Most Christians are well aware that although the Bible is divinely
inspired, this hasn’t stopped its human authors from expressing their own
writing styles.
What Christians often fail to recognise, however, is that the
inspiration of Scripture has also allowed the authors, and Jesus, to express
the particular ways of thinking and speaking that were present in ancient
Jewish culture.
Often, modern Western Christians approach the Bible assuming that
the authors thought and spoke like we do, when in some key respects they
actually didn’t. This frequently leads
to puzzlement and mistakes in interpretation.
Many of the problems that modern readers of Scripture experience when
reading it can be solved by taking account of the authors’ cultural ways of talking
about things.
ATTITUDES TO PRECISION
One important difference between the authors of the Bible and us
concerns attitudes to precision. The
biblical writers (and Jesus Himself) often spoke much less precisely about
things than we do. They also tended to
be less concerned about precisely sticking to traditions that they held in high
esteem.
To be sure, when it was important, the authors of the Bible could
be very precise. But often they were
imprecise in ways that we find strange, at times even amazing.
In what follows, I will highlight some areas in which this
difference in attitude to precision reveals itself in Scripture. I will concentrate on the New Testament,
since that is the part of the Bible that I know the most about.
GENERAL EXAMPLES OF
IMPRECISION
To begin with, here are two general examples of how first century
Jews could use astonishingly imprecise language by our standards.
Matthew 12:40
First, there is Jesus’ prophecy in Matthew 12:40:
‘For just as Jonah was in the sea monster’s stomach for three days
and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three
days and three nights.’
Being in the heart of the earth here refers to the time between
Jesus’ death and resurrection. And three
days and three nights, at least on the face of it, is approximately 72 hours. Yet Matthew himself, who records the words in
this verse, portrays the time between Jesus’ death and resurrection as roughly
36 hours (Matthew 27:46-28:7)!
In Matthew 12:40 the three days and
three nights must be referring to three consecutive Jewish calendar days. Jewish days began and ended at sunset. So the time between Jesus’ death and
resurrection fell on the last part of the day before the Sabbath, all of the Sabbath
day, and probably a bit less than half of the day after the Sabbath. Therefore the time between His death and
resurrection fell on part or all of three consecutive calendar days.
Matthew clearly regarded it as true to say that this period of
about 36 hours was three days and three nights!
But in modern Western culture we couldn’t possibly truthfully describe a
period of about 36 hours as three days and three nights!
In comparison with how modern Westerners speak about things, the
lack of precision in Matthew 12:40 is truly amazing.
1 Corinthians 1:14-15
Consider also 1 Corinthians 1:14-15. In this passage Paul tells the church in Corinth:
‘I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,
so that no one would say that you were baptized in my name.’
Paul has clearly been concerned that some of the Corinthian
Christians were putting him on a pedestal and regarding him more highly than
they should. And he is implying that he
baptized so few of them to counter this.
But the way he refers to why he acted as he did is astonishing in
comparison with what modern Westerners are used to.
Paul speaks as if the Corinthians had said to themselves:
‘This guy Paul is amazing. You
know what, when I was baptized, I think I was actually baptized in the name of
Paul.’
But Paul cannot possibly have thought that Corinthian Christians
who had been baptized in the name of Jesus, or in the name of the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit, would really have thought this! Yet he speaks as if they had!
The difference between the concern that Paul really has and the
words used to describe that concern is amazing in comparison with modern
Western ways of speaking about things.
I have given these two examples to set the scene for what follows
by showing to what extent the biblical authors could be imprecise about things in
a way that we wouldn’t be. I am in no
way criticising this imprecision. I am
just noting that it is a way of speaking that is very different from what we
are used to.
Let’s look now at some specific types of imprecision in the Bible.
HYPERBOLE
First, there is the issue of hyperbole. This is a figure of speech that uses
deliberate exaggeration for effect without any intention to deceive.
Modern Western culture uses hyperbole very frequently. For example, someone might pick up a bag and
say, ‘That weighs a ton!’ In this case,
‘a ton’ is not meant to be taken literally, and both speaker and hearers
understand this perfectly. The idea is
that the bag is extremely heavy, and the exaggeration is used to stress this.
