LIES IN THE BIBLE

For those of you who have may wandered onto this site by googling the above title, you are probably looking in the wrong place if you are expecting an expose' of the Bible. However, you may want to take a look at my various posts such as “Mathematical Objections to the Bible” or the series beginning with the opening title “Bible Contradictions.” Actually, the short discussion below is a follow-up to an earlier post entitled “Does the Bible Endorse Lying?” That post dealt with the moral and ethical implications of lying whereas I would now like to give some examples from the historical books in the Bible in which characters lie in one way or another. The various way in which they attempt to mislead may help us to identify a lie when we are confronted with one or commit one ourselves.

As a scientist, I sometimes can't help myself from wanting to put things into conveniently categorized boxes. Thus, it is tempting to say that there are two basic types of lies – (1) those told in an attempt to avoid censure from others and thus lose whatever coveted position we are in or reputation we may have and (2) those told in order to falsely put others in a bad light so that we can enhance our own reputation and status. The first category can almost be forgiven since it is committed solely for defensive reasons and doesn't intend to hurt anyone else. However, the second type, the offensive lie, can do untold damage to others solely for evil and selfish motives.

But the more I thought about it – especially with prime examples drawn from the realms of government, entertainment and religion in the past three or four decades – the more I am convinced that those two categories tend to blur together often in real life. So instead, I will just try to classify them in another way.

The Rhetorical Question

Examples of lying appear right in the beginning chapters of the Bible, especially those told by the “Father of lies” himself. After the first couple has been given instructions and warnings by God, the serpent engages them in conversation. After they have informed him of God's words, he says incredulously, “Did God really say that?” This is a form of subtle innuendo that still manages to clearly convey its message: God can't be trusted.

I don't know how many of you may have gotten a phone call during election year like I have in which a person asked you to answer a few questions as part of a supposed telephone poll. One of the first questions usually runs something like this: "Would you still vote for Congressman X if you knew that he was once arrested for having child pornography?" Note that they never state that Congressman X had ever done that, but they strongly imply it.

Exaggeration

At this point in the story (Genesis 3:3), note that Eve gets into the lying act herself by subtly adding to God's actual words when she says that they weren't even allowed to touch the fruit. Now there is a time and place for poetic hyperbole in the Bible in order to forcefully make a point, but no serious person would confuse it with the literal truth. Eve's words do not fall into that category, however.

The Half Truth

In Genesis 3:4-5, Satan continues with his lying by conveying two partial truths (also known as half-lies). First, he says that they will not die if they eat of the fruit. In half-fact, that is true since they live on for many years afterward. But, of course, their process of dying began as soon as they disobeyed God. Next, Satan says that they will be like God Himself in that they will know good and evil. Theologians have pointed out that there is a vast difference between God, who can know fully of good and evil without actually experiencing the latter, whereas the human couple can only learn of evil through personal and sad experience.

Another prime example of the half-truth is told for a slightly more understandable motive, the times when Abraham pawns off his wife Sarah on two rulers who are smitten with her by saying that she is his sister and therefore free game to pursue. He isn't wholly lying since she actually was his half-sister. This is another case where a defensive lie in order to save one's own neck could have had drastic consequences for Sarah and the rulers involved.

Feigning Ignorance

When God confronts Cain just after he has committed fratricide and asks where Abel is, Cain says, “I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?” If Cain has just said the last sentence, it would be a clear example of another category of lie, the Evasion. But in either case, the clear motive was to deceive another party.

Lying Actions

Sometimes one can deceive others without even talking, by a simple shrug of the shoulders or shake of the head, but it is a form of lying nevertheless. David, when he was on the run from Saul, goes to the extreme of drooling and scratching on the gates of the city wall in order to convince King Achish that he is mad (I Samuel 21:12-15).

False Promises

Speaking of city gates, there are two other cases where they are the site of the type of lying found commonly among one class of people, the politician. When Absalom waits at the gates of the city walls to waylay all those who come with a petition or a lawsuit to be heard, he acts the consummate politician by promising them that if he were king, he would actually rule in their favor instead of David. So he is actually campaigning for the office of king to take the place of the incumbent, his father.

A politician's official spokesmen in II Kings 18, the Rabshakeh, makes similar promises to the people listening from the walls of a besieged city by saying that if they will just surrender he will assure them that they will be taken to a land just like theirs and all of them will have their own fertile plots of land for themselves.

