Nebuchadnezzar

[dairygirl4u2c]

Baruch 6:2, "And when you are come into Babylon, you shall be there many years, and for a long time, even to seven generations: and after that I will bring you away from thence with peace."
The book of Judith incorrectly says that Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the Assyrians when he was the king of the Babylonians.1

Baruch 6:2 says the Jews would serve in Babylon for seven generations where Jer. 25:11 says it was for 70 years. "And this whole land shall be a desolation and a horror, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years."



as to the first issue, here are two ideas...
[url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0009sbs.asp"]http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0009sbs.asp[/url]
[url="http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0307bt.asp"]http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0307bt.asp[/url]

it seems pretty far fetched.

i do remember they mentioned the deuterocanonical books as "canon", and the new testament cites them often.

could it be that the books are simply edifying and "canonical" but not in a final sense?

it seems pretty far fetched the answers given.

here's some more i will look at later if you want to now
[url="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22king+of+the+Assyrians%22+site%3Acatholic.com&btnG=Search"]http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%...amp;btnG=Search[/url]

Edited April 21, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c

[LouisvilleFan]

Could you tell me, with complete confidence, in what year both of your parents were born, along with all your grandparents? And if you turned out to be wrong by a few years, should I take that to mean you don't love them?

Point being, the numeric details of events in Scripture are not always accurate. Even today, we must estimate many statistics because it's impossible to know exact numbers. Plus, many times numbers are used in a more representative way. The Israelites didn't necessarily wander through the desert for exactly 40 years, but it was long enough for the first generation to die off, which is basically what "40 years" means.

A good example is Jesus' command to forgive those who sin against us "seventy times seven" times. Does that mean we should keep a tally, and when they sin against us the 491st time, we no longer need to forgive them? Or does it mean we never refuse forgiveness, because the number seven represents eternity and perfection in Scripture?

Edited April 21, 2008 by LouisvilleFan

[dairygirl4u2c]

i guess i should state so you don't have to dig it out... nebuchadnezzar is said to be the king of the assayrians, which hisotorically he was not.
the catholic answers says it's because they were only saying it was a parable.
seems pretty far fetched to me.

nebu is mentined in the following link too, with other stuff
[url="http://www.justforcatholics.org/a48.htm"]http://www.justforcatholics.org/a48.htm[/url]

Edited April 21, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

that's a sort of decent argument.
it's hard to tell how much this is just talking and how much it's in fact an error.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1505415' date='Apr 21 2008, 11:09 AM']that's a sort of decent argument.
it's hard to tell how much this is just talking and how much it's in fact an error.[/quote]

It is an error, but the Catholic Church doesn't teach that Scripture is free from factual error. Scripture was written by human authors who worked under human limitations, including limited knowledge about history. Everybody from Muslims to Mormons can give us the laundry list of apparent contraditions, but they miss the point. That Nebuchadnezzar was king of the Assyrians or the Babylonians doesn't change the message God is communicationg through the story.

Edited April 21, 2008 by LouisvilleFan

[dairygirl4u2c]

yeah, but why weren't there other situations like that in the rest of the bible? it seems like there would be at least one. and for soemone discerning the validity of them, it's an interesting note.
to say the bible doesn't have to be factually correct is a pretty strong statement, at least to protestants, which they would decry. i can buy it, but just saying.


here's something that's sort of getting better.

[quote]A: Some scholars have thought that Judith is a stylized account of real events and that this explains the supposed "historical inaccuracies" in the book--they are due to the form of stylization the author employs. You might compare the book of Judith to the book of Job, which Fundamentalists view as a stylized account of a real historical event. They believe the basic story in Job is real, since Job is mentioned elsewhere in the Bible (Ezek. 14:14, 20), but because chapter after chapter of the book is dialogue written in the form of Hebrew poetry, Fundamentalists concede it is a stylized account.

Other scholars have thought Judith is not a historical book but a "theological novel"--basically an extended parable--and that this could be recognized by any Jew reading the work. On this view, the fact that Nebuchadnezzar is declared to be the king of the Assyrians in the very first verse of the book is regarded as one of the cues that would tell the reader he is reading an allegory rather than history. Nebuchadnezzar was then the single most famous persecutor of the Jews, and every Jew knew he was king of the Babylonians.

