Contradictions

[Mormon2Christian]

There are many areas of scripture and doctrine in every religion/worldview/positionality that seem to be in contadiction with other areas of that belief system. Since Mormonism and Christianity are so close yet so far from the original teachings of Christ there is bound to be some error or at least on the surface layer it may appear as though there is some contradiction to the doctrine etc.

For example my 2 favorite things to compare and contrast are in the Bible. I have a very unique view of the Bible and other sacred or religious texts. The Bible can be translated numerous ways (and it should be) however, a deep reading in other languages and what other teachers have said will open up a world of higher awareness and better understanding of God.

The 1st apparent contradiction is this. In the Bible it says "we walk by faith and not by sight" sight is one of our senses right? But in another part it says "faith comes by hearing" hearing is one of our senses. So how do we get faith if we aren't to walk according to our senses but rather by faith (which only comes through hearing or sensing)? Perhaps I'm making these verses too complicated and just want to see a contradiction... I dunno.

The 2nd apparent contradiction is this. In the Bible it says "God is love", but it also says "God is jealous" in fact His name is "Jealous". In the love chapter it says "love is not jealous". So which is it? I'm confused.

[volgadon]

The 1st apparent contradiction is this. In the Bible it says "we walk by faith and not by sight" sight is one of our senses right? But in another part it says "faith comes by hearing" hearing is one of our senses. So how do we get faith if we aren't to walk according to our senses but rather by faith (which only comes through hearing or sensing)? Perhaps I'm making these verses too complicated and just want to see a contradiction... I dunno.

Hearing meant recieving, accepting something.

[LDS Guy 1986]

There are many areas of scripture and doctrine in every religion/worldview/positionality that seem to be in contadiction with other areas of that belief system. Since Mormonism and Christianity are so close yet so far from the original teachings of Christ there is bound to be some error or at least on the surface layer it may appear as though there is some contradiction to the doctrine etc.

I disagree that Mormonism or Christianity are "so far from the original teachings of Christ", I do know that all things done by men are imperfect and has flaws and short falls, but it is our best and most sincere attempt to follow the Lord as we understand. Is every Mormon or Christian as humble, chaste, virtuous, or benevolent as our Lord Jesus Christ? No, I would even guarantee, that you will never find a single man, woman, or child that can live up to the standard you are judging these faiths by, so it seems so unreasonable to find a single person living "the original teachings of Jesus Christ" as you call them, it is impossibly and arrogant to expect a group of people to do the same. All faiths are made up of mortal being, and when your dealing with mortal being you have to have much patience and much forgiveness. Remember that to be forgiven we must forgive each other (See Luke 11:4, D&C 64:10, 3 Nephi 13:14), there are only two things I can guarantee you about any person, that they were born and that they will make mistakes!

For example my 2 favorite things to compare and contrast are in the Bible. I have a very unique view of the Bible and other sacred or religious texts. The Bible can be translated numerous ways (and it should be) however, a deep reading in other languages and what other teachers have said will open up a world of higher awareness and better understanding of God.

Looking at your examples it appears that you are not doing any deep reading at all, both examples require you to take the verses completely out of context and make poor assumptions about the scriptures and how they were created and how they ultimately were complied. So I disagree that you have done any deep reading here if your contradictions are nothing more than a lack of taking the scriptures in context.

The 1st apparent contradiction is this. In the Bible it says "we walk by faith and not by sight" sight is one of our senses right? But in another part it says "faith comes by hearing" hearing is one of our senses. So how do we get faith if we aren't to walk according to our senses but rather by faith (which only comes through hearing or sensing)? Perhaps I'm making these verses too complicated and just want to see a contradiction... I dunno.

There is no contradiction here in 2 Corinthians 5:7, Paul is telling the Church in Corinth that as Christians we walk by faith and not by sight, he tells the Corinthians this after explaining to them that even if we lose our material possessions (including eventually our lives) on the earth we know that we have an eternal estate in heaven made not by moral hands. So after explaining this he admonishes the Saints in Corinth to remember that we walk by our faith in the Lord (that we have an eternal inheritance in heaven) and not to rely upon or sight (the flesh) because we cannot our eternal inheritance while on the Earth.

