Tag Archives: mistakes

The Story of King Ish-Bosheth
The One Where Nearly Everybody Gets Killed, But It's Not God's Doing for a Change

After Saul and his whole family died, his dead son Ish-Bosheth succeeded him as king of Israel. But David was made king of the tribe of Judah. The commander of the army of Israel was Saul’s cousin Abner, and the commander of the army of Judah was David’s nephew Joab.

These commanders thought it would be fun to see some men stab each other to death. So they made two dozen of their soldiers stab each other to death. But Joab’s brother Asahel didn’t like that, so he chased Abner. Abner didn’t like that, so he stabbed Asahel to death. Joab didn’t like that, so he chased Abner, too. But then Abner suggested not chasing him. So Joab stopped chasing him.

King Ish-Bosheth offended his commander Abner by accusing him of sleeping with Saul’s girlfriend. So Abner decided to desert Ish-Bosheth and help David take over Israel. When Abner offered to help David become king of all Israel, David agreed to let him do that… but only if he did David a favor first.

By this time David had married at least four women. But Saul had taken back his daughter Michal, David’s first wife, and given her to somebody else. David had Abner steal Michal back for him and make her other husband go away. After doing that, Abner went off to convince the Israelites to make David their king.

But David’s commander Joab didn’t like Abner, who had killed Joab’s brother. Joab thought Abner must have only come there to spy on David for Ish-Bosheth. So Joab found Abner and stabbed him to death. David didn’t like that (even though he had previously declared that Abner must die). So David put a curse on Joab’s family, and later had his son kill Joab.

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The One Where Nearly Everybody Gets Killed, But It's Not God's Doing for a Change
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Mistranslations in the Bible

A lot of things you’ll see in English translations of the Bible are translated to say what the translators thought the Bible should say (or what the people buying Bibles think it should say), rather than what it actually says in the text they’re translating from.1

Usually when I write about the Bible, I just go by what it says in the version that’s the default option on Bible Gateway. That’s not a particularly accurate translation, but even after they’ve mistranslated away a lot of the things that would make it too obvious how flawed the Bible is, it’s still full of outrageous and absurd things. But now let’s look at some of the things the Bible really says…

Like most people in ancient times, the writers of the Bible believed that people literally thought with their hearts. And their kidneys. Seriously, the Bible talks about the kidneys as if that’s where the mind was located, just like it does with the heart. Have you read the Bible and never noticed that? That’s because English versions of the Bible always either mistranslate the word for kidneys as something like “mind”, or use “reins” (an obscure word for kidneys), so it won’t sound so silly.

Some translations change the lists of Shem’s sons and Eliphaz’s sons in 1 Chronicles to say that not all of them were the sons of those guys, so you’ll think those parts don’t contradict Genesis.

In the Hebrew text, Abraham clearly says that gods have caused him to wander, and Laban clearly says the gods of Abraham as well as the gods of Nahor can judge between Laban and Jacob. But almost all English translations, being made by monotheists, change it so they say those things about God instead.

A lot of translations change Laban from being Nahor’s son to being his grandson, so you won’t notice the contradiction between that and the part that says he was Bethuel’s son.

The Bible says the Passover sacrifice should be made when the sun goes down, at the same time of day the Israelites left Egypt. But since the Bible also says they left Egypt after midnight, some versions hide the contradiction by just saying the sacrifice should be made at the same time of year.

The Hebrew text has the Israelites singing about how they’ve conquered the peoples of Canaan and settled in their land… before that has even happened. A lot of versions of the Bible mistranslate away this anachronism, and have them instead sing about what will happen.

Most English translations change the verse that tells the gods to praise God’s people, pretending it’s just telling the nations to rejoice with God’s people.

The Bible says the punishment for causing a miscarriage is merely to pay a fine, as opposed to the death penalty that it requires for killing a person. That doesn’t fit very well with pro-life beliefs, so after the abortion controversy got started, some versions of the Bible started saying this was about making a woman “give birth prematurely” instead.

