Illogical Passages in the Bible

[Revan]

I was just reading the Bible yesterday, and I found some part so illogical that I honestly got confused.

So I wanted to ask straight, to everyone here who has read the bible, have you got any examples of illogical passages from the Bible; and more importantly, what about you people who have faith? How do you interpet it?

Also, what about passafes that have been proven to be wrong in the face of science; how do you now view them?

Please don't take this as an attack - I am curious.

For example:

And Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.

Now once Jehovah creates Adam from the "dust", Adam seems to have a full personality of his own.

Now we all know taken literally it is unrealistic. A man cannot be create from dust. And to be a complete pereson with a personlity - you will have to have lived for years, you are the sum of your experiences - if you have none, then you are nothing - an empty shell.

One way this can be interpeted is that God gave Adam a personality- which in itself has flaws. If you are the sum of your experieces and choices, then Adam could not be blamed for commiting any sin.

There are many other passages in the Bible that if taken on it's terms - then it is just unrealistic. One that occurs to me when Jesus walks on water - I do not know where the passage is.

Now Jesus was a man - and man's mass is greater than water in its liquid form. so it follow's logically that he could not walk on water without falling in.

So how do believers look on this? How do you interpret it?

And to those who don't believe, do you have any passages in the bible you find so illogical that it confuses you?

[Prebe]

And to those who don't believe, do you have any passages in the bible you find so illogical that it confuses you?

How about Genesis chapters 1 through 6 (at least)?

I especially like the ark story. The exact size of the ark is given, but there is no way in hell (or heaven for that matter) that you could fit even the animals of an average capital city zoo in there.

It is as so many other passages in the bible: a good story that, symbolically viewed, can give inspiration to people. But people who desperately try to give the stories an air of scientific authenticity inspire nothing but pitty - in a few cases anger - in my mind.

[sgt.null]

i take the creation story as just that. a story. i don't use it for cosmology or geometric study. there is a message in the bible, and bogging it down by insisting that everything is literal seems odd, seeing that Jesus speaks in parables. but what do i know.

[Loredoctor]

i take the creation story as just that. a story. i don't use it for cosmology or geometric study. there is a message in the bible, and bogging it down by insisting that everything is literal seems odd, seeing that Jesus speaks in parables.

It isn't an historical text, or should not be viewed as such. It is an excellent moral text.

[Prebe]

Now Jesus did not have anything to do with the OT right?

[I'm Murrin]

No, but it's logical to suppose that if Jesus taught through parables, earlier stories in the bible may have been created similarly - as a way to teach a moral lesson.

[Prebe]

Sure. But that doesn't make them more logical.

[I'm Murrin]

The distinction is in intent: If they are not logical, were they intended to be so? And do they need to be to convey their message? I'd say the answer to both is no.

[Baradakas]

Now Jesus did not have anything to do with the OT right?

If you take statements Jesus made as fact, then He (obliquely) states that he was present during the OT, when he tells his disciples that "no man has laid eyes on the Father" (sorry, not an exact quote), yet in the OT, Moses and Isaac both "meet God on the mount". The simplest way to read it then, is that Moses and Isaac met the Son (who is also God), not the Father. Sorry, I know that isn't what this post is asking about, but I've fielded that question before, so I thought I'd throw it out there....

[Queeaqueg]

Lots of stuff like that in the Bible. You have Adam and Eve and they have two kids Cain and Able. Cain and Able have a big fight and Cain kills Able. Then Cain gets a wife and has a child, where did the 'wife' come from(keep in mind that Adam/Eve and Cain are the only people around)?

[Avatar]

Weren't they the children of the Titans or something? Sorry, our regular biblical scholar will have to take a crack at that one.

I certainly agree that much of the bible is illogical if you look at it in terms of a historical document. More problems creep in when you consider the time span across which it was actually compiled, and more still when you consider the translation errors, an example of which is the camel and the eye of the needle. (The original, IIRC, translates as rope not camel.)

(I saw somewhere that Jesus may actually have walked on ice)

A better way of looking at it is certainly, I think, (for christians) as a bunch of allegories. Otherwise, you're pretty much doomed from the start.

--A

[[Syl]]

Um, I think the children of the Titans (or Titan, i.e. Chronos) were Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hera, et al.

[Revan]

Weren't they the children of the Titans or something? Sorry, our regular biblical scholar will have to take a crack at that one.

I certainly agree that much of the bible is illogical if you look at it in terms of a historical document. More problems creep in when you consider the time span across which it was actually compiled, and more still when you consider the translation errors, an example of which is the camel and the eye of the needle. (The original, IIRC, translates as rope not camel.)

(I saw somewhere that Jesus may actually have walked on ice)

A better way of looking at it is certainly, I think, (for christians) as a bunch of allegories. Otherwise, you're pretty much doomed from the start.

--A

I don't understand, if this is the case - why do people believe in faith.

Oh, I agree with Loremaster's point; that it is a great moral text -but if people's faith is based on the bible and the bible is full of false events (Which must be so if we agree they illogical) then how?

I don't mean to have a go at people with faith. Look at Furls, she has more faith than anyone I've known - and she's the lovest person because of it.

[Avatar]

Um, I think the children of the Titans (or Titan, i.e. Chronos) were Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, Hera, et al.

No...well, yes obviously, , but I mean no there was something else...hold on...

Well, seems the official explanation is St Augustine's, that Cain married his sister.

The titans had nothing to do with it:

ti'-tanz: In Judith 16:7, "Neither did the sons of the Titans (huioi Titanon) smite him." The name of an aboriginal Canaanitish race of reputed giants who inhabited Palestine before the Hebrews, and so used in the sense of "giants" in general. See REPHAIM. In 2 Sam 5:18,22, the "valley of Rephaim" is translated by the Septuagint as "the valley of the Titans."

