Is the Bible B.S. or Truth?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:47 — 10.9MB)

Subscribe: RSS

In this teaching, we examine critiques of the Bible’s morality, particularly arguments raised by activist Dan Savage, who questions its relevance to modern views on human sexuality and morality. Savage argues that if the Bible erred on slavery, it could err on other complex issues, such as homosexuality. We counter such critiques by exploring the Bible’s context, asserting that morality is rooted in God’s unchanging nature. In the battle between secular, situational ethics and biblical morality, only divine authority can establish objective “good” and “bad.” Challenge yourself to consider whether societal standards or divine revelation should shape moral truth.

The trustworthiness of the Bible has been under attack in earnest by skeptical scholars for more than 200 years. In recent times, there have been popularist attacks that use morality arguments to argue against the morality of the Bible.

Dan Savage, homosexual rights activist, columnist and founder of the It Gets Better antibullying campaign, spoke to a large national conference for high school journalists hosted by the National Scholastic Press Association and the Journalism Education Association in April 2012. In a profanity-laden address, he attacked those who quote the Bible as a reason for opposing acceptance of homosexuality.

People often point out that they can’t help it, they can’t help with the anti-gay bullying, because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans that being gay is wrong. We can learn to ignore the [b.s.] about gay people in the Bible the same way we have learned to ignore the [b.s.] in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore [b.s.] in the Bible about all sorts of things. The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waived Bibles over their heads during the civil war and justified it. …

If the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong, slavery, what are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? 100 percent.

These are serious allegations that demand a serious answer:

• If God-directed morality recorded in the Scriptures were wrong, what would that say about the One Who gave those directions?
• Was God endorsing slavery, even as indentured servitude or war brides, by regulating it?
• Was God endorsing murder and killing by directing ancient Israel as an army to kill all opponents, sometimes including women and children, and telling leaders of ancient Israel to execute murderers, adulterers, Sabbath-breakers, false prophets, fornicators, etc.?

Is the Bible wrong about morality?

Morality is the distinction between behavior that is “good,” or acceptable, and that which is “bad,” or unacceptable.

What is “good” and “bad”?

Some secularists argue that morality is what the majority of a society accept as bringing the most “good” to the most people. There are a lot of “grey areas” in this view of morality, because the definitions vary based on time and culture.

However, the majority of some societies today call “good” what many in modern secular Western society would call “bad.”

• honor killings (e.g., some interpretations of Islam)
• genital mutilation (e.g., some locales of Africa)
• infanticide (e.g., bioethicist Peter Singer)
• human euthanasia (e.g., Holland and Oregon)
• mistresses (e.g., France)
• polygamy/polyamory (e.g., some locales in Africa)

The U.S. Constitution provides a unique and broad legal framework to protect the rights of minorities and mitigates the power of the majority to impose their ideas on those who may not agree with them.

And there have been times in recorded history when the majority can be convinced that it is “good” to get rid of “bad” elements of society.

• Pogroms of Jews by ancient Rome, Czarist Russia, etc.
• Roman Catholic Inquisition in Spain & Portugal
• Eugenics of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, Nazi Germany

According to the Bible:

• God defines “good” and “bad.” At the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad in Eden, it was established that Elohim is the only true source of  knowledge of what is “good” and “bad.”
• “What is good” is to do justice, love loving-kindness, walk humbly with God.

“He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?” (Mic. 6:8)

“Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does evil has not seen God.” (3rd John 1:11)

• Obey secular authorities as agents of God, as horrific as they seem at the given time.

“Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. ² Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. ³ For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; ⁴ for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. ⁵ Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. ⁶ For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. ⁷ Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.” (Rom 13:1–7)

The context of this is ancient Rome, which was brutal and oppressive but did have some system of justice and peace-keeping. The extent of the Roman government’s capriciousness and cruelty are well recorded, but at least they maintained a degree of peace and safety, called Pax Romana, or Peace of Rome. It was the Pax Romana that allowed the Apostles to travel and spread the message of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven on well-maintained and relatively safe roads.

This doesn’t apply to all nations for all time, such as North Korea, which is neither peaceful nor looking out for the welfare of its subjects. People of the Commonwealth of Israel living in nations with different sets of laws are subject to those laws up to the point of personally violating laws of God.

Which view of “good” and “bad” is correct?

That depends on whether there can be objective morality, or laws of morality.

