Errors in Tanach

Tanach is full of what seem to be errors. Not something you would expect from a divine document. I urge you to approach these errors with the perspective of someone trying to answer the question, is this a divine text? If you come to the text with the assumption it is divine, you can obviously never conclude that it is not.

Parallel Narratives Combined Into One

One of the modern secular theories of the Tanach is that it was either composed of multiple source texts or was supplemented with addendums over time to create the patchwork text we have currently. I am going to quote some passages that make sense if they were: 

• originally multiple source texts that were spliced together
• edited over time
• written by an author who was happy to take artistic license 

but are both confusing/convoluted or completely contradictory if thought of as a single source text presenting the literal truth. 

Yosef sold to slavery

Bereshit 37

25 And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a caravan of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and ladanum, going to carry it down to Egypt.

26 And Judah said unto his brethren: 'What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? 

27 Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh.' And his brethren hearkened unto him. 

28 And there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. And they brought Joseph into Egypt. 

36 And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard. 

Bereshit 39 

1 And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hand of the Ishmaelites, that had brought him down thither. 

Summary:

Yishmaelim show up at the pit, Yehuda says lets sell Yosef to the Yishmaelim. Midyanim show up and sell Yosef the the Yishmailim. The Yishmaelim bring Yosef to Egypt. The Midyanim sell Yosef to Potiphar. The Yishmaelim brought Yosef to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar.

Issue:

The minor issue: The brothers say they are going to sell Yosef, but the Midyanim beat the brothers to it. There is no mention of this.

The major issue: The Midyanim sell Yosef to the Yishmaelim who then bring him to Egypt. The story then recounts that both the Midyanim sold him to Potiphar and the Yishmaelim sold him to Potiphar.

I suggest you go read the text yourself. Beyond the direct contradiction, it is pretty convoluted in its narrative presentation. 

Suggestions I have seen from the meforshim on how to reconcile this contradiction:

• The Midyanim and Yishmaelim refer to the same people. If so, why does the text keep switching, and why do these travelers sell Yosef from themselves to themselves?
• The Yishmaelim returned Yosef back to the Midyanim, and they jointly brought Yosef to Egypt and jointly sold Yosef to Potiphar. This is clearly not what the text is saying. Also, why does it say Midyanim sold him to Potiphar when it was both, and why does it say Yishmaelim sold him to Potiphar when it was both?

Noach and the flood

Bereshit 6 

19 And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

20 Of the fowl after their kind, and of the cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the ground after its kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive. 

22 Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he. 

Bereshit 7

2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee seven and seven, each with his mate; and of the beasts that are not clean two [and two], each with his mate; 

3 of the fowl also of the air, seven and seven, male and female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth. 

4 For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I blot out from off the face of the earth.' 

5 And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him. 

7 And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. 

8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the ground, 

9 there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, male and female, as God commanded Noah. 

12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 

15 And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life. 

17 And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bore up the ark, and it was lifted up above the earth. 

24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days. 

Bereshit 8 

2 the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained. 

3 And the waters returned from off the earth continually; and after the end of a hundred and fifty days the waters decreased. 

6 And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. 

7 And he sent forth a raven, and it went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth. 

8 And he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground. 

9 But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him to the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth; and he put forth his hand, and took her, and brought her in unto him into the ark. 

10 And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. 

12 And he stayed yet other seven days; and sent forth the dove; and she returned not again unto him any more. 

For now I am going to start with the most explicit issue in the text, but later I'll come back to the other issues.

How many animals should Noah bring onto the ark?

Summary:

God commands Noah to bring one male and one female of every living animal onto the ark (cattle, birds and bugs are mentioned explicitly). Noah does what god commands. God then commands:

• Seven male/female pairs for clean beasts
• Two pairs for unclean beasts
• Seven pairs for birds

Noah did that as well. Then Noah enters the ark with two pairs of clean, unclean, birds and bugs (as god commanded). Then it rains for forty days.  Then Noah enters the ark with two pairs of all living creatures (as god commanded).

Issue:

Ignoring the obvious repetition of the text, God supposedly gave three separate commandments to bring animals onto the ark:

• One pair of every living creature
• Seven pairs for clean beasts, two for unclean beasts, seven for birds
• Two pairs of all living creatures

And the two times the narrative retells Noah entering the ark, he enters with two pairs.

The creation story

I'm going to come back to this one, but there are two creation stories: One in the first perek; One in the second perek (starting at pasuk 4).

The first story says god makes all the animals, then says lets make man to rule over the animals. He then creates man and woman.

The second story god makes man, and then creates the animals to give him a partner (which doesn't work out so he has to make woman).

These are obviously two contradictory narratives.

What does this mean?

I want to stress that Tanach containing factually inconsistent narratives is not in conflict with some approaches to Judaism. Many peer narratives were filled with irreconcilable facts, and that was never a problem to those cultures. As per Rabbi Bermans approach, these ancient writers were not writing to tell you what happened, but rather how you should live and what you should believe. That is to say that whether or not Tanach presents fact was less important to the writers of Tanach than effectively communicating the writers religious principles.

To me this seems problematic to the Modern Orthodox approach to what the Tanach is. But..., it does open the door to a non literalist approach to Tanach as seen in more liberal sects of Judaism. And likely ancient Jews did not even have the conceptual distinction between literary fact and fiction; our modern literalist approach is just that: modern. 

At the very least Orthodox Jews need to review what they believe about Tanach.

Sources

Yosef: Bereshit 37 39

Noah: Bereshit 6 7 8

Todo

Wrong age of King Jehoiachin

Broken timeline

Noah: Days of rain

Noah: Why did do things twice?

Noah Bird?

Validate the month timeline given in the Noah narrative

Creation: was Adam created first, or the animals?