But governments don’t drop tactical nukes on entire cities because one guy did something wicked (except Sadamm Hussien, who used chemicals on the Kurds)! Nor does a good, just, merciful or caring government give one punishment for crimes of vastly different natures and degrees of severeity. In fact, the nearest a government gets to behaving like god is in Fascism or Communism.
I really would like to hear what would be considered a Biblical contradiction. JThunder, JubilationTCornpone, or whoever–give us a hypothetical that you would accept as a contradiction.
I haven’t forgotten about this thread. I’m really, really busy right now, and I had hoped to get back to this a couple of days ago. I do promise an answer soon, but it’s been really hard to find time.
The second sentence is true. But sometimes the application of words to different situations causes a different meaning to apply. In your many years as an adult, I presume that you have often crossed the street without taking your mother or father’s hand? Principle’s the same: “Cross the street safely” – but the rules for a three-year-old and an adult differ. (And if you were severely retarded, the rule for the three-year-old would still apply even if you were an adult, introducing yet another variable.)
God is “good” when He does what it is good for God to do. Man is “good” when he does what it is good for man to do. This gets us into some complex metaphysics, but consider the proposition: Everything that is reported in the Bible as being God’s action or intent may not have been. Very few of us posting, from any point of view, are literalists. And I find it quite easy to believe that a genocidal Israelite could ascribe to God his own command to wipe out the Amelekites (at least one of the times they were all killed off; that tribe had resurrection down pat long before Jesus! ;))
One interesting question: where do we get the ideas of “good” and “right” and “just”? We’re using some overarching concept of what is good or right or just to judge the hypothetical god of the Bible’s behavior here. Where’d that concept come from?
This seems to only be a slight tautology 
**
Let me shoot something back at you–what use do the ideas of "good’ and “right” and “just” have when their meanings change, even with respect to God’s actions? I’m particularly reminded of God’s words after Noah and his family leave the Ark. To my reading (your interpretation may vary), it almost seems like “Woah, that was maybe a bit too much.” If it was “good” the first time to flood the Earth, why couldn’t it be “good” in the future?
You can establish that there are things that children aren’t allowed to do that parents are: stay up late, drink, cross the street without holding someone’s hand, what have you. Call me crazy, but it seems like there are some things that neither parent nor child are allowed to do: rape, murder, genocide, etc. If the former analogy holds when you extend it to the human/God twosome, why not the latter?
Why should it be considered “good” for God to wipe out an entire nation of people, including the young and the animals, when every moral fiber of my being rejects such an abhorrent idea? Where do I get that flavor of “good,” the genocide is WRONG flavor, if God doesn’t have it in himself?
Quix
And doesn’t the notion that it is right for God to wipe out nations, including the young and the animals, make it just a touch easier for his followers to do the same in his name in an attempt to become closer to him?
Yeah, I fully admit that your points are valid. But a large number of Christians – IMHO the majority, but I’ll table numerical quibbles if you don’t mind – do not believe the Bible to be literally inspired so that every word in it is “true” in the sense of being a precise reportage sanctioned by God. On another thread, I suggested that it may very well have been the case that some genocidal Israelite “blamed God” for the wiping out of the Amelekites by invoking His name over the decision to kill 'em all.
The God in whom I believe has been trying to get his message across to man, and it’s the stuff that Jesus’s alleged platitudes are composed of, not the doctrinaire fundamentalist legalism and allegation of every crime listed in the Bible to “God’s will” that has got most thinking people around here ticked off against Him to one degree or another. The sort of God who “loves” us enough to damn us to eternal torture unless we subscribe to some contrary-to-the-evidence theological propositions is the construct I call the Divine Weasel, and I do not believe in him and despise the idea as much as any of you.
