Introduction
The Bible, without doubt, contains many healthy and enriching ideas that have the power to transform people’s lives. However, there are elements to the biblical text which seem out of place in a book that purports to be inspired by a perfect God. Two examples of this are its endorsement of slavery and anti-homosexual stance, which we will take up in detail in this work. The former seems morally dubious at best, and the latter seems to fly in the face of more rational and modern conceptions of sexual proclivity and orientation. Both of these are examples of teachings which don’t seem to comport with a God who is all-loving and all-knowing.
If the Bible permits things like slavery- which we can all say is wrong- then it contains moral errors. If (as we shall discover) the Bible’s reasoning for homophobia is rooted in primitive ancient thought, then it contains scientific errors. Moral errors within God’s flawless text would make God less than perfectly good. Similarly, scientific errors would render God less than omniscient. These errors are not consistent with an all-loving, all-knowing God. However, they are perfectly consistent with the people that wrote the Bible, in their time and culture. To ancient peoples, practices like slavery were much more widely accepted as a necessary part of society. Similarly, in their day, they had not yet reached a level of scientific competence that we have today. I cannot imagine a perfect God condoning slavery, but I can certainly imagine an ancient Israelite justifying it. Thus, we might consider that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God- it is more human than many Christians believe!
In this work, we will consider the possibility that these controversial aspects of the Bible are human errors, rather than it being a flawless and perfectly inspired text, using examples to demonstrate this thesis. Discovering that the Bible is not perfect may be a daunting and earth shattering discovery for people who have built their whole life upon the inspiration of the Bible, but to paraphrase scholar Bart Ehrman: “God is where the truth is”- it is to our benefit to recognise the Bible’s limitations (if we discover it to have any), and this will surely only bring us closer to the truth- and ultimately to God.
Today’s Cultural Climate
Today the Bible stands in conflict with much of secular culture, because of its stance on issues like homosexuality. Therefore the church feels they must contend with this culture, rather than support it. This is due to their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. But do we really know that the Bible in every word represents the views of God? Christians rarely stop to question this belief that under-girds their faith. They essentially reason in a circle that it is all true, merely because it says that it is. The inerrancy of the Bible goes unquestioned my most Christians, out of trembling piety. It never receives the same scrutiny that they would apply to anything else with their God-given intellect. The Bible to most Christians is the universal axiom of truth through which they judge everything. However, to outsiders, who aren’t committed to faith, the Bible appears full of faulty morality and logic. So perhaps Christians ought to seriously test this biblical claim of its own impeccability before they go out into the world asserting its teachings. After all, if it is the perfect word of God, there is nothing for them to be afraid of. But if it is faulty, then there are big ramifications.
The same book that speaks of exclusive salvation through Jesus Christ, also allows the keeping and beating of chattel slaves. Already, this should raise the eyebrows of the unbiased reader. It does not seem fitting that a God who is perfectly loving should encourage this clearly inhumane behaviour. If it is unacceptable to the secular world, should it be allowed by God? This is where I feel Bible believing Christians place their dogma before their common sense: because they believe the Bible is perfect, they will squint their eyes and convince themselves that these ugly parts of the Bible are somehow justified, rather than question the Bible itself. In many areas of Bible controversy, Christians will essentially tell themselves that they don’t have to understand the text, they just have to obey it. Then one day, when they get to heaven, God will explain to them how black can be white and white can be black.
If these aspects of the Bible are the work of men, then God could still be good apart from the biblical depictions, but if they are true, then God appears to be morally objectionable, and why then should we take seriously the biblical views on homosexuality? However, in my own journey, I found the concept of a corrupted God is a miserable outlook on reality, where everybody loses. It is a better sentiment to see the obvious: that a good God would not endorse these things, but they are perfectly congruent with the people in the time and culture that the Bible was written. That is to say, the Bible is limited by human thought, rather than being a perfectly divine work that was beamed into peoples’ minds from heaven.
