Should people turn to the left or the right?

Contradictions

No.

Moses told the people to be careful to do what God commanded, and not to turn aside to the right or to the left. He said they also needed to do whatever the priests said, not turning aside to the right or to the left. Their king should never turn from God’s law to the right or to the left, either.

Moses’s successor Joshua said, both at the beginning and at the end of his time leading Israel, that they should not turn aside from the law of Moses to the right or to the left.

The Bible says King Josiah didn’t turn aside to the right or to the left from the ways of David, and that what he did was right in the eyes of the Lord.

Solomon advised his son to fix his gaze straight ahead, and not turn to the right or the left, in order to avoid evil.

Yes, but only to the right.

Solomon also says the hearts of the wise are inclined to the right, but the hearts of fools are inclined to the left.

Yes, either way is good.

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The Story of the Witch of Endor—
The Fall of Tall Saul

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The Philistines came to attack Israel, and King Saul was afraid. Despite what had happened the last time he had sought God’s help, he asked God for advice, but God wouldn’t answer him. (Maybe God was deep in thought, or busy, or traveling, or sleeping…)

Saul wanted to ask God’s prophet Samuel for advice, but by this time Samuel was dead. Saul decided to ask Samuel for advice anyway. So he found a witch and got her to resurrect the spirit of Samuel. He promised her that she would not be punished for what she was doing, which was against God’s law.

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The Fall of Tall Saul →
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Is God easily angered?

Contradictions, , , ,

No.

God claims to be compassionate, forgiving, and slow to anger. And that’s what other people always say about him in the Bible, too. David repeatedly said God was compassionate and slow to anger. The prophets Joel and Jonah said the same thing, and that he relents from sending calamity. Nahum, too, said God was slow to anger, and Jeremiah described him as long-suffering. And the New Testament says that God is love, and that love is not easily angered.

Here are all the stories in the Bible where God demonstrates how slow he is to anger:

  • God wasn’t too hard on Sarah for laughing at his message. (Though he must have done something to make her so afraid to admit she’d done it.)
  • God didn’t get angry when Abraham repeatedly challenged God’s plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. He didn’t seem to mind him asking what God would do if there were increasingly small numbers of good people there. (Though Abraham wasn’t confident enough to go all the way down to one good person. And he seemed awfully timid about the whole thing.)
  • God cooperated with Gideon when he repeatedly tested God by asking for signs that it was really him. (Though Gideon sure seemed to expect God to be angry.)
  • When Job spent most of his story talking about how cruel and unjust God was, God waited a long time before reacting at all. And then he didn’t do anything worse in response than making fun of Job. (Because he had done way more than enough to him already. And God was still intimidating enough that Job ended up declaring himself to be in the wrong, for no logical reason at all.)

That’s about it. If God is really so slow to anger, how can there be so few accounts of him acting that way? And why do the people even in those stories expect him not to be so? Because most of the time, God is not actually slow to anger at all.

Yes.

Some people said “Does the Lord become impatient?”, apparently implying that they think that’s not the kind of thing he would do. But the prophet Micah didn’t seem to think people should say that, because God does become impatient, very easily.

In the Bible, God is always getting ridiculously angry over the most insignificant things, and killing people before they have a chance to do anything good to redeem themselves. (And often before they even have a chance to actually do anything bad to deserve it.)

Getting angry is not a rare thing for God. He displays his stormy wrath every day. It terrifies and consumes people. He is a jealous and avenging God, who is filled with wrath and vents it against his enemies. His surges of anger may not always last very long, but he gets so angry that the mountains shake and the whole earth trembles. No one can stand before him and endure his wrath.

God pursues people with anger and slays them without pity. His anger reduces people to nothing. It drives him to kill and kill and kill, and then he’s still just as angry. Sometimes the Bible says God will stay angry at his people forever. Even when he sets aside all his wrath, he’s still angry!1

(Keep in mind that God is being “patient” and “merciful” and restraining his anger throughout all of this. So he’s really even angrier than he seems. If he let his true anger show, he would have just killed everybody a long time ago. And the only reason he holds back his wrath at all is that he figures he can get more people to praise him that way, not because he cares about anyone other than himself.)

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Discrimination by occupation

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Here’s what the Bible has to say about how people were, or should be, treated based on their occupation:

Isaac’s favorite son was the one who was a hunter, because Isaac liked to eat wild animals. But his wife preferred the son who wasn’t a hunter. The Egyptians thought all shepherds were detestable. And Paul said gardeners are nothing.

