SkepticWiki And The Bible

Hmm ... where's David Swidler?

I think the best thing is to give an explanation of the ambiguities and leave it at that.

There are actually two separate articles on the Hebrew Canon and the Old Testament.

I saw your comments on SW about the Dead Sea Scrolls. It appears my idea of their content is dated.

Any information on the Dead Sea Scrolls gratefully received. Thanks.
 
I just came across this site. It seems like somebody else is trying to do the same thing.

http://www.errancywiki.com/index.php/Main_Page

ETA: I just spent a little bit of time reading through some of the site.

A few comments:
I don't like their approach as much as the skeptiwiki approach. They envision a sort of formulaic pro, con and neutral discussion put into those headings under each covered item. I think many reasonable entries about a particular topic might just be facts and don't necessarily lend themselves to being uniguely in one section (pro,con, neutral) only. I think the skeptiwiki idea of neutrally presenting the conflict, followed by a neutral presentation of the arguments, with a conclusion section where a NPOV isn't required is better.

They distinguish between types of errors forcing an error into a particular type section. I like the idea of categorizing errors but since I think an error can fall under more than one characterization I think it is a better idea not to divide errors into separate type sections.

There is an excellent article there on the issue of the birth date of Jesus.

They seem to have some very knowledgeable contributors.

There is much less to the web site than it appears since many articles are only stubs.
 
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davefoc said:
Another summary of biblical discrepancies. The site has a variety of sections listing and describing various contraditions.

http://www.cygnus-study.com/
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Thanks for posting this link.

I must confess that after looking at three "contradictions" (picked more or less at random from among the ones that sounded unfamiliar to me) - How did Simon Peter learn that Jesus was the Christ?, Did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on one animal or two?, and What did Jesus drink on the cross?, I was not satisfied either that these were true contradictions or that the author had devoted much thought to the question. I didn't take the time to read through the whole site, though, so maybe there's a genuine contribution in there somewhere.
 
ceo_esq said:
. . .I was not satisfied either that these were true contradictions or that the author had devoted much thought to the question. I didn't take the time to read through the whole site, though, so maybe there's a genuine contribution in there somewhere.
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That's not only bad reasoning, it's insulting. Please, tell us what a "true" contradiction is. Do only "true" Scottsmen utter them?
 
One of the things that I would like to see us do as part of this skeptiwiki biblical errors project is to choose about one error a month and discuss it and perhaps have the results effect the skeptiwiki artidle on that error. It was my intention to try this at least, but some combination of being busy and procrastination has prevented me from doing anything about the idea.

I think the forum is lucky to have ceo_esq because he often provides balance in these discussions. It is easy for the less informed amongst us (such as myself) to go read a site that is touting biblical errors and end up with the notion that the case for a particular error or inconsistency is stronger than it is. Several times ceo_esq's comments have made me realize that there is more than one side to the story.

Having said that, I was surprised that ceo_esq rejected some of those discrepancies so easily. I was hoping that he would expand on why.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
That's not only bad reasoning, it's insulting. Please, tell us what a "true" contradiction is. Do only "true" Scottsmen utter them?
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No need to be impertinent. I meant, naturally, a real rather than a merely apparent (at first glance) contradiction. Two propositions are inconsistent in a strictly logical sense if, and only if, they cannot in any manner both be true, and to wit, if the truth of one would entail the falsity of the other.


davefoc said:
One of the things that I would like to see us do as part of this skeptiwiki biblical errors project is to choose about one error a month and discuss it and perhaps have the results effect the skeptiwiki artidle on that error. It was my intention to try this at least, but some combination of being busy and procrastination has prevented me from doing anything about the idea.

I think the forum is lucky to have ceo_esq because he often provides balance in these discussions. It is easy for the less informed amongst us (such as myself) to go read a site that is touting biblical errors and end up with the notion that the case for a particular error or inconsistency is stronger than it is. Several times ceo_esq's comments have made me realize that there is more than one side to the story.

Having said that, I was surprised that ceo_esq rejected some of those discrepancies so easily. I was hoping that he would expand on why.
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Well, first of all, I think your idea is a good one. And you honor me greatly with your compliment.

