This is the third in my series of thoughts about questions which have bothered me for years. These are my own thoughts. I don't pretend any vast scholarship, nor do I propose to compete with the great minds which have wrestled with the subject over the centuries. These are just questions which bother me. I'd like to have answers. If I get any, I'll add them to the page if it seems appropriate and the author wants me to. I might comment what I feel about them, or how my thinking is going.
Creation -v- Evolution
I won't include this here. I've done a brief page on the subject. Not because it isn't an important subject, indeed it sparked off my whole interest in the area. However such a subject deserves hundreds of pages on its own and since other people, notably the http://www.talkorigins.org people have spent so long on the subject, I'll hand you over to them. Suffice it to say, as far as I am concerned, since I've been asked, I am quite sure that the Earth is about 4,500 million years old, that the process we call evolution took place to bring life to where it is today, and there was no global flood. If the Bible stands or falls on any of those being otherwise, then as far as I am concerned it falls. Given that so much of the rest of the Bible relies on these being true, in particular Romans 5 to 8, the validity of the rest cannot be sustained. In this sense I am in agreement with "Young Earth Creationists" in that either the Bible is wrong, or the whole of modern science is. However my choice of which one is wrong differs from theirs. As for the world-wide flood, whilst less important than creation and the fall, nevertheless passages such as Matthew 24:37 assume its truth.
Moreover there seem to be inconsistencies in the Bible itself about the scope of the flood. Were the "Nephilim" in Genesis 6:4 wiped out by the flood as it certainly implies? If so, what are they doing back again in Numbers 13:33 and other places?
Biblical Contradictions
I won't go into alleged contradictions either particularly. Lots of people do that. I'm not completely convinced by many of the items in the contradictions lists I've seen, some of the problems are just reconcilable (with a struggle!), and you could argue, not completely convincingly, that some are "different sides of the same coin". Even if you could reconcile those discrepancies to my satisfaction, though, there still remains the problem that you are dealing with a book that is prima facie inconsistent, and why should there be such an obstacle to belief in its divine inspiration? It seems a lot easier intellectually to me to say that, for example, the Gospels are the generally well-meaning efforts of people with their various biases writing long after the events, than absolute literal truth. Sometimes I think, for example, that John gave vent in his gospel to his anger at the Jews of his day by putting long speeches into Jesus' mouth in which he seems to have set out to enrage them. Likewise Matthew seems to go out of his way to outdo Mark - 2 possessed men delivered here, 2 blind men healed there and the strange passage about the saints being raised at the end. In the resurrection accounts we have the progression of one man (Mark), to two men (Matthew), to one angel (Luke) to two angels (John). Sounds like a tale growing in the telling to me.
Question 1: Why aren't things clearer?
I've wondered this for a very long time. What it amounts to is this. Let us assume:
- God knows everything and sees the future. He knew history long before it happened.
- He inspired the whole Bible, 100%.
OK so far.
Now think of a few religious issues in history about which rivers of ink, and quite often blood have flowed. A good example is Matthew 16:18 "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church". Is the "Rock" Peter, as the Catholics say, or his faith, as the Protestants say? Just a couple of extra words could have made this clear one way or another, and saved literally oceans of blood at the time of the reformation, and in one or two places, such as Northern Ireland, since? Next stop is the Trinity. It's not a word you'll find in the Bible, although the doctrine is probably fairly well set out overall. However from the time of Arius in 400AD or so to the Jehovah's Witnesses today, there have been groups of people who have argued against it. Again, a few clear verses might have helped, or at least saved wear on my doorbell. Another one is between Calvinism, which emphasises predestination, and Arminianism, which emphasises free will. Mr Calvin was pretty harsh against his opponents, I gather. When I was at University, there was much discussion about "The Baptism of the Holy Spirit" and whether this came at conversion or some experience or experiences later. There were huge and acrimonious rifts between people both claiming to be acting under the Holy Spirit's guidance, whatever form that might be. This hopefully gives a few illustrations about things which seem to me unclear, yet a few extra words here and there would have helped. But I'm sure you can think of dozens more, such as abortion, baptism, divorce, communion, the role of women, to name just a few. Some people have argued that whatever the Bible had said, we would have found some other reasons to start arguing and killing each other.
