We refer to the Bible as a book. Technically, it's a library of 66 books. Okay, fine. Whatever. But one of the key discussions/disagreements over the Bible is its value. Is it true? Is it valid? Is it from God or from men? And even if we accept that it's true and it's from God, can we understand it?
On the surface I think we'd all agree that the question is obvious and understandable. I mean, look at the amount of disagreement there is over the thing. You get everything from "I believe the Bible, but you know the creation is a myth and Jesus never really came back from the dead and, hey, we're not even sure there ever really was a Jesus" to "I believe that Jesus is an actual door with hinges because He said He was the door and I take my Bible literally." Theologians have referred to the principle of what they call "the perspicuity of Scripture" (which I always found ironic because "perspicuity" is supposed to mean "easily understood", but who understands "perspicuity"?). The principle, then, is that "the meanings of the text can be clear to the ordinary reader, that God uses the text of the Bible to communicate His person and will." But, look, if Scripture is clear, why is there so much disagreement? Obviously, it's not so clear.
Well, I have two answers here. Pick one for yourself. Or both, if you wish.
First, there is no doubt that certain parts of the Bible are hard to understand. No "principle of perspicuity" will be able to dispel that fact. There are problems of translation. Just what, exactly, did the writer mean when he wrote "X", because, frankly, it's a dead language and we're not entirely sure how to translate it. There is the problem of translation related to the available texts. Now, we have a lot of texts, but some don't agree with others. Most modern Bibles include notes that will say, in places, something like, "Some older manuscripts do not include this passage." Mark 16:9-20, for instance, is not found in the earlier manuscripts. You know, that stuff about drinking poison and picking up snakes? Not in the earlier manuscripts. In fact, there is a phrase, typically at the end of verse 20, that doesn't appear in some manuscripts and in the ones that it does it varies. Some put it after verse 8 and others after verse 20.
"Oh, now, see? You can't trust your translation!" No, we can't go there. I don't mean merely we shouldn't. I mean we can't rationally go there. First, the number of these texts is miniscule. Second, the content of these texts do not change much of anything. For instance, this Mark 16 text covers the resurrection ... with much more detail and corroboration offered in the other gospels. If Mark's gospel didn't include this, what would we conclude? It's not safe to pick up venemous snakes ... which most of us already knew. So it's not an issue. The number is small and none of these questionable texts are required to prove any major doctrine of Christianity. No problem. I might suggest we don't build major doctrines on these passages. Take, for instance, John 7:53-8:11 -- basically the story of the woman caught in adultery. Only found in the later manuscripts. Interesting story, but let's not build a doctrine of "never say anything about sin to anyone" on it or, worse, "Jesus doesn't care about sin" (which I've actually heard based on this text).
Beyond translation, however, there are other difficulties in the clarity of Scripture. Consider James. He writes, "Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, 'He yearns jealously over the Spirit that he has made to dwell in us'?" (James 4:5) In my Bible alone there are three different translations of that last phrase. You have "He yearns jealously over the Spirit that He has made to dwell in us" or "The spirit which He has made to dwell in us lusts with envy" or "The Spirit that dwells in us jealously regards us as His own." Similarly, one translator writes it as "The Spirit which He implanted yearns tenderly over us." All different. It may be His Spirit in view or ours. It may be our spirit that lusts and envies or God's Spirit who is jealous about us. It may be ... well, we're not sure. Presumably the ones to whom James wrote got it; we're not completely clear on it. Then there are things of which we have no correspondence. There are a few mentions of various stones, for instance, in Scripture, some of which we don't know what they are. Translations vary because exactly what stone corresponds to today's stones isn't clear. Or how about the pits in Genesis? There is a reference in Genesis 14:10 to a valley called Siddim that "was full of ... pits." What kind of pits? Tiptoe through the translations and you'll find "slimepits" (KJV), "bitumen pits" (ESV), "asphalt pits" (LITV), "clay pits" (CJB), "tar pits" (NIV) ... oh, I like this one, from the Amplified Bible, "slime or bitumen pits" ... nice. So, what's up with that? Well, the actual text says "pit pits". It simply repeats the word. A Hebraism where repetition increases intensity. In this case, "very pitty".
So one answer to the problem of disagreement is that there are difficulties, both in translation and in content. I said I had two answers. What's the other? Let's face it, all of this stuff is negligible. I mean, if they translated the word as "carbuncle" and the author actually meant "diamond", how will that change our understanding of God, biblical doctrine, or how we should then live? Not one iota. What, then, really is the issue in the clarity of Scripture? Why don't we all get along in that regard? While I am sure there are a few matters of actual disagreement between serious students of Scripture who are genuine believers, I would have to guess that by far the problem of disagreement of what it says and means is not in the ambiguity of the text or translation. I'd guess that most of it is in the willingness to believe it.
An obvious example is Genesis. Did God actually create the world? It says He did, but, hey, we know better today because Darwin proved He didn't. It's not that the text is unclear, ambiguous, or hard to translate. It's that people choose, based on science, to reject the clear intent of the text. Some do so with malice. "You Bible people are all nuts. Anyone can see that." Some do it with good intentions. "Well, if we understand the text to mean something different than all of history has understood it to mean, it can align with science and leave the Bible intact." But neither of these are due to the texts.
I would argue that more often than aligning Scripture with science, the most common shift occurs in aligning Scripture with preference. Clearly those who argue that the Bible has nothing to say about homosexual behavior, for instance, are arguing not from clear texts, but from a prior position that wants to allow the behavior. The texts are not hard to translate, unclear on their content, or ambiguous in their intent. No, it is the reader that changes it, so the reader is the one causing the division on this topic that was always clear in the Church before. The same is true on many of the "differences of opinion" held today in the church. Sex outside of marriage, divorce, abortion, the definition of marriage, women in church leadership -- on and on -- these topics are not vague. Scripture is not unclear. Many have simply opted to choose their preferred view to override a biblical view. So adept are we at this that eventually we end up with the notion that a biblical view is our view rather than shaping our view by Scripture and we don't even realize how confused and convoluted we are.
The truth is the Bible is God's Word -- breathed out by God. The truth is that God used men in the past to write down in their own words under the Spirit's supervision to say what God wanted said. The truth is that God's Word, then, is reliable and truthful, without error in the original text, (which we have a 99% certainty we hold). And, the truth is that in terms of important doctrine and important instructions for living, the Bible is abundantly clear. The problem, then, is not the Bible. The problem is us. Will we bend to it or twist it to ourselves? You'll have to answer that for yourself.
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