Apologetics of contradiction

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Apologetics of contradiction

Post #1

Post by Difflugia »

PinSeeker wrote:There are absolutely no contradictions in the Bible. Nowhere does God ever contradict Himself.
When dismissing contradictions in the Bible, are there any apologetic arguments that are considered out of bounds or beyond the pale?

Are there any contradictions in the Qur'an, the Book of Mormon, or any other holy work that can't be reconciled even by biblical standards?

Or is it a case of, to misquote Syndrome from The Incredibles, when everyone's inerrant, no one is?

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Post #21

Post by Difflugia »

Wootah wrote:These meta threads always make me wonder why not just post the contradiction?
The question isn't about the contradictions, it's about if there's a limit to what inerrantist apologists would consider a reasonable argument.
Wootah wrote:I think atheists assume the contradictions must be there because other atheists say they are.
Do you really? Since I personally read the Bible on a continuing basis and I can see the contradictions myself, I can only conclude that the corollary is that those claiming inerrancy are the ones that only believe what some apologist has told them. But that would be an extraordinarily uncharitable thing to say, wouldn't it, Wootah?

Let's assume for a moment that you don't actually know what contradictions I'm talking about. Here are a number of them off the top of my head, in no particular order:
  • The conflicting deaths of Judas.
  • The aforementioned Petrine denials.
  • John's rearranging of the Passover, as discussed in two other threads at the moment.
  • The recently discussed conflict between the Matthean and Lukan birth and infancy narratives.
  • The sermon that was either on the mount or plain.
  • Jesus cleansing the temple at the beginning or end of his ministry.
  • Jesus riding one or two donkeys into Jerusalem.
  • Was the demon-possessed man in Gadara, Gerasa, or Gergesa?
  • Was Yahweh known by name to the patriarchs before Moses and the burning bush?
  • Both Abraham and Isaac had exactly the same encounter with Abimelech and Phicol, right down to naming the same wells, but for slightly different reasons.
  • In the story of Joseph ending up in Egypt, were the wandering traders Ishmaelites, Midianites, or Medanites? Who tried to rescue him, Judah or Reuben? Who sold Joseph in Egypt, the Ishmaelites or the Midianites?
  • Did David slay Goliath or did Elhanan?
  • Did David's wife Michal have children or not?
These are the simple ones that just involve comparing a couple of texts and that I didn't have to actually look up. There are ones involving more esoteric details and more complicated ones involving, for example, the prophets apparently knowing significantly different Exodus traditions.

Inerrantists offer harmonizations for all of these that range from barely plausible (Jesus gave two sermons, one on the mount and one on the plain) to modest textual changes (it was Merab's children that David had executed, not Michal's) to downright insulting (Judas hanged himself and then his body fell on some rocks and exploded). The question isn't if inerrantists can find harmonizations for these that they, themselves find reasonable. I know from experience that they can. I also know that, God help them, some of those apologists have even read the Bible, yet somehow still find the harmonizations intellectually satisfying.

My question is at what point does a harmonization become so bad and so offensive that even an apologist would admit that, OK, maybe that one looks a bit contradictory. At what point is a harmonization so implausible for a given apologist that rather than resort to it, she retreats behind the final bulwark of "I don't know, but God will tell me when I get to heaven?"

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Re: Apologetics of contradiction

Post #22

Post by Goose »

Difflugia wrote:
PinSeeker wrote:There are absolutely no contradictions in the Bible. Nowhere does God ever contradict Himself.
When dismissing contradictions in the Bible, are there any apologetic arguments that are considered out of bounds or beyond the pale?
Trying to argue against an explicit logical contradiction (such as A and ~A) I would consider as "out of bounds."

Are there any explicit logical contradictions in the Bible?
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Re: Apologetics of contradiction

Post #23

Post by Difflugia »

Goose wrote:Trying to argue against an explicit logical contradiction (such as A and ~A) I would consider as "out of bounds."