Jacob’s son Judah thought prostitutes should be burned to death. But God only said you need to do that if the prostitute is a priest’s daughter. God doesn’t allow prostitutes to marry priests, either. He hates shrine prostitutes, and doesn’t want their money.

God does seem to think prostitution in general is wicked. Rahab was considered righteous despite being a prostitute. God told a story where he hated two sisters because they were prostitutes. But he married them both anyway, for some reason. And then he killed them, because he hated them. Jesus says prostitutes can enter God’s kingdom, though.

God said all mediums and spiritists had to be executed. So Saul got rid of all the mediums and spiritists in the land. Or at least he tried to. And he only tried to until he felt the need to consult one himself. He chose to leave that one alone.

High priests are only allowed to marry virgins. And other priests can only marry Israelite virgins or widows of priests.

The Israelites were required to continually give the best part of everything they had to God… but “the Lord’s portion” actually went to the priests. There are things God won’t let you eat unless you’re a priest, a member of a priest’s family, or a priest’s slave. Nobody but priests are allowed to burn incense for God, either.

The Bible tells how many people returned from the Babylonian exile. Then it tells how many slaves they brought with them, who were not counted among the people. And then it also tells how many singers they had, suggesting that singers weren’t counted as people either??

In the gospels, everyone takes it for granted that tax collectors are evil. Jesus also thinks waiters are inferior to the people they serve.

Paul says God seems to give evangelists the most brutal treatment of all. He makes a cosmic spectacle of those poor, starving, weak, dishonored fools.

Slaves vs free people

When Jacob saw hundreds of seemingly unfriendly men approaching, he made his servant-wives travel toward them in the lead, while his favorite wife got the safest spot in the back.

According to the laws of the Bible, if someone is bedridden because you injured them, normally you have to pay them for their time and make sure they recover. And you’ll be punished more if they can’t walk at all. But if the person you injure is your slave, you don’t have to be punished at all, unless the slave dies or takes too long to recover. And if you do get punished for injuring a slave, it won’t be as severe a punishment as if you had injured a free person. (Runaway slaves aren’t to be treated badly, though.)

If a man has consensual sex with a woman who is engaged to someone else, they both have to die… unless the woman is a slave. There’s still a punishment then, but it’s not death.

Hebrew indentured servants apparently have to work twice as much as hired hands. And if they happen to start a family during their servitude, God’s law forces them to either leave their family or be enslaved for life.

Wise Solomon thinks it would be terribly unfitting for a slave to rule over princes. Or even to get a horse to ride. He thinks it’s a terrible thing for a land to have a king who used to be a servant. And foolish Agur agrees that the world can’t stand servants gaining authority.

Royalty vs commoners

Moses was raised as a prince, but once he grew up, he chose not to live as one, because that would be sinful somehow. (Or at least that’s what the author of Hebrews says, who also seems to think Moses was a Christian.)

God says the king of Israel isn’t allowed to collect a lot of gold, silver, horses, or wives. But there’s no rule against anyone else doing that.

King Lemuel was taught that it’s fine for poor, suffering people to drink wine and beer. But kings should never drink wine or beer, because of how much worse the consequences of combining drunkenness with power could be.

When Saul defeated the Amalekites, he killed almost all of them, but kept their king alive. Apparently God didn’t approve of him making that exception, though.

David killed tens of thousands of people, but he thought it was unacceptable for anyone to ever kill God’s chosen king (no matter how much God’s chosen king wanted them to).

Solomon (who happened to be the king) said nobody should ever even think anything bad about their king. He said if you’re a king, lots of people will naturally want to get on your good side. And he said it was evil for princes to have to walk on foot.

Paul thinks authorities can do no wrong, because they were all put there by God. He thinks rulers are never a threat to anyone but evildoers. And anyone who rebels against any authority is rebelling against God.

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Should husbands love or hate their wives?

Contradictions, , , ,

Love them.

Paul instructed the husbands among his followers to love their wives and not be harsh with them. He said they should love their wives as much as they love and care for their own bodies. They should love them as much as Jesus loved and cared for the church. And Peter seemed to agree. He at least thought husbands should be considerate of their wives and treat them with respect.

Hate them.

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The Story of David and Abigail—
David Expects to be Treated Like a King Prematurely

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David sent messengers to a rich man named Nabal, asking him to give David and his men something, anything he could find. David thought Nabal owed him something in exchange for not harming Nabal’s employees. But Nabal chose not to give David anything, since he didn’t even know who David was. So David took 400 men with him and went to attack Nabal and murder all the men who worked for him.

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David Expects to be Treated Like a King Prematurely →
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Do people only get drunk at night?

Contradictions

Yes.

