11 errors by Jesus and friends.

[Poisonshady313]

It is interesting to think that some people believe that Jesus was a Rabbi who astounded the Pharisees, given his tendency to be wrong about scripture.

The same goes for Paul who is claimed to be a Pharisee who learned with Gamaliel.


I have 11 examples of where Jesus & pals got it wrong. This should be an interesting discussion. Perhaps when you respond, you could pick one to focus on.


1.
Matthew 23:35
...that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the Sanctuary and the altar.

It is strange that Jesus could not tell the difference between one Zechariah and another.

Zechariah the son of Barachiah was not murdered.
Zechariah the son of Jehoiada was.

II Chronicles 24:20-21
Then the spirit of G-d took possession of Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest;...and they conspired against him, and by the command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the House of the L-rd.

Now I know Jesus was going on a whole rant and rave (just because the Pharisees wouldn't accept him - how mature) and in anger couldn't think straight hence the error.

Being so I didn't take it as he was THAT bad. Yet then I came across another one of Jesus' rants and from here I began to understand where all this was coming from...Let us further examine -

2.
Mark 2:25--26
And he [Jesus] said to them: "Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him; how he entered the House of G-d, when Abiathar was high priest,..."

I Samuel 21:2
Then David came to Nob, to Ahimelech the priest, and Ahimelech came to meet David trembling, and said to him: "Why are you alone, and no man with you?"

Ahimelech was high priest at that time. Only after his death (I Samuel 22:18) did his son, Abiathar, succeed him:

I Samuel 30:7
And David said to Abiathar the priest, the son of Ahimelech....

Apparently Jesus wasn't all that fluent in scripture and chose followers who weren't either all that knowledgeable. Let us examine.

3.
II Samuel 5:6--7
And the king and his men went to Jerusalem against the Jebusites....David took the stronghold of Zion, the same is the city of David.

Ah yes, Luke - not even a Jew writes -

Luke 2:4--5
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed wife who was with child.

Jerusalem, not Bethlehem, is called the "city of David."


4.
Genesis 11:26
When Terah had lived seventy years he became the father of Abram....

Genesis 12:4
...Abram was seventy--five years old when he departed from Haran.

Genesis 11:32
The days of Terah were 205 years and Terah died in Haran.

Acts 7:4
Then he [Abraham] departed from the land of the Chaldeans, and lived in Haran. And after his father died, G-d removed him from there into the land [in which] you are now living.

Abraham left Haran when Terah was 145 (70+75), which was sixty years before Terah died (205 - 145). Were the Apostles familiar with math?



5.
Genesis 46:27
And the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt, were two souls; all the souls of the house of Jacob that came into Egypt were seventy.


Acts 7:14
And Joseph sent and called to him Jacob his father and his kindred; seventy--five souls.



6.
Joshua 24:32
The bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up from Egypt, were buried in Shechem, in the portion of ground that Jacob bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for one hundred pieces of money; and they became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.

Let us see what Jesus' follower says

Acts 7:15--16
And Jacob went down into Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, and they were carried over to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for the sum of money from the sons of Hamor of Shechem.

Only Joseph was buried in Shechem, and Jacob bought the plot, not Abraham.

Jacob was buried in the plot Abraham had bought IN HEBRON.

7.
Exodus 14:22
And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry land; the waters were a wall to them on their right side and on their left.

Paul (the supposed expert in the Torah) wrote

I Corinthians 10:1
I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized to Moses in the cloud and in the sea....

One is baptized in water, not under a cloud, and the Jews stood on dry land, not in the sea itself.



8.
Numbers 25:9
And those that died by the plague were 24,000.

Paul (a man who claimed to be a Pharisee) wrote -

I Corinthians 10:8
We must not indulge in fornication as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in a single day.



9.
Paul (a self fashioned ex-Pharisee) wrote-

Galatians 3:16
Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his seed. It does not say, "and to his seeds," referring to many, but, referring to one, "and to your seed," which is Christ.

The Hebrew word zera (seed) is invariably used in the singular when referring to progeny, whether one person or many are meant. For example, wherever G-d promised to bless Abraham's "seed," his descendants were intended:

Genesis 13:16
I will make your seed as the dust of the earth; so that if one could count the dust of the earth, then your seed would also be counted.

