The Bible contradicts it self?

Hmmmmmmmmmm. In my Bible there sure seems to be a sequence in Genesis 2. After creating Adam, the Lord took some soil from the ground and formed all the animals and all the birds. Then he created woman. And its a different sequence from Genesis 1. How come? Bible historians who are less hung up on literalism believe that Genesis 1 was the creation story of the kingdom of Judea and Genesis 2 was the creation story of the kingdom of Israel, and when Israel was destroyed by invasion and its inhabitants fled to Judea, the two stories were merged in a single scripture. Does that make sense?

 

We know very little about how reality works, so anything is possible really.

We once thought black holes were destructive forces, but we now realize that without them galaxies would not exist.

I think that a lot of our past has been hidden from us, and we are living in an incredibly primitive, ignorant, and out of touch with reality world.

Also, when God created man, he did so before we fell from grace. I think that is something worth noting.

Also, no matter which way to look at it, it seems the Bible still rings true. It has a way of having layers upon layers of meaning. Think of a rib and think of how the human genome looks like. If Eve wasn't made from his actual rib, then it could have been the sharing of the genome. So really, no matter which angle you look at it, it still rings true. At least that's how I see it. Or maybe there is only one way to look at it...

But the problem with not being literal is that we start creating our own ideas about what it could mean and that can confuse matters. I was also confused as to what the tree of good and evil represented because I wasn't being literal... but it seems clear that the very idea of separation from God went inside our minds and at this moment we were too naive to understand this complex idea and then we fell from grace. That this thing is good and that thing is bad when in actuality, none is bad and all is good and the Devil is just a brat with immense powers.

"Who told you that you were naked? "


A very important question that we all have to ask ourselves is this: If there is a God, and if his people, his creation somehow became lost along the lines, would this God create a book to help lead us back? And if this is so, would this book be easy to understand or would he make it a puzzler, something cryptic?

What I noticed by many spiritual books is that the message isn't always very clear and it mostly goes into metaphysics... which is interesting to think about and maybe even learn from, but these teachings are usually misunderstood by the masses. A book from God, that is made to lead us back, imo, would have to be very easy to understand and literal. A leap of faith may be required, but so is any philosophy that any person holds in this life.

 

It seems a bit primitive? Now there is a real good reason for not believing the Bible is true.

Magical powers? You are talking about a being that just brought the Universe in to existance with a command of his voice and you believe that he would have to use slight of hand to make something happen.

As to the point of the "stories" as you put it, what I said does not address the point of the "stories" but only the fact that they happened.

 

Once again, to you it may seem sequential but it is not, in chap 1 please note day 1, day 2, day 3, etc. In chap 2 there is no such device and things are grouped according to topics, seeing as the sequence has already been covered, verses 5-6 addresses how plants could grow with out rain, verses 7-9 deal with the creation of Adam and the making of a garden for him to live in, verses 10-14 tell a little about the garden, where it was and what surrounded it and so forth.

 

Yes, my point was we are talking about a being that brought the Universe into being with a command of his voice, and now He is scraping up dirt and molding it into a human. That seems incongruous. I guess we could say if He chose to do it that way who are we to question. I guess the Mormons can say if God gave Joseph Smith the magic glasses by which to read the Book of Mormon, who are we to question. But I base my beliefs on judgment and plausibiliy, and that just doesn't ring true to me as a literal account.

In the third century, one of the leading Christian fathers had this to say about Genesis:"(W)ho is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indi­cate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally." Obviously, Origen hadn't anticipated OWB.

 

Yeah, there's a sequence in Chapter 2, especially after your "and so forth". One thing came after the other. The lord put Adam into the garden. Then he took soil from the ground and made all the animals and birds. (But weren't those already made before Adam in Genesis 1?) It's clear in Gen 2 that the birds and animals were made after the creation of Adam to serve Adam's needs. It's clear in Gen. 1 that animals were made on the fifth day, and humans on the sixth day--both male and female. There wasn't a gap between making man and making woman with birds and animals in between, as there seems to be in Gen. 2.

 

Why would you listen to a mere breath of God rather than God himself? Either you believe the Bible was written by God or you don't. If you don't believe that it was written by God then why are we taking it seriously? You might as well read the Hindu Vedas and see where that takes you.

