Want to see me turn into a psycho raving wiotch? Say something like this to me: “if the book of Genesis – particularly the creation – isn’t a historical record of what actually happened, then the bible isn’t trust worthy and our faith is meaningless.” Seriously – I made myself stop engaging in online discussions about creation because I am incapable of behaving like a decent human being, much less like a good Christian, when confronted with crap like that. In fact, just recently I broke my rule and ended up telling someone that the “god” he served – who is so weak and pathetic that he can be toppled by some labcoats and DNA – was a worthless piece of filth that wasn’t worthy of being squashed under the feet of the mighty God of the universe that I know. Which while true, may not have been the best demonstration of Christian tolerance and charity that I’ve ever displayed. So now you know why I normally don’t allow myself to partake of such discussions.

But for a lot of people who were taught some version of what is called inerrancy in certain Christian circles, the question does remain – how should we be reading and understanding the bible if not as the factually accurate Word of God, completely free from error or inconsistency? In the last few days, I’ve read a few other people’s explanations for how they deal with the hard parts of scripture or the parts which are in conflict with one another. Mostly the answers seemed to be that if there was a passage which portrayed God in what we’d consider a bad light, they would balance that passage against other passages which contradicted and decide that those took precedence over the negative passage. Or sometimes they would simply view a passage or story as an anachronism – a reflection of the cultural assumptions of the people at the time which was basically put in for their own benefit and not ours. Honestly, the answers I’ve read seem a bit like confirmation of the accusation that people simply pick and choose which parts of scripture to accept as true. So, I thought I’d share my own particular way of dealing with scripture with y’all.

Thankfully, by the time I had been exposed to the idea of inerrancy, I had already read the bible a time or two so I knew enough to take it with a grain of salt. However, I truly hope that it is clear from my writing that I do, in fact, hold the bible in very high regard. It would be hard for me to put into words just how important the bible is to me and the actual love I have for it. Which given the fact that I’m a writer who is seldom at a loss for words is saying a great deal. And I don’t feel free to ignore or dismiss parts of scripture because I don’t like or agree with them. Instead, I actually have a pretty well developed approach for understanding scripture and dealing with the difficult parts which I will try to explain briefly below.

First, I understand that unlike Muslims with the Koran or even Mormons and the Book of Mormon, Christians and Jews have always understood that our scripture was not dictated directly by God. Rather, it has always been considered to be inspired by God and written by men. Which means that it reflects both the input of God and man. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that the scripture is God’s story alone – that anything which is not completely consistent with the reality and truth of God is absent from it. However, the scripture is rather clearly not just the story of God, but also the story of man. Continue reading “How I Read Scripture”