Most of belief in the truth of the Bible really boils down to personal conviction that its ideas are true. People are convinced by the profound contents of the Bible that it must be from God. Yet we only have to look at the apocryphal and pseudopigriphal texts to see that religious writings that are not considered inspired by the church at large can be profound and edifying. Similarly, other ancient religious texts are amazingly well written, and likely inspired the biblical writers. People are capable of great works. All it takes is for someone thoughtful and intelligent to pick up a pen and write that these words are inspired and of God.
In this work then, I will demonstrate examples where the Bible is clearly in error- morally and scientifically- so that it cannot be the word of a perfect God who knows everything. When I say “scientifically”, I do not merely refer to common examples such as the biblical flat earth cosmology (although that is a valid example). I refer to fresh examples based on modern scholarship, that show how on issues such as homosexuality, the Bible forms its moral stance based on a lack of insight into science. Then I will repeat that a God who is all-knowing would not think this way, and so these tenets based around flawed science then, cannot reflect God’s thinking. Similarly, it is my conviction that moral errors in the Bible cannot represent a perfect moral being, and so too are human in origin.
This work will demonstrate these human limitations of the Bible and thus challenge its inerrancy. I will focus on slavery as a moral error, and homosexuality as a moral and scientific error in both the Old and New Testaments. This defence of homosexuality will include looking at 1 Corinthians 11 and the women's head covering, as being based in an ancient, flawed scientific understanding owing to Paul’s limited knowledge in his day. This passage, I believe, is the key to demonstrating the flaws of Romans 1, and is a necessary precursor.
My aim is not to destroy faith in God, Jesus or even in the Bible, but to rush to the aid of those who would pursue a relationship with God, if it wasn’t for the Bible condemning them before they even start. It is not uncommon that the Bible’s stance on homosexuality has led to the suicide of gay people, who feel they cannot change their inherent sexuality, and so cannot live at peace with God. So my aim is to demonstrate how the Bible isn’t the final word of God on these issues, and to put it in its proper place- as a book full of spiritual insight, but that is limited by the biases and viewpoints of its writers.
In this work, I will share my own significant findings for the benefit of those who struggle themselves with these topics and the issues they raise. It is my hope that people may find comfort in following a truly good God without the need for slavish adherence to the Bible, which I believe bears the signature of human, rather than divine thought, in these areas of controversy. I intend to show people that God can be defined without exclusive reference to the Bible.
I will also be fair to the Bible where appropriate, because on the issue of gender roles, which I have not yet spoken, I believe the New Testament takes an equitable stance that is favourable to women. It is mistranslation that has led to the systems we have in Christianity today, where women are forbidden to preach, etc. Again, modern scholarship can help us here.
My Personal Deconstruction Journey
This work is the sum of my own efforts to answer my personal questions and reservations with the biblical text. As a Christian from the age of 19, I was quickly disappointed by the Bible’s apparent moral errors, such as permitting slavery, or killing off whole nations in the Old Testament by the order of God. I found that its stance on homosexuality was unfair to gay people, who rather than engaging in a “sinful choice”, seemed naturally wired to be attracted to the same sex. I was perturbed by the consensus on masturbation, as derived from Matthew 5:28. I found its stance on sex outside of marriage and “sexual immorality” in general, to be ultimately too restrictive. I developed a profound objection to the New Testament teaching of eternal conscious torment in hell for the unbelieving. These are a handful of my misgivings towards the biblical text, and there are many more.
I found that these aspects didn’t harmonise well with how I would expect a massively intelligent and perfectly moral God to think in their holy book. Being under-whelmed with the answers I was hearing from the church, I set upon understanding these issues for myself. This led me on a journey of deconstruction that lasted around 14 years (most of my Christian life), and has ultimately lead me at the age of 33, to reject the notion of biblical inerrancy.
