Newsweek's cover story for its January 2, 2015 issue (the online version of the story is dated December 23, 2014) is entitled "The Bible: So Misunderstood It's a Sin", by Kurt Eichenwald. The scholarship in this article is abysmal; it essentially amounts to a hatchet job on biblical Christianity, but his arguments are largely based on uninformed popular misconceptions or superficial reading of various passages.
First of all, I will begin with one thing that the author does, unfortunately get right: his claim that many Christians are biblically illiterate is true. It has long been one of my greatest complaints that far too many believers in our time have at best a weak understanding of what it is that they claim to believe and why. This failure comes both on the part of the individual, who neglects reading their Bible or studying biblical teaching, and the church, which has by and large fallen woefully short in what I believe is one of its core biblical functions: passing on and preserving sound doctrine. Too many professing Christians have a very superficial faith built on tradition and emotion and not on what the Bible actually says. His criticism in the conclusion of the article that "too many [Christians] seem to read John Grisham novels with greater care than they apply to the book they consider to be the most important document in the world" rings sadly true. I'm sorry to have to agree with Eichenwald on this point, so far as this goes. However, that is probably the only thing from this article upon which I and the author will agree.
Eichenwald essentially presents a laundry list of things that he claims are "wrong" in the Bible, or things that have been misunderstood by Christians. As such, I believe the most effective way to present my responses is with a numbered list addressing each item more or less in the order that it appears in the article. This is a long article, so get some coffee and a comfortable chair... this could take a while. I'll try not to ramble on too much (like I'm doing now).
1. First, two general observations:
a.) Aside from the one-sided approach of only citing liberal scholars ("liberal" here referring to theological liberals, not necessarily political)... the few that he bothers citing... and disregarding any dissenting opinions, pretty much all of the author's appeals to "most biblical scholars agree" are put forth without justification and/or are unattributed. (In fairness, I'm not going to go to the effort to get citations for all of my "scholars say" statements, but then I'm not writing for Newsweek.)
b.) Eichenwald, like many liberal scholars, as well as the so-called "New Atheists", frequently seems to be committing the fallacy of assuming that many of these items somehow escaped the attention of Christians over the many years since the Bible has existed. The Bible is in fact one of the most scrutinized books in modern history. It has been examined by theologians, historians, and rhetorical critics for centuries. Its meaning and historical reliability have been questioned and defended many times, and yet somehow it falls to a 21st century news magazine to provide an expose on how the Bible isn't really what we think it is. Essentially, this amounts to a rehashing of old arguments that have long since been answered or discredited.
2. Eichenwald starts out by comparing the modern Bible to the children's game "telephone". For those who do not remember this game from kindergarten, telephone is where a phrase is passed around in a circle by whispering in your neighbor's ear, then she whispers the phrase into the next child's ear. By the time the phrase has completed the circle, it usually is completely different from when it started due to little differences in how each person in the circle says it to the next.
This is applied to the Bible in that, for centuries prior to invention of the printing press, scripture was hand-copied. This would provide plenty of opportunity for errors to compound, ultimately creating a very different product than the original text. Additionally, Eichenwald claims that this is compounded by the translation process where a translation is made from another translation, so that the modern translations that we use are very divergent from the original text. Without knowing more about how modern translations are made, this sounds like a valid criticism.
Where this criticism is wrong is that modern translations, such as the New King James (NKJV), the New International Version (NIV), and the New American Standard Bible (NASB), make use of the earliest available manuscripts in the original languages, thereby avoiding the "translation of a translation" issue, or even much of the potential for copy errors. It appears that Eichenwald is under the impression that modern translations merely "translate" the King James into modern English. This is not the case. Any copy of one of the new translations contains a preface that explains the translation process, which Eichenwald clearly didn't read.
I should also note here that, while we do not have the original manuscripts of the New Testament, we do have very early manuscripts, some dating to less than 100 years of the originals. There are also references in other literature contemporary with the Apostles that reference the Gospels and other NT books that let us know about when they were actually written and verifying their authorship.
