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Perfect Word or errors in interpretation?

Regular Network Norwich and Norfolk columnist James Knight asks how we should make sense of possible inconsistencies in God's Word.

One of the things that used to bother me in my early days of being a Christian was the seemingly inconsistent nature of some of the Bible.  As strange as this may seem, it does appear that there are errors in the Bible; in fact, most scholars agree that there have been errors in a few of the translations.  One very obvious example is the apparent contradiction in the books of Samuel.  In 1 Samuel 17:50 it is claimed that David was the man who killed Goliath, but in 2 Samuel 21:19 we see that Goliath’s death is attributed to Elhanen.  There are one or two other apparent contradictions too, so it seems that we can say without too much fear that there appears to be errors in the Bible text.  All who know me know that I like to find satisfying answers to every alternative, if indeed such answers are required, and there are I would say only two conclusions that one can draw from this.  The first possibility is that the Bible is the perfect word of God and that we as limited humans of this age do not understand why it looks like there are errors – that is to say, we cannot see the full picture.  The second possibility is that the supplier of the words or inspiration for the words (God) is of course perfect, but the interpretation or translating of those words is imperfect.  The first possibility is, of course, self-explanatory - but if the second is true, how do we explain such a conclusion?

In order to do this, we must separate the Divine from all the things that the Divine touches or affects.  The virgin birth - the spermatozoon that appeared in Mary’s body was a miracle, but as soon as the miracle occurred, the miraculous became part of nature, part of matter - subjected to the laws of nature.  Thus Christ, miraculous in His physiological inception and, indeed, in His fullness of the Divine, also bore traits and characteristics of humanity which obeyed the laws of nature.  When His skin was lacerated He started to bleed.  When He was crying at the grave of Lazarus His lacryal glands reacted, and so forth.  When Christ turned the water into wine, the wine itself still had all the properties of a non-miraculous glass of wine.  All miraculous* things when they come into nature assume, to a degree, all the parts of nature that other non-miraculous things assume. New events are installed into old laws.  God speaks through miracles with nature as the medium.  And I think it is possible that we might have observed the same sort of thing happening with the word of God.  I do not doubt that the word is perfect, but I suspect that those times when it seems contradictory or inaccurate, they are the times when the vagaries of created living have, in some way, interfered in the process.  But even if we admit this, we can still make justifiable claims that the word of God is from a perfect source.

* By ‘miraculous’ I mean the category distinctions we make between things that are ordinarily perceived as a miracle (the virgin birth, an instantaneous healing, etc) and things that obey established laws and are perceived as ordinary events within the grand miracle of creation.

The Bible is reliable

The one thing we can attest to with some degree of certainty is that the texts seem to have been copied and translated faithfully.  The more puzzling inclusions exhibit honest translation, for I dare say, it would have been tempting sometimes to alter parts of the text over which future critics might cast aspersions.  In the second place there are of course many supposed Bible contradictions which are easily refuted with a small amount of analysis. Click here to see a website with examples of this.

The initial word of God was given to us directly from God, but the resultant word then, I suppose, becomes susceptible to human fallibility.  But I think we can say with some degree of certainty that God’s guiding hand has been apparent - and that when Christ says that His words will never pass away (Matthew 24:35) - He means that the Spirit of God is operating to bring about ubiquitous dissemination of His word.  In that respect, human fallibility is not likely to encroach upon the dissemination or propagation of God’s word. 

I have no doubt that some people will find this prospect quite intolerable.  The very idea that God’s word when interlocked with natural law and human fallibility should not be impervious to such encroachments is probably seen as unreasonable by some people.  But we see in Christ a perfect being who in becoming part of nature no doubt did many things that we do.  He became hungry, He became tired and scared and lonely - so should we not expect to see the perfect nature of God’s word (or perhaps some of it) affected by what happens to it within nature?  In fact, when the perfect word of God became interlocked with all the imperfect parts of nature, would we not expect that things which were making the word perfect to be partially distinct from that which caused the interrelation?  To find out how the word of God interlocks with the whole history of mankind and the rest of God’s creation we have to observe the whole picture.  And could we not expect that absolute ideal, the truest and most perfect way that God could communicate His word to us, would be through a system that is able to exhibit a glorious demonstrable interrelation between God’s perfect word and nature’s imperfect system? 

