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PREFACE
Certainly! you say. Why would anyone think otherwise? You’ve read some of the Bible (well, you’ve sung hymns, same thing). You’ve seen the movies and cartoons; and you’ve heard trusted, sincere preachers talk about it (well, the ones who preach the creed you were brought up on anyway). It must be so — anyone thinking otherwise is obviously an immoral atheist, heathen, pagan, or some other dangerous, Hell-bound infidel (well, you want to be seen as tolerant, so maybe that doesn’t apply to followers of other "normal" religions). People who are spiritually empty cause the moral decay in society and can’t possibly live responsible, useful, or fulfilling lives (well, maybe you’re not sure that the Bible is 100% true but "better safe than sorry"). You’d catch hell from people if you didn’t say you believed (well, maybe you’d just be embarrassed — those Bible-thumpers are so clear-eyed and seem to have answers for everything). You really just want to know that there really is an answer to life, the universe, and everything (well, an easy, comforting answer that you can understand without a PhD in physics... anyway, you don’t want to spend too much time thinking about it). In any case, you’ve always said that non-believers were wrong and were damned for eternity, so you’re locked-in now… can’t be wrong… have your personal pride tied up in it… got to keep the faith.
 This chain of thought is not hard to understand — it’s human nature to believe and to assume that people of importance have "thunk" things through. But let’s lay aside our faith for a little while while we explore the Bible using our God-given human capacity for reason. How? Let’s look at the Bible’s actual words as if we were examining a contract's fine print. Here’s a simple example, one of the hundreds we’ll run across.
Question: What was written on the sign placed on Jesus’ cross?
(a) The King of the Jews.
(b) This is the King of the Jews.
(c) This is Jesus the King of the Jews.
(d) Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.
Answer:
(e) All of the above. (Mt 27:37; Mk 15:26; Lk 23:38; Jn 19:19)
This is a simple example, but it unleashes a froth of theological questions like popping the top off a warm Coke. Exploring the theology of each and every question like this would require a lifetime, but most folks don’t have the burning need to do that, including me. So, let’s simplify things by asking:
Which one of the following questions (which result from the conflict above) is more important theologically?
(a) Which sign was actually correct?
(b) Why couldn’t Jesus, one of the Trinity of God(s), save himself from execution?
(c) Why didn’t God save his son, Jesus, from execution?
(d) Did God demand human sacrifice like some pagan god or heathen idol?
The thinking-man's answer:
(e) If the Bible was God’s word, why did it contain four different versions of an important theological event?
and
(f) Why should we Americans, whose society is based on the rejection of the tyrannical yoke of one monarchy, want to subjugate ourselves to the rule of another king? (My apologies to John Ashcroft for abusing his famous reference to good revolutionary rhetoric.)
That’s the tack we’ll take here — we will ask not what the Bible really meant, we will ask why it was flawed in the first place.
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This book is not theology: it does not attempt to answer the questions it raises, and it does not have a theological point of view. After all, who am I to compete with centuries of rationalization and arm-waving which fill the bookshelves, pulpits, and air waves and empty the pockets of the vulnerable and the credulous. I’m just trying to save the reader some leg work in finding the more interesting questions raised by a literal interpretation of the Bible. Perhaps my short commentaries will appear theological at first glance, but they are really meant merely as pointers (logical extensions of the basic questions) which should help us get to the heart of each problem.
If you’re among the faithful, these questions may be unsettling; but they’ll certainly give you something more interesting to ponder than the yawners you encounter during most sermons or Bible-study classes. You might even want to use these questions to make your next Bible-study meeting a bit more lively. If nothing else, this book should motivate you to further Bible study.
If you’re not a Bible-worshiper, then here is some good ammo for defending your skeptical, rational viewpoint and, if necessary, for zapping the Bible-thumpers in your life.
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This tome is basically a reference book. It's a compilation of known Bible problems organized for the layman, the thinking man ("man" meaning any of the currently fashionable human sexes or variations thereof). Perhaps this book will even serve as a source for the serious student of theology.
However, there is also a real thesis: I would like to show that the Bible is too undependable to be used alone in a rational argument — that no claim can be said to be true just because it’s in the Bible. External evidence will always be required to support any Biblical assertion. Likewise, I am not saying that nothing in the Bible is true. That would be silly.
People acquire knowledge through reason or faith. Experience and education provide source material, of course, but the retained part of that learning, one's knowledge, is established only after it has passed one's personal test of reason or faith.
Reason requires, logic, consistency, evidence, and objective testing in order to establish validity. Reason is different from faith, certainly; but it is not anti-God. Reason is inherent in human nature. We were created that way, if you will.
