The Bible & Satan’s Poison
by Don Fraser | 11 February 2025 |
The Canadian-born economist John Kenneth Galbraith taught at Harvard for some 50 years, and played a major role in balancing the United States’ economy through the years of World War II. He is said to be the most published economist of the 20th century, and arguably the most admired.
Galbraith is remembered for his witty and insightful quotes (try googling “Galbraith quotes”), including the following:
- “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”
- “Economics is extremely important—as a form of employment for economists.”
- “If all the economists in the world were laid end to end, they would all point in different directions.”
- “Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.”
Recently, I found another statement attributed to Galbraith which offers a perceptive perspective worthy of note by all Christians (including Adventists) as we read and discuss the Bible and other writings upon which we rely:
“It has not been the devil’s policy to keep the masses of mankind in ignorance; but finding that they will read, he is doing all in his power to poison their books.”
It reminded me of a piece in Adventist Today titled “The Bible Is a Dirty Book,” in which Dr. Loren Seibold noted instances of biblical stories and statements attributed to God—stories and statements that cause the reader to do a double-take.
Perhaps the devil has even been able to introduce a bit of poison into the Bible.
Satan makes his case
Let’s be clear: the Bible is the word of God. But Satan’s fingerprints are in it, too.
Why should we think that God would—or could—ban Satan from His book? Hasn’t it always been God’s intention to allow Satan every opportunity to make his case?
He could have banished Satan to some remote corner of the universe or even destroyed him in a moment. But He did not. Rather, He gave him free access to this whole world. From the very beginning, God allowed Satan access to the garden disguised as a serpent (the archetypical deliverer of poison) and allowed him to succeed with his deception—possibly on his first attempt. And, he succeeded with the very first and purest of people!—people God made in His own image, and while they were still in day-to-day communion with God!
Why, then, should we be surprised? Galbraith is right: evil has found its way into every form of communication: books, TV, movies, newspapers, the internet, and even human speech (think gossip and backbiting and criticism). The devil is not satisfied just to let us stay in ignorance. Satan wants us to read and watch and listen and be persuaded by his peculiar version of events and activities.
This is his serpent-generated poison. It is the core agenda of Satan to do all in his power to poison whatever it is that shapes our thoughts and actions—sometimes blunt, sometimes subtle. And God is giving him every chance to do so, which is why we need to be constantly alert.
When it came to inspiration, God relied on human—and presumably sinful—messengers (just as Satan does), and those messengers introduced human imperfection: think adulterous King David, disloyal disciple Peter, conflicted (and possibly mentally ill) King Saul, perennially disobedient Israel. We are usually advised to see these as cautionary examples, and we do. But these bad actors are still there, along with some of their bad words and bad examples—which is why the Bible isn’t a book of perfectly pure and lovely stories.
If any of us were advising the devil, the place we would probably suggest he pour his poison would be into the Bible. We have already noted that God has not denied the devil the right to state his case—Satan is getting a fair trial, whether he deserves it or not. So we would surely expect that Satan would immediately and loudly cry “foul” if he we’re denied the right to put his poison into the Bible.
Fortunately, God is also pouring heavenly power into this world. We are not left at the mercy of Satan. Nonetheless it is best for us—hold on to your seats before you read this next line—I say, it is best for us not to assume that everything in the Bible is from God. There are parts of the Bible that when you read them you should think to yourself, “The God I worship wouldn’t have done that, even though someone in the story said God did.”
The central question
What then does this tell us about how to interpret the Bible, Ellen White, Ted Wilson, Phillip Yancey—and even John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Hollywood, Netflix, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, and whoever else communicates with us?
It’s not about explaining things away with some twisted logic of translation errors or cultural oddities or any other interpretive gymnastics. We only need to ask this simple question: “Would my God do or say that?”
My God would not destroy innocent babies, much less dash them against rocks. My God would not order His people to commit genocide. My God would not condemn every person who from birth is attracted to his or her own sex.
And on and on and on: the Bible, let’s admit, contains some very questionable theology.
In simplest terms, an approach which unquestioningly assumes that every word in the Bible is true cannot be trusted. Rather, it comes down to having a clear picture of God, and what the God of love would say and do and what God would not say or do. Our testing standard is Jesus: “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” He said.
I have to admit: I do not tend to see God the Father sitting down for lunch with thieves and prostitutes. So it helps me to think about Jesus and his standard of “love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus combined love with grace: the free gift of unmerited favour.
These are Jesus’a—and, presumably, His Father’s—most compelling characteristics, modeling how we are to cope with our existence in this world and the likelihood of our access to the next. God is love: love manifested by grace with the free gift of “eternal life, not by works, lest any should boast”—and anything that suggests otherwise must surely be worth at least suspecting that the devil’s own poison might be nearby.
Testing the truth
Anyone who has made it this far in my challenging argument might also be interested in another quote from Galbraith:
“Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”
You can now either change your mind, or get busy proving my argument wrong. I put a test before you—one that is anchored in a core passage of Adventist faith: the Ten Commandments.
“…for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me…. “
A jealous God? Is God saying that Godself is guilty of committing what we traditionally regard as a cardinal sin? But more centrally: how can the God of love be narcissistic enough not to just withdraw love, but to actively punish innocent children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren? Or was this a piece of the devil’s poison that somehow found its way in—trying to show that even in this context our God is not only jealous but vindictive as well?
I look at Jesus and understand that if I have seen Him, I have seen the Father. I certainly don’t see Jesus as jealous, narcissistic, or vindictive—so how can I accept these qualities as representing God?
The devil’s poison, introduced into the text through human messengers, certainly looks like the culprit to me.
But what about you, dear reader? Do you see the devil’s poison—or will you get busy with proving that it isn’t there? A translation error? A twist of language? A cultural misunderstanding? Or—please, no—arguing that God is justified in cruelty to the innocent? No, I’d far rather say that Satan sneaked some unholy ideas into God’s book.
I don’t have the perfect explanation. I am simply saying that we need to be aware that there probably is more than a little of the serpent’s poison that has made its way into the Bible, as there is in all other sources of information on an evil earth.
At the very least, we need to carry our snakebite kit, just in case. I do think that the best brand of snakebite kit is the one that carries the label “Jesus.”
Don Fraser is a retired United Nations economist who lives in Canberra with his wife, Patricia.