The Bible and culture, and so-called errors in the Bible

Literal or not?

In a previous post, I considered genres in the Bible. The Bible is God's Word, and living by it should be very important. But the Bible is not a historical narrative, although there are parts of it that seem to have been meant as such, like Judges, Ruth, Esther, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles. But the Bible is more than a historical setting forth of what happened when, where, and with whom. Some parts of the Bible, like the Psalms, are poetic, setting forth the truth in figurative language. Example: 

Psalm 1:3 He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water,
    that produces its fruit in its season,
    whose leaf also does not wither.
    Whatever he does shall prosper. 

4 The wicked are not so,
    but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. (Long quotations are set in this color. Quoted scripture is from the World English Bible, public domain.)

The wicked are not really blown away, and the good man (or woman) isn't really rooted next to a water source. That doesn't take away from the significance of the passage, which is about God sustaining people who follow him, and punishment for those who don't.

Another example of poetic, non-literal language: Psalm 98:7 Let the sea roar with its fullness; the world, and those who dwell therein. 8 Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the mountains sing for joy together. 9 Let them sing before Yahweh, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.

Some parts of the Bible are apocalyptic. Some, probably including most or all of the parables in the gospels, are stories to make an important point. Some parts, like much of the epistles, were to set forth the theology of the Kingdom.

The influence of culture.

How long was Christ in the tomb? Most Christians would answer "three days." After all, the Bible says, in Matthew 16:21 and other places, "From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up," or similar language. The culture of the people of Israel, in the time of Christ, would influence how the time in the tomb was described. Christ died toward sundown on Good Friday, and had risen by morning on Easter Sunday. That means that he really was in the tomb for less than 48 hours. In my culture, this probably wouldn't be described as "three days." Apparently it would be appropriate, in the culture of the Bible, to describe this time as "three days." This example shows that the culture of the writer and the reader influences how scripture is interpreted.

We say that the sun (and moon) rise and set. They don’t, really. The earth rotates so that they are visible in regular patterns. The rising and setting description is part of our culture. It’s not wrong, in the sense that other people are harmed or deceived when I talk about the sunrise, but it’s not strictly correct to say that it rises and sets. Luke 4:40 ("When the sun was setting, all those who had any sick with various diseases brought them to him") is not teaching astronomy, and it uses, as we also do, a modified description of the actual happening, accepted in the culture of Bible times. Readers would have been mystified, if Luke had written "when the earth rotated so that the sun was gradually obscured by the earth." So would Luke.

Mark 4:30 He said, “How will we liken God’s Kingdom? Or with what parable will we illustrate it? 31 It’s like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, though it is less than all the seeds that are on the earth, 32 yet when it is sown, grows up, and becomes greater than all the herbs, and puts out great branches, so that the birds of the sky can lodge under its shadow.”

Actually, a mustard seed is not the smallest seed. Answers in Genesis has posted an article about this situation. There are some interesting speculations in the article, and some that I have trouble with, but I agree with this statement: "The parable was never meant to be an exposition on botanical size ..." No, it wasn't. And the Bible, nor Jesus, is in error here, any more than Luke 4:40 is. Jesus was communicating about the Kingdom of God. Presumably, in that culture, mustard seeds were described as the smallest seeds, and the people of Jesus's time and place didn't know that they weren't. It would have been unnecessarily confusing for Jesus to have described unfamiliar tiny seeds.

So, Biblical examples, such as the ones given above, indicate that the culture of the audience may mean that parts of the Bible are best not to be taken as literal, historical fact. There are plenty of arguments about which parts these are, and how they should be taken.

Thanks for reading!

Science, the Bible, affirmation, and accomodation to culture

Psalm 104:5 He laid the foundations of the earth,
    that it should not be moved forever.
13b The earth is filled with the fruit of your works.
19 He appointed the moon for seasons.
    The sun knows when to set.
24 Yahweh, how many are your works!
    In wisdom have you made them all.
    The earth is full of your riches. (World English Bible, public domain)

This is from probably the greatest nature poem ever written, Psalm 104. Poetry is often not meant to be taken literally. That doesn’t mean that it is in error. It can speak truth, often in ways that straightforward prose cannot.

