JOHN WELCH'S LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE BOOK OF MORMON

As a current example showing the utility of using structural criteria to investigate the authenticity of dubious Scriptures, the Latter-Day Saints in recent years have gotten on the band wagon and looked for chiasms (mirror-image organizations of words and/or ideas) in the Book of Mormon in order to prove that it also exhibits this tell-tale literary characteristic found in the Bible. The leader in this movement is John W. Welch, a BYU law professor who summarized his findings in an essay on the internet, “Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.” He treats the subject in more detail in the book he edited entitled Chiasmus in Antiquity.

After locating some supposed examples of chiasm in the Book of Mormon, he states

1. “We can rule out the odd chance that Joseph Smith learned about chiasmus through scrupulously reading the Bible on the simple grounds that the King James translation, which he used, obscures almost every chiastic formation possible. Either in an attempt to avoid redundant repetitions or to prevent awkward word orders, the King James translators did a good job of leveling almost every chiasm in the Bible. Their 'good style' was anathema to 'good Hebrew.'”

That statement is blatantly false. There may be some cases where KJV omitted repeated words (as in Romans 1:4), but they are rare, and certainly all the parallelisms in Psalms remain intact even in translation. Actually, it is only by using a fairly literal translation such as KJV, RSV or ESV that one can easily discern these patterns even in English. By contrast, it is very hard to do so using NIV, New English Bible, or other dynamic translations because they don't adhere asclosely to the same wording or word order as the original.

2. Secondly, he states that chiasms in the Bible were not recognized during Joseph Smith's lifetime. This is another falsehood – The concept was well known at the time; it just wasn't called by that particular name.

3. Welch also says that the use of chiasms reflects a uniquely Jewish mindset, proving that the authors of the Book of Mormon came from a Jewish background. However, that ignores the fact that Luke, who wrote ¼ of the NT, was most likely a Gentile, not a Jew and his writings contain a number of chiasms. And some debunkers have even located examples of chiasm scattered throughout Joseph Smith's own writings, showing that he was well aware of and consciously imitating the style of the Bible.

But the most damning evidence comes from the few examples Welch highlights in his on-line summary. I am going to make the reasonable assumption that these were among the most persuasive examples he could come up with. A couple of examples are only a few verses long. Here, if anywhere is where one could expect to see the influence on Joseph Smith by even a casual reading the Psalms. His first example is perhaps his most persuasive, but even it has grave flaws. He cites Mosiah 3:18-19 but needs to lop off the first part of verse 18 and the last part of verse 19 even to get it to work.

Mosiah 3:18b-19a

a. they humble themselves

    b. and become as little children

        c. and believe that salvation...is...in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent

            d. for the natural man

                e. is an enemy to God

                    f. and has been from the fall of Adam

                    f'. and will be, forever and ever

                e'. unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit

            d'. and putteth off the natural man

        c'. and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord

    b'. and becometh as a child

a'. submissive, meek, humble...full of love...

The parallelism between e and e' is especially weak, and that between f and f' is only achieved by splitting a single thought into two. However, the other pairings appear to be strong, that is until one considers the whole of Chapter 3. Thus, the blamelessness of children (b and b') is also the theme of verses 16 and 21; the fall of Adam (f and f') is specifically mentioned in verses 16 and 26; atonement (c and c') appears also in verses 11 and 15; and blood atonement is found in verses 11, 15 and 18, but not 19. In addition to these repetitions, many more appear in Mosiah 3 that form no discernible symmetrical patterns: “joy” (vv. 3,4,13), miraculous events (vv. 3,15), “salvation” (vv. 9,12,16,17), “Lord Omnipotent” (vv. 5,17,18,21), “name” (vv. 9,17,21), “prophets” (vv. 13,15), salvation only through Christ (vv. 12,17), “children of men” (vv. 5,6,10,13,17), “God/Lord commanded” (vv. 22,23,27), “blameless” (vv. 21,22), “evil” (vv. 24,25), “faith” (9,21), “and lo” (vv. 7,9), Christ's coming (vv. 13,15), “the law of Moses” (vv. 14,15), “speak words” (vv. 22,23), “was and is” (vv. 5,18), “judgment” (vv. 10,18,24), evil men “drink” judgment (vv. 18,26), “every nation, kindred, tongue” (vv. 13,20), and “forever and ever” (vv. 19,27).

In short, the author has repeated most of the words or phrases in the chapter at least once in a vain attempt to imitate the repetition he has seen in the Bible without in the least understanding the original rhetorical purpose of such repetitions. It is no wonder that Welch can pick out a few of them that have the semblance of a chiastic order, while ignoring the many other verbal and thematic duplications that serve no structural purpose at all.

The next chiasm Welch offers appears at the end of Alma 41, vv. 13-15. The pertinent elements are outlined below:

a. “the word restoration” is to bring it back

    b. evil, carnal, devilish

        c. good

            d. righteous

                e. just

                    f. merciful

                    f'. merciful

                e'. deal justly

            d'. judge righteously

        c'. do good

                    f''. mercy

                e''. justice

            d''. righteous judgment

        c''. good

    b'. return to you again

a'. “the word restoration”

Welch states that this is an “extremely clever” twist on the chiastic form. I would personally call this a rather obvious variation on the form in contrast to the much more subtle chiasms that appear in the Bible. Welch also states that it is “unequaled in Hebraic literature” and in this I would agree. In fact, it is an overly-clever attempt to marry the two ubiquitous literary structures in the canonical literature: chiasm and parallel constructions. (The latter would have been even more obvious for a reader like Joseph Smith to pick out, with a reader having to go no further than Genesis 1 to see an extended example.) Unfortunately, the results of this bastardization lead to asymmetry as a whole, as one can see.