Although we commonly use hyperbole, first century Jews used it more
often and in ways we wouldn’t. Here are
some New Testament examples:
Mark 10:29-30
In Mark 10:29-30 Jesus promises:
‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers
or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for My sake and for the
gospel’s sake, who will not receive a hundred times as much in the present time
– houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and fields . . .’
In comparison with the way Westerners use language today, the hyperbole
in this passage is really amazing. We
can note too that Jesus even emphasises this promise by beginning it with
‘Truly I tell you’, yet the promise can hardly be taken literally. Jesus is promising blessing before death to
those who give up things for His sake. But
the language used to describe this blessing is astonishingly exaggerated when
compared with what we are used to.
Mark 1:5
Another example can be found in Mark 1:5. Here Mark tells us:
‘And all the country of Judea and all the people of
Jerusalem went out to [John the Baptist]. And they were baptized by him in the River
Jordan, confessing their sins.’
Actually, we know that there were many Jews, including Pharisees
and Sadducees, who didn’t do this. The
point is that large numbers of people went to be baptized by John. But this is stated in very hyperbolic
language.
Hyperbolic ‘every’ and
‘all’
In fact, there are many places in Scripture where ‘every’ or ‘all’
is used hyperbolically. In addition to
the example I have just given, see, e.g., Luke 6:30; Acts 3:24; 17:21; Hebrews 4:15. There are also numerous places in the Old
Testament where the phrase ‘all Israel’ doesn’t literally
mean all Israel. See, e.g., 1 Samuel 7:5; 25:1; 1 Kings 12:1;
2 Chronicles 12:1; Daniel 9:11.
Failing to recognise
hyperbole
Failing to recognise hyperbole can sometimes lead to
misinterpretation of a biblical passage.
One such text is Revelation 5:9, which refers to those who receive
salvation as coming from ‘every tribe and language and people and nation’.
It is a fact that there have been tribes that have existed and
died out during the Christian era without ever having heard the gospel. And it is often claimed that because this
verse says that the saved come from every tribe, some members of these tribes
must therefore have been saved without faith in Christ. This also means, the argument goes on, that
we can expect significant numbers of people today to be saved without faith in
Him.
However, once we recognise that ‘every’ in Scripture is often used
hyperbolically, it immediately becomes clear that this verse doesn’t prove this
at all. It could easily just mean that
those who are saved come from a huge diversity of ethnic groups.
EXCEPTIONS TO THINGS
Another way in which Jesus and the authors of the Bible tended to
be more imprecise than we are used to concerns exceptions to things. This actually overlaps with the issue of
hyperbole.
First century Jews often didn’t mention that there would be
exceptions to something, even when there might be many exceptions. Here are a couple of New Testament examples:
Matthew 5:42
In Matthew 5:42 Jesus teaches:
‘Give to the person who asks you, and do not turn away from the
person who wants to borrow from you.’
There are in fact obviously many situations when we shouldn’t give
to someone who asks us for something or wants to borrow from us. For example, if someone asks us for money to
buy illegal drugs, we should certainly not oblige!
Jesus, in line with ancient Jewish cultural habits, sees no need
to mention the fact that there will be many exceptions to the principle that He
is outlining. We wouldn’t speak like
this in our culture. We would express
the same concept differently.
Luke 16:15
Luke 16:15 is another example. Here Jesus states:
‘That which is highly valued by people is detestable in God’s sight.’
Actually, we can think of many things that would have been highly valued
by people in Jesus’ day but which wouldn’t have been detestable to God. For instance, helping someone who has been
hurt in an accident is just one of a multitude of examples that could be given.
Again, in line with His Jewish culture, Jesus takes it for granted
that there will be numerous exceptions to the principle He is outlining,
although He doesn’t refer to these exceptions.
We wouldn’t speak like this in the modern West. We would probably express the same concept by
saying, ‘Much that is highly valued by people is detestable in God’s sight.’
Failing to recognise
unexpressed exceptions
Sometimes, failing to recognise unexpressed exceptions to things
causes difficulties for modern Western Bible readers.
