From Moses Maimonides, "Guide of the Perplexed," in response to someone who claimed he found a contradiction in Genesis:

"Hear now the intent of our reply. We said: O you who engage in theoretical speculation using the first notions that may occur to you and come to your mind and who consider withal that you may understand a book that is the guide of the first and last men while glancing through it as you would glance through a historical work or a piece of poetry--when, in some of your hours of leisure, you leave off drinking and copulation: collect yourself and reflect, for things are not as you thought following the first notion that occurred to you, but rather as is made clear through reflection upon the following speech."

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