The Third View
(The Bible
as the Word of God)
It's no secret that
there is a vast diversity of opinion regarding the
Christian Bible, not only as to its meaning but,
particularly in the case of the Old Testament, as to
its origin as well. For the purposes of this
essay I have chosen to group ideas about the Bible's
origin into three main categories of belief:
- The Bible was
conceived and written solely by man, in an
attempt to institute order in society.
- The Bible was
written by man, but he was guided and
inspired by God in his labor.
- The Bible is the
product of the mind and hand of God alone,
without any help from man.
The first two views have
many adherents, and whether one accepts one or the
other is largely a reflection of whether one
contemplates the existence of the scriptural God as a real
possibility. Some problems arise with the third
view, however, because total belief in the literal
and unerring truth of the Bible requires a certain
amount of disbelief in (or ignorance of) what most of
us see as "the real universe."
Nevertheless, the third view has its loyal followers,
even in this day and age.
One of the most
perplexing questions raised by the concept of the
Bible as the work of God alone is that the book
appears to contradict itself in numerous
instances. If we could assume for a moment that
man wrote the Bible, either with or without divine
guidance, most of the discrepancies can be explained
as the results of man's inherent imperfection.
However, if God did not employ man to pen the Bible,
but created it entirely by Himself, we are led to the
disquieting conclusion that God changed His mind on a
number of things between the time He set to work on
the book and the time He finished it. But if
God is perfect, as He is purported to be, why didn't
He get everything right the first time?
Another problem
presented by the third view is that there is so much
disagreement about what the Bible actually
means. People who scrupulously study the work
often find themselves diametrically opposed in their
honest opinions as to the correct interpretation of a
given passage. How can this be if the Bible was
penned by a perfect, omnipotent and omniscient
Entity, who should have been able to word the
document in such a way as to preclude any confusion
as to its meaning?
Finally, although what
was known about the universe until half a millennium
ago could conceivably have been "adjusted"
sufficiently to fit the biblical account of things,
the explosion in human knowledge since the time of
Galileo and Newton has made it impossible for anyone to take
seriously the notion of the Bible as literal truth,
without simultaneously distorting or ignoring many of
the most momentous discoveries of the past few
centuries. How can we reconcile the obvious
discrepancies, between a book ostensibly written by
God, and the hard physical evidence of God's own
creation, the universe itself?
Perhaps I'm mistaken,
but it's my guess that people who accept the third
view do so, not because of any convincing evidence or
logical argument in its favor, but only because they
are terrified that they will suffer damnation if they
do not believe it. They are, in essence,
betting their souls on it. And who can blame
them? The stakes are high!
The rest of us are
betting that the evidence of our senses and reason
has more substance to it than a literal
interpretation of a 17th century English translation [KJV] of
a 3rd century Byzantine compilation [Council of Nicaea] of legends,
laws, prophecies, and letters accumulated over many centuries and
written down between the 9th century BCE and the 2nd century CE. If our senses and intellect are God-given, who can
blame us for trusting them? And if nothing is
God-given, then dare we trust anything else?
=SAJ=