For example, in Mark 10:2-12 Jesus teaches that whoever divorces his
wife and ‘marries’ another woman is in fact committing adultery. That might seem to conflict with Matthew 5:32; 19:9, which allows for divorce and remarriage in the
case of sexual immorality.
However, once we understand that first century Jews often allowed for
unexpressed exceptions to a principle, the difficulty disappears. Mark provides a general principle whose
exceptions have been left unexpressed. Matthew
then goes into a bit more detail, specifying exceptions to the principle in
Mark. There is no need at all to see a
conflict between these passages.
QUOTING THE OLD
TESTAMENT
Something else that modern Western Christians find strange is how the
New Testament writers sometimes altered the Old Testament text that they were
quoting. They had enormous respect for
the authority of the Old Testament. But often
that didn’t stop them changing the wording to make it more relevant for their
purposes.
Comparing Acts 2 with
Joel 2
There is an example of this in Acts 2:17-21, where Peter quotes
Joel’s prophecy in Joel 2:28-32.
The Greek words in this passage of Acts correspond very closely to
the Greek words in this passage of Joel in the Septuagint, i.e., the standard
Greek Old Testament translation of the first century. And this correspondence shows that Peter is
quoting Joel in these verses, not paraphrasing it. What is more, the first Greek words in Acts 2:17 – kai estai – are the same as the first words of this
passage in the Septuagint, which shows that the quotation starts at the
beginning of Acts 2:17.
In the Septuagint this prophecy begins:
‘And it will be after these things . . .’
Very similarly, in the original Hebrew underlying our English
translations of Joel the prophecy begins:
‘And it will come to pass afterwards . . .’
In Acts 2:17, by contrast, in Peter’s quote, the prophecy begins:
‘And it will be in the last days . . .’
‘In the last days’ is not in the Old Testament text. Luke (and also Peter, if the quote is
strictly historical – see the discussion on history below) has correctly
understood that Joel’s prophecy applied to the last days that began with Jesus’
crucifixion/resurrection/giving of the Spirit.
But instead of just realising this, he actually alters the Old Testament
quotation to make this connection clear!
This is another example of how the Jewish mindset of the first
century could allow imprecision in a way that a modern Western mind finds
problematic. (Even if Luke wasn’t a Jew
himself, he was certainly very influenced by Jewish ways of thinking, as scholars
agree.)
Comparing Galatians 4:30 with Genesis 21:10
Another example can be found in Galatians 4:30, where Paul cites Genesis
21:10.
In the Septuagint, Genesis 21:10 reads:
‘Expel this slave woman and her son. For the son of this slave woman will not be
an heir with my son Isaac.’
The original Hebrew underlying our English versions of Genesis 21:10
has a virtually identical meaning.
In Galatians 4:30, however, Paul writes:
‘But what does the scripture say?
“Expel the slave woman and her son.
For the son of the slave woman will not be an heir with the son of the
free woman.” ’
Apart from the last few words, the words Paul uses correspond very
closely to the Septuagint translation. And
this shows that Paul is quoting Genesis, not paraphrasing it. His initial question, ‘But what does the
scripture say?’ also suggests quotation.
Note, however, the big change at the end of this passage. ‘My son Isaac’ in Genesis has been changed to
‘the son of the free woman’ in Galatians.
Paul has altered the Old Testament text that he received in order
to help him further his argument in Galatians.
At this point in the letter he is rounding off his allegorical treatment
of Sarah and Hagar. And he wants to emphasise
that Christians, whose allegorical mother is Sarah, are free. He therefore modifies the text of Genesis to
aid him in making his point.
It is, of course, true that the points that are being made from
the Old Testament in these examples from Acts and Galatians are legitimate ones. Nevertheless, it tends to strike us as a bit
dishonest to alter the text in this way.
But Luke and Paul apparently didn’t think it was dishonest at all. And, more importantly, apparently neither did
the Holy Spirit who inspired the text!
WRITING HISTORY IN THE
NEW TESTAMENT
At times, then, the New Testament authors clearly felt a liberty
to modify the Old Testament text they were quoting. And they did so despite holding that text in
very high esteem.
