Bulletin Insert: The Bible & its Critics (Literary Issues & Misunderstandings)

The Bible & its Critics (Literary Issues)

(Pastor Terry L. Reese, Valley GBC, Armagh, PA, June 21, AD 2020)

“Problems” related to Literary Issues tend to be simple misunderstandings with regard to the original author’s intent.

I. Question 1: “Can the Bible be judged appropriately according to Today’s modern literary styles? Is this fair?”

Answer: The Bible must be properly understood according to the literary styles, standards, and conventions of the age in which it was written.

Ancient literary practices may seem unusual to people today.

·         Moses and Daniel speak of themselves in the 3rd person in their books (as did Caesar did in his writings!).

·         Genealogies were often abbreviated—a common practice in antiquity, but not so today (e.g., Matt. 1: 8).  

II. Question 2: “Why is the life of Christ laid out differently by different Gospel writers? Why a different ordering of events, and why are various events omitted in some accounts?”

Answer: the Gospels were not written to be simple, matter-of-fact, modern chronologically-structured biographies.

Each Gospel writer had his own themes & special purposes in writing, and each had their own different target-audience (e.g., Matthew had a Jewish emphasis). Thus, each writer arranged and chose his material with this in mind. Thus…

o   Some material is arranged chronologically, but some is arranged thematically.

o   The authors are not claiming that everything they present follows some sort of strict chronology!

III. Question 3: “Does the Bible employ such well-known literary conventions such as rounding-off numbers and paraphrasing… and is this OK for an inerrant book?”

Answer: “Yes” on both counts! The Bible employs a variety of standard literary devices.

a.    The language of appearance (common, non-technical, everyday, descriptive language (Josh. 1:15: “the sunrise”).

b.    Round (as opposed to exact) numbers (1 Chron. 19:18).

c.    Paraphrasing (i.e., restating things using different words, rather than employing exact quotation).

Thus, with regard to Peter’s good confession of Jesus as the Christ, there are three different wordings given:

Matt. 16:16: "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

Mark 8:29: "You are the Christ."

Luke 9:20: "The Christ of God."

Biblical statements are not always direct quotes—and do not claim to be! Many modern translations, for the sake of readability, employ the device of quotation marks—but there are no quotation marks in the original languages!

The New Testament also paraphrases the Old, using “free” quotation (e.g., Matt. 2:6, Micah 5:2). Statements are sometimes restated by the authors in their own words for emphasis of meaning.

We do all of these things today—and it is understood, by way of INTENT, what we are doing! These are not “errors;” they are acceptable literary devices and conventions.

IV. Another misunderstanding of language: confusing general statements with universal ones, or proverbial truisms with absolute truths.

Often the Bible (e.g., Proverbs) offers general truisms—which are general rules-of-thumb that USUALLY hold true. They do, however, admit of EXCEPTIONS. These are given for purposes of general guidance (e.g., Prov. 16:7, Prov. 22:6) —not for universal assurance.

Absolute truths, however, are ALWAYS true without any exception whatsoever (e.g., John 3:16 & Rom. 10:13). God’s great and everlasting promises of salvation and eternal security for the believer will ALWAYS hold true!