INQUIRY:
Was Dagon’s temple closed (1 Samuel 5:5; 7:3) or not (1 Chronicles 10:8-10) in the lifetime of Samuel? Is there a contradiction?
RESPONSE:
1 Samuel 5:5 says no one treaded on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod in the time of Samuel. There’s no reason to think this was not the case, and 1 Chronicles 10:8-10 doesn’t give us any reason to doubt the former text.
When I was a child, there was a United Church of Canada in a village near to my home. To the best of my knowledge, the building is still standing, but no one has used it for many years. I could rightly say, no one treaded on the threshold of the United Church in Hermon since I was a child. Does that mean all United Churches everywhere have closed? According to the questioner, it does.
1 Samuel 5:5 says the temple of Dagon in Ashdod was not in use. Note, “in Ashdod.” 1 Chronicles 10:8-10 doesn’t give a particular location, but it’s parallel in 1 Samuel 31 does. Verse 10 reads:
…they put his armor in the Ashtoreths, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth Shan.
Saul’s armor and his body were taken to temples in Beth Shan. It seems the “wall of Beth Shan” (1 Samuel 31:10) was part of the temple of Dagon in that city (1 Chronicles 10:8-10).
There is no contradiction.
A response to 1001 Bible Contradictions.
