Is the Holy Bible really the word of God?

     Anyone with children born over the last half century is probably familiar with Dr. Seuss’ Horton, the elephant and his statement, “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant. An elephant's faithful one-hundred percent.”  Christians can accurately apply this statement to their Lord God, “The Lord means what He says, and says what He means. The Lord is faithful one-hundred percent.” This is absolutely true, and in the minds of many Christians this truth has been extended  to, “The Bible means what it says, and says what it means. The Bible is true one-hundred percent.” Let’s explore this a bit.

     Christians accept the Bible as being God inspired and containing God’s word as revealed to humankind.  Some go so far as to say every word must be true, and if one bible passage is questioned the entirety has been questioned. “If you can’t believe one passage, how can you believe anything in the Bible?” But there are inconsistencies within the scriptures, particularly in genealogies. For example, Matthew 1:8 says that Jehoram was the father of Uzziah. If we go to 2 Chronicles 22-26, we find that Jehoram was Uzziah’s Great-great-grandfather. How do we resolve such inconsistencies, yet still believe the Bible is God inspired and true?

     First of all, we might consider how God might have communicated his word to mankind. It seems unlikely that He stood by scribes or prophets, dictating what they were to write or say. It is more probable that He somehow revealed his message to them, and they had to put it into words. Over the ages writing styles change and word meanings change. Thus, translators must attempt to understand meanings of passages written a few thousand years ago. It is not always possible to be perfect in this attempt.

     Secondly, translation itself can be a problem. The earliest English translation of the Old Testament relied heavily on the Septuagint version as being the earliest known. The Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Hebrew scripture. It may also be noted that the written form of the Hebrew language was not developed until about 300 years after Moses. Therefore, if he wrote the Pentateuch, his writing would likely have been in Egyptian hieroglyphics.  Thus, the first five books of the English Bible could have undergone four sequential language translations: Egyptian to Hebrew to Greek to English.  This can be a serious problem, particularly when words with many meanings in one language are translated into a language having different words to specifically convey the various meanings.

     So, where are we? Is the Bible really God’s word? Can we rely on it as being true? Yes and yes. But that does not mean every word, phrase, and even passage must be true as we understand them today. It is the underlying message that must be true, and it is our task to understand this message, regardless of the translation we are reading.

     I have a more extensive discussion of this topic in my recent book, “Scripture Versus Science: Reconciling God’s Ancient Wisdom with a Modern World View.”