Getting back to some of our discussions of late, I want to talk a bit more of our expectations of the Bible. Included in that, I guess, are our expectations of inspiration or of the results of inspiration.
One common view is that every detail mentioned in the Bible must be precise or the Bible can’t be considered to be an inspired book. One verse that fuels that view is Matthew 5:18: “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” In the language of the King James, Jesus says that jots and tittles are important, that every stroke of the Law must remain unchanged. (In my experience, this is a key passage for King James Onlyists, who argue that every word must remain unchanged. None of them tell me why that doesn’t apply to the Tyndale version or the Bishops’ Bible; apparently version inspiration skipped from the Textus Receptus to the KJV)
From this stems the view that every scientific fact mentioned in the Bible must be 100% true, every historical detail must be 100% accurate, every geographical description must be 100% precise.
In my view, this is an attempt to make the Bible something that it never declares itself to be nor was intended to be. God wasn’t trying to teach ancient man modern science. Jesus can call the mustard seed the smallest of all seeds without obliging Christians to argue with the scientists who can point to numerous smaller seeds. Jesus was speaking within what those people knew and understood.
In the same way, because the thrust of the Bible was not to provide a historical record but was instead to teach religious truths, we can have varying accounts of the same incident. Take, for example, the description of the setting of one of Jesus’ miracles, as seen in three different gospels:
“And as they went out of Jericho, a great crowd followed him. And behold, there were two blind men sitting by the roadside, and when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!”” (Matthew 20:29–30)
“And they came to Jericho. And as he was leaving Jericho with his disciples and a great crowd, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, was sitting by the roadside. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”” (Mark 10:46–47)
“As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”” (Luke 18:35–38)
If we just read these three accounts as they are, we have to deal with some interesting things. Just on the location and number of blind men, we get no agreement:
Matthew: Leaving Jerusalem, two blind men
Mark: Leaving Jerusalem, one blind man
Luke: Entering Jerusalem, one blind man
If we want to force the Bible to be precise in every detail, then we have to do some gymnastics here. Maybe Jesus was entering new Jericho as he left old Jericho (yes, I’ve heard that one argued). Maybe there were two men, but Mark and Luke just chose to speak of one of them. Maybe these are three separate incidents in which almost the exact same thing happened.
Or maybe we need to accept that the intent of Matthew, Mark and Luke wasn’t to write a history book or a biography, but a gospel. Maybe we need to adjust our expectations of the Bible and its content.
An interesting post. The passage you cite shows that the Gospel writers had particular interests. In Matthew’s case he’s addressing a Jewish audience by way of an understanding that at least two witness are required to give testimony. Over the years I have come to love the Bible more whilst have less and less sympathy with theories about the Bible. It’s a good thing to remember that when Abraham (Abram) out from Ur on a wing and a prayer, he had no Bible, only a passionate desire to know God.
I suspect those of us who call ourselves pacfists have a harder time with the Bible than most. We face the awkard observation that Christian peacemakers seem to act more ethically than God. I don’t know that this rather lumbering post from a while backs says it well, but for what it’s worth here’s a little more of what I mean: http://radref.blogspot.co.uk//search/label/Violence%20of%20God
I understand what you are saying but would also hesitate about the history statement.
Years ago I visited Little Bighorn and discovered the Native Americans have one telling of what happened, the soldiers in the other unit who did not die on the hill and modern research that looks at bullet patterns etc. to determine what happened. None of the three agree and yet no one would deny that the event is historic and never took place because of this fact.
I didn’t express myself very well, each group has a different telling of what happened, Native Americans, Soldiers, modern historians.
Oh my goodness, did I make it sound like I think the event described is ahistorical? On the contrary, I very much believe it happened. I just don’t think that the point of the story lies in the details, nor that all of the details have to be correct for the story to be true.
Stephen says that 75 people went down to Egypt when Jacob went; several Old Testament passages say 70. Point is, Jacob and his household went down to Egypt.
Tim, I do wonder whether this skirts around the hardest issues. If I hear a story that says God commanded Israel to slaughter the Canaanites the burning question isn’t the number of deaths or even the accuracy of that particular historical event, but that God is seen perpetrating genocide. Somewhere along the road to confronting that kind of issue honestly, I ended up an ex-Evangelical.