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." Galileo Galilei
Faith, on the other hand, consists of beliefs, assertions, and inferences based on other beliefs. Faith requires no objective test for delusion (a false belief). Statements by authorities, anecdotes, sacred writings, dreams, and even hallucinations may be considered valid, if one has faith.
Most of the faithful don’t really care whether the Bible is entirely true or not, they just use the parts they know about and like. Most of the faithful are only familiar with the few parts of the Bible which other people said were important or inspirational; and those portrayals were probably simplified versions. In addition, a lot of things we think of as biblical are really the inventions of dogmatists, story tellers and hymn writers: not derived from the Bible's actual words.
When preachers are cornered and have to face the questions we’ll raise here, they often invoke rationalizations and apologies which are not in the Bible. When they use these unsupported arguments, they’re just making up their religion as they go along — a heresy.
That’s all fine if the only thing at stake is one’s own personal religion; but if one wants to use one's religion to discipline others, then more is required than quoting the Bible… much more.
It is not reasonable to assert that something is true merely because you believe it to be so. On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect that if one error is found in a chain of evidence, then that whole line of thought requires re-formulation using a higher standard of evidence. Therefore, if the Bible is to be used as a stand-alone authority, it must not contain any inconsistency, contradiction, or error. The presence of one error does not mean that all Biblical claims are erroneous, of course; but neither does one Biblical truth imply that any other Biblical claims are true.
Bottom line: if any error can be demonstrated, then all claims and evidence provided by the Bible must be corroborated by other evidence, otherwise the argument is not rational. Maybe you don’t care about reason. Well, so be it; but please recognize that as a bias; and don’t condemn others who do care about rational thought and discourse.
Still, it’s okay to pray, I guess… but pray that the next bridge you cross was designed by a rational engineer with a slide rule, rather than a pious evangelist with a Bible. (It's not the blessing at the ribbon-cutting ceremony which holds the bridge up.)
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How could questioning the literal interpretation of the Bible possibly threaten anyone’s faith? Well, if the Bible wasn’t 100% true, then the doctrines of the Old Testament, the law, and original sin would be in doubt; the need for a redeemer would be in doubt; the claim that Jesus Christ is that savior would be in doubt; all other claims based solely on the Bible would be in doubt; and, oh yes… the need for clergy would be in doubt. The dominoes fall.
One would then need to invent a new religion which would lack the authority of an infallible written word of God — one would need to create a religion. One could take a guess (even an educated guess) about God's nature, plans, and laws; but making a guess an enforceable article of faith would be a ludicrous act of irrationality.
Without an infallible source of God’s word, one has no hope of knowing God's design. Therefore, one's beliefs lose credibility, and one forfeits any legitimate authority to run society by one's creed. One may still suffer or die for one's faith, of course; but one would not be allowed to kill for it.
Employing reason at the expense of piety is not always as theologically horrible as one might hear from a clergyman, however. After all, using Ben Franklin's observation (I think): at the site of a fatal shipwreck, a wise man will build a lighthouse, not a church. Surely, God would not object to that.
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This book is laid out by decreasing degree of objectivity.
We’ll begin in Part I (Facts) by presenting passages which are at odds with each other within the Bible itself. Outside information is not necessary to make the points at issue.
Part II (Nature) discusses how some statements in the Bible compare with facts derived from observing nature directly.
Part III (Prophesy) assesses the reliability of Biblical prophecies when compared with both history and the Bible, itself.
Part IV (Values) assesses the claim that the Bible can serve as the basis of a moral and just society. We’ll see how modern standards of civilization and the American creed compare with specific acts and standards noted in the Bible. When this section is combined with the views of early-American thinkers in Appendices A&B, we gain a whole new perspective on the applicability of the Bible to the American way of life.
Part V (Doctrine) compares some of the better-known church doctrines with the actual words of the Bible.
Part VI (Authenticity) investigates whether we can have any confidence in the authenticity, completeness, authorship, or the meaning of current words of the Bible.
The Appendices are not included in the body of the book since they are, after all, just opinions which can’t be tested by objective means.
Appendix A (Church and State) rounds-up a number of historical American thoughts which show how an arm’s-length relationship between government and religion is necessary to the liberty, character, and stability of American society.
Appendix B (Views of the Bible) includes some of the American founding fathers’ more interesting and shocking views of the Bible and organized religion.
Appendix C (The Sword of God) is an example of how a silly cult can be unscrupulously invented and justified. It presents a conglomeration of passages which specifically mention the use of the sword as a means of enforcing God’s will.
The issues within each chapter are usually arranged in the order that the first quotation within each issue appears in the Bible, but grouping by topic sometimes overrides that. Minor duplications occur when an issue applies to more than one chapter.