A final short example is diagrammed below:

Mosiah 5:10-12

a. And now … whosoever shall not take upon him the name of Christ

        b. must be called by some other name;

                c. therefore he findeth himself on the left hand of God.

                        d. I would that ye should remember also, that this is the name

                                e. that never should be blotted out,

                                        f. except it be through transgression

                                        f'. therefore, take heed that ye do not transgress,

                                e'. that the name be not blotted out of your hearts

                      d'. I would that ye should remember to retain the name

                c. that ye are not found on the left hand of God,

          b'. but that ye hear and know the voice by which ye shall be called,

    a'. and also, the name by which he shall call you.

This simple example again relies mainly on the repetition of common words, and he is selective as to which ones are paired up. For example, “name” does appear in a and a', but it is also found in b, d, and e. Similarly, “call” is in b and b', but it is also in a. More specifically, the combination of “call” and “name” only appears in b and a', which he does not match up. Similarly, the phrase “your hearts” appears in e' and d', but that is not mentioned since it would also disrupt the pattern. Another problem is that these three verses are located within a larger chapter which possesses no such parallelism.

Welch attempts a whole chapter, Alma 36, with somewhat more success, but even this analysis has its problems. Without showing his detailed organization, suffice it to say that it is a 26-member chiasm containing a fair amount of verbal parallelism between corresponding units. However, again a little fudging is necessary to reconstruct the chapter as a full chiasm.

1. Verses 3a, 5b-8, and 25 are totally missing from his organization.

2. The subjects listed for sections h' and g' (both in v. 26) are listed in reverse order from their actual occurrence in the text.

3. He pairs section d, with its phrase “did deliver them” together with d' which contains the phrase “will deliver me.” However, an even closer parallel with the same verb tense, “delivered me,” actually appears earlier in the text between his f' and e'.

4. Specific phrases repeated in the text are not located in the parallel sections outlined by Welch and must be ignored entirely for the scheme to work: “fell to earth” (vv. 7,11), “three days and nights” (vv. 10,16), “keep the commandments” (vv. 1,13), “raise/lift me up” (vv. 3,28), “seek no more to destroy the church” (vv. 9,11), and “born of God” (vv. 5,23,24,26).

5. The individual sections identified by Welch range in size from six verses down to a third of a verse. Such variation in size is not common in biblical examples.

6. His largest section “l” is identified as vv. 11-16. However, such a division is highly unlikely and should also include v. 17 (his section m) since the latter contains the words “racked,” “torment,” “harrowed up” and “remember,” all appearing in section l.

7. Official Mormon literature recognizes that Alma 36 is only part of the larger section chs. 36-37 covering the same subject. This runs counter to Welch's scheme of a complete chiasm for Chapter 36 only.

When Welch tries to analyze a whole book, he runs into even more problems.

First Book of Nephi

A. Lehi’s dream leads him to prophesy warnings to the Jews (ch. 1)

    B. The departure from Jerusalem (ch. 2)

        C. Nephi accomplishes a great feat ; the brothers are confounded (chs. 3-5)

            D. Ishmael joins the group with his daughters (ch. 7)

                E. The tree of life (ch. 8)

                    F. Lehi prophesies about the Old World and the coming of the Lamb (ch. 10)

                        G. Nephi and the Spirit of the Lord (ch. 10)

                    F'. Nephi prophesies about the New World and the coming of the Lamb (chs. 12-14)

                E'. The tree of life interpreted (ch. 15)

            D'. The sons of Lehi marry the daughters of Ishmael and Ishmael dies (ch. 16)

        C'. Nephi accomplishes a great feat; the brothers are confounded (ch. 17)

    B'. The departure from the Old World (ch. 18)

A. Nephi warns the Jews and quotes the prophecies of Isaiah (chs. 19-22)

Welch analyzes the whole book of I Nephi as a 13-part chiasm, but his reasoning is fatally flawed for several reasons.

Some of the supposed parallels rely on vague thematic similarities. For example, Section A warns the Jews that they will be going into captivity. However, A' concerns not warnings but prophecies of the coming of Jesus and eventual conversion of the Jews. Sections C and C' represent two completely different types of activity: stealing a scroll and building a ship. Welch says that both are “feats” which “confound” the brothers. But the word “feat” does not appear in either section, and although the brothers are confounded in C, they are dubious and encouraged in C'.

Other supposed parallels such as D-D' and E-E' rely solely on individual words taken out of whole chapters. This is especially telling in consideration of the fact that, in general, the chapter divisions in the Book of Mormon are much longer than those in the Bible.

Not one of the individual sections exhibits its own internal symmetry or features such as inclusio to confirm that they are discrete literary entities.

In addition, note that Welch has to leave out chapters 6, 9 and 11 even to get this supposed chiasm to work.

And he purposely misrepresents the facts in his listing of sections f and g. Yes, both subjects do appear in ch. 10, but notice that Welch conveniently leaves out their verse numbers. That is to hide the fact that the events in g are described in the first part of the chapter followed by those in f, not in the order he has stated.

Finally, when Joseph Smith originally dictated the book, he indicated where the chapter divisions were to take place (felt to be present in the original writings), but neither these groupings in the original 1830 edition nor the current divisions in the revised 1981 edition match up with Welch's section breaks.

 

SYMMETRY AND REPETITION IN THE BIBLE

Tremper Longman III has stated, “Repetition is a function of most literature, but it is particularly emphasized in biblical literature, where it occurs on a number of different levels.” The simplest of these levels is illustrated best by considering Hebrew poetry, which is based on the repetition of similar ideas rather than similar sounds or meter. Only one basic idea is being expressed through the two (or three) lines of poetry in each verse, but the second line may clarify or expand the thought expressed in the first one. This idea of simple repetition can actually take on several forms, many of which are symmetrical in structure and even have their biblical counterparts in larger portions of Scripture.