The secular view of existence

• All that is came from what is.
• Situations in that existence emerge from and are determined by what is in that existence.
• Total death is an irreversible condition.
• Therefore:

• Principles for morality come from existence itself and not from outside of it.
• A consistent position under this viewpoint must hold that morality depends on the conditions of any particular time. Sometimes, this is called “situational ethics.”
• Morality that calls for death of the “bad” is to be avoided.
• “Do no harm” may work in one context, but “kill ’em all” would work in another context.

Yet, this is the universe in which we live and explore:

• Universally applicable laws of physics require a controlling element to maintain scientifically discoverable order throughout time and space.
• Universal laws of mathematics require an operating environment in which to function, supplied by the laws of physics.
• Laws of information require a sender.
• Laws of morality must exist for science and human interactions:

• Honesty: Physical phenomena and dealings between people represented accurately to be reliable for further research and interactions.
• Faithfulness: Previous research and representations must be reliable for a growing body of knowledge and relationships.
• Justice: False representations and hostile behavior are damaging to knowledge, relationships and life and must be prevented through dissuasion.
• Mercy: Foibles and mistakes by honest dealers must be put in the past for the pursuit of knowledge and close relationships to continue.

The question of whether God exists or not is not a side issue in a debate on morals, it is the issue. The idea, held by Darwinists, that if the world was created by what already existed, is not only illogical, it is a fantasy.

The Bible view of existence

• “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).

• God establishes order, sets up rulers and takes them down, creates life and destroys it.
• God testifies that He doesn’t change. “For I, the Lord, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.” (Mal 3:6)
• Death is not irreversible to God. Death is only final when God decides not to restore life.
• Therefore:

• Morality comes from God.
• God’s morality doesn’t change.
• Morality that calls for death of the “bad” is “bad” — the offender is removed from existence — but not final.

Modern Jewish and Christian leaders, even Jewish Christian apologists, haven’t helped the situation by arguing that God’s Law has been thankfully walked back from the harshness of the Torah days. Jewish Christian apologist Dr. Michael Brown asserted in the last of a three-part response to Mr. Savage:

In his talk to high school journalism students, Dan Savage mocked the fact that the Bible “says that if your daughter’s not a virgin on her wedding night – if a woman isn’t a virgin on her wedding night – she shall be dragged to her father’s doorstep and stoned to death.”

Was this law ever justifiable? In ancient Israel, which the Bible states was a theocracy instituted by God himself (according to the Torah, God delivered the children of Israel from Egypt and then spoke his laws to them from Mount Sinai) and which was part of a culture where it was almost unthinkable for a girl to lose her virginity to another man before marriage, a law like this was hardly exceptional.

That being said, by New Testament times, Jewish leaders had virtually abolished the death penalty for such offenses, Jesus stopped a Jewish crowd from stoning a woman caught in adultery, and Paul taught that there were spiritual consequences rather than corporal consequences for such offenses. As for today, in absolutely no shape, size, or form could I (along with every conservative Christian whom I know personally) ever dream of advocating the death penalty for premarital sex, nor could I could dream of advocating the death penalty for adultery or homosexual practice. Obviously not!

But let’s ask ourselves an honest question. While people on both sides of the debate categorically reject such legal punishments for sexual violations, is our contemporary society really in a position to make judgments on ancient Israel when it comes to sexual morality? …

Perhaps rather than focusing on the issue of the death penalty for premarital sex in ancient Israel – which, to repeat, I categorically reject as a legal standard for today – we should take a hard look at the destructive effects of the rampant, out of control, sexual promiscuity of our day. Perhaps rather than gloating about our “progressive” attitudes towards premarital, extramarital, and homosexual sex, we should rue the fact that in 1969, 21 percent of Americans believed that “Premarital sex is not wrong” while in 2009, 60 percent stated it was not wrong.

Solutions to the “bad God” assertion

Dr. Brown’s comments hint at this: The unsavory aspects of the Torah were established because the alternative is worse. Further, I contend that these unsavory aspects are judgments based on truly evil situations of the time period. Once those situations (child-sacrificing pagan worship in the land of Israel) disappeared, the need for the heavy hand.

Given incomplete knowledge of the time period, we can either trust God’s prescription for the situation or feign complete knowledge that the remedy was worse than the condition.

Speaker: Jeff