Monday 23 May 2011

Why would anyone believe the Bible?

I've recently re-written this post, because it consistently gets more hits than any of my other posts and I'm not sure I did a particularly good job the first time around. The comments below this post - at least those  posted in 2011 - relate to the original version which can still be accessed here.

For various reasons, lots of people believe the Bible. I obviously can't cover all the reasons here even if I knew what they all were. As a (pretty much) Bible-believing Christian myself though, I can give some of the reasons why I think the Bible is worth taking seriously.

To start off with, I think it's important to emphasise the fact that the Bible isn't really a single book. It actually consists of 66 separate books1 written by a wide variety of different authors for different reasons in different places and at different times, which for various historical reasons (generally good ones in my opinion) have ended up in the collection we use today. Many people - Christian and otherwise - seem to think that if anything in the Bible is found to be imperfect or inaccurate, the whole thing is therefore thrown into question and none of it can be trusted. To my mind, this attitude does an enormous disservice to the complexity and diversity of the text. Because of this attitude, many Christians read the Bible wearing blinkers, refusing to see anything that might contradict their preconceptions, while many non-believers dismiss the Bible outright because they've read something they don't agree with or which seems contradictory or implausible in the face of logical analysis.

Unfortunately, I don't have space to cover the whole Bible in this post (I lack the knowledge to do so in any real depth anyway!), so I'm just going to focus on a couple of areas:

1.  The Gospels

The gospels are the books of MatthewMarkLuke and John, which appear at the beginning of the New Testament (i.e. Part Two of the Christian Bible). These books were written by Jesus' early followers, in the decades immediately following his death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. They tell the story of Jesus' life and ministry, in particular the last 3 years which is when He did most of his preaching and teaching.

I personally have a lot of faith in the gospels. I don't assume though, that they are factually perfect in every detail, because they were written a little while after the events they describe, and have been re-assembled from personal and collected, written and verbal memories. We can see small differences between some of the accounts which show that in some cases events have been remembered slightly differently.

The gospels and the message they contain - which was being preached long before the gospels were written down - had an explosive effect, and the early Christian church grew at a phenomenal rate in spite of intense persecution from the Roman Empire. There is much in the gospels to provoke scepticism in an enlightened 21st century mind - for example, Jesus healing people or walking on water or rising again from the dead - but it is because of stories like these, in particular the story of Jesus' resurrection, that the Christian message had such an incredible early impact. It is possible of course, that all these stories were made up, but I find it hard to see why Jesus' early followers, who lived and travelled with him, would have committed themselves so completely to such an obvious and enormous lie, a) given that such a deception would be the antithesis of the message itself and, b) in the face of the hardships, persecution, torture and violent deaths that so many of them suffered as a result.

2.  The Torah

The Torah is the Jewish name for the first five books of the Old Testament, which Christians traditionally refer to as the Pentateuch. (The Old Testament is Part One of the Christian Bible and is known to Jews as the Tanakh - this is the Bible as it was known to Jesus and His early followers, before any of the New Testament was written).

The traditional Jewish belief is that the whole of the Torah was written by the prophet Moses (who is the central human character in books 2 to 5), but this seems unlikely for at least 2 reasons:
  1. Deutoronomy - book 5 of the Torah - describes Moses' death in the past tense. (some Orthodox Jews explain this by claiming that God revealed to Moses the exact nature of his death so that he could write it all down beforehand as though it had already taken place.)

  2. Even a fairly basic analysis of the text reveals a mixture of interspersed literary styles. The modern scholarly consensus is that the Torah is composed of extracts from a number of earlier sources which have been spliced and edited together into the account we have today. No-one knows exactly when this took place, although there are a number of theories, and no copies of any of the earlier sources remain.
Because the Torah was written so much longer ago than the gospels, and we know so much less about its origins, its authenticity is much more difficult to determine. In some places its contents seem to resonate with and affirm what we read in the gospels, but in some other places the God of the Torah seems stricter or more vengeful or bloodthirsty than the God that Jesus seems to represent.

For Jews, the Torah is the most important part of their scripture, and Jesus - who was born and raised a Jew - quoted from it frequently and seemed to identify His own life and mission with many of the stories that it contains. In a nutshell, and for the most part, the Torah tells the story of how God chose a group of people (the Jews) and made an agreement with them whereby He would take care of them and protect them, in return for which they would learn to live His way and be faithful to Him and obey his commands. When they kept their promise to God, God kept His promise and things went well with them but when they were rebellious or wilfully disobedient, things tended to go rather badly!