First is the situation where elements of a passage are stated in one line and then similarly restated in the identical order in subsequent lines. For such parallel (also called synonymous, identical or cyclic) structures, the emphasis is usually on the last members of each series: a b c -- a' b' c'

Identical Parallelism: Psalm 82:3

A. Give

    B. justice to

        C. the weak

            D. and the orphan

A'. Maintain

    B'. the right of

        C'. the lowly

            D'. and the destitute

Another variation on this theme is introverted (also called chiastic, concentric or palistrophic) parallelism), as seen in the following series: a b c c' b' a'

In this mirror-image arrangement, similarly lettered pairs such as a and a', for example, will possess similar thematic and/or verbal characteristics. When a chiastic structure has an even number of elements, such as above, I have found that the usual emphasis is on the first and last units (although many scholars feel it is on the two middle two instead). But definitely, for odd-numbered chiasms such as below, the middle element is meant to be highlighted.

a b c d c' b' a'

Psalm 1:2

But their delight is in         the law of the LORD

                                    X

and on his law                  they meditate day and night

Here the two lines express the same basic idea but the clauses are transposed in the second line so that delighting and meditating are parallel and law appears at the end of the first line and the start of the second line. If you draw lines connecting the similar elements, you make an X. That is the Greek letter chi, so that type of arrangement is also called a chiasm or chiasmus. This arrangement is extremely pervasive in the larger literary structures seen in the Bible.

The Structure of Colossians

I. Opening Greetings (1:1-2)

II. Fruit of the Gospel and Prayer (1:3-14)

III. God the Reconciler (1:15-20)

IV. Our Holiness (1:21-23)

                                                                V. Christ in You (1:24-2:7)

                    VI. False Teachings (2:8-23)

    V'. Raised with Christ (3:1-4)

                                                IV'. The Old and New Natures (3:5-17)

                                     III'. Transformed Relationships (3:18-4:1)

                        II'. Living the Christian Life in Prayer (4:2-6)

            I'. Final Greetings (4:7-18)

Incomplete Parallelism: I Samuel 15:22b

To obey   is better   than sacrifice, and

To listen (is better) than the fat of rams.

The adjective “better” is understood in the second line. See how the first line helps eliminate any possible misunderstanding of second line. In simple cases such as these, the missing member is easily supplied by the reader. However, when scholars propose parallel or chiastic structures that are less than complete for larger passages, those claims should be treated with a great deal of skepticism. That is especially true, when in many cases, a completely symmetrical structure can be found for the same passages. The same criticism can be levied against proposed arrangements where certain elements are present out of symmetrical order.

One such example is that of Boling, who analyzed the Book of Judges as taking the following overall form:

   A

        B

                C

                        D

        B

                        D

        B

                        D

                                E

  A

Note the marked absence of matching elements for C and E, resulting in a very asymmetric arrangement.

John Welch's farfetched attempts (in Chiasmus in Antiquity) to prove that the Book of Mormon has all the hallmarks of ancient Near Eastern chiasm found in the Bible suffer from the above flaws as well as several others. This will be the subject of a future post.

Antithetic Parallelism: Psalm 1:6

    For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous,

    but the way of the wicked will perish.

Note the key word “but.” This type of poetry is especially common in Proverbs – the same idea is expressed using its opposite. Even this variation has its counterpart in more extensive passages. Note how sections A and A' express the same idea in contrasting ways.

Structure of Romans 4:1-5:6

A. Do not dispute over opinions (14:1)

        B. How to handle controversial subjects within the body (14:2-23)

A'. Live in harmony with one another (15:1-6)

A somewhat different kind of antithesis is expressed elsewhere in the same letter:

Structure of Romans 2:25-3:31

    A. Advantage of the Jews (2:25-3:8)

        B. All are sinners (3:9-20)

        B'. God is righteous (3:21-26)

A'. Jews cannot boast (3:27-31)

Emblematic Parallelism: Psalm 1:3

They are like trees planted by streams of water (figurative)

-----------

In all that they do, they prosper. (literal)

This is a type of simile or metaphor in which the figurative language in one first line is explained literally in the other. This form has its more extensive expression in, for example, Judges 14-15 where the literal description of a battle is given in Chapter 14 and repeated using figurative, or emblematic, language in the following chapter.

Synthetic, or Advancing, Parallelism

Lamentations 3:12

    He bent his bow and set me

                                                as a mark for his arrow.

Lamentations 5:6

    We have made a pact with Egypt

                                                        and Syria to get enough bread.

In these two cases, simple prose sentences are broken up into two lines. It is not truly poetic so it is called synthetic. Since it also is not at all a parallel structure, it resembles a simple narrative or expositional style. David Dorsey (The Literary Structure of the Old Testament) quotes numerous examples of true parallelism in the Bible, but on occasion labels a passage as having what he calls a linear structure, which is really an admission that he cannot discover any form of literary symmetry present.

Stair-Step, or Climatic, Parallelism: Romans 1:4-5

One of the best examples of this aptly named type of parallelism, in which subsequent lines repeat the idea in the previous lines but go beyond them in thought, is actually found in the NT.

In him was life

      and the life was the light of men

                                the light shines in the darkness

                                                      and the darkness has not overcome it.

Larger examples of this type of arrangement only appear in one place in the Bible, the apocalyptic literature such as Zechariah, Daniel, and the Revelation. There it has been labeled Progressive Recapitulation. Recognizing that this form permeates apocalyptic writings is of tremendous importance in how we understand the chronology of the events portrayed symbolically in these books .