Thanks, Phil, for the comments. I’m not sure how this particular concept skirts the hardest issues. They need to be addressed, and I’ve attempted to do so on this blog. Again, I think much comes back to our expectations. I’ve heard people reject the canonicity of Old Testament texts because they don’t jibe with what they see in the New. It seems problematic to me to say, “This text doesn’t fit my understanding, so it can’t be right.”
Hi Tim, I’m sorry if my ‘skirting’ comment sounded a little too prickly. I’ve always enjoyed your blog and never found it less than honest. It is certainly ‘problematic’ to struggle with the text, but equally there are difficulties that arise from coming to the Bible with a set of hermeneutic a prioris. There is development in the text, both in the detail and the narrative flow. It is understandable that a nation at war (or a warlike nation) should require a God of War. In this I appreciate Anabaptist Christocentrism. It’s not an exegetical magic wand but it does offer a sense of direction.
I recommend Peter Enns’ new book, Genesis for Normal People, avail as
E-text at:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/04/genesis-for-normal-people-available-for-download-now-for-1-99/
His contribution to OT reading is invaluable. I hope you’ll read it.
God bless, Dan
Thanks Dan. I’d like to read that.
Dan, looks like a good read, thanks.
I posted this question in another discussion forum and didn’t get any responses – so I’ll post it here since I know a few Enns readers are around and lively.
If (a la Walton, Enns, et al) Genesis 1-11 are about the creation of Israel rather than the cosmos, doesn’t Genesis end up depicting the same sort of tribal deity like the rest of the nations have as their patrons, only a little bit nicer maybe?
Nick,
I wanted to at least acknowledge your question. I haven’t read Enns, so I can’t say much; maybe Dan will offer up something. It is a troubling point that you make. I have heard the “localized” argument for the flood, but not for creation.
Grace and peace,
Tim
Let me be very careful here, then :)
I’ve read Inspiration and Incarnation, but I’ve not read either Lost World of Genesis One (the Walton text) or either of Enns’ recent texts – the Evolution of Adam or Genesis for Normal People. I’ve gathered the gist of the Walton argument from standing on the sidelines listening to discussions about it – likewise with Enns. So I certainly don’t mean anything slanderous towards either writer – I appreciate how they’re challenging us and I stand fully open for refinement of their positions about what the creation narrative was meant to reveal.
In humility I want to say…don’t write off parts of the bible when initially you find them hard to understand or they appear to contradict :P
In the time of Jesus there were two Jerichos, one built by Herod the great recently – to people from a non-Jewish background that city would be ‘Jericho’ – and to the north-east of this new city the ruins of ancient Jericho where the walls fell in after Joshua marched round 7 days. To Jewish background readers Jericho would be more associated with the ancient ruins.
So Luke written to gentile believers talks of approaching Jericho (ie the new city) while the other Gospels talk of leaving Jericho. (ie the old ruins) The incident happened in-between the two.
Thanks, Dave. I’ve heard that explanation. It seems a bit of a stretch to me, but it’s not impossible. We can conjecture that the incident may have happened between the two, but there’s no way to state that categorically. Surprising that Mark wouldn’t have used the “non-Jew” terminology, given the writing style and audience.
Still doesn’t tell us how Bartimaeus became two men in Matthew’s account.
I’ll mention as well that I’m not writing off any parts of the Bible. I just want to read them for what they are, not read them as if they had been written in the 20th century.
Grace and peace,
Tim
Matthew had a Starfleet issue replicator, probably.
And he was sort of, well – THERE when it happened (while Luke definitely wasn’t and Mark probably wasn’t), and he grew up counting stuff for a living, so while Mark and Luke focus on the important part of the narrative (the calling on the Son of David for healing), Matthew gets a little more meticulous about the number of guys that were there.
Maybe instead of trying to invent a special genre of literature all for ourselves, we could treat them like the different kinds of books they present themselves as.
Luke certainly presents his first volume in the form of (what we’d call) an ancient biography. Matthew seems to present his work as a continuation of the writings of the Hebrew Scriptures. Mark and John aren’t as easily categorized, but inventing a category to push them both into when they’re very different kinds of writing seems to create more problems than it solves.
That leather binding around the 66 different books sure has convinced us that they’re all supposed to be a seamless presentation, hasn’t it?