If We Read One More Ignorant Thing About The Bible . . . [A Rant]

Note: This is a revision of something We posted on our old blog over two years ago. We felt it was time to dust it off. Strap in.

---

“Bible Visualized: Contradictions, Misogyny, Violence, Inaccuracies.”

Notice the above graphic/website and its title. Click. Surf around. Spend some time on it and then come back.

Ready?

Let us first say, we love this on many levels. It’s smart, it’s creative, it’s colorful, it’s providing a good service. We just wish it wasn’t so wrong. So damned-by-God wrong. All over the place. Wrong.

Beyond understandable ignorance, things that most people don’t learn and have no reason to learn outside of a serious Bible study, seminary, or a level of theological/biblical neridty boarding on psychosis (welcome to our world), there are other things that are just dumb: things a thinking person would question as being odd in the presentation.

But to be clear we are talking to and about Christians reading this, as much, if not more so than the creators of the site. We fear most Bible reading Christians make the EXACT SAME mistakes when interacting with the Bible that the creators of all this interactive awesomeness. In some ways we respect the Skeptics more than the Christians as a result. They have an excuse.  

Below we outline a handful of these mistakes made by both groups— Bible skeptics and Christians we want to kick— in the hopes that someone, somewhere, will stop making them. These are arranged by category but in no real order.

---

Chronology matters

• We shouldn’t even have to say this. The books in the Bible weren’t all written at the same time, by the same human hand, regardless of what you think about Divine Inspiration. The order you read things in makes a difference. (Example: stop complaining about how people in Genesis broke the 10 Commandments when the 10 Commandments didn’t exist yet.)

Words have meaning 

(“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means”)

•  Just because an English word is used in the Bible doesn’t mean that the Hebrew (or Aramaic) in the Hebrew Bible, or the Greek in the New Testament mean the same thing at all. At all. AT ALL.

• Just because you read a word in English doesn’t mean it’s the same word in Hebrew/Greek every time it appears in that verse. Apply this to different chapters, books, sections, Testaments. [Repeat.] (Example: In Exodus, when talking about the “hardening” of Pharaoh’s heart, three (3) different Hebrew words are used for “hardened” throughout the narrative. The specific words, their order, and the surrounding context matters.)

Reading comprehension

• Just because it is in the Bible doesn’t mean that the Bible condones the action/idea. Saying something happened is not the same as saying people should do it. (Example: the Bible mentions suicide by hanging, sacrificing children to foreign gods, and pulling out of one’s sister-in-law during sex.)

• Just because an idea/action/situation/entity appears (in translation) in the Bible, does not mean that what is true in the 21st century was exactly how that things operated in the iron age of the Ancient Near East. (Example: “slavery” in Israel was nowhere even remotely the same as African slavery in the antebellum American South. Not one damn bit)

• Just because you are able to read one verse doesn’t mean much. Read the verse in context. Context includes the surrounding verses, the chapter, the section of the book, the whole book, the section of the Bible/type of literature. (Example: A psalm is not the same as a geneology; The Deuteronomistic History is not the same as the Gospels; The P-source is different than a pseudo-Pauline text. If you said, “what?” to any of those you’ve proved our point.)

Inner-Biblical Interpretation

•  (This one sends us to Hell) Just because it says something in the New Testament, that doesn’t mean that the writers of the Hebrew Bible would have agreed with it. [What?] The New Testament contains specific commentary of the fledgling “Jesus movement,” who were either Jews trying to figure out their relationship with Judaism (“Are we a new sect or a new religion?”), or gentiles who were switching from some other religion. The writers of the NT are interpreting the Hebrew Bible: the writers of the Hebrew Bible wouldn’t agree with everything the NT writers said, and the NT writers don’t always agree with each other on specific passages (Example: Paul in Romans 4 and James in James 2 on Abraham’s binding of Isaac). Furthermore, you could disagree with the interpretation of a NT writer (Example: contra Hebrews 12, Esau wasn’t “immoral and godless,” he just made a stupid decision).

Some General Rules of Thumb

•  Stop accepting what you learned in Sunday School as truth, especially if you haven’t actually read the passage you’re talking about in years, or ever.