See, this is why OWB and I and the Bible are against intellectuals. Not because we have an apprehension against thinking, but we have an apprehension against faulty human minds. People make mistakes. Biblical scribes HAD to destroy entire copies of Bibles if they miscounted a single letter. If the Bible has no contradictions, was written over a span of 1600 years by all walks of life, then you would think that their would lie ancient dogmas and errors. The human mind can only go so far and the parts cannot know the whole as God can. I think that we should be going by what the Bible is actually saying rather than what we think it could be saying by not taking it literally. And ya, you can't take everything literally, but I think that only applies to spiritual teachings of the Bible. Spirituality is hard to describe so you need parables, metaphors, and you need to use rich imagery to express these matters. But when the Bible says that we were formed from the dirt of the earth, then I think that we should take it literally because we have no reason not to.

 

I do read the Hindu Vedas. Good stuff. I take them and the Bible both seriously, but not literally.

Yes, we're all faulty minded humans, but what else do we have to go by? In making a judgment to take the Bible literally, you, a fallible human, are making a decision. How can you be sure it's superior to mine?

Of course they do. So do you and OWB. I think your literalism is a mistake--one that leads to missing the point of scripture and potentially giving Christians a bad name by creating the impression that they believe in things that strike us other faulty-minded types as absurd. Ignorance isn't the solution. I presented you with what I consider to be a possible contradiction between Genesis One and Genesis Two--namely the difference in sequence in creation. So far, OWB has told me there is no sequence in Genesis Two, when it appears to my faulty mind that there clearly is, and that it is different from the one in Geneisis One. Specifically, in Genesis One, God creates the birds and animals on the Fifth Day, and on the Sixth Day creates humans. In Genesis Two, God creates Man, then birds and animals, and after that Woman. What is your answer to that?

Ehrman has written an interesting book on the subject, Misquoting Jesus, suggesting that what you say may be inaccurate, at least as far as the New Testament Is Concerned. Have you read it? I know the standards were much stricter for the OT.

 

Sadly, those that take the Bible literally can never admit ANY contradiction. If even one single thing is contradictory it blows their whole belief system.

IMHO, this entire thread is useless. OWB literally has to be right on every count no matter how skewed the logic. He has no choice!

I mean no offense to your belief or person. Believe as you will....but I must speak my truth.

((((shrug))))

Zen

 

Perhaps the second creation story was talking about the garden of Eden not the Earth. Personally I use the story both literally and metaphorically. I don't think we should limit what God can do in any way. If Adam literally was a man that fell from grace then Jesus literally had to die on the cross. You can also take Christ dieing on the cross as a metaphor to relate how our old self must be crucified so Christ can live in us.

This is the same argument that happened between the orthadox and gnostics in the second century. The problem with moving too far to the gnostic perspective is that you believe for example that the Kingdom of God is already here and your ressurection has already happened. If you believe this then what's the purpose of doing good? Is the Kingdom of God spread upon the earth and men don't see it? No. There's evil everywhere. Have I seen the Kingdom of God in others and is it being spread? Absolutely.

I do agree with a lot of what you have to say Okiefreak. Taking everything literally closes one off to many of the spiritual truths that relate to our current condition.

 

Genesis 2 indicates that after Adam was created in the Garden of Eden, animals and birds were created out of soil to serve him. Were there two separate creations of animals and birds then? By the way, I do believe the Gospel of Thomas that the Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth and men don't see it. There is evil everywhere because they don't see it. It hasn't arrived fully but, as you say, it is spreading.

 

What would you have him do build a lab and wear a white coat? Just what would be a plausible account to you, something that would ring true to you?

Personally, rather Origen, I think I’ll trust the Bible writers that were inspired of God, Luke 3:38; Romans 5:14; 1 Corinthians 15:20-22; 1 Timothy 2:13-14; Jude 14; 1 Chronicles 1:1-4, isn’t interesting that they all speak of Adam like a real person and none of them mention that the story of Adam and Eve is just an allegory, just saying.

 

The Bible says that Satan was the original serpent, so why do you think Satan would not have the ability to make a snake seem like it’s talking, after all human ventriloquists do similar things all the time. Or for that matter Satan himself, could have materialized as a snake and would have had the power of speech.


isn't there a talking mule in there somewhere too?

