There’s this popular view going around these days about the Bible which I think has been popularized by Sam Harris (professional atheist extraordinaire). Basically, many people are saying they don’t assign any authority to the Bible because it doesn’t match expectations of what one would find in a truly divine book.
Those who hold this view will claim that the Bible betrays evidence of creation by an ancient culture (partly true) and that it holds many contradictions, immoralities, scientifically disproven claims, etc. (not so true). You see, though it’s detractors would like to claim the intellectual high ground and say their position is obvious and the only reasonable view, the Bible can fairly easily make it through any unbiased analysis. The stories of those who have come to trust in God after reading through the bible critically are numerous. If one comes to scripture with as few preconceptions as possible, it’s very hard to imagine that humans could come up with such a collection.
It seems pretty blatant to me that if the Bible is divine, it’s descriptions of man as fallen and antagonistic towards God, and seeing God’s wisdom as foolishness, can easily explain the work of Bible bashers. Our pagan culture will always try to find some way to dismiss the Bible, because if it is true, we’re accountable to God in ways that are extremely disconcerting. Coating prejudiced diatribes in a veneer of rational criticism and a claim of attempts at clearing away myth and backwards thinking doesn’t make them any easier to swallow.
Having said all this, in an effort to be critical of my own views I’m always on the lookout for evidence of real scriptural contradictions or fallacies. If you feel you know of some, please take the time to search out traditional Christian answers to your proposition (since most “contradictions” have been pretty easily cleared up for centuries), and if you still feel no satisfactory answer exists, comment away, change my mind.
I look forward to the learning.
Posted by poppies
