RE: A Real and Significant Biblical Contradiction?
August 9, 2012 at 11:21 am
(This post was last modified: August 9, 2012 at 11:32 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Different narratives, different gods, different authors. You're missing this entirely aren't you? One might look for a contradiction between some attribute or comment of gods between chapter 1 and chapter 10, but this assumes that the various beliefs cobbled together and given the header "bible" are some unbroken and consistent line of spiritual tradition. Why one assumes this, when we know that it is not the case, is beyond me.
If I wrote a book about Paul Bunyan, and you wrote a book about Paul Bunyan (and ignoring that a large span of time and culture could separate our two narratives) neither of us would be obliged to write about the same Paul Bunyan. Sure, we might have both given our character the same name or the same back story (and the reasons that a storyteller might do that are legion), but that's where it ends. If you're looking for contradictions, especially in the sense that we seem to be using the word (and doubly so for the implications we're flirting with) we'd have to establish that this was the same damned god....and on that count, see the above. God does not contradict himself in the narratives, peoples ideas of what and who god was (and what he could and could not, or would and would not, do) changed over time. Some stories that were popular and struck a chord with one audience failed to do so with another. Some stories that were relevant at one time lost that relevance when transported to another. There is a rich and compelling story to be told here, a lush description of human beings and the situations they found themselves in and how that manifested itself into our concepts of the divine, but we're not having that conversation, are we? Instead, we're wondering whether or not a fictional character lied. Perhaps even more absurd, we're wondering whether or not two different authors characters contradicted each other....ffs! By all means have at it, clearly the idea of contradictory narratives is important to some, but for me, not so much.
If I wrote a book about Paul Bunyan, and you wrote a book about Paul Bunyan (and ignoring that a large span of time and culture could separate our two narratives) neither of us would be obliged to write about the same Paul Bunyan. Sure, we might have both given our character the same name or the same back story (and the reasons that a storyteller might do that are legion), but that's where it ends. If you're looking for contradictions, especially in the sense that we seem to be using the word (and doubly so for the implications we're flirting with) we'd have to establish that this was the same damned god....and on that count, see the above. God does not contradict himself in the narratives, peoples ideas of what and who god was (and what he could and could not, or would and would not, do) changed over time. Some stories that were popular and struck a chord with one audience failed to do so with another. Some stories that were relevant at one time lost that relevance when transported to another. There is a rich and compelling story to be told here, a lush description of human beings and the situations they found themselves in and how that manifested itself into our concepts of the divine, but we're not having that conversation, are we? Instead, we're wondering whether or not a fictional character lied. Perhaps even more absurd, we're wondering whether or not two different authors characters contradicted each other....ffs! By all means have at it, clearly the idea of contradictory narratives is important to some, but for me, not so much.
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