For years, I wrestled with the topics of hell, homosexuality, sexual purity and slavery. Slowly, and often frustrated, I searched for answers. I eventually gathered much knowledge from scholarship, but all the while I was stuck in the mindset that the Bible was God’s inspired word- that it ultimately was binding and true. I began to learn from scholars such as the late Dr Michael Heiser that the Bible had cultural limitations- that the Old Testament Law accommodated an ancient people with a more primitive culture. For a while this placated my reservations with slavery being permitted in the Old Testament- God was allowing it for that people in their time, but not endorsing that practice. Similarly with homosexuality, I learned it was likely the result of ancient, pre-scientific thinking, and Yahweh possibly thought differently.
I was learning the Bible contained errors, but what then should I make of it? Which parts should I follow and which should I reject? The fact that God had permitted these things to be written when they were wrong was perplexing- he had ultimately left us to guess. For example, the Bible still condemns homosexuality while saying nothing to the contrary. So if this topic was based in error of human thinking, then God never intervened to correct them.
The Bible comes with no self commentary and contains things that are only intelligible today if you know the cultural context. Other times, it glosses over things that make statements of enormous import, without answering all the important questions we are left asking. Why is it so nebulous if it is for our very salvation? Why didn’t God explain things more clearly? Why didn’t God deign to override cultural and scientific limitations to reveal the whole truth in the Bible? He could have done that and it would have been much clearer to the modern day reader what was required of us.
I was for years the outcast in Evangelical Christian circles, being the false teacher who challenged the paradigm and applied autonomous and critical thought to the Bible, rather than just faithfully believing God. I felt I had to keep my views private in church, or I would be leading the flock astray. But eventually, my relationship with the notion of biblical inspiration came to a... melodramatic end...
I remember in 2021, lying in bed thinking about hell and how my mother might go there forever, because she did not believe every word of the Bible- which I myself was finding it increasingly hard to believe. I came to a dreadful place in my heart where I remember uttering the unforgivable- that if everlasting hell were a reality, then I would sooner go there myself than continue to follow a God that subjected people to that terrible fate without reprieve. The Bible just seemed too inhumane to follow. For a few awful days, I wandered in the abject wilderness of being between a God I felt was corrupt and my own moral backbone. I had rejected God as portrayed in the Bible and was standing up to him.
But I kept myself sane remembering these things: that I knew the Bible contained human error and thought, so it did not always represent God's opinions. It was my informed belief that the Bible was not perfectly reflective of God’s views, and that it contained errors in these controversial areas. Yet, there remained a shred of doubt, and I was naturally unsure about what God really thought about salvation, damnation, and all the rules in between, since the Bible claimed to be God’s word, and there was nothing written or revealed to the contrary on these controversial topics: It never admits to making errors, and its words on things like hell and homosexuality are blunt and awful.
That was the point where I decided to finally to do two things as a last ditch effort to understand it all: - look at near death experience testimonies, and look at material directly challenging biblical inerrancy. I quickly saw in near death experience accounts that God was more accepting than the Bible- it was all about love (as I had wished it would be), rather than doctrine. God was more forgiving than to condemn people forever. In some of these testimonies, people are even told directly that the Bible is imperfect when they ask about it. Not that this is sufficient evidence for doubters, but for me, as someone who wanted to retain belief in God it was the ultimate relief!
I looked at Bible critical material, such as MythVision Podcast. Here, I quickly learned the Bible text was more questionably composed than you would expect from God’s actual words. There is little evidence for its veracity, and the compilation of early Christian texts into the canon we have today seemed altogether too chaotic for it to be a book orchestrated by God for our very salvation. There seemed to be too much evidence of parts of the text being written in order to make a theological point for the sake of the writers, rather than it being authentic and perfect.