Are there any explicit logical contradictions in the Bible?
I discussed the birth narratives here and mentioned the Petrine denials earlier in this thread. I think they're both logically contradictory. I also consider these to be such:
  • In the Judas death stories, there is a contradiction in the naming of the field of blood:
    They took counsel, and bought the potter’s field with them to bury strangers in. Therefore that field has been called “The Field of Blood� to this day. — Mt 27:7-8
    Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language "Akeldama," that is, "Field of Blood." — Acts 1:18-19
  • There is a similar problem with the Abimelech stories of Abraham and Isaac. They give conflicting reasons for the naming of Beersheba:
    Therefore he called that place Beersheba; because there they swore an oath together. — Gen 21:31
    And the same day, Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well which they had dug, and said to him, "We have found water." And he called it "Shibah." Therefore the name of the city is Beersheba to this day. — Gen 26:32
  • The classic JE source contradiction:
    And God spoke to Moses, and said, "I am Yahweh! And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as El Shaddai, but by my name Yahweh I was not known to them." — Ex 6:3
    And Abram said, "O Lord Yahweh, what will you give me, because I am childless, and he that shall be possessor of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" — Gen 15:2

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Re: Apologetics of contradiction

Post #24

Post by Goose »

Difflugia wrote:
Goose wrote:Trying to argue against an explicit logical contradiction (such as A and ~A) I would consider as "out of bounds."

Are there any explicit logical contradictions in the Bible?
I discussed the birth narratives here and mentioned the Petrine denials earlier in this thread. I think they're both logically contradictory.
Of course you think they are contradictory, others disagree. But I asked if there are any explicit logical contradictions (such as A and ~A). Those I would consider beyond rational justification. If they are some kind of implicit contradiction then the one arguing for the contradiction bears the burden to prove the contradiction. It's a lot harder to prove an implicit contradiction than one might think.

And that's what you’ve been arguing for at length in this thread (and others), implied contradictions. For those arguments to hold as contradictions the underlying assumptions must necessarily be the case. And I think those assumptions are often highly questionable if not outright false in some cases. We can look at the birth narratives later but for now an example of you arguing for an implied contradiction was earlier in this thread when you argued the denials by Peter were contradictory. You claimed...
In post 6 Difflugia wrote:As an example, if one lines up Peter's denials of Jesus from all the Gospels, the second denial must be to someone that is both a woman and a man.
This assumes that Mark (and Matthew) necessarily meant a female and only a female approached Peter the second time. It further assumes that Luke necessarily meant that a male and only a male approached Peter the second time. Of course this in not necessarily the case at all. It is not the case the second denial must be to someone who is both a woman and a man. It could also be the case that the second denial was to a woman (or women) and a man (or men). And I think the evidence supports the latter especially when we consider all four Gospels have more than one male and more than one female at the scene in each respective narrative.

You provided a broad outline of the accounts in another thread...
Difflugia wrote:To whom did each Gospel writer say Peter addressed his three denials?

Mark: A servant girl, the same servant girl, the bystanders.
Matthew: A servant girl, a different servant girl, the bystanders.
Luke: A servant girl, a man, a different man.
John: A servant girl, "they," one of the servants.
If we drill down a bit more into the nuances of the text some important details emerge in the sequences that your outline fails to capture.

Mark: First denial – μι�α τῶν παιδισκῶν (first/one of the female servants). Second denial - ἡ παιδι�σκη (the female servant). Third denial - οἱ πα�εστῶτες ἔλεγον (they [masculine] who stood [masculine plural] said [plural]). What isn’t entirely clear in Mark is whether the second female servant is the same as the first or a different female servant. The definite article could mean either the specific aforementioned female servant or a female servant from the aforementioned group of female servants. That this was the same female servant is the more natural interpretation I think but the former can’t be ruled out entirely. It’s a minor point anyway and would hardly be a meaningful contradiction if Mark meant the same female servant as the first denial and Matthew meant a different female servant than the first.

Matthew: First denial - μι�α παιδι�σκη (first/one female servant). Second denial - ἄλλη (another/one singular, feminine). Third denial - οἱ ἑστῶτες εἶπον (the [plural, masculine] standing [plural, masculine] they said [plural, third person].

Luke: First denial – παιδισκη (a female servant). Notice how Luke has Peter address the female servant – γυναι (woman – vocative, singular). Second denial - ἕτε�ος ἰδὼν (one/another [singular, masculine] saw [singular, masculine]. Notice how Peter addresses the male the same way as the female servant – ανθ�ωπε (man – vocative, singular). From this we might infer this was a male servant. Third denial – αλλος (another/one singular, masculine). Notice once again Peter addresses the man directly as he did with the female servant – ανθ�ωπε (man – vocative, singular). Luke might be be implying another male servant.