I don’t get this. You’re only picking the message you like out of the Bible, and ignoring some parts? You’re entitled to your beliefs, but to me this sounds sort of… not Christian. Sort of a “religious buffet” so to speak. If I was to call myself a Marxist, but say something like “There will never be a Dictatorship of the Proliteriat” or “Marx didn’t really think the worker was exploited.” (when he clearly did, and stated it) wouldn’t that negate my claim to Marxism. Wouldn’t that make me my own thing then, a Qwertyasdfgist perhaps?
I’m curious how many of the Christians who do not think the entire Bible should be interpreted literally believe that Jesus was literally resurrected? (Or that he was literally the son of God, and similar claims.)
If the Bible is part literal truth and part metaphor / parable / poetry / whatever, how do you decide which parts are which?
I watched a program on the History Channel the other day called “The Violent God” or something like that. It addressed this very issue of how can God be loving and yet command genocide.
They brought up the story of the Amalekites. Here is the command God gave, according to 1 Samuel 15:2-3, “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do
not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”
According to the program, the Amalekites and their animals were sacrificed to God. That’s why none could be spared, God wanted it all. In fact, King Saul got in trouble for sparing King Agag and bringing back some of the best livestock. His excuse whem Samuel confronted him, from verse 21, “The soldiers took sheep and cattle from the plunder, the best of what was devoted to God, in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.” Emphasis mine. God wanted the entire race, as well as all their stuff, as one big sacrifice. God was mad that Saul stole some of it from him and we wasn’t about to buy the excuse that it was going to be sacrificed to him later.
Again, God supposedly frowns on human sacrifice. Here he commands it. As pointed out in one of my earlier posts, he did nothing to condemn Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter. This is a contradiction.
The Amalekites’ babies were also killed. They were killed for being the children of Amalekites. I repeat, in 2 Kings 14:5, 6, Amaziah kills the officials who murdered his father. But he does not kill the officials sons, citing Deuteronomy 24:16, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.”
This is another contradiction.
But I’ve already learned you can’t win this contradiction game with true believers. They have an out for everything. Like if I were to point out how Matthew 27:28 says the governor’s soldiers put a scarlet robe on Jesus, and Mark 15:17 says it was a purple robe, the true believer will say:
-
The two phrases aren’t mutually exclusive. Maybe they put the red robe on him first, then took it off and put the purple robe on him. Just because Matthew only mentions the red, and Mark only mentions the purple doesn’t mean he couldn’t have worn two robes at different times.
-
Maybe they didn’t even take the red robe off first, they put both robes on him at the same time. Again, just because each book only mentions one robe doesn’t mean he wasn’t wearing two.
-
It was the same robe. Scarlet is a very dark red and to the writer of Matthew maybe the robe looked more like a dark purply red like burgundy or cranberry, while to the writer of Mark it just looked like purple.
-
You aren’t reading it right. You don’t understand it. Read it more prayerfully.
Et voila, the contradiction, she is gone!
It’s an exercise in futility.
Oh, in case you were wondering, the History Channel’s program ended by quoting Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 – in case you haven’t heard the Birds in a while:
1
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
There you go, number 8 sums it up, there’s God’s out. The end.
Erm, actually, Gr8Kat, the famous dye known as Tyrian purple was actually more of a red (or scarlet). Remember, all this stuff has to be translated, and different languages divide up the color spectrum differently.
“Kokkinos” and “porphura” were probably much more synonymous than the modern “scarlet” and “purple”.
Toldya! 
OK, OK, I can end on another contradiction, here goes:
Matthew 27:45 says Jesus’ last words, the only words he spoke from the cross, were, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Mark 15:30 agrees.
But Luke 23 says Jesus said:
v. 34 “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
v. 43 “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
v. 46 “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
From John 19
v. 26 “Dear woman, here is your son”
v. 27 “Here is your mother.”
v. 28 “I am thirsty.”
v. 30 “It is finished.”
Matthew and Mark paint a picture of Jesus despairing. Luke and John show him in control, putting his affairs in order, and being at peace. Luke and John show a Jesus calmly fulfilling his duty, while Matthew and Mark show a Jesus who appears to have expected something else to happen. To me it appears a contradiction, both literally (books 1 and 2 say Jesus said X, while book 3 says Y and book 4 says Z) and in content. Was Jesus in despair or in control? Which is a more accurate picture of the events?
