History Fridge / TheBible

* In light of the example above, there is insight into when God ordered Israel to inflict genocide (such as what happened to the Amalekites), extreme as that may be seen. People in those days tended to get caught up in [[[CycleOfRevenge tribal wars that spanned generations]], and there had been a long and bitter feud between the Amalekites and the Israelites; [[TheExtremistWasRight a genocide would stop that completely]] and given the length of the feud it's possible other methods were tried but they failed (also note that the Amalekites were a tribe, like Ghana's Ashanti and Fante tribes, possibly not a race/ethnicity). Also, these people were attacking His chosen, so instead of doing something extreme like killing everybody in the nation but his chosen, [[MakeAnExampleOfThem God only ordered this on a select few when all else failed so the others would leave His people alone and thus peace, or at least co-habitation, was achieved]].

* As stated above, God was giving Abraham a SecretTestOfCharacter, which the latter passed. Before he had to carry it out, God stopped him and provided a lamb for sacrifice. Even if that hadn't happened God, being TheOmnipotent, could have easily done something such as reverse time, [[BackFromTheDead bring Issac back to life]] or prevent the knife from penetrating his skin to name a few.

* The story of Jesus healing the 10 lepers in Luke 17:11-19 ends with only one of the lepers coming back to thank Jesus - and he was a Samaritan. I initially assumed his ethnicity was meant to be some sort of contrast to the other 9 who should have been the grateful ones instead, being the ones waiting for the Messiah and all. Then it hit me, Jesus told the lepers to go show themselves to the priests, which was normal Jewish custom to do if you wanted to be 'officially clean'. The problem is that Jesus wasn't exactly a popular figure back then with the high priests and all and it was most likely said priests would dissuade the lepers from going back to Jesus. Of course not all the lepers were told this - the Samaritan was left out because he would be ostracised by the priests! He would then be the only one who felt a need to go back to Jesus! - Tropers/{{Pachylad}}

** Actually, a more careful analysis will reveal that what appear to be contradictions are pretty much misunderstandings of the timeline which can be easily cleared up by using historical context. The most obvious of these, and the one which is most frequently pointed out as a contradiction, would be Genesis two, which upon careful examination, is really just the latter part of Genesis one, but in slightly more detail. Other examples of seeming contradiction usually have to do with misunderstanding particular terms used in modern translations, due to the fact that English doesn't have words with quite the same meanings as their Greek/Hebrew counterparts. A good example of such a word, while not controversial in meaning, would be the Hebrew word "Hesed" which has no direct translation, but is frequently used to mean "lovingkindess," "covenant love," etc. So basically, whenever one runs into a contradiction, it's prudent to assume that one is misreading, and do the research to clear it up, mainly due to the fact that the Bible has, heretofore, proven to be an impeccably reliable historical resource.

* The whole idea that God can't allow sinners into Heaven almost makes it seem as though God demands that humans become doctrinal androids of perfection in their faith or else He will personally destroy them or send them to Hell. This is in fact a frequent cause of people rejecting Christianity, as they cannot reconcile this with the idea that God is supposed to actually love all life despite hating so many of the things we do. However, there are numerous Biblical excerpts/phrases which talk about how God is destined to consumes all sin, and that sin cannot exist in His presence. One such expression, which is frequently repeated throughout the Bible, states that God is an '''all-consuming fire''' (which is backed up by the Holy Spirit being represented as a flame). Take these hints literally, combined with the also-frequent statements about sin in fact causing death and decay, and it tells an entirely different story than the one the RageAgainstTheHeavens crowd believes. It's not that God is a prick who arbitrarily demands people copy His perfection and punishes those who can't just for the sake of it. It's that sin is like a [[TheVirus virus]] which erodes the ability of anything it taints to withstand the all-consuming fire that is God's presence. Those afflicted with sin '''literally cannot survive in God's realm''', thus He refuses to allow such beings to even enter His realm without special protections attached to ensure they don't get vaporized on arrival.

* In the story of Abimelech being king and being overthrown, he asks to be stabbed by his armor bearer so that no one wuld know that "a woman killed him". A part of my brain can imagine the armor bearer told the story exactly as requested, something like "Abimelech is dead. He wishes it to be known that [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial he was not killed by a woman dropping a millstone on his head]]"

** Eh, what are kind of issue is time or space to one who cannot be contained by the grand total of his whole creation? All Noah had to do was show his devotion by building the arc and searching for that with which to fill it, God could provide the rest. Consider there is not even enough water on Earth for the flood described leading some Rabbis to suggest God went back in time(tehom) to make sure there was enough rain.

* Now, unless you're accepting an alternate character interpretation, it's pretty obvious that Satan is evil. However, why he's evil is rather terrifying when you think about it. To oversimplify, humans are evil because of external temptation (IE, Satan and original sin) and selfishness. Satan predates external temptation, and he must know that it's not in his self-interest to oppose God. He is, quite possibly, the only creature to choose evil against their self-interest independently of any external factor. He seems to be truly working ForTheEvulz.

