ContradictionsReading order 557Bible context 5 min read
Is it OK to use perfume?
Positive uses of perfume are compared with a ban on copying a particular sacred formula and criticism of people whose other conduct is condemned.
- Textual conflict
- Weak contradiction
- The supplied passages do not establish incompatible claims. Different events, meanings, or conditions may account for the difference.
- Importance
- Minor
- A local detail in a story, chronology, or inventory.
Restrictions on one sacred recipe and criticism of seduction do not contradict approving perfume in other circumstances.
An editorial assessment of the quoted passages. Importance describes the stakes; it does not increase certainty. Reading order weighs both.
Perfume is praised and Jesus approves costly anointing
Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart: so doth the sweetness of a man’s friend by hearty counsel.
Proverbs 27:9
Translation / edition: King James Version (KJV)
Read the full chapter:Proverbs 27
So it came to pass, when the king’s commandment and his decree was heard, and when many maidens were gathered together unto Shushan the palace, to the custody of Hegai, that Esther was brought also unto the king’s house, to the custody of Hegai, keeper of the women. And the maiden pleased him, and she obtained kindness of him; and he speedily gave her her things for purification, with such things as belonged to her, and seven maidens, which were meet to be given her, out of the king’s house: and he preferred her and her maids unto the best place of the house of the women. Esther had not shewed her people nor her kindred: for Mordecai had charged her that she should not shew it. And Mordecai walked every day before the court of the women’s house, to know how Esther did, and what should become of her. Now when every maid’s turn was come to go in to king Ahasuerus, after that she had been twelve months, according to the manner of the women, (for so were the days of their purifications accomplished, to wit,