Similarly, when writing their historical accounts of Jesus and the
early church, at times they clearly felt free to make certain modifications to
their traditions, despite holding those traditions in very high regard. If they were prepared to alter the Old
Testament text, it shouldn’t surprise us that they were also prepared to alter
their historical traditions.
Jesus’ resurrection in
Matthew and Luke
An example of this can be seen when we compare Matthew’s and
Luke’s accounts of Jesus’ resurrection.
In Luke’s resurrection account, on the Sunday Jesus rises from the
dead He appears to the inner circle of eleven disciples (Judas Iscariot having
defected) in Jerusalem (Luke 24:1, 13,
33-49).
In Matthew’s account, however, on the day Jesus rises an angel
appears to Mary Magdalene and ‘the other Mary’, who instructs these women to
tell Jesus’ disciples to go to Galilee, where they will see Him (Matthew 28:1-7). Immediately after that, Jesus meets the women
and repeats the instruction: they are to tell the disciples to go to Galilee, where they will see Him
(Matthew 28:8-10).
Then in vv. 16-17 we are told:
‘The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain that
Jesus had designated. And when they saw
Him they worshipped Him, but some doubted.’
There can be no doubt that in Matthew’s account, this meeting in Galilee – a few days’ journey
from Jerusalem – is being portrayed
as the occasion on which the eleven see Jesus for the first time after His
resurrection. It is impossibly
implausible to suppose that the eleven are being portrayed as those who have
already seen and spoken to Jesus in Jerusalem on the day of the
resurrection. Verses 16-17 cannot reasonably
be read in that way.
This means that Matthew’s and Luke’s portrayals of the first
resurrection appearance to the eleven cannot both be historical. And the best solution is that one or both of
these authors felt a liberty to depart a little from writing pure history. Unless we assume that at least one of them
has made a mistake, there must have been a conscious decision by one or both of
them to modify historical traditions or to accept already modified traditions.
Jesus’ ascension
Another example of modification of historical tradition can be
seen when we compare Luke 24 and Acts 1.
As I have just noted, Luke 24 has an account of Jesus’ resurrection
appearances on the Sunday He rises from the dead. This narrative includes words of Jesus to His
disciples in vv. 46-49. And these words are
certainly portrayed being spoken either on that Sunday or perhaps in the early
hours of the following Monday morning. Then
immediately following these words, Luke continues in verses 50-51:
‘And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His
hands and blessed them. While He was
blessing them, He left them and was carried up to heaven.’
By far the most natural way of understanding vv. 50-51 is that
they are portraying Jesus’ ascension taking place on the Sunday of His
resurrection or early the following Monday.
If we turn to Acts 1:1-11, however, we find that Luke – the same
author! – portrays the ascension taking place forty days after the resurrection!
To claim that there must have been two ascensions is a very dubious
explanation. And this is surely not what
the church has believed down through the centuries.
Similarly, trying to force the interpretation of one or both of
these passages to make them agree historically is the wrong thing to do. We need to let the Bible stand as it is. Instead, the best solution is that in at
least one passage Luke felt a liberty to modify his traditions.
Altering historical
traditions
Just as with altering the text of the Old Testament, so altering
the history of Jesus and the early church strikes us as strange and even
dishonest. Besides, it is in the psyche
of us modern Westerners to want to know exactly what happened.
But a close analysis of the New Testament text shows that the authors
of the Gospels and Acts were often not as concerned as we are about recording
history precisely. If they could modify
their historical traditions to a certain extent to make them more edifying for
their readers or to simplify things, they frequently did that.
Imagine we were able to ask Luke, for example:
‘Luke, after looking closely at your Gospel, it seems clear that
you haven’t written pure history. Is
that right?’
I am sure he would reply by saying something like this:
‘Yes. I’ve modified some of
the historical traditions I received to make them more applicable to my audience
and to simplify things. Nevertheless, my
Gospel approximates fairly closely to history.
I’ve done something similar in some of my quotations of the Old
Testament.’
It is important for us to recognise that the Gospels and Acts are
first and foremost works of theology. They
are aimed primarily at teaching us important spiritual truths. They are only secondarily works of history. Once we understand that, the fact that the
history has at times been modified is a bit easier to understand.