Genesis 15:13
Then the L-rd said to Abram: "Know for sure that your seed will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and they will be slaves there, and they will be oppressed for four hundred years."

Genesis 26:4
...and I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and will give to your seed all these lands...

Genesis 22:17
...I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand upon the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies; and through your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have hearkened to My voice.



10.
Exodus 24:6-8
And Moses took half the blood and put it in basins; and half the blood he sprinkled on the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read in the hearing of the people; and they said: "All that the L-rd has spoken we will do and obey." And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people, and said: "Behold, the blood of the covenant that the L-rd has made with you in accordance with all these words."

Let us see what Jesus' follower has to say...

Hebrews 9:19-20
For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled on both the book itself and all the people, saying: "This is the blood of the covenant which G-d commanded you."

The Book of the Covenant was not sprinkled with blood.


11.
Genesis 47:31
And he [Jacob] said: "Swear to me." And he [Joseph] swore to him. Then Israel [Jacob] bowed himself upon the head of his bed.

Let's see what Jesus' follower says.

Hebrews 11:21
By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff.

Joseph bowed upon the head of his bed, not his staff.



Let the fun begin.

 

[Charity]

:biglaugh::balloons::dan::band::drunk: The fun has started.......

 

[Poisonshady313]

:biglaugh::balloons::dan::band::drunk: The fun has started.......

Hooray for fun! and bellydancing... and beer....

 

[Riverwolf]

Uhh... most of those mistakes were not Jesus's, but Luke's and Paul's.

Not to mention the Hebrew Bible wasn't fully canonized yet, and there were likely various versions of the same book flowing around, and Jesus etc. were quoting scripture that didn't make it into the current canon. Though, the mistakes on the Torah are different, and anyone who claims to be an expert on it and misquotes it... inexcusable. THAT was canonized by that time.

Besides, does it matter?

 

[Poisonshady313]

Uhh... most of those mistakes were not Jesus's, but Luke's and Paul's.

Not to mention the Hebrew Bible wasn't fully canonized yet, and there were likely various versions of the same book flowing around, and Jesus etc. were quoting scripture that didn't make it into the current canon. Though, the mistakes on the Torah are different, and anyone who claims to be an expert on it and misquotes it... inexcusable. THAT was canonized by that time.

Besides, does it matter?

It might matter to some people. If Jesus was supposed to be perfect, God, etc... then there is no excuse whatsoever for being wrong about ANYTHING.... even if the writings weren't fully canonized.

There are some people who believe that even though Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John were just men, that they were inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit and thus their writings are infallible.

Some people rely on Paul, using him to say "See Jews... Paul was a pharisee... and he said this, this, and this"... but if Paul makes the mistakes that a somewhat educated 13 year old Jewish boy could pick up on.... something doesn't quite add up.

Of course some don't care... they chalk up any errors as scribal errors... to be expected from the words of men. (but of course, if they're prone to error that way, who knows what else they might have screwed up?)

It certainly does make you wonder. The Torah was written approx 3300 years ago. The gospels were written less than 2000 years ago... and something tells me the writers of the gospels didn't do it in a day and forget about it... they had the text in front of them... they probably (or at least should have) had whatever available scripture right in front of them.... and they could have taken the care to proof read themselves, and make sure when they quoted a passage or retold a detail about a story, that they got it right.

Someone fell asleep on the job.

Or they were sincerely hoping nobody would notice.

I've been told that a lot of what was written was intended for non-Jewish audiences anyway.... so they wouldn't be expected to know any better.

 

[Poisonshady313]

I haven't even mentioned the outright fabrications... where NT writers claimed to be quoting the prophets, yet upon looking it up, you find that the prophets said no such thing.

I suppose maybe I'll wait until we discuss the 11 items a bit more.

 

[Jeremy Mason]

1.
Matthew 23:35
...that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the Sanctuary and the altar.

It is strange that Jesus could not tell the difference between one Zechariah and another.

Zechariah the son of Barachiah was not murdered.
Zechariah the son of Jehoiada was.

Perhaps there was another Barachiah further up Jehoiada's family line that the Scriptures do not mention.

or

it could be a mistranslation.

Regardless of the inconsistencies, the point Jesus is making is the main issue. I'm sure the Hebrew Scripture have their inconsistencies as well as does the Koran and other religious documents. The fact that your trying to make Jesus look bad only paints a negative picture of yourself.

