Myth vs. Reality

The Holy Bible has been dubbed as the all-time bestseller and most widely read book, with 2 billion printed copies around the world. It is composed of a collection of ancient manuscripts that served as basis for some of the world’s religions. The Old Testament (OT) of the Bible has twenty-four books written in Hebrew (except for a few passages in Aramaic) and is often called the Masoretic text. At the time of Reformation, the Hebrew books were rearranged and some were divided and so became thirty-nine in all. Roman Catholics, like Protestants, divide the Bible into an Old and a New Testament.

The Roman Catholic Old Testament (OT) contains 46 books (most of them from the Hebrew Bible). Some are called canonical or authoritative; others deuterocanonical, secondary, but nonetheless authoritative. Protestants term the deuterocanonical books “The Apocrypha” and consider them to be outside the Canon of Scripture. For its Old Testament, Catholics follow the list of books included in the Septuagint, a Greek version that was the source of the Latin Vulgate translation. The following chart lists the agreements and differences between the order and content of the books of the Hebrew Scripture among Jews, Catholics, and Protestants.

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Some Eastern Orthodox communities include 1 Esdras, the Prayer of Manasseh, Psalm 151, and 3 Maccabees as part of their Old Testament canon. Catholics and Protestants are in virtual agreement on the 27 books of the New Testament (Flinn, 2007). No doubt, the Holy Bible is the foundation many religious doctrines. In fact, the Bible is constantly studied to provide clerics not just with the basis of his doctrine but also with an infinite repertoire of examples which served to illustrate their positions. Since the Bible contains both historical and literary texts, many people have their own interpretation of what they read in the Bible.

Not to mention, the Bible has been translated many times from Hebrew and Aramaic to Latin to present-day languages. In view of the discrepancies in interpretation and translation, the veracity of what has been written is constantly debated by many religious pundits. Are words written in the Bible truth or is just a collection of ancient myths? How can people detect truth in the Bible? In this paper, we will try to delve deep into the veracity and authority of the Bible as a factual source of historical and religious events. Baring the Truth in the Bible

In an article, Bob George (2005) proclaimed that the Bible is the “only source of truth about Jesus Christ and God”. He argued that Christianity is rooted in historical truth because the Bible presents objective, concrete facts—not fanciful tales or mythical legends. George (2005) proved that persons, places, and times has factual basis. For example, he said that when Caesar Augustus “was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:2) he ordered a census of the empire, “so Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem” (Luke 2:4).

John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, began his ministry “in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar” (Luke 3:1). All these events can be traced back with historical data available. Trembath (1987) agreed by citing theologian John Warwick Montgomery as he presented a “deductivist historiography according to which the truth of the Bible can be inferred from the historical accuracy of the gospel authors in recording the life of Jesus”. Another theologian Edward John Carnell understood that the inspiration of Bible is what accounts for its “systematic consistency” of the Bible.

For Carnell, the truth of the Bible rests on the fact that it is God's rendition of both logic and history (Trembath 1987, p. 9). The Bible is a miscellany of genres: story, history, law, prophecy, song, poetry, and letters, making up a sacred ‘encyclopedia’ which has for centuries been a prime source of reading throughout the world. The different genres of the Bible tended to make it into a historical, human document whose truths might be relative rather than absolute. This is why some enlightened scholars began to interpret biblical language as symbol or allegory.

They assumed that although the literal meaning of biblical stories might be rooted in historical context, these stories nevertheless conveyed deeper universal truths. However, biblical inspiration has sometimes been misunderstood as simply synonymous with ‘inerrancy’ or immunity from error—a view that creates impossible difficulties for those who cherish the Bible. One should prefer to discuss truth rather than immunity from error and, even more importantly, appreciate that truth is a result or consequence of inspiration.

Despite a mechanical view of inspiration that highlighted the role of the Holy Spirit as “principal author” and hardly allowed for the sacred writers being genuine human authors. This is why, Pope Leo XIII in his 1893 encyclical Providentissimus Deus clarified the distinction between biblical inspiration and truth: the Bible is inspired, and therefore it is true (O’Collins & Farrugia 2005, p. 111). Defending Inconsistencies It cannot be denied that errors and inconsistencies can be found in the Bible. Like for instance, the account of the world’s creation being completed in a week (Gen.1: 1-2; 3) looks incompatible with the findings of cosmology and the theory of evolution.

The Psalms and other OT books reflect in places the view that the earth is a flat disc and the sky above is a solid vault supported by columns at the ends of the earth. Add too the fact the Bible gives us conflicting accounts of the same episode. How did the Israelites elude their Egyptian pursuers? In describing the escape through the Red Sea, Exodus 14-15 offers three versions. Moses stretched out his hand and -- as in the Cecil B. de Mille movie depicted -- the waters piled up like walls to let the Israelites pass through.