When the apostles demonstrated their new ability to speak to multiple people in multiple languages at once, some people dismissed them by saying they were drunk. Then, rather than pointing out that that made no sense as an explanation, Peter’s response was that they couldn’t possibly be drunk, because it was still morning.

Peter apparently had the same belief Paul had. Paul said those who get drunk do it at night. And he said the daytime is when people behave decently, and not in drunkenness. The Old Testament disagrees with them, though…

No.

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The Bible repeats itself too much—Part 6: Saying the same thing in different ways

The bad book, ,

This is the sixth in a series of posts about unnecessary repetition in the Bible. This time we’re looking at unnecessary and excessive use of synonyms.

The Bible says Abraham lived 175 years. Then he breathed his last, and he also died. He died at a good old age. He was an old man. He was “full of years”. And then he was “gathered to his people”.

God told Abraham’s son Isaac that Abraham had obeyed him, and that he had done everything he required of him. Abraham had done that by keeping God’s commands, and his decrees, and his instructions, too.

Isaac’s grandsons threw their brother Joseph into a cistern, which was empty. Also, there was no water in it. Pharaoh’s cupbearer didn’t remember Joseph, he forgot him. And when there was a famine, Joseph’s father Jacob told his other sons to go buy some grain from Egypt so they would live, and so they wouldn’t die.

After the descendants of Israel moved to Egypt, they were “exceedingly fruitful”, they multiplied greatly, they increased in numbers, and they became so numerous that the land was filled with them.

God gave his people a list of “unclean” animals, and instructed them not to defile themselves by them, or to make themselves unclean by means of them, or to be made unclean by them.1 He said you shouldn’t have sex with your sister, which he clarified means any daughter of either your father or your mother. Then two verses later, he said you shouldn’t have sex with your father’s wife’s daughter, who is your father’s daughter, who is your sister. And he told the people not to lie, or to deceive one another, or to swear falsely.

God told his people to keep all his decrees, and all his laws, and also to follow them. He told them what would happen if they didn’t listen to him and carry out all those commands, or if they rejected his decrees and abhorred his laws, or if they failed to carry out all his commands and violated his covenant. And the Bible concludes that discussion of God’s rules by stating that those are the decrees, the laws, and the regulations that the Lord established.

When some people were trying to replace Moses as the leader of Israel, Moses had them stand outside their tents with their wives and children, and also with their little ones (so God could kill them all).2 Then when Joshua was about to actually replace Moses as the leader of Israel (with his approval this time), Moses told the people to be strong and courageous, and not to be afraid or terrified, because God would go with them, and wouldn’t leave them, and wouldn’t forsake them, either. Then he told Joshua to be strong and courageous, and not to be afraid or discouraged, because God would go before them, and be with them, and never leave them, and never forsake them.

The daughter that Jephthah promised God he would murder was an only child, and he had no son nor daughter except for her. A wise lying woman told David she was a widow, and that her husband was dead. After the king of Babylon captured Jehoiachin, he gave him a regular allowance as long as he lived, till the day of his death.

When Nebuchadnezzar’s wise men couldn’t answer his question, he decided to kill them all, because it made him so angry and furious. Then when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to obey his order, he decided to kill them too, because he was so furious with rage.

Esther told her husband the king that Haman was plotting to destroy, kill, and annihilate her people. Jesus said much will be demanded from those who have been given much, and much will be asked of those who have been entrusted with much.

Paul said he ought to do something, and rightly so. It’s right for it to be right for him to do that! He said he was telling the truth, and that he wasn’t lying.

The epistle to the Hebrews says a will can’t be carried out unless you can prove its writer is dead, because a will is only in force when the person has died, and it never takes effect while the one who made it is living.

Continue reading The Bible repeats itself too much—Part 6: Saying the same thing in different ways →
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Did Paul require Gentiles to be circumcised?

Contradictions, ,

Paul, writing to one of his Gentile churches, says nobody really needs to be circumcised; they just need to obey the law. But circumcision is part of the law he’s talking about, so that doesn’t make any sense. Anyone who actually obeys the Jewish law will be circumcised. So does Paul think Gentiles need to be circumcised or not?

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The Story of the Hunt for David—
David Joins Israel's Enemies

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David went to the Philistine city of Gath to escape from Saul. But the people there thought they recognized him as a notorious Philistine slaughterer. So David pretended he was insane, and then he ran away and hid in a cave.

Then he went into a city and fought the Philistines who were attacking it. But God told him that Saul was coming, and that the people of the city would hand him over to Saul to keep him from destroying their city. So David left the city, and what God predicted didn’t happen.

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David Joins Israel's Enemies →
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