Biblical Contradiction?
 

1 Samuel 16:10-11 vs. 1 Chronicles 2:13-15.

There appears to be a discrepancy concerning whether David was the seventh or eighth born son. Any thoughts?

Re: Biblical Contradiction?
 

Did any of David's brothers do anything sinful that might have excluded them from the second geneology presented?

It certainly looks like a contradiction.

It could be that each section of Scripture was compiled from different source texts. I've seen that several times. For example the Old Testament may be quoted in the New Testament and the NT quotation be from the Septuagint while the OT verse in question is translated from the Masoretic Text in our Bibles so the two don't read exactly alike. Perhaps in one source text David is recorded as being the eight son while in the second there is a reason unspecified as to why he is listed as the seventh.

But that is a very interesting question.

Re: Biblical Contradiction?
 

Jessie made 7 sons

Jesse made seven of his sons
and
David was the seveth son
David the seventh

no contridiction that I see

Re: Biblical Contradiction?
 

The seven of his sons were rejected. David was brought to Samuel after those seven.

Re: Biblical Contradiction?
 

This is where many get all tangled up. They think that the Bible absolutely has to be "perfect" and without contradictions or translational errors. LOL Only the original texts were inerrant, and we don't have those today. We have translations that are a Frankenstien patchwork based off multiple source texts for various passages. Sometimes one source text doesn't agree with the other. However, translators will tell you that the translations themselves are of the best quality available, so each text was taken for their respective passages.

Re: Biblical Contradiction?
 

Eh, what's a few jots and tittles here and there? :lol

Re: Biblical Contradiction?
 

There are so many reasons why this may not be a contradiction, such as a death of one of the sons could have occurred between the two accounts, for example. It is not a good example of contradictions in the Bible, I think.

Re: Biblical Contradiction?
 

Was 1 Sam written before 1 Chron? And was 1 Chron written when those seven sons were still alive? Not sure there is any precedent for excluding dead people from genealogies. Most of them were written long after all of the people named were dead.

Re: Biblical Contradiction?
 

Matthew 1 shows absence of certain people in lineages due to lack of certain significance. It may be that no significant thing occurred with one boy for a chronicler to mention him, or he never had any sons, himself, to bother mentioning him in the genealogy, or it may be that since we do not read Jesse only ever had seven sons in the instance with Samuel, only seven of the eight were there.

I like what one man said:

There is a choice as to the ground upon which one stands in reviewing the matter of Bible difficulties. One may choose to presuppose that the Bible is without error, which acknowledging that it contains some very hard-to-explain texts. Or one can presuppose that the Bible is full of error, although it may also still contain many truths. One's presuppositions often prove determinative.

Re: Biblical Contradiction?
 

There is a third option: just look and see what's there. Why presuppose it's without error? Why presuppose it's "full of error"?