Confusing/contradictory things in the bible

Who did Cain & Abel marry? Did all the begotten come from Adam?

Yeah and aren't there two versions of Genesis in the King James version of the bible that have different things happening on different days?

The immaculate conception refers to Mary, not Jesus. She was born without the stain of sin. Jesus was a virgin birth, but God used Joseph’s DNA. Duh.

Cain and Abel were not the only children. Duh.

^^ Oh yeah. But who were the girls? And then did they screw their sisters? No wonder Jesus was so kooky

R3 you're so scholarly and condescending! Have you considered killing yourself now, to be closer to The Lord?

Suicide is a sin, genius.

Well _I'm_ converted now, thanks to R6/r3's condescension! Why would more people not want to be upright pricks, by following the Lord?

R3 if Joseph's DNA was so great, why was he forced to stay in a stable? And what did they do with the gifts of the Magi? They could have sold them and made a fortune.

The gifts were held in trust for Jesus. They did not belong to Joseph and Mary. Jesus

Held in trust by whom? The moneylenders that charged interest? Along with his trust, did Jesus have a 401k, too?

Well to start, there are 2 genesis stories right out the gate, op.

By his family. Oh my God!

Does the Bank of Heaven have good interest rates? Asking for a friend.

r12, no-one actually knows what happened to the gifts, as it is not discussed in the bible. The church has speculated over the centuries, because they don't want to admit that they haven't a clue.

What have they speculated happened to them? I wonder if they still survive somewhere in a vault or with the Knights Templar (assuming they existed).

Mythology is confusing.

One theory is that Joseph sold them to fund their trip to Egypt and then start his carpentry business. Another theory is that they used the gifts to pay for Jesus' education as he was so well-educated as an adult, and he came from a poor background where education was non-existent.

The part in the OT where G-d says "I create good and evil."

He went to Egypt to learn magic and stuff, didn't he? And then came back after he had bound an aerial spirit to his service.

And wasn't Yahweh of the Old Testament a completely different deity than God in the New Testament? He went from being vengeful and horrible to merciful.

Noah and the Ark. I thought that was a religious fable growing up, until I came across it in a children's bible that was given to my child, and realized that it's supposed to be true. How does anyone actually believe that story?

I think the purpose of the begats was to connect Jesus to King David.

Immaculate conception: Mary conceived without sex. Joseph is not boo dad.

Nor is he bio dad of Jesus.

It was a collection of stories gathered from all over the place, themselves based on myths from earlier cultures. Of course, it's contradictory.

There are extremely hefty books detailing the bible's huge numbers of inconsistencies and internal contradictions.

If you have to accept Jesus as your personal savior to get to heaven, what happens to children who are too young to understand the concept? And if children get a pass, what's the cut off age? Also- what about poor hungry children in Africa who've never heard of the Bible? Do they all burn in hell? Or is there a provision for ignorance? Do men on Death Row who accept Jesus as their personal savior before being put to death go to heaven? It's convenient for them because they know when they are going to die. What about a good person who has a bad day, curses at God, and then gets hit by a car? Hell for him?

[quote] R21: Noah and the Ark. I thought that was a religious fable growing up, until I came across it in a children's bible that was given to my child, and realized that it's supposed to be true. How does anyone actually believe that story?

I believe that many of the Bible stories are based on real incidents. For example. It is now believed that the Black Sea was once a fresh water lake. During the melt from the last ice age, perhaps 5000-10,000 years ago, the Mediterranean filled up and burst into the Black Sea, greatly expanding its expanse. It would have taken months to fill and must have been traumatizing for the village fishermen living on the shoreline.

the whole thing, its a completely made up fantasy/fiction

[quote] R27: Do men on Death Row who accept Jesus as their personal savior before being put to death go to heaven?

I can only address Catholic beliefs, but the answer would then be “yes”! But, the person must be sincere. That’s the catch.

I also personally believe that everybody goes to a form of heaven. “There are many rooms in my Father’s house.” said Jesus. Who knows what that means? But I think it means that all is forgiven.

I think God looks at us all, almost like we are a bad puppy. After he shits on the carpet for the fifth time, do you throw him in the fireplace? No, you yell “bad puppy”, and 15 minutes later, you’re hugging him.

The Noah's Ark story exists with variants in several ancient Mesopotamian cultures. The Sumerian version, the Epic of Gilgamesh, is very, very similar to the tale of Noah, which is another clue that all the legends might descend from some forgotten actual event.

Universal flood myths are actually found worldwide in many ancient cultures and far pre-date the Bible.

There was a historic people called the sea people, who once raided Egypt and the surrounding area . This was during the general collapse of civilization throughout the ancient world, Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks, everybody in the region. This is all generally accepted as fact.

I saw a show once where a Jewish archeologist from Canada presented a theory that these were actually the Jewish people when they left Egypt, led by Moses. The Bible notes that they raided (like the sea people) as they travelled. The raiding is what prompted the Pharaoh to follow with an army.

Once again, it would be a historical fact, retold over generations, until it was finally written down in a bastardized form.

It’s just a possibility.

So, who shoveled all the shit off of the Ark?

I think the 4 Gospels relate the crucifixion as taking place on different timetables, but I am not going to look it up now.

The Q document:

It all makes perfect sense. If there’s anything in there you can’t understand, you just chalk it up to "God works in mysterious ways". That pretty much excuses anything. Whoo-hoo! Loopholes!

R32 is absolutely right. Ancient cultures lived on rivers that flooded. They all told flood stories.

Scholars are pretty sure the Sea People were Greeks.

What is confusing/contradictory about Q, r36?

Nothing, r36, I was just bringing it up. It's on topic since it explains why there are some variants in the same stories being told.

Ah got it, r39.

