Directly contradictory evidence: how to deal with it?

[Dendrobius]

It's a well known joke/anecdote on the forums that the God of the Israelites gets His booty spanked by iron chariots. However, in one of the later books, Judges 4, the Israelites lead by one Barak and Deborah pretty much wtfpwned Sisera and his nine hundred iron chariots.

So, when dealing with directly contradictory evidence from the same source, how is one supposed to deal with it?

1 - Completely discount source as totally useless because it contradicts itself, and find other sources to check for God's power against iron chariots

2 - "Average" it out. So 900 iron chariots < God < x number of chariots

3 - Check for chronology. God must have upgraded Hmself in the interim between when the Israelites left Egypt and whenever the book Judges is set, so He can beat iron chariots comprehensively now

This is something that's always bugged me back when I used to do high school and university debating, when I would back my position from a source, and coincidetally my opponent will do the same for their position from the very same source. What is one supposed to do then?

[General Zod]

Easy. You find another source. If you can't find another source to corroborate, then you can assume the source itself is less than reliable, if not completely worthless. If you're arguing for a position it's always a good idea to have more than one reliable source available.

[Rye]

Ideally, you read a more authoritative source on the event, or an authority on the source.

You examine the source critically, acknowledge the contradiction and take the contradictions in context; what biases is the author likely to have, what would be his reasons for writing and what would he be limited to?

If you examine the book critically, you can understand different authors will have different and contradictory ideas, and they don't have continuity checkers when they're writing, so you get stuff like this. The bit in question, looking it up now seems to be focused on the people and israel considering iron chariots a sign of hopelessness since it's a technology they don't have yet, anticipating the bit in judges 4, which uses it again to evoke hopelessness but now has victory.

If you want an in-universe rationalisation, you've got to concoct one, and that's what apologists do.

[Drooling Iguana]

Easy. Barak and Deborah had a better army and therefore didn't need divine intervention, so God's impotence against iron chariots was rendered moot.

[Darth RyanKCR]

Let me repost what I posted in the God and Iron Chariots thread:


I did a little research and this is what I found:

Joshua 17:14-8

14 Then the sons of Joseph spoke to Joshua, saying, “Why have you given me only one lot and one portion for an inheritance, since I am a numerous people whom the LORD has thus far blessed?” 15 And Joshua said to them, “If you are a numerous people, go up to the forest and clear a place for yourself there in the land of the Perizzites and of the Rephaim, since the hill country of Ephraim is too narrow for you.” 16 And the sons of Joseph said, “The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who live in the valley land have chariots of iron, both those who are in Beth-shean and its towns, and those who are in the valley of Jezreel.” 17 And Joshua spoke to the house of Joseph, to Ephraim and Manasseh, saying, “You are a numerous people and have great power; you shall not have one lot only, 18 but the hill country shall be yours. For though it is a forest, you shall clear it, and to its farthest borders it shall be yours; for you shall drive out the Canaanites, even though they have chariots of iron and though they are strong.”

This passage describes what happened before Judges 1:19. In essence the people themselves were afraid and did not trust in God so their fear kept them from defeating the chariots and not letting God do as He had done before. There is some speculation in the text I found that they just withdrew without a battle.

[General Zod]

>snip<.

I take it you completely ignored everything else in this thread just to post that? Including Rye's bit about inventing explanations to suit contradictory facts is what apologists will do?

[Darth RyanKCR]

>snip<.

I take it you completely ignored everything else in this thread just to post that? Including Rye's bit about inventing explanations to suit contradictory facts is what apologists will do?

I take it that no matter what a Christian says you will find some way to discredit it no matter what so you feel like the big man? This is research and an agreed understand of what happend by experts who study it.

You do know that morality without an objective standard is no morality and that people who state that there is morality without that standard are spouting bs as well by your rational in your post to me?

The Bible is full of examples where God stated He was with them and the people trusted Him they prevailed but when they doubted or relied on themselves even if God stated He was with them they would fail. It's not made up explainations.

[General Zod]

>snip<.

I take it you completely ignored everything else in this thread just to post that? Including Rye's bit about inventing explanations to suit contradictory facts is what apologists will do?

I take it that no matter what a Christian says you will find some way to discredit it no matter what so you feel like the big man? This is research and an agreed understand of what happend by experts who study it.

You do know that morality without an objective standard is no morality and that people who state that there is morality without that standard are spouting bs as well by your rational in your post to me?

The Bible is full of examples where God stated He was with them and the people trusted Him they prevailed but when they doubted or relied on themselves even if God stated He was with them they would fail. It's not made up explainations.

You're obviously not even trying to comprehend what the thread is about. It's asking what to do when two pieces of evidence from the same source contradict themselves. It has all of jack shit to do with the actual debate on Iron Chariots Vs. God.

[Rye]

This passage describes what happened before Judges 1:19.

Yep, it's a repeat of the land promise thing.

In essence the people themselves were afraid and did not trust in God so their fear kept them from defeating the chariots and not letting God do as He had done before. There is some speculation in the text I found that they just withdrew without a battle.

Hmm, you might be reading into it a bit there, it doesn't say in judges 1 or anywhere else that they didn't take the valley because of lack of faith, this joshua reference says they were afraid but reassured by God, and Judges 4 says even though they had iron chariots, being on God's side allowed them to triumph.

