unexplained biblical wierdness...

by LtCmd.Lore 15 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  LtCmd.Lore

  A recent post about Moses got me thinking about all the wierd things in the bible that are just stated, but never explained. Sure different religions make up excuses for these things, but for some reason god and/or the bible writers, didn't find it neccesary to explain it.

  Here's one of my favorites, it's the one with the talking donkey:

  22

  And the anger of God began to blaze because he was going; and Jehovah’s angel proceeded to station himself in the road to resist him. And he was riding upon his she-ass, and two attendants of his were with him. 23 And the ass got to see Jehovah’s angel stationed in the road with his drawn sword in his hand; and the ass tried to turn aside from the road that she might go into the field, but Ba´laam began to strike the ass in order to turn her aside to the road. 24 And Jehovah’s angel kept standing in the narrow way between the vineyards, with a stone wall on this side and a stone wall on that side. 25 And the she-ass kept seeing Jehovah’s angel and began to squeeze herself against the wall and so to squeeze Ba´laam’s foot against the wall; and he went beating her some more.

  26

  Jehovah’s angel now passed by again and stood in a narrow place, where there was no way to turn aside to the right or the left. 27 When the ass got to see Jehovah’s angel she now lay down under Ba´laam; so that Ba´laam’s anger blazed, and he kept beating the ass with his staff. 28 Finally Jehovah opened the mouth of the ass and she said to Ba´laam: "What have I done to you so that you have beaten me these three times?" 29 At this Ba´laam said to the ass: "It is because you have dealt ruthlessly with me. If only there were a sword in my hand, for now I should have killed you!" 30 Then the she-ass said to Ba´laam: "Am I not your she-ass that you have ridden upon all your life long until this day? Have I ever been used to do to you this way?" To which he said: "No!" 31 And Jehovah proceeded to uncover Ba´laam’s eyes, so that he saw Jehovah’s angel stationed in the road with his drawn sword in his hand. At once he bowed low and prostrated himself on his face.

  So we have a lot of different oddities in this tale. The questions arise: Why does god care whether or not this Balaam guy curses Israel or not? Let him curse them, and then bless them anyway. Also, why did the animal see the angel and not the human? Why could this animal talk? Why was Balaam not surprised by this at all?

  There are a lot of things about that story that SHOULD have been explained, but they weren't... It didn't even say that the angel spoke through the donkey, it's as if the donkey was perfectly capable of talking all along.

  What about you? What are some of your favorite unexplained oddities?

  LtCmd.Lore
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  Abandoned

  I'd forgotten about that leeettle bit of beeeble weirdness.
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  OnTheWayOut

  The promise from God in Genesis chapter 2 and 3 to Adam and the breaking of His command.

  But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.

  Regardless of my JW training and knowledge of the explanation they give, the story has some holes in it. We all know that Adam did not die in the day he ate from the tree. Now, how could God threaten Adam with death unless Adam had seen death before? God made things to die, Adam would have seen that innocent animals die, so he could expect to die also. Perhaps God showed Adam death of a mammal or reptile- could have been bloody or gross. There is no recorded promise of everlasting life. The only force behind the threat is "in the day you eat from it" death will come.

  That said, did God lie to Adam? Yes.
  Did the snake lie? Well he said:
  "For God knows that in the very day of YOUR eating from it YOUR eyes are bound to be opened and YOU are bound to be like God, KNOWING good and bad." .......the eyes of both of them became opened and they began to realize that they were naked. Hence they sewed fig leaves together and made loin coverings for themselves.

  Adam and Eve, according to the recorded verses, knew some good and bad that they had not known, and did not die. I don't think the purpose of the original story was to prove that the snake lied. The creator of this story thought that YHWH was a difficult-to-please tough guy. Ya better listen to the priests if ya ever want to live, because YHWH don't mess around.
  God scared poor innocent Adam (remember, he was a new creation, so he would be child-like, regardless of size) with a death threat unless he passed a loyalty test. Adam already lost his innocence and purity right there and determined that God was no friend of his. Adam was doomed from the start, test or no test.

  This story has no timeline. We don't know if Adam is hours or even years old when God threatens his life. We don't know the time frame, perhaps months more or years more for Eve's creation. She may have been brand-spanking-new when the snake approached her, we don't know. All vague just like a fairy tale.
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  Abandoned

  Excellent thoughts OnTheWayOut. The bible is like one lareg watchtower written by a bunch of dysfunctional governing body members over a 1600 year period. All fear and brimstone covered over with a veneer of love and blessings that ranges from rather thin (nt) to almost imperceptible (ot).
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  RedPill2006

  The bible is like one lareg watchtower written by a bunch of dysfunctional governing body members over a 1600 year period. All fear and brimstone covered over with a veneer of love and blessings that ranges from rather thin (nt) to almost imperceptible (ot).