Take the Book of Daniel for example. First, consider the various reigns in which each section takes place and note that the second half of the book backs up to an earlier time period as well as moving forward in time:

Nebuchadnezzar (chs. 1-4)

Belshazzar (ch. 5)

Darius (ch. 6)

----------------------------------------------

Belshazzar (chs. 7-8)

Darius (ch. 9)

                                                Cyrus (chs. 10-12)

The same phenomenon appears in the visions and dreams that are described throughout that book. For examples of progressive recapitulation in Zechariah and Revelation, see the respective Introductions to the Literary Structure for those books.

Mixed Types

Finally, it is possible to combine more than one of these literary techniques within the same verse to add variety. Thus, strictly speaking, Psalm 1:4 simultaneously employs incomplete and emblematic parallelism while Psalm 1:6 (shown above) displays both antithetic and introverted parallelism.

Psalm 1:4

      The wicked   are not   so

but (the wicked) are like chaff that the wind drives away.

Again, mixed types of symmetry appear in larger biblical structures also, such as in the following example. Note how the overall chiastic arrangement also contains the parallel series II, III – II', III'.

The Structure of Ephesians

            I. Introduction (1:1-2)      

II. Position with God through Christ (1:3-14)

        III. Power in Christ (1:15-23)

                                                    IV. Gentiles’ Past and Present Position Contrasted (2:1-22) 

                                                            V. The Mystery of Christ: Position and Power (3:1-21) 

                            IV'. Gentiles’ Past and Present Behavior Contrasted (4:1-5:20)

II'. Position with Others through Christ (5:21-6:9)

                                III'. Power in Christ (6:10-20)

I'. Conclusion (6:21-24)

 

BIBLE CONTRADICTIONS: THE NATURE OF CHRIST

At last, I have reached the end of the "50,000 Bible Contradictions" listed on the Islamic site GhanaNet. Although I believe they are still about 49,800 contradictions short of that number, I won't call that a contradiction, just poetic hyperbole. They label the group below as "Speculative Doctrines."

Christ is equal with God. (John 10:30 Philippians 2:5)

Christ is not equal with God. (John 14:28; Matthew 24:36)

There is probably a lot that a theologian could say on this subject, including the interesting concept that the Son is eternally submissive to the Father. But let's just deal briefly with each of these four passages instead. A good place to start is the famous passage in Philippians 2 since I have found it useful to quote more than once in conversations with Jehovah Witnesses who like to ignore it or mistranslate it. Note that Christ clearly exists in heaven in equality with God, but then he voluntarily empties himself. One can infer at least one important thing from these verses: While on earth Jesus was limited by his humble form in a way that he was not limited in heaven before the Incarnation and was not be limited once he ascended to the Father after his death on earth. That complete picture explains the other passages given above.

John 10:30 says, “The Father and I are one.” However, the concept of oneness can mean many different things ranging from being of the same mind all the way up to total equality in every way. So it is not necessarily the same as the equality Jesus had with the Father in heaven.

In the whole passage John 14:25-31 Jesus is telling his Apostles that he will soon be leaving to go to the Father “for the Father is greater than I.” He explains what that means a few verses later when he says “I do as the Father has commanded me.” In other words, in Jesus' earthly role as God's servant, he will obediently go to his death.

And finally, in Matthew 24:36, Jesus gives another example of his temporary limitations while on earth: he doesn't know the time of his Second Coming in judgment.

Jesus was all-powerful. (Matthew 28:18; John 3:36)

Jesus was not all-powerful. (Mark 6:5)

Was Jesus all-powerful? The Bible doesn't really say so. The critic quotes Matthew 28:18 in the King James Version, but modern versions read “all authority” and this verse specifically refers to the status of the risen and glorified Christ, not his status or ability while on earth, as in Mark 6:5 where “deeds of power” refers specifically to healing miracles. John 24:36 is even further afield of the subject at hand since it only says that God the Father has the power to give or withhold eternal life depending on whether one accepts or rejects Jesus.

Christ's mission was peace. (Luke 2:13-14)

Christ's mission was not peace. (Matthew 10:34)

I have probably dealt with this one elsewhere, but here it goes again: Simply speaking, Christ's mission was to bring spiritual peace (i.e., remove the enmity) between God and us (Luke 2:13-14). However, in the process of accomplishing that, it may have the earthly effect of dividing us from those close to us who chose not to believe. That is not Christ's mission, but it could be the unintended consequence. (Matthew 10:34-35).

Christ received not testimony from man. (John 5:33-34)

Christ did receive testimony from man. (John 15:27)

John 5:33-34 did not say that he didn't receive any testimony from man. He actually introduced John the Baptist as one of his witnesses in these verses. Jesus was merely remarking that he personally had no need of mere human testimony to prove himself, especially to such a hostile crowd. And to demonstrate that fact, Jesus then introduced much greater witnesses in the following verses.

John 15:27 presents us with a quite different situation. Here Jesus is commissioning his Apostles to be eye-witnesses to the world so that those who are ready to receive the Word will hear it and be saved. And very pointedly, in the previous verse (omitted by the critic) Jesus explains that it will actually be the Holy Spirit who testifies for them. So in both cases, it is the other two persons of the Godhead who are the ultimate witnesses to the Son.

Christ's witness of himself is true. (John 8:14,18)

Christ's witness of himself if not true. (John 5:31)

Guthrie on John 5:31: “The statement in 8:14 does not contradict this, for there Jesus is not considering, as here, the impossible hypothesis of a witness by the Son which conflicted with the witness of the Father.” Similarly, although Raymond Brown sees a “formal” contradiction between these verses, he recognizes that in both cases Jesus' testimony can be confirmed by the Father, and thus the contradiction disappears. In other words, even Jesus' sole testimony meets the requirement of the law to produce two witnesses, whether the audience recognizes it or not, since the Father and Son are one.

