Literalism and Bibliolatry

[Igakusei]

Oh, so if evolution is scientifically established truth, it shouldn't change, does it? If you are now abandoning the ages for evolution to take place in favor of shorter periods, why then do we not see it? Where are the transition forms? When a horse appears in the geological column, it is obviously a horse. A rabbit is obviously a rabbit. If these are the facts, where are the precursors?

[Igakusei]

Before the current "fits and starts" and "big bang evolution" came into vogue, the established doctrine was gradualism that took place over long periods of time. This was supposed to have been established by "science." I wonder what THEORY will tomorrow bring?

And now that an evolution that supposedly took place at supersonic speed instead of eons is accepted, will the age of the earth be reduced to a more recent one?

Some answers are better than wrong answers. We don't know everything (and never claimed to), but at least we're making progress.

[Gerr]

Of course evolution and creation (the 6 day variety) are incompatible. How does that have anything to do with Christian evolutionists? Is Biblical literalism the only way to understand the Bible? Your worldwide flood supposedly occurred thousands of years after the Sumerian invented glue. Are Christians who understand these facts and rightly reject a literal interpretation of these ancient Jewish myths somehow not Christians?

They can call themselves Christians all they want, but what's the point? As I said, if Creation, the Fall/Sin, the Cross & Resurrection, the Second Coming, Eden Restored, are just myths, what's the point? What person would stake his life, more than 10% of his income, 1/7th of his time for a myth? Yeah, I know, you probably would call them ignorant and uninformed! Or maybe worse!

[Gerr]

See if you can figure out what's different about the cheetah genome and why I brought it up. Why do you think cheetahs should change into horses?

And what makes you think a one-celled organism should change into a multi-cell? Or what makes you think a monkey should change into a human?

[Igakusei]

And what makes you think a one-celled organism should change into a multi-cell? Or what makes you think a monkey should change into a human?

I'll answer your question after you do what I asked.

[Gerr]

PS

The micro-evolution you are talking about in the cheetah genome proves nothing as regards to life evolving from non-life, one-cell into multi-cell, reptiles into birds, and monkeys into man.

[Igakusei]

You still haven't figured out why I mention cheetahs.

[Gerr]

Originally Posted By: Gerry Cabalo

And what makes you think a one-celled organism should change into a multi-cell? Or what makes you think a monkey should change into a human?

I'll answer your question after you do what I asked.

But isn't that what evolution claims? One-celled organism evolving into multi-cell, one species evolving into another species/genus/phylum? If you don't like the cheetah evolving into a horse since perhaps the latter is not an improvement of the former, then let's change it into man, after all, man is supposed to be at the top of the evolutionary scale. So what makes you think that any organism should change into anything other than its own kind?

[Gerr]

You still haven't figured out why I mention cheetahs.

Of that, I am indeed ignorant & uniformed. So enlighten me.

[Bravus]

Can I ask the moderator to please prune all Origins discussion in this thread from now on? This is not an Origins thread.

Please focus on the central issue: the role and purpose of Scripture, and the role of literalism.

[ClubV12]

"Fits and starts" evolution.

vs

Evolution slowly and over a VERY long time frame.

How many BILLIONS of years constitute the evolution theory?

Some sources say about 3.5 billion. And you want to use the argument "fits and starts" to explain it?

So how many hundreds of millions, or is it a billion, for a "fit"? How many for a "start"?

Puhlease,,, "slowly and over time" is an entirely accurate description of evolution. Fits and starts carries some logic, but in the space of time evolutionist consider? It's a joke!

[Igakusei]

Alright, sorry. If you guys actually want me to answer the last several questions in this thread PM me, but it's pretty obvious that they're being asked under the assumption that they can't be answered. They can (and easily), so either PM me or re-ask them in my thread in the Origins forum if you want.

This video illustrates what has happened to you guys:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h9XntsSEro

Sorry Bravus :(

[Gerr]

Here is my response to your opening post. It was not meant to derail it into a discussion of origins.

