Many people have been asked or they themselves have asked this question. It is indeed a pertinent one, and a logical one for an inquisitive mind. What does Christianity have to say about it? Well let’s dive right in and find out.
The main question we are pondering is this – is the Bible that we have today, the words that God spoke over two thousand years ago? Were God’s words transferred accurately to a fallen imperfect man? Is the Bible that we have today an accurate representation of those original words? Have they been corrupted beyond recognition since they were written? These are all foundational questions. Christianity must respond to them. And indeed it does. We can separate these questions into two basic questions. The first is, ‘Is the Bible we have today an accurate copy of what was originally written?’ This deals with the corruption of the Bible over time. The second questions is, ‘Was man able to make an accurate representation of God’s Word when he first wrote it even though he was a fallen, imperfect being?’ This deals with the issue of whether or not man, not being an omnipotent, awesome, and perfect being would be able to record and understand accurately what God would say to him. We will only consider the second question here, because the former has already been answered.
This is definitely an important question. How could an imperfect man even come to understand what an omnipotent God would tell him? (Note: whenever I say the term “fallen man”, I mean that man is not perfect and has “fallen” and sinned according to the Bible). Man is not perfect, so could imperfections have crept into the Bible?
Before we even consider this question, we must logically answer another first. It is this – is the Bible perfect? Perfect as in there is absolutely no contradictions, no blemishes, and everything that is says – everything – can be held as God-given, undeniable truth. Many people I know would say no to this question. Every single word of the Bible cannot be true one might say. Does that mean the original writers lied? Did the original writers write what God told them? I’m sure they tried to, but the real question is did they succeed? Because man is fallen – and not perfect – it is possible that man, in trying to understand the infinite nature of God, wrote down their interpretations of what God was showing them. These interpretations, being from fallen man, cannot be perfect. They are just our very best human attempt at understanding an omnipotent God. Because of this, logically, we cannot take everything in the Bible literally. For it is our human interpretation of the divine.
This makes sense right? Sure it does. There is a problem with this argument however. It has nothing to do with our logic, but everything to do with our paradigm – with an incorrect mindset. We must view it in the following mindset: If God is truly an omnipotent God and is able to put His will into being, then what He wanted to be written down as scripture is what was would have been written down as scripture. This is not to say that He violated people’s free will and made them write what He wanted them to. It means in other words, that God chose the right people at the right times and showed them the right things. When He spoke to them He knew beforehand how they would respond to the things He would say. Being an omnipotent being, He chose the correct people to speak to because He knew that these people would write down exactly what he wanted them to write down. God’s word means what it says because that is what God wanted it to say. In John 10:35 Jesus states that the scripture cannot be broken. In that chapter, Jesus is talking to Jews and about why he is able to say certain things according to the scripture (in other words they logically follow). Jesus makes his statements by grounding his argument in what the scripture says, and after doing so states that the “scripture cannot be broken.” In a logical interpretation in context, we see that he is saying that the scripture is perfect. It means what it says, and it is always correct. Always.
Why do I list Jesus as an authority for answering these questions? Think about it – when Jesus came the entire Old Testament had already been written. These texts were held sacred and are what we and they considered to be the Word of God. Their modern day Bible. God, coming to earth in human form in the person of Jesus, explicitly states that scripture (the words that were taken down by the prophets since the beginning) is perfect. God has told us that the Bible is perfect. There is no empirical way to test to whether or not man wrote is what God said. However, if God says that it is, it seems to me to be proof above and beyond what we were looking for.
Since the Bible is perfect, it cannot be subject to our own interpretation. Since it is perfect, it says what it says and not what we want it to say. Christians sometimes fall into the trap of assuming that the Bible is merely our interpretation of God’s divine nature. But if that were true, then we have the authority to call into question any part of the Bible that our imaginations can think of. If the Bible is corrupted, then we can find any passage we like and say that the writers might not have gotten it right and make it say whatever we want it to say. In essence, we would be able to call into question the meaning of anything in the Bible and we lose the very foundation we stand on. Everything in the Bible would be able to be doubted for its authenticity, and we cannot say for certain that events in the Bible actually happened; people’s actions in the Bible, God’s words to us, or that Jesus died for our sins. If you take one pillar out, the whole house collapses. A Christian cannot hold this opinion without losing the foundation for drawing any logical conclusion from the Bible.
[As a side note, we notice that human interpretation does apply to certain types of prophecy. Prophecy given to man by God as a vision must of course be written down through human words and understanding. Though the author no doubt wrote down exactly what God wanted him to write down, we understand that such visions cannot always be taken literally. Such is the case with the book of Revelations. Some parts I think we can take literally and other parts are analogies and other parts are symbols and others are our best interpretations of future things. This gets into the area of scriptural interpretation. It is a huge topic – a topic for theologians to ponder. How do we, not being theologians, know the difference? It is up to us, being led by the spirit, to determine if visionary prophecies and other sections are literal or analogical. This does not mean of course that we can interpret these passages however we want – interpreting the more difficult portions of scripture requires that we compare it with other relevant parts of the Bible and make sure it is internally consistent, making sure it makes sense in the context of the passage, making sure it does not contradict things in history or things we know to be truth, etc. We won’t go into all that here though, =).]
For clarification, I point out that this doesn’t mean that Bible doesn’t make any analogies or allegories, or that if it does to disregard them and take it literally. Thi
s only means that the Word of God spoken through man wasn’t ‘interpreted’ by man first then written down by man according to his own understanding. The Word of God was spoken through man perfectly – because God is a perfect God. What was written is what God originally said and wanted to say – not what a man thought God was saying. Jesus himself logically shows this in the scripture mentioned above.
So in conclusion, we see that the Word of God is perfect and God-breathed. We cannot doubt it because of human interpretation. Many who do do so because they don’t agree with something that the Bible may say. But we see that either we believe that the whole thing is perfect, or we cannot surely believe anything that the Bible says. It becomes merely a good book instead of God’s Word. Many people believe this already, but Christians must not if they are to argue with any definitiveness or logical base.
