An unfortunate fact of life is that human beings are prone to error. We're fallible, we're foolish and we're sinful. Christians have a defence against that in that we can study the Bible, especially with the help of the Holy Spirit, but nevertheless we can still make mistakes. Sometimes, we can even cling to these mistakes as strongly as we cling to the truth.
Our fallibility leads to a lot of disagreements on what the Scriptures say. In this world of "tolerance" and Relativisim, the response is often contradictory. "That's just your interpretation!" The greatest irony of this response is that the one making it would not accept it from the other side. They cling to their view as if it were not up for dispute, even getting offended if such a dispute occurs. I remember especially one girl I once knew (who actually inspired this article) who once shouted "don't f****ing correct me again!" She believed that if God wanted her to know something, the Scriptures weren't enough. God would have to tell her Himself. And that's not just my summary of her beliefs. She did explicitly state that. When I told my mother later that day, she laughed, and jokingly quipped "He did. He left a note."
That note is the Bible, but as I just pointed out, there are disputes about how to interpret it. How do I know my interpretation is right? How do I know another person's is wrong? Why are there still things I don't know about it if I've read it so many times, and spent so long doing that? Why do these disputes even exist if the Bible is sufficient? So many questions in such a short article.
Let us first get to why disputes exist. There are a variety of answers, but they all come to one main source: Our approach. The Bible is one book with one correct interpretation, but we are all many people with many different approaches. The one that is most obviously going to cause trouble is sin. We humans are a very self-centred species. From the very beginning, we have wanted to be like God, authority and all. Rather than serving Him, we want Him to serve us. And it doesn't help that we are not the only sinful species in existence. It was our desire for Godhood that Satan used to tempt Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, and Adam to follow suit. We never stopped our blasphemous pursuit of God's throne. This can even be seen in unbelievers, such as agnostics and atheists, who often insist that God is "evil". Rather than submitting to His judgements, they act as if God is accountable to them.
But it's not just atheists and agnostics. In fact, such people have been a tiny minority for the majority of human history, and remain so to this day. And for good reason: Mankind instinctively knows God exists (Romans 2:14-15), because He has provided ample evidence for His existence (Romans 1:18-20). Denial of this fact is utter folly. But we who know of His existence still often deny His nature. Rather than striving to conform to His image, we attempt to create Him in our own. Colossians 2:14 tells us that the law is "contrary to us". We're not supposed to read the Bible and love every second of it. It's supposed to convict us (John 8:9; 1 Corinthians 14:24; Titus 1:9). The result is that untaught and unstable people twist the scriptures (2 Peter 3:16).
Especially in the West, we see a lot of this. Churches are becoming less and less distinct from the world as they depart from more traditional, natural and straightforward understanding of the text in order to appear more relevant to unbelievers, or even to satisfy their own selfish desires. You want to be gay? Cool. You want to believe Evolution? Great! Pre-marital sex? Who are we to judge? And let's not forget that Hell is an allegory, God loves everyone* and Muslims worship the same God! Yay!
Except no. All of those beliefs, while popular with human beings, are not popular with God. It doesn't take a scholar to tell you that because the Bible already does. The Bible isn't intended for self-serving human beings to read it and draw their own conclusions. If that's what you want, you don't need a Bible, you need a notebook. Anyone can write their opinions in a book with no words. But the Bible does have words. And not surprisingly, those words have a meaning.
So, how do we determine that meaning? This isn't as difficult as it sounds. The way people talk about the Bible, you'd think it is the schizophrenic ramblings of a psychotic jewel thief who speaks exclusively in riddles and only has one desire: Your happiness. But in reality, there are a few very simple rules, commonly referred to as the rules of hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the study of Biblical interpretation, and the rules are really quite simple. They are:
- The Bible must be interpreted literally
- The Bible must be interpreted historically
- The Bible must be interpreted gramatically
- The Bible must be interpreted contextually
- The Bible must be interpreted in light of itself
Literally
The suggestion that the Bible must be interpreted literally is often misunderstood. It doesn't mean that figures of speech are necessarily excluded. Rather, it means the plain meaning of the text must be taken. There are no lines to read between. There are no hidden meanings or secret codes (at least none that change the clear meaning). There is no need to see allegory where none is implied. Take, for example, the feeding of the 5,000. The straightforward interpretation is easy. Nothing in the text suggests there were any more, or any less people than 5,000. It could have been rounded up or down (as is suggested by John 6:10 saying about 5,000). Perhaps there were only 4,998. Perhaps there were 5,002. Perhaps there were exactly 5,000 men. Matthew 14:21 suggests that there were women and children in the crowd, so "about 5,000" men, plus who knows how many women and children were fed that day. There is nothing in the text to suggest that this is a figure of speech. It would be beyond asinine to interpret this story as there being a crowd of only 50 hungry people, and Jesus being generous enough to buy them all lunch.
