St. John Studies

There are some words you can use that just cause problems.

One of those words is the word evolution.

In college I encountered the theory in some detail while working on a Master’s thesis about an obscure novelist named Samuel Butler. Why did I decide to study him?  In academic work, it is often important to study someone who is less well-known because you can become familiar with a body of work that is less developed.

But…

In studying Butler, I had to study Charles Darwin. Butler was a major fan of Darwin and his book Origin of the Species.  Darwin  began to get attention from the scientific community soon after Origin was published in 1859 and this book  can cause a good argument today, especially among Christians and non-Christians—scientists and theologians—creation scientists and evolutionary scientists.  Needless to say, Darwin’s body of work is well developed!

Pastor Hamilton in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White  acknowledges this is a huge issue to discuss, and since it has generated such rancor, he feels it belongs in his book about the divisive nature of our world.  He wants us to understand the reason it divides us and he wants us to understand opposing views.

I remember that I encountered Origin of the Species as a church-going young man in the 70’s and I was malleable.  I may have been attending church all my life but I did not study God’s word the way I am now.  I did not really grapple with the idea of God’s creation of the universe in Genesis.  I knew of it of course but I did not revere it, maybe the way I should have.

When Darwin came along in my life, I thought his ideas made perfect sense but I did not see that the more I accepted his ideas, the more I began to put God’s ideas aside.

Genesis 1: 27, 31 “So God created humankind in His image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them….God saw everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day.”

I knew that life on earth had changed. Anyone who has been to school at any level knows that but the big questions were what caused those changes?  Who brought those changes about?

After Darwin’s book came out, by the 1870’s it was generally accepted in the scientific community as fact. General American society still struggled with the ideas and Pastor Hamilton explains why in this 1995 statement from the National Association of Biology Teachers:  “The diversity of life on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments.”

I began this post with the idea that the word evolution can really get an argument started but can you guess which words in the quote above really rankle Christians?

Here they are: “unsupervised, impersonal and unpredictable.”

These words throw God out of the mix and Pastor Hamilton and I cannot go this far. Maybe I could as an impressionable college kid of the 70’s, but not now.

I have much greater knowledge of the word of God. I have life experience that tells me that the power of God is alive and well in this world today and I am no longer just a church attender:  I am a believer.

Today I will lay out the three common negative reactions that Christians have to Darwin and I will go further tomorrow by looking at more developed responses to his theory of evolution.

Some Christians just read the Genesis account as history. God created everything from nothing in six twenty-four-hour days. Evolution is impossible to reconcile with Genesis.

Others see evolutionary theory as a diminishment of the role of God in creation.  They understand mutation, adaptation and natural selection and wonder what role God played in that.

Third are the Christians who feel that if humans evolved from other life forms, then that means we have ancestors that come from the ape family.  Have you ever heard a Christian say “My Grandpa wasn’t an ape!”

With responses like these, you might think it is impossible to take evolution as a theory and apply it within a Christian’s view of the world.

Indeed, it is impossible for many.

But Pastor Hamilton states that there is a way.

Today, I have just introduced the dilemma; or maybe you might say I have “opened the can of worms.”

In upcoming days, I will address the most dominant responses that Christians have to evolution and see if Pastor Hamilton explains “that way.”

The way a Christian can use the word evolution and not ignite a firestorm.

My community lost one of its most interesting characters last year: concert pianist Marshall Butler.

So many people knew him and he touched the lives of so many; I wish I could have known him better. He was a colleague in the Humanities Department at my college [I taught communications and he taught music]; he was a fellow traveler to England in 1983.  I had the pleasure of walking all over London with him, he was a dedicated walker.  I never saw him behind the wheel of a car; he walked all over Hopkinsville.  Naturally, he wanted to walk all over London when we were there. He was 68; I was 32.  He walked my legs off.

I visited him a few times at his home. It was in a run-down part of town but when you went inside his house, you forgot the neighborhood.  The inside of his home had a debonair quality about it, sophisticated with a bachelor’s flair.  That means it looked cultured but don’t look in the dark corners because Marshall did not worry too much about cleaning.

We walked out in the back yard on one visit and I was amazed by his garden. I have always liked landscaping, especially mixing colors and types of plants.  He had a beautiful array of plants.  I was so amazed that I was emboldened to ask how long it took to get his garden the way it was.  I remember what he said: “forty years.”

Not the response I was looking for.

