Arguing the Bible

This is not going to be particularly deep. I was prompted to write something in response to a popular YouTuber. It doesn’t really matter who this individual is, as the observations made were not unique, just everyday atheistic observations. I come at this as someone who self-identifies as a Christian but could just as easily be described as an atheist. I realize this might sound odd, and hopefully, what I write here will clear up some confusion. If not, just buy me a beer, and I'll happily pontificate further.

The YouTuber in question was getting hung up on the historicity of the Bible. Questions like, "Did X really happen?", "Did Jesus really walk out of the tomb?", "Was there really an exodus of Jews from Egypt?" His sparring partner in the conversation was equivocating hard. I can understand why. Given such questions, the desire to equivocate might arise, and I can see why someone might feel frustrated, not believing their questions were being adequately addressed. "Yes, I get all that, but if I were to get into a time machine and go back to whenever..." bla bla.

The communication breakdown here has to do with purpose. What was the purpose of the biblical text when it says X or Y? We’re taught in seminary that the Bible is not so much a book, but rather a library, and within this library are different genres, some more historical in nature, and some more poetical. Obviously, this is a gross simplification. However, I don’t believe there are any books in the Bible that rise to the standards of historicity that we could find upon the shelves of our local library’s history section. Rather, I would maintain that historical truth is something that occasionally, but rarely, leaks into the Bible. In other words, recording 'historical truth' in the very contemporary sense in which we understand that was not the purpose that inspired the biblical texts.

Rather, the biblical texts are on a mission to persuade their readers of something. And by ‘their readers,’ I’m not talking about us. The individuals who wrote the various books of the Bible obviously could not have entertained the possibility that one day, over 2000 years in the future, individuals would be drinking black energy juice while reading their words in translation off of magic light screens kept in their pockets.

These writers were attempting to persuade their audience of some political or spiritual reality. If anything, it is this that is of utmost importance. Given this, I think the whole ‘Did X really happen?’ framing is basically rendered meaningless. Whether X did or did not happen is not at all what the text is about. I’m torn as to whether it is sometimes worth putting people out of their misery and proclaiming the fact of things one way or another, just so they would cease to entertain such meaningless questions and begin entertaining the text’s purpose.

There is a presumption baked into my reasoning here, and that presumption is that the purposes that the various texts are driving at are worthy of our attention.