Mistakes People Make When Reading The Bible
As a piece of antiquity and henceforth a very old text, the Bible is the most-sold book on the planet year after year. This book (Which in Greek means "The Books") has been a big stepping stone for modern people, many claiming to find mistakes and errors. Many people conclude that the Bible is not worthy of modern examination or study not due to an accurate assessment of the text and history, but from an analysis that was mainly or purely inductive in nature. Instead of allowing the text, cultures, authors, Church, and history to interpret the scriptures, they allow their Western view to induce false modern presuppositions on the text. This is called Eisegesis, and it is when you interpret the meaning of a text via what you think and feel in the moment of reading. If your approach to genuinely know Christ is to read the Bible purely by your personal eisegesis, then you will be guaranteed to turn away disappointed. If you are not all about "my feelings" and you are interested in what the text says, then let's take a look at some mistakes we all make as modern men when reading the Bible.
To avoid induction on Scripture, you can get into the habit of practicing honest Exegesis. Exegesis is simply creating a more accurate and detailed explanation or interpretation of a text or Scripture. Exegesis is when you study the text (I.e. the original language, literary style & devices, authors' possible motives and purposes, etc.) and allow it to define the meaning and message. This technique actually makes Eisegesis possible! When you interpret scripture by feeling, you can do Exegesis to confirm to expose that interpretation. Whenever you develop a good balance of checking your answers (Yes this advice does not leave the classroom), you can come to know Christ through the Scriptures.
Why Should We Know When We Are Inducing Our Views on Scripture?
If you read the opening and still aren't convinced that eisegesis alone is spiritually dangerous, consider this question. How would you read a science textbook, would you read purely by what you think the author is saying via what you feel and know in the now? Obviously not, if you find terms and phrases you don't understand, you look to the text itself, the author's purpose and possible motives, and word definitions of the time era (if it is current then you won't look for changed meaning due to time) to get the actual intended message of the text. Why should we treat all other documents in this honest manner but the Bible? Isn't that a double standard and therefore an arbitrary prejudice against Scripture? I surely think so.
Forgetting The Bible Has Human & Divine Characteristics
One of the most common objections I hear to divine inspiration is that the Bible doesn't seem like it's written by a perfect God alone. I think these people need to look just a few more inches further to see that the Bible is inspired by God indeed, but God used Spirit-guided men to write down and record His Holy Word and Revelation. We are also not reading the work of one Huyman author, but 40 different men over 1500 years (and it is still stark in its harmony between books, just open up any cross-reference Bible and be amazed by the amount of crossing between books). These authors varied in perspective, writing style, emotions, intellects (wise to layman and rich to peasant), and reasons/motives. These men feature kings, prophets, priests, fishers, tax collectors, warriors, doctors, ex-pagans, and most of all imperfect humans with "all his mannishness-es" as Francis Schaeffer would put it.
Despite the amount of variation between books and authors, the Bible still maintains a near-perfect flow, structure, truth, and ability to change the lives of those who seek the truth in it. Give 40 men today the task of writing a book series, one book per person, and see how harmonious that would be. Yet these 40 men, with no modern technology and communication, large periods, and miles between each other managed to produce the most accurately preserved and attested document of antiquity that Historians have in their hands today. With that said, the harmonization despite the far-divorced possibilities is staggering and screams divine origin... After all, a being outside of time could piece a book that was worked on at different times and places.
Demanding Exact Citations
Many people take some of the Old Testament references in the New and say that since they are not exact, they are false. Or some try to use the idea that the words are not the exact words said, or how the Gospels record sayings of Jesus in different ways. First, in the first century, there were no standards of quotations to be exact with reference information provided. So it is perfectly fine for the New Testament writers to paraphrase or summarize things from the Old Testament. Second, the Bible contains different languages that operate differently than English and other languages. A good example is Genesis 1:1 in Hebrew. The literal Hebrew reads "In the Beginning Created God the Heaven, Earth," see how the grammar is a little different, that's because Hebrew doesn't have a specific order for grammar sequence like English does.
When the texts are translated, they will have small minor differences due to the earlier mentioned language operation. Despite these differences, no meaning, message, or jist is changed anywhere in the entire Bible! This can be seen in newer Bible translations, as the Esv does not read much differently than the Nkjv, with the differences being purely the time era of English like Shakespeare's plays being read today. We know that the Bible has not been corrupted textually due to the sheer amount of manuscripts (both complete and fragmented) that go back to the first century A.D.) that we have obtained, left behind from Early Christian scribes. For the New Testament, there are about 5800 Greek, 10,000 Latin, and 9,000 more in other languages. The Old Testament has over 55,000 manuscripts relating to it!
It is this astronomical amount of copies that we can compare and identify the differences and errors in translation. What do we find? Almost 99.5% of the Bible is accurately preserved, and we can recreate the entire New Testament (but 2 verses) from the quotations of early Church Fathers and letters of Church members alone! That is staggering and just amazing when compared to ALL of antiquity. Moreover, Ancient historical narratives used summary, selection, paraphrase, and other writing tools when making their documents. The first-century world also had no standard of Authorship (many texts lacking identification), and no standard on how much of a person's life was covered. If the person in focus didn't have much happen in their childhood, or their main purpose was not revealed until later in their lives, Ancient historians saw no purpose in recording every little detail. History back then was not purely purposed for records, it had the purpose of teaching a lesson aswell, hence not every little detail of a person's life is covered in Ancient biographies (As seen in the case of Jesus).
