We say that God knows the future - else he could not correctly instruct the prophets.
We say that the Tree of Good and Evil was placed in the Garden of Eden as a test, to find out whether Adam and Eve would be faithful to God's Law.
The essence of a test is that it should provide necessary information that can be obtained no better way. But if God, knowing the future, already knew that Adam would fall, what was the point of going through with the test? It is sometimes said that God has the ability to know the future but may choose not to do so. This can hardly apply here - he chose to set up the test. There are many other instances in the Bible where God's presumed foreknowledge creates problems. What was the point of testing Abraham's faith by asking him to sacrifice his son - God already knew that he would comply? Was God unaware when he created the creatures of earth that he would at a later date destroy practically all of them in a flood - the future which God is presumed to have known?
The Bible indicates that all of creation is directed towards Man - the sun, moon, and stars were created for our benefit, the other creatures as our companions. We also believe that God has a purpose in all that he does, has no need to experiment, that from nothing he can create something that is perfect, that everything is part of some grand design. But why were the dinosaurs (for example) created and then wiped out. Why were the early hominids - Australopithecus, Africanus, Neanderthals and all the rest, ever created at all. In the Cambrian period (around 500 million years ago) virtually all the existing life forms died out and an entirely new batch of some hundred body forms appeared. Including the first Chordata (a phylum that includes Man) in the form of a small eel-like creature some 12 centimeters long. Then all but about twenty of these quickly disappeared. In another mass extinction in the late Permian period (some 240 million years ago) about 95% of all species went, and this was just one mass extinction among many less severe.
It is estimated that at least 99.9% of all the species that there have ever been are now extinct, each lasting on average some seven million years.
Purpose? Grand design? Why? If we are ever to understand anything of God's purpose these questions must be asked. As pointed out in the Introduction the huge number of different Christian religions and sects all depend on the Bible for their beliefs, but all interpret the Bible differently. We believe that the Bible is intended for our instruction. Many, perhaps a majority, believe that its writing was closely supervised, if not virtually dictated, by God, and that it cannot err, let alone lie. So how can it be that no two theologians can agree precisely on what it says? In practice some reasons can be seen very clearly:
1. The Bible is being interpreted to conform to an adopted dogma - the dogma is the final authority, not the Bible.
The actual words can be translated in a number of very different ways. For example young-earth creationists - and all Bibles - translate 'yom' in Genesis as 'day'. Old-earth creationists translate it as 'age' or 'era'. The young-earthers conclude that the Universe was created around six thousand years ago, the old-earthier say that the scientific estimate of four and a half billion years could be correct.
2. Interpretation of whole verses can vary enormously. For example Genesis 1:11 says:
'Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so'.
Some 'interpretations' say that all the listed varieties of plants were created on that one day (whether an era or normal day), others explain that it should be read as meaning that the production of plant forms was only started then, and continued throughout the rest of the creation period.
3. An increasing (and welcome) trend now is to try to reconcile Science and the Bible, however the distortions and interpretations of the actual text adopted in the effort are often such as to drive even deeper wedges between dogma and fact.
4. The actual writers, no matter how closely advised, could only write of matters and give explanations from within their own experience. We have to interpret or extrapolate and we do so in ways that are enormously variable.
And now the problem: How can it be that a Book, intended by God for our education, supervised by God to ensure compliance with his intent, should fail so dismally as to support this multitude of theologies? More thoughtful choices and a little more explanation would have removed doubts about the meaning of the words used. A little more clarification and we would not need to argue about the import of whole verses. It is not inevitable that the meaning of a book written in a different age and a different language should be confused - read some of the ancient Greek literature if you doubt this. There should, of course, be sound answers to these and all the other conundrums of the Bible. A vital question is whether they can be found without major changes to existing dogmas, including dogmas of inerrancy. We should welcome change wherever it can reconcile opposing views, not fear it.
THE JEWISH BIBLE. Our Old Testament is the Bible of the Jewish people. It consists of a series of texts gathered together at various times into groups or Canons. The first group is known as "The Law", the "Torah" or "Pentateuch" comprising the five books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This started to be recognized as a formal 'canon' in the period after Ezra's return from Babylon around 458BC. Tradition has it that these were written by Moses, but while they may perhaps contain some material written by Moses it is clear that the final redaction and canonization must have taken place much later, although not later than Ezra. The conclusions from a great deal of critical study of the origins of the books of the Torah are given in the article on the Pentateuch; these are still sometimes considered controversial - read the evidence and make up your own mind. The second canon is known as "The Prophets", and has nineteen books subdivided into the Former Prophets, containing the four historical works, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, the Latter Prophets - the texts of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets--Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. It is clear that the works attributed to major Prophets such as Jeremiah are edited collections with some supplementary material. This work, and the formation of the group of books into the second canon is likely to have started soon after acceptance of the first. It is unlikely to have taken place before the break between the remnant of Israel (Samaria) and Judah that occurred during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, since nothing of the prophetic literature seems to have been known to the Samaritans. On the other hand, the prophetic canon must have been closed by the time the Greeks had displaced the Persians as the rulers of Palestine in the late 4th century BCE. The omission of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah, even though they supplement and continue the narrative of the Former Prophets, would otherwise be inexplicable. It may be noted that Daniel is also omitted although if the text of Daniel were contemporary with the events it describes it would precede some of the minor prophets that are included, such as Malachi, Haggai and Zechariah. The third group, the "Wisdom" consists of religious poetry and wisdom literature - Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, a collection known as the "Five Scrolls" (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther) and the books of Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, and Chronicles. That the formation of the "Wisdom" books as a canon was not completed until a very late date is indicated by the absence of a fixed name, or indeed any real name, for this third division of Scripture. Ben Sira (around 175 BC) refers to "the other books of our fathers", "the rest of the books"; Philo speaks simply of "other writings" and Josephus of "the remaining books." An early widespread practice of entitling the entire Scriptures "the Torah and the Prophets" indicates a considerable hiatus between the canonization of the Prophets and the "Wisdom". It is said that Greek words are to be found in the Song of Songs and in Daniel, Ben Sira omits mention of Daniel and Esther. No fragments of Esther have turned up among the biblical scrolls (the Dead Sea Scrolls) from the Judean Desert. The collection was probably formally accepted as a canon around the time of the Jamnia meetings early in the second century. In addition to these accepted canons there are collections of 'Apocrypha", works whose authority is not fully recognized, and of 'Pseudepigraphia', spurious works ostensibly written by a Biblical figure. It should not be assumed that the books of the Jewish Bible as read today are unchanged from the original texts. Rabbinic traditions speak of text-critical activities of the Scribes in Second Temple times. They tell of differing readings of the Pentateuch, of official 'book corrections' in Jeremiah, of textual amendments. After AD 70 when the centre of Jewish life and culture was destroyed with the fall of Jerusalem it was seen as essential for the unity of Judaism that the text of the Bible should be standardized, and to this end a Synod was convened at Jamnia (near Jaffa) around the beginning of the 2nd century. This resolved the acceptability of certain books, selected one set of texts from a number which were circulating at the time (but did not attempt to reconcile texts), and established the rules to be followed when copying. Subsequently in the seventh century the body of Jewish scholars known as the Massoretes set out to clear the mass of problems that had arisen over questions of true pronunciation and hence the true interpretation of the sacred text. This was made necessary because the original Hebrew had virtually no vowel sounds, and the meaning of sequences of characters could vary according to the vowel sounds assumed. Although this 'fixed' the text more definitively than did the Jamnia Synod, the process was essentially an attempt to guess at an original that had been lost, and the results at times contradict early translations and the evidence from the Qumran documents. The best known alternative to the text selected at Jamnia is that which formed the basis of the Greek translation known as the Septuagint, which is in fact an assembly of translations made over the course of at least a century. The initial section (and perhaps the most reliable) was of the Torah - the first five books - done in Alexandria around 260 BC by (as is supposed) a group of 70 Jewish scholars. The other books of the Jewish Bible were added later by different translators who varied greatly in competence. The histories and major Prophets are thought reliable, the poetic works such as the Song of Solomon less certain. The Septuagint became the Bible of Greek speaking Jews, and with the rise of Gentile Christianity became the Bible of the early Church. When the Septuagint began to be used by Christian theologians in disputes with the Jews it lost favor with the latter who created rival Greek translations. The most important of these was that of Aquila which appears to have been based on a text more in accordance with the Jamnia version than the earlier Septuagint. Others were Theodosius who used substantially different versions of Job and Daniel, and Symmachus. In the third century an Alexandrian named Origen compared these Greek texts and set about revising and correcting the Septuagint, bringing it more into agreement with the Jamnia (and later Massoretic) text. This Origen version has been preserved but much of the original unmodified Septuagint is lost. Through all this it is apparent that the Septuagint in its original form, and in its more reliably translated sections, represents a significantly different textual tradition to the presently accepted Old Testament, and it is of more than passing interest to know which most accurately represents the original authors. Until translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls began to become available the Septuagint was always regarded as inferior, however these translations appear to reinforce the Septuagint against the current text as often as they support the current text against the Septuagint. A simple illustration from Deuteronomy 32:43:
QUMRAN Rejoice, O ye heavens, with him and let all the angels of God worship him.