Jesus drew both on the Torah and also on the Old Testament prophets (see next section). The Torah includes God's promises to Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith, an important part of which was that through Abraham all nations would eventually be blessed. Later on, the prophets predicted that God was going to form a new agreement/relationship with His people to supercede the one He had previously made with the Jews. This relationship wouldn't just be based on a set of rules though, it would go much deeper and would be able to change people's hearts. Jesus and his followers believed that Jesus came to initiate this relationship through His life, sacrificial death and subsequent resurrection, and that this new relationship was for everyone and not just for the Jews.

Getting back to the Torah though, I find it very hard to know how much of it I should treat as historically true, but it was and remains a central part of Jewish identity,  played a central role in Jesus' own life, and because of this and because He drew so heavily from it, it is also very important to other Christians and to me. I have often found it a source of great wisdom and comfort, but at other times I wrestle with some of the confusing or contradictory things it sometimes seems to say.

A Quick Bible Summary

So far I've only covered 2 small parts of the Bible. To Christians and Jews respectively, these are the most important bits, but there is so much more to the Bible which I just don't have room to do any justice to here. As a very brief summary, the Bible also includes:
  • The story of the Jews from when they first entered the land of Israel, throughout their time there, through their exile in Babylon, and their eventual repatriation in Israel about 400 years before Jesus. This whole story is about the outworking of the Torah - when things go well and when they don't go well as the Jews more or less cyclically reject and return to God.

  • Various books of prophecies - the records of those who spoke on God's behalf, often urging the Jews to turn back to God and away from their wicked ways. These books often have a strong emphasis on social justice as well as on trying to repair whatever damage the Jews have done this time to their relationship with God.

  • Books of wisdom and poetry.

  • Letters - found in the New Testament part of the Bible - written by the early Christian leaders to various different parts of the Christian church. These give us an invaluable insight into the beliefs and practices of the early Christians, before Christianity became institutionalised and tainted by political power to the extent that we often see today.

A Religion of the Heart

If you're not a believer, I'm not sure that I'll have said much so far to convince you of the truth of the Bible, although perhaps I might have said something to make you think it a little more worthy of your consideration. In the end though, there's probably quite a lot in there that won't ever be scientifically verified. How do you prove for example, that 2,000 years ago a man was raised from the dead? (Or, for that matter, that he wasn't?).

The Christian faith isn't based entirely on the Bible though - if it was it would be a religion of the head and not of the heart. In the end, the Christian faith is based on an encounter - through Jesus - with the living God. The Bible may help to facilitate this, but unless you encounter God in some way for yourself, then debating its truth is little more than a logical exercise. It might make a difference in your head, but in the end the truth of the Bible is only really worth anything if it also succeeds in changing your heart.

15 comments:

  1. You mention there are a "range of views" about what things in the bible mean. This seems like a big problem to me. Surely if there is going to be a guide as to how to live your life and follow the way of God should be clear and concise?

    You claim to have no doubt that the New Testament books are what they claim to be. I would question however that there is any proof that Jesus is who he claimed to be - the son of God. From the descriptions in the bible he could easily be a Magician performing tricks.

    With regards to miracles - this is a good catch all for things people of the time didn't understand! I don't see people in third world countries suddenly turning a few fish into thousands of fish these days. Or bushes suddenly burning without some obvious explanation.

    The fact that a book was precious to the Jews and was preserved over time isn't really any kind of evidence. Humans have always saught to preserve things from history. The Doomsday book for example.

    It is interesting that you find the God from the Old Testament less appealing to the one in the New Testament. Could it be that religious leaders realised the Old Testament was putting people off their religion, and dumbed it down to produce a more loving version of God that would appeal to more people? You seem to be trying to be trying to find areas of the bible that conform to your idea of how God should be.

    I'd imagine the more sinister parts are there to scare people into conforming.

    Think also about the delivery mechanism Jesus has used. He has sat down with a handful of people and chatted to them. How does that scale to getting a message across to the millions of people throughout the world, in an age where people could not travel from one continent to the next?! If this was real, would God appearing in the Sky and talking to all humans at once not be a better delivery mechanism? Surely something so important should be told to everyone, not to such few people? It doesn't make any sense.

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  2. Hey Gary - thanks for your comments!
    It's nice to have a proper "non-believer" on here for a change! ;-)

    I'll try to respond to your points one at a time:

    >> You mention there are a "range of views" about what things in the bible mean. This seems like a big problem to me. Surely if there is going to be a guide as to how to live your life and follow the way of God should be clear and concise?

