Why defend the Bible?

[unknown soldier]

Christian apologetics, understood as a defense of Christian beliefs, keeps busy defending the Bible. Why is it so important to defend the Bible?

I'm sure Christians have many reasons to defend the Bible which we can talk about, but here are four reasons we can begin to debate and discuss:

1. It is the "word of God" that communicates what he wants Christians to know.
2. It inspires and encourages them to remain steadfast in the faith.
3. It provides guidelines for living life wisely and morally.
4. It offers hope to them.

What exactly does the Bible need to be defended from? Again, we can discuss many reasons, but I'd like to start by discussing the following four reasons:

1. The Bible's pages are full of atrocities committed by God that no moral people can condone.
2. The Bible is full of internal inconsistencies that cannot be sensibly reconciled.
3. The Bible is often inconsistent with what we know from science and historical studies.
4. The Bible has failed to let Christians know what it really means, and that's why Christians have disagreed and even fought over it for centuries.

[theophile]

Well, theoph, I must give you credit. You are one of the few who has actually read the OP carefully and is addressing the issues I raised there.

I think it can reveal the word of God for those with ears to hear it. And by that I don't mean the special few who are gifted with some (un)natural capability, but rather those who put the effort in, and maintain an open posture to it.

I think I can paraphrase your argument this way:

God authored the Bible like a mystery novel. He wants the reader to "dig in" and solve the puzzles in its many pages. In so doing, the reader will be all the better having grown in faith from the rigor of discovering truths in its massive and convoluted narratives, poems, letters, rules and prophecies.

Here's my explanation for the difficulties of discerning what's written in the Bible:

The Bible was written by many different people who had conflicting agendas. They were writing fiction that, not surprisingly, was not consistent with the fiction that its other writers had made up. Some of the authors deliberately made the meaning of their words obscure knowing that some of their readers would mistake that obscurity for what a God would write who had knowledge that no person can fully understand.

How is your explanation for the Bible's difficulties any better than mine? It doesn't seem right to me that a perfect God would author a book in such a way that it would need to be defended.

Sure, a mystery novel. On steroids. It is chock full of morally outrageous events... Complex literary forms and structures... Provocative and enigmatic statements... Seeming contradictions...

Do I think that every biblical author used every term in the exact same way? No. But I do think we need to be extremely careful and considerate about how words are used there, as I believe the original authors were. (Note, I don't think that "God" wrote the bible - I would agree with you that it was written by human beings).

Do I think that every biblical author had 100% consistent theologies and would have nothing to debate each other on? No. Again, the elimination of debate, I think, would miss the point... The point, in fact, is to incite it, and inspire it, and to keep it going beyond the challenges that the bible sets us even, so that we do the job of challenging each other, and help each other grow in wisdom. And ideally leave the bible behind in our wisdom... (Or take it further.)

That said, I do think that all biblical authors were moving in the same direction. Some deeper motive or spirit undergirds / influenced them all. It is this deeper motive or spirit, and working to discern it, that I think is incumbent on all of us to do, and to express through our words / deeds, and to challenge each other with / on... (Happy to go into that more, but I would point you for now to Genesis 1 / creation for the clearest statement of this motive.)

So last, how is my explanation of the bible's difficulties any better than yours? It may not be. I don't disagree with anything you said here. But nothing you said here changes the main point of my argument: the bible is not a simple text. It is challenging, and it pushes us to think about difficult and uncomfortable topics. And it does so in rich and beautiful ways. So even if it's just a matter of distinguishing the different agendas, vocabularies, and theologies of its writers, and discerning the wisdom between them, that alone would be enough for me to defend it - even though I think there is far more to defend about it.

(That, again, would be getting to the underlying motive / spirit that its authors are trying to express, and that they depict humanity struggling to discern and enact throughout history.)

[tam]

Peace to you,

And what is it that you suggest a person do with regard to these 'strongly entrenched things' (biases and falsehoods that people carry, that are strongly entrenched, that they may not even be aware has shaped their understanding or lack thereof?)

You have predetermined that these 'strongly entrenched things' in others are biases and falsehoods. How have you established that?

I did not use the phrase 'in others'. This is what I said:

***

And that teaching - "the bible is the 'word of god' that communicates what he wants Christians to know" - is a "strongly entrenched thing". Most daughters (sects and denominations) teach this. Even when many leave a former religion (sect or denomination), they take with them these 'strongly entrenched things', without even realizing that these things were never sound (or true) to begin with. And this is true of theists as well. "Which is why, if a disciple (of Christ) comes out of a daughter (sect or denomination) and yet wants to come to HIM, then that one should tear everything down, right down to the cornerstone (Christ), then let Him build them back up on Him (the Rock, the foundation, and the cornerstone of our faith)."

