Editorial: “The Truth About the Bible”
There is a theory I’ve heard about the Bible. It is one I suspect is widely believed.
The idea is that the Bible unfolds, easily and accessibly, a simple, pure, and complete truth, untouched by the cultures or experiences of the authors, and the culture and presuppositions of the reader. If one opens it with an honest heart, this theory goes, each person will readily understand the precise message God intends for us to know.
That’s not true, of course. If it were, there wouldn’t be tens of thousands of competing Christian faiths, each claiming to be right. We wouldn’t be arguing about the meaning of texts, or expect Ellen White to tell us what they mean.
In any act of communication there is a sender and a receiver, and the receiver contributes as much to the meaning as the sender. Every pastor will tell you of parishioners hearing things in the sermon that weren’t quite what he or she said.
The Bible is a work of tremendous spiritual import. But each of us comes to it with a context and presuppositions. To some extent at least we find in it what our presuppositions and culture tell us to find. For example, a conclusion one could easily reach in studying the Old Testament is that all of us men should have multiple wives and, if we’re prosperous enough, some slaves too. But I’ve yet to hear a sermon that ends with that instruction, even though it is as clear in Scripture as some other anachronistic teachings that we do obey in perfect detail, such as the precise moment on Friday when Sabbath starts.
When we read the lives of the patriarchs and the kings, we sift that questionable part of their lifestyle out, because it doesn’t fit our modern morality. As we should. We’ve moved on, I hope, to a more equitable (dare I say “woke”?) understanding. We desire to treat women and people of other families and tribes with justice and kindness.
We’re not locked into Old Testament patterns. The Bible is, in that respect, an eminently flexible book.
If we’re honest, we might even admit that some parts of the Bible offer unfortunate, and no doubt faulty, pictures of God. Aside from the life and teachings of Jesus, in much of the rest of the book God appears stern and angry, only reluctantly forgiving, and occasionally even cruel. Some readers try to justify every one of God’s unkindnesses in the Bible; wiser believers realize that just because those in the past saw God that way doesn’t mean they were right.
I wonder: how many of us, if we started our Bible study right now without the Adventist context we were given, would end up with the same beliefs, the same religious culture, the same lifestyle, the same tools of spiritual discernment, that we employ now?
Loren Seibold
Executive Editor, Adventist Today magazine and website
21 September 2024
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