I wanted a quick fix solution. I wanted “instant garden.”  I wanted garden in a box.

He explained it took years of experimentation, learning, making mistakes and finally he was able to put some things together. He did not see himself as a horticulture expert.

Why do I lead with this?

I am trying to highlight the role of the mind in the Christian life.

Pastor Hamilton in his Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White speaks of his own encounter with a wise man who put ships in bottles.  Instead of explaining to young Hamilton how the process works, the wise man let him try to figure it out on his own.

I think God is like that with our use of intelligence.   He is the “wise man” who expects us to figure it out.  I think God has given us a mind to use and He wants us to use it.  I think He looks down on our efforts to understand the world and He is delighted.  If there is a problem, He wants us to tackle it.  He wants us to try different ideas to solve problems until we get it right.  I don’t think God is pleased by man’s efforts to deny solutions to problems when the problems are real and they need solutions.  I don’t think God is pleased when we don’t even bother to use our minds.

Luke 10:27, Matthew 22:37 and Deuteronomy 6:5 all say that we are to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.”

To me that means that we are supposed to find a way to solve our problems using our minds.

I find it hard to believe that some would use the Bible as the source to tamp down man’s efforts to learn.

For me, it is all about not being confused about what the Bible is. Pastor Hamilton states “the Bible was written to reveal who God is, and to teach us something about ourselves.  It was not written to reveal the fundamental laws of physics, chemistry or biology.”

How does this impact our world?

The most qualified people to evaluate physics, chemistry and biology are physicists, chemists and biologists, not theologians.

I don’t often express my personal stand on issues, choosing to comment on Adam Hamilton’s thoughts more than my own but I see God delighting in the efforts of scientists to theorize, hypothesize and test their theories. I see God delighting in the working of their minds, their God-given gifts.

As Christians we should be thankful for their work and know that it is not our job to evaluate their results. There is a large scientific community out there to do that—scientists evaluating scientists.

All I have to do is believe that God is pleased—looking down on man and taking “delight in our intense desire to know how the ship got inside of the bottle.”

Students of the Bible say the Bible is many things: the Bible is a book of history, it is a book of poetry, and it is a book of prophecy. It is a Book of testimony as the New Testament reveals the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth, the deeds He did while on earth and the work His Apostles continued to do after He returned to His Father.

One of the major ongoing battles in our world today is between the segment of Christians who believe that the Bible is a science textbook and people who think it is not.

I don’t think that it is.

Pastor Adam Hamilton in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White begins his chapters on science and the Bible by recounting the famous story of Galileo, who lived in the 17^th century in Italy and discovered the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe.

This discovery rocked the world in Galileo’s day and especially the Christian world, the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church. Galileo was charged with heresy and was brought before the Roman Catholic Church’s Inquisition.  He was asked to repudiate his ideas because they challenged Scripture.

Here Pastor Hamilton makes his major point.

The church made a big mistake. Church leaders evaluated a scientific theory based on the literal reading of scripture.

Was Galileo correct?

Of course he was.

No scientist today holds to the idea that the earth is the center of the universe. We know that the sun is the center of our universe.

How is this episode in the history of mankind relevant to anything that is going on today?

Christians are still making this mistake.

Today our world is grappling with new science that seeks to explain why things happen. How we handle this new knowledge is very important.

I believe that God wants man to use his mind to study, explore and try to explain. God gave man this ability for a reason.  Let me give you an example from everyday life.  Say you are facing a medical problem and you require surgery or some medical procedure that requires current medical technology to overcome your problem.  Would you turn down the chance you have for a better life?  Would you deny that doctors could cure you by using the technology they have available?

Or would you accept their knowledge and ask God to guide them as they seek to heal your body?

I think I know what most Christians would do.

Recently, I saw something I figured I would never see. I saw glaciers.

The local guides that commented on the glaciers explained what has happened to them. They stated that the glaciers are “retreating” or losing their length and have been doing so for some time.  Since 1958 the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau Alaska has lost 1.75 miles of its length.  They report that it will continue to lose its length in the foreseeable future.

They skirted the hot issue of “climate change”.

I realize that climate change does not exactly parallel the discovery of Galileo but it rankles many Christians because in Genesis it states that God has given man the world and God expects us to care for it. Climate change science says we are not.

