A Real and Significant Biblical Contradiction?

[Napoléon]

What could possibly have been the purpose for the lie?

Guess what argument you're going to get back Cato...

God works in mysterious ways!!! What a surprise!

[spockrates]

@ Spockrates, I agree that the two verses are not a contradiction, I also agree that deception is not always lying, it can be a strategy. However as I've said and continue to, in Ezekiel God is not directly deceiving the prophet, God allows the prophet to be deceived by his own prophecy through his vanity. God does not reveal the true to the prophet, this is to punish the prophet because the prophet is deceiving Israel.

Yes, I understand what you believe, but (please forgive me for being so slow to catch on) I still don't understand why you believe. I'm having trouble seeing how these words,

"... I the LORD have deceived that prophet..."

can mean anything but the LORD had deceived the prophet. The only way this might be true would be if the biblical translators King James commissioned translated the verse wrong, I think. What do you think? Should we look at a more modern translation to see if it clears it up for me?

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...ersion=KJV

---

"Lying isn't always lying, especially if it's god doing it" "It's a different kind of deception, and it's okay because god is doing it" "It was okay for god to be deceptive because someone else was being deceptive"

oh, and for you Clive...."Mysterious ways, except that I'm not saying that, but no... seriously.....mysterious ways"

Guys..there isn't any contradiction. It's a different god, a different narrative, and they both happen to be fictional to begin with. They couldn't contradict each other if they tried. See how easy that was?

But would you say your interpretation of the fictional story of Ezekiel contradicts your interpretation of the fictional story of Hebrews? Or are you interpreting both to say it is possible for the God they imagined to lie?

[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.

[spockrates]

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.

Would you say Ezekiel's Paul Bunyan is dishonest and Hebrew's Paul Bunyan is honest?

[The Grand Nudger]

The narrative or the character?

[catfish]

The narrative or the character?

Just wondering if this is a reply to the other thread?

[The Grand Nudger]

Narcissism is a bitch, no.

[CliveStaples]

Ok, clarification is required. I don't believe in god. My use of the term god is for convenience and is taken to mean the god of the bible. To be precise, when I use god I mean to say the fictional character created by ignorant Palestinian Jews in order to explain natural phenomena in the absence of scientific inquiry and to exercise a measure of crowd control. For this reason I have nothing to say about god's obligations. In fact, arguing that god does not have any obligations makes the Christian position more bizarre.

Who has argued that God doesn't have any obligations? How would the Christian position be more bizarre if that were the case?

Based on your argument we can conclude that god is under no obligation to tell people the truth since he lied about the cure for leprosy. I'll get to the counterfactual bit in a moment, but he specifically gave them a useless prescription for curing the disease; therefore, a lie. How am I now supposed to take anything else in the bible as serious mandates from god? How am I to differentiate between a lie and truth from god?

Your conclusion is unwarranted. My argument (more of a challenge, really, than an argument) was that God might not necessarily have all the same obligations as us. And you think it's safe to conclude, "God is under no obligation to tell people the truth"? Because of one example where His obligation to tell the truth is different from ours, He must never have any obligation to tell the truth ever?

Horrible logic.

Let me get this straight. According to you, god had the foresight to not give his chosen people the cure for leprosy because of an unexplained alternate history, but didn't station the lightsaber wielding cherub until after the fall.

Erm, are you suggesting that God was surprised by the Fall?

If God has omniscience, then He knows all possible futures, and He knows which possible future will be actualized (if Molinism is true).

It seems possible to me that in one circumstance, giving certain people certain information might lead to worse outcomes, justifying witholding the information--while in another circumstance, installing a guard before a certain action would also lead to worse outcomes, justifying not installing the guard.

I'm not sure what the connection is that you're asserting between stationing the guard and informing people about leprosy. Can you explain it a bit more?

Why didn't god just remain silent regarding leprosy? What could possibly have been the purpose for the lie?

Perhaps it would lead to better outcomes. Since people might act differently with different information, it's possible that given one specification of information (for example, telling the truth about leprosy), people will make worse choices than given another specification of information (for example, not telling the truth about leprosy).

[Napoléon]

Perhaps it would lead to better outcomes. Since people might act differently with different information, it's possible that given one specification of information (for example, telling the truth about leprosy), people will make worse choices than given another specification of information (for example, not telling the truth about leprosy).

What you're basically saying:

"God works in mysterious ways"


I KNEW IT!

[Cato]

Your conclusion is unwarranted. My argument (more of a challenge, really, than an argument) was that God might not necessarily have all the same obligations as us. And you think it's safe to conclude, "God is under no obligation to tell people the truth"? Because of one example where His obligation to tell the truth is different from ours, He must never have any obligation to tell the truth ever?

Horrible logic.

It would have been horrible logic if I had come to that conclusion. My point here is that if there is one example of god lying, then how is anybody to be sure of the veracity of any other statement? This is not the same as saying that all other statements are false, only that we cannot know which other statements are false. At a minimum, this makes The Bible untrustworthy.