Attitudes Toward the Bible

The Bible is the best selling book ever. You can buy bibles almost anywhere. You can buy bibles online, you can buy bibles at your local bookstore, I’ve even seen them at the dollar store. If you’re thinking about buying a bible, where to get one really isn’t an issue. Knowing a little bit about the bible and which version is right for you is much more important.

Jews and Christians entertain various views of the Bible. On the one extreme some Christians believe in the verbal authority of scripture, holding that every word and every sentence is the word of God to be accepted authoritatively. On the other extreme, there are liberal Christians who believe the Bible to be an interesting book but having no more authority than the message itself dictates to the mind and heart of the reader. This view holds that parts of the Bible are inspiring and commend themselves to conscience and much of it is purely human and not the best of morality and religion at that. In between these two extremes is the view that the Bible is the Word of God, delivered through inspired men, but that because of human error through years and years of translating and copying, some errors may have been introduced.

When it was first written, both the Old Testament in Hebrew and the New Testament in Greek, there was no printing press. For many centuries scribes copied the text laboriously and no doubt earnestly from one parchment sheet or papyrus roll to another. In the process of copying, errors were bound to have been made and then transmitted to new copies. Not only that, but conscientious scholars could hardly resist the temptation to clarify the meaning of a passage to inspire or safeguard the faith of the alter generation. Interpolations and deletions occurred in this manner.

The Bible has undergone many translations from ancient to modern languages. In any translation there is some leeway, some differences of opinion, some loss or change of the original meaning. The story of the translation of the Bible alone would seem to nullify the possibility of believing in its verbal authority.

A study of the Bible itself indicates that it is not all on the same religious and moral plane. This is particularly true of the Old Testament. Parts of this great work were written by unknown authors who make no claim to be speaking for God. Their work was retained and adopted into the Canon because of its literary merit, wisdom, or historical interest to the people of Israel. Other portions of the book come to us through the prophets who are speaking with authority and conviction for God. For example, the Song of Solomon is a great love poem appreciated for its literary beauty, but of little religious value. Ecclesiastes is a masterful literary work of much practical wisdom, but quite foreign to the tenor of most of the Old Testament and almost opposite in its teaching about life after death to the teaching on this same subject in the New Testament. Much of the historical material in the Old Testament cannot compare in inspiration and value to us today with parts of the Law of Moses and the writings of the more important of the literary prophets. Even the Apostle Paul acknowledged on occasion that he was giving his own opinion and not speaking by way of commandment, “But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment (I Corinthians 7:6,7)

One does not have to seek far to find the reasons for differences in revelation within the Holy Bible. The Bible is not one book, but a collection of sixty-six separate books, some of which are themselves collections of many writings, such as Proverbs and Psalms. We believe that God not only speaks to man, but does so in a way that man can understand him. As we read the Bible, therefore, we must not only keep God in mind, but also the prophet or the writer, and the people to whom he was speaking.

It is unfair to the Bible to interpret it as though it were equally inspired of God in all books and passages. Some writers were more inspired than others; Christ, himself, reached new heights of inspiration and revelation because he was the Son of God and because of his own wonderful intellectual and moral life.