The Bible Mystique

Evangelical Christians make some interesting and absolute statements about the Bible. They claim it is the inerrant word of God, literally true and complete. This idea emerged during the Protestant Reformation to free devout Christians from the dictates of a series of corrupt and murderous Roman Catholic popes. It was named the Doctrine of Verbal Inspiration. 

It was decided in the heat of religious/political debate at a time when no one realized that different Bibles throughout the world contained different words, phrases, and even sections. Had they realized this, they might have seriously reconsidered such a doctrine. Still, it is an idea proposed by very human religious leaders to justify their desire to remove themselves from the dictates of the Roman Catholicism.

It is claimed that if any Bible passage were shown not to be true then none of the rest of the Bible could be trusted as true. Such logic utterly defies logic. Anyone can write a true statement immediately after a false statement and the truth is unchanged. Truth is immutable and becomes known through understanding and demonstration.


      Truth cannot be captured in an arrangement of words in a Bible just because it gets the most votes to be sacred literature by members of a church council. Fundamentalists have twisted the meaning of inspiration completely out of phase.

Their viewpoint suggests that average humans are spiritually inert. It implies we cannot detect inspired teachings unless someone else, our religious leaders or church hierarchy, for example, tell us what is inspired and what is not. 


      Then those same church leaders interpret the Bible text according to the dogma of their particular denomination. Thereby each church or denomination comes up with different and conflicting interpretations. 


      If God had inspired a literally perfect document, then there would be no differences of opinion among those reading it. That clearly is not the case. The Bible contains humans’ words and ideas about God, not God’s exclusive words to man. Besides, who is wise enough among us to say that the best of mankind’s words, from any source, are not inspired?

I know the Bible contains inspired teachings, because when I read it I am inspired by the wisdom, clarity, and truthfulness of many parts of it. Other parts of it are hopelessly lost in a god-image that is brutal and depraved.  I don’t have to have approval from church officials or any religious council before I can read it and recognize inspired thought. Inspiration occurs during the reading because of what you know and have experienced in life.

I can recall the first time I reread the first chapter of Genesis after studying evolution in school. I was amazed at how accurately the writer of Genesis was in stating in this first chapter that there must have been an orderly progression of development of both the cosmos and of life itself. I consider Genesis a very inspired writing and generally consistent with evolution. 

The writer described progressive stages of development from the original void to human kind. The exact sequence and details of what happened are not important. The basic notion, idea,  general theory that life evolves from one stage to the next more complex level, is there. That was a marvelous discovery for a young 20^th Century boy finding himself in harmony with the keen intellect, rationality, and wisdom of an ancient writer.

The real mystery to me has been how creationists (and intelligent design proponents) can read something other than evolution into this same Genesis story. It seems to me that the second Creation Of Man story that starts in verse 4 in the second chapter of Genesis totally refutes their assertion that the Bible can be interpreted literally. The description of the creation of man in the second chapter is not the same as the one found in the first chapter.

The only way to reconcile the two is for you to interpret one version in a way that explains how it is consistent with the other. However, as soon as you do that you can no longer claim that your interpretation is literal. Such a reconciling interpretation is yours, based on your faith, and not on what the words in the Bible say, literally.

In fact, identical literal interpretations by two or more readers would likely never occur. Everything you read only makes sense based on what you know from your experiences and in what you have decided to have faith. Two people can read the same passage and have completely different “literal” interpretations, based on their different perspectives and life experiences.

Evangelical Christians talk a lot about authority. As long as they feel that the Bible is God’s perfect word to mankind, they feel free to interpret the Bible however they wish and act on their own interpretations as if directed by God. This kind of thinking has resulted in religious prejudice, wars, and the ruthless destruction of native cultures around the globe.

We now understand that most cultures, even those considered "primitive", develop religious and moral systems. The sacred teachings of most religions have parallels to the teachings of Jesus, because they involve universal truths for all humans. How others learn God’s Truth is just different from the lessons in Christianity. The need to be “the” chosen people of God and to impose that on others is a human trait that always leads to conflict and disappointment. As I see it, the Great Commandment offers no exceptions, not even religion.

