by 5go 22 Replies latest watchtower bible
Christ argued that it would be impossible for him to expel demons under Be'elzebub's power, for how could a divided kingdom stand? Yet upon his return many will perform powerful works and expel demons in his name, yet without his backing.
Holy crap! I can't believe I never thought of that before... That's a good one.
5go,
There is one possible explanation for the "blooper". But before I talk about it, let me first say. I'm at work and don't have a Bible at hand and don't remember what the scripture says. But you said that Jesus remember the text correct but attributed it to Jeremiah. Well, I don't remember Jesus speaking of that prophecy. I think it was Matthew who wrote about it and attributed it to Jeremiah, not Jesus.
In any case, the explanation is that back then, the Prophets's writings were all put together and it seems that Jeremiah was listed as the first one because of the length of his writings. And it's possible that because of that, Matthew said it was Jeremiah and not Zechariah but obviously, it's not a mistake because back then, he could've just checked who wrote down the prophecy. Had it been a mistake or "blooper", I'm sure it would've been fixed long ago. There are other such "bloopers" where Jacob did something but it was attributed to Abraham, probably because Abraham was the head of the family.
As to the mention of a "unicorn", that has to do more with the translation than a Bible "blooper". Some Bibles don't translate it as "unicorn". There are animals mentioned in the Old Testament that we don't know what they looked like or what they were or that the Hebrew word for it is not easily translated. No one think unicorns exist or existed.
justahuman - but super nonetheless
I think what I'm trying to say this book the bible is suposed to be gods incurruptible word. One problem it's currupted with mistakes and cover ups. You know subtituting wild bull for unicorn. And getting prophets messed up even assuming Jesus got it right. For some reason he didn't protect it from being screwed up later making him look stupid.
RunningMan's "Atheist's Book of Bible Stories" is chock-full of this sort of thing. One of my favorites is when he goes into detail on the amounts of materials and labor that went into Solomon's temple. According to the Bible, enough silver went into it to form a solid block of silver bigger than the temple itself! (I guess that'd keep 'em out of the holy-of-holies, eh?)
Dave
Genesis 14:22:
At this Abram said to the king of Sodom: “I do lift up my hand [in an oath] to Jehovah the Most High God, Producer of heaven and earth,
Exodus 6:3
“I used to appear to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as God Almighty, but as respects my name Jehovah I did not make myself known to them.”
Not much of a "mistake". The script roll started with Jeremiah, and so he represented the whole range of prophets. These writers knew what they were talking/writing about, and it would be an easy case to check and see whether it was Jeremiah or another prophet. So if it says Jeremiah, it says so, and for a specific purpose. Many of these "mistakes" are not mistakes at all, but one has to consider the time and the customs of the period when it was written. The roll of prohets was called Jeremiah. Big deal. If one intends to write a book on so-called "mistakes", one should not look at what definitely is NOT a mistake.
The official JW explanation of Matthew 27:9:
Watchtower 1955 9/15 p. 575 Questions From Readers
Questions From Readers
- Why does Matthew 27:9 attribute the words about the thirty silver pieces for Jesus’ betrayal to the prophet Jeremiah, when, actually, Zechariah recorded the words, at chapter 11 verse 12 of his prophecy?—N. F., United States.
The name Jeremiah is omitted in some later manuscripts. Some say it was a copyist’s error. Others say it was just a slip on Matthew’s part, saying Jeremiah when he meant Zechariah. None of these explanations seem adequate. We may view as correct the New World Translation’s rendering of Matthew 27:9, 10: “Then what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying: ‘And they took the thirty silver pieces, the price upon the man that was priced, the one on whom some of the sons of Israel set a price, and they gave them for the potter’s field, according to what Jehovah had commanded me.’”
A more probable explanation is this. The order of the prophetic books, as received by the Jews in Matthew’s time, was Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah and the twelve minor prophets. It is so found in the Babylonian Talmud, also at present in the manuscripts of the French and German Jews. The Jewish Encyclopedia, under “Bible Canon,” shows that at one time Jeremiah preceded Ezekiel and Isaiah in the listing of the prophets and that it was later that Isaiah went ahead of Jeremiah. So in Matthew’s time Jeremiah stood first in the listing of the prophets, and since it was the practice of those times to call an entire division of the Bible by the name of the first book in that division, Matthew could say Jeremiah and mean the division that it headed, and which division included the book of Zechariah.
Jesus showed that this was the practice, to call an entire division by the first book in that division, when he said, at Luke 24:44 (NW): “All the things written in the law of Moses and in the Prophets and Psalms about me must be fulfilled.” When he said Psalms he did not mean just that one book, but all the writings or Hagiographa, of which collection or division Psalms was the first book. And when Jesus said the Prophets he meant that entire division, but sometimes they used the name of the first book in that division to mean the whole section, and then the section would be called just Jeremiah. So in this sense Matthew could refer to Jeremiah and yet mean Zechariah’s words, since Zechariah’s prophecy was in the division that opened with the book of Jeremiah.
Typical apologist anwser
Yeah, ain't it just too bad when there is a simple and logic answer to those tricky questions that one thought one had? Too bad there is an answer, just has got to be some theologicians' conspiracy .................
I don't know if it's a blooper, per se, but I get a chuckle over this little tongue-in-cheek diddy: "All scripture is given by inspiration of God."
Sends me rolling in the asiles every time I read it.
"In the begining ... " What a blooper, ... as people think that is when time began, and science has shown the universe is far older then we ever thought.