John: First denial - ἡ παιδι�σκη (the female servant). Second denial – ειπον (said [third person, plural]). Notice here we translate ειπον into English as “they said� because it’s third person plural and our language demands the pronoun to make sense of the verb. But there is no “they� in the Greek text here because the verb is in the third person plural. John makes no commitment here to the specific gender, only that there was more than one who approached Peter. This is consistent with a tradition where there was indeed at least one female and a male who approached Peter at the second denial. Third denial - εἷς ἐκ τῶν δου�λων (one of the servants [masculine]).

So we can summarize the sequence of denials and the gender of those who approached Peter with the following chart.
  • [row][col][center]Denial 1[/center][col][center]Denial 2[/center][col][center]Denial 3[/center] [row]Mark[col][center]female[/center][col][center]female[/center][col][center]male[/center] [row]Matthew[col][center]female[/center][col][center]female[/center][col][center]male[/center] [row]Luke[col][center]female[/center][col][center]male[/center][col][center]male[/center] [row]John[col][center]female[/center][col][center]neutral, plural – “theyâ€�[/center][col][center]male[/center] [row]Pattern[col][center]female[/center][col][center]male and female[/center][col][center]male[/center]
Here’s a viable solution. Peter is first approached by a female servant. Then, that same female servant influenced another female and male servant and “they� approached Peter for a second time. In the second denial Mark chooses to highlight the first servant girl, Matthew chooses to highlight the second servant girl, and Luke chooses to highlight the male who was possibly a servant as well. On the other hand John, an independent literary source, chooses to highlight no one in particular at the second denial and simply implies a neutral “they.� In the third denial it is more than one male servant who approaches Peter where Luke and John choose to highlight a male servant.

Furthermore, if you wish to argue for a contradiction here at the second denial you must explain why Luke would intentionally contradict Mark on the second denial when Luke’s tendency, when he reworked Mark, was to amend Mark for his own purposes and not outright contradict Mark. Why contradict Mark on this seemingly obscure and trivial detail?

Lastly, let’s assume this second denial example is a bonafide contradiction. What, exactly, do you think this implies let alone proves? Please don’t tell me all your effort amounts to an end game of merely attempting to take down the doctrine of inerrancy. Hopefully, you are going for some higher hanging fruit here?
Last edited by Goose on Tue Feb 18, 2020 12:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Apologetics of contradiction

Post #25

Post by Mithrae »

Goose wrote: But I asked if there are any explicit logical contradictions (such as A and ~A). Those I would consider beyond rational justification.
So you mean something like
  • Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon. . . . So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations, from David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations, and from the captivity in Babylon until the Christ are fourteen generations.
    ~Matthew 1:11 & 17
versus
  • [1]Solomon’s son was [2]Rehoboam; [3]Abijah was his son, [4]Asa his son, [5]Jehoshaphat his son, [6]Joram his son, [7]Ahaziah his son, [8]Joash his son, [9]Amaziah his son, [10]Azariah his son, [11]Jotham his son, [12]Ahaz his son, [13]Hezekiah his son, [14]Manasseh his son, [15]Amon his son, and [16]Josiah his son. The sons of Josiah were Johanan the firstborn, the second [17]Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, and the fourth Shallum. The sons of Jehoiakim were [18]Jeconiah his son and Zedekiah his son.
    ~1 Chronicles 3:10-16
as outlined in post #11?
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Re: Apologetics of contradiction

Post #26

Post by Goose »