    Well, in places it is quite clear and concise, but in other places less so and there are differences of opinion about it. Absolute certainty is an appealing idea, but I think this is the main thing that often drives people towards fundamentalism at both ends of the spectrum - religious and atheist. Real life is rarely like that in my experience, and is full of things that can't be "known" with that level of scientific precision. That isn't a reason to rule them out of court though - sometimes we just have to make the best we can of what we have available.

    >> I would question however that there is any proof that Jesus is who he claimed to be - the son of God.

    I would expect you to question it - it isn't a claim to be taken lightly! I think the main "proof" though, apart from the claims He made about Himself, would be the resurrection. For more of my thoughts on that, see here

    >> I don't see people in third world countries suddenly turning a few fish into thousands of fish these days. Or bushes suddenly burning without some obvious explanation.

    No, you don't - they're not the sort of stories that often make it onto TV screens or into science laboratories. When this sort of thing does happen (I don't know about either of those specific examples) it generally tends to be "off the map". For more of my thoughts on why that is, see my next comment down.

    (couldn't fit all the rest in one comment - see below)

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  3. >> The fact that a book was precious to the Jews and was preserved over time isn't really any kind of evidence. Humans have always saught to preserve things from history. The Doomsday book for example.

    Which has massive historical value?

    >> Could it be that religious leaders realised the Old Testament was putting people off their religion, and dumbed it down to produce a more loving version of God that would appeal to more people?

    I don't think so, because it wasn't the religious leaders who did this. The New Testament take on God was introduced first of all by Jesus, who was a religious upstart who was executed for upsetting the establishment, and then by his followers who similarly belonged to a persecuted minority.

    >> You seem to be trying to be trying to find areas of the bible that conform to your idea of how God should be.

    Perhaps I am Gary! - I'm still trying to join all the dots…! My experience of God is that He's always been very loving towards me, often at the times when I least felt like I deserved it. I do believe He's capable of anger though - as the Old and New Testaments teach - and that isn't something I'd want to get on the wrong side of. I don't think it's a spiteful or vindictive anger though, which the O.T. does occasionally seem to verge on. The main thing I have trouble with in the Old Testament is the wholesale slaughter of other nations by the Israelites, seemingly with God's approval. I have to wonder if He has somehow been misrepresented in these instances, due to the Israel-centric nature of the accounts. For more of my thoughts on this, see here

    >> I'd imagine the more sinister parts are there to scare people into conforming.

    I can't deny that this may be a possibility.

    >> Think also about the delivery mechanism Jesus has used. He has sat down with a handful of people and chatted to them. How does that scale to getting a message across to the millions of people throughout the world, in an age where people could not travel from one continent to the next?! If this was real, would God appearing in the Sky and talking to all humans at once not be a better delivery mechanism? Surely something so important should be told to everyone, not to such few people? It doesn't make any sense.

    More to the point though I think, if God wanted to make himself known in this way he could have done it a long time before Jesus, and as many times as he wanted to since, so I think there are only three possibilities:
    1. He doesn't want to
    2. He isn't able to
    3. He doesn't exist.

    If He really does have the power to create the whole Universe and to interact simultaneously with every one of us, then 2 seems unlikely, so that only leaves 1 or 3.

    Is it possible that He doesn't want to? What would happen if He did? There's a massive power dynamic going on here if we really are talking about the creator of the whole Universe. If you knew for certain that He existed and could do anything He wanted to, what would that do to your behaviour? You might hate Him or be scared out of your wits, but you'd damn well go along with whatever He wanted! But what kind of relationship could He have with you then?

    My impression is that He isn't that kind of God - that He wants relationship and doesn't want to impose Himself. I believe He will do so eventually and He's left, and continues to leave plenty of clues, but He wants people to be able to respond to Him as they are ready to and to make their own choices without always feeling like the Almighty is breathing down their necks.

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  4. All countries have leaders, and provided they don't abuse their positions the fact that there is a powerful head of state doesn't generally make people hate them.

    It doesn't make any sense to me that he doesn't show himself - it serves no purpose. If when you die you go into heaven with him, then surely at that point you meet him and will potentially have the same issues as you describe if he had done it on earth?

    There are ways of doing things. God doesn't need to breath down peoples necks, but showing himself to exist once every decade might be nice!

    I notice you didn't really make an arguament for number 3? :-)

    Does this not seem like the more logical answer though?

    I do also find myself saying do I even want a God. Even if it was true, and he existed - so what? What is his purpose? Why does he even matter? I don't really see why you want to believe in him - possibly to give you some reason to want to live or to give your life some purpose, but even then you can do that without believing in God - many do.

