Does the Bible Contradict Itself?

[spockrates]

There aren't. You can distinguish between the letter a and the letter b, can you not? Is the ambiguity in the text or in your reading of it? ...

There is a significant difference when distinguishing between letters and words. Letters most often have sounds rather than meanings associated with them, but even the sounds associated with letters might be either one sound, or another. Take the word tomato. You say tomato, but I say tomato. The letter a in each case is pronounced differently, so letters can be ambiguous as to the pronouncement of them. This is true in nearly every language, with the exception, perhaps of Italian.

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Rhythm:

But yes, ambiguity is not in the letters, nor the words, but in the sounds, or meanings the reader attaches to them. I agree. Would you also agree that ambiguity is not in the letters, nor the words that the writer uses, but in the sounds, or meanings the writer attempts to convey?

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... Approach this story as a story for what it is. Drop any assumptions that it is a retelling of history, or that there must be something factual behind it (however embellished). As a story, as a narrative, is it unclear? How could it be?

Is what makes a story what it is the intention of the author who gave birth to it? If so, are the intentions of the author self evident to every reader of his offspring? Socrates answered yes to the former and no to the latter question. How do you answer?