 

Here's a basic contradiction of the bible:

It is said that god loves you but will torture you forever anyways.

Doesn't make much sense but then again what does in the "Holy" Bible?

 

Numbers Chapter 22:22

 

I was kind of hoping that you would figure out that both man and the land animals were created on the same day, the sixth day and not animals one day and Adam the next but okay, everybody please forgive me I’m going to quote Scripture:

(Genesis 1:20-23) 20 And God went on to say: “Let the waters swarm forth a swarm of living souls and let flying creatures fly over the earth upon the face of the expanse of the heavens.” 21 And God proceeded to create the great sea monsters and every living soul that moves about, which the waters swarmed forth according to their kinds, and every winged flying creature according to its kind. And God got to see that [it was] good. 22 With that God blessed them, saying: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the waters in the sea basins, and let the flying creatures become many in the earth.” 23 And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a fifth day.

If you’ll notice on the fifth day God created the “sea creatures”

(Genesis 1:24-31) 24 And God went on to say: “Let the earth put forth living souls according to their kinds, domestic animal and moving animal and wild beast of the earth according to its kind.” And it came to be so. 25 And God proceeded to make the wild beast of the earth according to its kind and the domestic animal according to its kind and every moving animal of the ground according to its kind. And God got to see that [it was] good. 26 And God went on to say: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every moving animal that is moving upon the earth.” 27 And God proceeded to create the man in his image, in God’s image he created him; male and female he created them. 28 Further, God blessed them and God said to them: “Be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth.” 29 And God went on to say: “Here I have given to YOU all vegetation bearing seed which is on the surface of the whole earth and every tree on which there is the fruit of a tree bearing seed. To YOU let it serve as food. 30 And to every wild beast of the earth and to every flying creature of the heavens and to everything moving upon the earth in which there is life as a soul I have given all green vegetation for food.” And it came to be so. 31 After that God saw everything he had made and, look! [it was] very good. And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a sixth day.

If you’ll notice that on the sixth day God created all the “land creatures” which included Adam.

Now this is the Scripture you say contradicts Genesis chapter 1:

(Genesis 2:18-22) 18 And Jehovah God went on to say: “It is not good for the man to continue by himself. I am going to make a helper for him, as a complement of him.” 19 Now Jehovah God was forming from the ground every wild beast of the field and every flying creature of the heavens, and he began bringing them to the man to see what he would call each one; and whatever the man would call it, each living soul, that was its name. 20 So the man was calling the names of all the domestic animals and of the flying creatures of the heavens and of every wild beast of the field, but for man there was found no helper as a complement of him. 21 Hence Jehovah God had a deep sleep fall upon the man and, while he was sleeping, he took one of his ribs and then closed up the flesh over its place. 22 And Jehovah God proceeded to build the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman and to bring her to the man.

Please notice the topic is “It is not good for the man to continue by himself. I am going to make a helper for him, as a complement of him.” It then says “God was forming”, “was forming” could mean that he had been forming or that he was still forming, hey maybe God can do two things at once, what a concept but in either case it doesn’t disagree with Gen 1 and it is added just to tell us that no companion for Adam was found among the animals, not to tell us which came first. Thus a companion needed to be made for Adam and that is why Eve was created.

 

Actually no, the Bible does have some seeming contradictions. Yes the Bible does have a few things that at this time can not be resolved. And no it does not blow my whole belief system to know it.

As for having to be right, sure I would like to think I'm right about everything but the truth is I'm just not.

The simple reason for this thread is that so many assume that the Bible is just fulled with contradictions, when the truth is there are very few and most of them are minor having no affect on true worship. Also it helps me to better understand the Bible and how people view it.

 

To me most of the Bible is literal but much of it has spiritual side to it, which is more than just the literal meaning. But then on the other hand, much of what Jesus said were parables and were not to be taken literally.

Also saying that Adam and Eve did not literally happen is to deny the sacrifice of Jesus. (1 Corinthians 15:20-22)

 

Yes

 

That is why the doctrine of Hellfire, as you say, makes no sense and why I don't believe it, that and the fact that it is not Scriptural.