The Bible Skeptic: What Accounts for the Alleged Errors in the Bible? The Compromiser

What Accounts for the Alleged Errors in the Bible?

The Compromiser

Rather than simply deny problems in the text, a believer in biblical inerrancy may make compromises with the text and known historical facts or scientific truths. Such believers may acknowledge that there is an error in the text but create possible solutions as to how that error got into the Bible and how such a solution does not infringe upon the inerrancy doctrine. These believers' arguments are typically framed in the yes-I-believe-the-Bible-is-the-inerrant-Word-of-God-but type format. For instance, they may argue, "Yes, I believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God but it is the product of a particular time and culture, containing language and culturally specific details, and therefore is exempt from attempts to impose modern expectations on the text. It must be read from within the context in which it was written.

While this approach is accurate from the viewpoint of one who believes the Bible is simply another literary work of antiquity, it will not work for texts which have the claim of inerrancy based upon the inspired authorship of an omniscient deity placed upon them. The Bible, because it is claimed to be inerrant precisely because it was inspired by an all-knowing and all-powerful god, cannot be held to the same standards as are applied to any other "average text" from the ancient world. However, some advocates of biblical inerrancy claim that while the Bible was a product of a particular age and culture, and while we need to be intimate with that age and culture in order to understand the Bible in its proper context, the book is nonetheless vitally important to readers today. In fact, it is so important that immortal lives are held by whether one can understand this ancient text or not. How could a text, supposedly universally relevant (in both contexts of time and place) also be held prisoner by a very specific (and not very well understood) ancient age and culture? Of course, certain "universal truths" or messages can be communicated in a particular culture and time and understood by a different culture in a different time. But, because so much of the Bible is presented in this cultural and temporal prison, it can easily be associated with any other ancient book. Surely, even the biblical inerrantist would agree that universal truths and messages are given in the Holy Koran or the Hindu Bhagavad Gita. What does the presence of "universal truths" in a particular text prove?

One way in which an omniscient, omnipotent deity could assure its particularly "inspired" book stood head and shoulders above the less-inspired (but equally valid, in a "universal truth" sense) texts would have been to assure its narrative was so unified and harmonious, so clear and in accord with all universal truths as well as universal scientific and historical facts, that the only conclusion anyone could come to in evaluating this text is that it could only have been the product of a supernatural being. Since this has never been the universal conclusion reached regarding the Bible when studied with a critical eye, regardless of the "universal truths" or messages it contains, it fails to convince a great many readers that it is wholly, and without alternative, the work of an omniscient, omnipotent deity. Evidence that readers cannot reach a consensus on the Bible is found within the many splintered Christian and Jewish sects that abound but which disagree --sometimes violently-- with one another over issues raised in the so-called holy script. It is a testament to the non-divine status of the Bible that each of these fractured religious sects contend that they, and they alone, possess the "true" knowledge of the "revealed" text.

A variant of the "Yes, I believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God but it is the product of a particular time and culture, containing language and culturally specific details, and therefore is exempt from attempts to impose modern expectations on the text" argument is the "Yes, I believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God but such errors in the text as are found simply didn't matter to those who originally composed and read the narratives." These advocates of biblical inerrancy assert that contemporaries of the ancient texts were familiar with a different set of cultural norms that allowed them to see beyond minor inconsistencies in the stories and see "the broader picture" of the overall narrative. These problems in the text that clearly make the Bible errant simply didn't matter to the ancient audience so they shouldn't matter to us. James Patrick Holding [1] , a Christian who argues for the divine inspiration of the Bible on the internet, excuses many biblical errors with this reasoning. In one of his articles [2] he quotes from the book The Syrian Christ , written by Abraham Rihbany, "a Syrian familiar with" Western culture. Mr. Holding quotes Rihbany,

There is much more of intellectual inaccuracy than of moral delinquency in the Easterner's speech. His misstatements are more often the result of indifference than the deliberate purpose to deceive. One of his besetting sins is his ma besay-il -- it does not matter. He sees no essential difference between nine o'clock and half after nine, or whether a conversation took place on the housetop or in the house. The main thing is to know the substance of what happened, with as many of the supporting details as can be conveniently remembered.