It is hard to discuss such a complex issue in a short blog post but the basics of climate change are the byproducts of fossil fuel consumption have changed the earth’s atmosphere, causing increased warming that results in glacier melt [among other things]. Ashley Portero in her online article entitled “What Do Christians Have Against Climate Science?” cites climate scientist and Christian evangelical Katherine Hayhoe.  Hayhoe is the director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University and she is in the middle of this debate.  She states “increased education is needed to refute the perception that combating climate change — through investments in renewable energy and a reduction of fossil fuels — will be worse than the problem itself.  We tend to prefer the status quo, but it’s like Alcoholics Anonymous — the first step is admitting there is a problem. Admitting that we, as a nation, are addicted to fossil fuels.”

Admitting that we as a nation are hurting our earth.

Do Christians push back against science? Yes they do.

They did it in the 17^th century and some are doing it today.

Instead of trying to fix a problem, it is much easier to turn a blind eye to it. Instead of trying to fix a problem it is much easier to attribute it to “other causes”.

Even though Alaskan guides are instructed to avoid the hot button issue of climate change, the US Forest Service has written material that does not.

“The US Forest Service, which manages the Mendenhall Glacier, says ‘because glaciers are a product of climate, they respond to climate change.’ The Mendenhall Glacier has been in retreat since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1700s.  In a joint article for the Juneau Empire Geologist Cathy Connor and Geophysicist Roman Motyka, both professors of the University of Alaska said “climatic warming coupled with ice loss through iceberg calving are the reasons the Mendenhall Glacier is retreating and shrinking.” [“Wikipedia”, Mendenhall Glacier].

The statistics don’t seem initially to make sense, Hayhoe said. “Unless you’re living someplace like Alaska, where glaciers are obviously melting, we don’t necessarily see climate change directly occurring.”

Make a trip to Alaska.   See the melt and then say it is not real.   See the melt and then say that science is all wrong.

Maybe as Christians we should accept the problem, try to understand the science and then use our God-given gifts to find workable solutions.

I’m back!

I want to give a special person a big thank you.  I knew for about two weeks I would be traveling to a locale where internet service was spotty at best and it was.  It was nice to be away from the constant bombardment of media but I am not there now and it is time for me to get back to work.

The special person I want to thank is Audrey Scott, the administrative assistant at St. John United Methodist Church.  Audrey is the one who loaded the pre-written posts onto the blog while I was gone.  I did not want to leave readers completely and this was the only way I could maintain contact.

Thanks Audrey.

We have reached the point in our book where Pastor Hamilton has finished talking about the gray area between extreme black and white viewpoints.

Now, he is going to focus on specific issues that divide us, from science, evolution and other religions to abortion and homosexuality.

My prayer is that I will be able to deal with these issues myself and encourage you to see views that you have not considered.

My aim is not to shake your faith, or even change your values, but find a way to build bridges on these issues, issues that divide our friends, families and even our nation.

DC

As we conclude our discussion of “The Battle over the Bible” [Chapter 8} Pastor Hamilton finds a way to summarize this warfare between conservative interpreters and liberal interpreters.

I wish he could find a way to make these warring sides make peace but that is not going to happen.

Instead he expresses his own view of the Bible and I want to comment on it because it is near to my view of the Bible.

As I have gotten older, I read the Bible more than ever. I consult the Bible in the writing of this blog, I consult the Bible in the teaching of my Sunday school class and I just have this habit of reading it every day now.  That has been in place for the past year and it shows no sign on slacking off [thank you God].

I do see the writers of the Bible as human beings with all the foibles we all have. They are capable of misunderstanding things and being inconsistent.  They were sinners and very good people but they were given their messages from God.  I believe God gave them direction in their writing.  I believe God gave the copyists guidance in their copying the Bible, I believe church leaders felt God’s guidance in the selection of the canon and I believe God gives me guidance in my reading of His Word.

I agree with Pastor Hamilton that the Bible is “living and active” and I believe the very reading of the Bible can change your life. I was telling someone the other day that I think the goal of every Christian should be to get as much Bible inside themselves as possible.

Pastor Hamilton likens reading the Bible to taking communion and I like that image. I pray before I read the Bible.  I pray that the Holy Spirit will speak to me as I read the word.  I ask that my powers of observation be sharpened and my eyes be open to what the text is saying.  I ask for wisdom and insight as I seek to interpret what the text means.  I ask that the Bible touch my life in ways that need God’s touch.  I ask that God convict me of any issues in my life that I’m hiding.  I give God complete permission to search my heart to see if there is anything in me that is contrary to His will.  I ask to be challenged by His holiness and comforted by His promises.