Within a couple of days, I found my Rosetta Stone, by confirming to myself that the Bible was not fully inspired as it claimed, but did in fact contain errors that don’t represent the views of God! This immediately vindicated God as a perfect being in my heart- if the Bible was imperfect, then God could still be perfect, but need not be defined by the Bible. It meant that just because the Bible said something, it didn’t necessarily mean that was God’s view. Therefore, in these areas of controversy, the Bible need not be ascribed to God, but to man- limited in knowledge and morality!
If the Bible has errors, they cannot be from God: they must be human. God does not make mistakes! Thus, we can know that in these areas, the Bible is not inspired, and does not reflect God’s thinking. Then we may begin to ask freely if these areas are human, what else in the Bible is similarly human and not divine? It will embolden us to believe in a God that is perfect, without the flaws these negative aspects of the Bible would entail. It will liberate us to reimagine an altogether better God, not limited to the biblical text. Or it may lead the reader to confident atheism, without the looming vengeance of an angry God, waiting to strike. That is up to the individual, but I will merely present what I think are the facts about the Bible as a purportedly divine work.
I cannot tell you which- if any- of the parts of the Bible are inspired, but only that it definitely contains human error by way of lack of scientific insight and cultural biases, owing to the limitations of the people who wrote it. These errors, as we shall discover, are mostly in the areas of controversy. We will look at the two main examples of slavery- as a moral error, then homosexuality as being based in scientific and moral error. Then we shall cover other topics too as appendices to the main work.
If the Bible told you to Jump off a cliff, would you do it?
I sometimes wonder if Bible believing Christians would jump off a cliff if the Bible told them to? They probably would say something like: “well it’s a hypothetical, but if God told me to jump off a cliff, I would have to”. But then they would add: “but God would never tell us to jump off a cliff”. That last bit is my point- a perfect God of love wouldn’t tell us to jump off a cliff, so it wouldn’t also tell the ancient Israelites to do inhumane things like keep foreign slaves and beat them to the verge of death. The presence of these ugly parts of the Bible are big red flags which have all the hallmarks of human, rather than divine thought. We ought to wake up as a people and seriously take the Bible to task, evaluating its status as a divine work.
Religious Conflict, Sexual Identity, and Suicidal Behaviors among LGBT Young Adults
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4706071/
If the Bible permits things like slavery- which we can all say is wrong- then it contains moral errors. If (as we shall discover) the Bible’s reasoning for homophobia is rooted in primitive ancient thought, then it contains scientific errors. Moral errors within God’s flawless text would make God less than perfectly good. Similarly, scientific errors would render God less than omniscient. These errors are not consistent with an all-loving, all-knowing God. However, they are perfectly consistent with the people that wrote the Bible, in their time and culture. To ancient peoples, practices like slavery were much more widely accepted as a necessary part of society. Similarly, in their day, they had not yet reached a level of scientific competence that we have today. I cannot imagine a perfect God condoning slavery, but I can certainly imagine an ancient Israelite justifying it. Thus, we might consider that the Bible is not the inerrant word of God- it is more human than many Christians believe!
In this work, we will consider the possibility that these controversial aspects of the Bible are human errors, rather than it being a flawless and perfectly inspired text, using examples to demonstrate this thesis. Discovering that the Bible is not perfect may be a daunting and earth shattering discovery for people who have built their whole life upon the inspiration of the Bible, but to paraphrase scholar Bart Ehrman: “God is where the truth is”- it is to our benefit to recognise the Bible’s limitations (if we discover it to have any), and this will surely only bring us closer to the truth- and ultimately to God.
Today’s Cultural Climate
Today the Bible stands in conflict with much of secular culture, because of its stance on issues like homosexuality. Therefore the church feels they must contend with this culture, rather than support it. This is due to their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. But do we really know that the Bible in every word represents the views of God? Christians rarely stop to question this belief that under-girds their faith. They essentially reason in a circle that it is all true, merely because it says that it is. The inerrancy of the Bible goes unquestioned my most Christians, out of trembling piety. It never receives the same scrutiny that they would apply to anything else with their God-given intellect. The Bible to most Christians is the universal axiom of truth through which they judge everything. However, to outsiders, who aren’t committed to faith, the Bible appears full of faulty morality and logic. So perhaps Christians ought to seriously test this biblical claim of its own impeccability before they go out into the world asserting its teachings. After all, if it is the perfect word of God, there is nothing for them to be afraid of. But if it is faulty, then there are big ramifications.
