Originally posted by rwingett
If the mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds, as the bible claims, then why should anything else the bible says be taken seriously? How can the bible be taken as being literally true, or as being the word of god, when it contains a obvious falsehood?
Taken from http://home.teleport.com/~salad/4god/mustard.htm
Some people note that there are smaller seeds in existence,
and then claim that Jesus didn't know about those seeds.
Jesus NEVER said that.
The parable Jesus gave out has several conditions that are
specifically stated in the parable. To ignore all the other
statements Jesus made in that parable and all the discussion
prior to it, is to basically put words into Jesus's mouth
that he never said.
The context of Jesus's parable is that of a harvest, the
verses prior to that verse set, they were specifically
discussing a harvest... parallel's being made concerning
a harvest, seeds being sown and the crop being harvested.
The mustard seed Jesus mentioned is the smallest they had
that would get sown and then harvested, that all the people
would have known about then. The mustard seed Jesus described
is expected to be the black mustard, which does grow to about
12 feet tall in Israel.
Given the people Jesus was talking with, their knowledge
of the day, and the crops they would harvest, Jesus had
told them the truth. For them, the mustard seed is the
smallest seed that they would've sown and later harvested.
There is no contradiction in what Jesus had told them.
The parable that Jesus was giving out is an analogy, it's
not meant to provide any sort of science education, but
to convey a concept using common terms that they would
have understood, common concepts being used to explain
something they didn't understand.
Taken from http://home.teleport.com/~salad/4god/mustard.htm
My thoughts are let's take this to the next step. Your claim is that since what the bible says about the mustard seed is false, then everything in the bible is false.
If we follow the same logic and note that your claim is false, then everything you say is false and no one should ever believe anything you say!
May I recommend a refresher course on simple logical thinking.