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Again we have god named El, and cited as El-roi, or God the king, or perhaps The Mighty God, as is the Canaanite god is known as. Note that there is no denial of this.
Worse, in verse 7, it says that "The angel of the Lord" spoke to Hagar. Once more, we repeat, she called him "El-roi", or the god of the Canaanites, and there is no record of her being corrected. This is an error in the Bible. *****
14 Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. 15 Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. 16 Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.
Here we are told that after at least a year later for Ishmael to be born, that Abram is eighty-six years old. This seems as if Abram was about two years younger than possible.
There is one (1) known major error in chapter 16 of Genesis.
Genesis 17
The Sign of the Covenant
1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said to him, 'I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.
At this time, if we accept that Abram was eighty-six years old as in chapter 16, verse 16 above, Ishmael is 13 years old now.
2 And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.' 3 Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, 4 'As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding; and I will be their God.'9 God said to Abraham, 'As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. 13 Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.' 15 God said to Abraham, 'As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.' 17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, 'Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?'
Okay, first in verse 1 it says that Abram is ninety-nine, and now Abraham, as he is now to be called, says he is a hundred years old. If this isn't a contradiction, I don't know what is. An error for the Bible. *****
See below for another instance that proves some of these sequences were written by men, and not God, nor inspired by any God.
18 And Abraham said to God, 'O that Ishmael might live in your sight!' 19 God said, 'No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. 20 As for Ishmael, I have heard you; I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous; he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. 21 But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year.'22 And when he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham. 23 Then Abraham took his son Ishmael and all the slaves born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. 24 Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.
Once again we're told Abraham is now back to being ninety-nine years old.
25 And his son Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. 26 That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised; 27 and all the men of his house, slaves born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him.
As a point of curiosity, was it necessary for God to repeat himself? Verses 26 and 27 are a repeat of verse 23 which said the same thing. An error for the Bible written by men. *****
There are two (2) major errors in chapter 17 of Genesis.
Genesis 18
A Son Promised to Abraham and Sarah
1 The Lord appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day. 2 He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground.3 He said, 'My lord, if I find favour with you, do not pass by your servant. 4 Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree. 5 Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant.' So they said, 'Do as you have said.' 6 And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said, 'Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.'7 Abraham ran to the herd, and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it. 8 Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree while they ate. 9 They said to him, 'Where is your wife Sarah?' And he said, 'There, in the tent.' 10 Then one said, 'I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.' And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. 11 Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in age; it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. 12 So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, 'After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?'
In the above chapter 17, verse 17, Abraham laughs when told he will have a son by Sarah, and it is recorded that he says this aloud, but no response is heard to his laughter nor his questioning.
Now, in this chapter, verses 11 and 12, Sarah is said to be in menopause ("...ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women."), and then laughed when she hears that she shall have a child by Abraham. In the next few verses below, we see that Sarah, like Abraham questions it, but Abraham is asked why Sarah laughed.
It is obvious that this is a repetition of chapter 17 where Abraham laughs and questions it just as Sarah does now.
Why?
Why repeat this, and this time have Sarah do the laughing and questioning? It seems to be pretty obvious that two different men wrote these chapters for God would not find it needful to repeat himself, nor to say the same thing in two different ways. This is a huge error in the Bible proving it was written by men, and not just one man, but men who contradicted each other. *****
13 The Lord said to Abraham, 'Why did Sarah laugh, and say, "Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?" 14 Is anything too wonderful for the Lord? At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.' 15 But Sarah denied, saying, 'I did not laugh'; for she was afraid. He said, 'Oh yes, you did laugh.'
Judgement Pronounced on Sodom
16 Then the men set out from there, and they looked towards Sodom; and Abraham went with them to set them on their way. 17 The Lord said, 'Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, 18 seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? 19 No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice; so that the Lord may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.' 20 Then the Lord said, 'How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! 21 I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know.'