***

Religion teaches things that become strongly entrenched. Do you disagree? If some of those teachings are false, then those strongly entrenched things would be falsehood, yes?

Isn't it just as likely that you are the one with strongly entrenched biases and falsehoods?

I was never a member of any sect or denomination (any part of Christendom). So I was never taught most of the things that people talk about and take as a 'given' on these forums (things that they learned from their current or former religion). So I did not have most of those biases or doctrines ingrained in me. I was in my mid-late twenties when I went seeking truth. I went seeking because I knew I did not know truth. As an example of how little I had learned from religion, I thought the new testament was comprised of only five books: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. I had never read the bible. No one had ever taught me that it was inerrant or that it was the Word of God, so those teachings were never IN me to begin with.


Still, I may have picked up a few things here and there, perhaps from a few Sunday school classes, etc, (though my Lord is the One who taught me to question religious leaders and their claims, even back as a child); and from the media (movies and fiction). For example, the teaching about 'hell', that it is a place of eternal torment (that was a deeply entrenched thing that is false). The religion I know the most about would be the JW one: I did a two year bible study with them, but I could not join them (they also were not the truth, and I was seeking TRUTH).


So even though I was never part of a sect or denomination, I also had to ensure that I looked only to the cornerstone (Christ), then let Him build me up on Him (the Rock, the foundation, the cornerstone of my faith).





Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[unknown soldier]

[Replying to unknown soldier in post #31]

Many Christians have said: "It (the Bible) is the word of God that communicates what he wants Christians to know." I think that's their view and have no reason to doubt it.

But the thing is, anyone who has done any sort of study of the what is contained in the Bible would know that much, and I mean MUCH of the Bible could not possibly fit this category. Much, and even most of the OT were laws, and instruction given to the Israelites, which would have nothing to do with us today. The overwhelming majority of the NT can be demonstrated to be letters addressed to particular audiences at the time, with no concern, nor any idea that anyone else would read these letters other than the intended audience, and they certainly had no idea that you, and I would be reading these letters some 2000 years later. Now, you are claiming that this is what Christians claim to believe, and this is why you bring it up, but I think it can be clearly demonstrated this is your view of the Bible as well, since you continue to describe my thinking on these things as "strange" (which we will address as we move on) which sort of demonstrates one who is simply listening to what Christians have to say, but clearly has not done very much study of the Bible on their own.

Your view of the canon of the New Testament is very strange.

And here we go? Really? So, it is "strange" to understand and acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of the NT were letters addressed to particular audiences at the time, and these authors were addressing issues at that time, and they only had their particular audience in mind as they wrote, and the fact that none of these authors could have possibly known about any sort Bible, and so they certainly were not writing in order to be contained in the Bible? This is somehow "strange" to you? This is someone who certainly seems to clearly demonstrate that they are taking their view of the Bible from others, and have not really read the content for themselves using their own mind, because if they had, then this certainly would not be "strange" in the least.

But then, to go on to demonstrate that you seem to take the same view as many Christians, you go on to say,

Are you saying that the early church selected books to include in the New Testament that are irrelevant to the Christian faith?

My friend, the overwhelming majority of what is contained in the NT would not be "books", but would rather be letters, which were written to particular audiences at the time. Moreover, it is very possible that all of the NT would have been letters.

Next, would you suggest that the letters we have from Caesar would not be irrelevant? I certainly hope not, because historians believe these letters can tell us what actually happened in history because of these letters. Now of course, we do not have the time, and space to go through all the NT, so let us simply consider Paul's letter to Philemon again.

As I stated before, there is nothing in this letter that would pertain to me, which means there would be nothing in this letter God would wanted me to know. However, as we read this letter, there is a lot we all can learn about Paul, and his life. With this being the case, it is not only Christians who can benefit from this letter, but also unbelievers. Now, I am not going to go through the whole letter, but this letter certainly would have been written while Paul would have been under arrest, and Paul refers to himself as an "old man". Next, Paul happens to mention the name of Luke, as if Luke would have been with him at the time of writing this letter. Well, guess what? The author of Luke, was also most certainly the author of Acts. Okay, then the author of Acts, begins to use the words "we", and "us" when describing the travels of Paul, as if he is there to actually witness the events he is describing, and he is writing to one individual. Now, can you imagine where the author of Acts ends his letter? Well, that would be while Paul would have been under arrest, just like he would have been when Paul mentions the name of Luke as being with him in his letter to Philemon.