As we approach communion, we should be in prayer just as we approach the Bible we should be in prayer. As communion imparts grace, wisdom, truth and hope, so does the Bible.

Maybe it is my education but I don’t turn my back on Biblical scholarship. As we have been discussing in Chapter 8, Bible scholars do have their biases.  Some focus on the writers of God’s word as humans; other believe that the writers are a part of a divine process.  I believe that by reading Biblical scholarship I am opposed to does not make me lose my faith.  I am able to separate the bias out and even an opinion I don’t appreciate can have a grain of truth.  At least it is important for me to understand the position of people I don’t agree with.

In essense, like John Wesley, I feel the need to incorporate four elements in my reading of the Bible: I hold the Scripture up as the first authority before considering anything else.  I value traditional knowledge about the Bible, for those who have come before us do know a lot and they can instruct me. I value my ability to reason or think especially if it is in tune with the Holy Spirit and I value experience that I have had with scriptures in the past and experiences I have had in life that relate to the Bible.

Psalm 119:105 is possibly the best way to summarize how we should all feel about the Bible. Its  words are “a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

Enough said…

“If the liberals tend to emphasize the Bible’s humanity at the expense of its divinity, the conservatives often emphasize the Bible’s divinity at the expense of its humanity.”

How can Pastor Hamilton say this? What is the meaning of this sentence in regard to our relationship with The Bible?

He is merely trying to provide more explanation about the polarizing approaches that Christians have about God’s Word.

What happens when the Bible writers are seen as human? Well, to put it bluntly, good things happen and also some “not good” things.

First of all, humans tend to have an agenda and the liberal interpretation of the Bible assumes that the Bible writers had their own point of view as writers. I have one; don’t you?  The writer’s perspective is not “the perspective”; it is only one perspective.  They were not perfect people.  They had their own characters, with good aspects and bad aspects.  They were biased.  They had their own situations in life and they of course lived in a particular time in history [which influenced their outlook on life].  Like I am doing now, I am aware of my readers.  I know my readers are living in this time with me [our history]; my readers have characters and biases.  Some would say this point-of-view discussion is not so helpful; it complicates things and maybe undermines faith for some.  Others see the human Bible authors as writers expressing a beautiful message that has a timeless quality about it; the humanity that is expressed is the source of the beauty and even though it is a difficult book to read, it has a wonderful, amazing and life-giving quality about it.

What happens when the Bible writers are seen as divine? Also, to put it bluntly, good things happen and also some “not good” things.  Some conservative Christians have elevated the Bible to the level of the fourth trinity.  That is not bad for them if they truly espouse that extreme view of Scripture but it is a problem for people who want to come to know God’s word.  Sadly, there are too many serious doubters out in the world today who make it their business to poke holes in the Bible.  For example, the internet is full of webpages written by atheists who point out the errors of inconsistencies of the Bible.  When the atheist and the conservative Christian lock horns, it appears that the conservative Christian has developed doctrine that according to Pastor Hamilton “backs them into a corner.”  The inconsistencies are there and saying that they are not does not make them go away.  For the serious Christian who just wants to cozy up to the Bible, this is a serious barrier.

Pastor Hamilton opens his chapter with a woman who was making a commitment to read the Bible for the first time. She took God’s Book to bed with her and as she read, she became more disgusted.  David collected 100 foreskins; Solomon was having a lot of sex with his “whorish wives,”  Abimelech killed all 70 of his brothers.  Her husband writes “She’s going to have a little chit-chat with God and what in the world He may have been thinking when He penned this or that little number.”

What is this woman’s problem? She is seeing inconsistency in the Bible.  She is having trouble reconciling the message of God’s word.

I like former pastor Rob Bell’s comments about how he views the Bible. He admits that The Book challenges his knowledge but also The Book uplifts him:  “I continue to find the Bible the most mysterious book—the more insight I gain, the more I realize how much I don’t know.  It inspires and encourages, and it also frustrates and provokes.  The Bible is a difficult book.”

Pastor Hamilton adds: [truly] “it is a difficult and complex book. It is also a wonderful, amazing and life giving book.

For me, I use a cliché and I have to apologize. I can’t put the Bible “in a box”, the way the liberal high critic does.  I can’t put it in the conservative low critic box either.

It’s the Bible and I am always trying to learn what God has in store for me…by reading its pages.

