ContradictionsReading order 373Bible context 1 min read
How many did God kill for committing whoredom with the daughters of Moab?
The figures differ by one thousand, but Paul's one day count and Numbers' plague total are not explicitly the same measurement.
- Textual conflict
- Weak tension
- The alleged conflict needs substantial assumptions, such as treating an omission as a denial or figurative language as literal.
- Importance
- Supporting
- A supporting event, teaching, or biographical claim.
Twenty-three thousand in one day need not equal the total plague deaths, and the short quotations do not independently establish the same bounded event.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Paul says twenty three thousand died in one day
Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand.
1 Corinthians 10:8
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:1 Corinthians 10
Numbers gives twenty four thousand deaths in the plague
And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.
Numbers 25:9
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Numbers 25