The Bible Part 2

This is the promised follow-up to my post on the Bible. I intend to discuss some of my assertions in a bit more detail and provide you with what evidence I have to support them, as clearly and concisely as possible. Many of you may not be interested in this, and that's fine. But if you love digging in the Bible, or if you found my last post to be in any way interesting or thought-provoking, you may wish to read this. By the way, I'm not an expert in any of these areas, so I'm likely to be misinformed or wrong or whatever. If any of you can correct me on anything, please do.

But first
Before I really get started, I must explain what I'll call the Culture Clause. This thing is the duct tape of Bible defense. The gist of it is that everything was radically different for the original readers of the Bible. Ethics were different. Language was different. Above all, the expectations about what is academically credible were different. Plus, the original readers of many Biblical books were a very specific group of people - a single man, a church, or a small group of churches. Often the writer had visited and preached to them before. Sometimes he had written them other letters that we don't have. Each letter was written to address a certain issue or issues, the natures of which have been guessed at by scholars, but the nuances of which are lost to us. Because none of us know much about these original recipients - their culture, their personal backgrounds, their expectations - we cannot say which parts of the Bible (if any) really are bunk, and which parts only appear to be bunk because of our ignorance. It is unfair to critique the Bible according to modern standards, but we (or at least I) don't know anything about the standards of it's own day, much less the reasons for writing each book or the background of their original recipients. So we (I) go ahead and critique the Bible by our standards, and then qualify any and all conclusions with the Culture Clause. It applies to everything from ethical problems to bad scholarship to contradictions. Any problem in the Bible that cannot be explained can be excused, and the number one method of doing so is the Culture Clause.

A simple example would be the chronology of John, which is out of synch with the rest of the Gospels. John places Jesus' clearing of the temple near the beginning of his ministry, which totally contradicts the other three accounts. This is problematic to the modern reader because it looks as if the disciples couldn't keep their story straight. Yes, some modern authors do play with chronology using foreshadowing and flashbacks and whatever, but not without making it clear that they are doing so, particularly in non-fiction. If I claimed to give a factual account of someone's life and then changed the order of events I would be called a liar, and the credibility of my testimony would be ruined. However, those who are comparatively knowledgeable about such things tell me that it would be perfectly acceptable in John's day to change the order of events in a "factual" account. Since we must judge John by the standards of his culture, not ours, he's off the hook. This is the Culture Clause in action. The problem is that we - or at least, I - really don't know what all the rules for credibility were in Bible times. So we're stuck just giving them the benefit of the doubt on a lot of things, assuming that the issue is cultural.

And another thing
I want to be clear about my goal in all of this. There's a popular argument that the Bible must be guarded by God because of it's high degree of accuracy. Even after thousands of years of copying, this collection of books is still quite true to the originals, or more accurately, to the earliest available copies. In addition, there are few, if any, verifiable contradictions within the Bible, and (according to Christian sources) the Bible is extremely historically accurate. Add in the dozens of Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus, and the only plausible explanation is that God himself oversaw the writing and preserving of the Bible. It is this argument that I want to challenge. Ok, here we go.

Matthew
Prophecy quoted in the book of Matthew is almost always misquoted - that is, the wording in the NT quotation almost always varies at least slightly from the OT original, as translated by the NIV. I recently examined at all the OT quotations I could find in Matthew for both quotational and contextual accuracy, but I have not looked at most other NT books in any detail, so I cannot comment on them. A standard example of the minor quotational inaccuracy (different wording, but recognizable) which can be found in nearly all the quotes in Matthew is Mt 2:6, which quotes Micah 5:2a (discrepancies in italics):

" 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.' " (Mt)

"But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel..." (Mc)

An example of one of the better (more accurate) quotes would be Mt 2:18, which quotes Jeremiah 31:15 (discrepancies in italics):

"A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more." (Mt)

"A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because her children are no more." (Jr)

