Thursday, December 20, 2007

How did Judas die?

Todd, I know you are fully committed to Biblical inerrancy. As a person who was raised in a tradition that does not accept Biblical inerrancy, I am a bit stupid about it. I wanted to kick this topic off with the easiest and most simple issue. How do you deal with the miriad of obvious conflicts in the narratives of the Bible? There are a whole slew of them, which I am sure you are very familiar with, but for an example, I picked this one at random (well, not quite random, I wanted one without any important theological implications):

"And he cast down the pieces of silver into the temple and departed, and
went out and hanged himself." (Matt. 27:5)

"And falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all of his
bowels gushed out." (Acts 1:18)
So, how did Judas die? In one account he hanged himself, and in another he fell headlong and his bowels gushed out. How do you explain/approach these kinds of disagreements between different accounts in the Bible?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The simplest and most easiest thing to say is I believe that both happened.

I can easily imagine the gruesome event.

Jacob J said...

Todd,

Since I am most interested in how you approach these kinds of problems I will gather from your comment that you try to harmonize at all cost. Fair enough, I would have to expect that if you believe in inerrancy. Is it fair to say that you have never found two accounts in the Bible that you could not harmonize in a similar fashion (i.e. believing both are true without conflict to one another)?

Anonymous said...

Fair question.

Yes.

Though I might not always understand the answer to an alleged discrepancy, I do trust in full inspiration. It is a presuppositional faith.

Jacob, you are looking at a genuine believer in all of that Bible on our shelves in our homes.

Have a good weekend.

Anonymous said...

Hey boys, found your blogs and they are very interesting, thank you.

I'm a NY journalist, active LDS convert from orthodox judaism.

Where does todd's background with the Church fit in?
What exactly are his beliefs? Jacob J, love your logic, it's very fun to read your "conversations" with others!

Keep up the good work~

Kittywaymo

kittywaymo said...

here's my blogs:)

kitty

Jacob J said...

Kittywaymo,

Thanks for the compliment. For Todd's beliefs, I would refer you to his blog, linked to in the very first post on this blog. Or you can google "heart issues lds" and his blog is the first link.