It's not a bad explanation, though, but as far as I can tell it's never implied directly. There's no real reason to expect the writer to be totally consistent and justify theologically the events within, remember. It could also be an apologetic to the audience at the time for why there were a load of foreigners despite the israelites supposedly taking over the whole area as per the land promise.

[skotos]

3 - Check for chronology. God must have upgraded Hmself in the interim between when the Israelites left Egypt and whenever the book Judges is set, so He can beat iron chariots comprehensively now

The fact that you have this option available shows that their is no contradiction in the first place. At one time, God got his ass kicked by iron chariots. At a different time he owned them. Clearly God either gained or lost some abilities in the time between the two events.

Now, if you're debating somebody who claims that God is unchanging, then the other posters in this thread have offered good advice about how to reconcile the sources. But if God can change, then there is no contradiction at all, and therefore no need to reconcile them.

[Junghalli]

I think in regards to vs debates it might be a good idea to compare the two incidents to other known feats by the power in question and see which one makes more sense. Think of the reason we generally don't hold up TDIC as a good example of Trek firepower.

[Dendrobius]

Thanks for all the replies. As an aside, General Zod is right, I couldn't give a flying shit about Iron Chariots v God, or anything about Him, I'm just using a "well known" example to try and get an answer on a scenario that's been puzzling me.

Basically it seems that general concensus is, "discount the source, go find something else to back you up instead", which is of course what a person with two working brain cells to link together would do immediately. However, for the sake of furthering the argument, let's say that the Bible really is the only source of info on Iron Chariots v. God.

The second suggestion is then to "examine the book critically" (from Rye), which seems to be to imply "ignore the actual events, try to read into author's intent". Is this really valid? IIRC many a debater's been thrown to the lions on this forum for doing that, ye olde "visuals < writer's intent" argument in the STvSW debate. So unless I'm missing something, this method doesn't quite work IF we only use a single source.

Drooling Iguana obviously didn't bother reading the actual passage before he commented, so his point is moot.

Junghalli's comment basically is "find another source, ignore outliers".

So basically what it comes down to is that if a source contradicts itself, one can simply discredit that source and unless other evidence turns up that validates it one way or another, one is safe from counterattacks, right? That's always been my suspicions from the start (choice 1), but I just wanted to make sure to cover my booty against something I may not have thought of before doing so.

[Darth Servo]

You shove it down the fundie's throats as yet another Biblical contradiction and watch their heads explode.

[Dooey Jo]

The second suggestion is then to "examine the book critically" (from Rye), which seems to be to imply "ignore the actual events, try to read into author's intent". Is this really valid? IIRC many a debater's been thrown to the lions on this forum for doing that, ye olde "visuals < writer's intent" argument in the STvSW debate. So unless I'm missing something, this method doesn't quite work IF we only use a single source.

It does work, for figuring out the author's opinions. It's not a good way to find out about the actual events (if there even are any; hell the author could make anything up just to make a point, like Jesus). But these kind of old documents really are shit for accurate information on actual historical events anyway, and really need to be verified through archaeological evidence. The nature of the source makes all its claims, that aren't obviously false, extremely questionable. In this kind of discussion, the texts aren't the visuals, they're the dialogue or "author's intent", archaelogical evidence are the visuals.

Of course, if you are trying to figure stuff out about God, then you're basically fucked, since there isn't anything to go by besides the not very consistent "dialogue". You'd have to invent a way to decide which, of any number of contradictory statements, would be the most correct one (ie some form of canon within the source itself), or invent a theory to explain them. Saying that it's all hyperbole is one way, although that's just an admission that you don't actually know anything about God's abilities to defeat iron chariots (and it requires a method for deciding what's hyperbole, and what's not).

[General Zod]

Another thing to think of, if the source is something that you're trying to prove real life events with, then it's best to make sure that it's something that can be tested. Obviously, it's impossible to test God so any contradictions found in a work that aren't simply possible to test can easily be dismissed as a fairy tale or otherwise completely wrong. On the other hand if they can be tested within reason, it's entirely possible to prove or disprove what's shown in the texts in question.

[Darth Wong]

If the source is contradictory, look outside the source not to other similar sources, but to something more reliable like physical evidence or scientific understanding.

In science fiction, when something is ambiguous, we look for which explanation makes more sense based on actual science and logic. Even Catholics, when studying the Bible, use a similar kind of reasoning. It's only the radical fundie idiots who insist that it's impossible for the Bible to contradict itself. Their solution is to "interpret" the meaning of passages by adding so much extra material that they're basically rewriting the text, in order to pretend that it's actually consistent.

You do know that morality without an objective standard is no morality and that people who state that there is morality without that standard are spouting bs as well by your rational in your post to me?

You do know that this has absolutely nothing to do with the subject of this post, not to mention being based on your preposterous assumption that the Bible is objective? Do you even know what "objective" means, idiot?

[Darth Wong]

The really funny thing about the fundamentalist methodology is that when you think about it, their method is sort of analogous to the scientific method except that they substitute the Bible for physical observations. When they run into Biblical passages that don't make sense, they invent explanations to rationalize them. This is similar to the basic idea of creating theories in order to explain physical observations. And the funny thing? They express these explanations, ie- theories ... as facts.

[Darth Servo]

And the funny thing? They express these explanations, ie- theories ... as facts.

While at the same time, attacking evolution for being "just a theory".

[General Zod]

And the funny thing? They express these explanations, ie- theories ... as facts.

While at the same time, attacking evolution for being "just a theory".

Because it's easier for them to dismiss it as "just a theory" than "just an explanation".