Inerrant Lie #63

Another lie from "God's ineffable, inerrant word:"

Over and over again, one runs into lies in the 'Holy Bible' concerning the meaning of the word all. Moses lied about killing all the males of Midian. David lied through his scribe about killing all the males of Edom. Numerous times the LORD says through his prophets he will utterly destroy all that remains of the house of Jacob; yet so as leaving them a remnant. And so on. In the account of David's conquest of Zobah, another such all- by- half- measure is recorded.

The scribe who wrote 1 Chronicles says, "And David took from [Hadarezer of Zobah] a thousand chariots, and seven thousand horsemen, and twenty thousand footmen: David also houghed all the chariot horses, but reserved of them an hundred chariots [1 Chronicles 18:4]." This latter statement is properly characterized as a gaslight, and it's a remarkably simple, though elegant, example of one.

Notice how the scribe could have written simply that David destroyed all but a hundred of Hadarezer's chariot horses. This would have been a more straightforward statement, inasmuch as it is stated in a single, simple sentence.

The manner in which the scribe chose rather to express the record leaves the first half of a compound sentence to stand alone without the qualifying latter half-- at the discretion of all who encounter or cite the passage. This is the sort of device which allows colloquialisms to develop in the historical record, ultimately allowing fable to replace fact in the retelling of a matter. This amounts to a truncated form of the gaslight propagated by the record of Genesis 12 that Abraham's disobedience was in fact obedience.