How is the Bible True?
Obviously, the Bible is a book. It’s an anthology of ancient documents, of prophecies, poems, and letters. Many Christians would also think of it as a salvation history, the Word of God, the scripture of the Church. Many see it as absolute truth. But Christians may also realize that it’s difficult to get at the truth of the Bible. For instance, when God comes and walks with Adam in the Garden, does that mean that God truly has feet or was it a metaphorical walk-- or is the Garden of Eden itself metaphorical? “Please,” you may say, “Occam’s Razor. Just go with the simplest explanation, it’s not so hard. Obviously God doesn’t have feet and a description of God as walking is not enough of a reason to question if the Garden of Eden happened entirely.” This kind of approach describes what many Christians call the “plain meaning” of scripture, the Bible as it is read and understood by the average person and not the theology crafted and twisted in ivory towers for academic gain.
By now, you probably know what’s coming. We’re suggesting that the “plain meaning” of scripture is not so plain. Sometimes, just as we discussed last week, it’s hard to prove what counts as “truth.” It could be that the Bible does not have to always be historically or scientifically accurate to be true.
Historical Criticism
In the 19th and 20th century, historical study of the Bible as led and developed by theologians like Friedrich Schleiermacher was king. The thought was that by studying the history of the Bible, we could discover its correct and true meaning, which also implies that the originally intended meaning is the most authentic meaning of the text. This led to meticulous scrutiny of the texts, the tracing of each author’s contribution and analyzing their own contexts and purposes for writing--this is Julius Wellhausen’s Documentary Hypothesis. Historical criticism yielded many profound and fruitful insights, allowing readers to glimpse further into the worlds of the biblical authors and better understand why they wrote what they did. But it did add to some confusion of the meaning of scripture for those looking for plain meaning. Historical criticism makes the distinctions and disagreements between different authors more prominent. It makes clear the contradictions between the Bible as a historical anthology of books and as the timeless Word of God for all generations. We can’t get to a singular plain meaning by way of “original” meaning.
So now, theologians focus more on different types of biblical examination including canonical criticism, rhetorical criticism, narrative criticism, reader-response criticism, queer criticism, liberation criticism, ecological criticism, and so on. There are as many ideas as there are Christians as to what the “true” meaning of scripture really is. But as we discussed last week, Science and Religion is a field that believes in critical realism and facts that may be proved. It believes that true things are demonstrably true, things that really happen. “Plainly” then, you might think that the true Word of God must include the character of being historically, scientifically true.
Scientific Criticism - The Flood
Some scholars do hold this mindset that the Bible must be historically accurate in order to be true and have set out to prove that accuracy. Let’s take an example that has come back into the spotlight the past few years-- the case of Noah and the Ark. It’s always been a favorite of kids, maybe because of all the animals, but now it’s come to life for young and old alike thanks to Ken Ham and his team who opened the new Ark Encounter attraction in Kentucky last summer.
The dinosaurs aboard the ark with the people add a fun level of controversy
The story of the Ark is one that, when you come back across it in adulthood, makes you stop and wonder if it’s really possible that all the animals in the world could have been preserved on that great ship. It makes you wonder if the whole Earth really flooded and if we could all be descendants of the one family who survived. The rainbow’s cameo at the end may be enough to push some into firmly into doubt, but before we dismiss the story outright as a fairy tale or scramble to come up with defenses, let’s take a look at the scholarship.
Setting aside the question of all those animals on the ark, there are four main views of the historicity of Noah’s flood:
It happened just as the Bible says.
It is the story of a real flood, perhaps local, but may also include misremembered or purposely added embellishments.
It is myth that tells us more about the human mind than history.
It is a parable with a meaningful moral.
Options 3 and 4 grant little to no historical credibility to the story. But local flood models are developed as a tangible explanation of what Noah’s family might have experienced. Some scholars chart how there may have been violent flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers at that time. Others point to climate change and sea-level rises in the Persian Gulf, or perhaps the volcanic eruption of Thera in the Mediterranean in 1450 BCE. One particularly popular model put forth by Ryan and Pitman describes a very rapid flooding of the Black Sea from the Mediterranean in the 6th millennium BCE. This would have caused those who lived on its shores to flee and the survivors to spread tale of a huge flood with them. The story would now be written down in its form for 500 years-- who’s to say what details of an essentially true story were added along the way.
But a local flood is not acceptable to those like Ken Ham who believe that the flood happened just as the Bible says. These believers often defend the story out of principle of taking God at His Word and believing the plain meaning of scripture. Young-earth creationists like Whitcomb and Morris use the Flood as a cornerstone to explain the geological development of the Earth and bemoan the lack of confidence in the Flood, saying “Even evangelical Christians, though still professing belief in the divine validity of Scripture, have often capitulated to uniformitarian scholarship, denying the universality of the Flood, and with the denial, thereby sacrificing its mighty evangelistic witness to a world in rebellion against its Creator.” (Genesis Flood, pp.xix-xx) For these scholars, the stakes of the scientific verification of scripture are nothing less than Christian faith and the teachings of scripture. Proving the historical accuracy of the text is of the utmost importance for the sake of our salvation.