But, are nine o'clock and half after nine the same thing or are they inconsistencies? Inconsistencies, discrepancies and contradictions do not magically vanish because a person focuses upon the substance of the conversation and not on the details. Regardless of how one feels about an inconsistency or a discrepancy, inconsistencies and discrepancies remain fixed by their own definitions. An inconsistency is something (e.g. a statement) that is not compatible, in agreement, or in harmony with something else (e.g. another statement). A discrepancy is a divergence or a disagreement between facts or claims. Claiming that a conversation took place at nine o'clock while also saying the same conversation took place at half-past nine is a disagreement between facts. Saying, as Rihbany does, that this disagreement between facts does not matter to those desiring only the substance of the conversation itself does not change the fact that a very real disagreement between the stated times that this conversation took place exists! It may indeed not matter when the conversation took place because the "main thing," the "substance of what happened," may only be that the conversation simply took place. However, even if the subject of the conversation is the only item of "substance," that does still not take away from the fact that if the conversation is said to have occurred at two differing times. There still remains a very real disagreement -a discrepancy- between the two stories.

On the smaller scale of human conversation, Rihbany is correct that minor details are of little concern when there is a larger matter at hand. This is true not only in Middle Eastern cultures but Western as well. This isn't simply a matter of cultural specificity. I seriously doubt that someone would get obsessed over the fact that one person tells them a conversation took place at nine o'clock while another says the conversation took place at half-past nine if all they want to know was the substance of the conversation --regardless of the cultural setting. Even in the literature of today we can read discrepancies and inconsistencies within the most popular written works and it "does not matter" to the average reader that such discrepancies and inconsistencies exist in the text.[3] This is not a phenomenon limited only to the Syrians or ancient Jews. However, we are not discussing minor discrepancies and inconsistencies of normal, day-to-day human conversations or wildly popular children's novels. The Bible is offered by defenders of its inerrancy as a document inspired by an omniscient deity who couldn't be inconsistent between when a conversation took place or by any other incidental detail regardless of whether such inconsistencies mattered to the divinity's audience or not. [4] Perfection requires that there be no errors, culturally relevant or not. A clock said to be the most perfect, most accurate timepiece imaginable will not read 9:00am one day while the sun is freshly shining and then 9:30am the next day when the sun is slipping below the western horizon. If it did, the clock would no longer be perfect or accurate.

In addition, the claim that inconsistencies, discrepancies and errors in the text do not ultimately matter is rendered false by current Christian apologists who cut down thousands of trees for paper, spill barrels of ink and take up mammoth amounts of internet bandwidth writing detailed and passionate arguments trying to explain away these biblical problems. If they really didn't matter, why waste so much effort? A simple, "It didn't matter to them, it doesn't matter to me" should suffice! "I doth think the lady protests too much" comes immediately to mind.

The claim that these biblical problems really didn't bother the ancient readers of the text is also rendered false by the fact that the ancient world had its fair share of apologists who tried with great effort to explain why these inconsistencies, discrepancies and errors existed in the text, what they "really" meant and how to get around them. If they didn't "really matter" to the ancient world, why did these ancient apologists exist? For what and to whom were they arguing if these textual troubles didn't really bother anyone? According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, Jewish scholars meeting in Jamnia c. 90 CE debated the usefulness and divine inspiration of certain books of the Hebrew Bible. According to the encyclopedia,

There were controversies concerning the admission into the [Hebrew] canon of the Book of Ezekiel, Solomon's three books (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon), and Esther. But no controversy arose concerning the Apocrypha: all were agreed that they were non-canonical. The opposition to Ezekiel was only temporary; owing to its contradictions of the Pentateuch, many wished to hide it away (that is, to prevent its use); but "Hananiah ben Hezekiah ben Garon spent three hundred jars of oil to release it." Others wished to prohibit its use because a child in school, having read the first chapter, made a picture of the "hashmal" (A. V., "color of amber") which then emitted flames; nevertheless, Hananiah championed it (Hag. 13a; Shab. 13b; Men. 45a). The opposition to Proverbs, because they contained contradictions, was very slight. (pg.148)

The trouble with Ezekiel, mentioned in the quote, was due to contradictions between passages within the book itself and other passages in the "accepted" Hebrew scriptures of the time. Such contradictions can be found between, for example, Ezekiel 18:4 and Exodus 20:5.[5] If such errors didn't really matter to the ancient Jews who read the sacred text why, then, did the Jewish scholars at Jamnia in c. 90 CE almost not recognize Ezekiel as official scripture? That the contradictions which almost barred Ezekiel from entering the official Jewish canon can be (and was) solved using apologetics is not the issue. Like their ancient counterparts, modern apologists "solve" Bible errors by creating assertions that attempt to "explain" the otherwise obvious problems.[6] It is said that Hananiah ben Hezekiah "solved" these contradictions in Ezekiel and so the book was allowed to be viewed as inspired text. If, as some apologists today assert, discrepancies, inconsistencies and contradictions within the Bible didn't really matter to those of the ancient world, why would scholars like those at Jamnia have been so pained by these errors as almost prevented the recognition of certain books that today are considered by modern believers as inspired? Obviously, Bible difficulties bothered even those in the ancient world.

