Coming Attractions: Wrestling with Mistakes, Contradictions, and What it Means to Read the Bible

One of my favorite movies is Meet the Robinsons (yes, it’s animated, and you can take away from that what you will). There’s a great message in the movie about not only persisting and pushing forward in the face of mistakes and misfortunes, but celebrating them for moving you closer to your dreams. Edison said: “If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.”

Here’s a clip from Meet the Robinsons:

I’m not claiming to be on par with Edison or with a Disney cartoon character. Instead, this is my roundabout way of offering a reason why the draft post I kept wrestling with last night never seemed to resolve itself into something coherent (and an excuse to see if I could embed a video into a post). Every time I thought the draft was getting close, some thought would pop up and scatter things about (imagine 52 card pick up with ideas). After several attempts, I saved the mess, shut off the computer, and fell into bed.

This morning the “aha!” moment came. That draft wasn't going to work because it had too many ideas competing for space. In breaking them into parts, several other jumbled ideas started falling into place. Another “aha!” moment came when I realized it might be helpful for you to follow the blog (especially as we enter the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons) if I lay out a preview of coming attractions. Here are the topics I’m going to make a sincere effort to focus on in the coming weeks:

First, we’ll look at what the Bible is and how we approach it:

• Inerrancies, Mistakes, and Contradictions in the Bible: Can they Co-exist?
• If the Bible Has Mistakes/Contradictions, How Do I Know what to Believe?
• What Does it Mean to Read the Bible? Who Interprets It?

Then we’ll take that and wrestle with some often controversial issues, such as what the Bible says about science and creation, sex, homosexuality, and hell. I expect some of those topics will span several posts worth of discussion.

Around Christmas time, I’m going to take a little turn to explore a couple of questions that are not in Banned Questions about the Bible:

• Was Mary really a virgin when Jesus was born?
• Where’s the stable and the animals in the birth narrative? How much of what we now accept as the account of Jesus’ birth comes from the Bible and how much have we filled in?

The post on inerrancies, mistakes, and contradictions should pop up on Friday or Saturday. Look forward to the conversation!