SEPTUAGINT Rejoice, O ye heavens, with him and all ye Gods worship him. Rejoice, O ye nations with his people, and let all the sons of God accord him strength.
MASSORETIC Rejoice, O ye nations with his people.
Also among the Dead Sea Scrolls is found a version of Jeremiah that matches the Septuagint, which is substantially different in content and organization from the Massoretic version. Another ancient but often corrupt text which can be used, albeit with caution, is known as the Samaritan Pentateuch, which may date from the establishment of a local Samaritan community in the 5th century BC. In some areas this also supports the Septuagint against the standard version. From Qumran have come fragments written like the Samaritan text in an ancient Paleo-Hebrew script which essentially confirms its genuineness. Yet another useful text is the non-canonical "Book of Jubilees", which is an alternative reading of Genesis and the start of Exodus, drawing from a standard text that may be closer to the Septuagint than to the Massoretic tradition, but written in the Jewish Midrash mode in which the text is enlivened and explained by the inclusion of imaginative material or material from other traditional sources. Some substantial doctrinal differences would ensure that the book would always be regarded as apocryphal. The Book of Jubilees was written around 105 BC, almost certainly by a strict Pharisee who was a strong supporter of the Maccabean dynasty, as a supplement to, and exposition of the Pentateuch. The story of the Creation is presented as having been dictated to Moses on Mount Sinai, along with the tablets of the ten commandments. It must be made clear that differences between versions are mainly matters of detail and are not going to change the essentials of the Bible. Where however scholars argue over the precise significance of a word or passage they must be aware of the possibility that it has been corrupted over the years. And supporters of the principle that the Bible cannot err must always consider that the particular item they are examining may not in fact be part of the original text. THE OLD TESTAMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN BIBLE. In the 4th century St Jerome, the leading Biblical scholar of his day, was commissioned by the then Pope to produce an acceptable Latin version from the various texts then available. He completed translation of the Gospels around 383 AD and then started to translate books of the Old Testament using the Septuagint as his source. Later he declared the Septuagint to be unsatisfactory and began translating the entire Jewish Bible from the best available sources, completing the work around 405 AD. This was the initial Vulgate, which after many later revisions bringing it into close conformity with the Massoretic text, remains in use by the Roman Catholic Church. It includes a number of Books (eg Tobit, Judith) considered apocryphal by other Churches. When the Old Testament was translated into English (1611 -1618) to yield the King James version the main sources used were again based on the Massoretic text. In conclusion it can be said that the Old Testament sections of the Christian Bibles are to all practical purposes the same as the present Jewish Bible. THE NEW TESTAMENT. Although there are a very large number of copies of copies of the originals of the writings of the New Testament in Greek, and of translations of these in Latin, none of these are even closely contemporary with the events they cover, while their quality varies widely. The best regarded of the Greek texts are those of Byzantine origin. Erasmus, the Dutch Humanist, prepared the Greek text for the first printed edition (1516) of the New Testament, depending on a few manuscripts of the type that had dominated the church's manuscripts for centuries and that had their origin in Constantinople. His edition was produced hastily, sometimes using rather poor texts. During the next decades new editions of Erasmus' text profited from more and better manuscript evidence and the printer Robert Estienne of Paris produced in 1550 the first edition which had a listing of variant readings. This became known as the Textus Receptus (the received standard text) and came to dominate New Testament studies for more than 300 years. This Textus Receptus was the basis for all the translations in the churches of the Reformation, including the King James Version. In spite of the different origins of the Roman Catholic and Protestant New Testaments, the many revisions over the years have produced a harmonization, and today there is little significant difference between the two texts. The fixing of the New Testament Canon was extended over many centuries. By the time of Origen (died 254) the Canon was in much the same form as it is today, although the inclusion of Revelation was resisted by the Eastern Churches. In the 4th Century Eusebius records that Revelation was widely considered to be 'spurious but not foul and impious'. Not until the Council of Trent (1645-63) can the Canon be regarded as finalized. JUDAISM AND THE TORAH. The Torah is the foundation of Judaism, and it might be thought that religious Jews would be united in a common view of its origins. This is not so, some divisions are:
TRADITIONAL The first five books (Pentateuch) were dictated by God to Moses, while Moses was in a conscious and aware state. Other sections were transmitted by a variety of means including dreams and visions.
LIBERAL The Liberal movements hold less with the notion of the Torah being the actual word of God, and more with the notion of the Torah being of divine inspiration, written in the language and context of its time.
CONSERVATIVE The Conservative movement teaches that the Torah is not one long quote from God, but rather is a human document that was written in response to God's revelation of himself to us at Mount Sinai. Some consider that any laws contained within it can only be considered as semi-Divine in origin, as they do not express God's will, but rather express our best attempt at understanding what God wants of us.
REFORM Reform Judaism uses the idea of progressive revelation. The Torah may be the product of divine inspiration, but it was written in the language and context of its time, and must be continually reinterpreted into today's language and context.