• Stop thinking Moses, Jesus, and Paul spoke your version of idiomatic English.

• Stop trying to harmonize the Hebrew Bible with the New Testament on all issues: They are two collections of books, not two single texts to Venn Diagram.

• Stop trying to harmonize the Gospels: they don’t all say the same thing, and that’s on purpose.

• Stop trying to make the Bible a scientific textbook.

• Stop trying to make the Bible into your social justice textbook.

• Stop trying to make the Bible into your personal therapist.

• Stop trying to make the Bible into anything other than the Bible.

• Stop imposing your monochromatic picture of God on reality and then getting pissed off when the Bible disagrees with that overexposed nonsense. You did that. Not the Bible. Not God.

---

Again, there are examples on this site that do not have a simple, Google/Wikipedia/think-damnit answer, which scholars and people of faith have wrestled with for centuries. But honestly, the vast majority of the things on this page are not that difficult to deal with when the things above are considered.

Which brings us to our real point:

If as much time was spent researching the answers to these “contradictions” as was spent putting this awesome visual together, while we doubt anyone would be converted, the level of cynicism would ratchet down a notch, and a begrudging respect for the Bible might emerge.

But what do we know: we made this game, which you probably think is worse than the Skeptic’s website, thus we’re all going to Hell.

The Pain and Pleasure of a God Who Hovers

[Talk for a future card]

We currently don’t have any cards that address Passover. Due to recent events in our lives and in the world (death, destruction, desperation) we are beginning to rethink this. The question of God’s presence in the face of human suffering is throughout the narrative. Allow us to localize it further.

“For the LORD will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the LORD will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.” (Exodus 12:23)

You know the story: through his proxy Moses, God has upped the plague ante in his battle with Pharaoh. The first born of every household will die at the hands of another divine proxy, The Destroyer (מַּשְׁחִיתהַ), if those inside do not have the symbolic blood affixed to their posts and lintel. The Destroyer will “pass” by if the blood is there.

But notice: “pass” is said twice in this verse, and they are not the same Hebrew word.

First “the LORD will pass{עָבַר `abar } through to smite the Egyptians” (and any Israelite who does not have the blood appropriately splattered)— the LORD, and The Destroyer, will deal death throughout the land. But on the houses with the blood, “the LORD will pass {פָּסַח pacach} over the door” and keep The Destroyer (and Himself) at bay. These two words do not share the same meaning.

The first pass {עָבַר `abar } means to transverse from one location to another— to pass over, through, under something; however the second pass{פָּסַח pacach} might be better translated as “to hover.”

Consider two other passages, in different contexts, where the word is used.

1 Kings 18:21:

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said,” How long will you hover {פָּסַח -pacach} between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people answered him not a word.

For centuries commentators have shown that Elijah is conjuring an image of a bird between two branches; while some have argued that the bird is “hopping” between the branches, the image of the bird hovering is more appropriate to the people’s context: a bird cannot keep up that type of exertion indefinitely, it must choose where it will land, as the people were being demanded for a choice.

Isaiah 31:5:

As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and hovering {פָּסַח -pacach} over he will preserve it.

Again, a prophet uses this word with images of birds in flight. A simple fly over, a quick passing over is not enough to secure the borders of God’s people. The LORD takes up residence over Jerusalem to stop all intruding forces.

The word means to hover over, to remain above something, not merely to pass by.

The image of God hovering over us, protecting us, sparing us from evil, is a great comfort. Until we return to the Exodus passage, where we see the angelic/demon weapon of God’s will, heavily panting beside the Almighty’s wings, waiting to be unleashed.

Until we turn on the news and see the swirling mass of devastation in the Philippines.

Until we walk outside and a thousand disasters unimagined descend, or creep within our comfortably closed doors.

Were the Egyptian infants any more worthy of death than those in Tacloban or Newtown?

We will admit the context is different, but the image is plain: God hovers overhead as death and life hangs in the balance. An image we find a balm and a burden, depending on the time of day, or season of news cycles.

But what do we know: we made this game and are aware that sometimes this world feels like it is all the Hell that we need.