Mithrae wrote:
Goose wrote: But I asked if there are any explicit logical contradictions (such as A and ~A). Those I would consider beyond rational justification.
So you mean something like
  • Josiah begot Jeconiah and his brothers about the time they were carried away to Babylon. . . . So all the generations from... David until the captivity in Babylon are fourteen generations
    ~Matthew 1:11 & 17
versus
  • [1]Solomon’s son was [2]Rehoboam; [3]Abijah was his son, [4]Asa his son, [5]Jehoshaphat his son, [6]Joram his son, [7]Ahaziah his son, [8]Joash his son, [9]Amaziah his son, [10]Azariah his son, [11]Jotham his son, [12]Ahaz his son, [13]Hezekiah his son, [14]Manasseh his son, [15]Amon his son, and [16]Josiah his son. The sons of Josiah were Johanan the firstborn, the second [17]Jehoiakim, the third Zedekiah, and the fourth Shallum. The sons of Jehoiakim were [18]Jeconiah his son and Zedekiah his son.
    ~1 Chronicles 3:10-16
I'm not following you. Can you point out the explicit contradiction here such that A and ~A?
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Re: Apologetics of contradiction

Post #27

Post by Mithrae »

[Replying to post 26 by Goose]

14 ≠ 18

It seems Difflugia's fears were extremely well-founded :(

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Re: Apologetics of contradiction

Post #28

Post by Goose »

Mithrae wrote: [Replying to post 26 by Goose]

14 ≠ 18
That's the implied contradiction you are arguing for but that's not an explicit logical contradiction such that A and ~A.

So you must have some underlying assumptions here. What are they? And why are they the case?
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Re: Apologetics of contradiction

Post #29

Post by Difflugia »

Goose wrote:Of course you think they are contradictory, others disagree. But I asked if there are any explicit logical contradictions (such as A and ~A). Those I would consider beyond rational justification. If they are some kind of implicit contradiction then the one arguing for the contradiction bears the burden to prove the contradiction. It's a lot harder to prove an implicit contradiction than one might think.

And that's what you’ve been arguing for at length in this thread (and others), implied contradictions. For those arguments to hold as contradictions the underlying assumptions must necessarily be the case.
I'll agree that the contradictions are implicit rather than explicit in the sense that magic unicorns are possible rather than impossible. What is implicit in the contradictions I raised is the way the authors use language. It may be possible that the authors meant something else, but I think it's very, very improbable.
Goose wrote:And I think those assumptions are often highly questionable if not outright false in some cases.
Perhaps they often are, but do you think so in this case? Are my assumptions about the authors' uses of language "highly questionable" or "outright false"?
Goose wrote:This assumes that Mark (and Matthew) necessarily meant a female and only a female approached Peter the second time. It further assumes that Luke necessarily meant that a male and only a male approached Peter the second time. Of course this in not necessarily the case at all.
I'll agree, but I think we're in magic unicorn territory. I think it's unreasonable to suggest that it's at all likely that Mark had in mind an exchange initiated by a woman to which Peter replied, "Man, I am not." Of course, it is possible. It's possible that Peter knew that a woman was asking, yet chose to be insulting in his response. I think, however, it's beyond any reasonable exegesis to suggest either of those in any seriousness.
Goose wrote:It is not the case the second denial must be to someone who is both a woman and a man. It could also be the case that the second denial was to a woman (or women) and a man (or men).
If we're playing logic games with language, I don't think it could. The response in Luke is to a single person, a man. Even if God were here to explain His rules of inerrancy logic, though, I think it's clear that we've gone well beyond the realm of author intention. We are no longer reading the text to divine the intent of the authors, but to satisfy a particular notion of verbal inerrancy.

In the context of my original question, how would you rank an author's likely intent compared to an interpretation that preserves verbal inerrancy? How unlikely must a reading be that otherwise preserves inerrancy before it should be discarded? Is literal impossibility your only threshold?
Goose wrote:And I think the evidence supports the latter especially when we consider all four Gospels have more than one male and more than one female at the scene in each respective narrative.
I think "the evidence supports" is an odd choice of phrase. I would consider the primary evidence to be a plain reading of the authors' words.

