Reading difficult passages honestly

Program / Course 17: Defending Scripture / Lesson 5.1

What you will learn

• Name the kinds of difficulty that readers find in the Old Testament: factual, moral and theological.
• Describe the main approaches Christians have used for morally troubling texts.
• State the moral objection of a critic in its strongest form.
• Apply a set of questions that avoids both softening a text and using it as a weapon.

The big idea

Some Old Testament passages trouble thoughtful readers, believers and non-believers alike, because they describe or command acts of violence, the treatment of women and enslaved persons, or portrayals of God that seem hard to square with the God of Jesus. An honest reading begins by saying plainly what the text says, and then asks about its setting, its genre, its place in the whole Bible and how the church has read it. It does not pretend the difficulty is smaller than it is, and it does not use the text as a ready excuse for cruelty.

Key terms

Progressive revelation

The view that God disclosed himself step by step through history, so earlier texts reflect an incomplete understanding that later Scripture develops.

Accommodation

The idea that God spoke through the cultural forms and limitations of the people to whom he spoke.

Canonical reading

Reading each passage in light of the whole Bible, especially in light of Christ.

Typology

Reading persons, events and institutions in the Old Testament as foreshadowing Christ and the church.

Theodicy

An attempt to defend the goodness and justice of God in the face of evil and suffering.

Descriptive and prescriptive

A descriptive text reports what happened. A prescriptive text says what should happen. Much difficulty comes from confusing the two.

Marcionism

The ancient view that the God of the Old Testament is a different and lesser god than the Father of Jesus. The church rejected it.

Background

The question is old. Marcion in the second century proposed to discard the Old Testament because its God seemed harsh. The church refused, holding that the God of Israel is the Father of Jesus. Origen, a few generations later, wrote that some passages seem unworthy of God if read at the level of the letter, and recommended searching for a deeper sense. In recent centuries, critics such as Voltaire and, more recently, popular authors have pressed the objection in sharper form, and some Christians have replied by narrowing the force of the texts, while others have defended them as just.

This lesson does not give a verdict on each text. It sets out how to read. The next lessons apply the approach to the conquest of Canaan and to slavery. Throughout, it is worth remembering that the Bible itself contains protests against violence and injustice, such as the prophets’ denunciations of oppression, and that the question of how to read hard texts is one the Bible’s own readers have always asked.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Say what the text says

Begin with a plain statement of the passage, with no softening. If a text records a command to destroy a city, say so. If a law treats a woman as property in a way that offends modern readers, say so. A defender who begins by explaining away the text loses the trust of the critic, and a critic who begins by exaggerating it loses the trust of the believer.

Then check the translation. Some difficult-sounding phrases in older English versions are less strong in the Hebrew, and some are stronger. Ask a pastor or consult a commentary if you need to. An honest reading is built on the most accurate rendering available.

Step 2: Place it in its setting

Ask about the world in which the text arose. The Old Testament was written in the ancient Near East, among societies with kings, wars of conquest, slavery, and laws that made distinctions by status and sex. Comparisons with other ancient law codes, such as the Code of Hammurabi, show that Israel’s laws sometimes shared the practices of neighbors, sometimes limited them and sometimes differed sharply. Knowing this does not make a hard text good, but it prevents anachronism.

Ask about genre. A report of what happened in a battle is not a law, and a law is not a promise. A poem may use the language of war to express trust in God. Prophetic oracles often use exaggerated images. Mistaking one genre for another is a frequent source of confusion.

Step 3: Place it in the whole Bible

Christian readers read the Old Testament in light of the New. Jesus summarizes the law as love of God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40) and tells his hearers that they have heard it said, an eye for an eye, but he says love your enemies (Matthew 5:38-44). The New Testament treats parts of the Old Testament law as fulfilled or set aside (Acts 15, Hebrews 8). This gives a way of reading in which earlier commands are not necessarily binding now.

Different approaches follow. Progressive revelation says the earlier texts reflect real revelation at an early stage. Accommodation says that God spoke within the limits of the culture, so that some regulations restrain evil rather than approve it. Typology says some violent images point to spiritual conflict. Each has defenders and critics, and each is used in different proportions by different churches.

