Excuse me? If the Bible God is God, then He, better than anyone else, knows the equation for the circumference of a circle (since, after all, he created the universe), and given the measurement for the width of the pool, would know exactly what the circumference was -- he would never be off by a cubit and four tenths. God does not round off. Culture has nothing to do with mathematics, unlike many other things. Pi doesn't change. God should know if a pool is round or not; and he should be able to measure. Likewise, if the Bible is meant to be strictly a spiritual document, then why would anything it says about the physical world be taken seriously? If one thing can be "wrong" and in fact is wrong -- then anything can be and probably is wrong. You can't have it both ways.
So, are there other blatant errors in scripture? If there are, what does it mean? Yes, there are many blatant errors -- and we would like to present just a few for you.
Mathematics | ||||
| 2 Chronicles 21:16-20 and 22: 1-2 | ¶ Moreover the LORD stirred up against Jeho'ram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, that were near the Ethiopians: 17 and they came up into Judah, and brake into it, and carried away all the substance that was found in the king's house, and his sons also, and his wives; so that there was never a son left him, save Jeho'ahaz, the youngest of his sons. 18 ¶ And after all this the LORD smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease. 19 And it came to pass, that in process of time, after the end of two years, his bowels fell out by reason of his sickness: so he died of sore diseases. And his people made no burning for him, like the burning of his fathers. 20 Thirty and two years old was he when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years, and departed without being desired. Howbeit they buried him in the city of David, but not in the sepulchres of the kings.
and And the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahazi'ah his youngest son king in his stead: for the band of men that came with the Arabians to the camp had slain all the eldest. So Ahazi'ah the son of Jeho'ram king of Judah reigned. 2 Forty and two years old was Ahazi'ah when he began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Athali'ah the daughter of Omri. | Setting aside the change of name -- which may be a different error -- look at the ages. The father died at forty, and his youngest son then assumed the throne -- being forty-two. I think that speaks for itself as an impossibility. | ||
| Numbers 3:16-39 | 16 And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD, as he was commanded. 17 And these were the sons of Levi by their names; Gershon, and Kohath, and Mera'ri. 18 And these are the names of the sons of Gershon by their families; Libni, and Shim'e-i. 19 And the sons of Kohath by their families; Amram, and Iz'ehar, Hebron, and Uz'zi-el. 20 And the sons of Mera'ri by their families; Mahli, and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to the house of their fathers. 21 ¶ Of Gershon was the family of the Libnites, and the family of the Shimites: these are the families of the Ger'shonites. 22 Those that were numbered of them, according to the number of all the males, from a month old and upward, even those that were numbered of them were seven thousand and five hundred. 23 The families of the Ger'shonites shall pitch behind the tabernacle westward. 24 And the chief of the house of the father of the Ger'shonites shall be Eli'asaph the son of La'el. 25 And the charge of the sons of Gershon in the tabernacle of the congregation shall be the tabernacle, and the tent, the covering thereof, and the hanging for the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, 26 and the hangings of the court, and the curtain for the door of the court, which is by the tabernacle, and by the altar round about, and the cords of it, for all the service thereof. 27 ¶ And of Kohath was the family of the Am'ramites, and the family of the Iz'eharites, and the family of the He'bronites, and the family of the Uz'zi-elites: these are the families of the Ko'hathites. 28 In the number of all the males, from a month old and upward, were eight thousand and six hundred, keeping the charge of the sanctuary. 29 The families of the sons of Kohath shall pitch on the side of the tabernacle southward. 30 And the chief of the house of the father of the families of the Ko'hathites shall be Eliza'phan the son of Uz'zi-el. 31 And their charge shall be the ark, and the table, and the candlestick, and the altars, and the vessels of the sanctuary wherewith they minister, and the hanging, and all the service thereof. 32 And Ele-a'zar the son of Aaron the priest shall be chief over the chief of the Levites, and have the oversight of them that keep the charge of the sanctuary. 33 ¶ Of Mera'ri was the family of the Mahlites, and the family of the Mushites: these are the families of Mera'ri. 34 And those that were numbered of them, according to the number of all the males, from a month old and upward, were six thousand and two hundred. 35 And the chief of the house of the father of the families of Mera'ri was Zu'ri-el the son of Ab'ihail: these shall pitch on the side of the tabernacle northward. 36 And under the custody and charge of the sons of Mera'ri shall be the boards of the tabernacle, and the bars thereof, and the pillars thereof, and the sockets thereof, and all the vessels thereof, and all that serveth thereto, 37 and the pillars of the court round about, and their sockets, and their pins, and their cords. 38 ¶ But those that encamp before the tabernacle toward the east, even before the tabernacle of the congregation eastward, shall be Moses, and Aaron and his sons, keeping the charge of the sanctuary for the charge of the children of Israel; and the stranger that cometh nigh shall be put to death. 39 All that were numbered of the Levites, which Moses and Aaron numbered at the commandment of the LORD, throughout their families, all the males from a month old and upward, were twenty and two thousand. | Apparently neither God nor Moses can count. add the numbers up yourself. There are 22,300 Levites in this count, not the 22,000 that the Bible records. A simple scribe, who used mathematics (which was fairly new to the Israelites anyway) very little might make an error like this -- but almighty God? Never. And, if its a "copyist" error (the common explanation for all errors that the fundamentalists are trapped into admitting), then, given how many such errors there are, why trust anything in the book? ANYTHING? | ||
| I Chronicles 25:3 | Of Jedu'thun: the sons of Jedu'thun; Gedali'ah, and Zeri, and Jeshai'ah, Hashabi'ah, and Mattithi'ah, six, under the hands of their father Jedu'thun, who prophesied with a harp, to give thanks and to praise the LORD. | Five sons of Jedu'thun, not six, no matter what the text says. | ||
| There are dozens if not hundreds of mathematical errors in the Bible. Passages describing the same places, events, and situations give drastically different sizes, numbers, and so forth; simple equations are botched over and over (as we see with the King's age in 2 Chronicles) and even the act of counting single figures together does not always yield the correct sum.