Scholars who adopt this view point out that Judith's name means "Lady Jew" and that she is placed against the two greatest enemies of the Hebrew people, Nebuchadnezzar, the king most famous for fighting them, and the Assyrians, the second most famous enemy of Israel. To give a modern equivalent of this, suppose you picked up a book that pitted Miss America against Adolf Hitler, king of the Russians. Would you identify the work as a piece of literal history or as an allegory intended to teach a point?

The idea that Scripture contains parables, allegories, and figurative language is something even Fundamentalists will admit. So long as the original audience recognized that what it was reading was a literary device, there could be no objection to including the work in Scripture--it would not have deceived the intended readers into thinking it was making factual claims when it was not. The parables of Jesus are a perfect example of this.

The status of the book of Judith is thus similar to that of the Song of Solomon. We are not sure whether this latter work is a stylized account of real events (was the wife of Solomon mentioned in the book a real person?) or whether it is a straight parable about ideal love. If the Song of Solomon can go into the Bible, so can Judith.[/quote]

Edited April 21, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1505424' date='Apr 21 2008, 11:18 AM']yeah, but why weren't there other situations like that in the rest of the bible? it seems like there would be at least one. and for soemone discerning the validity of them, it's an interesting note.[/quote]

What kind of other situations? There are plenty. I don't know the exact verse, but the Gospel record of Jesus describing David eating the blessed bread from the Temple contradicts certain details in the Old Testament account. Just google "Bible contraditions" and you'll find them from virtually every major non-Christian faith out there.

The validity of Scripture is based on it being the inspired Word of God, and the ability to discern that comes from the Holy Spirit working through the Church, who alone has the authority to declare what is canon.

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1505424' date='Apr 21 2008, 11:18 AM']to say the bible doesn't have to be factually correct is a pretty strong statement, at least to protestants, which they would decry. i can buy it, but just saying.[/quote]

Some Protestants would agree. However, when your faith rests solely upon Scripture, it's only logical to effectively turn the Bible into a catechism, and a catechism would not contain factual error.

Obviously, that's the kind of error Christians slip into when they don't have Sacred Tradition.

[LouisvilleFan]

Adolf Hitler, king of the Russians?

I'm guessing that was written during the Cold War.

[dairygirl4u2c]

well, the difference with us then, is that i don't think there's any definitive contradictions out there. there's always a way to rationlize them, given there's nothing blatant. there's seeming contradictions, but not necessary ones.

www.evilbible.com
www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

do you feel you know of one certain, blatant, no way to get around it contradiction? that you'd be willing to put down as surely no way around it?
i don't know the David verse off hand, but i'd bet he could be said to have eaten twice, or something.

[dairygirl4u2c]

well... i guess i tend to believe htere are contradictions cause stretching arguments dn't really fly, and if the CC doesn't teach they don't exist the contradictions, then the CC has the superior argument as it has no claim to lose on.

[dairygirl4u2c]

that's assuming the CC teaches there are contradictions in the bible. or is at least silent on the matter. if it teaches here's no contradictions, then we have a problem

[LouisvilleFan]

The point is to understand the purpose of the Bible and the various types of literature contained within. As far as Scripture's purpose and meaning are concerned, there are no contradictions. For example, you don't see God deciding that Jesus doesn't really need to die on the cross for mankind's salvation, and thus submitting to the human will of Jesus that that cup be taken away. That would contadict everything from the prophetic sacrifice of Isaac to the Passover and the whole Mosaic law (especially concerning sacrifices for sins). Nor do you see Jesus' divine will submitting to the human will. That would be a blatant contradiction of the most basic message of the Old Testament: He is God; we are not.