The Old Testament accommodated the culture of the day. If David had said, in verse 5, “The earth is in a stable orbit around the sun,” instead of “it shall not be moved forever,” he, nor others of his day, would have understood that. But David accommodated the culture of his day*. The Bible even accommodates the culture of OUR day. The sun really doesn’t set (verse 19). The earth rotates so that the sun appears to set. God knows that, of course, but He didn’t make David write that, and doesn’t correct us if we talk about the sun setting or rising! 

This post owes a lot to one by John Walton,  “Does the Bible Contain Errors?” Walton doesn’t think so, because, to him, an error would be some wrong thing that the Bible affirms.The Bible doesn’t affirm that the earth has four corners. It's not trying to teach geology and astronomy. The Bible just makes poetic statements which had meaning to the culture and beliefs of the time.

Walton writes: “Throughout the Bible, we find constant accommodation to the way that people thought in the ancient world. In the realm of science, the Bible makes no claims that transcend what someone in the ancient world would have thought and believed. They believed in a geocentric universe with a flat earth at the center, and the Bible speaks in those terms; but the Bible does not affirm this particular cosmic geography.”

*Other examples: Isaiah 11:12 and Revelation 11:1 say that the earth has four corners.

"Christians shouldn't be culture's morality police"

There's a fine article from Relevant, by a Cara Joyner, with the title of this post, which is worth reading. Here's a small part of it:

"We were never commissioned to demand that secular culture reflect biblical principles. We were commissioned to reflect biblical principles in the middle of secular culture, pointing to God’s redemptive story."

Thanks for reading. Read this article.

Does the Bible really say that? Excerpt from my book, 2

2 Corinthians 13:12 Greet one another with a holy kiss.

1 Thessalonians 5:26 Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss.

Have you ever done that? I haven’t, and you probably haven’t, either. Why not? Because we live in a different culture. We are not the Corinthians, or the Thessalonians, and we don’t live in the first century. Kissing was a common part of greeting for them. Perfunctory kisses on the cheeks are still part of some cultures. In my culture, casual kissing, as a form of greeting, isn’t normal.

There is a significant fact about the Bible that the Bible doesn’t tell us. But it’s still true. That fact is that the Bible was written for a culture, or cultures, different than ours. They understood some things differently than we do. But we are still human, and God’s Word speaks to the twenty-first century. It speaks remarkably well, in fact. But there are things that readers and listeners took for granted when the 66 books of the Bible were first transmitted, that we just don’t take for granted, or, sometimes, even understand. Some of these differences are taken care of by translation, especially if the translation is not strictly word for word, but idea for idea. But some differences, like the “holy kiss,” just aren’t taken care of by translations.

[The book discusses the question of how long Christ was in the tomb in the book, at some length. The Bible says it was three days, but it wasn't, not as we count days -- He died on Friday afternoon, and had risen by early Sunday morning. But, in that culture, any part of a day would have been counted in numbering how many days something took. That's not the way we do it.

It also discusses the miracle of Joshua's long day. (I'm not sure exactly what God did then, but He did something!)  Did the sun stand still? If something like this happened today, we would say that the earth's rotation was stopped. But the people of Joshua's time had no idea that the earth rotated around the sun. Their culture hadn't realized that. The Bible was also written as if the earth was not spherical, in that story, and in other places.]

The Bible is not an astronomy or geology textbook. It describes the heavenly bodies, and the earth, in terms that would have been familiar to listeners and readers of that day. That doesn’t mean that the Bible is in error, unless you have an unreasonable standard for correctness.

In summary, to really understand the Bible, we need to do more than just read it. We should read it, recognizing that the Bible, although it speaks to us today, was written for cultures that were significantly different than ours. The Bible still tells us about Christ, and how the sin problem can be solved, and that applies to all cultures. The fact that the Bible was written for a different culture than ours, and one that didn’t have the same view of what the earth is like as we do, should not cause us to doubt its authenticity or inspiration. Rather, the fact that the Bible still speaks to us in such important ways is evidence for its Divine inspiration.