Regarding the copy error issue, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (copies of Old Testament texts had been sealed up and preserved in a cave since about the time of Christ) in the 1940s demonstrates that the copy error problem may not be as large an issue as Eichenwald makes it out to be. The texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls (which, incidentally, are also used as source material for modern translations) contain minor differences from later texts due to copy errors, but these do not change the central meaning of the text itself. This provides grounds for some degree of confidence regarding the reliability of the copy process.
Finally, he is correct regarding the issues involved in translating from an ancient language to a modern language, but, again, this is no new revelation. This is why theology and divinity students are taught biblical Greek and Hebrew in graduate school. (Incidentally, he makes frequent references to the Living Bible when giving examples of where he believes translators got it wrong; he apparently is unaware that the Living Bible is a paraphrase.)
3. Eichenwald's account of the Council of Nicea is essentially a work of fiction. C. FitzSimons Allison gives an excellent account of the events leading up to the councils of Nicea and Constantinople, as well as the results, in what is probably one of my favorite books on theology. Numerous other books, including some that came out following the surge in popularity of the Gnostic writings surrounding the screen adaptation of Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code", also address this. One that I have read is by Erwin Lutzer, which, unlike this article, cites its sources.
4. Next, he claims that certain of our favorite passages in the Gospels were not part of the original text but were "made up" and added to the text by Medieval scholars with an agenda. I'm not familiar with the claim he makes regarding the story of the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John, so I will defer addressing that until I've had time to do a little research.
4. Next, he claims that certain of our favorite passages in the Gospels were not part of the original text but were "made up" and added to the text by Medieval scholars with an agenda. I'm not familiar with the claim he makes regarding the story of the woman caught in adultery in the Gospel of John, so I will defer addressing that until I've had time to do a little research.
However, his second example of the last few verses of Mark is another demonstration of his poor scholarship, because the fact that those verses are not in the earliest manuscripts is stated in the footnotes of many modern translations. I've read discussions of this in several sources, including, if I recall correctly, a pretty simple teacher's guide that my church used when I was teaching a Sunday school class. Eichenwald claims that the book of Mark ends "awkwardly" and excludes several important events following the Ressurrection. In fact, the ending is widely believed to have been lost somehow; scholars are not sure how. It is widely recognized (if not universally accepted) that the last few verses are essentially a summary of material pulled from the other Gospels that were added later. There is no scandal or subterfuge there as Eichenwald claims, because it is widely known; however, there is nothing there that contradicts other scripture.
5. Just in time for Christmas, Eichenwald next posits that the gospels of Matthew and Luke provide contradictory accounts of Jesus' birth. From this he concludes that the visit of the Magi described in Matthew never occurred (this is kind of a non-sequitor, and he provides no further justification for this conclusion).
This claim that the two accounts are contradictory makes no sense when one actually compares the two passages. This type of criticism of scripture is common, however, where two accounts are given for an event. Just because the accounts are different, it does not mean that they are contradictory. In this case, Luke gives a more detailed description of Jesus' birth and the events leading up to it, while Matthew picks up the story after Jesus is already born. Although the popular image of the Manger Scene we display at Christmas shows the Magi standing around the manger with the shepherds, a careful reading of the passage in Matthew indicates that Jesus was between one to two years old when the Magi arrived. The two passages are therefore not contradictory, but simply describe two separate events associated with Jesus' birth and early life.
He provides similar criticism of the texts regarding Jesus' trial before Pilate. Again, because the accounts are different does not mean that they are contradictory. One simply provides more detail than the other.
Many (I would even say most) instances where this type of criticism is made regarding different scriptural accounts of a single event involve a simple difference in emphasis or perspective. For example, if you asked me about a trip to Orlando I took a few years ago with a friend, I may say that we went to Universal and ate at Bob Marley's; if you go ask my friend what we did in Orlando, he may say we spent a day at Epcot. Our two accounts are different, but they don't contradict. In fact, we did both of these things on our trip. We just each chose to emphasize different things in our account based upon what stood out to us from our perspective.