Jesus didn’t cut the automatic pay raises of [italic] anybody! [/italic]

No, r23. The Immaculate Conception is the specific Roman Catholic teaching that Mary was conceived without original sin on her soul. There are other "gods" said to have been born to mothers without benefit of sex, but their conceptions are not said to be immaculate.

I am curious what happened to all the Apostles. I once heard that at least 10 of the 11 died a martyr’s death. I guess they don’t know about the 11th.

Geez Louise. I know the overwhelming majority of posters here on DL are proud, arrogant heathens who sneer at the very concept of God, and who'll be swimming for all eternity in the Lake of Fire, but even they ought to know something THIS obvious:

Old Testament says eye for eye and tooth for tooth.

New Testament says turn the other cheek, and offer a thief your cloak if he steals your shirt, and repay evil with good.

So? Which is it?

Easy one, R44. The New Testament has a lot of changes in it from the Old Testament. It’s a new covenant. Jesus changed everything. So, if you’re a Christian, it’s the latter.

Ah, but they're both in the Bible, aren't they, R45? And the looney-toon, evangelical "Christians" who profess to believe in Christ don't have the slightest problem with the death penalty, now do they?

I like the story of Longinus. He was the Roman soldier who used his spear to pierce the side of Christ. He converted to Christianity. In some traditions, he is said to be cursed with eternal mortal life, and still walks the Earth today.

Yes, r46, they are both in the Bible.

I can’t speak for evangelicals. Though, I can say that warfare is not considered as “killings”, such as that are prohibited in the Bible. The Catholic Church is against the Death Penalty today.

Nowadays Mary would have taken Joseph and Baby Jesus on Maury.

As R45 says, its relatively meaningless to say that something is in "the Bible," since the Bible isn't one document. It's a motley collection of books written by many authors over a long period of time. As I understand it (and I'm not a Biblical scholar), the Hebrew books of the Bible, the so-called Old Testament, aren't that relevant to Christianity. The Hebrew books were adopted as canon by the early Church, but had little to do with what the early Church practiced.

Anyone that takes this book of Jewish fables as the word of Yahweh is seriously stupid

Another gathering of DL's legion of morons, commenting on texts they can neither read nor understand in the original, that are the irrelevant to them history and laws of a completely foreign to them nation.

R1, You would have to look outside of the Judeo-Christian bible to get the answer. According to the Book of Jubilees, which is an ancient Jewish religious work of 50 chapters that is not considered canonical outside of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews), Cain married his sister Aswan, while Abel married another sister, Azura, who later married the third brother Seth. From Seth and Azura sprang a race of angels, some of whom rebelled and mated with the descendants of Cain and Aswan, giving rise to a race of giants called Nephilim.

Tell me, R52, do you have any friends at all?

What if Christianity ever existed?

I love the narrator of these alternate histories. Could he be a DataLounger?

R54 - Why, because being honest and blunt is off limits when it comes to calling out religious believers?

Wasn't Jesus Egyptian? Why is he always depicted as pale-skinned and blond-haired? Same for Mary.

That doesn't answer the question, R52/56.

To me, the biggest contradictory thing in the Bible is this idea that "god" exists and created everything.

If that's true, why did he create Evil? Hmmmm?

None of your fucking business, R59.

[quote]Wasn't Jesus Egyptian?

Seriously?

R57, Christian figures are often depicted to look like the local population. Our Lady of Guadalupe is usually depicted with Mexican features, for example.

[quote]Who did Cain & Abel marry? Did all the begotten come from Adam?

Everyone agrees they married their siblings. The Bible never says Adam and Eve ONLY had three children, it only names three of them. The reasoning is that since Adam was created perfect and Eve was taken from him, they were perfect so there were no defects in the DNA, to cause problems with inbreeding.

The Wikipedia gives you a good place to read about the genealogy of Jesus.

Imagine how you'd feel about a king (or a Trump) who would order someone to kill every first born of every household. You'd say, "OMG, that person is the most evil, immoral person of all time". Um.....God, in Egypt?

To clarify the two different Genesis stories. In the first, God creates man (male and female, He created them and saw that it was good) on the 6th day and then he rests. In the second, Man has been created for a long time - long enough for him to get lonely. So he goes to sleep and during the night, God takes one of his ribs and creates woman out of it.

You cannot imagine the convolutions that Biblical literalists, fundamentalists and evangelicals, will go to to reconcile these irreconcilable tales.

It ain't necessarily so......things that you're liable to read in the Bible....

r66 Amen, Sportin' Life!

If the Jack In the Beanstalk story was in the Bible, people would believe it unconditionally.

The Sea People would have been the Atlanteans. Or, if you don't care for Plato, the Phoenicians.

There was a universal flood. This is why, for example, grain agriculture, as contrasted with nomadic animal cultures, universally then sprung up at high altitudes, with only the grains differing amongst the regions (wheat, maize, rice, etc.).

"Noah's Ark" comprised survivors of the sunken advanced society of Atlantis, and carried test tubes containing the DNA of many species needed for human civilization, such as goats, sheep, Egyptian cattle, rabbits, etc. There were several Arks, some going to the now-Americas (the legends of Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl), some to Polynesia (the heads of Easter Island), etc.

The Atlanteans were the "men of renown," the gods, the teachers of not only agriculture but of astronomy, geometry, architecture, and all the other disciplines, as told by the ancient Sumerians and Egyptians themselves.

They had elongated skulls, which prompted the practice of mimicry through binding of various cultures, such as the Egyptian.

So, yes, there are "contradictions" in the Bible, because the men who eventually compiled the stories, legends, and histories from both oral and written (Sumerian tablets) traditions were only human, plus they had their own agendas.

But it's a good basis from which to begin a study of both accepted and also "alternative" ancient history.

And the earth rests on the back of a great turtle, too!