What to do when contradiction happens?

[Abrosz]

You are trying to apply a level of precision that was not intended, was not needed, and that people normally would not apply in such a context.

It is not just the lack of precision, but that at the same time, other cultures had a much better approximation. To say that the simple people, who wrote those passages did not know any better, nor did they care - would be perfectly acceptable. But not the word of God.

You can’t have both ways. Either the Bible is the word of God, or it is written by some people, who did not know any better. Of course the Bible could have said that the circumference of the circle is APPROXIMATELY 355/113 times the radius.

Of course that was just one example. The discrepancies between the bible and reality are far too numerous to mention. The so-called creation of the first human couple cannot be accepted as literally true, and yet, many apologists argue otherwise.

To sum up: until there is NO “Catholic Annotated Bible” which would enumerate which verses are literally true, and which are allegorical, you are not in the position to argue. There are far too many verses which are ALLOWED to be taken literally or allegorically at the “whim” of the apologist. And THAT is the unforgivable problem.

 

[MPat]

I would not even try. Just like I would not wish to rewrite any fairy tale. Of course those tales do not “assert” that they are the inerrant words of the Almighty.

Oh, of course you would not.

That, after all, would be a honest and reasonable way to find out if anything is wrong. And thus you might find out that the way that verse is written is perfectly fine, and the only problem is with you.

And it looks like you really want to avoid that.

Zaccheus pointed out the problem. Those were the dimensions of a physical object. They must be approximate numbers.

Thus writing something like “ten cubits from the one brim to the other […] and a line of 31.4… cubits did compass it round about.” would be not just unnecessary, but also wrong. “10 cubits” has one significant digit, thus the result of multiplication also must have just one significant digit. That is, “thirty”. Just as it was written.

And so, first we have seen you have failed to demonstrate honesty in dealing with the text, and now we see you have also failed to demonstrate competence in the very area you chose.

You can’t deal with Bible unless you learn to demonstrate those. In fact, you won’t be able to deal with anything else either.

To be fair…as was pointed out above, the Catholics don’t interpret scripture quite as exactly as the fundamentalists. They leave room for mans influence.

Well, do you think he wants to be fair?

 

[Zaccheus]

It is not just the lack of precision, but that at the same time, other cultures had a much better approximation.

So?

To say that the simple people, who wrote those passages did not know any better,

They knew enough to give the dimensions of the object in question to a degree of precision that satisfies everybody but those looking for a club to beat believers with.
“Bible says PI equals three LOL”.

 

[FiveLinden]

Sorry but atheists do not have all the answers

Who said we thought we did?

 

[FiveLinden]

Christ never volunteered to perform a miracle under scientifically defined experimental conditions. Why should he? Christ was concerned with healing the sick and the injured, not with providing textbook examples for us to dissect two thousand years later.

Fine. No problems with that. But then let’s not cite them as evidence of anything 2000 years later, since the evidence does not exist, except as a matter of faith.

 

[White_Tree]

But they refer to the same physical reality.

Quantum field theory and general relativity both refer to the same physical reality.

I think the problem here is you may not understand the physics, because it is incorrect to assume there is no contradiction between the two scientific theories.

Here is a video by Matt O’Dowd, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Lehman College in New York City and writer and host of PBS Space Time, in which he explains the problem. Hopefully this will get you caught up.

As for your original question, the Bible is not a book about physical reality. It is an instruction manual for accessing other levels of reality. Obviously, if you assume it is about physical reality, you will 1) encounter absurdities, and 2) fail to properly understand the instructions, and thereby fail to access those levels.

The proper conclusion when we encounter obvious absurdities in the Bible is to assume we are failing to understand the instructions, and to work to remedy that failure. We could, of course, assume the Bible is flawed, and discard it, and thereby exclude ourselves from the worlds it teaches us to access. We have free will, after all, and no one requires us to reach for the heavens.

 

[Zaccheus]

Fine. No problems with that. But then let’s not cite them as evidence of anything 2000 years later, since the evidence does not exist, except as a matter of faith.

I know you’re already rejected Scripture as a source of evidence.
If I was going to try to convince you God is real, I wouldn’t do it by quoting a source you’ve already rejected. I’d look for some other approach.

 

[FiveLinden]

I know you’re already rejected Scripture as a source of evidence

I don’t reject scripture as a source of evidence. Fr example I think the NT provides good evidence that there was a historical person called Jesus who was executed by the Romans and was a significant religious leader. But I do not accept the scriptural accounts of miracles especially ones like the dead rising in their multitudes from the grave and walking among the living. (Matthew 27:53). For such a thing I would need evidence greater than a single writer saying so. And I think it likely that others would have noticed it and recorded their observations and prehaps their interviews with the dead.

 

[Zaccheus]

@FiveLinden
I stand corrected. You accept scripture as evidence for some things but not others.
In any case were I to argue with you I would take into account what i know of what sources you accept.

 

[EloyCraft]

That’s an invitation to ask questions that uncover mysteries.

 

[Rau]

It can not be demonstrated to the level of a scientific observation that any of the miracles reported in the Bible happened.

That may be so - tell it to the OP. He asks about events in the Bible contradicting science.

 

[FiveLinden]

I think the OP and I may agree, at least in part.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

The words of the Almighty cannot contain errors, no matter how minor and mundane.