Borchert stresses the different settings of John 5 and 8. “In the second case the issue concerns his place of origin, and in the first case the issue concerns his role as the agent of the Father. In the first case Jesus employed the legal formula of the need for two witnesses [Deuteronomy 19:15] to introduce his four witnesses, whereas in the second case he defended a Pharisaic charge of false witness to a proclamation concerning his origin. The format of both contexts are clearly conflictual, but the settings move the arguments in different ways.”

And, of course, we must hasten to stress that Jesus in John 5:31 is not saying that he would be lying if he testified about himself. But it would not be a valid testimony accepted by the legal standards of the time unless verified by other witnesses. One could perhaps read that verse as “If I am the only one who testifies about myself, my testimony is not legally acceptable.”

Christ laid down his life for his friends. (John 10:11; 15:13)

Christ laid down his life for his enemies. (Romans 5:10)

The most obvious lack of logic in this criticism is to feel that somehow Christ could not have died for both groups. In John 15:13, Christ is specifically talking to his closest followers and his statement makes perfect sense in that context. By contrast, John 10:11 broadens the scope of his comments by implying that Christ will die for the sheep, i.e., all of his followers. And finally, in John 10:16 he expands the reason for his death even further by talking about those who are not presently in the fold but will later listen to his voice. That is the very message that Romans 5:6-11 proclaims. Paul is talking specifically to those who are now Christians, but he reminds them that at one time they were enemies until they heard the good news of the Gospel and responded.

 

SPIRITUAL SILOS

Whether we have been Christians for only a few years or a lifetime, it is amazing how myopic we may be if we have only attended churches in one particular denomination. Here are just three example of how traditions can become so ingrained that it is a real surprise to us when we are first exposed to a new perspective:

Definition of grace – Back in high school I got into a theological discussion with my best friend, who was a Roman Catholic. He started ranting and raving about what a horrible person Martin Luther was. My comment was that at least he emphasized the important and neglected doctrine of grace. My friend couldn't understand what I was talking about. He said that the Catholic church teaches grace and they even provide a number of ways for you to earn it. Of course, that wasn't at all my definition, or the accepted definition, of grace.

Mode of “baptism” – One of my pastors told the story of the time when he led a church in Australia. He attended an ecumenical luncheon and was seated next to an Anglican bishop. The bishop turned to him and said, “I see by your name tag that you belong to the Disciples of Christ. I have always wanted to ask someone from your denomination where you got your quaint custom of dunking people in water to baptize them.” Our pastor asked him if he had ever been taught Greek in seminary. The bishop got into a huff and said, “Of course so.” “Then what is the meaning of baptizmo?” The bishop said, “immerse” and then got very quiet. He had never even considered the original meaning of the word before that time.

Eschatology – I'll tell the third story on myself. For about the first 30 years of my life I attended the same denomination, and their view of the future, I found out later, was called amillennialism. At the time, I assumed that it was the only accepted view. Then I started attending an American Baptist church. In one of the Sunday school classes, the members started speculating about what life during the millennium would be like, wondering if all the animals would become vegetarian and whether we would age any. I realized later that their belief fit in the mold of another accepted view of the future called historical premillennialism, but at the time I thought that I had inadvertently wandered into some sort of weird cult. Then I moved to Texas and attended a church where I occasionally taught Sunday school. I was covering the various views of the future and when I got to explaining and defending amillennialism, one visitor to the class started fuming. He blurted out, “How can you possibly call yourself a Christian with that sort of belief?” It turned out that he had only been exposed to a third view of the future, dispensationalism, and couldn't see how any other perspective could possibly be true.

Well, how do you cope with the fact that different denominations and teachers have differing views of Scripture? How do you sort out what is true and what is false? Here are two opposite tacks I have seen taken, both of which themselves can lead to Scripture twisting.

There are some churches which have such a distrust of any sort of spiritual authority or creed that they practice a completely democratic approach to studying the Bible. There was a church in upstate NY that I visited once that took this to an extreme. The Sunday school teacher (and I wouldn't really call him a teacher at all) would read a verse and then go around the room asking each person in turn, “What do you think this means?” and then he would summarize the results by saying, “We have two votes for this interpretation while three people think it means such and such, etc.” And then we would proceed to the next verse. Now there is nothing wrong with getting a good discussion going in class. But without some sort of direction from a leader who has spent at least a litter time in preparation, it soon becomes an exercise in sharing our collective ignorance.

But the opposite approach is no better and that is to follow blindly the teachings of an authority, such as a best selling author, a popular TV preacher, etc. The Left Behind series had a total sales of 63 million copies at the last count. I realize that these are fiction books, but they are based on one particular view of the Bible's teachings on future events and have had a huge popular influence in getting people to accept that branch of theology because of the many people who have read them and seen the movies based on them. 

I once witnessed an even more blatant example years ago when I was in a Bible book store. A customer was haranguing the owner with then concept that one must speak in tongues to be a Christian. The owner politely told her, "That isn't really taught in the Bible." The customer's retort was, "Well, I don't know much about the Bible, but you should really read what this author has to say on the subject."

Or consider a more subtle case: When I first moved to Texas, my next door neighbor came by to introduce himself and invite me to visit his church. He said that I just had to attend it because it was the largest church in town, with three services, and they even televised their church services. The idea he was conveying was: that many people can't possibly be wrong. You have merely to consider the theology taught in many mega-churches to easily dispel that notion the truth is established by popularity.