  LOL Abandoned! This was so funny. Yeah, you're right, thats how it sounds to me, too.

  Another one.

  They build a big wooden box and stuff all the animals into it. Noah and his relatives have a hell of work to do! They have to feed the animals and shovel all the shit out of a little window on the last floor! They have to carry all the elephant dung 3 floors up and throw it out of the window! Otherwise, the diseases would kill them.

  Consider this explanation of the problems modern Zoos encounter:

  Most modern zoos keep animals in enclosures that attempt to replicate their natural habitats. Many zoos now have special buildings for nocturnal animals, with dim red lighting during the day, so the animals will be active when visitors are there, and bright lights at night to ensure that they sleep. Special climate conditions are created for animals living in radical environments, such as penguins. Special enclosures for birds, insects, fishes and other aquatic life forms have also been developed and are used in many zoos.

  (quote from www.answers.com)

  The biggest zoo in the world is San Diegos, California. They have several hundred employees (140 of them have been awarded for excellent work, among these VETERINARIANS! Who in the arc was such a big VET that he could take care of whatever animal there was? I have a cat and have to find a proper Vet to castrate it (not every VET does surgery on small animals under 6 months!)

  This story alone is full of BULLSHIT.......!!!!

  But our friends at the WT keep changing the number of "species" or "animals" back and down because of the obvious problems with the account. If they put the number down ("just a few animals, no big deal to keep ehm") then JW HAVE TO BELIEVE in the Evolutionary process! And that would be a hell of a evolutionary process. Matter of fact, they would be even more evolutionarists than the biggest scientist there is in this field! If they wan't to avoid this, they have to draw a big number of species....with the above mentioned problems/limitations.

  Fairy tales are more believable.

  RedPill

  (former Elder, Circuit Overseer and still active JW )
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  New Worldly Translation

  I think the story of Noah takes the biscuit as the most provable nonsense in the bible. The only way apologetics for the story explain it is by having god use his powers to gather the animals, stop the animals eating and pooping, keep alive fresh water and salt water fish, transport the animals across the continents after the water subsides and group those that live in symbiotic relationships, alter the geological structure of the earth etc etc etc
  The question therefore is why would god send a global flood when there were 100 easier ways to accomplish his task.

  The story of god halting the sun and moon in the sky for Joshua to finish his murderous rampage is a ludicrous story too. The moon seems somewhat superfluous to requirements but I suppose because the ancients thought everything revolved around the earth, stopping the heavens necessarily meant the sun and moon stopped together.

  The story of Lot and his daughters getting him horny in his sleep and getting jiggy is funny. Actually the adventures of Lot are pretty risqué, there's incest, sodomites, raping of virgins, murder.

  I'm sure someone will have posted a link to this before but it's a pretty cool site for weird stuff in the bible

  http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
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  Narkissos

  As literary analysis shows, a big part of the weirdness in "Biblical" stories such as Eden, the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or Balaam, is due to the integration of variant versions, creating narrative gaps awkwardly mended with redactional seams -- if you have to tell it as a linear story you must actually make up another story, by dropping extant textual elements and adding your own narrative seams to make it work.

  That being said, I doubt any of the ancient storytellers/writers could have imagined their work being read by a generation of readers who would fight over the reality of talking animals and the like. That some readers would be "educated" to the point of missing the implicit contract of tale-telling (the privilege of shallow "modernity") was likely beyond them.
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  LittleToe

  What are you expecting from the books in the Bible? Is it still colours by naive WTS interpretations? Are your expectations married to that which the authors were trying to convey?

  Call it a long shot, if you like, but I'm guessing that the writers knew that animals don't talk. If that is taken as an assumption, how might your approach be modified to understand what the authors were really getting at?

  LT, of the "question the question" class
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  plmkrzy

  With the talking donkey, perhaps the message is when you assume you make an ass of yourself.
  Of course he was riding a “she” ass since women are more stubborn? insightful? then men. Wink.
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  Robdar

  I used to love that story when I was a kid-- it sparked my imagination.

  I can't believe I had forgotten about that delightful little tale. Thanks for bringing it up.