We are told in verse 17 above that "The Lord said, '...' "
In this, the same story as in chapter 17, we are told in verse 18 "And Abraham said to God," .
Since these two are the same tale told in two different ways, chapter 17, verse 18 proves that chapter 18, verse17, that the "Lord" is actually supposed to be "God".
Why?
The answer apparently, may be that the second writer wanted to introduce Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah, thus a different rendering of the same story, but with a different ending. An obvious error in the Bible. *****
There are two (2) major errors in this half of chapter 18 of Genesis.
Confession
In my days of being a believer, I probably read this at various times, but always seemed to overlook the differences in chapter 17 and 18, and never questioned it. As many are now, I was then, considering the Bible the word of God, and maybe I wasn't ready to understand it, but keep the faith, and keep praying for understanding. Now I understand what the Bible often does for a fact say.
They also used the well-worn trite saying of God works in mysterious ways. Well, they get even less mysterious when the blinders are off, and one begins to realize that the supposed word of God is not God's word, but the word of men—yes, men, and not just one man—as all of this, along with the two tales of Noah and the animals reveals, is not God's inerrant word, but a book of tales told by men, and most likely at different times.
It's no wonder that the Bible is so hard to read for most of us, or to understand. It has to be so because we start out with the premise that this book, The Holy Bible, is God's word, so when we come across confusing and contradictory statements, we simply think that it's because of a fault in us, or that no matter how we pray, we're not ready to understand God's word. Now I understand perfectly when something is very contradictory, and when it is in error without a doubt.
Summation
There are twenty-one major errors from chapter 9 through half of chapter 18, and twelve (12) probable errors also. Combined with errors in the first essay, there are eighty-five (85) major errors, and twenty (20) probable errors, and that only covers seventeen and a half (17 ½)chapters of Genesis.
That is huge and we haven't yet covered a half of the chapters of Genesis.
Due to the length of this essay, and that the first half of chapter 18 is pretty much a repeat of chapter 17, this essay is halted there to give a place to start the next essay which will begin with the second half of chapter 18, and the tale of Lot (which the first half of chapter 18 was most likely repeated, that is, to give an introduction to Lot's supposed problem, as well as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. There could be no other reason to repeat chapter 17 as it was repeated, and in such a contradictory fashion.)
Once more, it is claimed that what's in the Bible is without error, and that supposed fact is what is used by many churches to try to regulate our sexuality, and in fact, our very existence. If they had their way, we'd all live by the rules of the Old Testament, and any work done on the Sabbath would be punishable by death. That may be a bit worse than the Puritans were, but God's law is God's law (as long as it doesn't apply to them, then there is silence as we have all seen). Check out to see if any are screaming at the top of their voices about the raping of young women, or even young girls, or of pedophiles. They are not, have not, and will remain hypocrites on this.
Why would God not specify lesbians, etc., as being against his word as he supposedly did just about everything else in their then world? The reason is that it is not the word of the Hebrew God, and not the word of any God, it is man's word, written by men to control the people of their community. It is because it was all written by men for their times, and not by any omniscient (all knowing) God.
For whatever reason, they have homed in on homosexuality as being such a horrible thing in our day. Yet the Bible doesn't mention a woman loving another woman. However, raping children while in God's service, or hiding pedophiles does more than just harm those, it also harms all of the loved ones, the families, and yes, even friends. Why is it that they focus on homosexuality that hurts no one, but ignore the church rapes and pedophilia? It doesn't make sense, does it?
Even more, many of these people are educated, and that is seen by that lawyer, Baptist minister who is also a Mississippi representative, who calls for homosexuals to be treated with as the Bible says to, namely, to kill them. Isn't that inciting to a hate crime? Doesn't that equate to intolerance that promotes hate for religious reasons alone. If religious reasons are a good enough reason to hate, isn't any reason good enough, or does religion have a lock on free hatred?