Perhaps the message is made clearer; perhaps God has more to say to us this way than any other way, for in one sense, there can be no such thing as one definite perfect set of words from our Lord.  There are undoubtedly words spoken from God, or spoken by Him to prophets and angels, that become aberrant the moment they are written down.  Perhaps God has things to say to us when we see contradictions like the one regarding Goliath’s killer.  Perhaps the errors show that every single thing that comes from God has to in some way lose its perfection when it becomes interlocked with nature.  Even our Lord, who was a perfect man had to, in the end, lose the part of Him that was connected to the Father in order that He could die for us (Matthew 27:46).  Perhaps it is a fact that nothing can remain in nature and at the same time fully retain and represent the perfect nature of God.  Perhaps the real perfect translation of God’s Heavenly Being is too perfect for our current minds to fully comprehend; thus the word had to come into nature in a way that was susceptible to human fallibility. 

Any demand that both nature and the Divine should be consistent does not preclude possibilities that an interlocking of the two could cause situations that seem to us to be imperfect.  And I think that whether there are errors in the Bible, or whether there are no errors and we simply do not understand all that is implied, the interlocking of God and nature do at times produce things that are not fully perfect and not fully imperfect either.  The only other alternative is tautological.  If the word of God is perfect and without error, why has God not given us the requite understanding (i.e. preservation of words or other annotations) necessary to conclude this for ourselves?  And if the word of God was not recorded or interpreted perfectly, why (save for what I just said about the interlocking process) did God not ensure that it was recorded or interpreted perfectly?  I presume that the answer is this.  God’s word, as well as edifying us, also serves as a reminder that perfection, once it becomes part of the created system, must show us revelations of the perfect nature of the Divine while at the same time showing us how and where nature will by itself come to nothing.  Our imbibing of His word must penetrate us at every level, including the level which displays the congruity between perfect impartation and the self-consistent blemished nature of all who receive it. 

And this I think provides the answer to the question of why, if the Bible is without errors did God make it appear to be in part inaccurate or contradictory?  The rock, derived from Divine perfection could appear to us in either way.  No doubt the angels can communicate with God in a way that is as far above us as our communication is as far above that of two ants.  And of course, the devil’s methods of deception are so far above our sensory capacities that he is probably operating in areas of God’s creation that we cannot really comprehend.  This being the case, I do not see why it should be too unreasonable to suggest that the bad one is even interfering in something as perfect as the word of God - although we cannot of course know for certain. 

But I think, if we learn one thing from this message, it is not to be too worried when people stridently assert that errors in the Bible prove that it is fabricated mythology.  You can be sure there are battles going on between angles and demons which would if the truth be known worry us a lot more than accusations of Bible inconsistency.  That is why St Paul told us to put on the armour of God, to be faithful, because in doing so we protect ourselves from the bad demons who are intent on destroying good Christian progress.  I think it is because we do not fully understand the devil’s power that God conceals so much about him.  Quite often, no news is good news.  The distinct taste of one fruit is only apparent through the taste of other fruits.  Bad habits are only visible because of good habits.  And just as all Christians know that only those who know God really acquire an idea of what the supernatural is like, I think only those who are prepared to accept that the devil’s powers are able to surprise us to the point of shocking admissions about God’s work on earth, will develop a full understanding of how angels and demons are operating in this interlocking system. 

Sometimes we need to step outside of something before we can see its true essence.  And equally, I think we have to come to know the Divine before we can become inoculated against the deceptive natures of the bad one.  And it seems to me that sometimes we have to be prepared to question things which all along we thought were impervious to demonic attack or interference, including the issue of supposed Bible errors. 

In writing this message, I have attempted to show that there is, perhaps, a reasonable explanation if it turns out there are errors in the Bible text.  But regarding this subject matter, there are many people who are much better qualified to say if I have overlooked something or failed to provide a satisfactory hypothesis.  If anyone thinks I am wrong, I should very much like to discover where I have gone wrong.  I am, as ever, keen to hear contentions which are better than my own.