Another point to be made is that even admitting the apparent errors in the biblical text, can such errors be addressed and possible solutions offered? Of course they can. Any apologist can concoct a reason for why what appears to be a clear contradiction or discrepancy in the biblical text can be viewed harmoniously. But my point is to demonstrate that claiming such contradictions didn't bother the original audience of the text, given some temporal and/or cultural convention that is not available to us Westerners, simply isn't true. Problems in the text bothered even the earliest readers and attempts were made to solve them, just as modern apologists continue to compose explanations that smooth out such difficulties. There is nothing new under the sun.

However, it is not simply a matter of creating a possible solution that resolves an alleged discrepancy. In order for a discrepancy, inconsistency or contradiction to be solved, an unimpeachable solution must be offered that actually gets rid of the error. In other words, if a solution is offered for a biblical error that is only a possible solution to the trouble, the trouble will then remain as an alternative solution to alleged problem. If the proposed solution does not actually solve the issue but only presents a possible solution, then the alternative is that a very real discrepancy, inconsistency or contradiction has remained in the text.

Another approach to try and compromise with the obvious problems in the biblical text by believers in biblical inerrancy is by claiming, "Yes, I believe the Bible is the inerrant Word of God but these errors are the products of copyists and the 'original' autographs of the texts were wholly perfect." The problem with this argument is that if an omnipotent deity can inspire an error-free "original," there seems to be no logical reason why this deity either did not, or could not, continue to ensure the perfection of any copy. This is apparent because, in the deity's omniscience, this being by necessity was fully aware upon the composition of the original work that the material upon which this work was produced would not survive (without the intervention of a miracle, of course!). Knowing this, a deity competent enough to ensure error-free "originals" could, with equal effort, assure that subsequent copies of this sacred text (important enough to require the deity's inspiration and inerrancy in the beginning) would stay true (every jot and tittle) to the "originals".

For example, such a believer may acknowledge that the city of Dan did not exist when Genesis 14:14 dates a certain event [7] and excuse this chronological error in the text by claiming that "Dan" was anachronistically added to the text when it was copied from the "original" text sometime later in its history when the city name Dan was contemporary with the given site. This anachronism was introduced into the text in order to make the narrative "more relevant" to the then-modern reader. This is the same solution some believers use to explain the naming of the city of Rameses in the exodus story. In order to line up the Bible's own chronology of events which places the Hebrew exodus many centuries before any pharaoh with the name Rameses came to power over Egypt, some believers would like critics to believe that the text was tampered with by later scribes who substituted the grand city name of Rameses over the "original" name of the city in which the Hebrew slaves toiled. However, such believers shrink away when asked to provide the name of this "original" city and evidence that such a substitution occurred (instead of the obvious solution being that the narrative of the exodus was written under no divine inspiration many centuries after the alleged event and so such errors of historical fact were inevitable since the authors were so far removed from the events they created for their story).

Some believers who would compromise the biblical text also make claims that certain words found in today's scripture really don't mean what we currently read them to mean. For example, some believers may assert that the Hebrew word translated to the English "thousand" in some sections of the Bible doesn't really mean "thousand" (meaning a cardinal number equal to 10x100) but something entirely different. Because some words in Hebrew (as in English) can have multiple meanings but the same spellings (known as "homographs") [8] , these believers will alter the current translation of the text and explain some errors of the Bible as simple modern misreading of the ancient language. They will claim that, because the Bible has been copied numerous times by many different hands throughout the centuries that inevitable copyists' mistakes were bound to creep into the text.

What the believer may gain in finding potential solutions to errors in the Bible by compromising the text with known historical and/or scientific facts, they lose in their bid to announce the scriptures inerrant and as the inspiration of an omniscient and omnipotent divine being. How could a text be both errant and the work of an inerrant being? How does one distinguish truth from error in an admittedly errant document? In my "Final Thougths" article I will allow those who disagree vehemently with those believers who compromise the integrity of the inerrancy doctrine with man's science a chance to voice their arguments. These voices speak loudly of God's sovereign care over the very words he is believed to have inspired in the Old and New Testament documents. While the compromisers may have found a way to make the texts more historically relevant, they have done so at the expense of true biblical inerrancy.