Historically
The culture and historical setting must be considered when interpreting the Bible. It's safe to say that a 21st century American has a significantly different background than a 14th century B.C. Israelite. Many interpretations can be corrected simply by changing your mindset. For example, Levitical law forbids eating certain insects that have four legs. A 21st century science enthusiast would say this is impossible. Insects, by definition, have six legs, and thus a four legged animal cannot be an insect (unless, of course, it is unfortunate enough to have lost two). But the Israelites had a different idea about what constitutes a leg. Specifically, if it had a function other than walking, such as jumping, like grashoppers, smelling, like brush footed butterflies, or trapping prey, like mantids, it was a "leg", but in a completely different way, and so not counted among the total number of legs. Thus it is not fair to charge the Bible with error because doing so is applying a completely incorrect cultural logic to it.
Gramatically
The problem with translations is that each language has very different principles. There are different numbers of letters, there are inexact word equivalents, there are words without equivalents, there are homonyms that cease to be homonyms or rhymes that cease to be rhymes, there are basically a variety of reasons even a very good translation will lose at least a tiny portion of its meaning. Thankfully, many great minds have translated the Bible so that you don't really need to be a Greek scholar to understand it. However, even they occasionally make mistakes. This is especially visible when you look at the KJV. While there are some who insist the KJV is a perfect translation, and anything that isn't the KJV is a Satanic counterfeit, the fact is it is just a very good translation. However, as good as it is, those who translated it were not familiar with what is called the "Koine Greek". Just as the English language has both a common and a scholarly language, so also did the Greeks have a common and scholarly language. Those who translated the KJV had an excellent knowledge of classical Greek, but the Bible wasn't written in classical Greek. It was written in Koine Greek. The resulting differences are not that huge. They are, however, noticeable. Take, for example, Ephesians 1:14. In the KJV, the Holy Spirit is described as the "earnest" of our inheritance. But modern translations render it the "guarantee" of our inheritance. A correct understanding of the Greek allows translators to better translate the Bible, and Bible students to be better at studying it.
Contextually
I remember seeing a wedding plaque on a table with Luke 4:7 written on it. "If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine." The image was not alone. It was surrounded by the words "Inspirational Bible quote. Less inspirational if you know who said it." Single verses, or even a few verses, are often misinterpreted because the context is ignored. Whether in apologetics, devotions or other discussions, single verses can only tell you so much. What do the verses before it say? What do the verses after it say? Is there anything else in the rest of the Bible that might give us a hint that we aren't reading this right? Taken on its own, Luke 4:7 is too ambiguous. You can make it say that God will give you everything if you just worship Him. But when coupled with Luke 4:6, you see that not only is God not telling His readers that you will receive everything by worshipping Him, but it isn't even God speaking. Rather, it is Satan speaking. To Jesus. And Jesus won. He won by obeying the rules of hermeneutics, rather than assuming the Bible has multiple equally valid interpretations.
According to itself
Continuity errors are alien to the Bible. It never says one thing, then changes its mind later. Sometimes, a verse might seem to mean one thing, but later on it turns out that's not what it means at all, because another verse or passage puts it into its correct context. Take, for example, Ecclesiastes 9:5. A lot of Ecclesiastes sounds like it was written by an atheist, Ecclesiastes 9:5 being the perfect example. It says "For the living know that they will die; But the dead know nothing, And they have no more reward, For the memory of them is forgotten." On the surface, this verse suggests that if there is an afterlife, we aren't going there for a while. Yet, such an interpretation is completely at odds with the rest of the Bible! Not only does the Bible tell us that there is an afterlife in way too many passages for me to care about naming here, even in the oldest book of the Bible (Job 19:26-27), but it even tells us that, for Christians at least, we will actually go there the moment we die (2 Corinthians 5:8). Luke 16 also gives further proof that even unbelievers will immediately be sent to Hades.
All of this basically points to a very simple concept: Read the Bible like a book. Because it is a book. It's not a cloud. It's not a dog. It's not a sieve. It's a book. It was written like a book, with a set purpose, an intended meaning and, most importantly, a divine stamp of approval. The reason so many disputes arise is that so many people fail to understand this. They read their opinions into the Bible rather than basing their opinions on what it says. They look for allegory where none can be found, or refuse to see it where it clearly is. They read between the lines when there is literally nothing there, or act like the writer just didn't care what he was saying. They apply the wrong cultural or historical mindset, they pretend English is the only language that ever existed, they skip verses, highlight the wrong ones, ignore critical ones, and even treat the Bible as if all 66 books have no relation to each other. There are multiple interpretations, but they are not all equally valid. Anyone who says otherwise is the spiritual equivalent of the child who sits at the back of every class doodling on the tables, throwing paper planes with obscene messages written on them, and firing spit balls when the teacher's back is turned.
*With regard to me citing "God loves everyone" as a popular false belief, I am not saying that God does not, in fact, love all human beings. However, I am referring to the way in which the word "love" has been hijacked and twisted to mean accepting all forms of sin as if rejecting that sin is akin to hatred. It is God's love for us that causes Him to seek our holiness.