The same book that speaks of exclusive salvation through Jesus Christ, also allows the keeping and beating of chattel slaves. Already, this should raise the eyebrows of the unbiased reader. It does not seem fitting that a God who is perfectly loving should encourage this clearly inhumane behaviour. If it is unacceptable to the secular world, should it be allowed by God? This is where I feel Bible believing Christians place their dogma before their common sense: because they believe the Bible is perfect, they will squint their eyes and convince themselves that these ugly parts of the Bible are somehow justified, rather than question the Bible itself. In many areas of Bible controversy, Christians will essentially tell themselves that they don’t have to understand the text, they just have to obey it. Then one day, when they get to heaven, God will explain to them how black can be white and white can be black.
If these aspects of the Bible are the work of men, then God could still be good apart from the biblical depictions, but if they are true, then God appears to be morally objectionable, and why then should we take seriously the biblical views on homosexuality? However, in my own journey, I found the concept of a corrupted God is a miserable outlook on reality, where everybody loses. It is a better sentiment to see the obvious: that a good God would not endorse these things, but they are perfectly congruent with the people in the time and culture that the Bible was written. That is to say, the Bible is limited by human thought, rather than being a perfectly divine work that was beamed into peoples’ minds from heaven.
Most of belief in the truth of the Bible really boils down to personal conviction that its ideas are true. People are convinced by the profound contents of the Bible that it must be from God. Yet we only have to look at the apocryphal and pseudopigriphal texts to see that religious writings that are not considered inspired by the church at large can be profound and edifying. Similarly, other ancient religious texts are amazingly well written, and likely inspired the biblical writers. People are capable of great works. All it takes is for someone thoughtful and intelligent to pick up a pen and write that these words are inspired and of God.
In this work then, I will demonstrate examples where the Bible is clearly in error- morally and scientifically- so that it cannot be the word of a perfect God who knows everything. When I say “scientifically”, I do not merely refer to common examples such as the biblical flat earth cosmology (although that is a valid example). I refer to fresh examples based on modern scholarship, that show how on issues such as homosexuality, the Bible forms its moral stance based on a lack of insight into science. Then I will repeat that a God who is all-knowing would not think this way, and so these tenets based around flawed science then, cannot reflect God’s thinking. Similarly, it is my conviction that moral errors in the Bible cannot represent a perfect moral being, and so too are human in origin.
This work will demonstrate these human limitations of the Bible and thus challenge its inerrancy. I will focus on slavery as a moral error, and homosexuality as a moral and scientific error in both the Old and New Testaments. This defence of homosexuality will include looking at 1 Corinthians 11 and the women's head covering, as being based in an ancient, flawed scientific understanding owing to Paul’s limited knowledge in his day. This passage, I believe, is the key to demonstrating the flaws of Romans 1, and is a necessary precursor.
My aim is not to destroy faith in God, Jesus or even in the Bible, but to rush to the aid of those who would pursue a relationship with God, if it wasn’t for the Bible condemning them before they even start. It is not uncommon that the Bible’s stance on homosexuality has led to the suicide of gay people, who feel they cannot change their inherent sexuality, and so cannot live at peace with God. So my aim is to demonstrate how the Bible isn’t the final word of God on these issues, and to put it in its proper place- as a book full of spiritual insight, but that is limited by the biases and viewpoints of its writers.
In this work, I will share my own significant findings for the benefit of those who struggle themselves with these topics and the issues they raise. It is my hope that people may find comfort in following a truly good God without the need for slavish adherence to the Bible, which I believe bears the signature of human, rather than divine thought, in these areas of controversy. I intend to show people that God can be defined without exclusive reference to the Bible.