** He created the plants, then realized the next day that he would need a way for them to sustain themselves while he was taking care of other problems, so he created photosynthesis.

* The whole idea that God can't allow sinners into Heaven almost makes it seem as though God demands that humans become doctrinal androids of perfection in their faith or else He will personally destroy them or send them to Hell. This is in fact a frequent cause of people rejecting Christianity, as they cannot reconcile this with the idea that God is supposed to actually love all life despite hating so many of the things we do. However, there are numerous Biblical excerpts/phrases which talk about how God is destined to consumes all sin, and that sin cannot exist in His presence. One such expression, which is frequently repeated throughout the Bible, states that God is an '''all-consuming fire''' (which is backed up by the Holy Spirit being represented as a flame). Take these hints literally, combined with the also-frequent statements about sin in fact causing death and decay, and it tells an entirely different story than the one the RageAgainstTheHeavens crowd believes. It's not that God is a prick who arbitrarily demands people copy His perfection and punishes those who can't just for the sake of it. It's that sin is like a [[TheVirus virus]] which erodes the ability of anything it taints to withstand the all-consuming fire that is God's presence. Without special protections attached, those afflicted with sin '''literally cannot survive in God's realm''', thus He refuses to allow such beings to even enter His realm without special protections attached to ensure they don't get killed on arrival.

* The whole idea that God can't allow sinners into Heaven almost makes it seem as though God demands that humans become doctrinal androids of perfection in their faith or else He will personally destroy them or send them to Hell. This is in fact a frequent cause of people rejecting Christianity, as they cannot reconcile this with the idea that God is supposed to actually love all life despite hating so many of the things we do. However, there are numerous Biblical excerpts/phrases which talk about how God is destined to consumes all sin, and that sin cannot exist in His presence. One such expression, which is frequently repeated throughout the Bible, states that God is an '''all-consuming fire''' (which is backed up by the Holy Spirit being represented as a flame). Take these hints literally, combined with the also-frequent statements about sin in fact causing death and decay, and it tells an entirely different story than the one the RageAgainstTheHeavens crowd believes. It's not that God is a prick who arbitrarily demands people copy His perfection and punishes those who can't just for the sake of it. It's that sin is like a [[TheVirus virus]] which erodes the ability of anything it taints to withstand the all-consuming fire that is God's presence. Without special protections attached, those afflicted with sin '''literally cannot survive in God's realm''', thus He refuses to allow such beings to even enter His realm without special protections attached.

* The whole idea that God can't allow sinners into Heaven almost makes it seem as though God demands that humans become doctrinal androids of perfection in their faith or else He will personally destroy them or send them to Hell. This is in fact a frequent cause of people rejecting Christianity, as they cannot reconcile this with the idea that God is supposed to actually love all life despite hating so many of the things we do. However, there are numerous Biblical excerpts/phrases which talk about how God is destined to consumes all sin, and that sin cannot exist in His presence. One such expression, which is frequently repeated throughout the Bible, states that God is an '''all-consuming fire''' (which is backed up by the Holy Spirit being represented as a flame). Take these hints literally, combined with the also-frequent statements about sin in fact causing death and decay, and it tells an entirely different story than the one the RageAgainstTheHeavens crowd believes. It's not that God is a prick who arbitrarily demands people copy His perfection and punishes those who can't just for the sake of it. It's that sin is like a [[TheVirus virus]] which erodes the ability of anything it taints to withstand the all-consuming fire that is God's presence. Without special protections attached, those afflicted with sin '''literally cannot survive in God's realm''', thus he refuses to allow such beings to even enter His realm without special protections attached.

* If you read Genesis carefully, you may notice that the part about God telling the land to produce plant-life comes ''before'' the part where he creates the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars. In other words, plants, which depend on sunlight, existed before the Sun. Presumably, AWizardDidIt was considered a viable explanation back in biblical days.

* In the story of Abimelech being king and being overthrown, he asks to be stabbed by his armor bearer so that no one wuld know that "a woman killed him". A part of my brain can imagine the armor bearer told the story exactly as requested, something like "Abimelech is dead, and he wishes you to know the [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial He was not killed by a woman dropping a millstone on his head]]"

**** The Bible isn't meant to be taken literally (even Jesus taught in parables, after all). It is a compilation of attempts by early man to understand humanity and the universe we inhabit. Whether they had divine help is a matter of belief, but to take the stories in it literally is to deliberately make oneself ignorant of the many layers of knowledge and truth contained within. Adam and Eve are just one example, where in nitpicking the unlikelihood of inbreeding as the origin of life, we fail to spot it actually does describe in a sense the origin of life.

