now some people say the bible is the infallible word of god.

and they also say there god is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. now despite stating the obvious contradictions in those "personality traits" if one thing in the bible were wrong or even contradicted itself, that would show the bible to be fallible...now it might not disprove the existence of a intelligent designer but it would show the bible to be fallible and most likely not written by god but by man to be symbolic and not taken literally.

well lets take a look to see if there are any contradictions.....

2 Samuel 23:6
The ... chief among the captains ... he lift up his spear against eight hundred, whom he slew at one time.

1 Chronicles 11:11
the chief of the captains: he lifted up his spear against three hundred slain by him at one time.

300? or 800?

Romans 4:2
For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory.

James 2:21
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

was he justified by faith or works?


Hebrews 11:17
By faith Abraham when he was tried, offered up Isaac, ... his only begotten son.

Genesis 22:2
Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, ... and offer him there for a burnt offering.

Genesis 16:15
And Hagar bare Abraham a son: and Abram called his son's name, which Hagar bare, Ishmael.

Genesis 21:2-3
For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son is his old age .... And Abraham called him Isaac.

Genesis 25:1-2
Then again Abraham took a wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bare him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah.

Galatians 4:22
Abraham had two sons; the one by a bond-woman, and the other by a free woman.


so how many sons did he have?

dont worry i found about 300+ more so i will leave it here for now....

one problem i have with the bible... among others... is that its been translated numerous times to get it into the English that we read today. how many translation errors do you think there have been? how many phrases and words have there been that couldn't translate so the person doing it had to come up with the closest English equivalent? multiply this problem by hundreds and hundreds of years and numerous languages and i doubt what we read is even close to what was actually printed in the original language.

From Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS...CONTRADICTION?

At the very beginning of the Bible is the story of Creation as found in Genesis 1, which describes the classic message of all creation myths; Order's triumph over primal Chaos. This meaning that the earth and cosmos were characterized by divine order, whenever humanity could perceive the patterns of creation (the seasons, movements of the stars, day and night), they believed they were experiencing the divine mind at work. This theology likely originated in the third millennium with the Sumerians, whose views had a profound influence on the other developing cultures of the Near East, especially the Semites . Literally millions of Christians accept this account as the actual description of the creation of the Universe as we know it, estimating it took place only a short 6,000 years ago . Ironically in Genesis 2, we find an almost completely contradictory account, a fact seldom commented on by the typical fundamentalist, most of whom are self-proclaimed experts on the Bible.

Most pointedly, these contradictions are in Genesis 1, where God is referred to as Elohim, a pronounced plural, while in Genesis 2, the singular name Yahweh, the "Lord", is used, (sometimes in conjunction with Elohim, making a singular Lord-God). The term Elohim is a "Plural form usually translated in English Bibles as the singular 'God", because in Jewish thought there is only one supreme, true god" (Jones, 1982). In it's literal translation, Elohim can be seen as referring to any number of Gods and Goddesses. A close reading reveals that the Elohim of Genesis 1, is more androgynous than the later solely male deity, Yahweh-Elohim (Lord God) of Genesis 2. As demonstrated by Genesis 1:27, where Elohim states; "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them." Alternatively. in Genesis 2, Man is created first, then later Eve is created from the rib of Adam after the Lord notices the first man's loneliness and decides to create him a mate .

In 1863 a Bishop Colenso, noted other points of contention between the two differing cosmologies;

1. In the first the earth emerges from the water and is therefore saturated with moisture. in the second, the 'whole face of the ground' requires to be moistened.
2. In the first, the birds and the beasts are created before man. In the second, man is created before the birds and the beasts.
3. In the first, 'all fowls that fly' are created out of the waters. In the second, 'the fowls of the air' are made out of the ground.
4. In the first man is created in the image of God. In the second, man is made of the dust of the ground; he is placed by himself in the garden, charged with a solemn command, and threatened with a curse if he breaks it; then the beasts are made, and the man gives names to them, and lastly, after all this, the woman is made out of one of his ribs, but merely as a helpmate for man.
The fact is , that the second account of Creation together with the story of the fall, is manifestly composed by a different writer altogether from him who wrote the first.
This is suggested at once by the circumstance that, throughout the first narrative, the Creator is always spoken of by the name Elohim (God), whereas, throughout the second account, as well as the story of the Fall, he is always called Jehovah Elohim (Lord God), except when the writer seems to abstain, for some reason , from placing the name Jehovah in the mouth of the serpent.
This accounts naturally for the above contradictions. It would appear that for some reason, the production of two pens have been here united, without any reference to the inconsistencies.(Colenso 1863)

And God saw everything he had made, and behold it was very good.
Genesis 1:31

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on earth, and it grieved at his heart.
Genesis 6:6

The next time the argument over teaching creation versus evolution comes up at a school board meeting or elsewhere, these contradictions need only be pointed out. The modern-day Biblical defenders can first decide whether they mean the version of creation in Genesis one or in Genesis two. When they have that worked out amongst their own numbers and factions, then maybe we can talk evolution versus creation. "Fundamentalists depend abjectly on past tribal culture, not on their own contemporary common sense; every Fundamentalism is an intellectual lobotomy" (La Barre 1972).