In a previous post, I discussed the schism between the higher critic and the lower critic.

You may wonder why Adam Hamilton wants to focus on such a topic in his book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White.

Well here is the easy answer. His book is about things in this world that divide us and over the years people have argued quite a lot about the Bible.  This has evolved into the position of the Bible scholar who questions the Word of God  [the high critic] and the position of the Bible scholar who accepts every word as God’s Words [the low critic].

If I could imagine what was in Pastor Hamilton’s mind as he planned his book, he probably is greatly concerned about how the Christian community has not been very interested in an even-handed approach to these two positions, people lining up for one position and casting stones at the other side.

There it is; it is all about looking at extreme positions and how people tend to adopt an extreme position and then castigate those who don’t think like they do.

How does this play out in our world today?

The low critic, fundamentalist or conservative believer is most concerned with winning people to Christ. That is a noble goal and no one could say that this objective is not emphasized in God’s word.

Jesus said “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation” [Mark 16:15].

The high critic, modernist or liberal believer is most concerned with the social gospel, taking the ideas of the Bible as a foundation for making our world a better place.   Jesus came to improve the world, preaching “Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” [Mark 12:31].

That is a noble goal and it would seem logical for a Christian to help others less fortunate; hence making the world a better place.

The conservative believer reads the Bible literally, affirming that the creation occurred in the last ten thousand years; the modernist does not hold to that literal interpretation, given the nature of science and evidence of the age of the earth.

The conservative believer rejects the idea that women can serve in the church in leadership positions; the modernist does not believe that this idea is practical for our world today. The conservative believes “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet” [1 Timothy 2:11-12].  That is very clear; the modernist discounts that Scripture.

Which position is right? Which position is wrong?

That is the dilemma that a believer faces today.

Pastor Hamilton states “Most Christians find themselves between these two poles of the most conservative and the most liberal Christians….They would reject a literalistic reading of the Bible, embrace a willingness to ask questions and an openness of the possibility that not everything recorded in the Gospels is strictly historical.” That does not mean that there is not great reverence for God’s word and the hard rock fundamentals of the Gospels are accepted.  The Holy Spirit inspired the scriptures in some way.  Jesus was born of a virgin.  Christ died for the sins of the world, He rose from the dead and that He worked miracles while He was here on earth.

From my own personal point of view, I feel like it is my job to be aware that the liberal bias exists. The fact that some extreme liberal scholars push the idea that Jesus actually said only 18% of His words in the Gospels is important.  I need to be aware of their point of view, even though I don’t accept it.  I feel like it is my job to be aware of the conservative bias that all authors of the Old Testament are as stated.  I don’t have a problem with the idea that some books may be wrongly attributed.  That does not make them less the “Word of God.”

It is important to not blindly accept extreme positions.

Think about what is being said, weigh it according to your faith, apply some common sense and by all means, never stop learning.

In Pastor Adam Hamilton’s book Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White, he deals with differences in opinion.

One of the basic differences in our Christian faith is how we feel about the Bible. In an earlier post, I referred to Christians as “warring over the Bible.”

Indeed that is what has been happening.

In a previous post, I explained the position of the “higher critic,” the Biblical scholar who looks at the Bible as an ancient book that is the product of human writers and human manuscript copiers. Hamilton says these scholars see the Bible as a “human document that had undergone various revisions over time, as was true of many other ancient books.”  They have such little regard for the Divine nature of the Bible that they declare a significant amount of material “not historical” and even “mythological.”

And then you have the opposite view; hence the war over the Bible…the fundamentalists or conservatives.

Some think the fundamentalist position is an extreme reaction to the high critics but these lower critics don’t see it that way. Lower criticism of the Bible is a dedicated focus on the slight variation of existing text and that dedicated focus is proof that the Bible is God’s word.

The higher critics see variation as a major problem.  The lower critics see it as Divine Proof.  Fundamentalists work like detectives trying to piece together the Bible from as many original manuscripts as possible, carefully studying the variation that has occurred over the years.  I am reading a version of the Bible now and in the preface, the translators use the work of fundamentalists to state that their version is true to the best possible Hebrew and Greek texts available.

As you can see, it all boils down to point of view about variation of The Text.

The high critic attacks the divinity of the Bible due to variation; the low critic supports the divinity of the Bible due to variation.

What would settle this argument? Someone needs to discover the first Bible.