Joshua recounts the time Balak king of Moab fought against Israel… Except according to other parts of the Bible, he never actually did that. So some versions of the Bible change it so Joshua just says Balak prepared to fight against Israel.

The book of Judges mentions Hobab being Moses’s father-in-law, but some versions change it to say he’s his brother-in-law. I guess they thought Moses already had enough fathers-in-law.

All the earliest manuscripts that have been found say Goliath was less than seven feet tall, but almost all English versions of the Bible continue the tradition of saying he was over nine feet tall. Even versions that were made recently enough that the translators should have known better.

There’s a verse in 2 Samuel about how many enemy men David captured that’s translated several quite different ways in different versions. It doesn’t seem to agree with what 1 Chronicles says about the same thing, so some versions just replace it with what 1 Chronicles says.

Some versions of 2 Samuel call someone an Ishmaelite to make it agree with 1 Chronicles, rather than making it agree with any of the Hebrew manuscripts of Samuel that they’re supposed to be translating from, which say he was an Israelite.

There’s a passage that, in almost all the manuscripts it’s translated from, says David killed his own stepchildren, the sons of his wife Michal. But the translators of the majority of the English versions apparently found that too inconsistent or otherwise objectionable, so they decided to say David killed the sons of Merab, Michal’s sister who he didn’t marry.

Some versions of the Bible say Elhanan killed the brother of Goliath, even though the actual source texts don’t say anything about a brother. All it really says is that Elhanan killed Goliath. But everybody knows it was somebody else that did that, so the translators had to make it say something else.

The Hebrew text of 2 Samuel says one of the punishment options David was offered was seven years of famine, but some translations change it to three years, so it won’t contradict 1 Chronicles.

Psalm 8 says humans are just a little lower than God, but some translations instead say we’re a little lower than the angels. They’ve changed it to make it match what the New Testament says when it quotes a mistranslation of the Old Testament, rather than making it match the original Hebrew.

Some Christians say Psalm 22 contains a prediction of Jesus’s hands and feet being pierced when he was crucified, but that’s a mistranslation. It doesn’t even say “pierce” in the Hebrew Bible, but that’s how the early Christians happened to interpret it at one point when they made a translation of a translation of that psalm. And since that came out looking so much like a prediction of Jesus, Christians have always opted to translate it that way since then.

Some versions have 1 Kings say Solomon had 4000 stalls for his chariot horses, just so it will match what 2 Chronicles says, even though 1 Kings actually says he had 40,000. Most English translations also change the amount of wheat he gave Hiram, for the same reason.

A lot of translations change the part that says Maakah daughter of Abishalom was Asa’s mother, and instead make it say she was his grandmother. Which she was, apparently, but that’s not what it’s supposed to say. I guess the translators just didn’t like the fact that the Bible seems to be saying Asa’s father had sex with his own mother, so they changed it.

All the Hebrew manuscripts say in 2 Chronicles that Ahaziah became king at age 42, making him older than his own father. But most English versions change it to 22, to make it match 2 Kings, even though it doesn’t.

Even though almost all existing Hebrew manuscripts say in 2 Chronicles that Jehoiachin became king at age 8, some English versions say he was 18, just because the translators didn’t want 2 Chronicles to contradict 2 Kings, even though it in fact does.

2 Chronicles says Zedekiah was Jehoiachin’s brother, but some translations change it to say he was his uncle, because that’s what it says in 2 Kings.

Some of the gospels claim that Jesus came from a virgin birth, and that the prophet Isaiah had predicted that would happen. But Isaiah never actually said anything about a virgin giving birth. It looks like what actually happened is that the gospel writers got that idea from a previous mistranslation of the scriptures. If Isaiah had actually intended to predict a miraculous virgin birth, he would have used the Hebrew word that specifically means a virgin. Instead, he used a Hebrew word for a young woman, which was later mistranslated as meaning a virgin.

This mistranslation first occurred a few hundred years after Isaiah and a few hundred years before Jesus, in the first-ever translation of the Bible. The Jews were starting to forget how to speak Hebrew, and had to translate their scriptures into Greek. Now, since the New Testament needs the Old Testament to provide a prediction of a virgin birth for Jesus to fulfill, most Christian Bibles opt to translate that part of Isaiah from the Greek mistranslation instead of from the original Hebrew.

