“Why does God want to wipe out people and people groups in the Old Testament, and then Jesus comes and teaches to forgive your enemies in the New Testament? It doesn’t seem like the same God could be behind both sets of actions.” 

This is the question I received from a friend recently. She said she had been meeting with a friend who is exploring the Christian faith, and this was his question, but she was also curious to know the answer.

It’s only one example of how “the Biblical message” does not easily fit together as a whole. There are more issues this young man is going to find if he continues reading the Bible carefully. When I sat down with them over a cup of coffee the following week, our conversation centered on the assumptions we make about the Bible. This is because our underlying assumptions lead to how we understand and apply the teachings of the Bible in our lives.

For most of my life I was taught and taught others this basic assumption: “The Bible was given by God to humans, who wrote it down, and now we have God’s clear teaching about everything we need to know.” Flowing naturally from that assumption are a couple others, such as “The Bible is completely accurate in everything written in it because the author was God, and God does not change or lie.” Also, “Although it was written by about 40 different authors over a span of thousands of years, it is perfect, because God is perfect.”

There are some advantages to these assumptions about the Bible. It provides a sense of security and certainty to life. One can feel good knowing they are doing the right thing if they follow the instructions in the Bible. It provides a clear purpose to people’s lives: doing what God told us to do in the Bible. This provides clear work to do in evangelism to help others escape meaningless lives on earth and eternal punishment later. 

For many Christians, these assumptions about the Bible provide a meaningful framework for their lives, and a sense of being in a right relationship with the Creator. 

But…

…for many people, these assumptions only work for so long before they notice problems. Some, out of devotion to knowing God, will read and re-read the Bible, which leads them to begin noticing problems. They find the “perfect message” contradicts itself about the nature of God. They find the historical parts of the Bible contain competing versions of the same events, which do not match up perfectly. They find ideas that have been proven wrong by modern science. They find places where God’s own character seems to contradict itself, such as in the question this post started with.

This leads to a crossroads. Some people double down on the assumptions they have been taught and they have received about the Bible. This leads to elaborate schemes created to harmonize the contradictory messages in the Bible, such as the ancient understandings of creation and the cosmos with modern scientific ideas. Many who follow this path become more and more insulated from “the world” because the ideas and culture of “the world” constantly call into question and chip away at their firm beliefs in the perfect revelation found in the Bible. They then become defensive, feeling their way of life is being attacked, and too often begin fighting back against people who don’t approach the Bible with their level of certainty.

But there is another way. Some people let go of the old set of assumptions about the Bible and develop a different set. Based on the internal evidence found in the texts of the Bible, many start looking at the Bible through a lens of different assumptions. After years of wrestling with this, my assumptions about the Bible have evolved. I now have assumptions that I believe more faithfully represent the actual diversity and “multi-vocal” nature of it’s 66 books. Maybe you’ll find these freeing for you if the old assumptions no longer work for you.

1. The Bible is not “a book” but a collection of writings. As a collection, it represents the voices of the various authors in the various societies in which they lived.

2. The authors of the Bible were devoted to their God, and wrote down things that seemed right to them about the identity and character of God, the meaning of current and historical events, and how God seemed to want people to live. 

3. The authors of the Bible were inspired to create these writings, and did so with good intentions. However,

4. They were limited to the best ideas and knowledge of their time and culture. Their writings include moral codes and behaviors that were normal and considered right in the ancient settings where they were written.

5. Over the centuries, the ideas expressed by these authors evolved with the times.

6. The arrival of Jesus marked a unique event, where many previous understandings of God and the right ways to live were upended with a fresh, clearer understanding of God’s inclusive love for humanity.

7. These new understandings do not fit together perfectly with the older understandings, but supersede them. 

8. Since the Bible demonstrates an evolution in its theological ideas from the earliest texts to the later ones, we should not be surprised (or afraid) if our ideas continue to change and evolve over the centuries.

With this new set of assumptions about the Bible, I am inspired to acknowledge the impossibility of making all the ideas of the Bible fit together. I feel free to let the Bible speak with its different voices and different messages, without a need to make them all fit together. I no longer feel compelled to “defend the Bible” but am able to allow it to be what it is, which is often confusing and contradictory.

I’m hopeful that as time goes on, my assumptions will continue to evolve as I keep learning and growing and staying in touch with the words found in the collection of literature honored and revered as the Bible.