literature

Four Myths About the Bible

Deviation Actions

Lucy-Merriman's avatar
Published:
751 Views

Literature Text

Four Myths About the Bible

Earlier, in my 2-part essay Liberal Christian is not an Oxymoron, I talked about Christianity and how, for me personally, my faith effects my political beliefs and how I live my life. There, I talked about some of the myths I find myself repeatedly confronting about my faith. After I wrote it, I figured I would be done.
No such luck. It turns out there are even more myths and misconceptions people have about Christianity, Jesus, and, most often, the Bible and its teachings. Now, before people start freaking out, this isn't an essay about why you should believe what I believe; rather, it's just a way for me to explain what my beliefs actually are. If you want to know the why, I talk a bit about that in Liberal Christian is not an Oxymoron, but I'd be happy to have a conversation with anyone, even someone who totally disagrees with me, so long as we both agree to be polite.
Well, without further ado, these are 4 common myths about the Bible.

1. The Bible is Full of Contradictions.

All alleged contradictions in the Bible are the result of one of two things: Insufficient translation or two verses being taken out of context.

Insufficient translation is not the same as inaccurate translation. Inaccurate translation means the translator was doing it wrong. Insufficient translation means that, due to differences between two languages, it's impossible to do it exactly right.

For instance, the word translated "son of" in most Biblical genealogies has three closely related meanings. It could mean "biological son of," "heir of," or "descendant of." When genealogies were being written, the writers and those in their culture would've understood what was meant by each use of the word. Contemporary translators, however, do not. Thus, most genealogies are written in English with "son of" used consistently. That is why two genealogical records for the same person (most notably, the genealogies of Christ in the gospels) are not exactly the same. Someone's biological son is not necessarily their heir, and the term may also refer to a much later descendent.  

Similarly, the word translated "hand" in the Bible actually includes what we would call the wrist. They didn't have a separate word for wrist. Thus, when the Bible talks about Jesus' hands being pierced, we don't know if, by our standards, they meant hands or wrists. Honestly, it doesn't matter much as far as the gospel goes.

Now, contextualization means looking at two things: The text the verse is part of (chapter, book, etc) and the culture the text was created in. Understanding these two things not only helps theologians resolve apparent conflicts, it helps Christians understand how we are to apply God's words to our lives as He intended.

Now, there are plenty of things one could talk about in regards to this, but I'm going to pick one as an example:

"But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. An owner who hits a male or female slave in the eye and destroys it must let the slave go free to compensate for the eye" (Exodus 21: 23-26)

Vs.

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'[a] 39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you." (Matthew 5: 38-42).

What gives? In one verse, God seems to be promoting vengeance, while in the other, forgiveness. Or, looked at another way, in the first verse God is promoting justice, while in the second, passiveness.

First of all, in the context of the Torah (the Exodus passage), most Rabbis agree that it was not condoning physical punishment. None of the punishments in the other books of the law were physical in nature or involved maiming. Even the infamous idea espoused in Deuteronomy that if a woman fights a man and injures him, her hand should be cut off was (and still is by contemporary rabbis) understood to mean that in a physical fight, the best thing to do is make it impossible for the attacker to harm you as quickly as possible, without killing your attacker. This by no means endorses physical maiming as punishment.

What, then, did it mean in the context of that culture? Well, it meant that in a judicial system, the punishment must fit the crime. The world before Jesus was a spiritually chaotic place, and as a result there were a lot of laws to govern people's lives, so that the Israelites could shine as a light to the world as God's chosen people. However, due to the chaos, there was a lot of revenge, especially revenge killings. The punishment would be over-the-top of what the crime demanded.

The Exodus passage, then, is trying to demonstrate a reasonable way to create laws that could safely govern the people.

Hundreds of years later, in the time of Jesus, things were different. God knew that if people were going to progress spiritually into the new age of peace, people would have to go beyond their own needs and conflicts that, in the grand scheme of things, were petty. Remember that, while Jesus may have sparked some political revolutions, that was never His purpose. He came to earth to start a revolution of the soul.

