HARDEST PARTS TO BELIEVE
Posted by: The Presbyterian Outlook in Untagged on
Feb 22, 2011
When it comes to what we can and cannot believe in the Bible, I am surprised at how quickly some folks give up trying to believe. Yes, I have my list of items in the Bible that stretch my faith to the snapping point, but you might be surprised at what’s on my list and what is not.
What’s not on my list? For me, Jesus’ resurrection is the linchpin for all other hard-to-believe claims. Yes, it violates the laws of nature, but it is not a logical impossibility (like the earth being on both sides of the sun at the same time). If Jesus is truly God in the flesh, certainly he can set aside the laws of nature. And if he truly did rise from the dead, a lot of other miracles become possible, including the feeding of the 5000 and Jesus walking on the water.
If Jesus truly rose, why should the Virgin Birth be on anybody’s in-credibility list? Parthenogenesis in nature is proof that strange things do happen, even without divine purpose. Sarah’s conception of Isaac takes more faith. Put that on your list if you want.
Jonah and the whale (our daughter says it had to have been a basking shark) stretches the limits of nature, but does not break them. The real miracle in this account is not Jonah’s survival, but the claim that the entire city of Nineveh was moved to repent. But in the context of a real solar eclipse in Nineveh on June 15, 763 BC, even that becomes believable.
(I’m glad I’m not a Mormon. Then, I would have to defend huge geological cataclysms on the American continent triggered by Jesus’ crucifixion, according to 3 Nephi 8–9.)
What’s on my hardest-to-believe list? Probably the toughest for me is the sun standing still in Joshua 10, because it would require the earth to stop rotating (or a rotational wobble to produce the effect of a polar midnight sun), and because we have no concurring evidence from ancient records for a prolonged day. Cuneiformist K. Lawson Younger has the best explanation in his book Ancient Conquest Accounts. He cites Assyrian evidence that the rare sight of both sun and full moon on opposite sides of the sky was an omen of victory in battle.
Yes, it may sound like I am stretching the plain meaning of the text to the breaking point. But mine is not a fideist position, i.e. “The text said it, therefore the facts be trashed.” I am merely taking the next step beyond “If the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense.” Both the fundamentalist and the revisionist agree that Genesis 1 demands a 24-hour day, they just disagree on whether we can believe it. I disagree with both parties, because of my respect for both the text and for the facts as we currently understand them.
Noah’s flood is a case where factual considerations lead me to believe in a flood that was less than six miles deep. I am led to read the words har (mountain OR hill, like “Mount” Zion, which is only about 200 feet high), eretz (earth OR land), and shamayim (heaven OR sky) on the smallest scale permitted by the standard range of potential Hebrew meanings (choice #2 in each case). The flood account comes to us like the light of a distant star: the twinkle may mislead us, but there is a real star behind the light.
The large ages in early Genesis and the large numbers in the Exodus and in some battle accounts are also on my list of cases where I am compelled to seek a sense beyond the plain sense. In his book On the Reliability of the Old Testament, Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen points out that the ages from Adam to Noah produce more conceivable numbers when divided by a factor of 5 (an arbitrary number), similar to the ages on the Sumerian King List, which seem to be inflated by a factor of 60. Some have used the plausible “thousand (elef) = clan or tribal unit (aluf)” to explain the large numbers in Exodus and in battles.
But one may say, “The Bible is plainly wrong in these cases! Why can’t you just admit it?” This gets back to our discussion of inerrancy and the definition of “error”, for which
I have been accused of “tautological nonsense.” Okay, was Jesus “just plain wrong” when he said that the mustard seed was “the smallest of all the seeds on earth” (Mark 4:31)? Either Jesus was wrong (which does not fit the Jesus we affirm in our ordination vows), or else we need to carefully define error when we speak of authorities to whom we swear ultimate allegiance.
One item I recently stumbled over is David’s claim that he has set aside 100,000 talents of gold for the Temple (3700 tons), plus a million talents of silver (1 Chronicles 22:14). Even “literalists” like myself are in no hurry to take David’s claim literally, because of other Biblical and Near Eastern data (notice this is not a statement of fact, but a quote of what David said). Solomon only took in 666 talents of gold per year, according to 1 Kings 10:14, and the largest gift of gold by any Pharaoh to a temple was the 380 tons given by Shishak’s son, which was probably looted from the Jerusalem Temple by Shishak. The Bible’s data itself leads me to believe that David is exaggerating here (see also 1 Chronicles 29:7, where Israel’s leaders actually donate lower amounts of metal).
The final item on my hard-to-believe list is, not Jesus walking on water, but Peter walking on water (however briefly, in Matt 14:29–30). Jesus, I can believe, no problem. Peter, I believe only because I find the rest of what the Gospels say to be so compelling.
Here’s the bottom line. How much hangs on whether Peter walked on water? Almost nothing. How much hangs on whether the flood was six miles deep? Not much more. How much hangs on whether Jesus rose from the dead? The whole enchilada.
