Reading the Bible for all the Wrong Reasons:

Chapter 2: Neither Fact Book nor Catechism

21 Chapter 2 Neither Fact Book nor Catechism Rethinking Biblical Authority Why Can’t It Be Simple? Complications in the Story “Why can’t it just be simple?”The woman in the adult Bible class was quoting her husband, a serious student of the Bible, who had passed away a few years earlier. The lesson for this particular Sunday involved an issue on which the Bible is quite ambiguous. So with an impish smile, the woman remarked, “This is the problem my husband always had with the Bible. Why does it have to be so complicated? Why can’t it just be simple?” So far, we have seen only a hint of that complexity , but it will soon be evident that the woman raised an important 22 • reading the bible for all the wrong reasons question. This question, however, rests on certain assumptions that we will need to examine carefully. To do that, we will have to ask about the Bible’s relationship to both matters of fact and matters of theology—that is, of doctrine, or explicit beliefs. The biblical story is riddled not only with ambiguities but also with outright inconsistencies. I note here only a few of many possible examples . According to Genesis 6:19-22, Noah took into the ark a male-female pair of every kind of living creature, with no distinction between clean and unclean animals. In 7:1-5, however, he took seven pairs of clean animals and a single pair of unclean, along with seven pairs of birds. There are, similarly, numerous discrepancies between the historical accounts in 1–2 Kings and 1–2 Chronicles. In 2 Kings 16:20, for example, we read that King Ahaz was buried in Bethlehem, but according to 2 Chronicles 28:27, he was buried in Jerusalem. In the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, and Luke place Jesus’ demonstration in the temple during the final week of his life, but in John it is one of the first things he does (2:13-22). In John, Jesus’ last supper with his disciples takes place on the day before Passover (13:1); in the other Gospels, it is a Passover meal (Matthew 26:17; Mark 14:12; Luke 22:7). Also, the genealogies of Jesus found in Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38 disagree at many points with respect to both names and the number of generations from one point to another. Regarding theological differences, the books of Job and Ecclesiastes stand in considerable tension with central motifs in other writings. The biblical story has ambiguities and inconsistencies. Neither Fact Book nor Catechism • 23 Job questions a notion that pervades the books of Joshua through 2 Kings and is found in a different form in Proverbs: that God rewards the good and punishes the evil in this life. Throughout the story, Job disputes that view, denying that he has brought his sufferings upon himself through sin. But Job’s friends argue against him, on behalf of this “standard” theology, contending that his sufferings are indeed the result of sin. Near the end of the story, however, God confronts Job’s friend Eliphaz with this blistering indictment that clearly rejects that theology: “My wrath is kindled against you and your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). In Ecclesiastes, we find statements, such as 7:15, that are even more direct in dissenting from the “standard” doctrine: “In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in evildoing.” The New Testament writings also contain theological inconsistencies . In Matthew 5:18, Jesus proclaims that the entire Jewish law remains in effect: “Until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.” In Mark 7:15, however, he negates the Jewish dietary regulations: “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” And in Romans and Galatians, Paul argues that circumcision—a key element in the law—is unnecessary for those in Christ and that for a Gentile to seek circumcision is to deny Christ. There is also a discrepancy between Paul and the book of Revelation. We have seen...