Paduan,
I hear what you say, but there simply are so many of these type of contradictions that it makes hard to believe that the Bible is what is purpoted to be.
What is it that it is purported to be ?
Jesus Christ! Is this a contradiction?
by observador 26 Replies latest watchtower bible
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A Paduan
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Spook
Jesus? Oh, you mean Mithras.
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Oroborus21
Jeez Louise,
What is so difficult to understand?
Here is what happened:
Jesus had some bit of bread and the little cup of olive oil, he dipped the bread and gave it to Judas or perhaps just offered the cup over to Judas and Judas took the bread out of the cup and ate. No one thought anything about it at the time, even though Jesus evidently said something about the one who is "sharing his bowl" or (in other words) the one he is giving the morsel to will be the betrayer or is the betrayer.
At least a decade later or even more in the case of John, when it seems necessary that it is important to write down an account of Jesus life and sayings, Matthew and John both relate their take on what happened. Keep in mind that this is many many years since.
John remembers and writes things pretty straightforward but with special emphasis on the fact that they realize NOW that Jesus identified Judas before he betrayed him (thus highlighting Jesus divine powers of prescience which is in line with John's whole view of Jesus of highlighting his divinity). John's recollection is that Jesus said in answer to Peter's question of "tell us who the betrayer is" that Jesus said "it is the one to whom I give the morsel to eat and that he gave it to Judas."
Mathew, who is more concerned about preserving the Jewish tradition and emphasizes the Jewishness of Jesus records the situation a little differently. As Matthew recalls it, Jesus said one of them was about to betray him, they each ask essentially "It isn't me is it?" (No doubt they are very puzzled and as the scripture said "grieved" to think that they might be the one to betray Jesus, so I wanted to know). Matthew recalls that Jesus said something along the lines of "its the one that dips the morsel in this bowl" . Matthew leaves the act of Jesus actually passing the morsel or the bowl with the morsel over to Judas implied but records Judas's question "It isn't me Lord" immediately following Jesus's words.
Remember these guys were writings many many years after the fact and each had their own slightly different personal philosophy about what was important about Jesus. The two accounts are not a contradiction.
We don't have to worry about whether one account is more accurate than the other, whether they are both correct or maybe whether they both got it wrong.
The point of the scriptures is so very simple that it is too often not ony misunderstood but misapplied by persons.
I will make it extremely simple for you:
THE BIBLE IS NOT ITSELF THE REVELATION ABOUT GOD TO MANKIND.
THE BIBLE IS A RECORD OF THE REVELATION ABOUT GOD TO MANKIND.
One must therefore be very cautious about being overly concerned about specific wording, scriptures or passages (nor do I need to add that it is pure folly to base entire doctrines on the turning of a phrase, word or tittle).
Try to see the big picture and you won't go wrong.
-Eduardo
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observador
Paduan,
the Bible is viewed by many as the word of God to mankind; that's what I meant.
I know that many people will try to reconcile in a lot of ways these conflicting accounts. These accounts are easier to spot in the gospels because there are more than one version reporting the same event, but I wonder how many inacuracies there are in the Bible that we simply don't know as we can't compare to anything else.
Observador. -
observador
Remember these guys were writings many many years after the fact and each had their own slightly different personal philosophy about what was important about Jesus. The two accounts are not a contradiction.
Eduardo,
writing "many many years" after the fact is no justification for innacuracies or contradictions IF the Bible is the Word of God, right?
Then, you say that "they [the writers] had their own slightly different personal philosophy..."; again, this goes against the belieft that the Bible has one author, God himself.
Otherwise, think about this: what else in the Bible is the product of "personal philosophy" of the writer?
Observador.
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Oroborus21
The homely picture of a writer (Moses and the more than 40 others) sitting at a desk, whilst the angel of God whispers in his ear (or the light of inspiration falls upon him) and that thereby the writer is nothing more than a "secretary" taking dictation from the Word/Lord - and that further therefore what we have before us in the canonized form of the Bible is not merely "representative" of "God's statement to mankind" BUT THE ACTUAL STATEMENT/WORDS OF GOD - this is a complete fallacy.
Unfortunately, any careful and thorough study into the matter will reveal that the true history of how the Bible was written and constructed/compiled is much more messy than the "secretarial model" held dear by many Christians, including Jehovah's Witnesses.
The bottom line is that, perhaps with a few "quotations" of what is reported to be said by God or Jesus or others (and even these passages are highly suspect) everything else is not to be understood as being a literal/stenographic account of history, sayings, beliefs, teachings, etc. etc.
(That is what I meant when I said that the Bible is not actually the revelation itself but rather it is only a RECORD of the revelation, shaped and recorded by the writers in the best way that the writers knew how to record such a revelation.)
Whether you accept what I have just said depends on your view of how much "inspiration" by God went into the Bible and how that notion actually worked in practice.
If one believes that the Bible is inspired as 2 Timothy 3:16 says, then one must understand that what this means is that each writer wrote whatever they were writing, laws, history, supposed history, homilies, prophesies, psalms, poetry, etc. in accordance with their own spiritual nature and moral understanding of God and the things they were writing. God is thus only in a very general sense the supreme author of the Bible and it is "His Word" only in this very loose sense.
Many Christians/persons understand things this way.
Many others, including the offical JW teaching, believe, without necessarilly stating it explicitly:
That God has taken an active role in "inspiring" and directing and safeguarding every little "tittle" of: first, the oral history keepers and retellers (just consider that MOSES is traditionally viewed as the author of GENESIS which is purported record of persons and events of some hundreds/thousands? years prior to his day) - just think how much oral history that was to preserve, then the earliest writers (of source texts and histories that Moses and others may have had available to them), then the next writers, then the later writers, then the copyists who came in between everyone, the correlators/compilers, the redactors, the scribes, the archivists, the Jewish authorities that decided what spiritual/holy writings would be considered "canonical", the later Christian authorities that likewise decided what spiritual/holy writings would be "canonical", the scribes and monks (copyist and preservists), the still later Church (orthodoxy) bishops/scholars/authorities who began to make canonical calls about what was "true" and what was "heresy", the still later committees and councils that made canononical determinations, etc.,
If one believes that all of that Inspiration was going around, then such persons believe that what is EXACTLY written is very important and if not the actual "words that God" intended for mankind at least very close to it. These persons tend to believe that the Bible is literally the Word of God and use it in that way.
I think this latter view is obviously the wrong one for too many reasons to go into right now but which some of which should be obvious from the above.
But the main problem with this latter view is that it leads to attempts to define/establish doctrines and make moral judgements based upon the specific canonized language and turns of phrases, even the occassional indefinite article, (hah, hah). It also leads to the silliness of trying to point out "contradictions" in the Bible and making some claim that this thus disproves the Bible or has some huge meaning.
Both such viewpoints are pure folly.
-Eduardo
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Flash
Contradiction plain and simple? Any opinions?
Interesting point. My guess would be that He said both. Converstions are funny things, they're not static, they're in motion, and the more people involved the more they change. Also, perhaps during dinner Jesus may have decided to handle things differantly...just a guess.