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Some of the seeming contradictions in scripture may be termed ''theological tensions/contradictions''. | Some of the seeming contradictions in scripture may be termed ''theological tensions/contradictions''. | ||
− | *'''High Christology and | + | *'''High Christology and low Christology:''' It has long been observed by scholars that the Markan account of the Savior portrays Jesus as more human—lowly, and mortal—than the Johannine account which portrays Jesus as godlike from the antemortal realm to the end of his life. Scholars generally believe that the Markan account holds what they term a "low Christology" and the Johannine account a "high Christology."<ref>Julie M. Smith, ''The Gospel According to Mark'' (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2018), 17–20.</ref> |
− | *'''Performing | + | *'''Performing alms:''' How can we not perform our alms in public (Matthew 6:1) but also let our light shine before the world (Matthew 5:16)? |
− | *'''Becoming and | + | *'''Becoming and not becoming a child:''' How can we set childish things aside (1 Corinthians 13:11) and become as a child (Matthew 18:3)? |
− | + | The principles we discuss below might also be useful when we approach non-canonized but respected teachings by general authorities of the Church. | |
==Response to question== | ==Response to question== |
The proper interpretation and understanding of scripture is essential to the continued health and vitality of ever believer's faith, and it is a key means whereby interested seekers can come to faith.
And, what do we do if we come to something in scripture that we believe may be a contradiction?
This article offers some principles and procedures which may help.
The scriptures won't be understood if we don't understand the nature of revelation. This is addressed on this page.
"Exegesis" is a fancy word for the interpretation or explanation of scripture.
OFten, when we’re speaking of exegesis, we are trying to understand how the first hearers/readers of those scriptures understood them. We assume that the historical background of that scripture can tell us something about how to interpret it.
There are a few stages in getting the scriptural author's meaning from their brain into our brain:
Exegesis tries to help us better at understand what an author may have meant, and how they wrote to express that meaning. To make things more tricky, we remember that the author is usually from an ancient culture, and even Joseph Smith's early 19th century culture is very foreign to us in some ways.
This means that their ways of thinking and writing will probably not be the same as ours—and may be completely foreign to us.
The historical-grammatical method of exegesis helps us to try and get a more accurate understanding of the first two stages of transmission so that the interpretation made at the last stage of transmission can be best informed.
Latter-day Saints are encouraged to seek to understand scripture in its original context. Scripture contains several admonitions to not wrest it.[1] Nephi in the Book of Mormon has to pause his quotation of/commentary on Isaiah in order to explain "the manner of prophesying among the Jews" so that his people could understand Isaiah.[2]
This suggests that we, too, may learn more if we try to understand scripture in context.
President Brigham Young stated:
Do you read the Scriptures, my brethren and sisters, as though you were writing them a thousand, two thousand, or five thousand years ago? Do you read them as though you stood in the place of the men who wrote them? If you do not feel thus, it is your privilege to do so, that you may be as familiar with the spirit and meaning of the written word of God as you are with your daily walk and conversation, or as you are with your workmen or with your households. You may understand what the Prophets understood and thought—what they designed and planned to bring forth to their brethren for their good.[3]
A translation by an expert is only the first step. We may then need more help to understand what the translated English word might be getting at. Even English words as contained in the King James Bible (the Church’s officially preferred translation for English readers) may be hard to understand because they either aren’t in common use anymore or because they have shifted in meaning over time. Often, we are most at risk of making this kind of mistake with an English text—because we assume we know what English words mean.
An example of this problem is the word "virtue" in the Bible. In Ruth 3꞉11, we read "And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requires: for all the city of my people doth know that thou art a virtuous woman." And in Proverbs 31꞉10 we read "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies." With these verses we might easily conclude that the King James translators meant something like "to be chaste."
But, Luke 6꞉19 reads "And the whole multitude sought to touch [Jesus]: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all." So, did chastity left Jesus’ body after a woman touched him? We undestand better when we realize that "virtue" for the King James translators was closer what we call "power" than "chastity." The footnote at the end of this paragraph has many suggestions of tools to help.[4]
As the Lord says five times in the Doctrine & Covenants, "what [he says] unto one [he says] unto all."[5] Scripture must be read holistically. If we are to understand it, then it must be understood as a whole. This so we can understand how the scriptures complement, supplement, expand, update, retract, and/or revise each other.