 

[Dunemeister]

This is a problem only for those who insist on biblical inerrancy.

 

[angellous_evangellous]

This is a problem only for those who insist on biblical inerrancy.

It's also not specifically a NT problem. Similar issues could be brought out in a comparison of the LXX and the Masoretic text.

 

[Dunemeister]

It's also not specifically a NT problem. Similar issues could be brought out in a comparison of the LXX and the Masoretic text.

Excellent point, thanks. And these mistakes (if that's the right word) are hard to attribute. Was the mistake made by the speaker? The original writer? A later copyist? A redactor? But I'd also like to point out that none of the citations strikes anywhere near the heart of the Christian story.

 

[Riverwolf]

It might matter to some people. If Jesus was supposed to be perfect, God, etc... then there is no excuse whatsoever for being wrong about ANYTHING.... even if the writings weren't fully canonized.

There are some people who believe that even though Matthew, Luke, Mark, and John were just men, that they were inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit and thus their writings are infallible.

Some people rely on Paul, using him to say "See Jews... Paul was a pharisee... and he said this, this, and this"... but if Paul makes the mistakes that a somewhat educated 13 year old Jewish boy could pick up on.... something doesn't quite add up.

Of course some don't care... they chalk up any errors as scribal errors... to be expected from the words of men. (but of course, if they're prone to error that way, who knows what else they might have screwed up?)

It certainly does make you wonder. The Torah was written approx 3300 years ago. The gospels were written less than 2000 years ago... and something tells me the writers of the gospels didn't do it in a day and forget about it... they had the text in front of them... they probably (or at least should have) had whatever available scripture right in front of them.... and they could have taken the care to proof read themselves, and make sure when they quoted a passage or retold a detail about a story, that they got it right.

Someone fell asleep on the job.

Or they were sincerely hoping nobody would notice.

I've been told that a lot of what was written was intended for non-Jewish audiences anyway.... so they wouldn't be expected to know any better.

I shouldn't have to remind you that the printing press wasn't around yet, and so we can't count on the fact that "Matthiew", "Mark", "Luke", or "John" (quotations because no one really knows their real names) actually had their own copies.

Besides, it is a fact that there are many books in the Tanakh that had multiple versions. The ones that finally became canonized might not have been the ones Jesus was quoting.

Ever seen "Banned From the Bible"?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

It's also not specifically a NT problem. Similar issues could be brought out in a comparison of the LXX and the Masoretic text.

Or the LXX Vorlage with the Proto-Masoretic, or the Proto-Masoretic with the Samaritan, or ...

So how big was Goliath?

 

[Poisonshady313]

I shouldn't have to remind you that the printing press wasn't around yet, and so we can't count on the fact that "Matthiew", "Mark", "Luke", or "John" (quotations because no one really knows their real names) actually had their own copies.

Jews wrote an awful lot. The fact that there wasn't a printing press doesn't impress me... there were more than enough scribes in every generation.

 

[Riverwolf]

Jews wrote an awful lot. The fact that there wasn't a printing press doesn't impress me... there were more than enough scribes in every generation.

Uh... no he didn't, or if he did, we have no surviving manuscripts of what he might have wrote.

And are you aware of just how long it took for a scribe to copy down a scroll as big as, say, Isaiah? Have you ever tried it? Not on a computer, but on a blank sheet of parchment with no lines to guide you(though I think they used ruler-type instruments to help steady their hands), with a reed for a pen, constantly dipping into an ink bottle every other small word, and trying to make every single stroke exactly the same, while keeping a steady line through the whole thing? And if you messed up even the smallest stroke, you had to get another scroll, because you were writing down a holy text? So even if you got to the last few words, if you made a mistake, you had to start all over again and burn the one you'd been working on, again because you were writing down holy text? Not to mention that, as was a custom, every time the name of God was written down, you have to throw away the reed pen you were using and get a new one.

If a book had 20 copies in circulation, that was a huge number.

And I suspect Isaiah would take many years to copy down.

 

[zenzero]

Friend poisonshady,
Surely a great work of research.
You desrve a Phd in religious studies.
However, doe sit help anyone in being enlightened?
Then all that knowledge goes down the drain.
Love & rgds

 

[Yid613]

Uh... no he didn't, or if he did, we have no surviving manuscripts of what he might have wrote.