Now, can you imagine what this would tell us, whether Christian or not? Well, that would be that the author of both Luke, and Acts, would have traveled with Paul. But guess what else it would tell us? This would tell us that this author would have been alive at the time of Jesus, would have known and spent a lot of time with the Apostles, and would have heard the claims they were making from their very lips. If this is the case, then this would mean the scholars have it wrong, and there would have been at least one of the authors of the Gospels, who would have been alive at the time of the events reported.

What I have just done, is to take a very short letter which is contained in the Bible, and analyzed just a very small portion, of this very small letter, and demonstrated just how relevant it would be, not only to Christians, but also to everyone who reads it. And you want to say, "Your view of the canon of the New Testament is very strange"?

but I'm guessing that its (Philemon) perceived message is that God loves all people including slaves. Paul is presenting God as compassionate.

This is SO, SO COMICAL! You are guessing? Well how about this? Paul is going around on his missionary journeys, and ends up in prison, and continues to preach the Gospel while in prison and runs into this guy named Onesimus? As his relationship with this Onesimus continues, Paul discovers Onesimus is a run away slave of Philemon. Therefore, Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon, with this letter? With this being the case, this would have nothing at all to do with Paul, "presenting God as compassionate" to all Christians, and this is how all Christians should operate, but rather this was simply Paul living his life, and this letter would have simply been a by product of the life Paul was living? It is simply amazing to me how blinded folks are to this? In other words, because this letter is contained into what has been called the Bible, it has to have something to do with what God would want to communicate to Christians and how they should live, when the letter is clearly about Paul's concern for Onesimus, and Philemon. The next thing that is amazing to me is, when one is under the impression that, "if it ain't about us, then it ain't relevant". UNREAL!

Yes. I looked it up.

Would this be to say that I would have been correct that you had to go and look in order to know what the subject of this letter was?

So why are you attacking me personally rather than sticking with the issues?

I am not attacking you? Rather, I am attacking your idea of what the Bible contains, and is. You claim the Bible is full of atrocities, and inconsistencies, along with other complaints, however upon investigation we seem to have determined that you know very little about what is actually contained in the Bible. You claim that my "view of the canon of the New Testament is very strange" but anyone who has done any sort of real study at all would understand that it is not strange in the least, which sort of demonstrates one who has done very little study of their own, and has simply picked the view they believed to be the most popular.

It looks like you're running out of arguments.

Does it really?

I think you're confusing my use of the word "moral" with my supposedly referring to a moral code. I don't need a moral code to understand what moral means.

What moral means, and what it is, is two different things. Moral means, correct behavior. So then, who is it that determines correct behavior? If we are all left to our own subjective opinion, then none of us can insist that another's behavior would be absolutely immoral. You would need some sort of standard to do such a thing.

I use words all the time that I might not have defined. If people understand words like "moral" differently than I do, then I can live with that because morality is subjective.

Okay, this would mean that morality would be left to the opinion of each individual, and one opinion would be no better than any other, and if there are those who want to fly jet planes into buildings killing thousands of people under the name of "morality" then we cannot in any way insist their behavior would have been absolutely immoral, because it would have been moral in their subjective opinion.

You have to face the facts! If you cannot demonstrate what morality would be, then you really cannot refer to the behavior of others as being immoral. I have faced these facts, and I do not refer to others as immoral.

I think extramarital sex is moral as long as nobody gets hurt. Did I borrow that from Christianity? No--if I agree with a Christian moral precept, then it's coincidence.

If you hold the opinion that morality is subjective, then you are not borrowing from the Christian world view. But if this is the case, then you cannot refer to those who are moral, (and you have) because this suggests there is some sort of standard which we can use to determine who would be moral, and who would be immoral. But again, if morality is subjective to each one of us individually then we have no way to refer to others as actually being moral, or immoral.

For me it does.

Correct! But everyone else in the world could have a completely different standard. Allow me to attempt to explain it this way. When the U.S. put a stop the Germany, (which killed millions of Jews) we cannot claim it was the moral thing to do, because there is no set standard. Therefore, what we really did, was to force our morality upon the German people.

Most people believe that the events of 9/11 are immoral.

Oh really? How did you determine this to be the case? Did you go out and take a poll? I have no idea what "most people" would believe, but I'm thinking there would be millions, upon millions in the middle east who would happily agree that it was the moral thing to do. Next, are you suggesting that what the majority would believe determines morality? If so, then there was a time when slavery would have been moral.