An important distinction must be made here. Unlike Muslims, Christians do not believe that our scripture is composed of words God actually spoke. Rather, it’s words written by humans who were inspired by God to write those texts for the preservation and teaching of religion. Let’s assume for a moment that the author here messed up and wrote 30 instead of 31.41592654… How exactly is that going to lead us to error in our relationship with God? God did not protect the writers of scripture from every error, just ones pertaining to the religious and moral message of the author and, by extension, God.

 

[RolandThompsonGunner]

So was I. Kings 7:23. “And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.”

Even in those times people knew that the circumference of a circle is NOT three times of the diameter. (In other words, the value of “pi” is NOT 3.) The Chinese even had an incredibly precise approximation for the value of “pi”, they used 355/113. And this is just one example.

In other words, the text in the bible is contradicted by reality. And that is the question: what does one do in tat case?

You’re assuming “round” refers to a perfect geometric circle and not “a generally round shape.” Or perhaps the author realized that what we call pi is not exactly 3, but given that he wasn’t writing an engineering treatise and the mathematical formula wasn’t really the point, didn’t bother to complicate the writing by including the exact formula.

 

[o_mlly]

We all know that the bible is not a science textbook. And yet, many things in the bible are contradicted by science. How do you resolve these contradictions?

Ancient historians, like their modern counterparts, used inductive reasoning. They produced their “science” after examining the natural phenomena. If the “science” stood the test of coherence and gave meaning to the phenomena, it endured passing from generation to generation.

But the sacred writers, unlike their contemporary and our modern scientists, used deductive reasoning. Through divine inspiration, the sacred writers had definite knowledge of God’s plan. This knowledge was a priori and independent of man’s grasp of nature. From this certainty, using their human faculties, the sacred writers enlisted the present understanding of nature, selecting and interpreting it to write the Truth for the people of their times.

Therefore, an important distinction between the secular and sacred is the primacy of events and the primacy of meaning. The secular “scientist”, modern or ancient, gives primacy to events and derives from them his or her “truth.” No serious historian would invent or alter events, or ignore controverting facts to prop up a weak hypothesis. Our divinely inspired authors, giving primacy to God’s inspiration, used the prevailing “science” only instrumentally in order to make their Truth tangible. They were theologians first, “scientists” second. Their task was not to affirm the “science” of their time but rather the truth of God’s revelation for all time.

Forgetting that the scribes wrote for a particular people at a particular time, today’s fundamentalists attempt to extract the Truth from the form rather than the substance of the text. The fundamentalist’s error imputes God’s Word into every word the author wrote. By denying human ambiguity in the texts, the fundamentalist assumes that the wits of man can completely contain and express in words an Idea from the mind of God.

 

[goout]

We all know that the bible is not a science textbook. And yet, many things in the bible are contradicted by science. How do you resolve these contradictions?

You let science do what it is intended for, and let the bible do what it is intended for.
Very simple. Don’t overcomplicate it.

 

[Abrosz]

An important distinction must be made here. Unlike Muslims, Christians do not believe that our scripture is composed of words God actually spoke. Rather, it’s words written by humans who were inspired by God to write those texts for the preservation and teaching of religion.

And just what does the word “inspire” mean? Does it mean that God imprinted the “truth” onto the brain of a few, selected individuals, and allowed the distortions that are inevitable during such a transition?

God did not protect the writers of scripture from every error, just ones pertaining to the religious and moral message of the author and, by extension, God.

There is no evidence for that. And besides. why allow ANY error? To sow confusion?

That may be so - tell it to the OP. He asks about events in the Bible contradicting science.

Well, how about parting the Red Sea? And that worldwide flood? Also feeding a multitude of people with one piece of fish? Any “miracles”? Virgin birth? The age of the patriarchs? Walking of water?

I think the problem here is you may not understand the physics, because it is incorrect to assume there is no contradiction between the two scientific theories.

The nature of electromagnetic radiation looked like an error, because one way it was considered “particles” and other way it was “wave function”. The problem was the incorrect dichotomy between the two assumption. The discrepancy between the two levels of physical reality comes from our incorrect understanding.

It is an instruction manual for accessing other levels of reality.

Show me that other levels of “reality”. What objective evidence can you present for its existence?

Of course all your objections (by every one of you) is based open God not being crystal clear in every chapter and verse. Why not? And if so, why is there no “Catholic Annotated Bible” to separate the “goats” from the “sheep”? There is after all a “Skeptics Annotated Bible”.

There are lots of other assertions in the bible, which are flatly contradicted by science. Biology, or physics, or chemistry. That would not be a problem if you accepted that the books of the bible were written by simple humans, and have nothing to do with God.

Through divine inspiration, the sacred writers had definite knowledge of God’s plan.

What does the word “inspiration” mean in this context?

 

[o_mlly]

What does the word “inspiration” mean in this context?

Divine inspiration is the movement to certain knowledge about the nature of God and man. It is divine because its source is God.

 

[Neithan]

This made me chuckle. You answered the question in the first sentence.

 

[Abrosz]

You let science do what it is intended for, and let the bible do what it is intended for.
Very simple. Don’t overcomplicate it.

You assume that there is no discrepancy between the two.