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Biology | ||||
| Leviticus 11:13-19 | And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray, 14 and the vulture, and the kite after his kind; 15 every raven after his kind; 16 and the owl, and the nighthawk, and the cuckoo, and the hawk after his kind, 17 and the little owl, and the cormorant, and the great owl, 18 and the swan, and the pelican, and the gier-eagle,19 and the stork, the heron after her kind, and the lapwing, and the bat. | One of these things is not like the others, one of these things does not belong... God knows that the bat is actually a mammal. | ||
| Leviticus 11: 21-23 | Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth; 22 even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind. 23 But all other flying creeping things, which have four feet, shall be an abomination unto you. | a human could mistakenly think that locusts and beetles have four feet ... but the God who made them and is omniscient? Not likely. | ||
| Leviticus 11:4-6 and Deuteronomy 14:7 | Nevertheless, these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the hoof: as the camel, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you. 5 And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you. 6 And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.
and Nevertheless these ye shall not eat, of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you. | Both the hare and the coney are breeds of rabbits, both breeds continue to this day. Neither type of rabbit, nor in fact any rabbit -- do now or ever have chewed their cud. They do move their whiskers, so a human author might think they do, but they do not -- they in fact cannot. | ||
| Matthew 13: 31-32 | Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: 32 which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. | the mustard seed is not the least[smallest] of all seeds and does not become a tree -- ever. | ||
| This is only a small sampling of the errors the Bible makes biologically -- clear, undeniable errors. Other more fanciful things -- such as cows delivering striped calves because they looked at striped rods (Genesis 30:37-39) are too ludicrous to imagine anyone taking seriously, although such an event could be explained by magic (miracles if you prefer).
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Physics and Earth Science | ||||
| Isaiah 11:12 | And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. | For the earth to have corners -- it would have to be flat... or cubic I suppose. | ||
| I Samuel 2:8 | He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the LORD's, and he hath set the world upon them. | The pillars of the earth? I hope we all know that the earth is a round object spinning through space, there are no pillars, none are needed. | ||
| Psalms 24:1-2 | The earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. 2 For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. | The earth is not founded UPON the seas, nor is it established on top of water, rather the waters are part of the earth. | ||
| Job 38: 22-23 | Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? Or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, 23 which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war? | This relates to a belief that the earth was flat, coverd by a dome on which God lived. These treasuries then would be above the dome, with God intending to use them as weapons at need. Excuse me? | ||
| It is common for apologists to attempt to explain these types of passages away as poetry, or as being symbolic (how one tells those passages that are symbolic from those that are literal goes into the book of questions next to how one tells copyist errors.) However, the consistency of the belief in a flat earth, founded on pillars and/or foundations, covered by a dome is found throughout the Bible. The firmament in Genesis is, of course, a dome (Genesis 1: 6-7). The tower of Babel angers God because it is being built to reach to heaven (which is on top of the dome) (Genesis 11: 1-9), Jacob sees "angels" going up and down a ladder to and from heaven (Genesis 28:10-22), Daniel sees a great tree growing in the center of the earth that can be seen from all four corners of the earth (Daniel 4:7-8), and God waters the earth (sends rain) from the waters under his palace, on top of the dome (Psalms 104: 3 and 13).
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The struggle over evolution is the newest in a series of struggles emerging from the fundamentalist camp, and yet, it is not difficult to tell that the battle is already lost. Evidence of the mythical nature of the writings in the Bible is scattered throughout the book. God didn't say most of the things in the Bible - because an omniscient being would never make the types of errors that are contained therein. In fact few religious texts are more clearly manmade than are the scriptures that base the three great faiths of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
I give credit to fundamentalist Islam for first recognizing this (though of course never saying it), for it is fundamentalist Islam that first depended on violence to keep people from questioning or challenging the myths on which the faith was based. Fundamentalist Christianity is now following suit, as quickly as it can.
No amount of force however can make lies truth, or myths reality. So, no matter what force is used, the books are still fallible and fundamentalism -- of whatever type -- is from its base up, false.