And are you aware of just how long it took for a scribe to copy down a scroll as big as, say, Isaiah? Have you ever tried it? Not on a computer, but on a blank sheet of parchment with no lines to guide you(though I think they used ruler-type instruments to help steady their hands), with a reed for a pen, constantly dipping into an ink bottle every other small word, and trying to make every single stroke exactly the same, while keeping a steady line through the whole thing? And if you messed up even the smallest stroke, you had to get another scroll, because you were writing down a holy text? So even if you got to the last few words, if you made a mistake, you had to start all over again and burn the one you'd been working on, again because you were writing down holy text? Not to mention that, as was a custom, every time the name of God was written down, you have to throw away the reed pen you were using and get a new one.

If a book had 20 copies in circulation, that was a huge number.

And I suspect Isaiah would take many years to copy down.

In a Torah scroll you can erase a mistake, seen it done. It does not take years to write. They could probably knock out an Isaiah for you pretty quick.

 

[Poisonshady313]

Uh... no he didn't, or if he did, we have no surviving manuscripts of what he might have wrote.

And are you aware of just how long it took for a scribe to copy down a scroll as big as, say, Isaiah? Have you ever tried it? Not on a computer, but on a blank sheet of parchment with no lines to guide you(though I think they used ruler-type instruments to help steady their hands), with a reed for a pen, constantly dipping into an ink bottle every other small word, and trying to make every single stroke exactly the same, while keeping a steady line through the whole thing? And if you messed up even the smallest stroke, you had to get another scroll, because you were writing down a holy text? So even if you got to the last few words, if you made a mistake, you had to start all over again and burn the one you'd been working on, again because you were writing down holy text? Not to mention that, as was a custom, every time the name of God was written down, you have to throw away the reed pen you were using and get a new one.

If a book had 20 copies in circulation, that was a huge number.

And I suspect Isaiah would take many years to copy down.

I think you underestimate the abilities of Jewish scribes.

You can't tell me that the one book of Isaiah all by itself is bigger than the whole five books of the Torah. Torah scrolls are written the way you've described in less than a year.

And you only had to burn and start again if you made a mistake with God's name. Any other mistake could simply be fixed.

 

[Riverwolf]

In a Torah scroll you can erase a mistake, seen it done. It does not take years to write. They could probably knock out an Isaiah for you pretty quick.

How? They used ink, not lead, unless I've been mistaken.

 

[Riverwolf]

I think you underestimate the abilities of Jewish scribes.

You can't tell me that the one book of Isaiah all by itself is bigger than the whole five books of the Torah. Torah scrolls are written the way you've described in less than a year.

Who says I did? I was talking about Isaiah (besides the fact Jesus directly reads from it at one point, and his errors are the topic right now) because it is longer than any of the individual books of the Torah, as it has sixty something chapters in it! :banghead3 And I thought the Council of Elrond was long... (I have no shame in saying that I haven't tackled Isaiah yet... though I have read through the Torah twice, both different versions of it, and halfway through Numbers, I had a headache.)

Though you are right in that my last post was an underestimation of the Jewish scribes, as I'd forgotten that their entire purpose in life was to copy these texts, and they did it painstakingly all day; every time I try to write something by hand with that kind of care, I quit after an hour. :angel2:

But that doesn't help the fact that individuals didn't have their own scrolls, and people such as the authors of the gospels might not have had such scrolls handy all the time, so it's possible that Jesus was quoting them correctly, but the people who wrote it down forgot for a while what the scripture said. (wasn't it the case that the Torah couldn't be taken out of the Temple because it was holy?)

Besides, back then, such small mistakes were inconsequential, because the overall message was what was really important. After all, there are similar "mistakes" in the Torah, such as the question of how many animals are supposed to go into the ark - two of every kind or seven of every clean animal? (that's just a small one, and as with the twice creation of the world, can be explained; what about the infamous doublets?)

And you only had to burn and start again if you made a mistake with God's name. Any other mistake could simply be fixed.

Oh. Thanks for correcting me on that one. But how would you fix something with ink? I don't think ink could be erased back then; heck, ink is nearly impossible to erase these days! ('erasable' pens do not work at all)

 

[Yid613]

How? They used ink, not lead, unless I've been mistaken.

Yes kosher ink on kosher parchment, but it can be scraped off. No white out