He provides similar criticism of the texts regarding Jesus' trial before Pilate. Again, because the accounts are different does not mean that they are contradictory. One simply provides more detail than the other.
Many (I would even say most) instances where this type of criticism is made regarding different scriptural accounts of a single event involve a simple difference in emphasis or perspective. For example, if you asked me about a trip to Orlando I took a few years ago with a friend, I may say that we went to Universal and ate at Bob Marley's; if you go ask my friend what we did in Orlando, he may say we spent a day at Epcot. Our two accounts are different, but they don't contradict. In fact, we did both of these things on our trip. We just each chose to emphasize different things in our account based upon what stood out to us from our perspective.
6. He next points out the seeming contradiction of Jesus being the Son of God and the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah being the "son of David". The reasoning goes: if Joseph was a descendant of King David (as the Gospels say that he was), but Jesus was not Joseph's biological son, then Jesus was not a descendant of David.
Unlike some of the other issues brought up in this article, this one is actually a pretty good question that a lot of people, including believers, find themselves wondering about. Eichenwald unwittingly stumbles upon the answer, although he is unaware of it. He points out that the two genealogies given for Jesus in Matthew and Luke trace his lineage back to David. Then he says that it would make sense if Mary were descended from David, because that would then make Jesus a descendant of David.
It apparently escaped his notice, however, that the two genealogies are different (I was surprised by this as I expected him to point this out as a contradiction). Both trace back to David, but one has the lineage coming through Solomon, the other is through David's other son Nathan. In fact, the genealogy given in Matthew is Joseph's and the one in Luke is widely accepted as Mary's genealogy (Joseph being referred to as the "son of Heli" probably means that he was the son-in-law). Here is a brief but pretty good treatment on the two genealogies.
7. The two creation account idea that the author posits is another one that is fairly common, so I won't criticize Eichenwald on this one. The thought is that Genesis 1 and 2 each contain a separate and contradictory account of creation. However, actually comparing the two chapters, one can see that the second chapter is essentially a rehashing of certain details from the first chapter (a partial summary of sorts) with some elaboration. For example, in the first chapter, it says that God created the man and woman, but in the second chapter it gives the details of that creation. Another example is that in the first chapter, it says that God separated the waters above from the waters below (I'm paraphrasing), which I interpret as describing creation of the water cycle. In the second chapter, it describes mists rising from the earth and watering the ground (again, a description of the water cycle, although some people interpret that verse differently). I believe that a clear reading of the text justifies viewing the two chapters as complementary rather than contradictory.
8. The criticism of the account of Noah again shows poor readership on Eichenwald's part. One issue that he finds "strange" is the different number of days given for the length of the flood and for how long Noah and his family were in the ark (Genesis 7-8). If he had given the text a careful reading (taking into account that phraseology for ancient texts is a little different from how a modern text would read), he probably would not have been so confused. The text indicates that the flood water rose for 40 days, it remained on the surface (or at least was not perceived as receding) for 150 days, and that it took a year for the water to recede sufficiently for them to disembark.
9. From here, he continues on to matters of interpretation and further claims of forgery (including a claim that 1 Timothy was not authored by Paul, which he makes little effort to substantiate, and a rather puzzling claim that the doctrine in 1 Timothy more closely resembles Gnostic doctrine, which is utter nonsense). I won't get bogged down in disputing each of his claims regarding interpretation in this post, because this is somewhat of a digression from the main thesis of the article.
Eichenwald wraps up the article with by claiming: "This examination is not an attack on the Bible or Christianity", but that claim runs contrary to everything in the article that comes before it. This is a work of pure sophistry that makes little effort to conceal its bias.
Eichenwald wraps up the article with by claiming: "This examination is not an attack on the Bible or Christianity", but that claim runs contrary to everything in the article that comes before it. This is a work of pure sophistry that makes little effort to conceal its bias.
