Is the Bible True?
Let's ask questions about that question
Reader Question: I've been thinking about literal vs. non literal interpretations of the Bible lately. For instance, If I let myself wonder whether creation was actually a literal six day event or if it is more a symbolic representation of creation focused on telling us something about who God is than the details of creation. If I think the second thing, how does that effect the truth of scripture? DOES it effect the truth of scripture? How do we know what is literal vs. symbolic, etc.?
Reader, thank you for this question! It’s one I hear often, so in my answer I am also addressing things I’ve heard elsewhere, and things we believers probably also are having conversations with others about. Let’s grapple!
After college I somehow got connected with a woman who was involved in recording, preserving and archiving oral histories of people who were participating in some capacity in World War II. It was fascinating to learn about this subset of historical preservation. Now, twenty years later, most of the people from that generation are gone, including all their memories, stories and recollections of that incredibly formative era.
One of the things that has stuck with me from that experience was considering how we tend to think about truth. Oral historians are not especially bothered if the story the person is telling is “true” in the sense that we sometimes expect. In this context the desired outcome is collecting the story tellers experience1, the observations and lived reality of however their lives played out. This is history the way you and I experience time — regular people, living regular lives. The things going on in the geo-political landscape effect us, surely, but we’re not engaging with them in all the same ways or dictating them.
I think the same thing applies when we try to approach the Bible with questions of “is it true?!” True how? Is my grandma’s experience of living during WWII “true”? Is it less true that your grandfather’s? True to whom? And what about the fact that the Bible wasn’t written and recorded in English, a language and culture vastly different from the original Hebrew and Greek it was written in. Can we even safely read it in English? (And then we get into the weeds of wondering which translation or version of the English is best.) Somehow the idea of what’s true and what’s not just keeps compounding and confusing, until a lot of us just set it all aside and assume this is for smarter, better qualified people to wrestle with.
But that’s a sad thing. I think the Bible IS for all of us, and when we stop engaging with this ancient text we lose something precious. Not only that, I believe that these questions are important to wrestle with, because we have a tsunami of similar questions coming up over the horizon.
For a culture and society that has been trained to believe (consciously and otherwise) that the written word is true, and can be almost implicitly believed, we’re coming to a time when the written word is sometimes not true at all. There is much blood and ink spilled over the value or garbage of AI2, this essay is not more of the same. But I do think it worries many people because it feels like the very foundation of how we measure truth is crumbling (which I would agree with). Maybe that’s an important and vital part of the future (as scary as it is), maybe it’s long overdue time to really dig into these fears and questions! I see critical thinking as being vital in every age and generation, but especially for those of us growing up now in this new age.
In a world with so much information, with so much print and so many people who read and write (for most of human history this has not been the case), it’s easy to approach the Bible with these same questions, “Is it true?” But what if we approached the Bible more like oral history. Because asking, “Is it true” feels sometimes like questions that ask, “How many purples are there in an mile?” and “How many elephants make up a moon?” It’s not that those aren’t “true” questions, but they don’t really make sense, and because of that, it’s hard to answer them in a helpful way.
The Bible was mostly preserved as oral history, epic poems, and stories, and history carefully compiled by countless scribes and authors. There are so many things we don’t get to know, “Who ACTUALLY wrote Genesis?!” and so many questions the modern reader wants to know that the writers and compilers could have cared less about, our questions weren’t even on their radar as valuable or important.
I’ve heard scholarly arguments that the book of Job is a play. Which is why it’s laid out how it is, and as a reader we get to see things that we normally wouldn’t be privvy to (heavenly courts, etc.). This makes a lot of sense to me. But if we’ve been taught that fiction and/or literature3 is untrue lies, and therefore a waste of time (I know more than a few Christians who approach media this way) then it could be quite a shattering approach to reading Job/The Bible.
I personally have no issue with Job being a theatrical piece. In fact as a piece of literature, it tells us some of the MOST true things. As a work of art it actually is able to keep us from getting distracted from the points that are most true in every age. Scholars also have argued that Job could be pre-flood literature. Which means it might be anywhere from 10-30 thousand years old. (Try not to over think that, or like me you might become slightly woozy.) But Job still tells me something crucial about life I need to understand, and something that we STILL wrestle with today, namely “Why do bad things happen to good people?!” I was asked this question again this week, and last week and probably the week before that. It’s a question that weighs heavy on ALL our hearts. And we’ll still be asking it in every future generation.
Is saying the Bible is art and literature saying it’s not true? Not at all! In fact when someone asks you the story of how you met your spouse (probably the story you’ve honed best over the your time together) you don’t tell what you ate for breakfast that day, or the errands you were running, or the upcoming tax concerns you had. “Well then if it doesn’t include those details, it’s not true!” wouldn’t be any listeners response. We would understand intuitively that you’ve left certain things out that have nothing to do with the story, you’ve edited it and adjusted to your audience (specifically for length depending on whether you’re at a intimate dinner party or casually having some small talk with a new acquaintance at a Chamber mixer). You’ve edited, and crafted this family foundational origin for best presentation to your time/audience/context.
So why don’t we feel comfortable giving the Biblical author’s this same kind of leeway? Why does it worry us that the creation poems could be both literally true (God was intimately involved in the creation of the World in an ordered and specific way) and also figuratively true (perhaps it was six days? perhaps it wasn’t? perhaps He used the Big Bang to bring matter together?) They are not mutually exclusive. We can believe both of them, and hold all these things in the same hands, I hope, because all of these things tell us something about what God is like — namely that He loves us and cares deeply and personally about His creatures, His creation and you and me. If this was more permanently preserved (from previous oral traditions), for the Children of Israel post Exodus, how beautiful! A people torn apart by generations of slavery being reminded that they are precious, have immeasurable value and that God sees and knows them. And isn’t that a message that we still need? After eons of being torn apart by suffering, separation from God and generational damage? It’s a Truth we need in every age.