RECONSTRUCTIONIST Reconstructionist Jews believe that the Torah was not inspired by God in any way and is more the folklore of the Jewish people, albeit a folklore that is of the greatest importance
The canon of `The Prophets' includes four historical works - Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, the Latter Prophets - the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve Minor Prophets - Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. HISTORIES. If the post-Solomon histories are compared with contemporary histories from other sources it can be seen that they are, considered relatively, marvels of accurate and independent recording. While records of events from Egypt or Mesopotamia appear as little more than attempts to glorify the persons and achievements of the current king, the Hebrew historians recorded things as they saw them (or wanted them seen) without fear or favor to the temporal authority. Certainly there are distortions and selectivity, but the bias is usually a religious one, and if one individual is particularly favored the purpose is religious rather than personal or political. The scribes were under the control of the Priests and between them and the holders of temporal power there was often little love lost. For all the anecdotes of personalities and events, the detail of wars and conquests, it is primarily a theological history, actual events being selected to provide a colored frame for the story of God's interaction with his chosen people. Every tale has a moral, and not infrequently the historical detail seems to have been adjusted to point up the moral. Archaeological studies at Biblical sites such as Jericho, Arad, Heshbon, Ai and Gibeon do not show destruction levels dating around the thirteenth century, at Jericho the original walls were found to have collapsed many centuries earlier, in an earlier bronze age and not re-constructed in any substantial form. Recently archeologists at Tel Aviv University and elsewhere have claimed that there was never a period of exile in Egypt, no Exodus, no Mt Sinai, no invasion of Canaan, but that the Hebrews developed from a group of indigenous tribes that gradually spread their influence over the area. It would however perhaps be truer to say, at least for the present, that archaeology has failed to find evidence for the Bible's version, rather than to assert that there is archeological evidence that proves the Bible untrue. Later evidence is more supportive of the Bible account and the broad historical outline of the period from the time of the Davidic Kings generally agrees with information from archaeology and external sources. There is great difficulty in accepting, other than on the basis of dogma, the many miraculous events that are chronicled. Some writers, such as Velikovsky, have tried to produce rational explanations for these events, in an attempt to counter those who reject them as fabrications, but such attempts are rarely convincing and often absurd. One approach is to reject any that conflict irreconcilably with natural law, such as the sun standing still in Joshua 10.13, and to maintain an open mind on the rest. One point should be clear, The histories are compilations from source documents which have been lost. A typical note in Kings might be: "Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah . . . are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?". Other books mentioned are the Acts of Solomon, the book of Samuel the Seer, the book of Nathan, the book of Gad, the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel, the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia. Similar attributions appear in the later book of Chronicles. In Samuel we find a recurrence of the doublets that are such a feature of the Pentateuch. For example there are two accounts of the origin of the monarchy - 1 Samuel 9:1-10:16 and 1 Samuel 10: 17-27, two accounts of the first meeting of Saul and David - 1Samuel 16 and 1Samuel 17, among others. As with the Pentateuch the most likely explanation lies in variations between differing sources. It seems inevitable that the compilations will have been affected by the prejudices and priorities of the compilers. The regular appearance of phrases such as "to this day" as in "nor has the like been seen to this day" suggests that a substantial time elapsed between the event and its final recording, while the way in which this phrase is liberally sprinkled through the Histories supports the idea of a common compiler. The Histories were probably compiled after the 'discovery' of Deuteronomy in the rule of Josiah since they use it as a reference. Jewish Talmudic scholars suggest Jeremiah as the author but an alternative view is that they were all compiled around 550 BC, during the Babylonian Exile, by an unidentified group of scribes - the so-called Deuteronomic school. For the Jewish nation the Histories provide further direct evidence of the relationship between God and his chosen people; of the rewards for keeping their side of the contract with God and the penalties for failing to do so. Their lesson for non-Jews or for the Christian faith is less clear. What we have in the Bible cannot be a complete reproduction of the source documents but extracts which appear to have been drawn specifically to show how the redactors wanted to record the interaction of God and man, rather than any precise historical actuality. The broad canvas shows a steady corruption of religious observance by the Hebrews, from a high point after the conquest of Southern Canaan, through the complaisance of Kings, the failure of Priests and the struggles of Prophets. This falling away is matched by periodic declines in the fortunes of the Jewish nation. The writers were intent on showing that any setback, whether personal or national, was the result of failure to observe the Law - the destruction of the Northern state of Israel was the result of the wickedness of Israel, not of the ambitions of Assyria. According to Jeremiah, Nebuchadnezzar was acting as a servant of God when he carried Judah off to captivity in Babylon, (but perhaps he was rather responding to broken treaties by Judah, a need to cut Egypt from its allies, and to crush a minor nation that was making a thorough nuisance of itself). An example of how history may have been fudged can be found in the story of David's census in 2 Samuel 24. God (in the same story in Chronicles, blame is put on Satan), angry with Israel, tells David to carry out a census, which he does against the strong advice of priests and Army. David then feels that he has committed a sin in ordering the census and in punishment a plague is inflicted on Israel taking some seventy thousand lives. This can only make sense if God is seen as acting as an `agent provocateur' as he has previously with Pharaoh, in a devious scheme to discipline the northern tribes of Israel. The background to the story is an Israel that never wholly accepted David as their King; the census was in all probability seen as a further attack on tribes that were trying to maintain a degree of independence, resulting in harshly suppressed civil disorder. This had to be shown as a punishment by God, not as a natural result of a foolish decision. The Chronicles version of the incident, putting the blame on Satan, makes a little more sense - which may be why the change was made. Judaism glorifies David as the archetype of kingly virtue, and Solomon as the embodiment of wisdom For Solomon the Bible paints a picture of wise government and ostentatious wealth, however everything written about him seems wildly exaggerated. Traditionally the source of his wealth lay, other than in gold from Ophir, in the copper mines in the Timna valley, however archaeology has shown that this was an Egyptian site and was not being worked in Solomon's time. Ophir, the legendary source of gold, precious stones and 'almug' wood has never been identified. Archaeology fails to show any sign of ostentatious wealth at any Solomonic site and suggests that it was a time of low material culture. Similarly at Sheba (now Yemen) there is no evidence of the sort of wealth implied by the story of the Queen of Sheba. Solomon's Temple was a small building and there is no way that it could have employed the work force of over 180,000 detailed in 1 Kings 5. It is also interesting to compare the careers of Solomon and Herod the Great; both built a magnificent Temple in Jerusalem as well as many other major developments throughout the country; both virtually bankrupting the nation in the process; both on occasions broke the Law - Solomon in particular falling away into gross self-indulgence and apostasy. Solomon's bias towards the interests of Judah and Benjamin seems to have been largely responsible for the breakup of the Hebrew nation into the separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the verdict of secular history often is that the reign of Solomon was ultimately a disaster. Yet Solomon's reputation survived while Herod was despised and hated. David's reputation is much more securely based. As King he secured Israel's borders, re-occupied Jerusalem and established it as his capital. He tried hard, although with something less than complete success, to unite the independent tribes around Jerusalem and ruled with sensitivity and wisdom. At the same time any problems and failures in David's reign are plainly recorded. It may be that Judaism required its heroes, so it picked