Christian Bibles mistranslate another of Isaiah’s prophecies to make it sound like the human king he’s talking about is to be called God. It was probably originally either just saying what God would call the king, or saying a name that contains a reference to God, as plenty of other biblical names do.

The word “Messiah”, besides meaning a specific prophesied savior of some kind, can also refer to any “anointed king”, or even to “anointed” people and things more generally. But Christian Bibles always translate the parts of the Hebrew Bible that Christians think are about Jesus as “Messiah”, and translate all the other uses of the same word in other ways.

In Esther, when the king of Persia gives the Jews permission to kill all their enemies, he says they can also kill their enemies’ women and children. Some translations completely change this to make it sound like only the Jewish women and children are in danger. And other versions make it ambiguous so you can’t tell which of those things it’s saying.

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

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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The Story of the Priests of Nob
David Gets Away with Lying, Sacrilege, and Reckless Endangerment

David went to Nob with his companions, whoever they were. Ahimelek the priest wanted to know why David had come there alone, and David claimed that Saul had sent him on a secret mission.

The priest gave David some bread that only priests were allowed to eat, and he ate it. David knew that Saul’s servant Doeg would tell Saul that the priests of Nob had helped David. So he ran away to the land of the Philistines, and left the priests to their fate.

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David Gets Away with Lying, Sacrilege, and Reckless Endangerment
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The Story of David and Jonathan
The Gay Story

Saul hates David, Saul’s children love David

After David killed Goliath, women from all over Israel started singing and dancing and claiming that David had slain tens of thousands, but Saul had only slain thousands. This made Saul jealous and angry at David, and they became enemies.

The next day, Saul tried to kill David twice by throwing a spear at him, but he missed both times. Since Saul wasn’t able to kill David himself, he decided to let his other enemies do it for him. So Saul offered to let David marry his daughter Merab if David fought some more Philistines. But David didn’t think he was worthy of becoming the king’s son-in-law, because he wasn’t rich and famous enough.

(Even though women all over Israel were singing his praises. Even though he had been chosen by God to become king of Israel. Even though Saul had promised to give great wealth and his daughter to whoever killed Goliath.)

So Merab married somebody else. But Saul found out that his other daughter, Michal, was in love with David, so Saul offered to let David marry her if he killed 100 Philistines. So David forgot about his supposed unworthiness, and killed 200 Philistines and brought their foreskins to Saul,1 and then David married Michal. Then Saul found out that Michal was in love with David. Again.

But David loved Saul’s son Jonathan more than he loved women. Jonathan loved David too, so he took off his clothes and became one with him. Jonathan informed David (who had already had to dodge Saul’s spear twice) that Saul was trying to get David killed. Jonathan knew this because Saul had told Jonathan to kill David. Then Jonathan told Saul that there was no reason to kill David for no reason, so Saul promised to stop trying to kill David.

Idol threats

But then God sent an evil spirit that made Saul throw a spear at David again, so David ran away from Saul’s house and stayed at his own house. Saul sent men to wait outside David’s house that night and kill him in the morning. When David realized that Saul’s men had come to kill him, he wrote a song about it.2 Then he threatened to kill his wife if she didn’t help him escape, so she lowered him through a window, and distracted Saul’s men with a decoy made from an idol that she had handy for some reason.

Saul went after David so he could capture him and kill him, but when he ran into Samuel and some other men, God made Saul strip off his clothes and lie down with the men and spend the night with them.

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The Gay Story
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The Story of the Rejection of Saul
Not Evil Enough to Please God

King Saul attacked his enemies, the Philistines, but the Israelite army was outnumbered and had almost no weapons, so they ran and hid. Saul tried making a burnt offering so God would help him. But then Samuel told him that was a foolish thing to do, and now God had rejected Saul and would have to find a new king for his people.