--A

[Baradakas]

Then Cain gets a wife and has a child, where did the 'wife' come from(keep in mind that Adam/Eve and Cain are the only people around)?

Quite simple, really. Where in Genesis does it state that Adam/Eve/Cain/Able were the only humans alive? It doesn't. It may state (depending on your version) that they were in Paradise. Never does it state that they were the only humans to exist at the time... And it would truly seem illogical, based on our understanding of genetics that we would ALL be based on that one genetic code. It simply makes more sense to realize that other types of people were out there as well.

So many misconceptions of the Bible seem to result from us jumping to conclusions. If God made Adam and Eve, then no one else could exist on earth at the time? God (or his messengers) have stated in the OT, several times that we should worship no other gods before Him. Does He then state that there are no other gods? Of course not, it is only through centuries of misinterpretation of the OT that many of these issues arise. Not that I'm saying there are NO illogical passages, only that the passages we seem to consider self-contradictory are those that we do not understand...

Wait, am I supposed to be the resident biblical scholar...? (blushes)

-B

[Avatar]

Yes you are.

But I thought that biblical scholars had pretty much discredited the notion of preadamitic peoples? And that, based on the scripture, everybody is descended from Adam and Eve because they were the first and only people.

Apparently Gen 2:20 is the proof that there was no other of Adams kind.

Anyway, Preadamites

--A

[Baradakas]

But I thought that biblical scholars had pretty much discredited the notion of preadamitic peoples? And that, based on the scripture, everybody is descended from Adam and Eve because they were the first and only people

Sure biblical scholars (stuffy know-it-alls for the most part) have come to that conclusion, but I haven't. The fact is, nowhere in Genesis does it make any mention of Cain's sister, if she even existed (female descendants are rarely mentioned in the OT), and after his banishment it states that he moved to the land of Nod, which borders Eden. The mention of borders and the fact that the land was named already points to an inhabited land, with its own peoples.... Thus his wife almost certainly came from there.

-B

[Avatar]

It did mention that Adam and Eve had other children though...sons and daughters, Gen 5:4, and according to Josephus, tradition held that he had 33 sons and 23 daughters.

Regardless, if we reject the sister theory on the basis that it's not mentioned, then shouldn't we reject the creation of humans other than Adam and Eve on the same basis?

Or did he marry somebody not created by god?

(So good to have you back Barad. )

--A

[Baradakas]

It did mention that Adam and Eve had other children though...sons and daughters, Gen 5:4, and according to Josephus, tradition held that he had 33 sons and 23 daughters

It did indeed, but only after the birth of Seth, thier thirdborn son, which was also after Cain had traveled to Nod...

Regardless, if we reject the sister theory on the basis that it's not mentioned, then shouldn't we reject the creation of humans other than Adam and Eve on the same basis?

First, since we agree that Adam did have daughters, then has some basis in fact (fact being that we cannot disprove it), then on that basis, should we discount the possibility that God created other peoples that did not please Him, and thus were not allocated thier own spot in the Bible?

Finally, if Cain did marry his sister, he did so at the ripe ol' age of at least 80, as his father was a hundred and thirty at the time Seth was born, and the daughter(s) came after that. Oh, how Cain would have suffered from today's pedophilic laws had he lived in our time. Still I consider the sister theory unlikely, based on laws handed down in Leviticus. (Yes, I know Genesis was before Leviticus, but an all-knowing God would have surely foreseen the whole inbreeding problem and limited it to first cousins at the least, as he did with the descendants of Noah, Isaac being a prime example)

So there.

-B

[Avatar]

It did mention that Adam and Eve had other children though...sons and daughters, Gen 5:4, and according to Josephus, tradition held that he had 33 sons and 23 daughters

It did indeed, but only after the birth of Seth, thier thirdborn son, which was also after Cain had traveled to Nod...

It doesn't say he only had sons and daughters after Seth, it says that he lived 800 years after fathering Seth.

And the days of Adam after he had fathered Seth were eight hundred years. And he fathered sons and daughters.

It implies, perhaps, but doesn't specifically say when they were born.

Also, it doesn't say he found his wife in Nod, only that he "knew" her, in Gen 4:16-17.

And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bore Enoch: and he built a city, and he called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

Could easily have taken her with him.

Regardless, if we reject the sister theory on the basis that it's not mentioned, then shouldn't we reject the creation of humans other than Adam and Eve on the same basis?

First, since we agree that Adam did have daughters, then has some basis in fact (fact being that we cannot disprove it), then on that basis, should we discount the possibility that God created other peoples that did not please Him, and thus were not allocated thier own spot in the Bible?

I dunno, all I'm saying is that either we assume the bible says everything, in which case it would say that others had been created, or it doesn't, in which case it doesn't have to say that Cain married his sister.

Finally, if Cain did marry his sister, he did so at the ripe ol' age of at least 80, as his father was a hundred and thirty at the time Seth was born, and the daughter(s) came after that. Oh, how Cain would have suffered from today's pedophilic laws had he lived in our time. Still I consider the sister theory unlikely, based on laws handed down in Leviticus. (Yes, I know Genesis was before Leviticus, but an all-knowing God would have surely foreseen the whole inbreeding problem and limited it to first cousins at the least, as he did with the descendants of Noah, Isaac being a prime example)

Well, Abraham married his half-sister in Gen 20:12, and god blessed that union, to produce the Hebrew people, and it was long before the laws against incest.

(Good grief, here's a practical atheist defending official church doctrine against a Christian. )

--A