I will also be fair to the Bible where appropriate, because on the issue of gender roles, which I have not yet spoken, I believe the New Testament takes an equitable stance that is favourable to women. It is mistranslation that has led to the systems we have in Christianity today, where women are forbidden to preach, etc. Again, modern scholarship can help us here.
My Personal Deconstruction Journey
This work is the sum of my own efforts to answer my personal questions and reservations with the biblical text. As a Christian from the age of 19, I was quickly disappointed by the Bible’s apparent moral errors, such as permitting slavery, or killing off whole nations in the Old Testament by the order of God. I found that its stance on homosexuality was unfair to gay people, who rather than engaging in a “sinful choice”, seemed naturally wired to be attracted to the same sex. I was perturbed by the consensus on masturbation, as derived from Matthew 5:28. I found its stance on sex outside of marriage and “sexual immorality” in general, to be ultimately too restrictive. I developed a profound objection to the New Testament teaching of eternal conscious torment in hell for the unbelieving. These are a handful of my misgivings towards the biblical text, and there are many more.
I found that these aspects didn’t harmonise well with how I would expect a massively intelligent and perfectly moral God to think in their holy book. Being under-whelmed with the answers I was hearing from the church, I set upon understanding these issues for myself. This led me on a journey of deconstruction that lasted around 14 years (most of my Christian life), and has ultimately lead me at the age of 33, to reject the notion of biblical inerrancy.
For years, I wrestled with the topics of hell, homosexuality, sexual purity and slavery. Slowly, and often frustrated, I searched for answers. I eventually gathered much knowledge from scholarship, but all the while I was stuck in the mindset that the Bible was God’s inspired word- that it ultimately was binding and true. I began to learn from scholars such as the late Dr Michael Heiser that the Bible had cultural limitations- that the Old Testament Law accommodated an ancient people with a more primitive culture. For a while this placated my reservations with slavery being permitted in the Old Testament- God was allowing it for that people in their time, but not endorsing that practice. Similarly with homosexuality, I learned it was likely the result of ancient, pre-scientific thinking, and Yahweh possibly thought differently.
I was learning the Bible contained errors, but what then should I make of it? Which parts should I follow and which should I reject? The fact that God had permitted these things to be written when they were wrong was perplexing- he had ultimately left us to guess. For example, the Bible still condemns homosexuality while saying nothing to the contrary. So if this topic was based in error of human thinking, then God never intervened to correct them.
The Bible comes with no self commentary and contains things that are only intelligible today if you know the cultural context. Other times, it glosses over things that make statements of enormous import, without answering all the important questions we are left asking. Why is it so nebulous if it is for our very salvation? Why didn’t God explain things more clearly? Why didn’t God deign to override cultural and scientific limitations to reveal the whole truth in the Bible? He could have done that and it would have been much clearer to the modern day reader what was required of us.
I was for years the outcast in Evangelical Christian circles, being the false teacher who challenged the paradigm and applied autonomous and critical thought to the Bible, rather than just faithfully believing God. I felt I had to keep my views private in church, or I would be leading the flock astray. But eventually, my relationship with the notion of biblical inspiration came to a... melodramatic end...
I remember in 2021, lying in bed thinking about hell and how my mother might go there forever, because she did not believe every word of the Bible- which I myself was finding it increasingly hard to believe. I came to a dreadful place in my heart where I remember uttering the unforgivable- that if everlasting hell were a reality, then I would sooner go there myself than continue to follow a God that subjected people to that terrible fate without reprieve. The Bible just seemed too inhumane to follow. For a few awful days, I wandered in the abject wilderness of being between a God I felt was corrupt and my own moral backbone. I had rejected God as portrayed in the Bible and was standing up to him.