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The King James version (KJV) is used here, because that’s what literalists normally use. If we were to use the New International Version (NIV) for instance, we’d get more modern wording; but that would be just another case of applying changing, ambiguous, and flawed written language to propagate what should be the unchanging word of God. Besides, the NIV editors had to negotiate and compromise just as the 4th-century church fathers did when they assembled the first Bible. If the results had been unanimous, we might have more confidence in the Bible’s divine inspiration and in its authenticity as God’s word.
We’ll use the modern, secular conventions for historical dating. BCE (Before the Common Era) is substituted for BC (Before Christ). This avoids offending non-Christians, of course; but it is also appropriate for Christians since the Nativity would actually have occurred between about 4 and 6 BC (BCE). Likewise, CE (in the Common Era) replaces AD (anno domini—in the year of our Lord), since not everyone considers Jesus his Lord.
Although most of the Biblical quotations used here are edited for space or clarity, you’ll find that they accurately reflect the substance of the passages as they apply to the question at hand. Some of the skipped words may be significant for other theological reasons, but they were removed here to save space and confusion if they weren’t necessary to the substance of the topic being discussed. If you are suspicious of context, feel free to pull out a Bible and check. Caution: we’re looking at the literal interpretation of the Bible here, so a clergyman’s arm-waving doesn’t count as context. If it ain’t in the Bible, it ain’t in the Bible. If it is, it is.
My own commentaries are brief; because long, detailed discussions risk having us fall into a rationalization-propaganda trap which would distract us from the specific words of the text. The goal is to illustrate each issue without a lot of editorial comment. If you want the theological arm-waving, ask your local clergy — they spend years learning how to do it.
My apologies if I have/haven’t insulted you or your particular religion, denomination, sect, or cult. Smile, nothing written here can possibly alter truth, facts, or reality; so believe what you want.
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There I was… anchored off Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas shooting the bull with some fellow cruising sailors. Two of us were defending Rush Limbaugh against the easy ignorance of a dyed-in-the-wool political liberal. All was going well until I opined that not only did the Bible contain errors, but it didn’t serve as the foundation for American society. My fellow conservative (a Biblical literalist) was horrified to discover that there was a Non-Religious Right loose in the republic. The real difficulty I got into was that, in the heat of the argument, I rashly proclaimed that there were hundreds of errors in the Bible. Later, while sailing back to Key West, I became less and less sure that "hundreds" was really correct. Perhaps it was just scores, maybe dozens, so I decided to check it out. This book is the product of that effort, and I hope my friend will accept it in the spirit intended — I told you so!
For years I’ve stumbled across apparent errors and contradictions in the Bible. These are quite fascinating problems; but for some not-so-strange reason, they are avoided by preachers, Sunday school teachers, and TV evangelists whose credibilities (and, often, livelihoods) depend on the continued faith or acquiescence of their audiences. The questions included here are not original — they have been raised for centuries by pious Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Jews, Deists, Unitarians, etc. as well as by scientists, humanists, free-thinkers, agnostics, and atheists. I was particularly intrigued by the opinions of two of America’s greatest thinkers, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine; and some of their more interesting biblical opinions are included in Appendices A & B. As anyone who wants to ferret-out a comprehensive source of these Biblical problems quickly finds, this project involves scores of books and articles which are full of footnotes, explanations, and obscure references all bound up in arguments for and against specific theological positions. All I really wanted was a simple list of the problem quotations side by side.
In addition, some of my current political heroes toss around a lot of misleading quotations when religion and the foundations of American society are discussed, so I also wanted a quick and easy reference for the actual text of some fundamental church-state arguments as well for what some of the founding fathers and other great Americans thought of the Bible. I didn't include any of the pro-Bible political sources here, since they are readily available elsewhere.
Sure, it was tempting to just toss the Bible aside and smugly pronounce it nonsense, but I try to be rational about things, and rational convictions should be based on evidence, not belief. Therefore, I had to assemble and organize enough of the overall problem set to support a coherent argument, one way or the other. So here it is — a simple, short, organized outline of the most obvious problems with the literal interpretation of the Bible along with some of the more interesting writings of revered American statesmen. Enjoy! (or don't)
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I’m a cigar-smoking, Harley-riding, gun-toting, politically conservative, retired military officer with a Master’s degree in engineering. My religious views? None of your danged business. I didn’t write this book to preach any particular theology. I do, however, think that nature is far more interesting than theology, that the psychology of belief is far more interesting than the substance of any particular belief, and that dogma is no substitute for reason. Personally, I don’t care what you believe. Heck, nothing in this book or even in your own creed can possibly alter the nature of the universe anyway. I don't care what you believe, that is, as long as you don’t claim any power to dictate what I or others must believe, and as long as you don’t force the rest of us to fork over to fund your beliefs.
If you have facts, you can and should think for yourself. Sometimes, getting the facts is the hard part. This book might help.
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