Many people of the day remembered and strictly enforced the law, but they had no regard for its intent. Some people were even taking the old law out of context and using it as rationale for revenge! This is when Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. The whole sermon is about the purpose of spiritual laws, and how they should guide you if you are pure in heart and faithful in spirit. This is why He says,

"You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'You shall not murder,[a] and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.' 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister[b][c] will be subject to judgment." To be deeply angry with someone, to hate them—that is the same as murdering them in your heart. For hate is the ultimate crime that breaks the law of love.

In this context, then, Jesus tells people how to live, and how to treat others with love, in order to join the spiritual revolution. This isn't a rejection of the old laws; rather, this is a way of their being fulfilled.


2. The Bible Promotes Racism and Forbids Interracial Marriage.

I've been hearing this one a lot lately. As mentioned earlier, many myths are based on a verse (or several) that is misunderstood or taken out of context. However, with all my study of the Bible, I haven't been able to find a single verse that could be misconstrued that way. At all. So, I guess in a way, this one's a bit of a stumper.

The closest thing I could find was that interfaith marriage is discouraged (but not forbidden) in 2 Corinthians 6:14. That verse talks about not having a contractual relationship with a non-Christian, either marital or going into business with them, because people of different faiths have different driving values and beliefs. However, if two people enter a marriage being of the same faith and then one becomes a Christian, there is not Biblical basis for a divorce.

None of that has anything to do with race. The Bible doesn't have a lot to say about race, actually, but what it does say should be telling:

"Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all." (Colossians 3:10)

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)

"Then Peter began to speak: "I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right." (Acts 10: 34-35)

This isn't to mention the famous cases of interracial marriage in the Bible. The entire book of Ruth is a story that celebrates an interracial marriage: the one between Ruth, the Moabite, and Boaz, the Jew. Ruth is a stranger in Israel, without any legal rights, since her first husband died. Boaz is a distant cousin of her first husband, but doesn't know this. He falls in love with her because she is such an earnestly good person, perhaps a better person than he. But! A closer relative of her deceased husband has the right to marry her under the law, and he wants to in order to get her ex-husband's land. Can Boaz and Ruth figure out a way to be together, or will sexist laws separate them forever?

If you want to find out the end, read it. The point is, not one in that whole story is their love portrayed as anything but good, even though Ruth was considered an outsider and distrusted by other people.

Another example of interracial marriage in the Bible was that of Moses and his wife Zipporah, who was a Midianite while Moses was an Egyptian Jew. Zipporah is considered a heroine in the Bible, after she saves Moses from God's anger by circumcising their son.
She may or may not be the Cushite woman described in Numbers 12. In that passage, Miriam and Aaron criticize Moses for marrying a Cushite (who are of African descent), and God in turn rebukes them. Clearly, the criticism of interracial marriage is wholly unwarranted.   

3. Leviticus is a Ridiculous Book which Shows how Christians are Hypocrites.

Ah, Leviticus. What's wrong with this guy? The dude hates shellfish, polyester, gardens with different kinds of vegetables, and idolatry. Sometimes people take his words and put them on a pedestal, but other times they try to shut him up and sweep him under the rug. This is probably because every single time I've met someone who's against Jews or Christians and their faith, they quote Leviticus. Most people don't have a response and it makes them feel foolish. So what's going on here?

Well, I don't have the Jewish viewpoint on this, so I'm just going to go at it from a Christian angle. Actually, if anyone reading this is Jewish, I'd really love to hear your opinion on this.

From a Christian standpoint, it looks like this. In the time before Christ, the Holy Spirit was not among the people. He descended upon some people, prophets and so-forth, but for run-of-the-mill Israelites, God was a distant Being. However, God wanted them to understand that He is still an integral part of their lives, and, in the way it's best for the world to orbit the sun, it is also best for a human life to revolve around and be wholly devoted to God.