and built up the reputations of the best it could find. It is a tribute to the integrity of the Bible that it was not later edited to conceal the defects of those heroes. * * * * * THE LATTER PROPHETS. ISAIAH. The first, and perhaps the most valuable, of the major Prophets is Isaiah. The earlier part can be identified as having been written at a very turbulent time in the histories of Judah and Israel (Ephraim), during the reigns of Uzziah, Jot ham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Israel, sometimes allied to Syria, and Judah, warred with each other, and it was feared that in time Assyria, and Assyria's vassal state of Babylon, would try to annex both Israel and Judah. Egypt was an occasional but unreliable ally and the Philistine cities of the coast were a constant problem. Towards the end of this period Assyria did in fact destroy Israel and carry off a large part of its people, replacing them with groups from other conquered nations. Isaiah seems to have had four main aims: to condemn corruption, to condemn the failure of the Jews to maintain the Law of Moses, to condemn her many enemies, to rally and encourage the people in difficult times. The assurance of God's ultimate justice on his enemies seems to have been the intent of his prophesy rather than any deliberate futurism. The first part of Isaiah seems to end at Ch 35. Chapters 36 - 39, a straightforward narrative concerning King Hezekiah, have been taken practically word for word from 2 Kings 18:13-20:18, and clearly does not belong. At the end of this period Isaiah would have been some 80 years old. After the fine poetry of Ch 40 we seem to enter a new period altogether. The main enemy is now Babylon (Chaldea), feared but never a serious problem in the time of the earlier historical Isaiah, except as a vassal state of Assyria. Jerusalem has been destroyed, Assyria has long completed the destruction of Ephraim. New ideas are introduced, God as the Redeemer of Israel, the concept of the Servant, and the old targets dropped. There is an entirely new attitude to Gentiles. Textual critics find substantial differences in the underlying language and conclude that Isaiah 40 to 55 was written by a second and much later individual whom they call Isaiah II, and 56 on by an Isaiah III. It may be noted that the existence of Isaiah II, dated around 550 BC is recognized by some Jewish biblical authorities. After Ch 56 the themes change again - there is no more 'Servant' and the writer draws a picture of a glorious future for Israel as a leader of all nations. There are many references, such as Isaiah 64:10-11, which confirm that it was written after the Exile to Babylon. The verses on 'Immanuel' (God with us) in Isaiah 7:13-17 are traditionally supposed to refer to Christ, but surely 7:16 refers to Ephraim and Syria and fixes the Immanuel period firmly in the current time-frame. Isaiah's prophecies are further discussed in the article on Prophesy. Harsh comment has been made in an earlier article on the way God is portrayed in Joshua; surely the God of the Isaiah’s, in some of the finest poetry ever written, offers a more accurate picture. * * * * JEREMIAH. Jeremiah is a figure well attested to in the Bible, and there is little or no controversy about the period of his life or of the authorship of the contents of the Book of Jeremiah. The word 'contents' is used deliberately since it is evident that the book has been compiled by a later authority, who has collected and roughly sorted the material. The version of Jeremiah in the Septuagint orders the text differently and is substantially different in length, but is close to a version found with the Dead Sea Scrolls Jeremiah's initial aim is to reform Judah. Subsequently, after the destruction of Solomon's temple, he teaches that their exile to Babylon is direct punishment for their abandonment of the Law, and that Babylon was acting as the servant of God. Later still he assures the people that the Exile is for a limited time only and that they would eventually be restored. It is significant that when Ezra (in Chronicles) looks for a source of prophesy regarding the end of the exile, he turns to Jeremiah rather than Isaiah. Jeremiah also foresees a new Covenant to replace the old one made with the Patriarchs, which had become too remote and had been broken too many times. The new Covenant would involve and instruct the people as individuals rather than as a race. Traditionally Jeremiah has been considered to be the author of Lamentations; this is unlikely. * * * * EZEKIEL. Ezekiel prophesied in the period 593-571 BC. He was among the first group of Judah's leaders to be exiled to Babylon from where he saw the destruction of the Temple and the further exile of the elite. Most scholars accept that the main body of the book was written in this 6th century BC, with the inclusion of some later additions. Stripped of its dramatic literary forms and devices his message is very similar to that of Jeremiah. The belief of Ezekiel and Jeremiah in the ultimate establishment of a new covenant between God and the people of Israel is likely to have provided support and justification for the postexilic reconstruction and reorganization of Judaism by Ezra and Nehemiah. Chapters 40 to 48 contain a description of a new temple, certain rites, and a new division of the land of Israel between the tribes. These do not appear to have been adopted and the section is considered to be a later addition to the book and not attributable to Ezekiel. Ezekiel initiated the literary form known as apocalyptic - the view that in time of disaster God would intervene to save the faithful remnant and that this intervention would be accompanied by dramatic, cataclysmic events. The prophets were not afraid to challenge existing doctrine. Both Ezekiel and, less positively, Jeremiah, challenged the words of Ex 20:5, which says that God visits the iniquity of one generation upon succeeding ones. Ezekiel teaches that this is false doctrine - a man should not carry any responsibility for the sins of his father. * * * * THE MINOR PROPHETS. Hosea: Prophesied in the last days of Israel against a nation that had abandoned God. Hosea distinguished between the love of God as a formal requirement of the Covenant and the love that should result from true spiritual knowledge of God. This vision of a spiritual love is portrayed in a parable in which Hosea represents God, and his wife the erring Israel. Joel: There seems to be no agreement as to the date of Joel or to the meaning of the events he relates. The general import is the common one of calamity occurring as a punishment and requiring a return to God. It concludes with an Apocalypse while reference to 'Greeks' shows that it was written late in the period. Amos: A very influential book dating to the latter half of the 8th century BC. His main targets are social injustices, both in Israel and in neighbor states. He forecast the collapse of Israel's religious life and the later restoration of the Davidic Kings. Obadiah: Probably post-exile. Condemns Edom for failing to support Judah. Jonah: Significant because it is one of the earliest indications that some Jews felt that Jehovah belonged to the whole world, and not just the Hebrews. Probably written sometime between 500 and 350 BC (or perhaps even 250 BC), the message of Jonah protested against the exclusiveness of a post-exilic Judaism, with its policy of a pure blood race of Jews that the reformers Ezra and Nehemiah had implemented in the 5th century. There is no historical support from Assyrian records and the similarity of the story of the whale to Indian legend has led to a widespread assumption that it is pure parable. Micah: 8th Century, with a similar message to that of Amos. Micah 4:2, referring to Bethlehem, is used by Matthew to link Christ with the Jewish Messiah. Nahum: Probably written around 612 BC (the date of the destruction of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital). The book celebrates the belief that Yahweh has saved Judah from the Assyrians. Habakkuk: Around 600 BC. Habakkuk complains that God is doing nothing to counter evil ways in Judah. God's reply is that Babylon will destroy Judah, but be destroyed in its turn - ultimately righteousness will always prevail. Zephaniah: Late 7th Century. Theme is idolatry in Judah before the Deuteronomic reforms. Chapter 3:14-20, a psalm like passage praising God for the future glorious restoration of the remnant of Judah, is commonly accepted as a later addition. Haggai: Writing after the return from exile in Babylon Haggai urges the rebuilding of the Temple. Zechariah: Contemporary of Haggai and supporter of those who returned from Babylon in their quarrels with those who had remained in Judah during the exile. The work includes the well known 'Court' scene in which Satan, as prosecutor, calls on God to ignore Joshua (High Priest of the exiles). This is commonly interpreted as an attempt to blacken the image of those who opposed the returned exiles. Chapters 9-14 are thought to be insertions, dated to the 3rd and 4th centuries BC. A Messianic reference from 9:9 - a king riding on the foal of an *** - is used in the New Testament to link Messiah and Christ. Malachi: Perhaps written from about 500-450 BCE, the book is concerned with spiritual degradation, religious perversions, social injustices, and unfaithfulness to the Covenant. This would refer to a period between the re-building of the Temple and Ezra's major reforms.