What the Bible overdoes...
Here we are told that "all scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). Could someone please explain to me (picking a verse almost at random here) how that applies to 1 Chronicles 7:17? This reads "And the son of Ulam was Bedan. These were the sons of Gilead the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh" (NASV). In case you start saying "a text out of context", take the whole chapter and it says much the same with different names. In fact take two chapters on each side as well and they say much the same too. I'd just love to know how that stuff can be "profitable" for the things listed in the verse quoted in 2 Timothy. I once did find a hostname of "Jabez" for a really difficult to carry portable computer from 1 Chronicles 4:9 (he was so called because his mother "bore him with pain"), but apart from that... If the Bible is this handbook for living, the "manufacturer's instructions" as some people put it, why is this stuff in there. People are hard enough to persuade to Read the Manual for things they pay good money for anyhow and they'd hardly be inspired to do so any more if they had to contend with vast passages of the founder's family history, either forwards (Matthew 1:1-17) or backwards and different (Luke 3:23-38). Another example is Numbers 7, where leaders from tribes making identical offerings. Why the twelve-fold repetition like that? Why not have a nice table with day/tribe/reps and a list of offerings each tribe makes, if it means anything at all and has to be included? And all of my points so far come together in the tables of descendants from Adam and Noah in Genesis 5, 10 and 11, as they are boring, fuel the Creation/Evolution argument, and this should have been anticipated. In summary - how is this just as inspired as John 3:16 or whatever? Frankly, inspired or not, it's boring. Also if there wasn't so much repetition, there wouldn't be the opportunity for contradictions, real or imagined. Think of all the places where there are repetitions of passages.
- Many of the events recorded in Exodus and Numbers are repeated in Deuteronomy with some discrepancies, e.g. in the 10 commandments.
- 1 & 2 Chronicles repeats much of the material in 2 Samuel and 1 & 2 Kings, with some apparent discrepancies and omissions.
- 2 Kings 19 is repeated in Isaiah 37.
- Psalm 14 is the same as Psalm 53 (some people think it should have been repeated again in Matthew 5:22).
- The 4 gospels are repetitious with variations which are hard to reconcile in places.
- Parts of Jude repeat parts of 2 Peter.
- The New Testament is full of quotations of the Old some of which are to some degree misquotations. In one or two places they rely more on the imperfect Septuagint version of the Old Testament. In a couple of places passages which don't appear in the Old Testament at all are quoted as though they were, such as in Matthew and Jude.
To me, the thing just doesn't hang together as being inspired in the way it is given credit for.
What the Bible doesn't say
I haven't said all I want to say in this section yet. Please contribute! As curious to me as what the Bible says is what it doesn't say. This follows on from what I said earlier. The Bible nowhere says that slavery is wrong. It gives limits on how to treat slaves, female ones being considered less valuable I might add, but nowhere does it say that they should be set free, except perhaps one case in Philemon, but that was to suit Paul's convenience. It doesn't really make clear how churches should be organised, if indeed they should be organised at all. A few words on masturbation might have helped quite a few people (yes, including....)!
Why is so much of the Bible ignored?