Until then, the fundamentalists, conservative or low critics argue that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. They completely reject the argument of the high critics.  They don’t feel the criticism of the text is valid because the Bible is not just some ordinary book.  Every word of the Bible was placed in the minds of the Biblical authors and God’s spirit guided them in the writing of their thoughts to paper.  They go even further;  Hamilton states their position: “since God authored the Bible, and God does not lie, nor is God ever in error, the Bible must be ‘inerrant,’ without error.

For many this is a leap of faith.

Why?

Because no one owns the first Bible.

Over the years, I have heard so many conservative Christians say things like “The Bible is all I need. I believe every word comes from God.”  “God’s Word is special and it is 100% correct.”  “My Bible; God wrote it.”

Those statements show great faith. They show that a person has great reverence for the Bible. My problem is that  these kinds of statements don’t even acknowledge how man touched the Bible, from God’s transmission of the message to man, man’s recording it, other men recording it and our reading it from the best existing, checked manuscripts.

How do we find some common ground between these two positions?

The higher critic “throwing out the baby with the bath water.”

The lower critic saying “the Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.”

I will be in a place for about 12 days where I won’t have easy access to the internet.  Over the next days, I will post 4 times with the help of a very good friend.  The posts will be spaced out over the 12 day period.  Thank you for reading St. John Studies.  I will pick up regular discussion when I return from this trip.                         David Carter

It all started in my sophomore year in college. Here is a great reason for you never to send your kid away to school.  He or she could take an innocuous class like “The English Language” which has a unit about the evolution of printing and its effect on language, and your child will begin to question his or her faith!

However, I don’t remember my professor attacking the Bible.

She did not have to.

I do recall her talking about the use of language before the advent of the printing press.

What we are talking about here is the use of hand copying texts. For many years the only Bibles that existed were hand copied manuscripts.

I began to have images of little old monks in dark monasteries bending over desks in dim light. They were taking extant manuscripts and making new copies by hand.

Being a young man and not having wrestled with serious faith questions, I wondered about human error. My professor stated that it occurred.  I remember thinking, but surely not the Bible!

Maybe….maybe not.

Pastor Hamilton in Seeing Gray in a World of Black and White admits that this single point has ignited a firestorm in faith circles in the United States since the 1880’s.  Some Biblical scholars have been willing to admit the fallibility of manuscripts while other Biblical scholars absolutely refuse to admit that error has been made.

Let’s explore the differences in these two points of view and we can see where we fit into this discussion. The scholars who admit the “human factor” in the copying of manuscripts refer to themselves a “higher critics” or to use a more common word, “liberals.”  They see the Bible as a human document that has undergone several different revisions over the ages.   They study the Bible as they would study any ancient book.  They acknowledge that the authors of the Books of the Bible wrote long after events occurred and they may have included material that was not truly historical.   Some state that parts of the Bible are mythological.  Taken to an extreme, this view calls into question many of the doctrines of the Christian faith.

Many of you would view the position of the “higher critics” of the Bible as an extreme position and you may struggle with it. You don’t feel comfortable calling the Books of the Bible into question.

Are they all wrong?

Then you explore the history of the manuscripts we have of the first Bible and you begin to see they are not 100% wrong.

Why?

No one has the original first writings of the Bible.

Of course we do have significant fragments of old copies of the Bible, the most famous are the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered between 1946 and 1956 in the ancient settlement at Khirbet Qumran in the West Bank. The caves are located about 2 kilometers inland from the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name.

How old are these copies?

One of the scrolls was the complete book of Isaiah. Paleographers date the scroll to 125 B.C. Scholar Gleason Archer says “Isaiah copies…proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95% of the text.  The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling.”  Millar Barrows adds “It is a matter of wonder that through something like a thousand years the text underwent so little alteration.”

Yes, the original Bible does not exist but we do have very old parts of the Old Testament that show very little variation over time when compared to today’s copies of the Bible.

Does this undercut the argument of the “higher critic”?

Not entirely, but it does prove that those manuscript copiers were not just quickly writing some version of the Bible just to put in their eight hour work day. They knew what they were copying and they tried hard to get it right and they did get it almost entirely right.

Were they perfect?

No, the more you dig into the literal word-for-word text, you have to admit that some variance occurred but not much.

Is there so much variance that a high critic gets to call the Bible just any ancient book?

I don’t think so.

But in this post, I am not attacking or defending the high critic; I am just trying to explain him…and how his point of view kind of rocked a college sophomore’s view of God’s word.

For a while…