There's really no problem with people deciding what is or is not moral.

My friend, if you are allowing everyone to decide morality for themselves, and you are okay with this (which I am) then you would have to admit that everyone would be moral people, as long as the lived according to what they believed to be moral. Therefore, if those who flew the Planes were acting according to their subjective moral standard, then they would be behaving morally according to you. Because you see, with what you seem to be championing, folks do not have to live according to your standard to be moral, but rather according to their own standard. This means, if they lived outside their own moral standard, to behave as you do, this is when they would be referred to as being immoral.

Only Christian apologists who want to make themselves out to have some "objective" morality gripe about people choosing what is right and wrong.

I as a Christian have no problem with allowing each person to determine their own morality. The problem comes in when there are those who hold this position, and then want to insist another would be immoral, when they are simply living according to the subjective moral standards they have set for themselves, even if this means their subjective moral standard involves flying planes into buildings in order to kill thousands.

Sure it does. For me genocide is immoral, but I realize you are forced to disagree because of your Christian faith.

This is where you are incorrect, because I am not the one who is insisting on what morality would be, and referring to other's behavior as immoral. That would be you! But again, the fact of the matter is, there were many in Germany who believed "genocide" to be the moral thing to do, and according to you they would have been acting immorally to behave outside of what they believed to be moral to them.

Why do we need a standard when people generally do just fine by deciding what is moral?

So then, you agree that Germany, and those who championed slavery were doing just fine? In fact, there are those still today who champion, and practice slavery, so I guess they are doing just fine as well?

So to defend the Bible you must dispense with judging morality. Christian apologetics gets stranger all the time!

It is only "strange" to those who take the word of others, instead of doing the study themselves. Because you see, as I Christian I am free from the chase after morality. Morality is only chased by those who think they know what it is, and can obtain it. Some of us are slaves to morality, while there are others who are free from morality, and are free to help others, not out of an obligation to morality, but rather simply out of love, and compassion for others. You might want to read the story of the "Good Samaritan" and I think you may see that there was only one person in the story who was free from morality who was able to help.

If you're family was gunned down, you would not call it immoral.

How could I, and what good would it do to refer to it is, "immoral"? I acknowledge I would do whatever I could to protect my family, but I would not attempt to justify my actions as somehow being the moral thing to do. I will leave the chase after morality to you, and others.

In review, it appears that you have dispensed with any concept of morality to defend the Bible. I'm not terribly surprised that you have done so. It's very difficult to argue that the Bible is moral.

My friend, the best you can rightly say is, "the Bible is immoral in your mind". You cannot in any way demonstrate, the Bible is immoral.

I'm sure you enjoy typing, but this post is way, Way, WAY too long! Post a more concise version, and I'll try to get to it.

[unknown soldier]

Do I think that every biblical author used every term in the exact same way? No. But I do think we need to be extremely careful and considerate about how words are used there, as I believe the original authors were.

Many apologists will defend the Bible by changing or redefining the words in problematical passages. In some cases after apologists are done with those passages those verses bear little resemblance to what they are in that particular Bible version. Maybe apologists should publish their own version of the Bible. They may want to call it the "Sanitized Version."

(Note, I don't think that "God" wrote the bible - I would agree with you that it was written by human beings).

That way you can blame the Bible's very human writers for making very human mistakes. Many apologists argue that God authored a perfect Bible that was lost, and all we have left is what people subsequently messed up. It's odd that God would allow such to happen.

Do I think that every biblical author had 100% consistent theologies and would have nothing to debate each other on? No. Again, the elimination of debate, I think, would miss the point... The point, in fact, is to incite it, and inspire it, and to keep it going beyond the challenges that the bible sets us even, so that we do the job of challenging each other, and help each other grow in wisdom. And ideally leave the bible behind in our wisdom... (Or take it further.)

Challenging people is one thing, but confusing them is something entirely different. I'd be more inclined to agree with you if the way the Bible is written did help people to understand it, but it appears that it confuses people who can never completely agree on what it says.

That said, I do think that all biblical authors were moving in the same direction. Some deeper motive or spirit undergirds / influenced them all. It is this deeper motive or spirit, and working to discern it, that I think is incumbent on all of us to do, and to express through our words / deeds, and to challenge each other with / on...