 

DEFENDING BIBLE HEROES

Why are false teachings about the Bible promulgated and why do we sometimes believe them? The causes are many, and most are not very admirable. One of the most common motives was identified early on by Paul: "There are also many rebellious people...teaching for sordid gain what it is not right to teach." (Titus 1:10-11)  But in addition to greed, other motives include wanting to believe only those things that are to our personal benefit, the gnostic desire to teach and learn something that few other people know, to gain power over others, etc.

But there are more admirable reasons that teachers sometimes twist the Scripture slightly. Some want to simplify passages to eliminate anything that might upset readers of the Bible. One example from The Daily Bible comes to mind:The parallel accounts of David conducting a census differ in who was inciting David to do it, Satan or God. The Daily Bible eliminates the reference to God (which seems to be an immoral action by Him) while at the same time eliminating the discrepancy between the two accounts. 

Then there was the special speaker our home Bible study group brought in for a series of talks. His first two lectures were peppered with one outrageous and unsubstantiated statement after the other: Noah's ark had been found, Jesus' DNA had been analyzed and shown to possess non-human characteristics, the exact number of people Saul/Paul was responsible for killing had been determined, dinosaurs were mentioned in the Bible, and the location of God's "hometown" was found. I cornered him at one point and told him that I had tried to track down the sources for this information and failed to do so. He admitted privately that there might be a little uncertainty in some of his pronouncements, but defended his actions by saying that he put them into his talk to keep people's interest up so that they would listen when he got to presenting the Gospel message later on.

 Here is an interesting question posed by a Christian animal rights organization: Did Jesus kill 2,000 pigs? On their website, they explain that of course Jesus didn't kill a herd of pigs when he cast the legion of demons out of the possessed man. That would have been horribly cruel of him to do to those innocent piggies. In fact, it wasn't a miracle story at all. Instead it was a political parable put into the NT to teach that the Jews needed to expel the Roman “legions” from Israel, not legions of demons at all. This is a prime example of the trend C. S. Lewis once described. In a nutshell, people start out by talking about the Bible and animal rights, then it becomes animal rights in the Bible, and finally their true motive comes out when they deny the clear meaning of the Bible if it doesn't fit in with their prime concern, which is animal rights. 

Here is another altruistic, but misplaced, motive: trying to defend the “heroes” in the Bible. One noted example is how both Christian and Jewish teachers try to explain away Abraham's actions in twice misleading rulers who wanted to take Sarah as their wife. Both times Abraham said that she was only his sister, in order to save his own neck. One particular internet source concludes that Abraham may have deceived those rulers with his half truth (she was related to him), but that isn't at all the same as actually lying. Then there are other commentators who try to explain that it was the custom for a patriarch who had a favorite wife to also adopt her as his sister. So Abimelech misunderstood Abraham when all he was trying to do was explain that Sarah was an especially dear wife to him.

Concerning the rather embarrassing episode of Aaron and the golden calf, here are some examples of ancient rabbis trying to defend the actions of characters in the incident, taken from Brevard Child's commentary on Exodus:

“Why Aaron chose to make expressly a calf is not explained in the text, but has evoked a variety of theories from commentators. B. Jacob's explanation that Aaron wanted to make something completely nonsensical to expose their folly misses the mark badly.”

In reply to Aaron's statement that he threw the gold into the fire and a calf came out, “Jewish commentators tend to defend Aaron and accept his defense at face value.”

“Israel as a nation was not chiefly to blame, but the trouble began with the 'mixed multitude' who came from Egypt.” 

And there are many other examples in rabbinical commentaries trying to explain away the dubious actions of Miriam, King David, etc. These sorts of justifications might make sense in a works-based religion but they have absolutely no place in a religion of grace. In spite of that, I will admit that I was quite surprised a few years ago when I was teaching a lesson in our home Bible study on David and Bathsheba. I asked what the group thought of Bathsheba's actions. There ensued an almost violent argument in which a majority of the people thought that it was all Bathsheba's fault for enticing David in the first place. I have to believe that their major motive was to defend David, the man after God's own heart.

 

COMMONLY MISUNDERSTOOD BIBLE PASSAGES

 

“There are some things in them [Paul's letters] hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures. You therefore, beloved, since you are forewarned, beware that you are not carried away with the error of the lawless and lose your own stability.” 2 Peter 3:16b-17

There are several lessons we can derive out of this passage:

    1. It is reassuring to know that even Peter had trouble understanding all of Paul's writings.

    2. This is the first indication we have that the NT writings were starting to be considered as Scripture on an equal footing with the OT.

    3. Note that Peter identifies at least two classes of people who tend to misuse the Bible: (1) the ignorant, who don't know any better and (2) the spiritually unstable and lawless, who should know better. I have been concentrating on this latter group recently in my various "Bible Contradictions" posts. But now I am going to turn to the first class. If I hit a raw nerve in any of my comments, please remember that I am not saying that believers who misuse or misunderstand a particular passage are heretics or that their actions are necessarily done on purpose, just that they are probably mistaken.   

4. But, finally, even the most innocent twisting of Scripture can possibly have grave consequences for those who do it and for those who listen to them and believe it. Therefore, error needs to be pointed out to avoid those consequences.

A. Psalm 121:1-2  Going back a little time in history, the famous agricultural scientist George Washington Carver was also a devout Christian. At one point early in his life he was pondering what to do for a career so he turned to his Bible and opened it up at random to this passage from Psalm 121: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence comes my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.” So he looked at the hills outside, saw a field of peanut plants, and the rest is history. Unfortunately, he was reading in the KJV which has some problems. Why would the Psalmist think that God lives in the hills? That was a pagan concept of the time as evidenced by the prophets ranting and railing against the “high places” where the apostate Jews started to worship.