Originally Posted By: Bravus

Bravus:

The Bible is full of contradictions. I don’t think that statement is even controversial. There’s a list here, and sure, some of them are kind of petty, but there’s mountain of them.

Gerry:

Full of contradictions? WOW!!! If that is so, then there is NO reason to have confidence in it whatsoever. One of the things that convinces me of its inspiration is the consistency of its message from Genesis to Revelation, written by so many different authors over a period of almost 1500 years! Yeah, there are some apparent discrepancies, but full of contradictions? Would you list them and we'll see if the Bible itself does not clarify them?

Quote:

Bravus:

Different people do different things with that. Some, like my friend Lawrence and other friends, throw out the Bible. The claim is made that it’s infallible, yet they see the contradictions and feel they have no choice.

Gerry:

As to infallibility, SDAs do not claim that the Bible is infallible. Here is what EGW says about the SDA position:

1. "In regard to infallibility, I never claimed it; God alone is infallible. His word is true, and in Him is no variableness, or shadow of turning."--Letter 10, 1895.

2. "In His Word, God has committed to men the knowledge necessary for salvation. The Holy Scriptures are to be accepted as an authoritative, infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the revealer of doctrines, and the test of experience." {FLB 13.2}

3. " Some look to us gravely and say, "Don’t you think there might have been some mistake in the copyist or in the translators?" This is all probable, and the mind that is so narrow that it will hesitate and stumble over this possibility or probability would be just as ready to stumble over the mysteries of the Inspired Word, because their feeble minds cannot see through the purposes of God. Yes, they would just as easily stumble over plain facts that the common mind will accept, and discern the Divine, and to which God’s utterance is plain and beautiful, full of marrow and fatness. All the mistakes will not cause trouble to one soul, or cause any feet to stumble, that would not manufacture difficulties from the plainest revealed truth. {1SM 16.2}

4. "The writers of the Bible had to express their ideas in human language. It was written by human men. These men were inspired of the Holy Spirit. Because of the imperfections of human understanding of language, or the perversity of the human mind, ingenious in evading truth, many read and understand the Bible to please themselves. It is not that the difficulty is in the Bible. Opposing politicians argue points of law in the statute book, and take opposite views in their application and in these laws." {1SM 19.3}

5. "The Bible is not given to us in grand superhuman language. Jesus, in order to reach man where he is, took humanity. The Bible must be given in the language of men. Everything that is human is imperfect. Different meanings are expressed by the same word; there is not one word for each distinct idea. The Bible was given for practical purposes." {1SM 20.2}

Quote:

Bravus:

But if we recognise that the Bible is a library of books written by humans, then we can recognise that *perhaps* the Creation story is a religious origins story about God’s role, rather than a literal history of how the universe and world came to be.

Gerry:

If the Creation and Adam & Eve story are NOT literal, what is your alternative? No creation, no Sabbath. No fall, no sin. No sin, no need of a Savior. And if the Cross and the Resurrection are not literal, then as Paul said, we might as well eat and drink, because our faith is futile, and there is no future.

Quote:

Bravus:

We can recognise that *perhaps* the Flood was actually a local event that covered the *known* world rather than the entire planet, and perhaps people ascribed to God’s wrath what was a natural event.

Gerry:

Then how do you explain fossils in the tall mountains? Then how come there is a flood legend from just about every major scattered areas on this planet?

Edited by Gerry Cabalo (Today at 12:32 PM)

[Bravus]

Thanks for re-posting that, Gerry. I think what's there in terms of content is four things:

1. The claim that while there might be minor discrepancies due to human error, the Bible's message is consistent.

2. The acknowledgement of one of the points I was making - that the Bible is not infallible and is a human document.

3. What amounts to acknowledgement that many other doctrines have been set up as being predicated on creationism and would be in trouble without a literal recent creation.

4. Claims about the Flood that have already been addressed by others in the thread.

The Origins and Flood issues have been *extensively* canvassed in the Origins forum over the years, and I'd really prefer not to go through all of that again here. Those were a couple of specific but speculative examples that I chose to illustrate the main thesis, they were not the argument itself. We have already seen that origins discussion is very compelling but also very circular, and I don't want to chase that particular white rabbit down a hole.

