My Analysis of the Bible Part 4A: My Knowledge

Part 4 is a few questions asked frequently in response to my beliefs about the Bible.

What makes you think you are smarter than the men who wrote the Bible?
Define “smart.” Do I think I am more intellectual than these men? I have no idea, I have not met them. I can say through my reading I highly doubt I was as intelligent as Paul. While I do not share all of his beliefs, he is someone I admire. But that does not make his writings divinely inspired. I think I have more knowledge than these men. Do you think the author of Genesis comprehended the earth being spherical? Do you think he understood that the sun and moon do not govern the day and night, but rather the earth's rotation around the sun determines such things?¹⁷ I think that’s highly unlikely. And yet there are those who are determined to believe that the author of Genesis must have had a better understanding of the earth’s mechanics than modern scientists (or at least were inspired to write down things regarding advanced knowledge that they themselves didn't understand). Just because I challenge what those men wrote, does not mean I’m smarter than them. Jesus challenged the scriptures as well, including the Torah itself.¹⁸ While I certainly believe Jesus was smarter than me, I take it as my responsibility to learn from his methods and value what he valued. As long as one strives to keep an open mind and an eagerness to embrace correction, I don’t think interpreting scripture for oneself is corrupting if you take the scriptures seriously. You do not need to be smarter than the person you are questioning. It’s actually better to not be, that way you will learn. Even the wisest of human minds are not complete with knowledge, it’s an ongoing experience.

17. The sun, moon, and earth according to Genesis
If we look at the first creation account in Genesis 1, we see the level of knowledge available to the author(s). Genesis 1.14-20:

“And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.”

What should be noted immediately is the logical inconsistency of the creation. As is commonly known, the first words spoken by God in the Bible are “Let there be light,” in Genesis 1.3. This takes place on the first day. Yet in the above passage, the fourth day, God creates the sun. While it is generally assumed that God can do all things, it seems more likely that the author(s) of this passage simply did not understand that we get our light from the sun. Also the “great lights,” i.e. the sun (the greater light) and the moon (the lesser light), are described as “ruling” the day and night in the sky dome. This description depicts an apparent functional view of the sun, moon, and earth, but it has little scientific substance. We know the sun and the earth’s orbit around it are what determine day and night. We know that the “lesser light” (or moon) is really not a light, but a reflector of the light produced by the sun. We know that there is no sky dome above us to place either of these two things in.

Another thing to note is that while this may be scientific nonsense, it has theological value. Ancient religions generally worshipped the sun, moon, and stars, and here they are not even named. Their function is explicitly given as time keepers, nothing more, reflecting the theological idea that God is more than a physical object, even one as great and mysterious as the sun. Instead, he is the creator of all physical objects. 

18. The scriptures challenged by Jesus
While Jesus certainly knew his scriptures, he challenged them, too. In Mark, Jesus is asked if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. Mark 10.2-9:

Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” He answered them, “What did Moses command you?” They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” But Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

This is a response to Deuteronomy 24.1-4:

Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house and goes off to become another man’s wife. Then suppose the second man dislikes her, writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house (or the second man who married her dies); her first husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife after she has been defiled; for that would be abhorrent to the LORD, and you shall not bring guilt on the land that the LORD your God is giving you as a possession.

While there is no indication that Moses (or Yahweh depending on how you choose to look at it) promoted the practice of divorce, clearly it was not seen as unacceptable. There is no law prohibiting divorce or even looking down upon the practice. However, Jesus amends this to indicate that not only is a man not to remarry his ex-wife after she has been with another man, but no one is to get a divorce (with perhaps an exception to infidelity). Thus Jesus did not see scripture as pure. If it were indeed the perfect Word of God, how could Jesus correct it, or at least show it to be lacking? While it can be argued that it was what God needed to tell the Israelites at that specific time, that train of thought raises this question: how can we know that the content of the Bible is relevant today?