At the time of Christ's coming the Old Testament Satan is identified with the Greek Diabolist (or Devil), who with an attendant horde of demons is seen as having a great measure of control over earthly affairs. The Bible gives no indication as to how these new concepts were developed, although the figure of the Devil has taken root and has become, next to Christ and to God himself, the most important figure in today's theology. Look first at the Old Testament, and see how Satan develops. In these days Adam's serpent is seen as having been Satan. This has been fundamental to the concept of the Fall of Man, the notion of Original Sin - that every child is born in a state of sin and has to be rescued - the eternal conflict between God and the Devil, and much more. It is not going too far to say that if the story of Adam is denied, or the Satanic identification of the serpent is not accepted, a significant part of current Christian theology falls. There is no connection in the Old Testament between Satan and the Serpent who is described simply as the wisest (or in some translations, the most cautious) of the beasts. Millennia later, in Job, Satan is still seen as a respectable member of the company of Heaven - hardly consistent with the notion that he has suborned and degraded God's ultimate creation. Satan is the Hebrew word for one who lies in wait, sometimes rendered as the opposer, and it is in this role that he first appears, in the story of Balaam’s ***: "and the Angel of the Lord took his stand in the way to resist him", using the Hebrew word 'Satan'. So Satan's initial appearance is as an Angel of the Lord doing God's bidding. There are a number of other instances where the Hebrew 'Satan' is correctly translated as a human adversary or a human accuser. Satan next appears in the story of Job, where Satan appears as one of a group of Angels. He is buttonholed by God who after praising Job gives Satan the authority to test him by destroying his possessions, and later by attacking his person. Job passes all the tests, but Satan must be seen as acting with God's authority - he may be seen as an adversary of man, but not as an adversary of God. The provenance of the story of Job is often questioned, it is said that it bears a suspicious resemblance to one of the legends from Summer; it is not difficult to see it as a morality tale deliberately constructed to teach how difficult times should be accepted. The next appearance is confused: David orders a Census; in Chronicles it is said that he was inspired to do so by Satan, but in Samuel the idea comes from God. The census, most probably for the purpose of taxation (or possibly for military service), may have been seen as a deliberate attack on Israel, already very restless and ripe for rebellion. The result is great civil unrest and many deaths. It seems possible that the Chronicler considers the 2 Samuel account to be theologically undesirable and sees an advantage in shifting the blame to the shadowy figure of Satan. Alternatively the difficulty can be resolved by seeing Satan as the obedient messenger of God The only other appearance comes soon after the return from Babylon (Zechariah 3), in a trial scene in which Satan is pictured as the Prosecutor opposing a man named Joshua. A common interpretation is that Zechariah intends Satan to be seen as representing those Jews who had remained in Jerusalem, in their bitter dispute with the returnees, led by their high priest Joshua. While Satan is strongly rebuked by God only those returnees (one of whom was Zechariah) would have cause to see anything evil in his action, nor does Satan appear to be anything other than a still fully accepted member of God's assembly. The passage in Isaiah "O Lucifer, Son of the Morning . . " (Isaiah 14:12) is often interpreted as a reference to the Fall of Satan. It seems much more probable, from both text and context, that the reference is to the fall of the current king of Babylon. Yet Lucifer (which means Day Star) has entered the vocabulary as one of the names of Satan. The Hebrews in Old Testament times did not have anything like the Devil of Christian theology to blame for evil. If a man did wrong he alone was responsible, not his parentage, or his environment, or his upbringing, or poverty, or any Devil. A hard but honest philosophy. The word Demon does not appear in the Old Testament and 'Devil' is used only a few times, and in contexts where it clearly refers to the false Gods of other nations, having no relationship to the Devil of the Gospels. The OT canon ends with the three books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Chronicles, written in the early 4th century BC. Beyond this we have (probably) Daniel and the apocryphal books of Maccabees and Ezra 4, and works of the imagination such as Enoch. None of these shed any light on the problem. Then there is silence until the NT opens. So where did the Jewish concept of the Devil come from, and how did it develop into the Devil of the Christian faiths? When did Satan grow from a heavenly agent to an entirely independent entity, the source of all evil, and the prime instigator of evil committed by men, having powers comparable to God's power, having control of earthly Governments? And where did that horde of Demons come from? In religions of Assyria and Babylon Demons were to be found in plenty, independent spirits used to explain all the minor problems that afflicted men while the Gods were concerned with more important matters. A common theory is that the notion was adopted by the Jews during the exile in Babylon and brought home to Jerusalem on their release. Here the Demons were given a ruler, Beelzebub (Son of Baal), one of the Gods of Tyre, and the power to take control of human minds. For the Jews it must have provided a very useful explanation for mental illnesses and anything else that medical knowledge could not explain. A Jewish source of Demons can be found in the 'Book of Jubilees', probably written by a Pharisee around 110 BC. The demons in this work are the spirits which went forth from the souls of the giants who were the children of the fallen angels (Gen 6:4). These demons attacked men and ruled over them. Their purpose was to corrupt, lead astray, and destroy the wicked. They were subject to the prince Mastema, another name for Satan. Men sacrificed to them as gods. They were to pursue their work till the judgment of Mastema or the setting up of the Messianic kingdom, when Satan would be no longer able to injure mankind. It will be noted that these demons, and by implication Satan himself, only afflicted the wicked. Demons also appear in the apocryphal books of Tobit and Baruch, dating from the first and second centuries BC. The Pharisees, which by the time of Christ were the most significant of the sects, accepted the expansion of Satan into an independent entity that had a substantial measure of control over the affairs of men and governments. The notion throughout the New Testament that Satan was the effective ruler of the Earth may have come from an identification of BAAL with Satan. Baal was the fertility God of the Canaanites and had the subsidiary title `Prince Lord of the Earth'. From the Qumran documents (Dead Sea Scrolls) comes a possible indication of the development of the idea of a Devil, in the manner in which the Sect personified all opposition to their `Teacher of Righteousness' into a single figure. However the adoption of ideas from other religions, particularly from Zoroastrianism may have been a very significant factor. The basic teaching of late Zoroastrianism seems to have been:
In the beginning there were two equal Gods, under one supreme Deity, eternally at war with each other (let us call them God and Devil). God, who was wholly good, had an attendant company of Angels, the Devil, wholly evil, a horde of Demons. God created the Earth as a battleground for the war, and man to help him in his fight. Man like God was wholly good, and suffered neither disease nor death. The Devil corrupted man, brought disease and death upon him, taught him the ways of evil.
