Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
It stands to reason that if a person does not believe the Bible is the Word of God, I cannot expect to use Bible verses with any efficacy to prove any point of doctrine with that person. I am noticing increasing instances of others questioning either the Bible as the Word of God, or my use of the King James Version as my English version of choice. Once the words of God are up for debate, gone is the opportunity for a productive conversation about what the words of God mean and what God wants us to do in any given situation.
If you just open the Bible to the first page and start reading the first story about the first man and woman in the garden of Eden, you will see this distraction literally rear its ugly head, in the form of a talking serpent. You might argue about whether this was the devil in a serpent’s form, or a serpent talking for itself in a mythological fable, or if the story ever really happened at all.
I believe the story really happened, and I believe the devil took the form of a serpent. I believe that the devil (Satan) immediately, intentionally, physically tried to destroy God’s perfectly created world (created in six literal days, by the way). How did he first try to wreck God’s creation? He did so by questioning God’s words. He asked, “Did God really say that?”
The story goes that Eve, the first created woman, was deceived by the serpent into thinking that the fruit God had told her not to eat was actually something good that God was withholding from her. She thought that the fruit would make her more like God, and so she took the fruit from the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” and ate it, even though God had told her specifically not to.
Then she gave some of the fruit to her husband Adam, the first created man, and when he ate it willfully, he plunged the whole future human race into sin. Sin separated mankind from God, and the rest of the Bible is the story of God’s plan of redemption for mankind, and God’s periodic interventions in history to share this plan with all humanity.
Whoever wants to spiritualize God’s Words can assign any meaning whatsoever to them. Spiritualizing is the act of making God’s Words less than literal. Although symbols abound in the Word of God, symbols are always clearly defined as such. Where symbols are not explained, the Words of God should be interpreted literally. Basically, if God says it happened, it did. If He makes something a symbol of something else, that’s all it is and nothing more. For instance, baptism is a symbol of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection for us. It is not a literal cleansing. It’s not the way of salvation. Only the blood of Jesus (a symbol of the death of Jesus) makes us spiritually clean. His literal blood sacrifice was literally offered on our behalf. But not one drop of that literal blood can make anything clean, or has ever touched me or you. It is important to know what statements in the Bible are literal and which ones are spiritual. Just read them and listen to them, because the Bible itself will explain which ones are literal and which ones are spiritual.
Satan tricked Eve by making her think that the words of God were not literal. God had told Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (yes, a literal tree that is not around anymore), because in the day they ate of it, they would surely die. Satan told Eve to try the fruit, and when her body remained alive after she had taken the first bite, I’m sure she thought God had lied to her. What she didn’t know is that her first bite immediately (that same day) introduced the aging process, a process of gradual decay that would lead to death. God hadn’t lied at all. She never would have died if she hadn’t eaten the forbidden fruit.
People point out to me that the original texts of the Bible are the only inspired Words of God, and that no original texts exist anymore. It is true that all we have, as far as “original” texts go, are simply copies of copies, handed down through the ages. Many people argue that because of this fact it is impossible to know God’s Words. They also argue about which collections of texts are the best texts to study. Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, many people claim that “the oldest and best texts” were not used by the translators of the King James Version (once the best-selling book in the whole world) or that these translators had an agenda that distorted true doctrine. It’s true that the King James Version translators did not have access to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but that is not their fault. Instead of pointing out how amazingly similar a translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls would be to the King James Version, so-called scholars have simply seized another opportunity to parrot, “Yeah, hath God said?” And even if it were true that the King James Version translators had some sort of doctrinal agenda they were trying to inject or protect in their translation, I believe it would be impossible for them to distort God’s Words completely, not only because God has promised to preserve His Word, but also because God’s Word is very repetitive. Surely any perpetrators of an agenda to distort God’s Word would miss at least one passage, leaving us with the truth in some form.
For my part, I step back and look at the bigger picture. When the King James Version was widely read in the civilized world, civilization flourished in every good sense. Education flourished in general. Science flourished. Life wasn’t perfect by any metric, but many movements to treat people more humanely began. But now that we have begun to question the Bible’s words through textual criticism, we have begun sliding back toward the Dark Ages again. We have been through two world wars. We have accepted the theory of evolution and have begun thinking it’s okay to kill unborn children and old people, since we came from animals anyway. Literacy in general is plummeting, let alone Biblical literacy, so why do we think we know more about the Bible now? Everywhere I look, I get the message that the Bible is outdated, can’t solve today’s new problems, and should be relegated to the category of myth alone. I seem to hear a clear echo of the serpent’s words: “Yeah, but is that what God really said?”
1. When you read or hear a Bible verse, take it at face value. If you find a particular word in the verse objectionable or difficult to understand, look for other verses that clarify it, instead of dismissing or spiritualizing it. No doctrine should be or has to be built on only one verse! Cults routinely cherry-pick verses and then go to one extreme or another as they emphasize certain signature practices above others. If you don’t desire a cultish understanding of the Word of God, read the whole Bible with the understanding that all the verses must fit together neatly like a puzzle. If they don’t, it’s because you have incomplete understanding. Sooner or later, if you look hard enough, you will find the other pieces of the puzzle. But don’t give up on the puzzle simply because you don’t have all the pieces. Don’t tell God He doesn’t know what He is talking about until you have read the whole thing and have asked Him humbly for help in putting the pieces of your understanding together into a complete picture of faith.
2. Choose a serious English translation and stick with it, rather than consulting a group of modern versions that are really loose translations or paraphrases. The truth will come through a serious translation, sooner or later. Use a concordance if you have to check meanings of words in the original language. (Be aware also that whatever concordance you use was written with a certain collection of texts in mind. Some collections of texts, especially the ones from which the most modern versions have been translated, include palimpsests, which are texts that have been clearly erased or overwritten in places – in other words, tampered with.) Even if there are words here and there that could have been translated with a tighter nuanced meaning, the main truths are also still there, and your understanding will only be enhanced when you compare scripture with scripture.
3. Ask humbly for the Holy Spirit’s help. Make sure that you are not the one with an agenda. Make sure you are not setting out to prove God wrong. It’s not hard to think of reasons not to listen to God – Satan can whisper plenty of them to you, and while you may think that you are too intellectual for that, that’s where you’re wrong. He’s capable of assuring you of your intellectual capacity as well. So until you can make your own universe all by yourself, you had better not criticize the One who did, whether you understand His book or not.
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