In the 19th century, discoveries and developments in the sciences of geology, paleontology and archeology, began to challenge the Christian world view about creation, and most people now accept the scientific evaluation that both the earth and the life on it has developed over millions of years. Charles Darwin's 1859 publication of The Origins of Species, and his theory of evolution, likely contributed more than any other work to the intellectual banishment of the infantile belief system of creation perpetrated by the Church up until modern times . Christian reaction to these finds has always been reluctant, resistant and even hostile, as can be seen by the "Monkey Trials", which followed the publication of Darwin's finds. Likewise with the persecution of Galileo over a century earlier for his astronomical speculations that deduced the earth was traveling around the sun, rather than visa versa, as suggested by the Bible. The suppression of knowledge by the Biblical faiths, as they cling maniacally to outdated world views, is perhaps the most unforgivable of their many dark legacies.

Even in the light of blatant contradiction, common sense, and modern scientific thought millions of people still cling to the literal interpretation of creation as we enter the 21st century. Further, many of these modern-day Believers want their teachings reintroduced into the school system and inflicted on the minds of innocent children. CREATIONISM 101. Ironically, rather than being an alternative to Darwin's theory of evolution, the Bible tells the story of evolution. Of course not of the physical, as our physical evolution to anthropoids had long taken place before the bibles composition, but more of the psychical. The Good Book, like the stories of other religious traditions, tells the story of the Darwinian monkey-man's brain saying its first hellos to itself. The Bible tells the story of mankind's transition into reflective consciousness, and the cultural evolution resulting from this.

Countless religious scholars agree that the many contradictions between the accounts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, are due to the two texts being written and re-edited at different time by different people, with different beliefs about creation. Indeed, throughout the Bible, as this book attests to, the voice of Yahweh speaks differently through each of his different prophets. This is because the voice of Yahweh was an extension of the personalities of these Biblical prophets, and the increasingly complex concept of Yahweh himself develops alongside progressing Hebrew culture. The Bible, especially the Old Testament is one of the most classic examples of conceptual evolution.

In the case of the conflicting accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 as well as other Biblical anomalies, scholars acknowledge these contradictions are the results of the reluctant marriage of the Yahwist (J) Text, said to embody the beliefs of the 9th century kingdom of Southern Judah, and the Elohihist (E) Text, a compilation of the beliefs and myths of the eighth century BC kingdom of Northern Israel . As noted, in the J text, the Creator is Yahweh, always translated in English as the Lord. Mixed with this was the Elohihist (E) Text, which uses the plural Elohim to describe the deity. This word is translated as the singular God in most modern Bibles, although Elohim is an intensive Hebrew plural of the Canaanite singular deity name El , and in actuality it means "the goddesses and the gods".

After the fall of the Elohist kingdom in the north around 700 BC, the remnants of their sacred scriptures were taken to the southern kingdom of the Yahwist's. "The Yahwist point of view by an editor, apparently of the seventh century BC,...brought J and E together". (Campbell 1964). Making things even more complicated, both the E and J texts were restructured in the sixth century B.C.E. to fit with the later D (Deuteronomist) Text . These were in turn edited and revised around the fifth century B.C.E. by a later group whose handiwork is known as the Priestly(P) texts . Modern translators of the Bible have carried on this tradition by often unconsciously making their translations fit in with their belief system, (i.e. translating the plural Elohim as the singular God), as did their earlier counterparts. Although, it shouldn't be supposed that these rewriters and editors of the older Hebraic traditions were always forgers and falsifiers in our modern conception of the word . The ancients in general had no idea of literary ethics as we understand them, and writing of a religious character usually resulted from a calling of the inner spirit, which to people of this long ago time was identical to a calling from the gods.