Your insistence that SDAs don't regard the Bible as infallible is probably true in terms of doctrine, but not in terms of practice. In particular, any suggestion that some single verse or concept in the Bible may be in error is routinely greeted with howls of outrage here. So while lip service may be given to the fallible, human-created nature of the Bible as a general thing, in no specific example will it be operationalised in practice.

As to the broader issue of real contradictions rather than simple inconsistencies in detail matters like the number of soldiers in an army, it's only necessary to look around this forum a very little bit.

The issue in the War thread of whether or not God kills is being very strongly debated, and each side is bringing texts to support their absolutely opposed views. A literalist, objectivist view of the Bible would, I guess, simply say that one side is right and the other wrong about what the Bible 'really' says on this issue, but to take such a position would require 'explaining away' some of the texts that seem to support the opposite perspective. Given that the Bible *appears* to be saying both that God does and does not kill, that is a contradiction within it.

The issue that has also arisen of whether there is anyone God does not love is similar: one text talks about God's 'unfailing love' and another talks about God 'hating' Cain. Over all, there exist real contradictions that require considerable acrobatic prowess to twist around into consistency.

I could go on giving examples, but let's start with those two: Does God kill? and Does God love everyone, all the time? Remember, the point is not to argue for a particular view on these questions, but to argue that the Bible's teachings are absolutely consistent and uncontradictory in relation to these matters.

[John317]

Sure, am reading it over now.

[ClubV12]

We are either working for God or for the enemy.

[Bravus]

Possibly true, but kind of cryptic... What actions would constitute each in this context?

[Kevin H]

What I see as an issue here is that we too often assume we know what the Bible writers are saying, but that we tend to take texts out of their contexts and apply them to different topics than what the Bible writer was actually saying, or read into the words of the texts our ideas and imaginations, rather than that the Bible writers had in mind.

An example is "Former Adventists" interpretations of Paul, which tends to take Paul's words, but read into them ideas from the situation in the church in 135 AD, the ideas of St. Augustine and the ideas of Luther and Calvin, and the words of say Galatians are read reflecting the views of those periods of church history and the ideas of Paul himself was trying to express have been forgotten.

We also have the correspondence between people such as Ellen and Willie White on one side and Stephen Haskell, or even more extreme the views of Elder Washburn and Elder Wilkerson and others. Mrs. White and Willie would write that they were abusing her writings, that they did not understand her writings, that they were misreading her writings focusing on points that she did not see as important and missing the things she did see as important. However the typical Adventist is a follower of Stephen Haskell, and the ideas of Washburn and Wilkerson have strongly influenced what has been called "Historic Adventism" and we who claim to accept Mrs. White as a prophet have a tendency to use her either the way Elder Haskell did or how Washburn and Wilkerson did. Yet all of us, Mrs. White and Willie; Haskell; Washburn and Wilkerson all were using the words of Mrs. White. Yet we need to study these letters to see why it is that we can quote massive amounts of Ellen White quotes, yet be guilty of her criticisms of not understanding her writings and abusing her writings. We are probably doing the same to the Bible.

As for the contradictions in the Bible and Mrs. White: They serve a purpose too. They teach us things that God sees as important, and what he gives us room to study and have different views of. I cringe when I see churches that call themselves "Full Gospel" The only time we had full gospel was in the person of Jesus Christ himself. Once you get to the disciples you have 12 perspectives of the gospel, some emphasizing some aspects others emphasizing others. People try to hard to explain away the idea of one or two demoniacs of the Garasene by saying "One was more predominance than the other" but we find similar things; for example when Moses first sent spys into the land, how many faithful spys were there? 2? 1?or 12? Depends on where you read. The main story says 2, but references to the story in other parts of the Bible you find inconsistencies such as sometimes Joshua is one of the 12 spys, other times he is not, but that there was one spy, Caleb, and one from the people receiving the spy's report, Joshua, who stood up to the people. And in Deuteronomy all 12 spys were faithful and the people reject the spy's message and Caleb and Joshua were picked for being the only one of that generation to enter the land for defending the spys. This tells us that among the tribes there were different stories, and that God is not worried if we don't have every slight detail correctly, we have the big picture; Moses sent spys into the land, when the spys gave their report (whether it was one, two or twelve good reports) the people did not like it, and Joshua and Caleb stood up to the people encouraging them to enter the land and thus they were the only ones from that generation to enter the land.

