Contradiction or Forgetfulness

[Ferrocyanide]

Luke 12:33 KING JAMES VERSION
Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth. {12:34} For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. {12:35} Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning; {12:36} And ye yourselves like unto men that wait for their lord, when he will return from the wedding; that when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.

^^^^^Here, Jesus says to sell your stuff and give to the poor and you will have treasures in heaven. Those treasures can’t be stolen by thieves and moths can’t eat it.

Mark 10:21 KING JAMES VERSION
Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.

^^^^^Here, Jesus says to sell your stuff and give to the poor and you will have treasures in heaven.

Matthew 19:27 KING JAMES VERSION
Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? {19:28} And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. {19:29} And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. {19:30} But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first. {20:1} For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard. {20:2} And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard. {20:3} And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,

^^^^^Here and elsewhere, Jesus wants you to dump all your belongings, to cut ties with your family members, love Jesus more than you father, mother, brother, sister and you will 100x times more and an everlasting life.

Mark 12:41 KING JAMES VERSION
And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much. {12:42} And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. {12:43} And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: {12:44} For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.

^^^^^Jesus is watching the treasury chest. A woman comes and drops 2 coins of little value. Jesus calls his disciples “Yo, check this out. This lady gave everything she had and that is the way to do it.”

Acts 16:30 KING JAMES VERSION
And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? {16:31} And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house.

^^^^^Jesus (using Paul’s body), he forgot to tell the guy to sell all his stuff and give it to the poor.

Luke 14:12 KING JAMES VERSION
Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. {14:13} But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: {14:14} And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. {14:15} And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.

^^^^^Here, Jesus says to make dinner and don’t invite your friends, brothers, kinsmen or rich neighbors. Invite the poor, maimed, lame, blind.
Then, you’ll have treasures in heaven.
However, I thought that you have to sell your stuff and give the money to the poor. How are you going to have a dinner party if you sold your house, your furniture, your refrigerator, your cooking equipment, your utensils?

Ephesians 2:8 KING JAMES VERSION
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: {2:9} Not of works, lest any man should boast. {2:10} For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

^^^^^Here, Jesus (using Paul’s body) says that faith saves you. You don’t actually need to sell your stuff and give to the poor.
You are already suppose to be helping the poor but that is not part of the contract to get into Heaven.

[no one]

Mysterious ways and shit.

[The Grand Nudger]

Different authors with different ideas, cramming them into the mouth of a god. Similar to the anachronism of camels.

[Ferrocyanide]

Different authors with different ideas, cramming them into the mouth of a god.  Similar to the anachronism of camels.

Are you talking about John the Baptist and his camel pants?

The word camel appears 62 times in the Bible.

The first time the word "camel" appears is this:

{12:16} And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.

The last time it appears is

{18:24} And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! {18:25} For it is easier for acamel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

[The Grand Nudger]

No. I'm referring to the use of camels as a literary device in stories set before their domestication. Just as people take the stories that include this element as some kind of history, they presume that what magic books says jesus said is a history of his remarks. Such that we have two conflicting accounts of a historically factual nature. Neither is this case. The new testament cannot be read as the minutes of a meeting with god in the flesh.

Disparities between their accounts are not examples, even, of a "jesus-the-man" being inconsistent. It's an issue of an author using a literary device to narrate their ideological persuasions. If you dig into it, you'll find that you've quoted selections from at least five different authors. We don't think that all of these authors collaborated with or were fully appraised of the contents of each others work, separated by time, by community, by tradition, by opportunity. They did not (and could not) forget what they may not have known.

Still, I think we can charitably and credibly read the accounts in the synoptics as variations on a singular underlying theme. He comes off like a social activist. He sees the poor and the needy and the oppressed - he sees their effort, he sees inequality between the haves and have nots..and sides with the have nots as the possessors of true virtue. He tells people do do decent things for the least of us. By ephesians and acts...though.. jesus the activist is long dead, christ risen in his place, and with christ the salvation his death on the cross is asserted to bring. The promised world has failed to materialize, christians are persecuted by the state. Works, in short, hadn't worked.

[Ferrocyanide]

Mysterious ways and shit.

Probably.

Also, I imagine that a lot of time had past since the various messiahs died.
Probably at some point, the jews got tired of messiahs and their empty promises.
Also, perhaps Paul was interacting with foreigners. It becomes difficult to ask everyone you meet to sell all their belongings, break up ties with family members and be tortured.
It is a hard sell.