Later, Samuel told King Saul that God wanted him to break God’s law and kill all the people and animals in the city of Amalek for the sins of their ancestors. So Saul ambushed the city and killed all the people except the king of the Amalekites,1 and all the animals except the best ones, which his men were planning to sacrifice to God later. Then God realized that he had made a bad decision when he made Saul king. Because Saul had failed to kill everyone and everything immediately,2 God rejected Saul as king of his people. Again.

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Not Evil Enough to Please God
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The Story of Jonathan and the Cursed Honey
Saul Tries to Starve His Own Army

During a war with the Philistines, King Saul’s son Jonathan ate some honey that he found on the ground. But then someone informed him that his father had said anyone who ate anything that day would be cursed. Jonathan thought that was dumb. By depriving them of food, Saul was making his army too weak to fight the Philistines. So Jonathan sneaked away and started killing Philistines himself. Then God made the Philistines panic and attack each other so the Israelites wouldn’t have to.

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Saul Tries to Starve His Own Army
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The Story of the Inauguration of Saul
Your Cattle or Your Eyes

When Samuel was getting old, his evil sons were next in line to take over the nation. The people of Israel suggested appointing a king to lead them instead. But Samuel didn’t think that was a good idea, so he asked God about it. God didn’t like the idea either, because he thought that meant his people wouldn’t consider him their king. But he told Samuel to do it anyway.

So Samuel warned Israel that their king would steal their property and enslave them. And he said God would never save them by putting an end to the king’s reign. The people said they wanted a king anyway, because all the other nations had kings. When God heard this, he said Samuel should go ahead and give them a king.

A tall, handsome young man named Saul came to Samuel to see if the prophet could tell him where his father’s lost donkeys were. Before he could ask him, Samuel told Saul that the donkeys had already been found while he was away looking for them.

Then Samuel took Saul home with him and kissed him and oiled him and told him God had made him the ruler of his people. Saul hid, but when the people of Israel found out that he was to be their king, they got God to find him for them. And they dragged him out and made him their king.

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Your Cattle or Your Eyes
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The Story of Samson and Delilah
Brawn and No Brains

Samson got a new girlfriend, named Delilah. Samson’s enemies, the Philistines, paid Delilah to figure out Samson’s secret weakness, so they could capture him. So Delilah asked Samson three times how such a strong man could be successfully tied up, and Samson gave her three false answers.

Each time, Delilah tied him up the way he suggested while he was sleeping, and then woke him up by telling him the Philistines had come for him, but Samson easily broke out of his restraints. Delilah kept nagging him every day, saying if he really loved her, he would tell her how to drain his strength and allow his enemies to capture him. So he did.

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Brawn and No Brains
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The Story of Samson’s Riddle
Out of the Strong, Some Way to Cheat

Samson was another judge, who saved his people when God let the Philistines take over Israel. Samson was a life-long Nazirite, which required him to abstain from wine, corpses, and haircuts.

While Samson was on his way to a Philistine city to visit a Philistine woman, he was attacked by a lion. God gave him the strength to easily kill the lion with his bare hands. Later, when he was on his way to the Philistine city again to marry the Philistine woman, he found that some bees had made a nest in the lion’s body. He took some honey out of the dead lion and shared it with his parents. But he didn’t tell anyone where the honey came from.

Samson challenged 30 Philistine men to try to solve a riddle by the end of his week-long wedding feast. They agreed that the losing party would have to give the winning party 30 sets of clothes. So Samson told them a “riddle” that they couldn’t possibly make sense of without knowing about the lion incident that no one but Samson knew about.

The Philistine men realized that Samson was unfairly trying to take their property. So they threatened to burn down his new wife’s house unless she told them the answer to the riddle. Samson’s wife cried constantly for the rest of the week until Samson gave her the answer. Then she told the answer to the men, and the men gave the answer back to Samson.

Samson knew those 30 Philistine men must have cheated, since there was no other way they could have possibly solved his “riddle”. But he gave them the promised 30 sets of clothes… which he got by killing 30 other Philistine men.

Continue reading The Story of Samson’s Riddle
Out of the Strong, Some Way to Cheat
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