Adam and Eve

DontTreadOnMike said:

2 Samuel 24:1.
And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah


Chronicles 21:1
And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.


Yeah. I'm....confused. (<----How much do you want to bet AV will make a smart comment about that sentence and ignore the first part of this post?)

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It's a given.

DontTreadOnMike said:

And finally I get to a real argument from Ih8S8n which is quite easy to reduce to two sentences. Actually how about one sentence?

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If thats what you think it can be summarised as - fine, I am glad you took it all in.
I think that its equally important to understand the premise and the Rabbis techniques that Jesus used and thats why I think it cannot be summarised so briefly, as most reading that will just stubbornly write it off as someone elses interpretation.

In order to understand Jesus correctly its very helpful to acknowledge that he almost always made direct or indirect references to the scriptures, and also used Remez's often, particularly when talking to the Pharisees et al. The gospels do not clarify context, as the intended audience (both readers of the gospel and the persons who where there) did know the context.

by the way a Remez is when a Rabbis quotes or alludes to a scripture where he intends that the next verse is the important reference. Apparently if one was to sit and listen to two Rabbis speaking to each other in Remez's it is quite trippy

DontTreadOnMike said:

2 Samuel 24:1.
And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah


Chronicles 21:1
And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

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Mike, I find it hard to beleive that you uncovered this alleged contradiction from your own studies. Likely you have cherry picked it from some list somewhere.

I googled "contradiction chronicles 21:1" and obtained 274,000 hits, and of the first ten, eight explain why it is not a contradiction. The remaining two are just lists, parading supposed contradictions with no support, in complete ignorance that scholars have long since reconciled them.

How could you post such a claim of contradiction without checking first what the answers already are?

The remaining two are just lists, parading supposed contradictions with no support, in complete ignorance that scholars have long since reconciled them.

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That's absolutely right. We complain a lot about creationist PRATTs in this sub-forum, but the alleged contradiction lists published by (usually) atheist and Islamic websites are just as worthy of being called PRATTs. Most Bible scholars, whether Christian or secular, will tell you that almost all of the items on these lists are nonsense and can be resolved very easily. There are some that are genuine, e.g. differing ages between the Chronicles and Kings accounts (one version may say 18 years, another 8: a difference of one letter) or the use of different words in parallel passages (again, the result of one letter difference between the Hebrew words used). These are a result of transcription errors by copyists.

But the majority of the supposed problems can be resolved simply by comparing how it has been translated in modern versions (most of the items in the list are quoted from the outdated KJV) and by looking at the meanings of the Hebrew and Greek words.

For people who complain about a lack of thorough unbiased testing of views put forward by creationists, these contradiction lists would be a lot shorter if they were submitted to the high standards of peer review that the same people expect of others.

That's all very well for problems of mistranslation, but not so much for issues like Chronicles 21:1 as above.

There are no shortage of explanations as to why this might not be a contradiction. God acted through Satan, God let Satan do it, God masqueraded as Satan, etc.
It's easy enough to say those things to explain away the apparent inconsistency, but it doesn't say those things in the text.

Which one is true, if any? Who knows, it doesn't say. What we do know is that in the divinely inspired word of God there are two distinctly different accounts of the same event, when it would make more sense to have one account, or two accounts that are at least in accord. What's the point in leaving us with an eternal guessing game that makes rational folk doubt that this really is the word of God?

Samuel 24 is, for me, a great example of what's wrong with the Bible. God asks David to take a count of his men, David does so. David then feels guilty for doing God's will and asks to be punished. God kills tens of thousands of people.

I remember a conversation with AV where he said that if God ordered him to face an army with only a cardboard sword he would. Why would David feel any different?

Nostromo said:

Samuel 24 is, for me, a great example of what's wrong with the Bible. God asks David to take a count of his men, David does so.

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It does not say God asked David.

marktheblake said:

It does not say God asked David.

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That he didn't literally speak to him isn't the point, David is punished by God for something that God essentially made him do.

Edit: Not forgetting the 70,000 people that died as a result.

Nostromo said:

TDavid is punished by God for something that God essentially made him do.

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In isolation that does seem strange but that is expected

in leaving us with an eternal guessing game that makes rational folk doubt that this really is the word of God?

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I cant imagine any atheist is capable of being rational when it comes to exegesis.

marktheblake said:

In isolation that does seem strange but that is expected

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Strange? Where I live they call that child abuse.

marktheblake said:

I cant imagine any atheist is capable of being rational when it comes to exegesis.

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Then you don't have a very good imagination.

Targ said:

That's absolutely right. We complain a lot about creationist PRATTs in this sub-forum, but the alleged contradiction lists published by (usually) atheist and Islamic websites are just as worthy of being called PRATTs. Most Bible scholars, whether Christian or secular, will tell you that almost all of the items on these lists are nonsense and can be resolved very easily. There are some that are genuine, e.g. differing ages between the Chronicles and Kings accounts (one version may say 18 years, another 8: a difference of one letter) or the use of different words in parallel passages (again, the result of one letter difference between the Hebrew words used). These are a result of transcription errors by copyists.

But the majority of the supposed problems can be resolved simply by comparing how it has been translated in modern versions (most of the items in the list are quoted from the outdated KJV) and by looking at the meanings of the Hebrew and Greek words.

For people who complain about a lack of thorough unbiased testing of views put forward by creationists, these contradiction lists would be a lot shorter if they were submitted to the high standards of peer review that the same people expect of others.

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Modern scholarship at the top seminaries will tell you no such thing.