The contradictions that do exist concern factual/historical information. Only those who hate (don't hate, appreciate) God give a rip about whether it was 72,548 Philistines or 74,638. Who cares??!?!?! The Bible was not written by auditors and accountants. It's a love story, and as a love story, most of it wasn't meant to be taken literally. As the explanation you found says, oftentimes the author would even knowingly use wrong "facts" for the purpose of telling the story. The Gospel writers did this all the time. In some Gospels, Jesus went to Jerusalem three times; in others, he only went once. He says three different things on the cross immediately before dying. There are pages of apparent contradictions in the Gospels alone. Each of them was written from a different perspective to a certain audience for a particular purpose and they would "bend" the factual details to tell the story as it needed to be told. To our scientific ideal, this is blasphemy, which just shows how we shouldn't read Scripture in the context of a modern, scientific world.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1505593' date='Apr 21 2008, 01:48 PM']well, the difference with us then, is that i don't think there's any definitive contradictions out there. there's always a way to rationlize them, given there's nothing blatant. there's seeming contradictions, but not necessary ones.

www.evilbible.com
www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/[/quote]

We don't rationalize anything. It's anti-Christian apologists who are rationalizing their hatred of the Bible and Christianity. They would also accuse you of hating your mother if you couldn't remember the exact year of her birth.

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1505593' date='Apr 21 2008, 01:48 PM']do you feel you know of one certain, blatant, no way to get around it contradiction? that you'd be willing to put down as surely no way around it?
i don't know the David verse off hand, but i'd bet he could be said to have eaten twice, or something.[/quote]

What were the last words out of Jesus' mouth before he died on the cross? That's the biggest "contradiction" in the Bible. There is also no way around David eating the blessed bread. That only happened once in history. I think the Gospel account gets the priest's name wrong. I'm not taking the time to look it up because it doesn't matter. Either the human author made a mistake or he used a different name on purpose.

Edited April 21, 2008 by LouisvilleFan

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='LouisvilleFan' post='1505723' date='Apr 21 2008, 08:34 PM']We don't rationalize anything. It's anti-Christian apologists who are rationalizing their hatred of the Bible and Christianity. They would also accuse you of hating your mother if you couldn't remember the exact year of her birth.
What were the last words out of Jesus' mouth before he died on the cross? That's the biggest "contradiction" in the Bible. There is also no way around David eating the blessed bread. That only happened once in history. I think the Gospel account gets the priest's name wrong. I'm not taking the time to look it up because it doesn't matter. Either the human author made a mistake or he used a different name on purpose.[/quote]
Good points. Some "contradictions" can also be explained just by the fact that different people notice different things (For example, If you ask my husband & me about when he proposed, we have two very different descriptions)

[KnightofChrist]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1505251' date='Apr 20 2008, 11:41 PM']The book of Judith incorrectly says that Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the Assyrians when he was the king of the Babylonians.[/quote]

This could explain how Nebuchadnezzer could be considered king of Assyrians, and of the Babylonians. Much like the Queen of England is also Queen of Ireland, even tough most of Ireland is independent. It is also important to note that Judith does not say Nebuchadnezzar was not king of Babylonians.

[quote][url="http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CHALDEAN.HTM"]http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/CHALDEAN.HTM[/url]


After the fall of Assyrian power in Mesopotamia, the last great group of Semitic peoples dominated the area. Suffering mightily under the Assyrians,[b] the city of Babylon finally rose up against its hated enemy, the city of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, and burned it to the ground.[/b] The chief of the Babylonians was Nabopolassar; the Semites living in the northern part of Mesopotamia would never gain their independence again.

[b]Nabopolassar was succeeded by his son, Nebuchadnezzar II [/b](605-562 BC). Nebuchadnezzar was the equal of all the great Mesopotamian conquerors, from Sargon onwards; he not only prevented major powers such as Egypt and Syria from making inroads on his territory, he also conquered the Phoenicians and [b][color="#8B0000"]the state of Judah (586 BC), the southern Jewish kingdom that remained after the subjugation of Israel, the northern kingdom, by the Assyrians. [/color][/b]In order to secure the territory of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar brought Jehoiachin and Zedekiah, the two kings of Judah (in succession) and held them in Babylon. In keeping with Assyrian practice, the "New Babylonians," or Chaldeans forced a large part of the Jewish population to relocate. Numbering possibly up to 10,000, these Jewish deportees were largely upper class people and craftspeople; this deportation marks the beginning of the Exile in Jewish history.[/quote]

So Judith may have considered Babylon part or no different the Assyrian empire, since Babylon was part of the Assyrian empire. And also Judith could have meant the northern kingdom of israel where assyrians, since the Assyrian empire had first defeated it and thus changed at least part of its culture.

Edited April 22, 2008 by KnightofChrist