NOTES

1. James Patrtick Holding is an internet Christian apologist. However, many skeptics know him as Robert Turkel and his website (tektonics.org) is registered under that name. However, Mr. Holding legally changed his name from Robert Turkel to James Patrick Holding sometime in mid-2007. Return to text

2. See the article, "Precisely The Opposite" on Mr. Holding's website. Return to text

3. In the popular Harry Potter series of books, Harry is said to be able to communicate with snakes via a special kind of speech. However, snakes do not possess ears and therefore do not "hear" speech as that uttered by the human larynx. Such an inconsistency between what is written in the Harry Potter novels and that of known scientific fact rarely matters to those reading the Potter books which were written by a very fallible mortal, J.K. Rowling. Return to text

4. Surely this deity knew, in its omniscience, that it was inspiring a book that would not only be addressed to the people of the time and culture in which it was produced, but to modern generations as well. Even if details "didn't matter" to the originating audience of this holy text, the divinity must have understood that such inconsistencies, discrepancies and contradictions would matter to those of another generation and would have inspired such errors to not enter the sacred documents. After all, if such errors wouldnt have bothered the ancient audience, perfect consistency shouldn't have been an issue either. The ancient audience would have benefitted from perfect consistency every bit as much as modern audiences; and this would have been known to the omniscient deity who, presumably, would have thus avoided inspiring documents with errors. Return to text

5. Ezekiel 18:4 reads, "Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die," while Exodus 20:5 states, "You shall not bow down to them [idols] or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me". Obviously, there is a contradiction between God stating that he will punish children for the iniquities (i.e. a gross immoral act; a sin) of their parents in one section of scripture and God again stating elsewhere that each person is accountable only for their own sins. Return to text

6. For example, an Internet apologist Richard Anthony excuses the discrepancy in Ezekiel provided in note 5 above by asserting,

We know that it is contrary to the character of God to visit the iniquity of the fathers upon those who are innocent (Ezekiel 18:19). Exodus 20:5, on the surface, does seem to teach that God visits the iniquity of the Father on the children. However, by really reading it in more depth, it actually says the opposite. Only the children who "hate God", and sin themselves, are the ones who are punished, only the wicked and ungodly children who are following the wicked example of their fathers are punished. The very next verse (Exodus 20:6) confirms that God shows mercy on the children who love Him and keep his Law. This is in harmony with the teaching, "Each man shall die for his own sins" (2 Chronicles 25:4, Ezekiel 18:4,20).

In other words, this inconsistency in the biblical text indeed matters to apologists like Richard Anthony and he has created a possible solution that allows such believers to remove the perception of a discrepancy in the text. If the error really didn't matter, why have believers been writing possible solutions for the problems for at least the last 2000 years? Return to text

7. In Genesis 14:14, Abram (Abraham) journeys to the city of Dan. However, Abram, if a historical person, would have lived in the second millennium BCE (c. 2090 BCE) according to biblical chronology. According to archaeology, however, the city known as Dan did not exist in this period (the city name Dan did not exist until sometime in the twelfth century BCE, at least 700 years after the supposed events of Genesis 14). The site associated with biblical Dan was known as Laish in the period of the alleged patriarch Abr[ah]am. It is the opinion of many that the name Dan was used in the ancient story of Abram because this was a "scribal update" of older material. In making a copy of the "original" Genesis, some editor substituted Dan for the name of the city originally "inspired" by the omniscient deity.

Again, this is a perfectly valid explanation for this inconstancy between the text and known history. But one has to wonder why an omniscient deity, who inspired the text, would have allowed this scribe later in the process of copying the holy script, to rewrite what had originally been inspired. According to the biblical inerrantist, the passage of Genesis 14:14 had originally read, "..as far as Laish" but that Laish had been substituted in the text with Dan by a later scribe. If these scribes were allowed to tamper with these portions of scripture, how can we know what other parts that aren't so readily recognizable were also rewritten? Why wasn't the later copying of the text equally inspired and its original integrity retained? Return to text

8. Hebrew is written only with consonants, and therefore even words that are not spelled exactly the same can be confused with words that are written similarly. For an example of Hebrew words that have the same spelling but different meanings consider the two words spelled identically, sh'b't, which can mean either "rod, staff, club or scepter" or to mean "tribe" depending upon the context in which the word is found. It is easy to see that if a context were unclear, a scribe copying a text may make a mistake when copying the word from the ancient Hebrew into, perhaps, Greek, choosing the wrong Greek translation. Now consider the Hebrew words m'sh'l which means "rule" and y'm'shl meaning "he (God) will rule". Transliterated into their English letter equivalents, it should be apparent how a scribe, copying words such as these, may have inserted or deleted Hebrew characters and changed if not only the meaning of the word itself, but the meaning of entire passages. However, such errors are usually quite apparent and can be recognized in the context of whatever passages they may be found and corrected.

So, it is not at all unlikely that certain words in the Hebrew Bible were miscopied by scribes sometime in the history of its transmission. But that solution, like so many others used by biblical inerrantists, again raises the question of how an omniscient god who supposedly inspired an inerrant original version of the sacred texts did not assure with equal inspiration the inerrant copying of his divinely chosen words. Return to text