Now in Romans 10:17 Paul tells the Romans "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing, by the word of God." Once you take the entire verse instead of your "faith come by hearing" micro quote, the verse become a lot clearer. Paul is saying plain and simple that to have faith we must first hear the word of God. There is no controversy here, how can you come to trust something or someone if you never heard about it or them in the first place. All Christians started there journey to have faith in the Lord by hearing the Gospel, if none of us ever heard the Gospel we wouldn't know who Jesus Christ is, so we could of never studied his teachings, pondered there message, and prayed to Heavenly Father about them. If never happens we never have faith that Jesus is the Christ, hearing the Gospel message is the first step to having faith, the hearing it doesn't give you faith in and of itself but it does allow you to study, ponder, and pray so the Holy Ghost and confirm the truth of the message to you.

Also even if you were right and hearing in and of itself gives you faith, you are saying that hearing something is the same as seeing something, which makes no sense logically. You even admit that you are reaching here and making the scriptures contradict when they are not because you oversimplify things into sight is a sense and hearing is a sense.

The 2nd apparent contradiction is this. In the Bible it says "God is love", but it also says "God is jealous" in fact His name is "Jealous". In the love chapter it says "love is not jealous". So which is it? I'm confused.

To a mainstream Christian this one is a little more tricky, but to a Mormon this one is not a problem at all, nor is a contradiction, in the sense you are trying to make it out to be. First off I wish I had the Bible memorized from front to back but unfortunately I don't up until this point I have been able to look up many of your non-cited verses and provide the references you do not, but I have hit a snag with the "love is not jealous" in the "love chapter". The "God is love" chapter is 1 John 4, it is a beautiful testimony from the Apostle John about how we can know the truth of prophets by testing them to see if they are loving, "He that loveth not ^aknoweth not God; for God is love." So the Apostle John here is warning us that one way we can tell if a prophet is false is to see if they love because if they do not have love in there heart, they do not know God, because God is love". He goes on to testify that God manifested this love by sending his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ to atone for the world that all of us might live through Christ.

It is a beautiful chapter in 1 John but there is no mention of love is not jealous, now moving on to your other verse "For thou shalt worship no other god: for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:" (Exodus 34:14). In the LDS Church we know that the Bible is not inerrant that through translation errors and other errors over the years that certian verses are not the exact same as when the prophets wrote them down originally. The Holy Ghost impressed upon the Prophet Joseph Smith after completing the Book of Mormon to use the Urim and Thummim to also give and inspired translation of the KJV Bible, we call this the Joseph Smith Translation or JST. In the JST, we know that there was a mistake somewhere along the line of the Bibles many translations and the name of the Lord was incorrectly recorded here as Jealous instead of Jehovah, through the JST this error has been corrected for the Latter-day Saints but other Christian denominations do not accept the JST so they believe that one of the many name of the Lord is Jealous.

Now going on to what is God a jealous God and does that mean that the scriptures contradict because it says love is not jealous?

"As used in the scriptures, the word jealous has two meanings: (1) to be fervent and to have sensitive and deep feelings about someone or something, and (2) to be envious of someone or suspicious that another will gain some advantage." Source: http://lds.org/scriptures/gs/jealous-jealousy.p2?lang=eng&letter=j

No, the scriptures do not conflict, when the word jealous has more than 1 meaning, in the sense of Exodus 34:14 and the original Hebrew (which you should know because of your professed deep study) the word jealous means to be fervent and to have sensitive and deep feelings. Of course our Father in Heaven is very sensitive and has deep feelings about his chosen children the Hebrews worshiping other gods, it hurts him and to see his children do such things. This is not unusual or unexpected, Heavenly Father can become upset when he is offended just like we can, and after all he has done for Israel it would be very upsetting to see them worship other gods who never helped them and reject there Heavenly Father who worked so many miracles for them.

