Matthew 1:17's "in all" and "in errantists"
Christian Doscher errancy@infidels.org
Sat, 17 Apr 1999 14:44:41 PDT (00924403481, 19990417214442.53528.qmail@hotmail.com)
In a message dated 4/17/99 2:40:33 PM !!!First Boot!!!, Logic62
writes:
> What is your favorite bible contradiction that cannot be disputed?
> Thanks,
> Joe
Thanks for asking, dude!
Matthew 1:17 contradicts the sources of Jesus' geneaology.
If Matthew 1:17 had said, "thus there are 14 generations between abe
and dave" inerrantists might have the room to defend Matthew's
inaccurate math by saying that these were the only ancestors he
wished to inform the reader about. But Matthew was careful to
qualify his words with
"thus there are 14 generations IN ALL between Abe and Dave."
My argument has nothing whatsoever to do with "skipping generations
as was customary back then".
My question is instead:
"Why did Matthew insert the careful qualification "IN ALL", when such
qualification would make a person without access to Matthew's sources
(1st Chronicles MS and LXX) believe that there really were fourteen
generations IN ALL between Abe and Dave, which is obviously untrue?"
As i implied previously, Matthew not only didn't NEED to qualify his
totaling of the number of generations with "IN ALL", but also the
fact that he did only created more deception for the reader who, in
Matthew's day, did not exactly have a copy of 1st Chronicles and the
other sources Matthew used, in his back pocket.
I suppose that the day they understand the difference between:
"There are fourteen generations between Abe and Dave."
and
"There are fourteen generations IN ALL between Abe and Dave",
will be the day they allow the bible to collect more dust that usual.
All the Christians I have spoken with about this matter acted like
even Matthew's unecessary qualification "in all" still did not
require my conclusion that he wanted his readers to believe he had
exhausted the names in his sources.
Yeah right. As if the only way to prove Matthew erred is if he had
written several additional chapters immeditely after 1:17 dedicated
to nothing but asserting how he used up every name without exception
in his sources. Or perhaps the only other way to catch Matthew in an
error is by the skeptic proving that Matthew said "There are fourteen
generations in all between abe and Dave, and I did not skip over any
names in my geneaology sources like others tend to do in this day and
age, because I wanted to make sure that I left not one single name
out, and that the reader is looking at absolutely everybody without
exception who form even the slightest insigificant part of Christ's
ancestry."
Is that really the only way Matthew could have made an error with his
"in all" of 1:17?
An analogy would disprove this kind of requirement before saying it
is contradictory: Many Christian who believe Jesus died for
everybody use 1st John 2:2, with it's "whole world" to prove it.
How many Christians would then stop using 1st John 2:2's "whole
world" to prove unlimited atonement for everybody, until it be proved
that "whole world" was immediately followed by several chapters in
which John said "Now by 'whole world' i mean every physical
descendant of adam and eve without exception, past, present and
future, no matter how sinful, for whether you are Adam himself, part
of the pre-Adamic race, or the last person that will ever ever live
on planet earth according to God the Father's own eschatological
opinion, or anybody whosoever without exception in between, Jesus
died for you"...? Is the Calvinistic doctrine of limited atonement
(jesus only died for the elect) the true meaning of 1st John merely
because it fails to include several chapters insuring the absolutely
limitless expanse of "whole world"?
If the Christian can believe that "whole world" in 1st John 2:2 is
plenty of qualification necessary to expand Jesus death to all people
at all times.....(here it comes!....)
Then we skeptics shall follow their example, and the "in ALL"
qualification Matthew put upon his totalling of the people in
Christ's ancestry between Abe and Dave, is plenty of qualification to
prove that Matthew would forbid any reader from supposing several
names were left out.
I will not entertain such "keep-the-faith-no-matter-how-ridiculously-
I-defend-the-bible"
answers, since Christians would never ever allow skeptics to account
for contradictions in skeptical literature with such how-it-could-
have-been scenarios.
Either there are 14 generations IN ALL between abe and dave, or there
aren't.
It might also interest you to know (discover?) that bible believers
today who defend inerrancy and inspiration would never say that any
historian of today is inspired by God, at least to the degree Matthew
was. Yet the concern to get all the facts of the case in existence
in today's historical criterion's is in total opposition to Matthew
who skipped generations for no good reason and then locked himself
into an indefensible contradiction with "in ALL" when such
qualification on words was never called for in the first place and
tends more to distort reality than it does promote it.
Is it not obvious then, that calling an inaccurate geneaology
"inspired", while at the same time denying such inspiration of those
liberal critics who discovered Matthew misrepresenting his sources,
is itself an inconsistency of the Christian? If God is so concerned
about actual truth, would he not inspire those who discovered more
names in Matthew's sources (in spite of Matthew's "in all"), MORE
than he would inspire Matthew (whose qualification "in all" has
misinformed many trusting Christians who never even bothered to check
him out)?
It is perfectly clear what grammatical function is intended by
including the words "in all" to qualify a list total. Thus the
contradiction between Matthew's sporadic use of the OT geneaologies
and his "in all" statement in 1:17' is irreconcilable.
Christian
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