My biggest question over the Bible is this: why don't people believe it? What I mean to say is, why do the people who think that the Bible is 100% divinely inspired, only take literally the bits they like? It's easy to rattle on about Creation and Evolution or whatever, but what about the bits which involve changing lives? How I behave today and what I want to do aren't affected much by whether the Earth was created 4.5 billion years ago or 5 minutes ago. But if fulminating against the demonic spirit of evolution spares me from having to worry about how to behave sensibly towards people I meet because they're all deluded by the Devil, unless they're a ripe target for conversion, let's go for it. Take my biggest bone of contention here first: Matthew 20:25-26 (also similarly in Luke 22:25-26) "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant." (NASV). Now up until 1986 I was in a church whose leader became drunk with power. After leading a small church in a village in Hertfordshire, England (that's about 20 miles North of London for the uninitiated!) which had grown and established "daughter churches" (he drew the analogy of "strawberry plants" at the time), he and his wife had been to Seoul in South Korea, home of the world's largest church, and came back determined that that was the thing for Hertfordshire - oh yes - with guess-who at the top. The policy was foisted on the churches he had established, and the whole way everything had gone was put into reverse gear. A couple of the existing leaders objected, and they were ejected amid ugly scenes. It was the ejection of one of those leaders which was the end for me (although the die had been cast a year earlier). As I have thought about it since, it should have been obvious to me that the whole structure of the thing was made to serve the guy, and I knew it was wrong at the outset when I joined (as a result of a set of circumstances involving the teacher guy I mention in my potted autobiography here). I won't go into that sorry episode here. Please ask me if you want to know more. What I did learn was:
- Church leaders never let the truth (or the Bible) get in the way of a good racket.
- You shouldn't underestimate the burning desire so many people have to be told what to believe and what to do.
But this isn't just limited to one place. At that time there were many churches in the UK, then called the House Church Movement, which operated similarly. I'm not sure if that is still the case. Certainly the church I left collapsed in chaos, from what I hear, and and the leader left the unbelieving UK to go and proclaim his views to the more receptive ears to be found in Texas. Another example is in the area: Colossians 3:22 "Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service ... but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord".
2 Thessalonians 3:10 "... if anyone will not work, neither let him eat." The workplace, if nowhere else, seems to be where the missionary field is supposed to be, and yet some of the laziest and irresponsible people I've met have all been professed Christians. Why is that? Even when people work for themselves, I sometimes get the feeling that a shoddy standard of service and performance is fine if it is somehow "blessed" by being done by Christians. And the most dishonest person I have ever met in the whole of my life runs several businesses and is a church leader in London. Whilst we're in that area: Colossians 3:19 "Husbands, love your wives, and do not be embittered against them. Colossians 3:21 "Fathers, do not exasperate your children, that they may not lose heart". We seem to hear plenty of the even-numbered verses about wives being subject to husbands and children obeying their parents, but how come so little on that score? Surely the preacher at Cambridge who devoted a whole sermon to the words "not Iscariot" in John 14:22 (I jest not!) could rustle up a few on these? Another area I read is in Acts 4 where we read about people sharing their goods and living together. It's great when it works I'm sure. But somehow it never happens. People roll up to church and then go their own way. Every now and again the church I was at would have a parade in the town centre. The idea was to convert people. One day someone did get converted. He was a rough-and-ready guy, unemployed, ill-educated, who lived on his own in a poor rented house with lots of debts. He came for a week or two. But not many people spoke to him. No one visited him. He was a "catch". On to the next one. I think he lasted about 3 or 4 weeks. Even then, that was longer than I predicted. People speak so glowingly of the Sermon on the Mount, but that's all about the high standard of the "spirit rather than the letter of the law", about being the "salt of the earth" and "letting your light shine". But I can't remember a sermon, let alone someone, who'll show me how to make that work in my daily life. That church I was at was into 16 meetings a month - more than one every other day, and people were questioned why they didn't attend (some after working 8 hours with over 3 hours total commuting), and they were supposed to bring their "non-Christian friends" to meetings. Unsurprisingly, they didn't have too many.
A thought from 2024....
A huge contradiction has been bugging me of late. In 2 Corinthians 3:6 and most of Galations there is much about the written law, what the Jews call the Torah, bringing death or being the "schoolmaster to bring us to Christ" etc.
Yet the very longest chapter in the whole bible is Psalm 119 - a whole 176 verses, 8 for each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, in which the virtues of the law of God are extolled. Why is there not a hint that this magnificent edifice is to be superseded?
Conclusion
I hope I don't sound too angry. Actually my anger is with myself. I let myself be taken in too long. I'd like to refine this page over time. Maybe it will turn into something quite different before long. So please let me have your feedback. Please help me by letting me know anything you don't want me to include!