One answer I’ve heard says that Matthew and Mark are the older books, they may have been written within the Disciples’ lifetimes by people who saw the crucifixion first hand. Therefore, they may be more accurate. Luke and John were written later by people troubled by the image of Jesus not being sacrificed so willingly so they rewrote his last words to make him seem more accepting. These are probably less accurate. There is a contradiction and it was caused by spin doctors trying to make the crucifixion a more positive experience.
But to the true believer, there’s no contradiction at all. There’s no reason Jesus couldn’t have said everything attributed to him, just because Matthew and Mark didn’t write down what Luke and John quoted, and vice versa. Maybe Matthew and Mark got there late and didn’t hear the peaceful stuff. Maybe Luke and John left early and didn’t hear the despairing stuff. Or maybe I’m just reading it wrong and not prayerfully enough.
So there.
That’s a very interesting claim. What proof do they have for its accuracy?
Remember: We’ve been talking about alleged Biblical contradictions. Biblical. One could assert that Amalekites were killed as a sacrifice, but to the best of my knowledge, there’s nothing in the Mosaic law to support that claim. Quite frankly, this sounds like a lot of empty speculation to me.
Also, I’d be interested in knowing exactly what the History Channel said. Did they said that it WAS a sacrifice, or was this merely the opinion of some historians? Let’s be precise, please.
Precisely what type of example would it take for you to admit that the Bible contains a contradiction?
In 1 Samuel 15:3 Samuel supposedly relates God’s direct commandment regarding the Amalekites:
The Hebrew verb translated as “totally destroy” is charam. (See this English to Hebrew concordance for the verse.) This verb is usually translated as something along the lines of “utterly destroy”, but it seems to have something of the sense of giving something or someone over to God (note the NIV’s footnote from the first link); thus, the same verb is used in Leviticus 27:28:
(Words which are translations of charam or of cherem are emphasized.)
In Micah 4:13, charam is translated as “consecrate”:
(I dunno where the sense of “having a flat nose” comes from. For some reason, it makes me think of some Klingon insult involving foreheads; some things just don’t translate well, I guess.)
MEBuckner: Adjusting that quote for “totally destroy” = “devote” (which I’m skeptical about to begin with) you get:
Much better!
If we translate “spare” to mean “neglect”, “put to death” to mean “provide a nice pension plan to”, and “cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys” to mean “in-laws”, it makes even more sense. 
Well, Hell. If you take the Bible literally in all its parts, you’re forced to reject about 95% of geology, cosmology, evolutionary biology, ethnology, and Eris only knows what the heck else. And you’re called an idiot by anybody with an ounce of common sense.
On the other hand, if you read the Bible as a mass of literature with varying value as historical reference and as ethical guidance, you’re accused of being a cafeteria Christian…including by the same people that would have called you an idiot for taking it seriously.
Therefore, the received wisdom must be that the Bible is totally false. So I want somebody to explain to me what happened to the Roman Republic/Empire between 28 BC and about 50 AD – because this business about Caesar Augustus and Tiberius has just been demonstrated false.
To lay off on the irony for a moment, I believe in a God who has revealed himself as being loving and insistent on a humanist ethics. Only part of my proof derives from some Biblical passages; more derives from the behaviors of other Christians and from my own experiences in knowing Him. I see other parts of Scripture as being in contradiction, more or less, to that basic premise and reject them. Where’s the problem there?
In short, with all the proof available that the Bible as a whole is not a literally true document in all its parts, what in the name of all that’s holy do you have against finding truth in it?
Perhaps, Querty, like the Bibliocentric evangelists, you have put Descartes before the horse?
But you can find an element of truth in any piece of literature. Would it not make more sense to find a book that has a higher degree of accuracy to base your religion on?