I don't think so, and I bet there are a great many that don't think religion should get a free pass on hating without penalty. Think about it please, and please do verify everything I've said, and remember that it takes only one error in the Bible to prove that the Bible is not inerrant (without error) as the Fundamentalists/Evangelicals say it is.
Every reader is encouraged to verify what is here written, and in fact, I do hope each and every reader does verify as to whether what is said here is true or false. There is no agenda, or hiding, or any such thing, just a wish that these preachers and politicians would realize the falsity of what they say and not try to foist their false beliefs on everyone else just because they believe that's how it should be.
Then again, if you don't verify this, and would rather ignore it, will you be able to ignore all of their calls for a church run country, and have the Puritan constabulary looking into every thing to make sure you are doing as God says you should, and if not, putting you in stocks at the least, or taking your life if they so choose. That's where this type of hatred leads to—just like the Taliban. Just like the Iranians burying a woman up to her shoulders because she is accused of adultery.
Thank you again for reading.
This is an original essay copyright © by wistfall1. You may tell any lesbian in need of knowing the truth of the lies about this essay and where to find it for them to read, but no use in parts or snippets to discredit this work unless you have written permission from the author, wistfall1.
- COMMENTS
njlaurenover 11 years agoW-
When I said the bible contains truth, I was not talking about historical fact, but rather that the intent of those writing it was trying to describe something, they were trying to describe who God was, what God's relationship to man is, in the words of a very liberal church I attended, what it meant to be fully human. Christ was a rabbinic Jewish rebbe more then likely, much of what he taught was true of the rabbinic judaism that started developing during the Babylonian exile (and you are correct, the nature of the Hebrew Scripture changed tremendously during that time, and much of leviticus was rewritten during this time, in part to define Judaism as a way to keep the Jews distinct from their captors, to keep them as Jews in a foreign land, and that is critical, for example, the dietary and clothing laws helped separate them; the line about homosexuality refers to a babylonian sex ritual....and so forth.....the truth in what it was trying to say, which ironically shouldn't be that hard, Christ (as did H'lel the great Rebbe in the 1st century) said basically you are to treat everyone else with love and respect as your respect God, not exactly rocket science:).
It sounds like you know the story of the NT as well as I do (I loved Bart Ehrman, as well as Karen Armstrong as well, plus Jack Spong). My point about scripture and such is it hard to say that the church foisted it on people or whatever, when that happened long after they were written. The nascent church did clamp down on scripture once the canon was hacked out. When I said there wasn't a canon, I meant the canon we have today, what was out there were several hundreds of gospels written over a period of several hundred years, which were being used by different groups in different places. The so called "Gnostic Gospels" (a bad name, since not all of them represented gnostic thinking) represented visions of Christ, some of which have pieces of the standard Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke (interestingly, few cite John), but they also tend to be very different then the Gospels in the Bible. Jesus for one is a lot more human, and the relationship with Mary Magdelene is a lot stronger (which also is probably closer to the real truth about her, as opposed to the drivel the RC gave on her for almost 2000 years; it could be said she was his chief disciple in many ways, and the alternative gospels show that Peter especially was jealous of her). Marcion's gospels/canon were one of many, churches in Alexandria had their own, for example, and churches in Greece had different ones as well...and many of those gospels kept being used for many hundreds of years after Athenesius put together his canon, as alternative churches existed for hundreds of years after the RC coalesced around the canon and the view of Christ that came about at Nicea.
Gospels represent people's views of Christ and so forth, which is why there were so many, since there were hundreds of sects in the centuries after Christ was executed; some saw the preachings as judaism, some saw them as hidden teaching, others saw Christ as Divine, others as a prophet, and the trinitarian vision was a very Greek thing, and it wasn't universal in the early centuries, and the gospels don't really mention it (the current Gospels I mean), other then the so called Jonnite Coda that was mysteriously added to the scripture well after it was written....