Zoroastrianism as the official religion of the Median and the Persian empire under Cyrus and his successors, was one of the most widely followed and influential beliefs in the area. It retained its influence under the Parthians (who captured and held Jerusalem for a brief period around 50 BC). With the exception of one single point the Zoroastrian Devil is a precise model for the Jewish and Christian devil - Judaism could not accept two equal Gods, the Devil had to be a creation of God who later became evil. The influential American Rabbi Kohler, in his book "The Origins of the Synagogue and the Church", published at the end of the 19th century, offered a detailed picture of how Persian religious ideas were adopted by the Pharisees. The adoption of Zoroastrian belief to the Book of Revelation is discussed in the article . NEW TESTAMENT TIMES Regardless of where the ideas came from it cannot be doubted that by the time of Christ the Devil and his Demons were very real concepts to the Jews, and that the Devil and the original figure of Satan were seen as one. In the Gospels Demons are shown as causing mental and physical derangements of one sort or another, birth defects, mental illness or those physical illnesses such as epilepsy or paralysis for which there was then no known cause or remedy. Attribution of such sufferings to Demons should cause no surprise, nor in the light of the extent of medical knowledge then available should it be criticized as mere superstition. We might now find better explanations, but at that time demonology provided the best answer available. If it is accepted that Christ had the power to heal it is not difficult to understand the manner of his healing. The people believed that demonic possession was the cause and Christ was content to let them believe so. What is less easy to accept are the words and pleading attributed to the Demons:
Luke 4:34 "Let us alone! What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Did You come to destroy us? I know who You are: the Holy One of God!"
Mark 5:9 "My name is Legion; for we are many. . . Send us to the swine, that we may enter them."
Again, Regardless of the validity of the Old Testament Satan, or of the radical changes in thought needed to create a Devil out of the original figure of Satan, the Jews believed in a Satan/Devil, and Christ, brought up as a Jew and absorbing the culture of the Jews, did not deny the notion either of Devil or Demon. To what extent does this validate those beliefs, and to what extent does Christ's teaching justify the present Christian view (in so far as there is one definable Christian view)? You may like to consider the Gospel references to Satan, Devil, or `Evil one', and always bearing in mind the context try to decide whether they were used purely in a colloquial sense, or in unconsidered anger, or as a deliberate identification. You may also like to consider the effect on Christ's credibility had he directly denied the firm beliefs of his audience. The Christian view of a Devil seems to have crystallized and taken a new direction in the years following the Crucifixion. Paul has little interest in demons, but strongly reinforces the prevailing personification of all evil in the form of the Devil, and also introduces new ideas. A quotation from the Letter to the Ephesians illustrates how the enmity and persecution that beset the early Christians on all sides was put to the Devil's account:
"For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."
In other texts the Devil is shown as capturing and then controlling individuals - the Devil becomes a personal as well as a general threat; elsewhere the death of Christ is seen as having destroyed the power of the Devil (Heb 2: 14) (which if true would make something of a nonsense of the Book of Revelation). Most Christian churches and sects accept the view of the Devil as shown in the Gospels and in Paul's letters and vividly illustrated and expanded further in Revelation; an Angel created by God but self-corrupted by pride and ambition; the sworn enemy of God and Man; beyond control by his Creator or his peers; the source of all temptation and all evil in the world; corrupting all earthly Governments and powers. It has already been suggested that the Old Testament offers no support for this picture. The offer by the Devil when tempting Christ in the wilderness (Matthew 4, Luke 4) to give him all the kingdoms of the world, is often quoted as showing that the world was his to give, which seems to require a rather surprising belief in Satan's veracity. The whole story is however questionable since John's Gospel indicates that there was no gap between baptism by John the Baptist and the start of Christ's ministry. However even if this is discounted you may like to consider whether it would be surprising if after fasting for forty days, delusions of the nature of these supposed temptations did not appear. Acceptance of other aspects of the Devil depend on whether you accept Paul as a proper witness to such matters (as an educated Pharisee Paul would have shared the basic beliefs of the people), and whether you accept Revelation as being a source of literal fact.
* * * * REVELATION The most extreme view of the Satan/Devil is to be found in Revelation, and it was this view that governed the Christian Churches up to and through the Middle Ages. Only in the last couple of hundred years have notions of Satanic demons and evil spirits faded, while the image of the power of an Antichrist directing all the evil in the world and planning the downfall of God remains almost as strong as ever. In Revelation Satan is shown as having the authority to command all the powers of earth and gather them to challenge the forces of God at the battle of Armageddon, and to mount a similar challenge a thousand years later. Men who have not given in to Satan are merely passive spectators at the battles and have no active role. The phrase 'the dragon, that serpent of old' (Rev 20:2) is conventionally considered to be a positive (indeed the only) identification of the serpent of Adam and Eve with Satan.
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
Fundamentalists interpret "inspiration" as "God-breathed" and take it to mean that the text can include no error.
This question of inerrancy is here examined in its four aspects:
Internal conflicts.
Scientific conflicts.
Historical conflicts.
Theological conflicts.
Then, for a definitive conclusion on the question, it will be useful, to look at two of the best-known and most significant early stories. Adam and Eve, and the Flood. If these cannot be accepted as literally true, or intended as some sort of allegory, it has to be understood that the Bible cannot always be taken literally.
INTERNAL DISAGREEMENTS.
Throughout the Bible there are a great number of apparent discrepancies. I do NOT suggest that you make a deliberate search for them - that sort of negative approach would be bound to prejudice any conclusions. A sufficient number will become evident in the course of other studies. What is important is how apparent discrepancies are faced, and whether the implications of them can be accepted. Take one well known disagreement, the stories of David's census in 1 Chronicles 21 and 2 Samuel 24:
In Chronicles Satan incited David to call the census, which recorded 1.1 million fighting men in Israel and 470,000 in Judah. David then bought a threshing floor for 600 shekels of gold. In Samuel God incited David to order the census because he was angry with Israel. The total found were 800,000 in Israel and 500,000 in Judah. He then bought the threshing floor for 50 shekels of silver.
It may be claimed that the difference is not important, two historians, many years after the event may refer to different records. But if you believe that the words of the Bible were virtually dictated by God the difference is highly significant - there is no sign here of anyone whispering in the ear of the authors, telling them what to say. Then if you believe that the Bible cannot err the difference is cataclysmic because of these two accounts at least one must have errors; errors that cannot be blamed on careless copying.