A major contradiction is between Mark and Luke. Luke was clearly familiar with Mark and quoted Mark and would have points where Luke saw Mark as correct, but also other places where he saw Mark as incorrect and he wanted to tell what he had studies in contradiction to Mark. A big disagreement between the two books is in Mark no one understands who Jesus is, Jesus keeps interacting with people who should have known who he was but they don't. Finally on the cross the centurion finally realizes just who Jesus is, who realized that Jesus was God, but this truth came to a man so pagan that he expresses the truth in words that would horrify any monotheistic Jew, when he said "a son of the gods" which is how pagans described the gods. Yet this pagan realized what none of the Jews realized. In Luke on the other hand John the Baptist knew who Jesus was before either were born, and Elizabeth realized who Jesus was before he was born, and at his birth the shepherds knew who he was, at his circumcise Simon and Anna knew who he was, and Jesus goes through life with many people recognizing who he is, and when he dies on the cross our centurion only says "he was a good man"

Both Mark and Luke give us different perspectives on Jesus, and while we don't know which one was right (that only the centurion knew who Jesus was, or if a lot of people did, and speaking of the centurion, did he realize that Jesus was God, or did he think Jesus was a good man?) yet I'd rather live with this uncertainty and have both gospels for their perspectives on Jesus than to accept one as true and throw out the other for not agreeing with the truth.

The Bible and Mrs. White are using words to try to express ideas, but we tend to read into those words other ideas that the author may not have had in mind. Or we are so afraid of uncertainties that we want to fill in the gaps and change the words to fit our ideas.

The poet/philosopher Eli Siegel pointed out that all beauty is a making one of opposites. The Bible tends to make one of opposites, which brings us to another issue; The Bible is full of opposites: God is personal/impersonal, infinite (outside of time and space)/finite (inside of time and space); One and trinity, Just/Merciful. Jesus was fully God and fully man. The Bible works on explaining thse opposites. However we tend to want to separate the opposites. We like to embrace one and annihilate the other. So when we are reading a Bible that makes a oneness of opposites in a mind that likes to choose one side in a set of opposites, we tend to choose the side that we like and attack the side we don't like. This is another issue we need to deal with when studying the Bible, since we can clearly read our side into the Bible, and since the Bible has the truth then the other side must automatically be a lie and not be in the Bible. Thus we tend to naturally gravitate towards part of the Bible message and see that part clearly, and blind ourselves to the rest of the message.

The Holy Spirit is opening up our eyes to things in scripture for when it is time to see and apply it, this is the concept of present truth. Also I believe that a big part of "The Investigative Judgment" is the rediscovery of the ancient world, people like Robinson's exploration of the Holy Land that lead to archaeology and linguistic advances, so that starting in the mid 1800s we can "Investigate" the pages of scripture like never before. Sadly as the Holy Spirit shows us more, the parables of the wine skins play a big role in our life. People think that the old wine in good enough and don't like present truth.

[Kevin H]

Thanks for re-posting that, Gerry. I think what's there in terms of content is four things:

1. The claim that while there might be minor discrepancies due to human error, the Bible's message is consistent.

2. The acknowledgement of one of the points I was making - that the Bible is not infallible and is a human document.

3. What amounts to acknowledgement that many other doctrines have been set up as being predicated on creationism and would be in trouble without a literal recent creation.

4. Claims about the Flood that have already been addressed by others in the thread.

The Origins and Flood issues have been *extensively* canvassed in the Origins forum over the years, and I'd really prefer not to go through all of that again here. Those were a couple of specific but speculative examples that I chose to illustrate the main thesis, they were not the argument itself. We have already seen that origins discussion is very compelling but also very circular, and I don't want to chase that particular white rabbit down a hole.

Your insistence that SDAs don't regard the Bible as infallible is probably true in terms of doctrine, but not in terms of practice. In particular, any suggestion that some single verse or concept in the Bible may be in error is routinely greeted with howls of outrage here. So while lip service may be given to the fallible, human-created nature of the Bible as a general thing, in no specific example will it be operationalised in practice.

As to the broader issue of real contradictions rather than simple inconsistencies in detail matters like the number of soldiers in an army, it's only necessary to look around this forum a very little bit.

The issue in the War thread of whether or not God kills is being very strongly debated, and each side is bringing texts to support their absolutely opposed views. A literalist, objectivist view of the Bible would, I guess, simply say that one side is right and the other wrong about what the Bible 'really' says on this issue, but to take such a position would require 'explaining away' some of the texts that seem to support the opposite perspective. Given that the Bible *appears* to be saying both that God does and does not kill, that is a contradiction within it.

The issue that has also arisen of whether there is anyone God does not love is similar: one text talks about God's 'unfailing love' and another talks about God 'hating' Cain. Over all, there exist real contradictions that require considerable acrobatic prowess to twist around into consistency.

I could go on giving examples, but let's start with those two: Does God kill? and Does God love everyone, all the time? Remember, the point is not to argue for a particular view on these questions, but to argue that the Bible's teachings are absolutely consistent and uncontradictory in relation to these matters.

Thank you for that post. Yes, we have a hard time accepting what we know about the Bible and Mrs. White with what we wish the Bible and Mrs. White would be like. We tend to have the attitude "Mrs. White is not infallable because she says she is not infallible, therefore I believe her perfect word." or simply the attitude of "The Bible and Mrs. White are not infallible, it's just that they never made a mistake."

As for the issue of whether or not God kills is a oneness of opposites that we have tended to have split in half with some people preaching half the truth, others preaching the other half of the truth both at the expense of the aspects of the truth they are arguing against.

[John317]

...if you take the Bible literally, then God does indeed kill. He killed pretty much everyone on earth in the Flood, making God the most effective mass killer in history.

Why not accept the Bible's message that God has killed before, as in the Flood and at Sodom, and that He will destroy sinners at the second coming and again after the one thousand years?

Why prefer one's own opinions over the plain teachings of the Bible?

Is the Second Coming literal? How about heaven? How about the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of the righteous?

According to this reasoning , does it matter whether there was a real Adam and Eve, a real Noah, a real Abraham, or a real Jesus Christ?

Originally Posted By: Bravus

Now, what one does with that is obviously more complicated, but all I was trying to do at the time was to force believers to take their own beliefs face-on: if you believe in a literal Bible, you believe in a killer God. Whether or not God has every right to kill is another debate.

OK, then according to you, I believe in a "killer God." I have no problme whatsoever with that. I suppose you could also say that I am a "homophobe," but putting it in those terms doesn't change the Bible's teachings. All it does it take modern, humanistic labels and superimpose them on the Bible.

Originally Posted By: Bravus

But the bigger issue is that one about do you believe the Bible or your own opinions?

If I believe my own opinions over the Bible's teachings, then there's no heaven or hell and no God or gods.

How valid are human opinions when it comes to knowing what God is like? How valid or authoritative are human opinions when it comes to knowing whether God or Christ exists and what they are doing today and whether Christ is returning soon?

Do mere human opinions really help us much when it comes to issues like God's nature, salvation and heaven and hell? If they do, can you show how?

Originally Posted By: Bravus

The Bible is full of contradictions. I don’t think that statement is even controversial. There’s a list here, and sure, some of them are kind of petty, but there’s mountain of them.

The problem here is that you make no distinction between apparent contradictions and genuine contraditions. If we assume that the Bible has many contraditions in it, we won't search to find out if apparent contradictions are real or only apparent.Again, if we assume the Bible is historically inaccurate, we are less likely to seek for way that it may be harmonized. We will be satisfied with the explanations, for instance, that Daniel was written in the first century BC.