This quotational inaccuracy is perhaps not so much of an issue as it appears to be, because the OT was originally written in Hebrew, whereas the NT was written in Greek. So either the NT writers were personally translating from Hebrew texts, or (more likely) they were quoting form the Septuagint (LXX). It might be interesting for someone who knows Greek to compare NT quotes in their original Greek to LXX texts and see if they look any more accurate. (Note: I checked Mt 2:6/Mc 5:2, in Greek and it looked equally bad. I can't read Greek, but I could tell that about the same number of words were different.) Actually, my guess would be that the (primarily) uneducated men who wrote the NT weren't all that familiar with the OT in any language. It might be more remarkable that they're as accurate as they are. I remembered that Paul grew up as a Pharisee, so if anyone was likely to quote the OT accurately it would be him. I checked the first 8 chapters of Romans, and at least in these chapters he's quite good. Not letter perfect, but good. If he is equally accurate in the rest of his writings, perhaps he could serve as the standard of good first century scholarship, against which his sloppier co-writers could be measured. The question is, was Paul going beyond the call of duty in being reasonably accurate with his quotations, or was this level of accuracy expected in the 1st century? I don't know. Maybe no one does. (See the Culture Clause.) Anyway, it seems to me that a book which is supposedly inspired and guarded by God so as to be kept from theological error would also be without historical and quotational error.

To restate: it makes sense to me that if I want to determine if the Bible is totally doctrinally sound, which I cannot directly confirm, I should test its accuracy in areas that I can confirm. At least, this is a common argument for apologists (see paragraph 4). It is also fitting with the logic of Luke 16:10-12. If I cannot trust the Bible to be accurate in worldly matters, how can I trust it to be accurate in heavenly ones? So in this case, we have quotations that range from "pretty good" to "highly suspect" on my own subjective scale. (Examples of poorer quotations are coming later.) In regards to the Bible's historical accuracy my personal knowledge is close to nil, but I've been let to believe that the Bible falls somewhere in the "pretty good but not perfect" range. I will make no attempt to analyze various claims regarding the compatibility of any part of the Bible with archeological or extra-Biblical evidence. Christians tell me it's very good, but many secular sources disagree. I don't know who's right, so I will ignore the whole thing. (Though I would suggest that if all you've read on this issue is Lee Strobel, you're not getting a very balanced view.) However, there is at least one concrete example of historical disagreement in the Bible: the famous (to me) Matthew 8 discrepancy, which was alluded to in my previous post.

Two men or one?
In brief, the story (recorded in Mt 8:28-34, Mk 5:1-17, and Lk 8:26-37) has Jesus cast a bunch of demons out of a man and into a herd of pigs. The problem is that Matthew records that there were two demon possessed men, whereas Mark and Luke only mention one. To me this is a clear-cut contradiction. Others have disputed this conclusion, saying that perhaps Mark and Luke's sources didn't see the second man or didn't consider him to be worthy of mention, or something along those lines. I've studied this in reasonable detail, and I could write pages on it, but maybe it would be better if you just contact me if this interests you at all. Now, if we take the Bible as a whole, and recognize that nearly all events it records are impossible to verify with any degree of certainty because of it's antiquity, then wouldn't the easiest type of historical error to spot be a simple numerical contradiction, such as this one? If this is indeed a significant, clean-cut, inexplicable contradiction, doesn't that cast doubt on the rest of the history in the Bible, which we cannot easily verify? (Again, some would dispute the that this is an inexplicable, inexcusable contradiction, but none of their explanations are convincing to me.) If we admit that the Bible contains an unknown degree (but at least some degree) of historical inaccuracy, doesn't that cast doubt on it's theological accuracy? At the very least, it must refute the common claim that the theological inerrancy of the Bible should be accepted because of it's historical accuracy. (Once again, the Culture Clause is the best excuse for this apparent error. I've heard it argued that 1st century Jews would have no problem with this glaring numerical inaccuracy. I can't comprehend how this could possibly be, but I'm not an expert, so I can't say for sure.)

"He will be called a Nazarene"
Perhaps you find the Mt 8 problem unconvincing, or you're not willing to cast doubt on the historical accuracy of the whole Bible simply on the basis of this one inconsistency. In that case, it's time to go back to prophecy. The worst quotation in Matthew (again, I haven't gone through the prophecies in most other NT books in any detail) is probably in Mt 2:23: "He will be called a Nazarene". The NIV does not even footnote a reference for this "prophecy" because no one is sure to which OT passage Matthew is referring! In fact, the study note on this verse says that the "rather obscure town" of Nazareth is "nowhere mentioned in the OT". The best they can do is note that several OT passages predict that the Messiah will be despised (e.g., Ps 22:6 and Is 53:3) and that "in Jesus' day 'Nazarene' was virtually a synonym for 'despised'". That seems pretty weak to me.

