Reflections come from these questions in Banned Questions about the Bible:
- Are there any mistakes in the Bible? [p. 128-131]
- Did God write the Bible? If so, why didn’t God simply create it miraculously? [p. 48-51]
- How can we begin to take the Bible literally when it seems to contradict itself so often? [p. 97-100]
Some Christians argue that the Bible is infallible, with no contradictions or mistakes, because God wrote it, or at least dictated it to those who put it to parchment. They tend to emphasize a strictly literal interpretation of the Bible. Many skeptics use that same strictly literal approach to highlight what they see as inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the Bible (search for “mistakes [or inconsistencies] in the Bible” for examples).
These arguments apply a modern view of truth-as-factual-accuracy to a text that was written by societies that had a different view of what constitutes truth and had a different understanding of the world around them. From a purely scientific perspective, there are things in the Bible that don’t hold up to scientific accuracy today. Some books in the Bible provide accounts that don’t line up with accounts in other books. These would be critical issues if the Bible was intended to be a science or history text or the Biblical accounts are being advanced as such.
But the Bible itself doesn't claim to be a science or history text, even though some people today treat it that way. It is an account of the relationship between God and humanity, written from the perspective of those who encountered God. I liked Jim L. Robinson’s response:
“The Bible is not a ‘fact sheet’ about God. It is a witness to human experiences of the presence and action of God. God interacts with people, those people recognize and understand (being inspired) the meaning or purpose of that presence and action, and then they record the experience…. Those kinds of experiences… continue today.” [p. 130]
While the Bible is divinely-inspired (the inspiration occurs not only in the writing but also in the reading), I don’t think that means it was dictated word-for-word by God, with every passage meant to be interpreted literally. Why not? Wouldn’t it be easier if God had just laid everything out in clear, unequivocal terms? But what kind of world would God have to create so that every text would be understood the same by everyone? Even though it opens up room for error, Kathy Escobar notes that “using a diverse mix of people from a wide variety of backgrounds over a long period of time seems to be more God’s style” [p. 50]. On top of that, “God can use the flawed to reveal the perfect.” [p. 49]
Jim Robinson summed up the challenge the Biblical writers had (and that we continue to have today):
“It is impossible to communicate the fullness of God in human language. God surpasses all attempts at human description. It often becomes necessary to use metaphor and hyperbole in communicating the understandings that God inspires.” [p. 51]
Can the Bible be a revelation if it has inaccuracies and contradictions? Do we run the risk of undermining Christianity if we believe that? Doesn’t this just make the Bible harder to follow because of the contradictions? Perhaps that depends on whether you see the Bible as a static record of God’s encounters with humanity or as a continuing conversation that spans communities and time. Here are some responses from Banned Questions… that struck me:
“Even though the biblical stories differ, what the tellers and authors had in common was the experience of God – through personal encounters and the sacred teachings, writings, and traditions of faith communities.” – Rebecca Bowman Woods [p. 97]
“What we have in the Bible is a community of interpreters of the word of God. It is exciting and challenging, in our day as in any day, to join that community and to dare our interpretations.” – Gary Peluso-Verdend [p. 48]
“It would be a mistake to stifle, repress, or resolve all of the debates and contradictions of contemporary Christianity…. God speaks with one voice but humankind listens with many ears!” – Gary Peluso-Verdend [p. 98]
Perhaps the mistake is in insisting on a single “correct” interpretation or doctrine when we have before us many perspectives of a God that surpasses any attempt we have of describing that God.
In subsequent posts, we’ll look at deciding on what to believe when you encounter contradictions in the Bible and on how to interpret the Bible in light of this. For now, what do you think? Does it bother you when you hear someone say the Bible contains factual errors and inconsistencies? How do you wrestle with contradictions? What passages in the Bible do you find particularly hard to grasp because they appear to contradict other passages or go against what we understand about the world today?
I look forward to the discussion on the comments below!