In the classic Garden of Eden myth as described in Genesis 2, the Yahwehist writers of the Southern Kingdom adopted mythology of the Elohist in the Northern Kingdom to their own liking. They took the earlier symbolism and deities worshipped popularly by the Canaanites, Sumerians, Babylonians (and in part by the Elohists, and even members of their own kingdom), and reversed the symbolism, creating a story based around the prohibition of both the sacraments and worship of their enemies. Throughout the Old Testament the Hebrew writers, "invariably utilized for their poetic imagery the characteristic beliefs of the people to whom they made direct reference"(Mackenzie 1915). More often than not, this poetic use of foreign religious imagery came out as a parodic reversal. As for the Garden of Eden mythology, this early account of religious-political propaganda marks mankind's separation from nature (Eden), the degradation of the feminine, and the placing on humanities shoulders of the all too heavy burden of Original Sin.

The bible is like a mirror into the human heart...

Quote:

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From Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS...CONTRADICTION?

"Fundamentalists depend abjectly on past tribal culture, not on their own contemporary common sense; every Fundamentalism is an intellectual lobotomy" (La Barre 1972).

---

Generally there are really only two religious pov's on the doctrines of Redemption, which is primarily what the bible torts about, from beginning to end, although in a very backwards, inside-out, upside-down tort of weigh.

The rabble of the Rabbi's notwithsdanding...

Kind of like how DNA is AND in reverse, & etc., etc., etc., is just more of that same thing; the mind trying to figure out the REDEMPTION thing of the SOUL faced with the bloody upheavals of EVIL, from within and without.

Like ETC...

It's an...

E xtra
T eleological
C onnection

...into sown many of the spiritual dynamics of how humans tend to SCAPEGOAT and COVER-UP their perfidity at the SURRVIVAL GAME of EXISTENCE...etc., etc., etc...



Redemption is anything but unique to Judeo/Christian, biblical Hermeneutics either.

Fundy MENTALity is mostly about MIND CONTROL through indoctrination (abba abba)using FEAR as the cruel TOOL; very Pavlovian too.

The two "faiths" that are literally at the CORE of the DUEL nature of Judah and Israel, Priests and Kings, politicians and slaves, grace and works, rewards and punishments, sincerity and hypocrisy, etc., etc., etc...

Well, get the picture?

Etc., etc., etc...

The two generalised, universal religions are basicaly an expression of "need Love" and "don't need Love".

Call it christ and antichrist.

Christ redeems the soul.
Christ does not redeem the soul.

Ultimately the play on the heart is dramatised (the Gospels are like MORALITY PLAYS with universal actors of the heart) as the juxtaposition of the two condemned prisoners executed along with Jesus were; one vainly complains still seeking the NEED to blame and scapegoat, even in eminent death, while the other courageously comforts, also in eminent death, two condemned souls, but of entirely opposed reactions in their hearts, as they are purged of the flesh, with stark, horrendus cruelty, at that.

Much of Christ's sermons and teachings center around this folly of the human heart; seeking to justify itself, etc., etc., etc., (there goes DNA evol-ing itself of RESPONSABILITY in the name of "I did it MY weigh!".



e schatology
t heodicy
c hristology

etc...

Fundy's (bigots of dogma) have a warped conceit on the bible just as drug warriors have a warped conceit on the Tree of Life.

It's an amazing juxtaposition entirely accurate in similitude.



Erase Brain

holy crap, skitzo quoting from the bible?!

of course it's not meant to be taken literally. the stories are thousands of years old and were all written by different people. there are two versions of creation.

it's when people take it too literally that we get fanatics and jihad.

i think the story of eden symbolizes the new mindset of agricultural man. no longer are we in the garden, a part of nature. no longer do we live in abundance following game. we have to work and tend to our crops.

I HAVE HAD many people tell me that the bible is the infallible word of God. I answer even if the bible is infallible which I doubt the men who interpret the bible are fallible. But that doesn't work because they have faith[ faith the ability to believe even in the face of overwhelming facts] PEACE!

and

whether you are moderate or fundamental doesnt negate the fact that god was very much fundamental....and jesus, both telling people to kill each other at the drop of a hat.

also the ego that is on this omnipotent being....why would something so perfect and amazing need to be constantly praised...how could anything we think or say offend something that is supposed to be so perfect....but see now we are interpreting the bible to our needs.
we cant do that...you have to take the bible to be the infallible word of god or your just picking and choosing and basically going "i think what god meant to say was...."

it just doesnt cut it.

oh and flower i love your words they make my eyes tickle....but i have no clue what you are saying...ever....your something else thats for sure...hey who knows. maybe if you got me on acid i could understand you and your crazy magic talk would change my mind....

i'd like to interject something here if i may ... it's about this notion of 'perfection'.

everything is perfect. how can it be otherwise? it is what it is and it is absolutely 'perfect' in it's 'is-ness' if you catch my drift.

it's like when people say, 'i'm not perfect' ... well, of course you are ... 'you' are perfectly 'you' ... even in your infallibility.