Then the waters flooded back over the Egyptians (Exod. 14: 16, 21, 22, 27, 28). In a second version, an east wind proved decisive. It dried up the sea for the Israelites, while the Egyptian chariots got stuck. Then God stopped the Egyptians with a glance and threw them into the sea (Exod. 14: 21, 25-6). Finally, an angel of the Lord and the column of cloud no longer went in front of the Israelites, but behind them. As a result the pursuing Egyptians could no longer see their quarry, who thus happily escaped (Exod. 14: 19-20).

Then who killed Goliath—David or Elhanan (1 Sam.17; 2 Sam. 21: 19)? Did the site of the Jerusalem Temple cost David 50 shekels of silver or 600 shekels of gold (2 Sam. 24: 24; 1 Chr. 21: 25)? In short, factual inconsistencies and errors of a historical, geographical, and scientific nature turn up frequently in the scriptures. Faced with such evident factual, moral, and religious errors, O’Collins and Farrugia (2005) explained the biblical truth in recalling three interconnected points: the intentions of the sacred authors, their presuppositions, and their modes of expression.

Thus, the authors of the opening chapters of Genesis could be defended. They intended to teach a number of religious truths about the power and goodness of the Creator God, about the sinfulness of human beings, and so forth; they did not intend to teach some doctrine of cosmogony and cosmology. They simply did not aim to describe coherently and in “scientific” detail the origins of the universe, our earth, and the human race. In recalling the second coming of Jesus, Paul did not intend to communicate a timetable of its arrival but to encourage a full and urgent commitment to Christian life.

In sum, it is unfair to accuse biblical or any other writers of falling into error by ignoring the difference between the points they really wished to communicate and those that lay outside any such intentions. Second, O’Collins and Farrugia (2005) justified that some biblical authors show that they shared with their contemporaries certain false notions about cosmology and astronomy. But, their acceptance of a flat earth, for instance, remained at the level of their presuppositions; it was not the theme of their direct teaching.

The Bible was not artificially protected against geographical, cosmological, and astronomical errors to be found in the presuppositions of the sacred authors. Similarly the view that genuine human life ends at death formed a presupposition for the drama of Job and not the direct teaching of that book. At a time when death was believed to end all, how could an innocent person interpret and cope with massive suffering? Job did not debate with his friends whether or not there is life after death, but whether undeserved suffering can be reconciled with the existence of an all-good and all-powerful God.

Third, O’Collins and Farrugia (2005) cited Pope Pius XII’s1943 encyclical letter that pointed out how alleged errors are often simply no more than legitimate modes of expression used by biblical writers: In many cases in which the sacred authors are accused of some historical inaccuracy or some inexact recording of certain events, on examination it turns out to be nothing else than those customary forms of expression or narrative style which were current among people of that time, and were in fact quite legitimately and commonly used (O’Collins and Farrugia 2005, p.113).

Conclusion Bishop J. W. Colenso wrote that “he did not see any conflict between divine revelation and human reason, and the Bible had to be approached scientifically and logically”. Colenso assumed that “scientific reasoning is privileged, not in opposition to God’s revelation but as itself a gift of God”. Thus, it depends on the “reader of the Bible is encouraged to employ whatever resources are available -- mathematical skills, history, philosophy and comparative religious texts, in the firm belief that truth is one and belongs to God” (Sugirtharajah 2001, p.144).

In detecting the truth in the Bible, we should take into consideration context in which biblical language had been spoken. It was recognized that the meaning of words or stories might depend on the broader cultural environment in which a given text had been produced. Furthermore, it was supposed that meanings might have been lost or blurred in the course of history as cultures changed to make them less apparent. Finally, we should all remember that truth is subjective.

When semantic, systemic, logical or empirical truths come into conflict, theorists urge that we believe that truth as such has no cognitive value—that we literally should not care whether our beliefs are true or false, but only whether they enable us to achieve more substantive goals such as happiness and well-being. Thus, we should believe that the Bible speaks the truth because it can serve as our moral and spiritual guide to attain a spiritually sound and happy life.

References

1. Flinn, F. K. (2007).
2. The Bible. Encyclopedia of Catholicism, Encyclopedia of World Religions.
3. New York: Facts On File, Inc.George, B. (2005).
4. Conservative Christianity Is a Biblical Relationship with God. In M. E. Williams (Ed. ), Opposing Viewpoints: Constructing a Life Philosophy. San Diego: Greenhaven Press. O’Collins, G. & Farrugia, M. (2003).
5. Catholicism - The Story of Catholic Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sugirtharajah, R. S. (2001).
6. Bible in the Third World : Precolonial, Colonial, Postcolonial Encounters. Port Chester, NY: Cambridge University Press. Trembath, K. R. (1987).
7. Evangelical Theories of Biblical Inspiration : A Review and Proposal. Cary, NC: Oxford University Press, Inc.

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