if it is supposed to be the TRUE WORD OF THE ONE AND ONLY ALL KNOWING GOD YAWEH (JEHOVA)?

There is plenty in the bible that must be false as below from Genesis:

[b]"4:16 And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.
4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch."[/b]

Where did Cain's wife come from if the Adam and Eve story is true ? Were there humans already on earth before god created Adam and Eve ? If so, Adam and Eve were not the first humans on earth as genesis would have us believe. Is there something very important that has been left out of this "complete" book ?

There are hundreds of blatant contradictions in this "errorless" book.

I'm praying for ya, BenDover.

Dave S

Whether you like it or not. [:D]

i'm gonna get flamed for this, but here goes.

a long time ago a group of dudes realized that society was falling apart and chaos ruled  they realized that they needed three things, laws, beliefs, and explanation for things they could not explain.

well, lo and behold, they find this "book" with all these rules and explanations and you must not question it or the rules or you will go to this place called "hell"
who could prove otherwise?

just my .o2

You can debate it all you want, in the end, Christians will just say "It's a matter of having faith".  That's how all these questions end.  Faith.

As I'm sure you know, the Bible is fallable because it was a collection of writings of "man" over a period of time. In those times these writings were representative of our best knowledge of history, philosophy and we filled in the gaps of understanding with religion.

And we always have.

The early Greeks despite their brilliance in philosophy explained lightning as the act of Zues. The Egyptians for all their math and architecture believed our sun was a living god, Raj. All early men explained the unknown with the supernatural rather than admit they "didn't know." And as recorded by history, and the Bible, they got a great deal wrong.

Even the current King James Bible is inherently flawed as it was written by a monarch. So to accept it you have to accept that King James had divine right to rule men as a King. Even though most of Christian teaching is opposed to this idea. If valid where is our current "God designated" King?

Finally most of the works in the Old Testament as it appears in the current Bible are heavily editted. They took the most ridiculous parts of the Jewish scrolls out because even the science of two milleniums ago had proven them dubious. If you want flaws, read the original Hebrew scrolls. Stories of giants men roaming the Earth and other comic book tales abound.

Hey I appreciate the unconditional human love and sincerity. Believe me I don't want to reject your faith. I am just trying to understand why the one book that is supposed to be the total and complete truth has so many inconsistencies.

Here's another:

Should we kill?

Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not kill."
Leviticus 24:17 "And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death."

vs.

Exodus 32:27 "Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, . . . and slay every man his brother, . . . companion, . . . neighbor."
I Samuel 6:19 " . . . and the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter."
I Samuel 15:2,3,7,8 "Thus saith the Lord . . . Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. . . . And Saul smote the Amalekites . . . and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword."
Numbers 15:36 "And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."
Hosea 13:16 "they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with children shall be ripped up."

Ben, knock yourself out...

[url]http://www.angelfire.com/on2/strike/index.html[/url]

This sort of thread is pointless...believers will believe and will tell you it's a matter of faith.  
And the examples you've given aren't the best ones anyway.  How about 2 Samuel 24?  It's stated that God is the one that moved David to start a census, and then God gets angry when David does it and, rather than punishing David, God sends a plague that kills THE PEOPLE!
And to top things off, 1 Chronicles 21:1 says that SATAN was the one who moved David to take the census!

Um, that's easy. Sure he can make the universe in six days but God is a lousy editor. 'Nuff said.

So what's good is a faith that forces you to deny logic? If logic is the bane of Christianity (it is hard to believe the Bible when it has so many logical holes), then wouldn't logic be evil (causing one to question the validity of their faith in God)?

it's easy.  
Cain wanders......
the bible goes on Adam and Eve have children grandchildren, etc.
Cain meets a distant great granddaughter, hooks up and settles in the land of nod
4:16 and 4:17 occur many decades apart.
[bounce]

the correct translation is Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not murder."
Leviticus 24:17 "And he that murders any man shall surely be put to death."
the other verses are examples of warfare and self preservation which is something completely different from murdering people.
Leviticus 24:17 "And he that killeth any man

this is fun, hit me with another while i get some ice cream.
nothing better that being filled with the spirit.  

except maybe the spirit and blue bell.

