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 -
1. This one is pretty easy - scribal error. A scribe, writing down the text, or possibly even Mattiyahu himself, writing it down initially, or what have you, and mistook the rather minor priest "Z'kharyah" Yeshua was speaking of to be the more important prophet of the same name, and thus wrote down Ben Berekhyah rather than Ben Y'hoyada.
You'd think he'd have checked up on such a thing. The fact that Jews today remember the difference every year when Tisha B'av rolls around means that this wasn't a mystery.
A few conclusions can be drawn: He wasn't concerned with the truth/figured his audience wouldn't know the difference (a problem of credibility for the author of one of the books Christians consider holy)... This author apparently wasn't divinely inspired (contrary to a claim commonly made by Christians).
It's strange that centuries of scribes making copies of this book wouldn't have corrected the error, considering how frequently we're told how Jewish the first Christians were. Were they all really that ignorant? Or did they just not care?
Poisonshady313 said:
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.
Elessar said:
2. The latter is a simple scribal error. The name, I mean. Mistaking two closely related, relatively peripheral, historical figures of centuries past is easily done. If I had a nickel every time I read in a history book, no less, a mixup of Louis XIV and Louis XVI, both major, documented historical figures who lived a century apart and, and one was the great-great grandson of the other, I'd be a millionaire. And these also have the source right there. There is still no error.
When you've got the book right in front of you, there's no excuse. The statement "when Abiathar was high priest" is a direct contradiction of what's written in Samuel. Maybe it was a scribal error... maybe it was Jesus' error.
If I told you that President Lincoln died of natural causes, when it's well documented that he was shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth, how credible would I be in your eyes? Why would you believe anything I said? What would it say about my intelligence, especially if I was writing a biography about Lincoln and had the records concerning him in front of me?
We're not talking about two people of the same name anymore. This Louis XIV and Louis XVI business might have been more meaningful when discussing Zechariah.
It most certainly is an error.
Poisonshady313 said:
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."
Elessar said:
3. Luke was not written for Jews, but for goyim, and the historical, religious connotations of "City of David" meaning Yerushalayim would not make sense to goyim - who would be used to the convention of a man's city being where he was FROM, as the royal house names of Europe ("House of Normandy", "House of Habsburg", "House of Hohenzollern") and not where he ruled or came to live. Also, since the census called for each clan to go to its origin point, the House of David would be assigned Beitlechem, not Yerushalayim, as the Romans were goyim, not Jews.
To the goyim, it would be completely irrelevant why Joseph went to Bethlehem... if they were going to be told that the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem, all that mattered is that he went to Bethlehem.
The fact is, it wasn't just a silly cultural quirk that called Jersualem the city of David. The Bible had already called Jerusalem the city of David. If the goyim were expected to blindly accept certain assertions made by the Tanach despite them having no meaning for them, they might as well have been accurate.
Poisonshady313 said:
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?
Elessar said:
4. The person recorded as speaking here - Stephen - was on trial at the time of this account. He was not cross-checking sources. Many, many people who are not close scholars of the Torah do not know these facts, and the fact that Abraham suddenly left Haran is consistent, culturally, with the death of his father. Though it was an error, it was a reasonable assumption that he left when Terach died. I bet if you asked average Jews, most would guess that Terach died before Avraham avinu left for Kena'an.
No, it wasn't a reasonable assumption that he left when Terach died. The first mention of God speaking to Avraham was telling him to leave his country, his relatives, and his father's house. That last bit... his father's house, would seem terribly redundant if his father was dead.
I'd take your bet and I'd double it. Children are taught that Abraham left his father's house, which is to say, he wasn't dead yet.
I find it hard to believe that Stephen knew specifics about verse 31, but was ignorant of verse 32. Since there was no such thing as verses in those days, that means he carefully read one sentence, skipped a few lines, and carefully read some more.
Poisonshady313 said:
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.
Elessar said:
5. This is an error in the same vein as the last one - a man speaking under prosecution is likely to have slips of the tongue, such as this
Maybe. Jews are generally good with numbers... 10 commandments, 40 days and nights, 12 tribes of Israel... Who would have come up with 75 when the number is 70? That's like saying "A man speaking under prosecution mentioned the 15 tribes of Israel."