To read scripture holistically, you should first have very clear in mind what topic you want to explore or question that they want answered. For instance, suppose you want to study the topic of charity in the scriptures. Next, you should try and imagine which terms touch on that topic. For instance, the scriptures contain over 600 occurrences of the words "charity," "charitable," "love," "loved," "loves," "lovest," "loving," "loving kindness," and "loving kindnesses." Finally, you could read every occurence of those words contextually (following the steps laid out below) President Russell M. Nelson suggested something like this method when he read every name used for Jesus Christ in all scripture.[6]
There may be topics that don't fall so easily under identifiable word clusters. For instance, to learn about the Creation we need to read the four creation accounts in Genesis, Moses, Abraham, and the temple. We should understand that the Lord has not revealed all things pertaining to creation but will reveal them at his second coming.[7] In cases such as these, we might need other tools, some of which are in the footnote.[8]
There are also many wonderful and free resources available on-line.[9]
One should also consider what Latter-day Saint leaders have said about the passages of scripture that we're studying. The BYU Scripture Citation Index and the LDS General Conference Corpus are fantastic resources.
Our theology is not threatened by science. Properly understood, any truth will fit with any other truth. Scripture provides one way to learn truth, and science provides another. D&C 88꞉77-79 says:
And I give unto you a commandment that you shall teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom. Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand; Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are. Things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms
Science can, should, and does support revelation on many particulars. We should welcome its voice to our spiritual reasoning when determining what God is trying to reveal to us or what he may reveal to us. This isn’t to say that current science will always agree with revelation or that revelation will eventually change to fit the demands of the scientific community,
But, there is no need to see revelation and science at war, nor do we need to compartmentalize our understanding of truth. Science will generally reveal God's physical laws, while revelation will generally reveal God’s spiritual laws.
At times, science will seem to not agree with scripture. This could mean:
As President Dallin H. Oaks recommended:
Religious persons who pursue scientific disciplines sometimes encounter what seem to be conflicts between the respective teachings of science and religion and must work through how to handle these apparent conflicts. Others, such as I in my pursuit of business and law, can be less troubled. For me, that detachment ended when I was appointed president of Brigham Young University. This new position required me to search out, learn, and articulate answers to questions I had previously been privileged to ignore....
Colleges and universities must of course teach science—facts and theories—but Church educators, like the BYU faculty, refrain from substituting science for God and continue to rely on the truths of religion. In the study of science, teachers and students with religious faith have the challenge to define the relationship of science and religion in their thinking. They have the special advantage of seeing countless scientific evidences of the Divine Creator. In those exceptional circumstances where science and religion seem to conflict, they have the wisdom to wait patiently in the assurance that truth will eventually prevail. In doing so, most conclude that religion does not have the answers to all questions and that some of what science "knows" is tentative and theoretical and will be replaced in time by new discoveries and new theories.
Some try to deal with apparent conflicts by compartmentalizing science and religion—one in one category, such as Monday through Saturday, and the other in another category, such as Sunday. That was my initial approach, but I came to learn its inadequacy. We are supposed to learn by both reason and revelation, and that does not happen when we compartmentalize science and religion. Our searchings should be disciplined by human reason and also enlightened by divine revelation. In the end, truth has only one content and one source, and it encompasses both science and religion....
Latter-day Saints should strive to use both science and religion to extend knowledge and to build faith. But those who do so must guard against the significant risk that efforts to end the separation between scientific scholarship and religious faith will only promote a substandard level of performance, where religion and science dilute one another instead of strengthening both.
For some, an attempt to mingle reason and faith can result in irrational scholarship or phony religion, either condition demonstrably worse than the described separation. This danger is illustrated by the case of an international scholar who was known as an expert in English law when he was in America and as an expert in American law when he was in England. Not fully distinguished in either field, he nevertheless managed to slip back and forth between the two so that his expertise was never properly subjected to qualified review in either. As a result, he provided a poor imitation in both. A genuine mingling of the insights of reason and revelation is infinitely more difficult....
Each of us should pursue...truth by reason and by faith. And each of us should increase our ability to communicate that truth by an inspired combination of the language of scholarship and the language of faith.
I am confident that when we progress to the point where we know all things, we will find a harmony of all truth. Until that time, it is wise for us to admit that our understanding—in religion and in science—is incomplete and that the resolution of most seeming conflicts is best postponed. In the meantime, we do the best we can to act upon our scientific knowledge, where that is required, and always upon our religious faith, placing our ultimate reliance for the big questions and expectations of life on the eternal truths revealed by our Creator, which transcend human reason, "for with God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37).[10]
Not every scriptural passage agrees with every other. At times, there can even be what seems like a direct contradiction.
Some of the seeming contradictions in scripture may be termed historical contradictions.
Some of the seeming contradictions in scripture may be termed theological tensions/contradictions.
The principles we discuss below might also be useful when we approach non-canonized but respected teachings by general authorities of the Church.
Now let's lay out some ways to approach evaluating a potential contradiction.
It is our sacred duty as Latter-day Saints to defend the faith. For those that have entered the temple and received their endowment, you have pledged everything you have or will have in defending and sustaining the kingdom of God. Scripture admonishes us to always have a reason for the hope that is within us and to call upon our enemies to confound them both in public and private.[16] Thus, defending the faith is a duty we take on as we have covenanted with God to do so.