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  5. Sorry Gary, I didn't mean to suggest that you would automatically hate God if you knew absolutely that He existed - I just meant that was one possible reaction. Quite a lot of people seem to hate Him already without even being too sure about that!

    My main point though, was the massive power dynamic involved. Heads of state - to use your analogy - keep order by being powerful and hence are not able to have close relationships with many of their subjects. Their friends, if they have any, usually end up being other powerful people. God is infinitely more powerful than any head of state though. He doesn't need an army or any secret police - He knows everything that everyone is doing (and even thinking) all the time. Most people don't want to be constantly reminded of that - especially if they'd rather do things their own way rather than His thank you very much!

    You're right that everyone will meet Him at some point, and I believe those issues will arise then just as you predicted. That day is called "judgement day" - when the secrets of all our hearts will be laid bare and we will have to choose once and for all - but our actions on earth by that point will probably have already chosen for us.

    >> showing himself to exist once every decade might be nice!

    He does actually show Himself to exist more often than that - to those who are genuinely looking for Him - but not usually in the all-encompassing, completely-unavoidable-to-everyone-else kind of way that you're talking about.

    >> I notice you didn't really make an argument for number 3? :-)

    :-) Well no - that's the one I'm arguing against as you probably spotted! ;-)

    >> I do also find myself saying do I even want a God. Even if it was true, and he existed - so what? What is his purpose? Why does he even matter?

    Well, if there's no God then you're right, He doesn't. If He does exist though, then He's of fundamental importance because He's the reason why we're all here - why anything is here in fact! Personally I think it's worth connecting with that!

    >> I don't really see why you want to believe in him - possibly to give you some reason to want to live or to give your life some purpose, but even then you can do that without believing in God - many do.

    Yes of course they do, and many of them do extremely well at it! There's so much that's good in life and in the world that's worth living for - but all these things come from God in my opinion, and connecting with the source of all these things completes the picture and puts it all into perspective. Others don't manage so well and have got a lot more lost and confused about the whole thing. For these people especially, connecting with the source can help them get it all back the right way up again!

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  6. This discussion seems to be going the way most discussions go with religious people. The arguaments start out with the religious person trying to reason things, then when that fails ends up with them going back to their blind faith in God :-)

    I don't buy into this God created everything nonsense. How could one single person create so much?

    Let's suppose God did create everything for a minute. Well who created God then? The usual answer is - he was just there. What kind of answer is that? If God can just be there, why can't humans?

    I don't buy your arguaments about God showing himself in small ways to those that are looking either. Surely those people already believe, and it is those who do not that would benefit more from being shown his existence?

    The recent Tsunami in Japan was a massive freak event. Was that a miracle? Out of most of the things that happen on Earth on a daily basis it is probably one of the more significant unusual events. Surely more a miracle than any small coincidence you might have observed. Yet no doubt you would not class it as an act of God as it is distructive, and would not fit with your idealogy of God as a loving person?

    Noah's ark and the flood - what was that all about? Pretty savage of God to decide just to kill everyone and everything, saving only two of each thing. Where are the fossil remains of all those dead? Surely you should find them everywhere if you dig down? This was the era in which Humans existed, which we know is only a few thousand years. If we can dig down and find dinosaur bones - where are the dead from this great flood - there should be so many dead surely?

    As usual it is just SO easy to point holes into everything and every story that forms part of religion. There is not ONE credible form of evidence. How can something so big have zero credible evidence?

    Answer - it can't - because it simply does not exist, except for in the minds of those that choose to believe blindly that it is true. And humour me for a moment and assume I am right... Who is the foolish one? The man who spends his precious limited life to the full, or the one who wastes that precious time going to religious services, praying to God, and believing a lie for the whole of their life!

    The one thing I hate about all of this, is that those that did believe will never know that they were wrong when they die!

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  7. Gary - according to your criteria - do I have to be able to answer all of your questions, or understand everything there is to know about God before I'm allowed to believe in Him? Or at least before I'm allowed to believe in Him without you thinking I'm an idiot for doing so?

    Is it at all possible (in your opinion) that I might have discovered or encountered something that you haven't yet and that you might be the one who's (at least temporarily) missing out here?

    I'm happy to carry on trying to answer your questions, but if you honestly think that nothing I've said so far makes any sense or is of any value then it doesn't seem like there's really a lot of point in me doing so?

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  8. Of course I don't expect all questions to be answered before you are allowed to believe in him. You're of course free to believe what you like.