There is in existence a book "Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible" by John W. Haley, which lists some 900 apparent discrepancies, (and is far from complete) and claims to reconcile each and every one of them. If you can get this or any similar work you may find it worth your while seeing how many of the reconciliations you find acceptable. one mind, and claim that they can produce a wealth of reference back and forth to show a great consistency of belief, of prophesy fulfilled, of a degree of coherence the Typical of this approach is the mass of references given on each page of the Jehovah's Witnesses Bible, which at first sight gives support to the fundamentalist view. If you can find a copy of this (The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures), and spend a little time going over the references given, the initial impression begins to fade. It soon becomes apparent that about 5% of references are just wrong, non-existent or offering no connection, about 40% are worthless - for example a simple mention of the king of Assyria calls five references to other simple mentions of a king of Assyria but offering no insights into Assyria or its kings or anything else - 40% might be thought to have relevance if interpreted in a manner that an open-minded individual might find unjustified or illogical - 10% useful in an explanatory sense, as where a writer make an indirect reference to an earlier text - and maybe 5% adding usefully to understanding. While the actual translation itself is generally of a high standard (but losing a great deal of the majesty and poetry of the language), other authorities point to instances where the text seems to have been adjusted to match the particular doctrines of the Witnesses. Also giving an impression of consistency that may be unjustified, is the way that New Testament authors are particularly concerned to link events with Old Testament prophesy. This is discussed, together with the more general question of the success of Old Testament prophesy in the article on
There is sufficient evidence to show that large sections of the Old Testament are the work of a very few editors or redactors, working from source documents written by many earlier authors, and that even these paraphrases have not been immune from later amendments and additions. Any apparent coherence is less of a surprise than the number of conflicts that have been allowed to remain.
SCIENTIFIC CONFLICTS.
Study and resolution of this question must start in Genesis at the very beginning of the Bible. Fundamentalist Christians will say that the story of the Creation, of Adam and Eve, of the Flood, and all of the intermediate matter, including the Genealogies is absolutely and literally true.
This is denied by scientific study of the history of the earth which says that it has been in existence for some four and a half billion years, that hominids, man-like creatures, have existed for some three million years, culminating in creatures indistinguishable from modern man over the last 100,000 years. 10,000 years ago men lived in village communities, had developed agriculture, irrigated their fields, had the arts of painting and sculpture, believed in an after-life, could scatter flowers on a child's grave, and the first set of massive stone walls had been built at Jericho. At Catal Huyuk in Anatolia the remains of a city of 5-6000 people was found, dating to about 6000 BC, textiles were found there, the first mirrors, wooden vessels, pottery, plastered and painted walls. The picture of the development of man and of the earth is built on consistent results from a very wide variety of independent disciplines.
The Bible is full of incidents that are scientifically impossible - the plagues of Egypt, crossing of the Red Sea, the Flood, holding the sun still for Joshua, and such. The claim is of course that these were miracles - but there are also incidents attributed to the opponents of God which also can only be accounted as miracles.
A profitable pseudo-scientific industry has sprung up under the name of Creation Science which seeks to challenge mainline science and provide scientific justification for the Genesis account. Acceptance of their arguments seems to be more a matter of credulity and wishful thinking rather than judgment since any dispassionate examination shows a gross reliance on faulty science, distortion and misrepresentation.
HISTORICAL CONFLICTS.
In the period covering the legends of early Genesis and the Israelites' conquest of Canaan, the verification of Biblical history has not proved possible, there being few reliable contemporary records. Some inscriptions can be used to suggest the existence of a small body of foreign workers in Egypt but that is about all. Historians will point to many similarities between Genesis stories and ancient legends from Sumer and Canaan, although with a very different theistic perspective.
The evidence from archaeology is, to say the least, confusing. While evidence from the time of the Kings quite consistently supports the Bible, archaeologists, including the prestigious Tel-Aviv archaeology department, now say that finds over the last sixty or seventy years suggest that the Hebrews developed from within the existing population of Canaan, that there was never a period of exile in Egypt (except perhaps for a few), no Exodus, no forty years in the wilderness, and no campaign of conquest in Canaan. The consequences for the integrity of the Pentateuch and for Judaism would be overwhelming should the view prove true, but there will have be a great deal more research and discussion before any consensus can be reached, and there are many religious circles that would reject it no matter how strong the evidence.
Many of the scientific and historical objections rely on Carbon14 dating, and the first approach of defenders of inerrancy is often to deny its accuracy. But while the occasional discrepancy appears there are quite literally thousands of comparisons made with known history which confirm the reliability of its results
During and after the time of Saul agreement with both archaeological evidence and contemporary records is generally good, and even where there are differences the quality of the Bible record is such that this is normally preferred. Discrepancies remain of course in the form of gross exaggerations and the substitution of theological for factual explanations, nothing that a tolerant understanding of the aims of the priestly writers cannot accommodate, provided that a position of absolute literal truth is not required.
In the New Testament there are serious problems over the stories in Luke and Matthew of the early life of Jesus, sufficient on their own to challenge any dogma of inerrancy. However absolute proof of error, as opposed to strong suspicion, generally requires proof that something did NOT happen, which is rarely if ever available.
THEOLOGICAL CONFLICTS.
Just a few examples will be sufficient:
You will find many references to attest to God's omnipresence, and many more which deny it such as Gen 3:8, Gen 43:21.
You will find many references to God's immutability, as in Num 23;19 and many more which deny it, such as Jer 15:6, Jonah 3:10.
You will find many references to God's approachability, and many which query it, such as Ps 10:1, Lam 3:44.
TRANSLATION PROBLEMS.
Consider Gen 6:4: There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of man and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
This is often interpreted in several ways - undisciplined Angels taking human women as wives, or Cain's godless offspring marrying the faithful offspring of Seth. Giants (nephilim) resulted. The suggestion that sexless (presumably) pure spirits would be attracted to human women, let alone father children appears patently absurd, but the second interpretation seems possible. But what of the giants? Now the linguists get to work to claim that 'Nephilim' has been mis-translated. One says that the Hebrew word means a being who has rejected God's will and that the Vulgate wrongly translated it to the Latin Gigantus. Another says that the word is derived from 'naphal' meaning 'to fall'. Now the verses have a new meaning and the lesson that if believers live with non-believers the results are disastrous. Even the Flood itself can appear to be a result of this. Many of the stories in the early part of the Old Testament appear to be designed to point up this message, which is also likely to lie behind Ezra's demand for racial purity and some of the more extreme views of some Jews today. I wonder how many Christians would accept this as God's verdict on such matters as ecumenism, multiculturalism, and tolerance for the religious beliefs of others.
There can be little doubt that some of the problems in the Bible would cease to be problems, and cease to be quotable as examples of error, if we could only know exactly what the words meant at the time they were written. Here there is a serious difference between the Christian Bible translations and Jewish translations (or at least some of them). The former rarely admit to any doubt about the absolute correctness of their words - at most they may refer to minor differences in other translations - however the Jewish Bibles often add footnotes such as "Meaning of Hebrew here is uncertain" or similar phrases, often in critical passages such as those relating to Isaiah's Servant and the prophesies of Daniel. How can we pretend certainty over the meaning of a section of text, and that it must be inerrant, if even Jewish scholars do not know how the original should be translated?
THE STORY OF ADAM AND EVE.
If you accept the scientific evidence for the development of Man then Adam and Eve must be rejected; there is no place in the steady progression of hominids becoming more and more man-like for a 'First man' - Adam. If, however, you reject this or are not convinced, it should be worth looking at the internal evidence of the story itself, and considering whether it can be read literally:
Can you accept Man and Serpent talking and understanding each other ?
Who or what was the Serpent ? The wisest/most cunning/most cautious of the beasts (depending on your version of the Bible). Nowhere in the Bible is it said that the Serpent was Satan although some sayings of Jesus and and a remark in Revelations are claimed to imply this.