It is surely also true that God wouldn’t have allowed the Gospels
to give us portraits of the life of Jesus that are basically unhistorical. They doubtless give us largely historically
accurate portraits of His life. Similarly,
Acts surely gives us a basically historical account of what went on in the
early church.
Treating the Gospels
and Acts as history
The Gospels and Acts are historical enough that a pastor need not
bother to try to differentiate between what is historical and what is
modification of history when teaching. When
I write about Christian matters and I want to cite the Gospels or Acts, I myself
usually just treat the text I am dealing with as though it is fully historical. Treating these works as if they are fully historical
will not cause any problems. And, in any
case, these works infallibly teach us what is true in all that is of importance
for life and faith.
Ancient views
It is also worth noting that understanding the Gospels and Acts as
something other than pure history is not an invention of modern theological
liberalism.
For example, the second-third century theologian, Origen, stated:
‘There are many . . . points on which the careful student of the
Gospels will find that their narratives do not agree.’ (Comm. Joh. 10.2)
Similarly, the fourth-fifth century church leader, John Chrysostom,
wrote:
‘But if there be anything touching time or places, which [the
Gospel writers] have related differently, this nothing injures the truth of
what they have said . . . [but those things] which constitute our life and
furnish out our doctrine nowhere is any of them found to have disagreed . .
.’ (Hom. Matt. 1.6)
Problems with
insisting that the Gospels and Acts are pure history
We can only read the Gospels and Acts as pure history, if, over
and over again, we take very unnatural interpretations of passages. However, this is problematic for various
reasons.
To begin with, there is the matter of honesty. In my experience, when Christians interpret
biblical passages in very unnatural ways, they almost never admit that this is what
they are doing. However, when someone does
something and claims not to be doing it, they are being dishonest. And dishonesty is a sin. What is more, when non-Christians think they
see Christians being dishonest, they are often put off the Christian faith.
Non-Christians are also put off the faith when they are given the
impression that in order to be a Christian, they must interpret biblical texts
in ways that seem very unnatural. And
those who insist on taking the Gospels and Acts as pure history frequently give
this impression.
Finally, when a Christian takes a very unnatural interpretation of
a Bible passage, this gives a green light to those who want to do so in other
passages too. So trying to make the
Gospels and Acts pure history unintentionally encourages people to misinterpret
the Bible.
ACCEPTING IMPRECISION
IN THE BIBLE
The examples I have given show that in various ways the Bible refers
to things much less precisely than modern Westerners are used to. Many other examples could also be cited.
We should accept and embrace this feature of Scripture. However, sadly, there are large numbers of
Christians in Western countries who fail to do this. Time and time again Western Christians can be
found explaining away imprecision in the biblical text. These Christians rightly have a very high
view of the authority of Scripture. But
they fail to understand that Jesus and the authors of the Bible didn’t always
speak about things as precisely as we do today.
Other modern Christians, who are more honest with the text, will admit
that the features I have discussed are present when it is really forcing things
to deny them. But in cases that are not
so clear-cut they will always deny that they are there.
This not only makes no sense, but also shows that these Christians
are not really at peace with the ancient Jewish mindset of the Bible. They are still trying to fit Scripture into a
modern mould whenever it is conceivably possible to do so.
Instead, what we should do is let the Bible stand as God inspired
it. And that includes accepting all its ancient
Jewish ways of thinking and speaking about things.
IMPRECISION AND
TRUTHFULNESS
A large part of the problem is that the modern Western mind
connects precision very closely with truthfulness. If writing is imprecise in any way, modern
Westerners often tend to feel that there must be something untruthful about it.
It seems clear, however, that this is not how the ancient Jewish
mind worked. Ancient Jews were happy to regard
some things as truthful even when they were more than a little imprecise.
Of course, there must have been a limit to this. There is only so far a person could have gone
in speaking imprecisely before they were regarded as untruthful.
Nevertheless, there was clearly less of a connection between
truthfulness and precision in the ancient Jewish mindset than there is in the
modern Western one.
See also:
