The Story of the Two Prophets—
An Expensive Meal

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During the reign of Jeroboam, God sent a prophet to deliver a message to the king. After ignoring the prophecy, the king invited the prophet to his home for a meal. But the prophet refused Jeroboam’s offer, because God had told him not to eat or drink until he got back to his own home.

On the way home, the prophet met an old prophet. The old prophet also invited him to have a meal, and the younger prophet explained again that he had to wait till he got home to eat. But the old prophet lied and told him that God wanted him to eat and drink with him. So the younger prophet went to the old prophet’s house and ate and drank. Then the old prophet declared that the younger prophet had disobeyed God and would be punished. The younger prophet tried to go home, but God sent a lion after him, and it killed him.

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An Expensive Meal →
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Will it be dark on the day of the Lord?

Contradictions

The prophets keep talking about this terrible day in the future called “the day of the Lord“. They say it will be a dark day: Isaiah says the sun will be darkened and the moon and stars won’t show their light. Similarly, Joel says the sun and moon will be darkened and the stars won’t shine. And Amos says that day will be darkness and not light, pitch-dark without a ray of brightness.

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How long before Jesus crushes everyone to death?

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The book of Revelation reveals that one day, angels are going to harvest the grapes of the Earth and gather them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. Then someone (identified later in the book as Jesus) is going to trample those grapes until he’s surrounded by an enormous flood of blood from the grapes.

So that’s kinda weird. Why would grapes have blood in them? Is this supposed to be some kind of miracle or something? I don’t normally do this, but let’s assume the Bible is making a metaphor, and see where that takes us. Maybe when it says blood, it means grape juice!

…Or maybe when it says grapes, it means people. Yeah, that one’s more interesting. And more likely to be what they intended, I guess. So, how many people would Jesus have to murder to get that much blood? Let’s find out…

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Did Joshua completely destroy Debir?

Contradictions, ,

The book of Joshua says Joshua attacked the city of Debir, putting it and its villages to the sword. He and his people totally destroyed everyone there, leaving no survivors.

The chapter after that mentions that Joshua totally destroyed the Anakites from Debir and some other places, along with their towns. That’s either a contradiction of the statement that they were already destroyed, or just part of a recap. But there’s definitely a contradiction later.

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The Bible’s questions, answered—part 3: Answers to questions from pre-monarchy Israel

The bad book

The Bible contains a lot of questions, and it doesn’t always provide satisfactory answers. So I’ve been answering some of the Bible’s questions myself. This time, I’m looking at questions from around the time the Israelites first settled in the promised land.

The son of a priest asks the tribes that chose to stay on the other side of the Jordan: Are you now turning away from the Lord? Answer: No.

Deborah and Barak ask: Why did the tribe of Reuben stay among the sheep pens, and why did Dan linger by the ships, etc.? Answer: Because God only told Barak to take Naphtali and Zebulun with him.

Gideon asks: If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? Answer: Because he hates you.

Gideon asks the Ephraimites: What have I accomplished compared to you? Answer: Much with little, compared to much with much.

Abimelek asks the people of Shechem: Which is better for you, to have all 70 of Gideon’s sons rule over you, or just one? Answer: Distributing the power among many people sounds good to me.

Jotham asks: Have you acted honorably and in good faith by making Abimelek king? Have you been fair to Gideon and his family? Have you treated Gideon as he deserves? Answer: Abimelek is Gideon’s son, so what’s the problem? (Unless it’s the murder thing, in which case, why didn’t you mention that?)

An angel asks Samson’s father: Why do you ask my name? Answer: He just told you. So they can honor you when your word comes true.

Naomi asks: Why call me Naomi? Answer: Because your name’s Naomi.

Boaz asks: Who does that young woman belong to? Answer: Her husband is dead, so I guess that makes her free and owned by no one.

Samuel’s father asks his wife Hannah: Why are you weeping? Why don’t you eat? Why are you downhearted? Answer: You know why. Because she has no children. Also because your other wife is tormenting her.

He also asks her: Don’t I mean more to you than ten sons? Answer: Apparently not. What kind of question is that, anyway?

Eli asks Hannah: How long are you going to stay drunk? Answer: Zero minutes.

Eli asks: If one person sins against another, God may mediate for the offender; but if anyone sins against the Lord, who will intercede for them? Answer: Well, according to the Bible, Moses can intercede between God and humans. But there is no one who can intercede between God and humans. But prophets can do it. Like Samuel. And so can Job’s friend, whoever that is. But only Jesus can intercede between God and humans. And so can the Spirit. But only people who aren’t God can intercede between God and humans. Paul and Timothy can do it. And so can men everywhere, apparently.

