So, yes, I find it a bit offensive to tell someone; "go read the Bible, you will get an indulgence, and somewhere along the line you will find out how stupid you are for believing that". It does sorta make the person a liar, I think, or at least a 'the end jutifies the means' deceiver.Same with your Mary analogy. If a protestant goes against his own religion to make a case for women's rights, what does that say about his beliefs?I didn't want to be offensive about this. I am not implying that you believe in nothing, or that those who don't follow the Bible are dishonest.

Hi, The only word I can think of that applies to metaphoric children is ben . It is never used metaphorically in any usage in the OT. The context of the songs suport this. The servant isn't even an individual, it is the personification of Israel the nation.You have to read the verses in context. Your heart of stone example would demonstrate that you can only tell it is a metaphor by the context. Every single use of zerah in the OT is in reference biological children.There are other reasons why Jesus is not the suffering servant, but it is sort of immaterial as the servant songs are not even messianic prophecies!It is yet anothe rexample of early Christians quote mining the OT and taking verses out of context. Whoever wrote Matthew was particularly prone to doing this, but he left some glaring errors.You might be interested in this , where I demonstrate beyond all doubt that Jesus was not the Messiah.Brian.

Pretty much since always. The four Biblically supported elements for recognizing the true church of Christ are that it be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Since the earliest days, anyone who opposed the 'oneness' and the 'cathoilic/universal' nature of the church, was in heresy and could not consider themselves christians as per christianity's own definition.

Anastasia wrote:

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These religions are considered heretical even by protestant standards

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Is this a surprise? Catholics consider the Baptists heretical, Baptists consider the Episcopals and pentecostals heretical, the penetcostals consider the Catholics heretical, and on and on. Christians consider religions with different beliefs to be heretical, that's nothing new and goes back as far as far back as there were Christians. It's even in the books of the new testament, where one group of Christians calls another group heretical, says that they aren't Christian (or "True ChristiansTM"), and goes on to attack them.It's nothing new today - Christians, even 1,900 years later, still call other Christians "not Christian" unless the approve of their beliefs. We see that even here at EvC here:

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BTW, they are also not considered christians anymore by christians.

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*****************************************And of course, the same arguments between Christians about who is Christian and who is a heretic extend to what "scripture" is and isn't. When the dozens of Christianities sprang up after Jesus, they all had different scripture, and all said their stuff was scripture and the "heretics" scripture was stuff.So the Protestants have "butchered" the Catholic Bible (if you are Catholic), or vice versa if you are protestant. If you are Mormon, the Catholics have an incomplete Bible, or if you are Protestant the Mormons have added a book. All say that the others mistranslate and/or misinterpret various passages, and in doing so "butcher" the Bible. The Coptics have yet another canon of scripture. This invariably leads to people saying things like this:

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They have done their own butchering of the Bible like the JW's, and those darn Mormon's went and found their own book! Not one of these can be said to have taken an honest look at the Bible and created a theology based on it. Instead, they have changed the Bible to suit their viewpoints, and there is absoutely no ifs about it.

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The truth of the matter is, by denying the Trinity doctrine, Mormon's have become polytheistic

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I can imagine a 2nd century Jew saying:"The truth of the matter is, by denying the oneness of Yahweh, these, what are they called? "Christians" have become polytheistic!

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This means that when Jesus left the godhead and came to earth as man, he actually left His divinity behind!

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And that makes more sense than 3=1=3=1=3=1=3?

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JW's have skirted around this by inventing their own Bible

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Rabbi 2nd Cent again:Christians have skirted around this by inventing their own scripture, they even call it the "new" testament!

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and the Oneness Pentecostals have gone into complete heresy ... with their own extra-biblical interpretations and terms.

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Rabbi 2nd again:
and the "Christians" have gone into complete heresy ... with their own extra-biblical interpretations and terms, like saying that "Holy, Holy, Holy" means the trinity, or that Moses' arm mean Jesus, or that Isaiah says that a virgin will bear a child.I may not be in the "right" religion, but at least I can respect these various Christianities equally, without saying that one (hey, it just happens to be my own) has the absolute lock on the truth, while in the same breath insulting scriptures and interpretations that have as much authority as the ones I was told to believe.

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)

So you're using the Catholic definition of heresy to decide who is a Christian?

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The truth of the matter is, by denying the Trinity doctrine, Mormon's have become polytheistic

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I can imagine a 2nd century Jew saying:

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"The truth of the matter is, by denying the oneness of Yahweh, these, what are they called? "Christians" have become polytheistic!

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Which, by the way, is a charge made by the Muslims against Christianity.

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Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied. -- Otto von Bismarck

If He did not leave His divinity behind then the story of Jesus is meaningless and a sham. The idea that Jesus while on earth is not divine but only man is supported biblically as well as through the Creeds.However that is leading way off topic. The key point is that the Bible is filled with contradictions as any anthology of anthologies will be. It reminds me of a practice that used to be quite common particularly in the Science Fiction monthlies. The senior editor would assign a basic concept to several writers who would then write a short story based on the concept. Each story stood on its own merit, but if you looked at the collection as an unit you would of course find contradictions between the stories. If events mentioned in one story were considered, then events in another became impossible.The Bible is exactly the same.IMHO the biggest single contradiction in the Bible, one that must be addressed to understand the Bible at all, is the two totally different views of GOD found in the God of Genesis 1 and the God of Genesis 2.These two books are significant IMHO because they tell us so much about the goals, thoughts and beliefs of the various redactors and editors that compiled the Bible whether we are speaking of the Jews compiling the Torah or the Christians compiling the Old Testament.The beginning books of the Bible are unique.There, the redactors include mutually exclusive creation stories, they place the younger version first before the older version, even though they were certainly capable of seeing that the two versions contradict each other in order, method and even the portrayal of GOD.They do not try to revise the texts to make them fit even though they did edit at least two versions of the creation myth into one in the version that picks up about Genesis 2:4.The fact that they did combine several sources together and smooth out internal inconsistencies within the older version that begins with Genesis 2:5 shows that they were both capable of editing the tales and not hesitant to do so.So IMHO we must ask, "Why did the redactors include two tales that are mutually exclusive, that reiterate pretty much the same theme and change the order so that the newer version comes first with the older ones following instead of maintaining a chronological order?"

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Anastasia wrote:

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Pretty much since always. The four Biblically supported elements for recognizing the true church of Christ are that it be One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. Since the earliest days,

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Um, by "since always", do you mean the fourth century? That looks like a quote from the 4th century nicene creed. Besides, and more importantly, all Christianities, even from back then, claimed to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Are you saying that whoever has the most members is by definition what a "True Christian" is?Those for criteria are useless, since they apply to every Christianity - let's look at them one at a time:One - so who is the right one if there is a split? Both (or all) claim to be the "one true church", and the other one is "real" reason for the split.Holy - what religion doesn't claim to be holy?Catholic - (meaning of course universal, not Roman) - again, all claim to be the Universally true church. Or this can be interpreted to mean "only", but as we've seen, there have been very few times in history when there was only one Christian church.Apostolic - Again, all of them claim this. The protestants claim to be following the true and uncorrupted teachings of Paul, the Ebionites rejected Paul and instead claimed to be the true church of Peter, the Gnostics said that Paul had taught someone else, preserving their apostolic claim, etc, etc....We are again left with no distinction between the many Christianities.

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)