At some point, Paul says there is no need to get circumcised. Most non-jew adults are not going to accept getting circumcised.
I’m sure some were willing but you can’t grow your religion quickly.
Some of the stuff that Paul has supposedly written are probably forgeries written 200 or 300 y later.

Somehow, this idea of circumcision resurfaced in european culture.

[The Grand Nudger]

Paul was a romanizer. Or, to be more accurate, the character of paul is a romanizing character. Ironically, paul may also be a literary device or have become one - and so any disparities between different accounts attributed to paul could also fall under the header of anachronism, rather than contradiction or forgetfulness.

[Jehanne]

Both Jesus and Paul had apocalyptic views; it makes sense to give your stuff away if the World is going to end. God will reward you!

[Ferrocyanide]

No.  I'm referring to the use of camels as a literary device in stories set before their domestication.

Well, wikipedia says:
When humans first domesticated camels is disputed. The first domesticated dromedaries may have been in southern Arabia around 3000 BCE or as late as 1000 BCE, and Bactrian camels in central Asia around 2500 BCE,[17][76][77][78][79] as at Shahr-e Sukhteh (also known as the Burnt City), Iran.[80]

I’m not sure what you are referring to exactly. The Genesis story simply doesn’t make sense. Right after the global flood, I think it was 108 y later, suddenly, the Tanakh is talking about Egypt. There isn’t enough time for cultural evolution.
Anything else the Tanakh says automatically becomes highly suspicious.

Disparities between their accounts are not examples, even, of a "jesus-the-man" being inconsistent. It's an issue of an author using a literary device to narrate their ideological persuasions. If you dig into it, you'll find that you've quoted selections from at least five different authors. We don't think that all of these authors collaborated with or were fully appraised of the contents of each others work, separated by time, by community, by tradition, by opportunity. They did not (and could not) forget what they may not have known.

I agree. The disparities don’t tell us that the story is fake. It is just different authors and probably they haven’t witnessed anything. They aren’t journalists.
However, it is comical when people claim that this text comes from a god.
The europeans who compiled the Bible could have smoothed things out but probably they were confused and could not tell which one is suppose to be the perfect text. They probably had long arguments over it and no side won and so, they decided to put a bunch of contradicting text together while rejecting the rest of the contradicting and long stories.


What indicates to me that these stories are fake is the ludicrous events, the ludicrous conversations.
I’m sure that certain things are true, for example, I sure that there was a group of people who disliked the Pharisees, the high priests, the chief priests, the tax collectors, the Samaritans, Herod the great, Herod’s wife, Pontius Pilate.
The feelings are real. The story is not so much real.

Here is a set of ludicrous conversations.

Matthew 8:5 KING JAMES VERSION
And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, {8:6} And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. {8:7} And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. {8:8} The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. {8:9} For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. {8:10} When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. {8:11} And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. {8:12} But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. {8:13} And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour. {8:14} And when Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. {8:15} And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them. {8:16} When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: {8:17} That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

^^^^^Why would a centurion go to Jesus? Notice how Jesus does not resist. He says no problem. Why is it that elsewhere, Jesus is not interested in helping some lady?
A centurion saying “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof”? I don’t think so.

The centurion is used as an example of a foreigner having faith in Jesus but the people of Jesus, the jews, don’t have faith.
“Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.”

Elsewhere, I see the same pattern. Somewhere, Jesus says “How come a prophet is disrespected in his home town?”
There is also the part about the samaritan helping someone but the jews do not.
There is also the part about the samaritan leper getting healed and says thank you and Jesus says “What a nice guy. Why are my own people asshole?”

Here is the text:

Luke 17:11 KING JAMES VERSION
And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. {17:12} And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: {17:13} And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. {17:14} And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. {17:15} And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, {17:16} And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. {17:17} And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? {17:18} There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. {17:19} And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way:  thy faith hath made thee whole.

^^^^^The Bible quite often urinates on samaritans.
Here, it is making the point that even a samaritan is thankful but his own people did not thank him.
This tells us that the followers of the Jesus sect are upset that other jews are not joining them.

Also, about that centurion (Matthew 8:5) that Jesus really really liked, did I mention that Jesus urinates on the jews of that town?

Luke 10:10 KING JAMES VERSION
But into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, {10:11} Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. {10:12} But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city. {10:13} Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon, which have been done in you, they had a great while ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. {10:14} But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you. {10:15} And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell.

^^^^^Notice how Jesus is saying go fuck yourself to all the people of Capernaum.

[Ranjr]

If the point here is to show the friction between what Jesus is said to have said, and the selfish acts of Christians, it stands as yet another.

If it's also to show conflict between the letters and gosples, yeah, that too.