Before answering your question, I should reiterate that I only examined three alleged contradictions from this site. I picked ones that looked (from the headings) unfamiliar to me, just for the novelty value. I can't characterize the whole site on the basis of that sampling, of course.

The first one was #45, "How did Simon Peter learn that Jesus was the Christ?" The site's point is that in Matthew 16:17, Jesus tells Peter that the knowledge of Christ's nature was revealed to Peter by God, rather than by flesh and blood. Yet in John 1:41 (earlier in the narrative timeline), Peter's brother Andrew tells Peter that he's found the Messiah.

It seems to me there's obviously a difference between Peter hearing from somebody else that Jesus is Christ, and Peter actually knowing, or becoming convinced, that Jesus is Christ. In the Matthew passage, in fact, Jesus draws the same distinction. He's just asked Peter first "Who have you heard from other people that I am?", and then he asks, "But who do you say that I am?"

Imagine that your brother sets you up on a blind date, telling you "I've definitely found the right woman for you to marry", and it turns out that later you do fall in love and become persuaded in your own mind that this is the right woman for you to marry. Now imagine that someone asks you how you first knew that she was "the one". Whatever your answer is, it's probably not going to be "I heard it from my brother." That's just silly. So I think both Matthew 16:17 and John 1:41 could hypothetically be true, meaning that there is not a contradiction between them. Any apparent "contradiction" is just a function of an unnaturally literal reading of what the characters are saying.

As time permits, I'll try to revisit the other two supposed contradictions I mentioned.
 
ceo_esq said:
No need to be impertinent. I meant, naturally, a real rather than a merely apparent (at first glance) contradiction. Two propositions are inconsistent in a strictly logical sense if, and only if, they cannot in any manner both be true, and to wit, if the truth of one would entail the falsity of the other.
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Oh, in that case, let's read about Easter. Who went to Jesus's tomb? Was the stone in place when they got there? What did they find? Who saw Jesus first? What mountain did he go to? In no one detail do the four Gospels agree about what transpired on the day of the alleged Re-erection.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Oh, in that case, let's read about Easter. Who went to Jesus's tomb/ Was the stone in place when they got there? What did they find? Who saw Jesus first? What mountain did he go to? In no one detail do the four Gospels agree about what transpired on the day of the alleged Re-erection.
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What on earth are you talking about? Is that one of the supposed contradictions I was asked by Davefoc about? I have no idea of the answers to any of those questions, nor do I see what their relevance is to anything I said.
 
ceo_esq said:
What on earth are you talking about? That wasn't one of the supposed contradictions I was asked by Davefoc about. I have no idea of the answers to any of those questions, nor do I see what their relevance is to anything I said.
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*Sigh* You complained that the contradictions under discussion were not "true" contradictions. I provided examples of crucial contradictions where the four Gospels present mutually exclusive descriptions of events. I trust those qualify?
 
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ImaginalDisc said:
*Sigh* You complained that the contradictions under discussion were not "true" contradictions. I provided examples of crucial contradictions where the four Gospels present mutually exclusive descriptions of evenets. I trust those qualify?
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If they are as you've characterized them, then obviously yes. But was the validity of the specific contradictions you're presumably alluding to even at issue here? No one's asserted, as far as I can tell, that those passages you mention don't contain contradictions. The question is, how do they relate to the passages we were discussing?
 
ceo_esq said:
If they are as you've characterized them, then obviously yes. But was the validity of the specific contradictions you're presumably alluding to even at issue here? No one's asserted, as far as I can tell, that those passages you mention don't contain contradictions. The question is, how do they relate to the passages we were discussing?
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Once again, I must repeat myself for your benefit. You complained that certain contradictions were not ""true" contradictions. I provided examples of contradictions.
 
ImaginalDisc said:
Once again, I must repeat myself for your benefit. You complained that certain contradictions were not ""true" contradictions. I provided examples of contradictions.
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OK, but how would the genuineness of those contradictions bear upon whether or not there was an actual contradiction in the passages I was talking about? The only relevance of bringing in other examples of contradictions would be if somebody asserted that there were no Biblical contradictions, which no one here has done.