Ah, guess what?

I don't have time to re-write Dr. Norman Geisler's book here(When Critics Ask, about 600 pages of record-setting-straight-ing[%|])-nor am I any sort of scholar to answer personally 1001 questions on "A doesn't agree with B"-I lack the neccesary background in more than one area of biblical knowledge to find the answers on my own.  However, the very fact that many of the questions have been answered, for me, and for other, makes me quite able to say that it's NOT just a matter of faith-it's a matter of the book proving itself correct.

The answers I have found for the questions about constancy in the biblical text, I have come from the explanations of others, and while I have researched them as well as I can, I'm no scholar of Aramaic or Greek-the writiers who explain these seemingly impossible biblical contradiction, could be lying to me, but someone, somewhere would point this out...

I will, say however, that it's one whole hell of a lot easier to put up a webpage with every single "seeming" inconsistancy-I could sit here and do it-but finding factually and historically correct answers actually takes work and research.

I will say that I have no found one inconsistancy in the bible yet(and I've studied it far less than many other), that with some looking and reading, I haven't had explained to my satisfaction. This actually required some effort and money on my part-I hadda buy two whole books! I wasn't just gonna take some guy with a free page on Geocities' word for it that he had proved the Bible wrong...  I don't know a website that provides pat answers to "undeniable inconsistancies" but go check a library if you won't buy the books.

I hereby challenge those of you who are actually seeking some answers to these sorts of apparent contradicions to go buy [i]When Critics Ask[/i] and [i]When Skeptics Ask[/i], by Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe-they really do provide answers. As a further challenge, if you're seeking for a general all around view of factual proof and plausible explanations for the existance of Christ, the reality of God, aqnd why the whole damn deal seems so unfair to heathens and little kids, then email me, and I'll send you a copy of [i]The Case for Christ[/i], and a copy of [i]The Case for Faith[/i], by Lee Strobel. free. I'll even pick up the shipping.

Of course, if you really don't want answers, and are just screwing around looking for some negative reactions, don't waste my time.

Oh, and the Commandment in the original form is "Murder" not the all inclusive "Kill". Different deal altogether.

Juggernaut

Edited to add that I don't have many copies of those two books-but enough for the first few people. Also to add that [i]Scientific Explanations to Biblical Mysteries[/i] and [i]Scientific Explanations to More Biblical Mysteries[/i] is another good set-Can't remember the author's name, and I could have sworn a week ago that they were both on my shelf, or I'd go check.

Correct translation? And which one would that be? It thought they were all correct being that they are the true word of God.

And your explanation for the first example in Genesis is so far subjective that it cannot be considered. On what do you base the concept that they occurred decades apart?

Here's another one....

Does God change his mind?

Malachi 3:6 "For I am the Lord; I change not."
Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent."
Ezekiel 24:14 "I the Lord have spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent."
James 1:17 " . . . the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
vs.


Exodus 32:14 "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people."
Genesis 6:6,7 "And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth . . . And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth . . . for it repenteth me that I have made him."
Jonah 3:10 ". . . and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not."
See also II Kings 20:1-7, Numbers 16:20-35, Numbers 16:44-50.

See Genesis 18:23-33, where Abraham gets God to change his mind about the minimum number of righteous people in Sodom required to avoid destruction, bargaining down from fifty to ten. (An omniscient God must have known that he was playing with Abraham's hopes for mercy--he destroyed the city anyway.)

AND ANOTHER ONE

Shall we call people names?

Matthew 5:22 "Whosoever shall say Thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire." [Jesus speaking]

vs.

Matthew 23:17 "Ye fools and blind." [Jesus speaking]
Psalm 14:1 "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."

Oh, so it's not inconsistant, it's just promoting incest.  Um, thanks, but I'll pass.

You got to have Faith

incest is common in most small communities.
even the most ardent evolutionary scollars agree that we all came from a single "mother"

Why?  I get along quite fine without it.