According to Lee Strobel, who used to be the legal editor and a reporter at a Chicago newspaper before he turned into a Christian apologist, witness’ contradictions lend reliability to the story. Different authors of the books of the Bible are going to relate events from their different perspectives, resulting in different stories. When people get together to concoct a story, they make sure that they tell it the same way with the same details. Minor differences lend credibility, not create doubt. What real difference does it make if Jesus used a few loaves of bread and a few fish to feed 2,000 or 5000? That’s what II think most of those contradictions boil down to.
ReplyDeleteI don’t see variations in the Gospel accounts as contradictions. As Dave says, you’d expect to see differences based on different perceptions of the writers. Ask different people to describe some landmark event they all experienced and you’ll get different variations of the same event based on what they saw and how they processed what they saw. On top of that, the Gospels were written “so that you may believe” (John 20:30-31) rather than to convey a complete account of Jesus’ ministry.
DeleteSeeming differences between Old Testament laws and Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament reflect the way Jesus turned conventional thinking about the law upside down more than contradictions. Although some will argue that this shows a contradiction in God’s message to his people. Or, it could just be part of a maturing relationship.
My problem with the tension between science and the creation story is not so much with the Bible as it is with those who insist on taking a confession of God’s majesty and turning into a literal science text. More on that in a future post.
Where does that leave us? Well, there’s the classic tension between faith alone (reflected in Paul’s letters) and James’ declaration that faith without works is dead. That, I think, is the kind of debate that continues across generations.
And then there’s the seeming contradiction in Paul’s position of the role of women in the church. As we talked about in the earlier post “What exactly is Paul saying about women?”, Paul seems to both praise women who have helped him in the early churches and to limit their role in the church. What are we to believe, particularly since there are still churches today who use some of Paul’s writings to restrict women’s leadership opportunities? If we go back in time, we can see the same kind of selective use of scripture to justify slavery (it didn’t help that the Bible seems to either condone slavery or is ambivalent about it in most places).
There are other issues (homosexuality, for instance) where people who are on both sides of the argument will reference scripture passages to support their particular case. I don’t know if that reflects contradictions in the Bible as much as it does selective interpretations of the Bible.
Timothy Keller has a pretty good sermon on this; you can find it at http://sermons2.redeemer.com/sermons/literalism-isnt-bible-historically-unreliable-and-regressive. It’s about 40 minutes long. He doesn’t agree that it’s unreliable, just that it takes some study to understand it. He gives three reasons to trust what the Bible says historically, culturally, and personally.
ReplyDeleteFirst, you can trust the bible historically. At least the New Testament is written too early to be legend and it’s in the wrong form to be a myth, legend, or epic. Also, there’s too much material that’s embarrassing to Jesus and the Apostles that the early church fathers wouldn’t make it up and use it to build the early church.
Second, you can trust the Bible culturally. We should consider that it doesn’t teach what you think it teaches. For instance, the Old Testament tells of heroes like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph who are polygamists and the oldest son inherited everything – very misogynist, right? But the story Genesis relates is that polygamy always ends in disaster and that God always favors the younger son. Next, you may misunderstand the teaching because of your own cultural blinders; for instance, slaves in the ancient world were an entirely different deal than the kind of slavery we’re familiar with – they were much more equal. Last, we may me missing the point of the Bible because of an unexamined assumption of our own cultural superiority. What’s offensive in our cultural for us may not be offensive in another culture.
Third, you have to trust the bible personally. As the basis for a warm personal relationship with God, you have to trust it. He uses Luke 24:13-32 and v.27 particularly to say that Jesus told the Disciples that the whole Bible was really about Him. Therefore, it is not just a prescription for how we should live or act. I guess that If you get the relationship with God right, the rest will follow. Jesus also constantly quoted scripture and held the Old Testament texts in high esteem. The conflicts in the Bible are inevitable and necessary. They’re inevitable because they have to counter all cultures across all ages to make people think and drive them back to Bible study. They’re necessary to infuriate you to drive you into a passionate relationship with God in the process of resolving those conflicts. Otherwise, either you become an automaton or you’ve made up a god who is just a better version of yourself. Keller urges us towards v.32 when the Disciples were on the road to Emmaus: “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
I’m not sure I agree 100% with what Keller says, but I believe that he got it about right.
Thanks, Dave, for providing that summary. It provides a different perspective from what's in the Banned Questions responses.
Delete