A discussion of contradictions

Yesterday, a user posted an image of a chart made a number of years ago by "The Reason Project" showing Biblical contradictions. This post was taken down because of Image Policy 3.1, which I understand, but this is disappointing as the post would have made for some good conversation. So I thought I'd try to reopen the dialogue.

I am not a fan of that chart - you can see the chart here, as well as some arguments from a scholar regarding why the chart isn't a great way to make the point. For me, the main reason I do not like this chart is that a common thing I've seen people do with it is to ignore most of what is on the chart, find one example on the chart of a supposed contradiction that is actually based on a bad translation or a misunderstanding, and then parade that example to the forefront and act like this is a reason to ignore the whole thing. For me, I think it is much better to pick a few examples of contradictions to open a dialogue, and then do your best to explain why those contradictions are important.

So I thought I'd try to do that with the story of David and Goliath. There are a number of problems with this story, found in I Samuel 17. First off, one very odd thing that happens in the story is that Saul seems to have no idea who David is - in I Sam 17:55-58, Saul asks who David is, and asks David himself who his father is. But in the previous chapter, we are told (I Sam. 16:14-23) that David played the harp for Saul, and that Saul "loved him greatly", and sent to Jesse asking for him to allow David to remain in his service. How did he go from knowing who Jesse was, loving David greatly, to "who is this and who is his father?"

But that's not the only problem with the story. There are historical problems as well - Goliath is described as wearing bronze armor, that sounds a lot more like the type of armor Greek warriors would wear. And after David kills Goliath (note here another contradiction - verse 50 says the stone killed Goliath, but then David cut of his head and killed him in verse 51, killing him twice), he supposedly takes Goliath's head to Jerusalem in verse 54. But Jerusalem belonged to the Jebusites at this time - we see that much from I Chronicles 11, when David is supposed to have conquered it after becoming king.

But perhaps the biggest problem with the story is the answer to the question of who killed Goliath. Because if you keep reading, in 2 Samuel 21:19, you see that "Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite killed Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam." Note here that "the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam" is the exact word-for-word Hebrew phrase found in I Samuel 17:7. This is important because it tells us two things: 1) the apologetic attempt some have made, to say "this was a different Goliath" makes no sense, and 2) the story in I Samuel 17:7 is likely a tall-tale spun from the original historical record, which we find in 2 Samuel 21:19. Now what's really interesting about this is that later on in I Chronicles 20:5, it says that "Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver’s beam." Now first off, there is a scholarly consensus that the Chronicles came after the writings in 1 and 2 Samuel, and that the Chronicler used a lot of the writings from 1 and 2 Samuel, making edits along the way. I'm not going to argue that entire case. But notice what happens in this verse - if you can actually read the original, what is happening is that the Chronicler is cleverly moving some things around and adding a couple jots to completely change the sentence. Note how "Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite" becomes simple "Jair" and how Elhanan is killing Lahmi the brother of Goliath. To give you a bit of a picture, in 2 Samuel 21:19, ͗ēṯ precedes the name "Goliath", and then the Chronicler changes that from את to אחי in order to make it "brother of". The Chronicler noticed the contradiction and tried to harmonize things, but we have another problem here: Lahmi is not only not a Philistine name, but it's not even a name at this time in history (note that later on, you may find some people named this way - any name that shows up in the Bible ends up becoming something people name their children eventually). Lahmi means "my bread".

Takeaways: none of this is a problem if you don't subscribe to the Protestant Sola Scriptura Inerrancy view of the Bible. If, instead, you view the Bible as a cultural library, this is all fine. A cultural library shows us how a culture developed through time - it shows us how they changed their mind, often. One might take a friend to a library and say, as is said in 2 Timothy 3:16, that everything that is in the library is inspired, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training. Does this mean you think everything in that library is without error? No. Does it mean you don't think any one author represented in that library ever disagrees with or contradicts any other author in that library? No. But rather, it's useful to engage in the disagreement - to understand why one author thought something at an earlier date and another author disagreed at a later date after more evidence came to light. It's useful to understand these disagreements in order to understand the path of history for that culture.

Because here's the thing: it really doesn't matter - as far as how theology goes - what the answer is to the question of who killed Goliath. But the biggest problem with Sola Scriptura Inerrancy is its view of God. Because, as far as the question of what God is like goes, Sola Scriptura Inerrancy is like saying that the Jor El in the new Superman movie is the same Jor El we see in the Christopher Reeves movies and the same Jor El we see in the Brandon Routh Superman movie and in the Henry Cavil movie. Sola Scriptura says that this God - who commands genocide in Numbers 31, Deuteronomy 20, and I Samuel 15, and commits Globicide himself in the story of Noah, if you take that story as history (I don't) - is the same God represented by Jesus who is the visible image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15) and the exact imprint of God's very being (Heb. 1:3), and who commanded us to love enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Mt. 5:44), who said to do good to those who hate you and bless those who curse you (Lk. 6:27-28), who said "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" of the people who nailed him to a cross (Lk. 23:34), and who inspired Paul to say that we should overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21) and the writer of I Peter to say that we should repay evil with blessing (I Pet. 3:9).