Again, when I say the bible isn't fiction, I simply meant that it wasn't intended to be a history book in the first place, it is a book of inspiration that is outside the scope of saying it is either truth or fiction, since it is a book of belief, it much like the existence of God, it cannot be proven or disproven, that is belief, too. Just because the bible has historical truths in it doesn't make it a book of non fiction, nor does the fact that something like the story of the sun standing still in the sky is impossible make it fiction, it is neither (kind of like eggs in Jewish dietary law, they are neither dairy or meat:).
My comment on marriage was aimed at you, that was aimed at another posted, I thought I put @jon or whatever his name was, when he argued that the term marriage should be reserved to a union of a man and woman, and my point was marriage is not sacred once it became a legal/civic term, and why 'giving the rights of marriage' to same sex couples fails miserably.
You and I are on the same page with the bible as historical truth the way the fundies read it, my point is that the bible has truths in it, that people have to discern, and it cannot be done by reading the words literally, it takes thoight and pondering. Even the fictional stories in the bible have meaning, Joseph Campbell talked about the power of Myth , and in reality stories have as much power as truth does, it is why Christ used Parables the way he did in teaching. History will never tell us who the real Christ was entirely, it will never tell us the real story of his death (and yeah, Pilate was an animal, he was a sadistic pig who the Romans ended up recalling because he was too bloodthirsty even for him; the tale in Matthew that makes him into a milquetoast a la Pilate in "Monty Python's life of Brian" is fiction, designed to placate the Romans from killing Christians.
idrubloodover 11 years agoLots of ups and downs from the readers I see. I just want to say thank you for taking the time, energy and patience to put forth the stories and essays as you have.
Growing up, I listened to people teach about the facts of the bible and them saying that if I question something, I’m wrong to do so, well it is refreshing to see someone say “question by all means, question everything.”
Looking forward to anything else you might submit.
IDB.
Anonymousover 11 years agoThe bible is not bad as old literature goes, but it's pretty laughable to debate what is and isn't true or accurate in a work of fiction. I suppose religion can be a comforting delusion, so I won't go on and on about how worthless all the endless fights and debates about its nuances are.
Nicely written essay. I hope you can eventually focus your talents on something more important, or at least more entertaining (by important, I'm referring to religious fantasy--I certainly consider your defense of the rights of lesbians to be a worthwhile undertaking).
Anonymousover 11 years agoI knew there would be some debate over this and the previous essay. I find it absolutely amazing that there are so many comments and opinions written here. You should be very proud of yourself for having taken the time to do all the tedious research which has gone into your work. I applaud you for your tenacity to do what you and many others feel is the truth.
Please remember that it doesn't matter what others may say or think, we all learn together. The more knowledge and to and fro debating the more interesting it gets. Thank you for having the drive to put your thoughts on 'paper'
I hope that your readers will take the time to read about Liv and her teachings. I have personally come a long way since stumbling across you on Lit .... which we all assumed was just about sex!!
Thanking you for giving us something more to think about.
JonATaylorover 11 years agoI confess I have not read completely this exposition or the previous one. I promise I have marked you as a favorite and will read them in the fullness of time. In my simple mind, the fundamentalist (in my definition of the word) position is that God made man and woman to join together in marriage to have and raise children. This simple position creates the definition of marriage. This is my belief. So, does this make me the narrow-minded fool you and an ever-increasing number of my fellow citizens propogate? No.
I understand the world is different and changes all the time. This nation was created and continues to exist as the beacon for freedom. Over time, the freedoms originally enjoyed by only the white gentry have expanded to encompass all citizens. This is a wonderful truth. Now, we are addressing even more aspects of our society, including the discrimination against those with sexual orientations other than heterosexual. This forward movement of freedom is consistent with our history and exciting to ponder. So why focus on the word marriage? Equality is the true goal.
I know my opinion is discounted and reviled, but I want all people joining together as couples to have the rights and benefits of marriage, and I want marriage to remain consistent with the fundamental definition.
I know I am a hopeless old curmudgeon, but I love all people nonetheless.
