Expert: Margaret Placentra Johnston - 10/6/2009

Question
"1.how do we know the bible really came from God?2.didnt the authors just say whatever they wanted to say?3.did God inspire every word or just the ideas?4.how do we know that we have all of God's truth in the bible?5.how do we know we have all the inspired writings?were some lost?6.does God expect us to follow all of his commandants or just what we choose?7.with so many translations how do we know what the bible really says?8.do the instructions in the bible apply to all parts of or lives?9.is everyones individual interpretation of the bible equally true or reliable?10.if we are going to rely on God's word as the authority in our lives should we have to answer questions like these?"


Answer
Well, Amber - if your teacher assigned those questions, I certainly commend them for encouraging you students to question so deeply. I feel it is only in posing such questions and dealing with the doubts that may arise that a person can reach any type of mature faith.  Unfortunately, in many types of religious education, they discourage such questioning - which only retards people and keeps them dependent upon immature belief systems.  

As a disclaimer, I do not know your age, but you are not supposed to use AllExperts if you are not at least 13 years old.  I want to emphasize that everyone on the AllExperts site is doing this as a volunteer and thus is expressing opinions, not fact.  Before I begin answering these questions, I want you to have either your teacher or your parents read through the rest of my response and be sure they approve of your reading it - especially if you are under 13 years old.  

But here are my answers:

1) We really don't know whether the Bible came from God.  Obviously, it required a human hand to actually put the words on a page ( or in stone or whatever they did in those days)  So God did not sit down at his desk with a pen an paper and word for word write the Bible.  People claim the Bible was divinely inspired - but there have been other works since then that people claim were divinely inspired and who is to say which works were THE only TRUE divinely inspired works?

2) I am not a biblical scholar, but according to those who are, there is significant evidence that at least one of the gospels (I think it may have been the gospel of John) was written (by men) to specifically counter-act some of what was written in the others.  If you are seriously interested in this consider reading the book "Beyond Belief: the Secret Gospel of Thomas" by Elaine Pagels.  

3) We don't even know if God inspired even the ideas because some of the ideas, especially in the Old Testament are certainly reprehensible.  They portray an angry, punishing God that seems to reflect the type of God men in those days needed.  The God of the Old Testament especially sounds like he was "created" by men in their own image, rather than the other way around.  

4) it should be obvious we do not have ALL of God's truths in the Bible.  The Bible was written over a thousand years ago.  Since then, civilization has progressed, and we can now have a more evolved notion of what spiritual truth consists of.  I believe the Bible is Part of the Truth, but surely not all of it.  Some of the truth is contained in the Koran, the Torah and scriptures of other religions. Surely, no God who is good and just would have sent his truth to only one part of humanity, while leaving out countless millions of other who would never have access to the Bible.

5) See answer #4 above.

6) I believe we need to go beyond the commandments in designing a moral life for ourselves.  The commandments are good guidelines to begin with. But we must take the idea further. For example "though shalt not steal."  This commandment demands a very basic type of morality.  You don't steal from your neighbor.  But let us suppose your neighbor has eight kids who are all starving due to poverty and you have just won the lottery for eight million dollars.  Don't you think morality would demand something more from you than not stealing from them?  The commandments merely tell you not to take anything but Love would tell you you need to go further than that - from your eight million dollars, could you not spare a few to feed those eight kids?   

Another example is Kohlberg's famous dilamma  - a woman is dying from a disease but a new drug has just been developed that could cure her.  Her husband knows the pharmacist who developed this drug but he cannot afford to pay for it.  The pharmacist refuses to give it to him if he doesn't pay.  Should the husband let his wife die because the pharmacist will not share?  Or should he steal the drug from the pharmacist?  Obviously, the commandments say the husband must let his wife die.....but is this the right answer?  No one so far has been able to come up with an answer that is definitely right or wrong.  There are many ways of looking at the situation.  In a situation like this, (which are more likely to show up in the very complex society in which we now live - but most likely did not come up in biblical days) the commandments are radically inadequate as guidelines for behavior.  

Thus morality is not so much about merely following basic rules of the commandments, but rather about designing our lives around the principle of a Love that includes everyone.  We must do what love commands and that involves including others in our care when the circumstances call for it.   Knowing when the circumstances call for it requires judgment.  Basic rules are good for people who don't have judgment or are not able to govern themselves without such rules.  In the days the Bible was written people were most likely not able to be self-governing as SOME in our society are now able to do.  People in those days needed (and indeed SOME in our society today STILL need) those basic rules because they are not able to discern what is right and what is wrong in individual situations.  Love takes us to the next step - one where we not only don't steal - but one where we give of ourselves where possible to help others - even if it might involve risking imprisonment to steal that drug from the pharmacist!

7) Many people these days understand that the Bible was never meant to be taken literally.  The ways in which the translations differ probably deal with the details and the details are not so important.  What is important is the overall gist of the message, keeping in mind it is only part of the truth and not the whole and we most likely will never know just what "the whole" consists of.   The most spiritually mature people are not in need of definite answers - like about specific truths in the Bible - but rather don't mind continuing to search within the Mysteries of our existence.  They don't need to know which exact translation of the Bible is "the correct one."  They get the overall idea that they are to love one another while on this earth and they can take it from there on their own.

8) see above.  All parts of our lives demand that we live responsibly and take personal responsibility for our actions.  As mentioned above, this often requires that we go beyond what it says in the Bible.  

9) See all of the above answers plus - we are all responsible for the correctness of whatever interpretation we put on our moral structures.  BUT the interpretation that works for one person (meets his criteria for morality) may not be the same as someone else's.  In this sense, moral rules and even spiritual concepts that may be reliable for one person may not be reliable for someone else.  The point is that we must take personal responsibility - and not rely on the more superficial structures handed to us by someone else.

10) Therein lies the problem - relying on God's word as "the authority."  The word of God as we know it (coming from the Bible,) is only "the authority" as some other human  as interpreted it.  Thus it is not the word of God, but some human's word.  

A spiritually mature person does not take authority from any entity outside himself ( and here we get into the unanswerable question of whether we might not all contain God within ourselves, but that is a whole different question!) and does not rely on "answers."  A spiritually mature person, realizing his connection with all of the universe, with all of creation if you will, with God and all other people, does not need an external authority telling him not to steal from another.  

For "answers" he continues to seek the truth wherever he can find it - knowing only that any "truth" he ever found could only be part of the truth and not the whole. Thus he does not need answers but has the humility to know that we can never really have the answers we seek.  

And for "authority" the spiritually mature person does not rely on an "authority" handed to him from others but demands more of himself, demands that he go beyond the superficial authority to one that puts personal responsibility at the forefront of his decisions.  

Please feel free to send any further questions or to discuss this further.