So the historical standard of how things were written back then; The language differences; and the Manuscript evidence all support the acceptance of quotations not being verbatim as that view in and of itself is dishonest.
Assuming Slight Variation Makes Accounts False
Differing details in the accounts of the Gospels do not make them false. In other words, different internal details do not mean the report is untrue. A Stark example of this is the reports surrounding the death of Judas Iscariot. The differences between the Book of Matthew and Acts are far from contradictory (and this is the case for almost all of the differences) but rather a variation due to perspective, or more simply, complementary. Judas throws the blood money, but the temple isn't able to use the money due to the Law of Deuteronomy 23:18. So what did they do with the money? They used it to buy a potter's field and since the money was Judas', it is owned by him (Matthew 27:5-10; Acts 1:15-20). When Luke wrote the passage of Acts, he saw no reason to mention Judas hanging himself (probably because it was common knowledge among its readers) but still refers to what happened to Judas' body after he hung himself.
As Judas' body decayed internally resulting in a buildup of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulfide, his bowels began to bloat. Whenever the fall happened, the internal pressure from his gut released the gasses resulting in a burst. Luke was a physician which makes perfect sense of his specific mention of his bowles bursting open.
Assuming The Bible Affirms Everything It Records
This mistake can be seen in attacks centered around the questionably violent acts committed by men in the Bible. Characters such as Samson and the rest of the Judges who all use God's blessings in non-ideal ways, which despite God still uses for Good. Or David's adultery with Bathsheba, the laws regulating bonded servitude (called slavery in the Old Testament, but that word nowadays carries more connotative power than definitive). We must remember that the Bible is a record of God's dealing with the fallibility of Man. In this, God leaves us an accurate record of the evil sins that Man has committed. If the record is to be faithful to the events, then the sins must be recorded aswell. Are we to go out with the Holocaust records simply because it contains sensitive things? May as well throw away all of history, and any awareness of human nature if we live by this logic, or is this another case of arbitrary prejudice against the Bible?
In the Torah, some laws are strict or unnecessary to our modern culture. The issue there is inducing a modern perspective on ancient history. The Torah represents a suzerian treaty and was not used as legislative law, but rather stipulations and instruction on how to think through righteousness and justice. So when the OT record laws on slavery, this is not God affirming slavery, but rather instructing stiff-necked Israel on how to practice such a thing in the presence of God, thus slaves in the Israeli culture are treated like people, like family, like a friendly servant rather than a disposable piece of property. I have already written an article, and several, on this topic. Many of them have not been transferred to the website, so for now, here is a link to my article "Does the Bible Tell Us to Keep SLaes?" and it contains links to my other articles on the subject: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vSJr-QhZX08_1BpbYcIghAviBIcLYd82V4e5V3IKEGGmvHXePPLyjD9MigiJrQiMNIhvsKGk7j7-npO/pub
Failing To Recognize Literary Devices, Tools, and Styles
Some people fail to follow common literary devices and thus come to wrong conclusions on passages of scripture. We must remember, especially in the Gospels but not all books of the Bible, that ancient culture was more verbal than literary, so a lot of records were a verbal tradition before they were written down. To us today, that seems preposterous, but that is because we live in a highly textualized culture. If you go over to the Middle Eastern countries, there are still very live oral cultures still around. To get a wider perspective let me ask you a question. How many songs can you sing along to word for word if we were in the car together on a road trip with no end? Hundreds? Thousands? A lot of oral traditions are in song or poem form which makes them easier to remember and recall accurate.
Colossians 1:23 says "If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven." Every Creature does not mean every creature. It brings to notice the widespread expansion of the Gospel.
In Luke 12:35 Jesus says "Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning." Lions are not literally being armored, but refer to one's spiritual state, the context here is remaining vigilant until Christ returns (i.e. following his commandments and growing in the Spirit).
Difficulty Of Understanding Makes A Passage False
Many parts of the Bible are like very big pills, they are very hard to swallow, and because of that hard to digest. If the Bible really was a book that portrays truth and heals the broken, then we should expect lots of areas within that challenge the reader to think, study, and question. If this book revealed the Truth to a wicked generation, then we should expect to see conviction strike those who hear the word and truth of Jesus Christ.
What exactly do we see? Lots of people turn their backs on Jesus once intellectual constipation arises, Lots of people are angry at God for revealing and confronting their sin, and Lots of people react to conviction with suppression of the Word in favor of arbitrary emotional pleasure. We see exactly what we should expect if 1) people are broken, 2) Truth is objective, and 3) these broken people suppress the truth arbitrarily (and I guess 4) if God is real). Now I am not saying that all humans will run from the truth, we have many people who are saved today, but rather, that the vast majority of people will and already have.
Ending Remarks
I pray that this post will help you identify when these natural human occurrences rise to the fight and that we can strike them down through Christ, to make it to Christ. May the Lord Jesus bless your heart with the softness of his love, and may you be open to the Truth and Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of the only Living God. Amen.
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