And again I say: So what's good is a faith that forces you to deny logic? If logic is the bane of Christianity (it is hard to believe the Bible when it has so many logical holes), then wouldn't logic be evil (causing one to question the validity of their faith in God)?

I am not saying any of this because I am trying to convince someone to not believe in a God.

I am trying to understand WHY they believe in the God that they do. When you use personal accounts and the source of information as the only basis to corroborate your faith in something, how can anyone else determine whether or not what you believe can be true?

Juggernaut admitted to not being a scholar in these things, but seemingly believes in it?

How can someone believe in something that they have not totally understood to be true? Especially when a faith isn't measurable under scientific observation. It's all emotion and "educated guesses" at best. Most of the educated guesses are based on generational layers of educated guesses.

Now I am not to old to remember what happens when you play the telephone game in a room full of people.

But incest is explicitly condemned in the Bible.  Yet somehow, it was all right when Seth and co. did it.

Yes, because logic and critical analysis sure won't work.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Devil made me do it, forgive me...[}:D]

let me do the easy one first.
read the entire verse not just part of it.

mat 5:22   But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, `Raca, ' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, `You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell.

this scripture is about murder and Jesus is characterizing

Try and remember, even thinking about it or having these conversations is a SIN. Our sin in the garden of Eden was eating from the tree of knowledge against GODs orders and learning to "think." Never mind without being able to "think" we could never have comprehended Gods orders to NOT eat the fruit or even undedrstood the devli tempting us TO eat the fruit.

Bottom line is everytime you think or reason you are just pissing God off. He meant for us to be dumb as a stump and happy. Knowledge is our original sin.

And the liner notes told you all of this? What version of the Bible do you have? The one from the Used Books section that the previous student already made notes in? I don't get any characterization in that at all?

the bible is a linear document.  if something is outlawed in one part it does not mean people that lived before that are accountable.  God also makes special exceptions to his laws.

See my other above response about God changing his mind.

Annnnnd, one of the inconsistancies you would find answered in one of these books-the copying of the Biblical texts was meticulous- a historical fact.

A hell of a lot of stuff you believe to be real/true/have happened are eyewitnes accounts, BD. Take Lincoln's inauguration, for instance. No one who's alive remembers it-but eyewitness reports, recording it in official publications-you get the idea.History, unlike the fact that objects fall at 32 feet per second at sea level, is not scientifically provable or repeatable.


I believe in God, not in SPITE of the facts, but rather I am strengthened in my belief BY the facts. I don't play logical games to trick myself into beleiving something I know not to be true...rather I have found all that I have earnestly researched to to substantiate the Biblical accounts.

Ben, seriously, if you want to take a gander at these two books email me your addy-I'd be more than happy to send them your way, but retyping pages and pages of evidence in favor of the careful and meticulous copying of the Hebraic texts, that alone is too time consuming.

Juggernaut

BenDover,

liner notes won't help me or you.
you must let the spirit of Got into your heart.
he will show you the truth.


Jesus says i am a tree, i am a rock.
if you look at it literally he lies because he is a man.  with a little spiritual stretching you can see the truth.  or look at it figuratively and see the truth.

God is a judge and he can pass down exceptions to laws just like any judge.  it does not mean he has changed his mind.  it means he it a thinking being that can adapt to situations

I appreciate the offer but you dont have to do that. The ISBN number would be appreciated as I will indeed order them from BN.com

I have studied the scriptures using the Greek and Hebrew lexicons and the best I can come up with is that depending on the generation of translation, you can use different words and language nuances to distort nearly any scripture.

I will be anxious to see what these books are all about and the backgrounds/methods of the people who wrote them.

Time to throw something more than a smart-ass quip into this.

The tree of knowledge isn't a metaphor for "smarts" knowledge, it instead is a metaphor for the mythological moment of self-awareness by Man, the point where a creature become cognizant of it's own existence.

Or something like that. It's not like I actually remember anything from schooling...