What you referring to here is not hard to explain without resorting to the supernatural. The Bible's canons didn't fall out of the sky but were selected by people who had theological beliefs that formed the basis for their selection. Any books that veered too far from their agenda were dispensed with or even destroyed. Many Christians since then have shown amazement over the consistency they see in the Bible not realizing that people stacked the deck.

...it does so in rich and beautiful ways.

Some Bible scholars have resorted to characterizing the Bible as a treasure of literature. I wouldn't place the Bible on a par with Shakespeare, but I think it might be more on a level with Stephen King.

So even if it's just a matter of distinguishing the different agendas, vocabularies, and theologies of its writers, and discerning the wisdom between them, that alone would be enough for me to defend it - even though I think there is far more to defend about it.

Why do you need to defend the Bible as literature? I don't know of too many people who are trying to deny it's importance as mythology.

[brunumb]

Maybe the reason is that atheists hate God and other people and want them to get lost.

If you are an atheist you do not have a belief in God. So, how do you reach the conclusion that atheists hate God? It makes no sense.

[brunumb]

Claiming something is wrong, doesnt necessary mean something is really wrong. I agree that there are many "Christians" who have not understood what the Bible tells and none of them can show any real error in the Bible. Those who claim Bible is wrong, only manage to show is their bad interpretations, no real mistakes in the Bible.

I gather then that those who do understand what the Bible says are those that agree with you. Everyone else must be wrong. Perhaps no one understands what the Bible says. That would be quite feasible given that it is a mish-mash of collected writing from thousands of years ago in an age of ignorance and superstition.

[brunumb]

Isn't it just as likely that you are the one with strongly entrenched biases and falsehoods?

I was never a member of any sect or denomination (any part of Christendom). So I was never taught most of the things that people talk about and take as a 'given' on these forums (things that they learned from their current or former religion). So I did not have most of those biases or doctrines ingrained in me.

You can have strongly entrenched biases and falsehoods without picking them up from others. You have not explained how it doesn't apply to yourself.

[tam]

Peace to you,

Isn't it just as likely that you are the one with strongly entrenched biases and falsehoods?

I was never a member of any sect or denomination (any part of Christendom). So I was never taught most of the things that people talk about and take as a 'given' on these forums (things that they learned from their current or former religion). So I did not have most of those biases or doctrines ingrained in me.

You can have strongly entrenched biases and falsehoods without picking them up from others. You have not explained how it doesn't apply to yourself.

I feel as though the answer you are requesting is in the rest of my post:

Still, I may have picked up a few things here and there, perhaps from a few Sunday school classes, etc, (though my Lord is the One who taught me to question religious leaders and their claims, even back as a child); and from the media (movies and fiction). For example, the teaching about 'hell', that it is a place of eternal torment (that was a deeply entrenched thing that is false). The religion I know the most about would be the JW one: I did a two year bible study with them, but I could not join them (they also were not the truth, and I was seeking TRUTH).


So even though I was never part of a sect or denomination, I also had to ensure that I looked only to the cornerstone (Christ), then let Him build me up on Him (the Rock, the foundation, the cornerstone of my faith).

You seem to think I am holding myself to some kind of double standard, but I am not.



Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[Realworldjack]

[Replying to unknown soldier in post #43]

The bottom line here is, we have someone who wants to insist the Bible is immoral, while they certainly seem to demonstrate one who has very little knowledge of the Bible, because they seem to have reached their conclusions about the Bible by listening to what others have to say, as opposed to actually using their own mind. Moreover, they have failed to demonstrate what morality would be, and goes on to insist that morality would be subjective, which would simply mean, the Bible can be immoral to some, and moral to others, and both would be correct. In other words, it can be both, at the same time.

[1213]

Claiming something is wrong, doesnt necessary mean something is really wrong. I agree that there are many "Christians" who have not understood what the Bible tells and none of them can show any real error in the Bible. Those who claim Bible is wrong, only manage to show is their bad interpretations, no real mistakes in the Bible.

I gather then that those who do understand what the Bible says are those that agree with you. Everyone else must be wrong. Perhaps no one understands what the Bible says. That would be quite feasible given that it is a mish-mash of collected writing from thousands of years ago in an age of ignorance and superstition.

I think there is difference between understanding what it means and knowing what is said literally. Most, if not all alleged contradictions or mistakes, exist only if Bible is interpreted so that it appears to have mistaken. If we read only what is said in the Bible, without own explanations, I dont know any mistake in it. But, I dont think this is a matter of opinion. If Bible has real mistake, it should be possible to show it and it should not depend on that person makes atheistic interpretation of the matter.