The above, except for the explanation in brackets, is an excerpt from my recently published e-book, Does the Bible Really Say That?, which may be obtained free of charge, or purchased from Amazon for $0.99, which is the lowest price Amazon lets an author set. Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, public domain.

The previous post in this series is here.

Thanks for reading!

 

Cross-cultural miscommunication: A Biblical example

How long was Jesus in the grave? The common answer is "three days," or perhaps "three days and nights." But that answer is wrong. How can that be? First, why do people say this? Here are two good reasons for that:

Matthew 12:39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, but no sign will be given it but the sign of Jonah the prophet. 40 For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Mark 9:31 For he was teaching his disciples, and said to them, “The Son of Man is being handed over to the hands of men, and they will kill him; and when he is killed, on the third day he will rise again.” (both quotes are from the World English Bible, public domain, and give the words of Jesus.)

So, Jesus, Himself, said that he would be in the grave for three days. What's wrong with that?

Here's what's wrong with that. Jesus was almost certainly crucified on Friday. One evidence for that is that Christians commemorate the event on Good Friday. Another evidence is that Joseph of Arimathea is described as having buried Jesus just before the Sabbath began. The Sabbath began at sundown on Friday. Jesus arose some time before the women, and some of the male disciples, arrived at the tomb on Sunday morning. The evidence is parallel -- Easter is celebrated on Sunday, and the women are described as arriving on the morning following the Sabbath, that is, on Sunday morning.


So how is this possible? Is the Bible in error on this point? (Surely, if the Bible were a fabrication, this seeming contradiction would have been fixed!) The explanation is this. Apparently, people in the time of the New Testament spoke of numbering days differently than we do. Part of Friday, Saturday, and part of Sunday -- three days. And it seems that they even called these periods "day and night." We, now, would say that Jesus was in the tomb for less than two days. It's a cultural difference in thinking and expressing. (The experts who wrote the notes in the New International Version of the Bible give this explanation, by the way.)


We do some strange things with days, too. For example, we say we have worked five days, when we have only worked 8 hours a day -- 40 hours, which is less than the length two 24-hour days. Sometimes we confuse each other when telling about some planned event, because one person says it will happen in 6 days, meaning on the day one week from today, and another interprets that as being on the day before one week has elapsed.


The Bible was written in such a way as to communicate to people contemporary to its writing. Sometimes we forget that, realizing that we live in a different culture, that thinks about things differently, and uses words differently. It communicates to us, too, but we need to be careful, and, if possible, consider possible cultural differences between Bible times and ours.


Thanks for reading.

Culture and medical care

My daughters do wonderful things for me. One of them expected me to read a book recently, and I'm glad I did.

In an intermediate French class . . . the students were assigned a five-minute oral report. The second student to stand up in front of the class was a young Hmong man. His chosen topic was a recipe for . . . Fish Soup. To prepare Fish Soup, he said, you must have a fish, and in order to have a fish, you have to go fishing. In order to go fishing, you need to know whether the fish you are fishing for lives in fresh or salt water, how big it is, and what shape its mouth is. Continuing in this vein for forty-five minutes, the student filled the blackboard with a complexly branching tree of factors and options, a sort of piscatory flowchart, written in French with an overlay of Hmong. He also told several anecdotes about his own fishing experiences. He concluded with a description of how to clean various kinds of fish, how to cut them up, and, finally, how to cook them in broths flavored with various herbs. . . .

The Hmong have a phrase . . . which means "to speak of all kinds of things." It is often used at the beginning of an oral narrative as a way of reminding the listeners that the world is full of things that may not seem to be connected but actually are; that no event occurs in isolation; that you can miss a lot by sticking to the point; and that the story-teller is likely to be long-winded. Anne Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997, pp. 12-13.

There's more to the book than that, but that part, illustrating the culture of the Hmong, but also showing that that culture is not entirely different from the way some non-Hmong talk, particularly arrested me. The book is about a particular young Hmong girl, and how the lack of understanding between U. S. culture, and the culture of Hmong immigrants, influenced her medical care. It's a sad, and fascinating, tale.