Post by snafui on Sept 8, 2006 12:00:09 GMT -5
Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was [i]dead
And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabeshgilead, which had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had hanged them, when the Philistines had slain Saul in Gilboa - 2 Samuel 21:12
And [Saul] said unto me, Who art thou? And I answered him, I am an Amalekite. And said unto me again, Stand, I pray thee, upon me, and slay me: for anguish is come upon me, because my life is yet whole in me. So I stood upon him, and slew him.... - 2 Samuel 1:8 - 10
To the above contradiction of whether Saul died by his own hand, by the Philistines or by an Amalekite. An apologist wrote the follwoing in "So the Bible Is Full of Contradictions" by Carl G. Johnson (I could not find this pamphlet on the internet, but I did find lots of criticism), so, this is quoted in "The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy" by C. Dennis McKinsey:
The probable solution to this problem is that Saul was mortally wounded by the Philistines; he fell upon his sword in order to kill himself but failed to do so. His armorbearer thought he was dead and killed himself. Then the Amalekite came along and Saul asked him to kill him... So it was a case of being wounded by the enemy, an attempted suicide, and then being killed by a young Amalekite.
Is it just me or is this the most convoluted and worst logic possible? Not to mention an outright lie of what the text actually says?