TOM HOBSON of Belleville, Ill., a PC(USA) pastor for 27 years, is currently serving at First Church in Herrin, Ill.
What’s not on my list? For me, Jesus’ resurrection is the linchpin for all other hard-to-believe claims. Yes, it violates the laws of nature, but it is not a logical impossibility (like the earth being on both sides of the sun at the same time). If Jesus is truly God in the flesh, certainly he can set aside the laws of nature. And if he truly did rise from the dead, a lot of other miracles become possible, including the feeding of the 5000 and Jesus walking on the water.
If Jesus truly rose, why should the Virgin Birth be on anybody’s in-credibility list? Parthenogenesis in nature is proof that strange things do happen, even without divine purpose. Sarah’s conception of Isaac takes more faith. Put that on your list if you want.
Jonah and the whale (our daughter says it had to have been a basking shark) stretches the limits of nature, but does not break them. The real miracle in this account is not Jonah’s survival, but the claim that the entire city of Nineveh was moved to repent. But in the context of a real solar eclipse in Nineveh on June 15, 763 BC, even that becomes believable.
(I’m glad I’m not a Mormon. Then, I would have to defend huge geological cataclysms on the American continent triggered by Jesus’ crucifixion, according to 3 Nephi 8–9.)
What’s on my hardest-to-believe list? Probably the toughest for me is the sun standing still in Joshua 10, because it would require the earth to stop rotating (or a rotational wobble to produce the effect of a polar midnight sun), and because we have no concurring evidence from ancient records for a prolonged day. Cuneiformist K. Lawson Younger has the best explanation in his book Ancient Conquest Accounts. He cites Assyrian evidence that the rare sight of both sun and full moon on opposite sides of the sky was an omen of victory in battle.
Yes, it may sound like I am stretching the plain meaning of the text to the breaking point. But mine is not a fideist position, i.e. “The text said it, therefore the facts be trashed.” I am merely taking the next step beyond “If the plain sense makes good sense, seek no other sense.” Both the fundamentalist and the revisionist agree that Genesis 1 demands a 24-hour day, they just disagree on whether we can believe it. I disagree with both parties, because of my respect for both the text and for the facts as we currently understand them.
Noah’s flood is a case where factual considerations lead me to believe in a flood that was less than six miles deep. I am led to read the words har (mountain OR hill, like “Mount” Zion, which is only about 200 feet high), eretz (earth OR land), and shamayim (heaven OR sky) on the smallest scale permitted by the standard range of potential Hebrew meanings (choice #2 in each case). The flood account comes to us like the light of a distant star: the twinkle may mislead us, but there is a real star behind the light.
The large ages in early Genesis and the large numbers in the Exodus and in some battle accounts are also on my list of cases where I am compelled to seek a sense beyond the plain sense. In his book On the Reliability of the Old Testament, Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen points out that the ages from Adam to Noah produce more conceivable numbers when divided by a factor of 5 (an arbitrary number), similar to the ages on the Sumerian King List, which seem to be inflated by a factor of 60. Some have used the plausible “thousand (elef) = clan or tribal unit (aluf)” to explain the large numbers in Exodus and in battles.
But one may say, “The Bible is plainly wrong in these cases! Why can’t you just admit it?” This gets back to our discussion of inerrancy and the definition of “error”, for which
I have been accused of “tautological nonsense.” Okay, was Jesus “just plain wrong” when he said that the mustard seed was “the smallest of all the seeds on earth” (Mark 4:31)? Either Jesus was wrong (which does not fit the Jesus we affirm in our ordination vows), or else we need to carefully define error when we speak of authorities to whom we swear ultimate allegiance.
One item I recently stumbled over is David’s claim that he has set aside 100,000 talents of gold for the Temple (3700 tons), plus a million talents of silver (1 Chronicles 22:14). Even “literalists” like myself are in no hurry to take David’s claim literally, because of other Biblical and Near Eastern data (notice this is not a statement of fact, but a quote of what David said). Solomon only took in 666 talents of gold per year, according to 1 Kings 10:14, and the largest gift of gold by any Pharaoh to a temple was the 380 tons given by Shishak’s son, which was probably looted from the Jerusalem Temple by Shishak. The Bible’s data itself leads me to believe that David is exaggerating here (see also 1 Chronicles 29:7, where Israel’s leaders actually donate lower amounts of metal).
The final item on my hard-to-believe list is, not Jesus walking on water, but Peter walking on water (however briefly, in Matt 14:29–30). Jesus, I can believe, no problem. Peter, I believe only because I find the rest of what the Gospels say to be so compelling.
Here’s the bottom line. How much hangs on whether Peter walked on water? Almost nothing. How much hangs on whether the flood was six miles deep? Not much more. How much hangs on whether Jesus rose from the dead? The whole enchilada.
TOM HOBSON of Belleville, Ill., a PC(USA) pastor for 27 years, is currently serving at First Church in Herrin, Ill.