"Let all God's angels worship him"
A similarly dubious quotation can be found in Hebrews 1:6: "Let all God's angels worship him". This is a quote of a non-canonical addition to Dt 32:43. Almost no English traslation considers this phrase in it's original context to be canonical. (Not even the normally inclusive KJV. In fact, out of the 17 translations available to me, only the NLT includes this phrase, while admitting that it is found only in the Dead Sea Scrolls and LXX.) What do you do when an "inspired" NT writer disagrees with virtually every Bible traslator in the past 400 years about what is the original, prophetic word of God? I can think of three options.

First option
Assume that the writer of Hebrews considered this phrase to be the word of God was mistaken. This raises a number of interesting questions: Is it possible for a man who is inspired by God (whatever that means) to be mistaken about what God said? If he can be mistaken about which words in a text originated from God, is it possible that he could be mistaken in his own beliefs about what God is saying to him, and thus record incorrect doctrine as "God's word"? Is it possible that the author of Hebrews was not inspired by God? If a NT writer who is believed to be inspired by God could make this kind of error, couldn't the church fathers who established the cannon make a similar error and include or exclude the wrong books? (Well, I guess they did make at least one similar error. See the 5th and 4th last paragraphs of my previous post.)

Second option
Assume that the writer of Hebrews was inspired to see that this phrase was actually the word of God (i.e. should be considered canonical), and the modern Bible scholars who disagree are mistaken. This seems unlikely to me, but I'm sure someone will take this view. Again, this raises several questions: If the best available manuscripts are wrong on this point, isn't it possible - even likely - that they are wrong on many other, far more significant points? If Bible scholars are nearly unanimous on this point, and yet are wrong, doesn't this cast doubt on any other Biblical issue that they agree on?

Thrid option
Bust out the Culture Clause. Assume that the writer of Hebrews was not particularly concerned with whether his quotations of God are accurate. People in first century Israel thought differently than we do. Obviously, they did not judge Biblical texts by modern standards, or they would never have accepted them. So then, as with most apparent errors in the Bible, the question ultimately becomes whether the original readers would have cared. In this case it's impossible to know, because the LXX, from which the writer is presumably quoting does contain the phrase in question. So because the book of Hebrews would have been read by those who also read and accepted the LXX, this would not be an issue for them. For us, the inconsistency between the gospel accounts, the chronological errors in John, the chronically sloppy quotation, and the apparent disagreement about what is canonical would surely be enough to dismiss the Bible as flawed. Would it have been enough for the original readers? I don't know. Maybe you do.

If you choose the 3rd option in this case (probably the best choice if you've predetermined to have as much faith in the Bible as possible) there are still troubling questions to ask. What might it mean if Biblical authors just aren't all that concerned with accuracy? Is it possible that they took their writings less seriously than we do? Is it possible that they would be uncomfortable knowing that we analyze these texts to the most minute degree, studying them our whole lives, living by them, preaching whole sermons on the placement of a single word or the meaning of a single name? (Yes, I've heard it done.) Is it possible that the Bible might be accurate in the big things, but not the little things? Is it possible that we're wasting our time pouring through our Bibles and studying the meanings of Greek words to find out whether women should cover their heads in church or whether social drinking is ok or whether homosexuals can be Christians? I know that's scary, but is it possible? Perhaps the better question would be is there another possibility?

Problems in Jude
You can hardly talk about problematic passages without mentioning Jude. He manages to make two very questionable allusions to non-canonical texts in a letter hardly a page long. The first is to the Testament of Moses (v.9), which was likely written no more than a century before Jude's letter. The second is to the book of Enoch (v. 14-15) which was written about two centuries before. In the latter case he actually quotes from this book as if it were prophesy, and exposes his belief that the 1st century B.C.E. text was written by Enoch himself, the "seventh from Adam", who lived thousands of years earlier. I find my NIV Study Bible's assertion that "Jude's quotation of the book [doesn't] mean that he considered it inspired" to be thoroughly unconvincing in both cases. At the least, this witness to Jesus' resurrection and leader of the 1st century church makes no attempt to distinguish between historical fact and popular myth in what is considered to be an inerrant, inspired text. This is not reassuring to me. If Jude sees no need to distinguish between myth and fact, what about Matthew, Mark, Luke or John? How do we know they're not mixing some myth into their Gospel accounts or the stories of the early church in Acts? Also not reassuring is my Study Bible's assurance that "under the influence of the Spirit, the church came to the conviction that the authority of God stands behind the letter of Jude". It sound to me like they're saying, "We know this letter is inspired, because the inspired church said so." I do not belief that the Holy Spirit necessarily "influenced" the church to pick all the right books. If you do believe that the early church was guided by God to select the right books, then you're welcome to accept Jude as canonical, along with the Apocrypha. If you do not wish accept the Apocrypha, then it seems to me that you must allow for the possibility that the early church included other books they should not have.