There are indeed several scientific theories of a global flood. Some invoke comets as the cause of the flood, perhaps the passing of Halley’s comet in 2349 BCE, another comet said to have passed in 1450 BCE, or a comet that fell into the Indian Ocean in 2807 BCE. Another theory posits a flood resultant of the rising of sea levels at the end of the Ice Age. Whatever the cause, the evidence for such a global flood is often the same evidence used for the theory of evolution. Rocks, fossils, and sedimentary deposits are interpreted to demonstrate a sudden global catastrophe such as a flood. (You can find the creationist account for the flood in a very user friendly format here at Ken Ham’s site “Answers in Genesis.” We’ll tackle the counterargument shortly.)
The Issues
But here’s the thing: when you go to that site, you will see that the guiding reasons of the science which affirms the flood are built not of scientific precepts, but theological ones. The universal phenomenon of the rainbow indicates that the flood happened to all the world. God’s account says the flood was global, so it must have been. What’s more, there are over 300 flood myths from ancient times that share many similarities from around the world. Could this not mean that people around the world experienced such a flood? On these stances, the scientific evidence is built. This is more a stab at apologetics than an attempt at empirical science.
A couple of points may be made in response to this form of science. One is that Christians are not the only ones guilty of a priori science. All scientists are to some degree. We talked before about how science is done by scientists, real people who use their minds to chose what evidence to explore, who must decide what it means, who hypothesize and examine the evidence based on their expectations and assumptions. This is the reason why the exact same evidence may be used to form two wholly separate conclusions. You can see it in action if you watch Bill Nye’s response to Ken Ham on this issue from 3 years ago, the clip is just 4:30 minutes long and if you flip through, you will hear how Nye is not so much denying Ham’s science as he is just adding to it, pushing it further, finding different explanations that fit better with his own expectations.
That is not to say that science is purely subjective or whatever you make of it. If it were, we would not be able to develop the technologies and theories that have given us the steam engine, the lightbulb, the car, the rocketship. No, not all science is equal, which is why you must carefully eliminate your assumptions as much as possible and always remember the broader body of scientific scholarship before you point to a fact and make a conclusion from it. Context is key and we would suggest that the science of a global flood simply does not fit in the context of scientific scholarship. To quote Biologos, a Christian website counterpart to Answers to Genesis founded by geneticist Francis Collins, “The scientific and historical evidence is now clear: there has never been a global flood that covered the entire earth, nor do all modern animals and humans descend from the passengers of a single vessel.” (see this very brief, helpful article and its links). A story like Noah’s Flood is not a test of whether your faith is strong enough to believe the Bible against all odds. Faith is not meant to be blind, it is meant to be sound. This intersection of biblical authority and science is not about faith in Christ, it is about truth.
The “proof” of Noah’s Flood is flawed. But here is a second, perhaps more important point: the Bible is not meant to be historically or scientifically accurate in every instance. That is to say, just because some of the stories in the Bible may not be accurate does not mean the Bible is untrue or does not contain any information of historical interest. We may disbelieve the historicity of Noah’s Flood and still believe in the historicity of Jesus. And appropriately, the reasons for those beliefs are not scientific, they are theological. It comes down to the importance of analyzing each part of the Bible on its own merits, according to its own genre, purpose, and expectations. It’s true that both Testaments include the story of a global flood, with New Testament instances found in Matthew 24:38-39 and in 2 Peter 2:5. Both use the flood to make theological points about God and humankind. But this may not be proof that the ancient story is historically accurate so much a point that we need to look at what it means for all scripture to be God-breathed and useful. Why should we expect that the same God who uses imperfect people where they are would give persons in ancient times scientific knowledge beyond their years?
How is the Bible True?
It may be that instead we may look to the example of Biblical authors and theologize about God using what we know to be true just as they did, pressing forward and living up to what we have attained. After all, just as the discipline of historical criticism has revealed, the diversity and polyphony in the Bible is important and much is lost if we try to collapse all the authors’ perspectives into uniformity. Perhaps scientific criticism also reveals that truth is not dependant on our perspectives, purposes, or knowledge. Science and knowledge of natural world develop, but but it may be that there is a truth which remains constant. From the perspective of faith, we can say that the Word of our God stands forever and science can provide another way to help us get to the truth of that Word.
These principles are difficult to accept when you have trusted the scripture in a different way all your life. The Christian faith is about relationship and sometimes such a large paradigm shift can make rational sense but feel like betrayal all the same. It’s difficult even with a story like Noah’s Ark that many of us are inclined to chalk up to embellishment anyway. At the same time, it is vitally important to think about how we understand scripture and how we apply it in our faith because it has the potential to impact every discussion we have about our faith and how it intersects with our scientifically-saturated lives. Next week, we will look at how these perspectives of science and proving the Bible apply to an even more controversial topic: evolution.