Step 4: The strongest objection

A critic can put the objection this way. If the God of the Bible is perfectly good, he would not command the killing of children or regulate slavery instead of ending it. To say that the culture could not bear more is to say that God lacks the power or the will to speak clearly. To say that the texts reflect only human ideas of God is to say that the Bible is not what believers claim. The critic then asks believers to choose which horn to accept.

Believers answer in several ways. Some argue that God has the right to give and take life and that the ancient judgments were just. Others argue that the texts use stylized war language and do not describe actual slaughter. Others hold that the texts record the people’s understanding of God’s will, which was real but incomplete. Others admit that the difficulty is acute and appeal to the cross as the final revelation of God’s character. The answers differ in how much they concede, and they are not equally persuasive to everyone.

Step 5: Questions to ask

A short list helps. What does the text say? Who is speaking and to whom? Is it descriptive or prescriptive? What is the setting? How does the rest of the Bible, and especially Christ, bear on it? How have the major traditions read it? What are the strongest objections and the strongest replies? What remains unresolved? A student who works through these questions will not settle every case, but will speak with accuracy and respect.

1. What difficult Old Testament passage first troubled you, and why?
2. What is the danger of softening a hard text before understanding it?
3. What is the danger of using a hard text without regard to its setting?
4. How could the idea of progressive revelation be criticized, and how might its supporters reply?
5. Is it fair for a critic to judge ancient texts by modern moral standards? Where is the line?
6. How does the cross change how a Christian reads Old Testament violence?

Examples

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catechism teaches that the Old Testament contains imperfect and provisional matters, as the Second Vatican Council said, yet is a true word of God. Catholic interpreters use the senses of Scripture, literal and spiritual, and read violent texts in light of Christ. Some Catholic scholars have written on the problem of violence in the Bible at length.

Orthodox

Orthodox tradition has often read difficult texts allegorically, following Origen and other Fathers, seeing the wars of Israel as figures of the soul’s struggle against sin. The tradition also reads the Old Testament as pointing to Christ. Orthodox writers insist that the God of the Old Testament is the God revealed in Christ.

Protestant (Reformed)

Reformed theology has typically held that God is just in all his commands, that he has the right over life, and that the conquest narratives are about judgment on sin. Reformed writers also stress the unity of the covenants. Some contemporary Reformed scholars give attention to ancient literary conventions.

Protestant (other)

Anabaptist and Mennonite writers read the Old Testament through the nonviolence of Jesus and often say that the cross reveals God’s nature decisively. Other contemporary Protestants speak of the Old Testament as a witness that is real but partial, and some are open to the idea that the biblical authors misunderstood God’s will in places.

Jewish and secular

Jewish tradition has often read hard texts through rabbinic interpretation that limits and reshapes them. Secular critics argue that the texts show a tribal view of God, and that moral progress required moving beyond them. Believers respond that the same tradition carried the seeds of that progress.

Why it matters

Difficult passages are where many people lose confidence in the Bible, and where others become hardened in a reading they have not examined. A reading that is honest, informed and charitable can serve both. The topic also tests the claim that the God of the Bible is good. A person who studies the way the traditions have addressed it can speak with integrity to a doubting friend, even when no answer is wholly satisfying.

Common misunderstandings

Knowledge check

Think it through

1. What do you do when a passage of Scripture offends your moral sense? What should you do?
2. Which of the approaches in this lesson do you find most convincing, and where does it strain?
3. How would you speak to a friend who left the faith over a difficult passage?

Independent assignment

Apply the questions

In your own notebook, choose a difficult Old Testament passage (for example Psalm 137, Judges 19 or Exodus 21). Write 350 to 450 words answering the questions in Step 5, with attention to what the text says, its setting, how Christ bears on it, how two traditions might read it, and what remains unresolved. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.

Further study

• Origen, On First Principles (De Principiis) Read selectively where Origen discusses passages that seem unworthy of God at the literal level.
• Augustine of Hippo, The City of God Read selectively where Augustine discusses war and judgment.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Problem of Evil Read for the philosophical background on the goodness of God and evil.
• Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth Read the chapters on the law and on narratives for help with descriptive and prescriptive texts.
• Matthew 5:38 Jesus on an eye for an eye.
• Exodus 34:6 The Lord, merciful and gracious, in the Old Testament.
• Psalm 137 An honest prayer of anguish.