Biblical Contradictions

Originally Posted by Rhalen

There is a recorded sensus mentioned in 6 AD. That fits the bill rather nicely.

Originally Posted by Rhalen

Source?

Now, now, don't be a hypocrite. If you're going to ask GDwarf for a source that says there was no census at the time, then you'd better give a source when you claim there was.

Originally Posted by Rhalen

Which is why I posted the next part of the article.


(3) as a son-in-law (the Jews had no word to express this concept and so just used “son”—e.g., 1 Samuel 24:16; 26:17);
(5) in the sense of a step-son who took on the legal status of his step-father—the relationship sustained by Jesus to Joseph (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3; Luke 3:23; 4:22; John 6:42).

I'm not sure, but that seems to explain it rather well.

It doesn't really.

If I were to give the genealogy of your mother, I wouldn't say that your father was the son of your maternal grandfather and work backwards from there, would I?

So wait... because both parental bloodlines trace back to David, Jesus can't be a descendant of David?

One of the bloodlines traces back to David...the bloodline that is not, in fact, related to Jesus.

If Jesus was divine and Mary became pregnant with him due to divine intervention, then he is not biologically related to Joseph.

So now because the gospels aren't carbon copies of eachother they are invalid?

Not at all, but it's interesting the parts that they contradict.

Are you blind or something? "they had no concept of son in alw so they just used son" and since they used the male names in geneologies, they used Joseph and not Mary. There you have it.

Perhaps the reason they used male names in genealogies was, in fact, because the only genealogies they bothered with were men? They didn't care who his mother was.

4 Different people wrote 4 different coinciding accounts.

Sources?

Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible.

It's probably a bit dated now, but I don't suppose that the fact that the different Gospels were written decades apart has changed since then.

So you're implying that the book of John isn't reliable because it was found later?

No, because it wasn't written until 100 years later.

Luke and Matthew are about as bad (most scholars, according to Wikipedia) date them at 70 to 90 AD.

And that the Disciples made up the gospel? That's honestly a bunch of bull.

Not at all. They were all trying to spread the religion to different groups, so they edited the stories to appeal to those different groups.

In addition, even now you see devout believers in pretty much anything willing to lie to get others to believe also. They see nothing wrong with it, because, in the end, getting more converts outweighs the lies. Why should the Gospel writers be any different?

Matthew/Mark (Matthew and Luke based their gospels off of Marks, or so most biblical scholars agree) tried to target the conservative Jewish sects (hence Matthew trying to find prophecies everywhere, even where they clearly aren't.) while Luke (who also based his gospel off of Mark) and John were targeting the Gentiles more.

Read them through and notice that Luke/John have Jesus making all sorts of pro-gentile statements, while Matthew and Mark do not.

Now you're saying that the disciples made up Jesus' past? And do you have any proof of this?

Other than the fact that the Gospels of John (and, IIRC, Luke) aren't contemporary and that the gospels disagree about his past? Not really. I throw it out there as a hypothesis to explain their contradictions.

Jesus of Nazareth, not Jesus of Galilee. That's because that's where he grew up. That's the area he was known for having residence in.

Indeed, my mistake on the name.

But that's my point. Matthew and Luke needed to explain how he could fit the prophecies despite being known as "Jesus of Nazareth." since "of x" meant that you had been born and raised there.

So, Luke invents a census, Matthew just says that Jesus's family moved for some reason or other and then moved back almost immediately.

Source?

Isaac Asimov's Guide to the Bible (Vol. 2)

That example makes absolutely no sense for what you are saying. I see no relation between the two what so ever.

I explained it.

The point of the census was to determine how many people lived in each city to allow for more accurate taxation and, I suppose, other administrative tasks.

So why on earth would you send everyone to a different town to find this out? You'd get wildly inaccurate numbers that would be of no use what-so-ever.

Just as if you were polling people to find out something but asked them the opinion of their Great Uncle's best friend.

Both sets of data would be about as useful.

Like the tight record keeping Jews of the day wouldn't notice something like that. That's like saying if you put Xenon in Hydrogen's place on the periodic table, no one will notice. Sure, there are people with less education who won't know, but there are plenty of learned people who know the difference.

But the Christians weren't targeting the learned people, they were preaching to gentiles or to Jews who were unsatisfied with their current faith.

They did get some fundamentalist Jews, sure, but that was relatively early in the ministrey, before either of the gospels with genealogies were written.

There is a recorded sensus mentioned in 6 AD. That fits the bill rather nicely.

Census of Quirinius - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Biblical contradictions. There are plenty of them, but what annoys me is the way Christians will twist and change the exact wording of the bible in order to dismiss such contradictions. I mean, surely if the bible was such an important document given by God, he wouldn't have made it correct only when readers have scrutanizd it to death. You shouldn't have to have a degre in bible reading in order to understand it. And, in the end, other people can twist it the other way, but of course because they are the atheists they couldn't possibly be right, could they?

I just thought I'd start with a big contradiction.

Thou Shalt Not Kill

If you look in the Bible, there are an amazing number of people that God wants his followers to murder. For example, in Exodus 35:2 God lays down this commandment:

For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death.

Think about that how many people work on the Sabbath -- all the employees of Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, Linnens & things, grocery stores, convenience stores, power plants, airlines, hospitals, emergency services and on and on and on. Don't rabbis, priests and preachers work on the Sabbath? God wants all of them dead.

