I am a writer. I pay attention to what other writers write about writing. Writers always have limits--even writers of fiction.
Do you choose to live in a world where pigs fly and deuces are wild?
That would be an imaginary world.
Do you choose to live in a world where GOD rules? Let's look at this character: God, and see what problems His creators faced.
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A writer cannot write a character who is more intelligent than himself. A writer cannot transcend his own limitations. . The writer cheats by resorting to a fake explanation. Writer's cheat by violating cause and effect!
A writer cannot transcend his own limitations, but a writer can make you believe it anyway.
A good fiction writer helps you relax your bullshit detector a little bit. It is called "suspension of disbelief." A storyteller does this with style.
"Who is this God and why does He do the things He does?"
The character, Moses, asks a similar question of God, when the deity presumes to send Moses to Pharoah of Egypt.
God answers:
"I shall prove to be what I prove to be."
Is that an answer or a deflection?
Bible writers are writing about this world and a Universe they are entirely ignorant of when it comes to facts. So, they make things up.
For one thing, GOD does not have a cause.
The writers simply declare it to be true and move on!
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Logic had not yet been invented by Aristotle until the 4th century B.C.E.
How do Bible writers explain God's superior sense of Justice? They cheat!
Jehovah himself declares:
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion” ( Romans 9:15 ). _______________________________________________________________________
You see? God acts on whim. No need to explain further. The writer is off the hook.
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In the real world, contradiction with reality is a signal of non-truth.
A policeman interrogates a suspect and looks for contradictions.
Contradictions are the key to discovering lies. (Fictions)
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----- JEHOVAH an unpredictable being operating without logic.-----
A badly written character acts one way for awhile and suddenly acts opposite without internal harmony or explanation.
We might find such a character requiring LAW in the Old Testament and suddenly operating out of MERCY in the New Testament.
This whimsical character might LOVE mankind one minute and repenting of having created them the next. He might destroy men, women, children, unborn babies, animals, plants in a worldwide flood and then promise not to do it ever again under a rainbow.
Israel might be a tribe in the Middle East one era and suddenly become simply a connotation of spirituality.
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As Aristotle says in his Metaphysics: Thus "it is not possible to say truly at the same time that the same thing is and is not a man."
Uh-oh!
In the New Testament, we seem to find Jesus disconnected from such logic.
The Jesus writers vacillate between the real world and the world of fiction. Is Jesus god or man, is he Son and Father simultaneously? The writers botch the job!
Does Jesus practice magic or use supernatural means to bring about miracles? The writers take it for granted by not explaining.
After all, what is a "miracle" but a violation of cause and effect in the physical universe?
The writers simple tell the story as though it were true and all those believing crowds were buying it--so, why should we, the readers be any different?
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The Bible mixes the real world with the make-believe world and there is no effort made to distinguish between the two.
God is a puzzle. Jesus is a Divine mystery. The Holy Spirit is undefined and inexplicable.
What it all comes down to is POOR WRITING!
Maybe--just maybe, the reason the Bible is full of contradictions is because all the various writers and storytellers who developed the tales inside just weren't very good.
Maybe Jesus is a mysterious figure because the people telling the story didn't have a clue how to make it clear who or what he really was.
Perhaps Agatha Christie could have done a much better job of plotting and revealing.