You can go to this link to see a two page list of biblical contradictions, absurdities and moral torpidity.
What kind of errors in the Bible?
by TheWonderofYou 49 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Daniel1555
Just study Jesus genealogy in detail, an you ' ll notice many different errors. -
never a jw
Yeah, full agreement here. We have accurately copied non sense, superstition and inconsistent doctrine and narratives from the first century. Excellent point!!! -
WTWizard
It can be textually perfect. But, the whole thing is full of LIES. These are more serious than mistakes. The whole LIE of original sin is intended to create debt that can only be repaid by selling oneself into slavery. And other LIES found within this damnation book back up the LIE of original sin. And that is no mere mistake. -
CalebInFloroda
It depends on what you think Scripture really is. We Jews wrote the texts and have been using the texts for thousands of years, and not once have come up with the doctrine of original sin.
No branch of Judaism believes in original sin or a need of salvation because of it. And by the looks of most comments you are judging Scripture by Christian exegesis and not critically by examining it's origins, at least the majority of which wherein our culture's legendary interpretations of our history is found. Judging the Hebrew Scriptures by the few books of the New Testament and reading into Jewish text Christian doctrine is illogical.
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Island Man
Given that the earth is spherical, how can standing on an "unusually high mountain" give one a view of "all the kingdoms of the world"? Matthew 4:8 presupposes a flat earth! -
Diogenesister
I wonder if the New World Translation was included in this study? I would be interested to know what bible scholars think of it. -
Phizzy
"Judging the Hebrew Scriptures by the few books of the New Testament and reading into Jewish text Christian doctrine is illogical." < THIS !
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LorenzoSmithXVII
CalebInFlorida wrote: "Being on the side of critical academia, there are significant errors in claims to being eyewitness reports. Matthew for instance belies being an eyewitness or the apostle Levi (as traditionally believed) in his description of the Triumphal entry. He has Jesus ride on two animals, a donkey and its colt, in fulfillment of Jewish prophecy whereas everyone else has one donkey. The reason is that Matthew mistakenly reads the prophecy of Zechariah 9.9 as prose instead of poetry. The poetry reading is the accepted Jewish understanding, that a "donkey, even a colt" is not mentioning two animals but defining the one animal he rides. Uncharacteristic of an eyewitness, Matthew invents a second animal to lead along with the first because of desperately wanting Jesus to "fulfill" Jewish prophecy due to his misreading of Zechariah as if it was literally speaking of two beasts. All other Gospel accounts make no note of TWO animals."
First of all, thanks for all your commentary. It is fascinating to read the Jewish perspective on these things. But your comment about the triumphal entry as a best example of contradiction is incredibly disturbing, from the standpoint of a lack of insight as well as a seemingly complete ignorance of JW apologetics in this case. That is, why would you bring up something JWs have already resolved or commented on? That is, your comment, whether true or not does not represent what JWs believe for this text, so it is meaningless to a well-read JW.
Let me show you. Here's the actual reference in Matthew you are speaking about:
Matthew 21:
4 This actually took place to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet, who said: 5 “Tell the daughter of Zion: ‘Look! Your king is coming to you,+ mild-tempered+ and mounted on a donkey, yes, on a colt, the offspring of a beast of burden.’”+6 So the disciples went and did just as Jesus had instructed them.+ 7 They brought the donkey and its colt, and they put their outer garments on them, and he sat on THEM."Now you are reading this and presumed that the statement about Jesus sitting on "them" meant in some way Jesus was sitting on both the colt and its mother, which is a rather neat trick, I guess. But the WTS explains that when it says Jesus sat on "them" it was not about sitting on both the colt and its mother, but on the "garments" that were placed on the colt. That is, Jesus sat on multiple garments (i.e. them) and not multiple animals.
But what is even more alarming, is after misreading this text, you then drew an over-intellectualized conclusion as to why Matthew was saying what he didn't really say. That conclusion being Matthew's misreading of the text and then lying to make the prophecy work. Do you realize how overactive your brain has to be to get that far away from reality?
My main criticism is that this misconception has been dealt with by the WTS and you didn't know this. Turns out the only person misreading this text is you. JWs don't misread it and neither did Matthew.
This means your criticism example is 100% propaganda, really. You're creating a classical straw man's argument. You've invented a falsehood and have struck it down. It's amazing that you on top of your error, add an intellectual explanation for what Matthew never stated.
Anyway, I'm going to trip on this. Thanks for the afternoon laugh. But I would caution you in the future to at least to a little more research. The WTS has essentially likely commented on every single popular criticism out there and it's a simple matter to look up what they teach using their WT Library, which I believe is on line now. Even if you don't agree with what they teach specifically, it is still relevant on a JW discussion board to reflect on something they actually teach and believe, rather than just your own personal take.
Thanks for sharing the Jewish perspective though.
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LorenzoSmithXVII
CalebInFloroda17 hours agoIt depends on what you think Scripture really is. We Jews wrote the texts and have been using the texts for thousands of years, and not once have come up with the doctrine of original sin.
No branch of Judaism believes in original sin or a need of salvation because of it. And by the looks of most comments you are judging Scripture by Christian exegesis and not critically by examining it's origins, at least the majority of which wherein our culture's legendary interpretations of our history is found. Judging the Hebrew Scriptures by the few books of the New Testament and reading into Jewish text Christian doctrine is illogical.I find your statement incredible but naive. Of course, this is your opinion. But I would suggest to you that the fundamental concepts of the "original sin" are reflected in the Jewish law code. All those sacrifices pointing to the blood of Christ wiping away sin. Jesus being the sacrificial lamb is a very profound reference in Christian dogma. So it is clear you have to separate your writings from the interpretation of your writings by the Jews.