Personally, based on years of experience, I have noticed that people who are fine with the idea that the Bible is full of contradictions-- and that there many inaccuracies and even falsehoods in the Bible-- don't view the Bible as the inspired word of God or study it to learn God's will for their lives. They are far more likely to view it as primarily a human construct. In other words, they tend to take the Bible less seriously as a measuring stick of truth. If the Bible condemns something, such people are likely to think it is merely man's opinions or prejudices. Such thinking encourages people to ignore the commandments of God and to go instead by their own opinions.

Such thinking often leads people to conclude that there is no such being as a personal Devil. Or that demons do not really exist or that they certainly do not possess people the way Jesus apparently believed. Such thinking does not produce confidence in prayer or in the presence of a personal God in our lives.

People who believe this way also tend to do the same with Ellen White's writings--- that is, they are likely to reject her outright or to have little confidence in the Testimonies. In short, such beliefs do not seem to me to produce strong Christians.

I see many examples of this in the posts I have read on this Forum during the last 6 years.

[Kevin H]

The Holy Spirit is opening up our eyes to things in scripture for when it is time to see and apply it, this is the concept of present truth. Also I believe that a big part of "The Investigative Judgment" is the rediscovery of the ancient world, people like Robinson's exploration of the Holy Land that lead to archaeology and linguistic advances, so that starting in the mid 1800s we can "Investigate" the pages of scripture like never before. Sadly as the Holy Spirit shows us more, the parables of the wine skins play a big role in our life. People think that the old wine in good enough and don't like present truth.

I would like to make a serious, yet somewhat tongue in cheek example of what I wrote in the above post.

The prophecy in Numbers 24 about the star and the scepter, where a star meant a god and scepter being a ruler indicated that one day Israel would have a king who was God himself. Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophecy.

In the east, probably among the Babylonian Jews, there were wise men who studied the prophecy and expected a literal star. The prophecy actually did not need a literal star, but If it was a star these honest searchers wanted, a star they got, but the star was to lead them from where they were to the true fulfillment of the prophecy...

It is a good thing it was the magi who got this message. Can you imagine if it was us instead of the magi? ...

First of all we would argue over whether that star was the star we were looking for.... Next most would not follow the star but stay behind rejoicing that they have seen the star that was predicted and will feel that they had the ultimate spiritual experience and wonder why they should follow this star into the desert and towards the west when right there in the sky above them was the wonderful fulfillment of the prophecy, a prophecy that we got to see fulfilled before our very eyes, while we rejoice we also would feel sorry for the poor deluded people who were going out into the desert.

Then among the group of us that followed the star and was lead to the child, there would be a major debate over which was the true fulfillment of the prophecy and the true leading and work of God, was it the star or was it the child? Some of us would continue to focus on the star and believe that the child is Satan's deception to have us loose sight of the star. Others would say "Well, since the child was the true fulfillment of the prophecy, then the star was a false fulfillment and therefore of the devil, we should curse the star." and we would spend the rest of our lives arguing over which was the true fulfillment of the text and which one was the false fulfilment.

[Kevin H]

Originally Posted By: Bravus

...if you take the Bible literally, then God does indeed kill. He killed pretty much everyone on earth in the Flood, making God the most effective mass killer in history.

Why not accept the Bible's message that God has killed before, as in the Flood and at Sodom, and that He will destroy sinners at the second coming and again after the one thousand years?

Why prefer one's own opinions over the plain teachings of the Bible?

Because the other side is first of all teaching only half the truth as if it was the whole truth, and are equally as guilty of prefering one's own opinions as the God does not kill people. Both groups are seeing important truths in the Bible, but they see half the truth at the expense of the rest of the truth. Both groups are accepting some plain teachings of the Bible while rejecting others. And they both are amazed as to how the other side can't see these plain teachings of the Bible.

The real issues are the first and second death, and how makes a oneness of active and passive in both, and that those who tend to support the idea that God does kill have a tendency at the end of time to make hell being some kind of divine spanking and a shortening of the traditional Pagan, Catholic and Baptist hell.