So the ritual laws were created. Ritual laws governed every aspect of a person's life—what they ate, what they wore, what days they worked on, what jobs they had, how they planted gardens—as a constant reminder that God is the driving force in their lives. This wasn't intended as something oppressive; rather, it was uplifting, to be reminded that in every action a person is tied to something greater.

These laws were written alongside the moral laws because, at the time, they were moral laws. Rejecting the ritual meant rejecting God and choosing selfishness over connectedness. For, you see, just as the Earth cannot choose to only orbit the sun when it feels like, so a person cannot choose to devote only some of their life to God.

Moral laws included animal sacrifices. Blood is highly symbolic and represented life. When a person sins, it causes them to die spiritually. For a long time, God allowed animals to be sacrificed in place of spiritual death. Ultimately, though, Jesus came and paid that sacrifice, by being wholly man and wholly divine, yet still submitting himself to death.

This event changed everything:

"So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit…But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code." (Romans 7: 4-6)

This doesn't mean, however, that people are released from the obligations of the moral law, only the ritual law. The ritual law is no longer the moral law because anyone who dies in Christ becomes infused with the Third Person of God, the Holy Spirit.

Suddenly, the rituals are not needed to be a constant reminder that we are with God or what God desires. The Holy Spirit does for people now what the ritual laws did for them then. That is why Christians don't observe the ritual law.


4. The Bible Forbids Vegetarianism.

Fun fact about me: I recently became a vegetarian. I did it for ethical reasons, since I no longer want to support the meat industry in any way, due to animal cruelty. I also think that if there is a way to live that doesn't involve killing animals, that would be an ideal way to live.

Now, a while back, one of my friends told me that, since all animals are considered clean, to refuse meat on ethical grounds is not Christian. At which I laughed.

The Bible mentions vegetarianism as being an ideal, because in both the Garden of Eden and the new world after the end of this one, the "Lion lays down with the lamb," and no one needs to take animal life to survive.

This is by no means a Biblical mandate, however. Humans were allowed to eat meat after vegetarianism had been mandatory for some time because it had become a necessary evil in the damaged world Noah lived in:

"The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything." (Genesis 9: 2-3)

Clearly, God didn't want animals to have to live in fear and dread, but he made the allowance because forbidding meat creates an added difficulty. People are biologically omnivorous (perhaps they became so after the Fall), and it became too hard to resist carnivorous urges, especially in extreme situations. Humans are superior to animals because we have the higher reasoning that allows us to reject out instincts, which is why killing an animal is not equal to killing a human. However, it is for this very reason that we must be thoughtful about the ethics of what we eat.

The Jewish dietary laws were, in part, ritual laws (as explained in the earlier section). When Jesus came, all foods were declared clean (see Mark 7: 18-23). However, there were also moral laws that regulated how animals used for food ought to be treated. They could only be killed instantly, without pain, using the sharpest blade wielded by someone who is an expert on the animal's anatomy. Also, an animal must not be in any conditions that would let it contract diseases, as ill animals cannot be eaten.

Now, as often is the case, with these laws, there is much debate as to whether these elements of kosher eating are ritual laws or moral laws. I believe they are moral laws because they regard the treatment and safety of animals, rather than anything symbolic. However, others will obviously disagree with me. I have no quarrel with those who disagree and choose to eat meat of all kinds, because I can see their point of view. This would be a good discussion to have with a theologian or other spiritual adviser.

******************************************************************************

Well, that's all for now. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Or, if you have an alternate viewpoint, I'd love to discuss it with you. Just leave a comment in the comments section 
I've been meaning to write this for a while. 2,973 words. Yikes! If you read all that, I applaud you.


If you're interested, this is Liberal Christian is Not an Oxymoron part 1: [link]

This is part 2: [link] This part is structured similarly to this essay, outlining common misconceptions about Christian beliefs.