Now in the context of the other non cited scripture the word jealous means to be envious of someone or suspicious that another will gain some advantage. You cannot love someone or something if you have the lust of envy in your heart towards them. Also God has no envy, so your attempt to act like this is a contradiction after deep study baffles me deeply. If you have studied deeply and referenced the Hebrew and Greek then you could never come to the conclusions you have with even light study, let alone deep study.

God doesn't envy after the other gods the Hebrews worshiped, he is all powerful and those idols are nothing more than graven images, they have no power. It is silly to imply that god envies or is suspicious that a idol could somehow gain an advantage over him the one Almighty God.

Your contradictions are not contradictions if you understand that the scriptures are the process of numerous translations and that there are not a complete nor perfect record at all times. What seems to be the only contradiction in the OP is your claim "a deep reading in other languages and what other teachers have said will open up a world of higher awareness and better understanding of God." If you have done any deep reading of the Holy Bible in other languages especially the Hebrew and Greek you would know how silly it is to say that either of these things are a contradiction.

[Rob Bowman]

Mormon2Christian,

Hi there. Let's take your two difficulties one at a time.

1. The statement "we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. 5:7) in context is making the point that believers in Jesus Christ are to live based on trust in God's promises in Christ that we will be fully redeemed and receive eternal life, even though we cannot see that perfection and eternal life right now (in fact, what we see is that our bodies are decaying and we are far from perfect). Read 2 Corinthians 4:16 through at least 5:10 to see how the verse makes this point in context. The statement "faith comes by hearing" (Rom. 10:17) in context means that we come to trust in Christ through hearing the gospel message (read Romans 10:9-17 to see this context). The two statements don't contradict at all.

2. When the Bible says that God is "jealous" (Exod. 20:5; 34:14; Deut. 4:24; 5:9; 6:15; Josh. 24:19; Ezek. 39:25; Joel 2:18; Nahum 1:2; Zech. 1:14; 8:2), it means that God will not tolerate his people breaking their covenant with him by going after other gods. This is the proper jealousy of a husband not wanting to see his wife being unfaithful by committing adultery with another man. It is because he loves her that he is properly "jealous" in the sense of expecting and wanting her to be faithful to him. On the other hand, 1 Corinthians 13:4, where some translations say that love "is not jealous," more likely means that love is not envious of the good things that other people enjoy; it does not begrudge other people's happiness. This is why most English versions (KJV, NIV, ESV, NET, etc.) say that love "is not envious." Again, there is no contradiction at all.

In all such questions, it is important to read statements in context and to get at the meaning of each statement before trying to compare them. Understanding how to go about doing this is what is called hermeneutics. Here are two nice introductory articles on biblical hermeneutics by well-known biblical scholars:

How Do We Interpret the Bible Today?

Must I Learn How to Interpret the Bible?

[Mormon2Christian]

Thank you Rob Bowman and volgadon your kind Christlike responses. Although I also appreciate the minor effort from LDS Guy 1986 as well it was not very accurate, kind, or helpful. I agree with some but most is not quite on point. We obviously can disagree on theology and hermeneutics as well as other points but to call me out on how deeply I've studied is antagonistic and disrespectful. I may not be a scholar or someone who teaches to religionists but I have spent many hours getting to know God through the whisperings of His Spirit. One last thing I'd like to correct. The love chapter is in 1 Corinthians 13 that says love is not jealous. Thanks again Rob for your well thought out considerate and Biblically accurate responses. God bless.

[TAO]

The 1st apparent contradiction is this. In the Bible it says "we walk by faith and not by sight" sight is one of our senses right? But in another part it says "faith comes by hearing" hearing is one of our senses. So how do we get faith if we aren't to walk according to our senses but rather by faith (which only comes through hearing or sensing)? Perhaps I'm making these verses too complicated and just want to see a contradiction... I dunno.

Mmm... the scriptures do not say, don't walk by senses, they say, don't walk by sight. Instead, walk by faith, which comes through hearing [the Holy Ghost]. I think that's why it looks like a contradiction. But yah =). Also volgadon's response is rather good indeed too.

Best Wishes,

TAO

[Mormon2Christian]

Good point. That was a simple explanation TAO.