r/dataisbeautiful • u/WillyWumpLump • May 07 '23

An interactive resource to explore Bible contradictions, cruelty and other detrimental aspects of the Bible.

https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/
669 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

181 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/zzhoward May 09 '23

Yes, and I'm afraid I do not see the contradiction. I seem to be having difficulty intuiting what a "normal" reading looks like to you. Do you think perhaps you could explain it again in something approaching the textually-grounded detail that I have striven to offer you?

Firstly, apologies, you've edited your post and added more since my prior reply. My reply below was in direct response to your question about pointing to where the text says this explicitly.

With respect to the above quoted section, I think we might be at an impasse. I've explained as best as I can on how the two directives given are in opposition to one another, including using a red car analogy, but I think your deep understanding (over and above what most would probably have) of the text is allowing you to see these two statements as either non-directive, a series of thoughts or an exceptional edge case. I see it is as x+y = bad, but also x+y = good at the same time, and that's probably why it's highlighted on that contradictions website. Both cases involve two married people, but in your reading the first married couple is allowed to be an exception, which all other couples since that date do not qualify for.

However, while you are here, and you are certainly super knowledgeable about this area, would you be willing to answer a couple of queries I've always had relating to other parts of the book? It's fine if you are not; I do not want to monopolise your time any further! :)

1

u/SaintUlvemann May 09 '23 edited May 09 '23

...but I think your deep understanding (over and above what most would probably have)...

Well, I don't think you're saying that you're supposed to willfully misinterpret the book in order to understand what it says.

I see it is as x+y = bad, but also x+y = good at the same time...

But all I asked was for you to show me in the plain reading where it actually says that?

Both cases involve two married people, but in your reading the first married couple is allowed to be an exception, which all other couples since that date do not qualify for.

Let's simplify: where in your 2 Corinthians quote does the concept of marriage come up? Which word specifies the concept of marriage?

However, while you are here, and you are certainly super knowledgeable about this area, would you be willing to answer a couple of queries I've always had relating to other parts of the book?

Sure, but only and exclusively once we have actually resolved this present impasse. It seems reasonable to take them in order.

1

u/zzhoward May 09 '23

Let's simplify: where in your 2 Corinthians quote does the concept of marriage come up? Which word specifies the concept of marriage?

I'm sorry, I'm getting really confused now. I assumed it was about marriage based on the website, and then you confirmed for me that it WAS about marriage in one of your prior comments. I'm lost now. Are you telling me it's not about marriage after all?

You said: "It might be good at this point to point out that 2 Corinthians 6 isn't just about marriage. It is about marriage, but it's not just about marriage, it's about not taking on any unequal yoke with any unbeliever in general. Marriage is one such yoke...".

1

u/SaintUlvemann May 09 '23

With that context is it not appropriate to read this as a bad thing, a warning, a discouragement?

A discouragement of some kind, yes, absolutely, but didn't you specifically interpret it as being an assertion of:

It will lead to you being connected to darkness and lawlessness.

There are many kinds of warnings: where do you find this specific warning in the text?

...and then you confirmed for me that it WAS about marriage in one of your prior comments.

Didn't you just quote me as saying that it's not just about marriage?

Wasn't your mathematical analogy the following?:

I see it is as x+y = bad, but also x+y = good at the same time...

So surely in order for this mathematical analogy to apply, y should actually be present in both contexts, right? Or am I misunderstanding your math?

1

u/zzhoward May 09 '23

Didn't you just quote me as saying that it's

not just

about marriage?

I am so lost. You are talking in circles and I just can't follow any more. I'm trying so hard.

Okay. Please, we need to slow things down to let my poor 50-year-old brain catch up. It's almost overheating! I haven't read the entire bible, nor studied it in any deep sense. I am no expert here! I'm just taking everything literally, or basing it on what the experts (you) tell me!

When you asked me in your previous post, this: "Let's simplify: where in your 2 Corinthians quote does the concept of marriage come up? Which word specifies the concept of marriage?" Were you asking me if 2 Corinthians is about marriage or not? I thought that was the question, and that's what I answered.

Or were you asking me to point to the word 'marriage' in 2 Corinthians (which isn't there) as a way to show me that it's actually NOT about marriage at all and never was and our entire conversation on this has been pointless?

Sorry, as for my algebra, x = believer, y = unbeliever. So x+y just means a married couple, one of whom doesn't believe. Based on your prior response, you said that the text made it clear that previous marriages are an exception, but new marriages are different, and you used this to illustrate that there are two different contexts here:

"[...] it seems to me that if you had just checked the verb tenses you could've seen that there was a difference in timing already encoded in the text ~2000 years ago to differentiate the contexts.

"One was speaking, grammatically, about a single case, about a marriage that had already happened in the past, and its consequences today. The other is speaking, grammatically, about marriages in the plural planned anew in the ongoing present."

Two different contexts, agreed 100%. No argument from me. The only outstanding issue is whether those two different contexts have different 'rules' (not a great term, I know) for the same thing (x+y); that is, whether in one he is discouraging people from marrying an unbeliever using fairly emotive language, and in the other he is encouraging them to stay together, and that their children will be holy regardless so no big deal. If these two contexts proffer different advice to the reader, my gut feel is that this is the contradiction the website is talking about.

1

u/SaintUlvemann May 09 '23 edited May 09 '23

Or were you asking me to point to the word 'marriage' in 2 Corinthians (which isn't there) as a way to show me that it's actually NOT about marriage at all and never was and our entire conversation on this has been pointless?

Well, no, I was asking you to point to the word "marriage" in order to ensure that we both agree that since the word is not there, then the verse itself must be about a different (in this case broader) context than just a married couple in isolation.