Context
Another problem with quotations in the NT is they are often taken completely out of context. We excuse this because of our preconception that the authors were inspired, i.e. guided by God to see prophecies and fulfillments thereof that are invisible to the rest of us. From a quick scan of Matthew, I'd say there's a fairly even distribution of 1) prophecies that seem legitimately Messianic, 2) prophecies that are vague and could go either way, and 3) prophecies that in their original context are either not prophecies or seem to have nothing to do with the Messiah. An example of the third kind would be "Out of Egypt I called my son" (Mt 2:15), quoted from Hosea 11:1. At first glance this phrase does not appear to be a prophesy. Even ignoring the past tense (apparently Hebrew verbs don't have tense) there is no reason to believe that the statement "out of Egypt I called my son" is anything other than a reference to the exodus of Israel thousands of years before. This interpretation is totally confirmed by checking it's immediate context in Hosea. At this point, the good Bible student will say, "But there can be more than one fulfillment to a prophecy." To this I would respond, "True, but there is no reason to think this is a prophecy, in fact, the context suggests the exact opposite." I suspect my hypothetical friend would then say, "Well, Matthew thought it was, and he was inspired by the Holy Spirit." I would then point out that the inspiration of Matthew is precisely what I am questioning, and to appeal to his infallibility is (once again) circular reasoning. I think we allow Biblical authors to get away with murder (so to speak) because we presuppose that they are inspired by God, and therefore cannot be wrong. If we could step outside of Sunday school for a minute, we'd see that there are a lot of problems with these texts.

Based on my scan of Matthew, it seems that a significant percentage of the "prophecies" the NT applies to Jesus give no indication of being messianic prophecy in their original context. Conversely there are clear Messianic prophecies in the OT that are either not fulfilled or incompletely fulfilled by Jesus. These are conveniently excused because of the NT concept of the second coming of Christ, in which he will presumably fulfill the remaining prophecies. I'm sure this is very problematic for Jews who are waiting for the Messiah to come, or who wish to compare Jesus of Nazareth to the Messiah foretold in the OT. I'd like to compare a list of all passages considered to be Messianic prophecy by Christians to a list of those considered to be Messianic prophecy by Orthodox Jews. I suspect they would be significantly different. Anyway, I think it's misleading for Christians to say "Look, Jesus perfectly fulfilled all Messianic prophecies!" because many of the supposed prophecies he fulfilled are not considered to be Messianic by anyone who isn't already convinced that Jesus is the Christ, and many legitimate Messianic prophecies have yet to be fulfilled by Jesus. If any of you know any knowledgeable Orthodox Jews, I would very much like to meet them and learn from them.

Ok, I'm about done
This has been a tough post to write. I really tried to make it as clear and complete and concise as possible. Hopefully I've explained my position adequately. Hopefully I was able to cast a new light on a few things. Hopefully someone's actually read this far. In conclusion, while I agree with apologists who say that examining the Bible's historical accuracy and integrity is a good ways of determining it's theological and doctrinal accuracy, I do not agree with their conclusion that the results of such an examination are favorable. I also do not agree with the logic that says a reasonable level of accuracy in trivial matters suggests flawlessness in more important ones. At the most, if most history and most prophecies and quotations thereof in the Bible are accurate, it would suggest that the ethical, doctrinal and theological teachings in the Bible are mostly true. Of course, the uncertainty resulting from the culture gap casts doubt on all conclusions.

I do not know if there are any other compelling argument for the inerrancy of the Bible. If there are, I've forgotten them. If it interests you, I personally still believe the Bible to be mostly true, for reasons that are not entirely clear to me. Of course, certainty is not a requirement for faith, in fact, certainty makes faith unnecessary. On the other hand, I think the implications of the above evidence should not be underestimated. (Not completely sure what that means.) Sorry for the absurd length of this post. I'm finished now. I welcome all comments, corrections or opinions.