But they do have an interesting concept of a messiah. Can you comment on that for me. They have a concept of two messiahs. One is "messiah ben Joseph" and one is "messiah ben David." You can look both up on Wikipedia for the basics. So what gives? These two messiahs are Jewish concepts and interpretations, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_ben_JosephThe other issue of concern is that generally speaking, Christians think Jews add way too much tradition to the scriptures they think the Jews are just incorrect in everything they do, even when that criticism is unwarranted, which in turn, means there are many fundamental misconceptions Christians have of Jewish law, custom and folklore.
But since we are speaking about Scripture and the Jewish take on Scripture, I hope you don't mind me sharing this perception I have of Jewish literature. I visited the Holocaust Museum in West Los Angeles, which has a small little Jewish library. I came across a folkloric version of "Neamias" only to discover he was considered to be what we'd call in our modern culture, a rather "flaming queen." (yes, you should laugh!) It was shocking. The story made no bones about Nehemiah being infatuated with the handsome Artaxerxes. When he requested to return home to Jerusalem, he was depicted as sitting on the king's lap and batting his eyes flirtatiously at the king. I was in shock. Of course, the historical background for Persia at that time and even the Bible reflect on Nehemiah being a eunuch.
But then it dawned on me how similar the story of Nehemiah was to the elements in the Book of Esther. In fact, it became quite clear to me that the Book of Esther was actually an adaptation of the story of Nehemiah, except the character of Nehemiah was split into different characters to reflect two themes related to Nehemiah's story; one being Nehemiah's personal relationship with this king, the other being his high position as cupbearer to Artaxerxes. Thus Nehemiah's character was split into the two characters of Esther and Mordecai. Mordecai, of course, would reflect on Nehemiah's Babylonian name: Marduka.
It's the basic same story though. Basically Esther/Nehemiah get bad news from home and want to do something about it. They both get the king in a good mood before dumping his/her tantrum on him. The king empathizes and at some point down the road later on, we find the Jews armed in self defense against their enemies. Only in the Book of Esther the story gets exaggerated and the Jews triumphantly kill off half the Persians (haha!) In the canonical Nehemiah, of course, the reference is to the Jews arming themselves against attacks while they repaired the outside of the wall.
But here's the point. Jews have these Yeshivas where they discuss every word every rabbi ever wrote. They analyze all the scriptures. So why is it something so obvious got past them? I mean, surely they could see that the book of Esther was based on Nehemiah being a "queen of the court" in another way! Certainly, they know that the character of Mordecai is a take-off of Nehemiah's Babylonian name, Marduka. Right?
In the end, the Book of Esther is only semi-historical when you superimpose this story during the time of Artaxerxes and Nehemiah. It's a popular fable parading as history. The Book of Esther, therefore, is likely what Timothy specifically had in mind:
1 Timothy 4:7 "But turn down the false stories which violate what is holy and which old women tell."
Esther is a wonderful fairy tale turned historical. Women love telling these fables. And that is what Esther is, a fable. But it is based on Nehemiah and thus has pseudo-historical benefits. For instance, it mentions that Mordecai became so honored in Persia, he was second to the king. That's confirmed by the bas reliefs at Persepolis showing Nehemiah following behind King Artaxerxes in several scenes. But this also links Mordecai to Nehemiah.
Getting back to the NT canon though, it is noted that there are three books in the popular canon that are considered inspired but are not cross-quoted from by the NT Bible writers. Note this reference under "Apocrypha - Additional Ancient Testimony" (It-1 p. 121):
"One of the chief external evidences against the canonicity of the Apocrphas is the fact that none of the Christian Bible writers quoted from these books. While this of itself is not conclusive, inasmuch as their writings are also lacking in quotations from a few books recognized as canonical, such as Esther, Ecclesiates, and The Song of Solomon, yet the fact that not one of the writings of the Apocrypha is quoted even once is certainly significant."
Of course, it is significant, now that we know the Book of Esther is just a pseudo-historical fable. It's far more acceptable to have Nehemiah as a woman sitting on the kings lap and batting her eyes at him than a man. It is understandable why Nehemiah was converted to a beautiful Jewess. But the fact is, that Song of Solomon and Esther are definitely not "inspired," with the exception of Song of Solomon which might have been personally inspired by Satan. Point being, there is absolutely no problem dismissing the Book of Esther from the sacred canon, now that we know it is a historical fable.
Even so, I'm concerned why Jews haven't recognized this or if they have, why they don't make this public?
Have you ever heard of the "Kabbalah"?
At any rate, when you criticize the Bible, OT or NT, you also have to decide which books to include as part of the "inspired" or "sacred" canon, and some include Esther, Ecclesiates and Song of Solomon, which others like myself definitely dismiss as apocryphal. Further, the concept of a internal canon should be looked at. That is, the effective canon that is created by OT books cross-quoted from by the NT Bible writers. If you make that a strick rule, then Esther, Ecclesiates and SOS must be excluded from the canon. Of course, Esther is non-historical, SOS is blatantly pagan, and Ecclesiates might be a general book of good wisdom, but simply is not inspired. Critical textual discussions should thus exclude those three books.
Thanks.