ETA: Just to clarify, no one is suggesting that there are really gradations of logical contradiction. I was suggesting that the allegation of the existence of a necessary contradiction turned out, upon examination of the particular example I gave, to be untrue. Either two propositions are necessarily contradictory or they are not necessarily contradictory.
 
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ceo_esq said:
OK, but how would the genuineness of those contradictions bear upon whether or not there was an actual contradiction in the passages I was talking about? The only relevance of bringing in other examples of contradictions would be if somebody asserted that there were no Biblical contradictions, which no one here has.
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Because a Skepticiwiki entry on the Bible should contain mention, even detailed lists, of the contradictions in the Bible, demonstrating the impossibility of its factual accuracy in keeping with the skeptical theme of the site.

Ceo, are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you honestly not see the point of of noting Biblical contradictions in this context?
 
I clicked on one at random from the same site (7. Is lying with your sister really bad?). Even a quick reading of Genesis 20 makes it clear that Abraham was lying to Abimelech about Sarah being his sister. Sarah was Abraham's niece (the daughter of Abraham's brother Nahor).

-Bri
 
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ImaginalDisc said:
Because a Skepticiwiki entry on the Bible should contain mention, even detailed lists, of the contradictions in the Bible, demonstrating the impossibility of its factual accuracy in keeping with the skeptical theme of the site.

Ceo, are you being deliberately obtuse, or do you honestly not see the point of of noting Biblical contradictions in this context?
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In the general context of the Skepticwiki, yes. In the specific context of your reply to my critique of the discussion by another website of a certain very specific alleged contradictions, no. You even said: "You complained that certain contradictions were not 'true' contradictions. I provided examples of [other] contradictions." You ought to be able to see that the second part of that is not responsive to the first part, which accounts for my confusion. If all you wanted to do was propose unrelated contradictions for the general purpose of inclusion in the Skepticwiki, by all means do so.
 
ceo_esq said:
In the general context of the Skepticwiki, yes. In the specific context of your reply to my critique of the discussion by another website of a certain very specific alleged contradictions, no. You even said: "You complained that certain contradictions were not 'true' contradictions. I provided examples of [other] contradictions." You ought to be able to see that the second part of that is not responsive to the first part, which accounts for my confusion. If all you wanted to do was propose unrelated contradictions for the general purpose of inclusion in the Skepticwiki, by all means do so.
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By what possible stretch of the imagination can other contradictions found in the Bible which demonstrate that it is logically impossible for the Bible to be considered factually correct be considered "unrelated?"
 
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ImaginalDisc said:
By what possible stretch of the imagination can other contradictions found in the Bible which demonstrate that it is logically impossible for the Bible to be considered factually correct be considered "unrelated?"
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It was irrelevant to my post, to which you were replying. Those contradictions you're talking about, whatever they may demonstrate, don't have any bearing on my comments about the Cygnus website. Nothing in my post addresses the factual accuracy or inaccuracy of the Bible.

Let me explain this in terms of the meaning of "relevant evidence" in my field. Do those other contradictions make the truth or falsity of any statement in my posts, or the existence or nonexistence of any fact on which my arguments rely, any more or less probable? If not, they are not relevant as evidence of anything in the context of the post to which you responded.

It's as if I said that I'd examined three 1-dollar bills from Cygnus' wallet, and concluded that they were counterfeit, whereupon you said "Is that so? Well then, let's talk about this other dollar bill I've got! It's the real deal!" So what? No one's disputing that there's such a thing as a real dollar bill, and no one's disputing that there's such a thing as a real Biblical contradiction. Whether it is "logically impossible for the Bible to be factually correct" has nothing to do with whether Cygnus correctly analyzed the specific passages. Therefore, I conclude, from long experience in evidentiary practice, that your response to my post was irrelevant to what I said. Of course, that doesn't mean it would not have been relevant in some other or broader context, as you rightly suggested.

If you want a Biblical contradiction to be included on the Skepticwiki, however, you'll probably have to flesh out the proof a little bit.
 
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