I totally understand the difference in figurative and literal meanings. The problem is that there is no consistency in the methods they are used to justify a specific version of Christianity. If so many versions of Christianity came from the same book, and each version believes their version to be the absolute truth, then how can a book that contains the "truth" be factual? Especially when it has spawned some of the most heinous eras in history by people using their version to justify their actions? This doesn't sound too promising as a faith to me. What kind of God who is all knowing, gives humankind a single source of documentation to use in reaching him, when ultimately he must have known that "His Word" would be the basis for so much "evil".

repented?  the NIV says relented.
he is talking with Moses and Moses acts as an advocate for the people.

Glad to see you're serious.

The ISBN #'s for the first two by Lee Strobel are 0-310-23469-7 and 0-310-23653-3.

The'yr kind of introductory, though-they go into detail in sections, but they also deal with many issues regarding logical doubts people have with the Bible, so they're not as much help as When Skeptics Ask(0-801-011418
) and When Critics Ask(0-801-011426
), two that answered the really meaty questions, and I mean a lot of them, for me.

No amount of proof will change a person's mind, if they're not willing to have it changed-sounds like you're at least willing to hear the other side and not just trolling, Ben.

May you reach your own conclusion, not only based on the best evidence both sides have to offer but hopefully by God moving in you to have faith in the areas where man's best efforts to know all have failed. Ok, now you've got me praying for you too![;D]

Juggernaut

this is a book that spans at lease 10,000 years of recorded history.  my version has about 2000 pages. people take the word of God and twist it for their own purposes.  You can't look at the Christians and expect to see Christ.  

when God started this he had one commandment and we screwed that up.  then he has to work overtime being a judge, passing laws and dispensing justice until Jesus comes along and shows us what to do instead of what not to do.  if you want to be a Christian you must look to Christ not man.

also check out [url=http://www.bible.com/bible_read.html]bibles[/url]

Just because you cant make sense of something doesnt mean it is necessarily inconsistent..it may well be you havent the wherewithall to understand...The bible is a stumbing block to many...keeps the riff raf out     :)

I didn't bother to read the whole thread.
Why? Because today is my day off and I'm lazy.

Here's your answers. Most from my Ancient Faith and Philosophy/Latin/Mythology teacher. That guy was a fricken' genius.

Anyway
1)The Bible wasn't originally written as one whole text. In fact it wasn't printed as such until rather recently, historically speaking. Many parts contridict since they were written at seperate locations, by seperate people, and VERY seperate times.  

2)You are dealing with a document that has been translated and retranslated and retranslated again for a very long time. You take this post, and run it backwards and forwards through babel fish and see what you get. A couple thousand years of translations causes errors. As in the complete loss of some biblical figures, especially in the OT.

3)People like to leave their mark. You think all of those translators didn't slip something in for whatever reason?

The book isn't errorless, and cannot be called such. Even if we want to take a "divine inspiration" tact, God didn't write the bible, he may have inspired it, but PEOPLE wrote it, and we all know that people are fuck ups.

And Genesis is one of the OLDEST parts of the Bible, and isn't particularly religous at all. What it is is a local (Mesopitamian probably) creation myth. It's an explination for how the world came to be. It's patently bullshit (if you believe in creationism, don't bother to respond I don't need the headache on my day off), but not bad as creation myths go (I've seen some really bizarre creation myths from around the world).

Anyway, your point shows a lack of basic knowledge of the text and it's history.

Did you know the bible says we can stone unruly children? Glad my parents didn't know that.

I think I'll have that beer now.

Man since the fall is the possesser of a reprobate mind...mans mind is not capable of "logic" in regards to matters of faith..Faith itself is a gift of God.
God sometimes hardens a mans heart as He did Pharohs...sometimes man himself hardens his own heart. Over and over God Himself and in the personage of Jesus told us what our natures are like...how can a failed mind logic its way to God...Without faith it is impossible to please Him.
The sin ..in the garden was disobeying Gods command to not eat of the tree of the Knowledge of good and evil...it wasnt the tree of knowledge..but the tree of Knowledge of good and evil...other forms of knowledge are still God given even today...thinking itself doesnt displease God..that is utter nonsense..how ever wrong thinking does displease God...but He is a forgiving God if one has the faith to ask...
Otherwise one will merely languish in ones circuitous illlogic until ones death.
Hey life is short...you will find out soon enough if you were correct in dissing the Almighty one..or not...
Since you are an unbeliever anyway why sweat the small stuff...If God does not exist or if there are many other paths to God other than Jesus Christ why worry...you got it made..
If God is real and if Jesus Is The Only Way...and you havent made your peace with Him...be afraid ...be very afraid..and then do something about it...if nothing else ask God to prove himself to you..Life is short and things can happen very quickly...when they are least expected or desired.