    I guess my hard line questioning comes because I know in my head 100% that God does not exist. I have absolutely no doubts whatsoever. I went to Sunday school as a young child, and had R.E. classes at secondary school, but in the end my scientific brain says zero evidence means he does not exist.

    Regardless of whether God exists or not (because I doubt either of us will convince the other), I would be interested into what you get out of God? Even if he existed and appeared and spoke to me, my view would be ok he exists, but now I know - so what! I don't even really see why it is relevant that he exists. Even if someone exists that created us all, yes it is interesting, but not all that relevant to life here on Earth these days.

    So when you say I might be the one missing out - I don't believe I am, because even if I was suddenly convinced he existed, I don't really see what difference that actually makes.

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  9. Gary, I am a friend of Dan and a Christian as well. I went to church as a kid and when I grew up I decided it wasn't for me. My theory was, why should I believe in a religion / bible without any evidence - fair one eh.

    When I went to Uni, I had an experience of God. It was 2-way and it has been ever since. With that evidence, I became a Christian. There is no way I am going to be a Christian all my life, hoping there is a heaven, without that evidence!

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  10. Hi Base853! Why are you hoping there is a heaven though? What do you hope to achieve by getting there?

    The whole premise of Christianity (and other religions) seems to be to have faith in God and follow the right path, and you will be rewarded with a place in heaven. Yet even what that reward consists of, what heaven is - is completely undefined!

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  11. Being a Christian and being in a relationship with God (thats the crux of it!), I have to believe what he is telling me - i.e. I will die, I will then either go to heaven or to hell. I'd rather go to heaven.

    You are probably thinking that is a big if and yes you are right, but again, its because its 2-way I believe heaven is real.

    What happens there, I really don't know that much, but I know it will good. I am curious to know in advance what will go on in heaven, but its not going to ruin my day if I don't find out in advance.

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  12. H Gary

    >> Regardless of whether God exists or not (because I doubt either of us will convince the other), I would be interested into what you get out of God?

    I think you're right that neither of us will convince the other - at least for now anyway - so with that in mind I think you've asked a good question.
    It's a big question though, so I've used it as the basis for another blog post - see here

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  13. Hi all, been directed to this blog, and liking the discussion.

    Couple of things i'll add:

    1. Dan, what you have said in the above blog credits the Bible as a document, though as all truths need, it can only be validated through testing (i.e. experience), though it does not hold that if you do not validate it, it is not truth. As BASE853 said, it's a 2-way thing. It's rather selfish of us if we expect it to be any other way. The premise of this relationship is Love (defined as the act of sacrifice = giving your life as He gave His!).

    2. As I see it, the reward of Christianity is not getting to Heaven one day, but rather experiencing the Kingdom of Heaven now in this life (I'll note here that it is also not a reward, but a gift!). I can't say much for what it'll be like after I pass from this life, but I expect what I've experienced of God's Love here will give a good indication.

    3. Gary, you said: "but in the end my scientific brain says zero evidence means he does not exist". I'd direct you to a quote from Carl Sagan (one of the greatest scientists but also an atheist): "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." I myself am an Astrophysicist, yet I have faith. I don't think anyone, regardless of what they believe can say 100%. I would assume as you are a scientist you'd appreciate that.

    4. I'll try and answer your question: "what you get out of God?": I try to have the mind-set that it is not I that am getting anything out of it, but rather through the Love that I experience through God and attempt to outplay in this life, it isn't for my benefit but for others. That's what Love is, act of sacrifice. I know that sounds very idealistic of me, and I'm not saying I am by any means perfect, but I try, and I think I get better at it because of my relationship with the one who is Love, God. My idividuality means I can outplay this in whatever life I decide to lead (i.e. not all Christians have to be Evangelical Preachers/Missionaries, I develop telescope intruments, and I very much enjoy it). That's the freedom on offer. As Saint Augustine of Hippo said: "Love God, and do what you like" (think deeply on that one).

    Anyway, hope this helps. If you have questions/comments on what I said, please respond, though I'm rather busy at the moment so will try and respond asap (my thesis is due next week!).

    Peace.

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  14. p.s. Gary, your comment of: "Well who created God then? The usual answer is - he was just there." isn't really valid for an arguement for, or against, God/creation. It's the same in all theories/beliefs. All of them are as valid as the "Turtles all the way down" answer. The truthful answer is we just don't know, and no one will for any case, and we have to accept that.

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  15. I emplore you to have a good look around the jw.org website. As a Jehovah's Witness there is not a single question there that is difficult to answer.

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