If it was in fact Satan, can this be reconciled, with the wisest etc identification in the text ? Is it credible that the identification with Satan should have been deliberately withheld from the Hebrews ?
If its fruit was forbidden why was the tree placed in the Garden of Eden. Was it a deliberate test - a temptation intended by God ? Would an all-knowing God not have known the outcome in advance? It is possible to see Satan as testing Adam in the same way as he tested Job, with God's authority. But why would God want to test Adam if not to find out what was the moral strength of the creature he had created? And if Adam failed who could be to blame but his creator?
Why was the Knowledge of Good and Evil to be withheld from Man ? Would it be possible for Man ever to follow the course of Good without that knowledge ?
In Gen 2.17 Adam is told that on the day he eats of the tree he will surely die - and then lives for another 930 years. To say that he died spiritually is hardly an answer.
Can the draconian punishment inflicted on all mankind be reconciled with the God of love and forgiveness taught by Christ ?
Do you accept that God would punish all mankind for the flaws, perhaps of pride and greed, in the character of his prototypes - flaws in the character that he had built into them ? If you created something that does not behave as you would like, would you blame yourself or your creation.
Other conflicts arise from notions that, but for their sin, there would have been no death or disease, that Man and God would be spiritually severed (Abraham seems not to have been told!), that control of earthly affairs was handed over to Satan, that all future generations would be born in a state of sin (a sin gene in their DNA?). You will be aware of the consequences of rejecting the story of Adam and Eve. The doctrine of Original Sin, a pillar of conventional theology through the ages, loses its foundation. The teaching in the New Testament that the primary purpose of the sacrifice of Christ's life was to cancel out the sin of Adam (something that Christ himself never said), fails. The purpose of countless missionaries and evangelists to 'save' and persuade people to be 'reborn' is greatly weakened. We may still all be sinners, but we would have to blame ourselves for that and not Adam. The status of Satan as having corrupted mankind from the beginning, and brought disease and death, is destroyed.
The Roman Church seems to have adopted a highly equivocal attitude to the story of Adam and Eve; while it maintains all the consequences of a literal reading it accepts that some of its most crucial elements are NOT to be taken literally but as allegory - a recent Encyclical on morals declares that the instruction in Genesis (Gen 2: 16-17) not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is intended to proclaim that "the power to decide what is good and what is evil does not belong to man, but to God alone." (i.e. rely on the moral laws issued by the Church, not on your conscience).
In Jewish readings of the story God's punishment rests on Adam alone; there is no suggestion that all mankind has to pay for his sin.
It has been suggested that Adam was not the first man, but was the first man into whom God breathed a soul. If estimates of world population some 6000 years ago are anywhere near correct this would leave Adam and Eve in a minority of two in about ten million equally human, but soulless, individuals. I have not seen an explanation of how any inheritance (e.g. of sin) from Adam could be significant compared with our inheritance from the majority.
THE STORY OF THE FLOOD.
According to the Bible Genealogies and other biblical data the Flood took place in around 2350 BC. This is well within historical times, but the available historical, archaeological and geological evidence makes it impossible for a world-wide flood, covering all the mountains, or any flood even approaching the Biblical description, to have occurred anywhere near this period. In the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh" a world-wide flood, dated much earlier - perhaps around 3000 BC, is described which is so similar in many of its details to the Bible's Flood that either the Bible account has to be an adaptation, or at least is based on the same tradition. There is geological evidence for a widespread flood in the heart of the Mesopotamian region (but not extending outside it) in around 3500 BC.
However when examining the Flood story it is not the period but the internal discrepancies, and apparent impossibilities that cause the greatest problems, and, to say the very least, raise doubts as to whether the story can meet the fundamentalist requirement for absolute and literal truth, or even to be considered to have any truth in it at all.
Internal discrepancies include:
6:7 Jehovah intends to destroy "both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air".
6:17 Elohim intends to destroy "all flesh in which there is the breath of life".
7:2 Jehovah instructs Noah to take seven pairs of the clean beasts.
6:19 Elohim instructs Noah to take one pair of every sort of clean beast.
7:13 All boarded at the start of the flood.
7:7 & 7:10 All boarded up to seven days before.
7:12 It rained for forty days and forty nights.
7:24-8:2 It rained for a hundred and fifty days.
7:17,8:6, & 8:8-13 The earth had dried after around one hundred days.
7:11 & 8:13-14 The earth had dried after about a year.
8:20 Noah sacrificed birds and clean beasts - not possible if he only took one pair.
It is not difficult to divide the story of the Flood into two separate and internally self-consistent accounts. Commonly this is treated as another doublet Consider Noah's task: A vast number of creatures had to be assembled - up to thirty million or so if the possibility of macro-evolution is denied - including many who could not possibly make the journey unaided. They had to be fed and prevented from killing each other while waiting. They had to be loaded into the ark, many into individual cages and special environments, in a period of one day (perhaps seven days in one of the two accounts). Thousands of special diets would have to be prepared and fed daily (where would the fresh meat for the carnivores come from, or live insects for the many creatures that live on them). Mountains of waste would have to be collected and disposed of daily. Finally on release many of the creatures would have to be continually fed and prevented from preying on each other for several years. It is sometimes claimed that only one representative from each genera, eg one cat to represent the forty or more species of cats, was saved, however this would require a wholly impossible rate of post-flood macro-evolution.
At a time when major expeditions to the northern forests were required to get a few beams for a temple roof, Noah must have been the richest man in Mesopotamia to afford the timber and bronze needed; he must also have been a most remarkable scholar since more than three different scripts and a large number of different languages survived the flood. (Which also challenges the story of the Tower of Babel).
Physically you have the problem of finding sufficient water to cover the earth to a depth of nearly five miles (to cover Everest), and of disposing of the water afterwards. The list of impossibilities could be extended almost indefinitely. In most cases miraculous intervention has to be assumed, but if the whole is a series of miracles why does the Bible falsely present it as an actual event. Even miraculous intervention will not solve all of the problems.
There may be an even greater problem if you believe in a rational God. Then you have to ask:
If God was angry with humanity why did he destroy the animals.
If God wanted to destroy all except the Ark's cargo why go to the immense complication of hundreds of subsidiary miracles when he could (presumably) just have said "You're dead"? To impress us?
If God wanted to impress us why would he have produced an account the obvious impossibility of which in any literal sense has alienated hundreds of thousands of people from accepting the Bible as true.
A final word on the Flood: Around 2350 BC the art of writing was well advanced in Egypt, China, Sumeria, and probably also in Canaan and India. Taking Egypt alone the scripts, the understanding of what they say, the very language itself, would have been lost, along with religions, dress, burial customs. Technologies such as embalming, pyramid building, architecture - all would have gone. Yet neither then nor at any time in Egypt's history do we find any period where the land is devoid of people, nor do we find any step change in any of these factors. Nothing significant changes.
CONCLUSION.
Some Biblical apologists have tried to show that Biblical stories such as the flood can be reconciled with science or reason by re- interpreting the original Hebrew, however the changes that can be made without hazarding any doctrine of inerrancy are wholly insufficient. There remains a possibility of regarding these stories as allegory, but one would expect some indication in the text that they are indeed not to be read literally.