The problem is one of adding the proper punctuation since there was little to no punctuation in either the early Greek or Hebrew manuscripts. And in this case, even the NKJV realizes that the Hebrew is better rendered this way: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills – from whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth.” The context of this particular psalm is that it is a pilgrimage song sung by those on their way to Jerusalem for one of the feast days. They have to traverse mountainous regions before they reach their goal. They look at the mountains and cry out, “Who will help me?” and the answer is: God. I am personally glad that Carver trusted a faulty translation. Otherwise, we might not have peanut butter today.

B. Revelation 3:20  Well, let's move on to a more recent Christian leader who knew the ins and outs of Scripture quite a bit better -- the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, Bill Bright. One of his most important insights or innovations, depending on your point of view, was to start with this famous passage, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.”  Bright applied this verse to evangelizing the lost. The whole concept of letting Jesus into your heart in the Sinner's Prayer and the Four Spiritual Laws is based on this verse. The problem is that taken in its original context at the very end of the letters to the seven churches, this verse is not addressed to non-believers at all. It is a call to us as Christians to let Jesus back into our individual lives and congregations when we have shut him out. Whether Bright's application is a valid extension of what Jesus was saying even if it does depart a bit from the original meaning, I'll leave up to you to decide.

C. I Samuel 13:14   Here is one that I have always misunderstood up to about a year ago and it always 

bothered me. “The LORD has sought out a man [namely David] after his own heart.” That is a literal 

rendering of the Hebrew. Now in English, that particular idiom means a man who thinks the same way 

as another person does; so I always assumed that the Hebrew meaning was the same. That gave me a 

problem because David certainly isn't described as one who acts or thinks like God does. There are 

actually two different understandings of what this phrase means:

    1. “The one chosen by the LORD” (NRSV Study Bible, TEV, NICOT, AB). As Kyle McCarter says, 

“This has nothing to do with any great fondness of Yahweh for David or any special quality of David.”

    2. “A man who will obey God and do what is in God's heart” (Living Bible, Joyce Baldwin). But 

even according to this understanding, “the expression does not seem to be used with reference to a 

person's private or personal moral conduct; rather, it appears to be connected with the official duties of 

the office and the promotion of the worship and service of God from that office.” (Walter Kaiser, 

Toward An OT Ethics, pp. 274-275) This last meaning is the one brought out by Paul in Acts 13:22, 

who adds “Who will carry out all my wishes” (NRSV).

D. Ephesians 2:8-9 “For is is by grace you have been saved through faith; and this (that) is not of 

yourself, it is the gift of God.” (NIV) Most popular teachers assume that the pronoun “this” refers, as it 

does in English, to the last noun mentioned: faith. That fits well into the ultra-Calvinistic idea that God 

chooses whom He gives faith to and those to whom He withholds it. Most translations leave it 

somewhat vague as to what “this” refers to. The problem is, as commentators will point out, the 

pronoun is neuter in gender while grace, salvation and faith are all feminine nouns. So they feel that the 

pronoun must refer instead to the scheme of salvation, the concept of salvation or the whole experience 

of salvation. The Anchor Bible says “It may refer to the eternal election by grace and the 'outpouring' 

of grace mentioned in 1:4-8, and to the preaching of the 'true word, the message that saves' (1:13).” In 

other words, “this” may refer to the whole paragraph rather than to our personal faith.

 

And then there are some uplifting passages suitable for framing, which may not mean exactly what you think they do.

E. Philippians 4:13   “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”Since it has the word “strength” in it, this verse is most often misused in the context of physical strengthening in order to engage in rock climbing, running or other competitive sports activities (Look it up some time on Google Images).

Or it is widely applied to God's wish for all of us to live a completely fulfilled and triumphant life here on earth, with the usual emphasis on ME.

One cartoon makes fun of those misapplications by having a woman say to her husband who is quoting this verse while struggling with a jar lid, “It's a pickle jar, Tom. Twist the lid, not scripture.” Another cartoon I have seen pinpoints the specific problem. As a man leaps to his death attempting to fly, he shouts, “I can do all things.” His watching friend adds, “except read Bible verses in their proper context.” So what is the original context of this teaching? Paul is writing from prison where he says that he is in distress and has barely enough food to eat. Nevertheless, he is confident that God will give him the strength to get by so that he can continue to minister to those around him. Hardly the description of what most people would call a prosperous life lived to the full for selfish ends.

F. Jeremiah 29:11  How about this saying often found on plaques written in pastel and pink that seems to point to the same rosy future for all believers: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.” The problem is that these words were addressed to a people defeated by the Babylonians who would soon be forced to leave their homeland, and go in bondage and uncertainty into a foreign land where they would all die without ever returning. The plans for the future referred to the long term future of Israel as a whole, where their children would eventually return from exile. It is a complete error to apply this verse out of context to the belief that God has individual plans for each of us which will clearly be worked out within our lifetime without any harm or distress happening to us in the meanwhile.

G. Revelation 10:6  And then there is the teaching found in the favorite old hymn, “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.” It says that time itself will cease, as supposedly taught in this verse. At least that is what I was told while growing up. Some Bible commentators have even seen confirmation of this fact in scientific speculation that time is actually slowing down and will eventually stop. That may possibly be true, but is that what the Bible really says? It all stems from a slight rewording and total misunderstanding of the KJV, which says. ““And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven and the things that therein are...that there should be time no longer.” This translation is also followed by a few older or obscure translations: (Douay-Rheims, Geneva Bible, Jubilee Bible, New Matthew Bible and New Testament for Everyone). All other translations render the true meaning as, “There will be no more delay” or “There is no more time for waiting.” But the idea will probably remain in popular Christian culture for some time to come, assuming that time doesn't stop before then.

