Excuses, Excuses,
Excuses
“The
Bible has some noble poetry in it; and
some clever fables; and some blood drenched
history; and a wealth of obscenity; and
upwards of a
thousand lies.”
Mark Twain
1835-1910
I must take the time to address various
methods used by some in an attempt to explain away errors in the Bible. One of
the most common is the one previously addressed, in which the disposition of
the reader viewing the text is faulted when he sees an error. That is like
saying that, in the previous illustration in which the husband came home early;
he would not have believed that his wife was unfaithful when he found that
condom wrapper unless he had previously thought she was unfaithful. It steers
attention away from the problem with the text and attempts to place it on the
reader, much like a magician using misdirection to pull off some sleight of
hand.
On one occasion I was talking with an inerrantist and trying to get him to look at some problem
texts with me. He refused to look at the text saying that “intent precedes
content.” He went on to explain that my intention of proving the error and his
intention of proving it wasn’t would have a stronger bearing on our conclusions
than the text itself. What a foolish statement.
Content must precede everything. Content was the basis in determining
whether or not these books were included in the canon of scripture. Content is
what formulates doctrine. Content is what validates or invalidates any text. If
I say that the earth revolves around the sun and you approach that statement
with the intention of proving it wrong, does it make any difference in your
ability to do so? No. And if I say that the earth revolves around the sun twice
a day, does your intent to support it have any bearing on the validity of that
statement? Absolutely not; it is the content, alone, that validates or
invalidates any text.
Another popular answer to errors in the
Biblical text is to claim that they are not errors at all, but unexplained
problems that will be answered in heaven. That answer is sometimes accompanied
by the statement that there are just some things in the Bible that God doesn’t
intend for us to understand yet. My response is this; what audience was the
Bible supposedly written for? Answer: mankind. Was it given before or after the
fall of man? Answer: after. Isn’t the Bible God’s written revelation of himself
and his plan for mankind? Answer: yes. So the Bible is God’s revelation of
himself given to sinful man after the fall to reveal his plan of salvation for
man. Simple enough? Once we die and are standing face
to face with God himself, what need would we have for written revelation of God
and his plan for us? Answer: none. If we were standing before God, according to
the Bible, it would be too late to make any decision that would affect our
position in eternity. All of those decisions have to be made while we are still
alive and on earth. Once we are face to face with God, any information about
how we should have lived our lives will be irrelevant. Therefore, any written
revelation about God or about God’s plan for our lives must be understood while
we are alive in this world, or else it is irrelevant. We can’t use it once we
die and a person who is face to face with God has no use for a book to tell him
about God.
A good example of the weakness of this
argument would be a newspaper running an article on how to construct a safe
viewing device for watching a solar eclipse occurring that day. The reader could
read the article, gather the necessary materials, construct the device and
watch the eclipse. But if the newspaper printed parts of the article in code
and promised to print the key to the code the next day, or printed the wrong
materials list and didn’t correct it until the next day, the reader would
likely not be able to correctly construct the viewer until after the eclipse
had occurred. For the information to possess any relevance for the reader it
must be understood at a time when it is still useful. After the eclipse the
information is irrelevant, just as having a clear revelation of God’s plan
would be irrelevant after death. If the Bible is God’s written revelation of
himself and his plan for mankind it should be understood at the only time in which
it possesses any relevance, before we die. It should be the source for
questions answered, not the source of questions raised.
The last answer I will discuss is one of
the inerrantists last ditch answers; “It is impossible for you to understand and
correctly interpret the Bible because you are unsaved and without the guidance
of the Holy Spirit.” That is one answer that will ultimately come back to
bite them.
When I came to grips with the fact that
the Bible is errant and there is no God, it was not as an angry teenager
looking for the form of rebellion with the most shock value. It was as a second
year pastoral theology major at
Today, when someone tells me that they
have a better understanding of the Bible than me because they are saved and I
am not, I have to ask “How do you know you are saved?” I was once told that it
was obvious that I belonged in the proverbial tare category rather than with
the wheat (Matthew 13) because I did not bear fruit in the end, that is, I did
not remain faithful until death. What if I had died while in Bible college
believing myself to be saved? Was I saved or not? If the only criterion for
knowing you are saved is remaining faithful until death, how can anyone who calls
themselves a Christian know for sure that the same thing will not happen to
them? How can they see into the future to know that they will believe the same
things a year from now? No one could have convinced me at that time that I
wasn’t saved or that I wouldn’t believe in God a year later. I believed that I
had the illumination of the Holy Spirit too. I was wrong.
To claim that those who deny the Bible’s
inerrancy cannot understand it because they are unsaved, you must first face
the question of whether or not you are saved, and unless you are clairvoyant
the answer must be “I don’t know yet.” With that answer, you cannot lay claim
to any superior understanding of the Bible. I find it interesting that those
who do claim this superior understanding of the Bible for themselves still
cannot explain, even for themselves, the textual errors confronting them in the
Bible.
CLOTHED
IN INERRANCY I WHAT IS
INERRANCY?
FACING
THE TRUTH I BIBLICAL
CONTRADICTIONS I BIBLE
BASED MORALITY
EXCUSES USED TO EXPLAIN
ERRORS I CAN
GOD EXIST? I ATHEIST
IN A FOXHOLE
ATHEISM I THE
EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES I DOES THEIR BELIEF AFFECT ME?