Anyone who considers the Bible as the literal Word of God, complete and infallible, is displaying enormous ignorance of the Bible and what we have learned about it during the last 200 years and counting. The Bible is a collection of ancient writings expressing the best and the worst human thinking about religion and God. It is a revealing look at the spiritual growth of the human mind over thousands of years.

We now know that conservative Christian dogma started with the early Christian evangelists, not Jesus. Paul never met Jesus, did not agree with Jesus’ disciples, and created a theology that uniquely patched the holes in his own self-image. He used his own belief in God’s ability to raise Jesus' spirit to heaven. (Heaven was thought to be just beyond the sky and the sky was considered a huge dome.) Jesus' ascendancy  legitimize what Paul saw as God’s plan for the world, until it was to end, which he stated would occur during his lifetime.

First, the world didn’t end as he predicted and will not end as many evangelicals still expect. Second, apocalyptic Christian dogma elevating Jesus to be equivalent to God occurred after his crucifixion. Compare the human view of Jesus in Gospel According To Mark with the super human view of Jesus in Gospel According To John. There is definitely an evolution of Christology about Jesus after his crucifixion. Claims of his own divinity are not found in Jesus' parables and sayings in the Synoptic Gospels, which are believed by Bible scholars to contain the best historical traces of what he actually taught.

For example, let’s consider Matthew 16:24

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

The phrase “take up his cross and follow me” means that all who accept Jesus as their personal savior will, at times, be persecuted because of that belief. We must bravely accept and steadfastly meet those challenges. It is a powerful image of how we must sacrifice our personal comfort, if necessary, to express our faith in Christ by recalling His greater sacrifice of dying on the cross for our sins.

This is developing Christian dogma and because of that, it is clearly nothing Jesus ever said. The phrase “take up his cross” did not have that commonly understood meaning until long after Jesus’ crucifixion when early Christian theology was evolving. 

There is certainly a truth expressed in such a teaching about the importance of maintaining integrity between your beliefs and your actions. However, we know that Jesus could not have actually said these words, because the people of his day would have had no idea what he was talking about. 


      Even his disciples didn’t believe he was actually going to die. They were still wondering if he was the expected Messiah-King, which, up to that time had always been a human anointed by God to be the king of the state and the heroic general of its armies. They did not understand much of what Jesus was teaching. This is understandable since Jesus’ ministry lasted a relatively short time.

These words were put in Jesus' mouth by Matthew because it was something the author wanted Jesus to have said. It was not a crime to create quotes for revered religious teachers who were no longer alive. It was a common literary practice of the time. There is a meaningful message there, but it just is not Jesus', it is Matthew's.

 Virtually all modern Bible scholars agree that there is no evidence that Jesus ever spoke any of the quotes attributed to him in the Gospel of John. The writer of that gospel was, in part, reacting to efforts of strict orthodox Jews to have the followers of Jesus (both Jews and former Gentiles) kicked out of  membership in their synagogues.


      This accounts for the harsh tone against Jews and the spiritual descriptions of Jesus (based on the ancient wisdom [Sophia] traditions) as a new standard for all that was important in Judaism at the time.

The Gospel of John is a political/religious document, and a statement of Christian dogma created and promoted long after Jesus was gone. Understanding why it was written and what made the writer so passionate about his beliefs is the most important lesson to be learned.


      On the one hand the Gospel of John provides some of the most inspiring and beautiful descriptions of Christian spirituality found anywhere. Yet, accepting the Gospel of John as literal truth requires Biblical ignorance or the denial of literary and historical facts. The point is, Bible passages do not have to be historically factual to be inspiring and to reveal spiritual truths.

Evangelical Christians don’t have to give up anything. In fact, I could not be more supportive of their ability to demonstrate love and compassion for those in need.  Many of their service programs are to be honored and supported. 

They must, however, accept the fact that many of us have discovered and are whole-heartedly devoted to living the practical teachings of Christianity without accepting the institutional dogma that seems so important to them. 

Like my evangelical Christian friends, I, too, accept my spiritual understanding on faith, because in my heart it just seems right.  I can’t say that they have to change what they believe, because they are free to hold to whatever ideas they find meaningful. But I can say that their viewpoint makes no sense to me in the life that I experience and in the Bible I read.

                                                 When Viewed Literally or Objectively

                                        The Bible Is Full Of Errors

                                       And Contradictions…There

                                                For All To See