At the root of some of these fears about “truth” it feels like there are actually deeper concerns that if we pull too hard at one thread, our faith will unravel like an old sweater. But then the real issue isn’t the fear of what’s true or not true, it’s that our faith in God has been built on a precarious foundation. Do we believe that if we read the wrong version of the Bible God will smite us? (Some people do.) Do we believe God is most interested in whether we get our behavior “right”? (That’s a temptation!) And if it unravels will we have nothing left? Will we be left cynical and thinking that the Bible is strictly a “fairy-tale” that tells us what we want to hear, or some polished version of reality? (This view seems laughable to me as the Bible is far from a “fairy-tale” of perfect people doing perfect things, and always getting it right. In fact it’s the story of losers (us!), who continue to live loser lives and mess up almost every good and wonderful thing that is gifted to us. Maybe this specifically is what makes it strike at real deep timeless truth, that it’s not about polished or perfect people in any way.)
There are lots of things I don’t have answers too (most things?!) but I will stake my life on this: God loves us, He has made us free, He is a great respecter of our freedom and He longs to be in relationship with us. If we want to know Him, then a great way to start is through this memoir of how He has behaved towards us through human history. People have been the same, goofing it up, making poor choices, lying, cheating, stealing, killing….. wondering if God cares, wondering if He sees us — basically asking the same questions for however long we’ve been on this Earth. God on the other hand, has never changed through time immemorial! His work and desire to be near to us have always been constant and steady, even and despite the ways we push Him away. He continues to play the long game, to reveal Himself, to invite us back, to restore us to relationship and dwell together with us. And I find that a faith and belief in this kind of God no longer is fearful. I’m no longer most concerned with what version of the Bible I read, or if God means six literal days of creation, or if He means six periods, or epochs or cycles, or if He used evolution or science or math or built a Universe that has actual real immutable laws. Because all of it can be true in the biggest sense of the word. The truest Truths are what the Bible shares, and it shares them deeply, beautifully and in a way that has outlasted every other piece of recorded history, literature and word ever known to humans. I believe God has miraculously preserved this for us precisely because it’s so valuable.
I hope as we all continue to build and mature our faith that we will rest on the safest truest foundation, that God loves us, He is deeply concerned about us, and what He most wants is to restore us to wholeness as His beautiful creations and friends.
Does this answer give you hope, Reader? I hope so. And if not, well then I’d like to know! Do you have other questions? Did this just rip open a deeper wound? Sometimes these can be scary things to ask and talk about, but this is where we really can get close, vulnerable and deep. Thank you for taking a risk!
And my other 199 readers (THANK YOU!), Do you have a question? Do you hear people asking questions? What do you want to know about faith, the Church and following God? Let’s discuss! Sometimes I feel like I’ve written about it all and have nothing left to say (of course this is laughably ridiculous) but it turns out that this niggle means it’s probably time to turn around and write about it all again. To the trenches!
with love,
sierra
Bits & Bobs
I have a not so secret fascination with the Gilded Age (late 1800s New York City). I love Edith Wharton’s “The Age of Innocence” and I enjoyed “Gilded Age” on HBO. Recently I’ve also been reading “Astor” by Anderson Cooper. It’s a history of one of the most powerful families during that era. It’s sad, and sometimes tragic, and full of the foibles that are part of every family but magnified as they often are by influence, power and money.
Someone commented that my email last week felt kind like a big downer. “All you did was talk about how much you hated winter.” Not exactly, and I don’t hate winter. Mid January is just rough sometimes. But we’ll make it. Speaking of seasons… I read another article by Matriarch Goals that talks about how when we’re frustrated by human systems, organizations, politics, government and all the failures that seem to constantly be revealed by these things… consider nature. Plants grow, the seasons come and go, things are living… all without any input or intervention from us. It’s good to care so much, it’s also good to recognize how life goes on with or without us. God doesn’t need our assistance in propping up the World. There’s more than a little peace in that. Go outside!
Last year one of my most popular articles was one about sex and holiness. It was also one I put off writing for months. I recently stumbled upon Kenneth B. and have really enjoyed his prolific writing. If you’d enjoyed my view of being restored to right relationship with God then I think you’ll also enjoy his Eastern Orthodox perspective. This week he wrote this article about sex, and intimacy and I think it’s also a really great take on how the Western church has gotten distracted.
I am NOT saying, Truth with a capital “T” doesn’t exist, I believe it does.
If you’re tried to google and answer to something lately, I hope you’re noticing how much more swill there is on the internet. AI is making it increasingly hard to sort through information, a problem I don’t see improving anytime soon.
Not all literature is fiction and not all fiction is untrue….
He is a different way to think about the literal question that I’ve found helpful.
Dr Charles Hummel was for many years the Inter-varsity representative to professors. A common question he often got from them was, “Do you take the bible literally? He would respond something like this.
Of course I do. I take the literal parts literally, for example there is only one John the Baptist. I take poetry as poetry, the proverbs as proverbs, the narratives as narratives, the metaphor as metaphor, and the allegory as allegory. How else can we take it? He was right.
In other words, the Bible contains many different forms of literature and we first understand it as we would any other piece of literature. It is a doctrine that all scripture is God breathed, inspired, and that God still speaks through it. If the human author used poetry then God speaks through that form but the rules of understanding it are the same rules of literary criticism. Where bible teachers go awry is when they take say allegory as literal when it was meant as allegory.
The good news in this is that the bible is understandable in the same way any literature is understandable.
The question, is it true, is a question that only gives us two false choices. Yes, all of it is literally true or not.