My Response to a Bit of Popular Facebook “Wisdom”

This comment regarding the Bible seems to be popular on Facebook at the moment:

I believe in god. I don't go to church, reasoning be i don't want some priest trying to tell me what "gods" words are or how things went down back in the day. The bible to me is a fake, maybe not all of it. A bible is like a scary story passed down generation to generation, as the story gets passed down the words are twisted and the story changes. I want to go to heaven, but im gonna live my life to the fullest and not regret a thing.

I don't know who wrote it or how much it has bounced around the Internet, being modified by various people as it is passed along. Whichever is the case, the author(s) displays such a lack of understanding of the Bible that I wonder whether (s)he has even read it – more than just verses from here and there, the entire Bible. Why do I say that? Well, the reason is in the Bible itself.

Starting with the New Testament, it has three literary types – historical accounts, personal letters, and a book of prophetic vision. The book of prophecy and the personal letters were written by the ones speaking (or in a few cases, someone acting as a secretary). In most, the author is Identified: "From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus ..."; "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ ..."; "From Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ"; Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ ..."; "From John, to the seven churches". There was no time when these books were passed orally, being embellished with every generation.

The historical accounts are the four Gospels and the book of Acts. Two of the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, Matthew and John. Mark may have been an eyewitness to some of what he wrote, but Mark also worked, at different times, with Paul, a probable eyewitness to some events recounted, and Peter, who was an eyewitness to Jesus' life and ministry. Luke, the author of the eponymous Gospel and the book of Acts was not an eyewitness. However, Luke informs his readers that he consulted multiple eyewitnesses for his Gospel account. No doubt, Luke also did this for slightly more than half of the book of Acts. Then, at Acts 16:11, Luke changes from “they” to “we”. Almost half of the book of Acts is his eyewitness account. Again, there was no time when these books were passed orally and embellished with successive re-tellings.

So, what about the Old Testament, which is about 80% of the Bible? Again, there are three literary types in the Old Testament, historical accounts, poetry & wisdom, and prophecy. The books of prophecy, like the New Testament personal letters and book of prophecy, were written by the ones speaking, and are named for their authors (eponymous). There was no period of oral transmission for these books – no retelling, no embellishment.

The books of poetry & wisdom and most of the historical accounts in the Old Testament were written by compilers, who used records and writings contemporaneous to the people and events that were the subjects of books of poetry & wisdom and historical accounts: no oral transmission, no embellishment.

The historical account books I excepted from the previous paragraph are the first five books of the Bible, those written by Moses. Of those, Moses was an eyewitness to the events of four – Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (except for the accounts of his infancy and of his death, which would would still be from contemporaneous eyewitnesses). For these books, there was no period of oral transmission – no retelling, no embellishment.

That leaves just one book – one book out of the 66 books of the Bible – not yet considered. Genesis was written by Moses, but it tells of events hundreds and sometimes thousands of years before Moses' lifetime. Obviously Moses was not an eyewitness. What was (were) Moses' source(s)? He didn't say. His source(s) may have been oral traditions; his sources may have been written accounts; or a mix of both. My guess, based on the amount of detail in some accounts and the summary quality of other accounts, is that Moses drew from both oral traditions and written accounts.

IF my guess is correct, just 11 chapters of the book of Genesis derive from oral tradition. If all 50 chapters of Genesis have oral tradition as their source, that is but a tiny fraction of the whole Bible. Whether part or all of Genesis derive from oral tradition, that still is short of being a, “scary story passed down generation to generation, as the story gets passed down the words are twisted and the story changes.” Families in non-literate and semi-literate societies did not treat their oral family histories the way Boy Scouts tell scary stories at camp-outs. Family histories were the heritage, the identity of family members. If, hypothetically, exaggerating significance and heroism was a temptation, reading the book of Genesis will dispel the idea that Genesis chapters 12-50 have been thus embellished. Genesis recounts the good stuff and the moral warts of the patriarchal ancestors of Israel – scaredy-cats, deceivers, braggarts, spousal and sibling rivalries, murders, would-be fratricides. If orally transmitted, Genesis chapters 12-50 evidence brutal honesty, not heroic embellishment, and derivation from contemporaneous written accounts is possible.

Thankfully, in US society one is free to believe or not believe the Bible as one chooses. And no one is under compulsion to give a reason for their choice. Contrary to popular stereotype, the vast majority of Christians would not want it otherwise (“compelled belief” is oxymoronic, and compulsion in religious matters would be horrible). That said, if one chooses to explain belief or disbelief based on claims of fact, those claimed facts should actually be facts. And that is the problem here. The fact-claim that, “A bible is like a scary story passed down generation to generation, as the story gets passed down the words are twisted and the story changes,” makes for a nice just-so story, but it lacks basis in fact.

For some one who might wants to go a bit deeper beyond this blog post, I highly recommend Josh McDowell's “Evidence That Demands a Verdict”. It goes a step (and more) into the manuscripts of the Bible and text transmission.