Then look at Deut 21:18-21. It says:

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place. They shall say to the elders of his town, ‘This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.

That is a whole lot of teenagers that we need to kill.

Then there is Leviticus 20:13:

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.

All homosexuals need to be killed. What about this:

If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.

That's a lot of people who need to be killed.

In other words, if we actually listened to what God says, we would need to kill at least half of the people in America tomorrow. After all, Isaiah 40:8 says, "The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand for ever." The word of the Lord tells us to kill half of the U.S. population.

There are two things in this that show you that God is imaginary. First there is the utter stupidity of these verses. Second, there is this fact: If God is an all-powerful being, he would kill them himself. There would be no need for people to do the murdering. These people would already be dead, and Wal-Mart would be closed on the Sabbath through lack of employees.

Notice that believers completely ignore these parts of the Bible. That is because they know that the verses are insane. By acknowledging that their God is insane, they prove that their God is imaginary.

Questions?

Okay, so God says a lot of people need to be killed. That might be absurd, but it's not contradictory. Contrary to popular belief, the commandment says "thou shalt not murder" not "thou shalt not kill."

Originally Posted by Lysis

Okay, so God says a lot of people need to be killed. That might be absurd, but it's not contradictory. Contrary to popular belief, the commandment says "thou shalt not murder" not "thou shalt not kill."

and killing someone because of their sexual orientation is not murder to you?

Of course I think it's murder; but that doesn't mean that's how God defined murder in the Ten Commandments.

Originally Posted by Lysis

Of course I think it's murder; but that doesn't mean that's how God defined murder in the Ten Commandments.

Ok, Murder:

"The unlawful killing of one human by another, especially with premeditated malice."

How is that not murder? God can't have a different definition of malice thats more insane that his hit list. Its like saying "its murder, unless its one of these people I seriously don't like then its fine"

If God commands someone to murder according to his laws, how is it unlawful? See, you technically just proved my point. It's not a contradiction because by definition it's not murder.

Originally Posted by Lysis

If God commands someone to murder according to his laws, how is it unlawful? See, you technically just proved my point. It's not a contradiction because by definition it's not murder.

God laws were the commandments were they not? Now your saying if someone breaks one of these laws then death as a punishment isn't murder because its deserved.

I don't see Christians murdering punishing all of these homosexuals, rebellious teenagers (which is basically around 90% of the population) and miscellaneous others who are breaking his laws, but I'm pretty sure anyone who doesn't follow the word of god is to be put to death as well (will check my sources concerning this, don't quote me)

So surely these laws will kill off almost everyone in the world right now, so isn't everyone breaking gods laws? Yet I don't see him doing anything about it, hes always commanding the puppet to do the master's work. Yet there is no puppets doing it and hes not doing his own dirty work, so doesn't that imply
A) his laws are not that important to him?
B) he doesn't exist?

There are all of these laws which aren't being followed, women are not meant to be equals, ethnics are meant to be slaves, women shouldn't be priests (because they're meant to stay silent in churches)

So could it be possible god has lost interest because the Christians are such bad followers of his religion?

Originally Posted by Liquid Fire

God laws were the commandments were they not? Now your saying if someone breaks one of these laws then death as a punishment isn't murder because its deserved.

I don't see Christians murdering punishing all of these homosexuals, rebellious teenagers (which is basically around 90% of the population) and miscellaneous others who are breaking his laws, but I'm pretty sure anyone who doesn't follow the word of god is to be put to death as well (will check my sources concerning this, don't quote me)

So surely these laws will kill off almost everyone in the world right now, so isn't everyone breaking gods laws? Yet I don't see him doing anything about it, hes always commanding the puppet to do the master's work. Yet there is no puppets doing it and hes not doing his own dirty work, so doesn't that imply
A) his laws are not that important to him?
B) he doesn't exist?

There are all of these laws which aren't being followed, women are not meant to be equals, ethnics are meant to be slaves, women shouldn't be priests (because they're meant to stay silent in churches)

So could it be possible god has lost interest because the Christians are such bad followers of his religion?

No, you're completely misunderstanding me. I'm not saying anyone deserves anything. I'm saying that according to the Biblical law killing someone as commanded according to the Biblical law is not unlawful as according to the Biblical law. This thread is about contradictions and all I'm saying is that this isn't a contradiction.

Originally Posted by Lysis

No, you're completely misunderstanding me. I'm not saying anyone deserves anything. I'm saying that according to the Biblical law killing someone as commanded according to the Biblical law is not unlawful as according to the Biblical law. This thread is about contradictions and all I'm saying is that this isn't a contradiction.

But that is all based on the theory that god has a different meaning to what murder is, to what we do. Which so far I have found no proof of. So until then it is a contradiction, that he says not to murder/kill, then there is this big list of people who need putting to death.

The definition of murder is unlawful killing. If God's laws say to kill somebody, then it isn't therefore unlawful according to God's laws.

Originally Posted by Lysis

The definition of murder is unlawful killing. If God's laws say to kill somebody, then it isn't therefore unlawful according to God's laws.

That is fair enough, but then why aren't Christians killing all these people who lawfully are being condemned to death?

I'd like to point out another contradiction, In John chapter 14, verses 12 through 14, Jesus tells all of us just how easy prayer can be:

"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son; if you ask anything in my name, I will do it."

Surely there are people in the world praying for poverty to end etc. etc. Why is nothing happening?