It is odd how these "God does kill" people have no problem with the idea that at the second coming sinners are killed by the brightness of Christ's glory, but when it comes to the third coming that explanation is not good enough for them and they do all sorts of arguing against it and defending the shortened Pagan, Catholic, Baptist hell.

Others see how the Pagan, Catholic and Baptist hell is NOT what the Bible and Mrs. White teaches. They see the Bible and Mrs. White's arguments against the Pagan, Catholic and Baptist hell, but not being able to put together the opposites of Active/Passive; Killing/not killing by allowing the natural results, they end up preaching clear Biblical truth, but at the expense of other clear Biblical truth.

[Bravus]

So, we keep the sacrifices? Avoid wearing mixed fibres? Stone people to death for breaking the Sabbath?

Everyone chooses some parts of the Bible to ignore. There is no-one who does not.

It's a bit rich to then accuse others (with some considerable hostility, in many cases) of 'putting their own opinions above the Bible'.

It's a matter of degree, not kind, and no-one can unhypocritically cast the first stone.

(Once again, my examples are examples, not the main point being made.)

[John317]

As for the contradictions in the Bible and Mrs. White: They serve a purpose too. They teach us things that God sees as important, and what he gives us room to study and have different views of.

.... for example when Moses first sent spys into the land, how many faithful spys were there? 2? 1?or 12? Depends on where you read. The main story says 2, but references to the story in other parts of the Bible you find inconsistencies such as sometimes Joshua is one of the 12 spys, other times he is not, but that there was one spy, Caleb, and one from the people receiving the spy's report, Joshua, who stood up to the people. And in Deuteronomy all 12 spys were faithful and the people reject the spy's message and Caleb and Joshua were picked for being the only one of that generation to enter the land for defending the spys. This tells us that among the tribes there were different stories, and that God is not worried if we don't have every slight detail correctly, we have the big picture....

Please show your references for what you say here.

Where does the Bible teach that Joshua was not among the spies?

Where does the Bible say that only one spy went out?

You say that Deut. says all 12 spies were faithful, but Deut. 1: 34-38 clearly states that only Joshua and Calab were faithful among the spies. In both stories, all of the spies brought back reports that the land was flowing with milk and honey. But that was not the end of their report.

In Numbers 13 and 14, 12 men were sent, including both Calab and Joshua. It says when the men returned, all agreed that the land was good. But it says that except for Calab and Joshua, the spies feared because of the giants in the land. Calab, however, said they could go up and take the land. That is when the people murmered against Moses and refused to go up and take the land.

The same story is told in Deut. 1. It says 12 spies went out and among them were Calab and Joshua. See Deut. 1: 36, 38.

Please show where the Bible contradicts what is said in Numbers 13, 14 and Deut. 1.

[Kevin H]

Personally, based on years of experience, I have noticed that people who are fine with the idea that the Bible is full of contradictions-- and that there many inaccuracies and even falsehoods in the Bible-- don't view the Bible as the inspired word of God or study it to learn God's will for their lives. They are far more likely to view it as primarily a human construct. In other words, they tend to take the Bible less seriously as a measuring stick of truth. If the Bible condemns something, such people are likely to think it is merely man's opinions or prejudices. Such thinking encourages people to ignore the commandments of God and to go instead by their own opinions.

My expirence is that those who don't accept God's word because of the contradictions probably can't even name one contradiction, and that many of those who can name the contradictions are out teaching the Bible and Mrs. White and proclaiming our faith in Jesus. Becareful not to pain your targets as ALL some kind of exteramists. Just because I don't know for sure if Joshua was one of the 12 spys or not, and because I don't know if there was 1, 2 or 12 faithful spys, I still believe that the spys gave their message, the people reacted against entering the land, Joshua and Calab stood up supporting the entering of the land, and they were the only 2 of that generation that got to enter the land. We who believe that the Bible has contraditions believe that they teach us about God, and how God works with us and is not just a ferice demander of uniformity. The contradictions between Mark and Luke teaches me that I don't have to condem you to hell because you do not believe exactly like I believe, but that both of us may see things that the other does not, and that God can work with both of us.