Joshua’s questions

Joshua asks: Alas, Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Answer: Uh… because that’s where the Amorites were! Where else would he bring you to deliver you into the hands of the Amorites to destroy you?

Joshua asks: What can I say, now that Israel has been routed by its enemies? Answer: You can say “Alas, Sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us?”

Joshua asks God: After the Canaanites have wiped us out, then what will you do to maintain your good name? Answer: Judging by the kind of thing God tends to say about Israel, I expect he would claim that Israel was evil and that he was a hero for getting rid of them.

Joshua asks Achan: Why have you brought this trouble on us? Answer: Because he wanted the plunder. But a better question is: Why did GOD bring this trouble on them by giving them that pointless rule in the first place, and then only revoking it after it was too late?

Joshua asks the Gibeonites who he would have killed if they hadn’t tricked him into promising not to: Why did you deceive us? Answer: Duh.

Joshua, the leader of Israel, asks the Israelites: How long will you wait before you take possession of the land God has given you? Answer: As long as you wait to tell them to.

God’s questions

God asks Joshua: What are you doing down on your face? Answer: Idolatry. He’s doing idolatry.

God asks his people: I said you should not make a covenant with the people of this land, yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? Answer: By accident.

God asks Gideon: Am I not sending you? Answer: …Are you? I thought an angel was.

God asks Eli: Why do you scorn my sacrifice and offering that I prescribed for my dwelling? Answer: He doesn’t, his sons do.

He asks Eli: Why do you honor your sons more than me by fattening yourselves on the choice parts of every offering made by my people Israel? Answer: Because God said the priests were to live on the parts of the offerings that weren’t burned up.

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Was Paul proud to be weak?

Contradictions

Paul said if he was going to boast (and he did like to boast), then he would boast about his weakness. His weaknesses were the only things about himself that he was willing to boast about. It made him glad to be weaker than his followers.

Paul was delighted to be weak, because boasting about weakness gave him the power of Christ. So being weak actually made him strong. But why would he want that power and strength, if he really liked being weak so much?

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The Story of Ahab and Micaiah—
God Admits to Inspiring False Prophecy

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God decided to get King Ahab killed by sending him to war with Aram. He sent a spirit to deceive Ahab’s prophets so they would give him bad advice. Evil Ahab was considering retaking some territory that he had lost to Aram. But his ally, Jehoshaphat the good king of Judah, convinced him to seek advice from God first.

Ahab’s 400 prophets, under the influence of the deceiving spirit from God, told him that he should go fight Aram, and he would be successful. But there was one prophet, Micaiah, who had always prophesied bad things about Ahab, so Ahab hadn’t consulted him this time. But Jehoshaphat said he should.

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God Admits to Inspiring False Prophecy →
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Can anyone predict the future?

Contradictions

No.

Solomon (the wisest man ever, according to the Bible) says no one knows the future, so no one can tell you what’s to come. Because no one knows what’s coming. No one knows when their own death will come. In fact, no one can discover anything about their future, and no one can tell you what’s going to happen in the world after you die, either.

James agrees. He says you don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, so you shouldn’t act like you even have any idea what you’re going to do tomorrow.

That’s settled, then. No one can predict the future. The Bible says so. Who’s going to disagree with the Bible? Oh right, of course… The Bible is going to disagree with the Bible.

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Discrimination by tribe

The bad book,

Here’s what the Bible says about how people were, or should have been, treated based on which tribe of Israel they were part of:

Levi

Moses set the Levites apart as God’s special favored tribe, to reward them for murdering thousands of their fellow Israelites. The Levites were exempt from military duty, but they had their own special duties, taking care of God’s stuff. And only Levites were supposed to do that kind of thing.

The law allowed Levites to do things that other people weren’t allowed to do. It even required them to do things that other people would be executed for doing. God personally killed people who touched his stuff if they weren’t Levites. And a king who let people be priests even though they weren’t Levites is labeled as evil in the Bible. If you’re not a Levite, God doesn’t want you to be a priest, except maybe if you’re Jesus.

A lot of the stuff that the law of Moses required other Israelites to tithe “to God” actually went to the Levites. Moses was a Levite, by the way. Moses kept claiming that God wanted the people to give Moses’s family and tribe free food and money. You don’t get that kind of treatment if you’re not a Levite, except maybe if you’re Melchizedek.

The Israelites were required to preserve their original tribal land divisions. Any marriage that would have resulted in people of one tribe inheriting land from another tribe was forbidden. The Levites didn’t get to inherit any land, though. They lived in the other tribes’ land. All the other tribes were required to set aside towns and pasturelands for the Levites. So… actually the Levites did get their own land, even though God said they couldn’t.

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