H. Proverbs 29:18  “Without a vision, the people perish.” It has been attributed on the internet to Ronald Reagan, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rosa Parks, and even Oprah Winfrey. Of course they were all quoting from Proverbs 29:18. That is why I had to include this priceless quote from Abraham Lincoln: “Don't believe everything you read on the internet just because there's a picture of a famous person with a quote next to it.”

Well, getting back to Proverbs, this is a favorite verse used in church planning meetings to show that we need to start out with a vision statement first. That might be a good idea, but that isn't really what the passage means. All those who use this verse are relying again on an inaccurate KJV translation.

Here is how modern translations render the original Hebrew:

    Where there is no prophecy, the people cast off restraint. RSV, NRSV

    Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint. NIV

    Where there is no one in authority, the people break loose. NEB

    Where there is ignorance of God, the people run wild. Living Bible

    A nation without God's guidance is a nation without order. TEV

I.         1. The body as God’s temple (3:16-23)

2. The Corinthians judge the Apostles (4:1-21)

3. Judging immorality in the church (5:1-5)

4. Corinthians’ boasting (5:6-8)

3'. Judging immorality in the church (5:9-13)

2'. The Corinthians go to pagan judges (6:1-8)

1'. The body as God’s temple (6:9-20)

There are two parallel passages found in I Corinthians stating that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Both of these passages are popularly considered as admonitions to Christians to take good physical care of themselves: avoid excess drinking, smoking, and pill-popping. There is nothing wrong with these teachings, but that isn't really what these two passages are all about.

Let's look at what scholars have to say about I Corinthians 3:16-17: Because the plural form of “you” and “your” appears in these verses, it is almost universally felt by Bible commentators that their intended audience is actually the church, the assembly of believers, rather than each individual believer.

“...since there is only one God, he can have only one temple in Corinth, and they are it. They became that new temple by the fact that 'God's Spirit lives in you.' Most likely Paul meant by this not that the Spirit dwelt in each of them, true as that would be for him, but that the Spirit of God 'lives in your midst.' That is, Paul is here reflecting on the church as the corporate place of God's dwelling...”

                                Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians

Concerning I Corinthians 6:19, there is slightly more disagreement, but the corporate meaning of body is still stressed by some commentators.

“...the Christian society is the particular sphere in which the Holy Spirit operates...At this point he is trying to impress his readers that they collectively are Christ's body, his physical presence in the world..” Orr and Walther, I Corinthians

“Your body: Paul's words regard the body of every believer, but also the bodies of all the believers together...'your body' implies that the whole of the bodies is a temple of the Holy Spirit.” F. W. Grosheide, The First Epistle to the Corinthians

One very important implication of this proper understanding of “body” in these passages involves the teaching that some people derive from I Corinthians 3:17. Since it contains a threat against anyone who destroys God's temple, it has been said that those who commit suicide obviously fall into that category. But in reality, the curse is directed toward those who through their actions harm the corporate body of Christ, the church and its individual congregations.

J. I Corinthians 11:27-29 Here is another passage from I Corinthians and involving the communion service, in which the meaning of the word “body” is often misunderstood. The main problem in interpretation concerns the ending phrase in which there is a warning against those who do not judge, recognize or discern the body rightly. In the church I grew up in, we applied this to the question of whether children should take communion. If they were too young to really discern that the communion bread stood for Christ's body, then we were afraid that God might condemn them for partaking. Some denominations deal with that concern by limiting communion only to those who have undergone proper training through a catechism course.

Then there are most Christians who would agree with the interpretation that focuses on the proper decorum and seriousness which we should observe while taking communion. Other groups zero in on the self-examination aspect to say that one can't partake of communion unless there has first been a prior confession of the sins in one's life. All of these practices may be important, but are they really the main emphasis of the passage?

What happens when you look at the larger context of these verses? The limits of the whole passage in question are clearly marked by a literary device called an inclusio: the use of similar phrases to start and end a section dealing with one basic issue.

    “I hear that there are divisions among you...When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord's supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk...you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing...” vv. 18-22

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    “So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation.” vv. 33-34a

The particular passage in question is sandwiched between these two similar statements that set the tone for the whole section. Paul is telling the Corinthians that if they don't properly consider the whole body of Christ to include the poorer ones in their congregation, but instead treat them as second-class citizens while continuing to partake of the Lord's Supper, then they are eating and drinking judgment on themselves.

Why do we misinterpret these various passages in I Corinthians by applying them almost exclusively to our individual selves instead of their proper emphasis, which is on the Christian community as a whole? The book entitled Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes hits the nail on the head when it explains that we live in an individualistic society where the most important thing in our lives is on reaching our own personal potentials and goals, not on finding our role in building up the corporate temple of God, the body of Christ, the Church.

In addition to the above are some popular sayings that people, even some Christians, think are in the Bible, but actually aren't. Here are three examples:

    1. “God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.” Not in the Bible at all, it is part of a poem by William Cowper.

    2. Here is one that my mother-in-law used to quote: “There is no rest for the weary.” Actually, it is a misquote from two verses in Isaiah which say that there is no rest/peace for the wicked, referring to eternal damnation. “No rest for the weary” actually contradicts a promise of Christ found in Matthew 11:28 which says that there is rest for the weary for those who turn to Him.

    3. Lastly, is the old standby, supposedly misquoted even by Louisa May Alcott, which says that money is the root of all evil, rather than “love of money” as found in 1 Timothy 6:10.