Inconsistencies between our modern knowledge and the Bible

Here are some sub-topics that I promised here. If you haven't read this entry, you may want to. Let me list them and dive into the first, then I'll pick up the 2nd in a follow up post.
This certainly isn't an all-inclusive list, but it does give a pretty good cross-section. I'm listing as the major sub-topics: Inconsistencies between history/archeology and scripture, inconsistencies between science and scripture, and inconsistencies between modern theology and scripture .

• Inconsistencies between history/archeology and scripture

Example: “Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumblin’ down”

But some modern archaeologists would say that there is evidence that the city was destroyed long before Joshua ever got there.

However, there is a problem here.

It’s a common saying that “history changes”. There are plenty of examples of cases where people were convinced that some archaeological discovery proved the inaccuracy of scripture only to find out later that the archaeological discovery was wrong. People have said that clearly Joseph could never have been Prime Minister of Egypt, being a foreigner. And then someone found a record of foreign officials of Egypt during a certain time period. There are cases where people questioned who was the last king of Babylon, only to find out there was an issue with the “king” verses the “prince regent”, which, when understood, explained the whole confusion.

And, to be fair, it cuts the other way, too. For years Biblical defenders have pointed to one or another piece of evidence from history as proving the Bible’s basic accuracy. And then the historical evidence was contradicted by a new discovery.

One of the problems that the Biblical defenders face is that many of our preconceptions about history come from the Bible. Even before archaeologists started unearthing the tombs of Pharaohs, they had an expectation of what they might find based on historical writings, the Bible among them. Sometimes it takes years for these expectations to be invalidated. And when they are, the essential authority of the scriptures is questioned.

But the real issue here is that we aren’t done with archeology. If we had all the answers and they disagreed with the Bible, the critics would have a good argument. Or if we had a special cable channel that would allow you to see into the past and everything we saw supported the Bible, the defenders would have a good “told ya’ so” argument.

But there’s always another discovery around the corner. And even that’s not the last word.

The other issue here is that the Bible isn’t really basically a record of history. It’s basically a religious document. This isn’t a criticism, just an observation.

Look, the Bible isn’t very good at logging history. What did Jesus do the first 30 years of His life? Was He really trained as a carpenter, like Joseph? Or is that just a guess on our part? How many hours did Jesus spend in the tomb before the resurrection? We don’t know, exactly.

It’s very strange. Sometimes the Bible is specific almost to the point of triviality. How tall was Goliath? 7’ 11”, or so. We’re told how heavy his spear was. We know how many people were involved in most of the battles in the Old Testament.

But what was the name of the Pharaoh that “hardened his heart” against Moses and his God? We’re never told. All we’re told is that he “knew not Joseph”. There are hardly any dates ever mentioned in the Bible – using any calendar. Whole decades and even centuries are skipped, with only a reference in a genealogy.

The point is that some details just aren’t important to the authors of the Bible and some are. This selective recording of history is a real problem. (What makes it worse is that what the Biblical authors felt was important is very different from what the contemporary historians thought was important. So the things that were recorded by a Roman or Egyptian historian were very different from the things recorded by the writers of the Bible.)

Again, the point is that the writers of the scripture weren’t interested in writing a history textbook. They were writing a theological document, which incorporated certain stories from the past. The point of the stories wasn’t to record what happened, but to show something about God, working through history.

So I’d say we pretty much have to throw out all these arguments for and against. It becomes a wash.

Let me continue this later with the next couple topics.