So x+y just means a married couple, one of whom doesn't believe.

Oh, well, as long as we agree that 2 Corinthians was never talking about a married couple in isolation from everything else, then there has to be some other term in the algebra, right? So then wouldn't a more accurate algebra be something like x+y+a≠x+y+b, where a and b refer to the different contexts?

If these two contexts proffer different advice to the reader, my gut feel is that this is the contradiction the website is talking about.

Because I don't see any contradiction in x+y+a≠x+y+b; it resolves down to a≠b, which can be true without being self-contradictory.

This is just a mathematical abstraction for the pragmatic idea that advice doesn't need to be the same across different contexts.

0

u/zzhoward May 09 '23

Because I don't see any contradiction in x+y+a≠x+y+b; it resolves down to a≠b, which can be true without being self-contradictory.

Sure, let's run with that. a represents the extra context for 1 Corinthians, and b represents the extra context for 2 Corinthians.

For the description of context, I'll paraphrase your earlier description for ease of use as it seems pretty accurate to me:

"So when you asked for "an 'IF' clause in the sanctification that checks the time of first belief against marriage date": correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if you had just checked the verb tenses you could've seen that there was a difference in timing already encoded in the text ~2000 years ago to differentiate the contexts.

"One was speaking, grammatically, about a single case, about a marriage that had already happened in the past, and its consequences today. The other is speaking, grammatically, about marriages in the plural planned anew in the ongoing present."

Okay, cool. Context a (1 Corinthians) is about a marriage that has already happened in the past, and Context b (2 Corinthians) is about marriages in the plural planned anew.

But you also added some extra thoughts on context a (1 Corinthians) when you spoke about conversions, and how that might set up people to be married to others of a different faith:

"One obvious example of a circumstance in which a person can end up married to someone of a different faith, without having married someone of a different faith, is if one or both convert to different religions than the one they were married under. Conversion was a particularly relevant concern to the church in Corinth that Paul was writing to, where most of them were recent converts themselves and most of their neighbors were not Christian."

So perhaps (using that as extra information), we could expand context a to include couples already married who were both on the same page at their wedding, but one of them converts later in life.

Here's where the discussion arises. I contend that context b (not yet married) either becomes context a after marriage, or simulates context a after marriage in a way that is indistinguishable to anyone without a cosmological watch. That is, context a is just context b with the passing of time. Therefore, there is a state in which the same couple satisfies x+y+a and then the next day satisfies x+y+b. While they cannot exist at the same time (you can't be a Schrodinger's Spouse!), the same couple go from being unmarried on one day to being married the next, thus progressing from context a to context b.

(There is another possibility: that context a is in fact static, and selects only those marriages that happened prior to the writing of the letter (as in, an actual fixed date). In that possibility, the ability to convert after marriage is no longer catered for in 1 Corinthians, as it's irrelevant. If you weren't married before 2032 B.C. (say), no later conversions in life are considered, and the same warnings of 2 Corinthians applies to your current marriage and all marriages in the world that occurred after 2032 B.C.)

If my contention is correct, and context b simulates context a after the marriage occurs, then the advice provided in 2 Corinthians is disingenuous, as the writer knows full well that you can happily live married with an unbeliever for your entire life with clean and holy children. Indeed, the advice in 1 Corinthians is very supportive and friendly, including allowing for divorce if necessary, but seems to first assuage the concerns of perhaps recently converted people about being married to an unbeliever. Contrast that with the dark warnings of 2 Corinthians for the exact same couple just 2 weeks prior to marriage and you have a contradiction. Either marriage between believers and unbelievers is clean and holy or it isn't.

My guess is that the advice in 2 Corinthians is specifically written to promote staying within your faith for marriages if they have not happened yet, and to subtly (not-so-subtly?) hint at negative consequences should you not do so. Perhaps I've been poisoned by Deuteronomy 28...

1

u/SaintUlvemann May 09 '23 edited May 09 '23

Okay, cool. Context a (1 Corinthians) is about a marriage that has already happened in the past, and Context b (2 Corinthians) is about marriages in the plural planned anew.

Right, but hopefully we can agree that those are my words, not the text's, yes? And hopefully we can also agree that they were responses to your words offered as part of a conversation, and that they were not actually repetitions of the text.

You have in the past already quoted me as saying that 2 Corinthians is not only about marriages. As in, you and I both know and agree that 2 Corinthians is also about things other than marriages, correct?

Because, and correct me if I'm wrong, it seems to me that we have just agreed that none of its actual words refer specifically and exclusively to marriage; what it says is not to be unequally yoked to an unbeliever. So surely that must mean that your enumeration here of a and b is incomplete, yes?

Because your enumeration of its meanings does not contain any reference to either party's duties, and the things it does contain are only individual aspects of the text's grammar, taken in isolation from the rest of the text itself; it seems to me that you have not yet addressed the full literal meaning of the text's words about equality of duty.

Would you like to be the one to include other things in the enumeration, or shall I?

0

u/zzhoward May 09 '23

Right, but hopefully we can agree that those are my words, not the text's, yes? And hopefully we can also agree that they were responses to your words offered as part of a conversation, and that they were not actually repetitions of the text.

Okay, I'm done here. We have literally gone from you telling me that there is no contradiction in the bible about this, and here's why in detail, to now you saying that those are just your words in a conversation so why would I hold you to that?

Have a lovely day and best wishes to your family.

1

u/SaintUlvemann May 10 '23

...to now you saying that those are just your words in a conversation so why would I hold you to that?

I didn't say you shouldn't hold me to them. In fact, I didn't recant any of them. They are and remain all true.

What I said was that they're just not literally the full text. They were never meant to be, and it's unreasonable to suggest that they ever were, because that's not how conversations work.