** Joking aside, one way you could to explain the CharacterDevelopment between OT/NT God was His becoming human and gaining the experience of a human life, human pain, human hopes and dreams, achievements and failures, love and loss, and a human death. He experienced what it was like to be on the ''other'' side of wrath, mysterious ways and a plan for everybody. He experienced fear and loneliness and immense suffering, just like everyone else. God became more merciful and less angry when He gained a human perspective of His own world and Himself.

* Like everyone seems like to point out, it the Bible at first glance seems to contain a lot of contradictions or things that don't seem to add up that [[FanWank apologists]] exist just to tell their interpretations. However, I realized that the fact that there are many things hard to explain in the Bible does not make it invalid and wrong, rather it confirms that it truly happened. Think about it, if the whole thing was just baloney, wouldn't the early Church and the medieval Church would try to correct the contradictions that are hard to explain? But instead it just stays there. That means that the early Christians truly believed that the stories in the Bible truly happened to the extent that what could easily look as a contradiction just stays there. This realization is also one of the few things that convinced me that the Bible truly is the Word of God.- CounterBlitzkrieg
** Erm, if it was based of true events there wouldn't be any contradictions because it would be true. If you say it's inaccurate reporting then how can any of the Bible be trusted? Since God doesn't seem to want to give any evidence for his existence without the Bible you have no way of knowing anything about him. Like say, his existence. And anyway, you cant use the Bible to prove the Bible, it's circular reasoning.
*** The primary reason for contradictions was that the Bible may have been the WordOfGod, as you say, but it was written by people. A teaching that might be important in one person's life isn't as much in another's. Likewise, the same event is seen from several perspectives.
** I think that is a stretch. You are free to believe that but they have weeded out books that did not agree with the editing body at the time. The contradictions are more easily explained that the editors had no vested interests in them and thus did not weed them out. The King James version was translated with the needs of the English Monarchy and the Church of England in mind just as each version pandered to whoever funded their translation or collation. The old Testament is all versions is a hodge podge of the Hebrew Bible with alterations made as well. The new testament is also a hodge podge of works from various sources that were collected to support the viewpoints of the church at the time the church canonized them.- KingManic
*** It was weeded out because many of those other books contradicted the main teachings of Christianity one way or another. Those minor "contradictions" does not contradict the main teachings of Christianity. Rather, they actually proved that they're written by different people who remembered things differently or that focused on only what they think is the most important part. You must remember that the Gospels were written some time after most of Paul's letters, not before. In other words, they were recited from memory of all their respective writers on what happened a while ago, and were written for different, but related, reasons.
** It might also be noted that various translations of the Bible ''were'' fiddled with by medieval scholars to try and iron out some inconsistencies that seemed to crop up in it. - Saintheart
** [[SarcasmMode Hey, you're right! And the Greek myths have contradictions as well - that must mean they're true! So do the Norse myths, and the Egyptian myths...]]
*** Not cool. If that's no good for you, then how about this: God's far more complex than us. When you're a kid, you don't get why your parents act the way they do, and God compared to us is more like a hamster or a mouse compared to a human. It says in the Bible, his way's aren't our ways. Some of the things in the Bible shouldn't make sense. With the Norse, Greek and Egyptian, etc. myths, they involve far less reason and sense. Apollo taking a magic chariot across the sky as the sun is one example of something ludicrous they believed happened everyday. At least with the Bible, the supernatural things are miracles and one time events, not natural phenomena. Besides, some of the contradictions just need to be put into context. -DandelionFire
**** Adults act in ways that confuse children because children do not have the same social situation as adults do. Adults have to keep their jobs, pay their bills, and generally do things that involve other people. God doesn't have that same societal pressure to act a certain way, and if He did, then that would mean He has peers and possibly even superiors.
**** And I suppose that man being made from dirt and woman being made from man's rib is not ludicrous at all. And please explain to me how contradictions can be explained in context. Some simply can't both be true.
***** Well, to be fair to God, he could make man out of anything he wanted to. Woman coming from man is supposed to reinforce the idea that [[ValuesDissonance women are supposed to submit to man.]] A lot of the things God does in scripture serve a dual purpose of getting the job done, while providing a symbol for something else. For example, marriage is instituted 1. To give a reliable way for man to reproduce, and 2. As a symbol of Christ's relationship with the Church.
**** Actually God supposedly does things every day that don't make any sense. In fact, he supposedly does EVERYTHING, which certainly doesn't make any sense if Apollo being the sun doesn't. -- BlackHumor
**** I figured some of those things (David having multiple wives and a lot of stuff mentioned in Leviticus, for example) were recorded to give us a picture of those times and so future generations would know better. The Bible WAS written by humans...with the Lord working through them.

** Joking aside, one way you could to explain the CharacterDevelopment between OT/NT God was His becoming human and gaining the experience of a human life, human pain, human hopes and dreams, achievements and failures, love and loss, and a human death. He experienced what it was like to be on the other side of wrath, for once. He experienced fear and loneliness and immense suffering, just like everyone else. God became more merciful and less angry when He gained a human perspective of His own world and Himself.