In the biblical context of "Hans knew his wife, Helga", "to know" has the meaning of "performed his marital duties with" i/e bedded her...

There are a few other misinterpretations of the original German (hehe, got your attention) the bible was written in. Most famous example, the camel going through a needle's eye. Why a camel, you ask? What an odd way of phrasing things...until you know that gimel and gamal (big rope, and camel, respectively) both have been spelled G-M-L, without the vowels, because the written language of the original biblical text didn't provide any vowels. Now "a big honking rope through a needle's eye" makes more sense than a camel, doesn't it? Same thing provides for the G-D, or YHWH/Yehowa/Yahwe confusion.

I am not sure what (if any) Bible bendover is using.  Maybe from some anti-Christian website.  If anyone would read any version of a Christian Bible they would see all of the incorrect uses of the word repent. Since this is the basis of the post I will not argue the "This vs. That" argument.  I will only CORRECT the verses.  As a good rule of thumb when reading something quoted from scripture, please read the verse for yourself.  This is how people are confused and deceived.

Malachi 3:6-NKJ
“For I am the Lord, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed,O sons of Jacob.

Numbers 23:19-NKJ:
"God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent.  Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?"

James 1:17-NKJ:
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

Exodus 32:14-NKJ
So the Lord relented from the harm, which He said He would do to His people.

Genesis 6:6-7-NKJ
And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. 7- So the Lord said,” I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the face of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them."

Jonah 3:10-NKJ
Then God saw their works, that they turn from their evil way; and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon them, and He did not do it.


Pretty simple concept…God cannot repent to anyone.

It's kind of late so I will leave the rest of the verses to the rest of you Believers to correct....

Because most of it is a fairy tale that man finds peace in???

Here we go[rolleyes]

Bits and clips out of the Bible are so fun.

You being unable to understand or to take in more that a line or two of the bible at a time are not inconsistancies on the Bibles part,it's you.




BTW:Spade says......

"Anyway
1)The Bible wasn't originally written as one whole text. In fact it wasn't printed as such until rather recently, historically speaking. Many parts contridict since they were written at seperate locations, by seperate people, and VERY seperate times"

You guys don't know much do you.

The Bible(the book) was at one time over 100 books,the Levites wanted to put all the books in to one so it would be easier to handel.
Bang! you have the old testament in ti's origional Greek form.

The new testament was started about 10 to 30 years after Jesus split.

As for the "seperate people, and VERY seperate times"

That is way they put the together,alot of the book said the same things so they did not need them all.
This is called consistancy[:)]

Do you have a specific verse???

Why? because its fiction. its a farce, people have been duped for ages into believing that drivel (this will set off a number of whackjob-nutcase believers) God is not real. the Devil isn't real(by a product of god not being real) nothing has proven to me god exists. once something does I will belive. until then. the masses are deluded.

belive if you wish, I don't care. just don't bug me with your religious views on how to clean my AR. ;)

LOL!

Stone unruly children. Hmmm, considering the cream of the crop we have today it sounds like a good way to keep them in line. Would you consider the high spirited children that raped the teenage girl in front of onlookers at a mall in England as unruly? How about our gang bangers that roam the neighborhoods causing mischief? Just high spirited youth.

Whether or not you meant it as sarcastic, it is a quite telling post.


You'd think that the lords word wouldn't be such a "stumbling block".

But again, just keep trying to explain it all away.


Because no one can.


Even those that are "biblical scholars" disagree. Why is that? There are so many shools of interpreting the bible it's ridiculous.




Like any arguement on the bible, those in favor have to at some point simply say......

"you have to have faith"


Somehow that just doesn't cut it.