Of course neither of the above people had the slightest intention of honoring their promises once they got what they wanted. But the sad fact, learned by most of the OT prophets by experience, is that people would much rather believe a lie that promises to deliver something to their personal advantage than face an uncomfortable truth.

Getting back to the Father of Lies, consider the story of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness. One of the temptations Satan offers is a simple deal: you bow down to me and I will give you all the kingdoms of the world. There is some debate among scholars as to whether Satan was really in any position to deliver on that promise, but I think that we all can agree that if he was, it was highly doubtful that he would have actually done so.

Quoting out of Context

Another of the temptations involves Satan relocating Jesus to the top of a high wall and urging him to jump off. Satan's proof text for saying that Jesus wouldn't be hurt in the least came from Psalm 91, a poetic passage in which David promises that God will keep those who rely on Him free from any sort of harm that might come their way. Satan proves to be a lousy exegete in that he first takes a poetic passage as if it should be understood literally and then quotes it out of context to falsely imply that it also applies to all who purposefully put themselves in harm's way just to test God to see if His promises can really be believed.

Peter probably had such Scripture twisting in mind when he said that some people had misinterpreted Paul's writings either out of ignorance or willfully to their own detriment (II Peter 3:15).

Out-and-Out Lie

Herod the Great provides us a good example here when he requests that the wise men return to him later to tell him where this child is located in order that he might worship him. Of course, the last thing in the world that Herod wants is a pretender to the throne that might threaten his reign or his whole dynasty after he is gone. Herod also demonstrates the purely offensive lie told in order to destroy others so that he can maintain his power.

The Double Entendre

Another interesting example of a lie is when you make a statement that you intend in one way while deceiving another party who is going to take it in a completely different manner. This is precisely what the judge Ehud does when he talks to King Eglon in Judges 3:20. After telling Eglon that he has a secret message to tell him and repeats, “I have a message from God for you.” But the promised message turns out to be a knife in the gut. There is an additional example of this category which also occurs for a good motive.

It has been proposed by some commentators that God actually does the same thing to Jonah in order to deceive him into preaching to the Ninevites. The words that God has the prophet declare are “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overturned!” Jonah has no trouble at all with that message since he would like nothing better than Nineveh be totally destroyed. However, the original word translated “overturned” has another meaning – repent of their ways and turn in another direction. And that is precisely what happens, to Jonah's dismay.

The Excluded Middle

The fallacy of the excluded middle is when someone presents only two options without offering any other possibilities. This forces you to chose between the one that person favors and one that is obviously undesirable. This is also called putting up a straw man in order to knock it down. And in my posts I have given several examples of this sort of deception when it is practiced by Bible commentators who use this form of deception to totally ignore the interpretation that is the most likely of all.

A good biblical example of this type of deception is found in Judges 9:2 when Gideon's illegitimate son Abimelech asks the people of Shechem, “Who would you rather have ruling over you – all 70 of Gideon's other sons or just one, namely me?” Now immediately we think of several other options, any of which would be preferable to the two that Abimelech offers. Shechem could elect to have another judge or God Himself rule over them or they could have chosen the one most likely candidate among the 70 legitimate sons.

Use of Statistics

It has been said that there are several degrees of lying: little white lies, plain lies, damn lies, and statistics. I could only find one possible example of this final category in the Bible. That was when Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 7:28: “I have found only one worthy man out of a thousand, but not one woman among all that I know.” But considering the composition of his huge harem of pagan women, I would have to say that he has not utilized a representative statistical sampling of women in order to make that sweeping generality.

Lying to Yourself

One of the most insidious form of lying is when you actually deceive yourself. King Saul makes what certainly looks like a heartfelt repentance in I Samuel 24, but then he goes right back to his old tricks later. I happen think that at the time, Saul was genuinely repentant when all the time he was just fooling himself.

Caiphas is perhaps another illustration of this problem when he counsels the Sanhedrin in a stirring speech that as much as he hates to say it, it is unfortunately necessary to destroy Jesus before the people start an uprising and Rome crushes us all. His famous words, spoken unknowingly, are “It is better to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” His noble words may have been spoken in earnest, but there is also the real possibility that he was just trying to fool himself into giving a reason to eliminate a person who was turning the hearts of the people away from himself and others like him who held the official positions of spiritual authority in Israel.