But I kept myself sane remembering these things: that I knew the Bible contained human error and thought, so it did not always represent God's opinions. It was my informed belief that the Bible was not perfectly reflective of God’s views, and that it contained errors in these controversial areas. Yet, there remained a shred of doubt, and I was naturally unsure about what God really thought about salvation, damnation, and all the rules in between, since the Bible claimed to be God’s word, and there was nothing written or revealed to the contrary on these controversial topics: It never admits to making errors, and its words on things like hell and homosexuality are blunt and awful.
That was the point where I decided to finally to do two things as a last ditch effort to understand it all: - look at near death experience testimonies, and look at material directly challenging biblical inerrancy. I quickly saw in near death experience accounts that God was more accepting than the Bible- it was all about love (as I had wished it would be), rather than doctrine. God was more forgiving than to condemn people forever. In some of these testimonies, people are even told directly that the Bible is imperfect when they ask about it. Not that this is sufficient evidence for doubters, but for me, as someone who wanted to retain belief in God it was the ultimate relief!
I looked at Bible critical material, such as MythVision Podcast. Here, I quickly learned the Bible text was more questionably composed than you would expect from God’s actual words. There is little evidence for its veracity, and the compilation of early Christian texts into the canon we have today seemed altogether too chaotic for it to be a book orchestrated by God for our very salvation. There seemed to be too much evidence of parts of the text being written in order to make a theological point for the sake of the writers, rather than it being authentic and perfect.
Within a couple of days, I found my Rosetta Stone, by confirming to myself that the Bible was not fully inspired as it claimed, but did in fact contain errors that don’t represent the views of God! This immediately vindicated God as a perfect being in my heart- if the Bible was imperfect, then God could still be perfect, but need not be defined by the Bible. It meant that just because the Bible said something, it didn’t necessarily mean that was God’s view. Therefore, in these areas of controversy, the Bible need not be ascribed to God, but to man- limited in knowledge and morality!
If the Bible has errors, they cannot be from God: they must be human. God does not make mistakes! Thus, we can know that in these areas, the Bible is not inspired, and does not reflect God’s thinking. Then we may begin to ask freely if these areas are human, what else in the Bible is similarly human and not divine? It will embolden us to believe in a God that is perfect, without the flaws these negative aspects of the Bible would entail. It will liberate us to reimagine an altogether better God, not limited to the biblical text. Or it may lead the reader to confident atheism, without the looming vengeance of an angry God, waiting to strike. That is up to the individual, but I will merely present what I think are the facts about the Bible as a purportedly divine work.
I cannot tell you which- if any- of the parts of the Bible are inspired, but only that it definitely contains human error by way of lack of scientific insight and cultural biases, owing to the limitations of the people who wrote it. These errors, as we shall discover, are mostly in the areas of controversy. We will look at the two main examples of slavery- as a moral error, then homosexuality as being based in scientific and moral error. Then we shall cover other topics too as appendices to the main work.
If the Bible told you to Jump off a cliff, would you do it?
I sometimes wonder if Bible believing Christians would jump off a cliff if the Bible told them to? They probably would say something like: “well it’s a hypothetical, but if God told me to jump off a cliff, I would have to”. But then they would add: “but God would never tell us to jump off a cliff”. That last bit is my point- a perfect God of love wouldn’t tell us to jump off a cliff, so it wouldn’t also tell the ancient Israelites to do inhumane things like keep foreign slaves and beat them to the verge of death. The presence of these ugly parts of the Bible are big red flags which have all the hallmarks of human, rather than divine thought. We ought to wake up as a people and seriously take the Bible to task, evaluating its status as a divine work.
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4706071/
Ancient Egyptian Parallels In the Bible
https://projectaugustine.com/biblical-studies/ancient-near-east-studies/ancient-egyptian-parallels-in-the-bible/
https://projectaugustine.com/biblical-studies/ancient-near-east-studies/ancient-egyptian-parallels-in-the-bible/
Comments
Post a Comment