I promise, fiction and poetry will be coming soon.
© 2011 - 2024 Lucy-Merriman
Comments6
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
QuietCritic's avatar
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Vision
:star::star::star::star-empty::star-empty: Originality
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Impact

Overall Impressions

As with your previous essay on this topic, I admire your candor, as well as your attempts to address the objections and contradictions a hostile audience might have towards your faith. It is all too often that Christianity's detractors rely on shrill, wholescale, un-nuanced rejections of organized religion, using Christianity as a stand-in for religion in general, without any attempts to understand Christianity's central text. Your stance throughout this essay shows that you are aware of this opposition and attempt to address it with reason.

While I do not agree with several of your points, I concede that you've made your argument skilfully, rationally, and civilly. All three tones are difficult to achieve when it comes to matters of religion.

Potential Suggestions

Suggestion #1

Insufficient translation is not the same as inaccurate translation. Inaccurate translation means the translator was doing it wrong. Insufficient translation means that, due to differences between two languages, it's impossible to do it exactly right.

As one who has taken a class on New Testament Greek, I can tell you that this is a difficult claim to make without knowing both Koine Greek and Hebrew. (And, admittedly, I only know one of those languages, so my authority on this matter is far from absolute.) You do show awareness that there is no one single equivalent Modern English word for a word in Koine. However, in order to strengthen this point of your argument, I would recommend looking at a New Testament lexicon. Doing so would require at least knowing how to read the alphabet, but even a passing glance reveals that each word in Koine can have as many as 30 different Modern English translations.

One Christian friend of mine has explained this polysemy as a sign of the Bible's richness as a text. While I do agree that the Bible is a rich text, I disagree that there is a "right" way to translate it, let alone even an adequate one. Therefore I would argue that, if Christianity truly does center itself around the Bible, Christians ought to start educating one another in how to read it in its original languages. Doing so would be a difficult and ambitious project, but it would ultimately be the best way for a Christian to address the argument that the Bible cannot be sufficiently translated. Even some awareness of the unique difficulties of translating an ancient language into a modern language would help bolster this point of your argument.

Suggestion #2

Considering that you address racism directly in other parts of your argument, I was disappointed that your discussion of Leviticus completely avoided homosexuality. You could have addressed homosexuality, for instance, here:

This doesn't mean, however, that people are released from the obligations of the moral law, only the ritual law. The ritual law is no longer the moral law because anyone who dies in Christ becomes infused with the Third Person of God, the Holy Spirit.

So does this part mean that all laws in Leviticus are null and void? Does it mean that some are (the ritual laws), and some aren't (the moral laws)? Does this mean that Christians can eat shellfish (Lev. 11.9 - 22) but still stone gay men to death (Lev. 22.13)? And why doesn't Leviticus say anything about lesbians?

There are two problems with the point you're arguing here: (1.) how do we specify which laws are "moral" and which laws are "ritual? and (2.) how do you address the fact that the Book of Leviticus is used to justify oppression and violence against gays and lesbians? In order to strengthen this part of your argument, I would suggest shifting your focus from shellfish and mixed vegetable gardens to the chief hot-button issue that Leviticus is used for. I'm not at all interested in God's opinion of polyester; I find myself far more interested in whether God wants me stoned to death for having a boyfriend.

My Favorite Parts

There are a number of places throughout your essay that made me nod and smile in agreement:

- Debunking "Biblical racism": the only people who make this argument clearly haven't even read Genesis. (I. e., anyone who reads the story of Ham knows that those who use the "son of Ham" theory to allege Biblical racism are bogus.)
- I'll admit to being entirely unaware that the Bible has been construed to forbid vegetarianism. This portion of your argument illustrates the extent to which eisegesis happens more often than exegesis.

I'm curious to see where else you take this line of argument, and I'm most certainly curious to see how you explain my points of contention above. My chief attraction to this essay lies in the fact that I'm still struggling to read the Bible on a daily basis, and can usually only get through about five pages of it before having to clap it shut and storm away. It is a profoundly frustrating text, and I feel as though your attempts to address some of the myths associated with the Bible here further illustrates why people need to read it carefully.

Keep up the good work. Convince me.