In answere to my previous question: Do you still love the Bible? Leolaia said;
And there's nothing wrong with it being an anthology of different works expressing different points of view. "Contradiction" is too judgmental a word and is borne out of a misplaced concept of unity of scripture. I feel that the BIble's diversity should be embraced and celebrated. It makes it a certainly richer book.
I agree with this, but if a collection of different works expressing different points of view is held by some to be the word of God and infalible, we should surely expect consistancy between its authors. Maybe contradiction is too judgmental, but whatever you call it, there are some difficult parts of the Bible to explain. One such example is the idea found at Deuteronomy 32:4 that suggests God is righteous, upright and perfect in his activity.
In the Mosiac Law it was stated;
"Fathers should not be put to death on account of their children and children should not be put to death on account of fathers. Each should be accountable for his own sin." (2 Chron 25:4)
Why then does Paul say at Romans;
"Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, thus death spread to all men because all had sinned." (Rom 5:12)
If children should not be put to death on account of their fathers, why did the whole of mankind have to die because of the sin of our original father Adam?
Also in an earlier posting, The dreamer dreaming raised the following issue;
YHWH murdering a baby because he loved David too much to make him accountable for his own crime. " Sam 12
When King David sinned by having Uriah the Hittite killed so that he could commit adultery with Bathshebah his wife, the account in 2 Samuel 12:9-18 tells us that the illegitimate son was killed as a consequence of David's sin with Bathshebah. This though was a contradiction of Jehovah's own law above, about children not dying on account of their fathers and we are left with a dilema. Either Jehovah is inconsistent and is prepared to bend his own law to suite his own ends, or he is unfair and in this instance made one law for the rich and powerful and another for the ordinary Jew. The other option is to say it didn't really happen this way but was how the Bible writers saw the events of the day and they naturally put the childs death down to David's sin. Again though, this shows the Bible to be unreliable, unless you see it as it is, a colloection of historic manuscripts written by ordinary imperfect men.
Yet another inconsistency is found at 2 Samuel 24, where David's taking a census of the people caused Jehovah's anger to burn against Israel with the result that 70,000 Israelites were killed. If that wasn't bad enough verse one suggests that Jehovah was already angry with his people and incited David to take the census so that he'd have an excuse to punish them. The problem is exagerated, as I can't find anything in the Law to suggest that it was a sin for David to take a census. In fact the opposite is true and sometime latter we find David again taking a census of the Levites so he'd know how many were available to serve in the temple his son Solomon was to build. There is no record that 70,000 Israelites perished on this occasion though.
According to Exodus 30:11 & 12 Jehovah said to Moses;
Whenever you take a census of the sons of Israel, they must each give a ransom for their soul to Jehovah that there may come to be no plague upon them when taking the census.
Was it that the census was carried out wrongly then, and a ransom was not paid, and it was this that lead to the deaths of 70,000 Israelites. There is no evidence of this in Scripture and if this was a punishment for wrongdoing, what lesson can be learned from it if we are not given the facts. This still wouldn't explain the opening words of 2 Samuel 24 when we are told;
"And again the anger of Jehovah came to be hot against Israel when he incited David against them saying; go, take a census of Isreal and Judah."
There is a corresponding verse found at 1 chronicles 21:1, which reads;
"And Satan proceeded to stand up against Israel to incite David to number Israel."
But we are still left with a contradiction and one verse telling us that Jehovah incited David to take the census and the other telling us it was Satan. Whichever verse we decide is right, we still have to disregard one of the above texts and this doesn't actually inspire much confidence in the Bible as a whole does it?
Even more alarming are the instances in the Greek Scriptures were Paul contradicts the teaching of Jesus and the decision of the Elders in the Jerusalem Congregation, but maybe we'll leave that for another time...
Yours in search of truth
Steve (Senoj53)