My original point is that expanding the meaning of "possible" in our present context has the effect of rendering nearly any text as potentially inerrant. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that by your rules, a text that could be demonstrated to be errant would be extremely rare. Thus, claiming that atheists haven't found any contradictions in the Bible is either meaningless or equivocating; either contradictions are so rare in any document that their lack is only the feeblest evidence of any veracity (let alone inspiration), or one claiming a lack of contradictions is intentionally implying a much broader and more meaningful definition of "contradiction" before narrowing it to where it loses any diagnostic power at all.
Goose wrote:Furthermore, if you wish to argue for a contradiction here at the second denial you must explain why Luke would intentionally contradict Mark on the second denial when Luke’s tendency, when he reworked Mark, was to amend Mark for his own purposes and not outright contradict Mark. Why contradict Mark on this seemingly obscure and trivial detail?
I expect that Matthew and Luke changed Matthew for the same reason. Mark's first two contradictions were to the same person, so could conceivably be rolled into the same denial. Matthew simply changed "the servant" into "another." Luke made the same kind of change, but added language to space the denials out in time. Luke contradicted Mark on a number of details (at least by normal rules; Jesus having last words, the women having spices prepared beforehand, two men in the tomb) as part of his overall reworking, so I don't see this as an anomaly.
Goose wrote:Lastly, let’s assume this second denial example is a bonafide contradiction. What, exactly, do you think this implies let alone proves? Please don’t tell me all your effort amounts to an end game of merely attempting to take down the doctrine of inerrancy. Hopefully, you are going for some higher hanging fruit here?
My button (trolls, take note) is apologists claiming that the Bible has no contradictions as though that's evidence that it's special, but then defining contradiction to the point that the term is absolutely meaningless. My goal, quixotic though it might be, is to ask apologists to examine their own rules such that they might see that inerrancy is something they're imposing upon the Bible, rather than something that can be inferred from the state of the text itself.

Since I'm being personal, I find this offensive because I think it means deliberately ignoring a great deal about what makes the Bible interesting. You asked the question earlier (somewhat rhetorically) of why Luke would contradict Mark on a seemingly insignificant detail. My point is that you have asked an interesting question; pretending that he didn't contradict Mark just turns it into a word puzzle. The word puzzles can be fun, too, but I find answering the questions to be so much more rewarding.

Instead of the mess about what different possible meanings John had for "Sabbath" and what he meant by "first" in order to clumsily pretend that John's Last Supper and crucifixion were on the same says as in the Synoptics, examine why John changed the days. Instead of constructing narratives involving broken ropes and arguing about what "headlong" means, think about why Matthew thought suicide was a fitting end for Judas instead of Luke's divine act of retribution. In the Old Testament, I want to know what the redactor was thinking when he or she built Genesis 37 from the two original stories and how the separate unwound narratives fit into later portions of Genesis.

What it boils down to is that I'm a Bible nerd in the same way that other people are Star Wars or Dr. Who nerds. As such, I'm interested in more than just the "in-universe" logic and want to know how the stories evolved and how changing values helped shape the final form. I want more than just how everything was retconned into a final canon.

The Bible is so much more interesting than believers make it out to be.

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Re: Apologetics of contradiction

Post #30

Post by JehovahsWitness »

Difflugia wrote:
Look closer. All three Synoptics unambiguously describe the exact sequence. Following the first denial, Mark and Matthew use "again" and then "after a little while" to mark the sequence (Mk 14:70, Mt 26:72-73). Luke uses "after a bit" and then "after about one hour" (Lk 22:58-59).
Yes so? "Following" and "then" or "later" doesnt tell one who spoke after whom. We still don't know how many people spoke to Peter or which speaker (or speakers) prompted which denial ... If a girl spoke up and her boyfriend piped in and said "yeah she's right" would the narrator be obliged to count him? What do you think each took a ticket to speak?

If I proposed there were 15 people all firing accusations at him the most outspoken of which were girls. Could you prove me wrong from the text! In short Luke could have been referring to two men whom spoke at any point in the exchanges along with the girl (s) promoting any one of the denials. (If at any point Peter addresses a "man" doesnt mean only a man spoke)
# Girl also spoke
Speaker#2
...and
Speaker #3
DENIAL
Speaker#3
...and
Speaker #4
# Girl also spoke
DENIAL
Speaker#4
...and
Speaker #5
# Girl also spoke
DENIAL

Luke 22:58, 59:
And after a little while another [person in the group] saw him, and said, Thou also art one of them. But Peter said, "Man, I am not." ...{Verse 59} another [man]
The narratives are just not specific enough and unless one choses the ludicrous approach that omission equals a negative we cannot establish that only one person spoke or which exchange Luke is referring to.



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Last edited by JehovahsWitness on Tue Feb 18, 2020 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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