This is our duty as it relates to defending scripture:
Why is this our duty? Well first, as already mentioned, we have covenanted to defend the faith. But people also need to know that the spiritual guides that they look to are reliable as spiritual guides. We are not going to be able to retain members or gain converts by being passive to our critics and allowing them to paint the scriptures and prophets as unreliable spiritual guides. We need to uphold the scriptures and the prophets as reliable guides as much as humanly possible.
If we metaphorize every miracle recorded in scripture, we run the risk of making it appear as if God doesn't really intervene in this world and doesn't actually work miracles.
If we condemn a lot of scriptural morals, what morals of scripture can we actually rely on and trust as morals we should actually live by?
If we affirm every possible contradiction/tension in scripture, how does that affect the reliability of scripture?
Of course, this is not to say that the scriptures are infallible. It's only to say that we should defend it as much as possible. There may be times, as already noted, where it indeed is impossible to defend something as consistent. This isn't an issue. What is an issue is making seeing the flaws our first instinct. Our first instinct should be to defend scripture.
One way that Evangelical and Catholic apologists defend the Bible is by saying that a contradiction cannot be termed a contradiction until all other scenarios that make the two or more passages in question in conflict are ruled out. For instance, "Matthew 28:2 says there was only one angel at the tomb of Jesus, while Mark 16:5 [says] there was one young man clothed in a long white garment. Luke 24:4 and John 20:12 tells us there were two angels at the tomb."[17] But this may mean, instead of the passages being contradictory, that some accounts were simply more detailed in their relation of events after Jesus' resurrection from the tomb than others. The young man in the long white garment may just be a description of an angel that Mark decided to give. We can't say that a passage is truly contradictory until all scenarios for resolving the contradictions are ruled out. Latter-day Saints may consider whether this principle will be useful for them in defending the high authority of scripture.
Let's talk a little bit more about infallibility/inerrancy.
Latter-day Saints do not believe in the doctrine of Scriptural Inerrancy where the scriptures must be completely historically accurate, contain no theological tensions, and have no contradictions. That said, Latter-day Saints tend to hold the scriptures with a high degree of authority. How can this be the case? We don’t believe that scripture is inerrant, yet we also don’t want others to believe that we seek to create a God after our own image (Doctrine & Covenants 1:16) or that we believe that truth cannot be found in scripture.
Using the principles below will reveal how we can believe in the reliability of scripture.
As several Church leaders have cautioned, the scriptures must be read intelligently. You must have a method for getting the proper interpretation and understanding of scripture. We've outlined a method here. You also need to understand how Latter-day Saints understand the nature of prophetic revelation: how it will be given to us, when it will be given to us, and on what subjects. We've outlined that here.
Having this method in line will help you to recognize when two, seemingly contradictory accounts can either not be contradictory at all or both be equally right even if mentioning two different things.
For example, two friends, David and Michael, go the store. David can report this event to his parents as if only he went to the store: "Oh, this afternoon I went to Wal-Mart." Michael can report the same event as if only he went to the store. Both boys are equally right.
It should be remembered that the presence of contradiction in the relation of a historical event does not negate the occurrence of the event. One should focus on the essential reality of the event being described itself rather than the presence of contradictions in the relation of the event or the ahistoricity of one account of that event. The broad outlines of the Bible, Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, and Book of Moses can be trusted as historically plausible.[18]
Similarly, scriptural authors may be writing from a historical perspective. Scholar Pete Enns gives the example of God’s opinion of the Assyrians: in the book of Jonah, God really likes the Assyrians and wants them to be saved; but in the book of Nahum, God destroys them. Is God contradicting himself? Or are biblical authors just writing from their distinct, historically-situated perspectives?[19] God may certainly like the Assyrians and want to save them, but that doesn’t mean that his justice won’t be brought down on them if they deserve it.
Sometimes differing and competing theological perspectives in scripture were meant to be brought into dialogue so that a synthesis of views could be abstracted. As the author of Proverbs tells us: "iron sharpeneth iron" (Proverbs 27:17).[20] This is one of many reasons that scripture should be read both contextually and holistically.
Citing scripture, Latter-day Saints frequently talk about how revelation comes through the prophets "line upon line, precept upon precept."[21] "Line upon line" has two features or functions:
Thus, rather than contradicting a previous passage, a subsequent passage may be complementing or supplementing the first.
In Section 56 of the Doctrine & Covenants, the Lord states:
This scripture does not condone moral relativism. The Lord is indeed bound by a moral law that is factual. All this means is that there are sometimes multiple, equally good ways to bring about the same end, and that the Lord will choose between these ways as adaptions to the conditions of the world and his covenant people. Additionally, there are times where more emphasis needs to be placed one moral end over others. There are many times when—in our quest to bring about individual or communal flourishing—that we have competing moral goods that can be met. Sometimes, our best thinking and tools do not allow us to know what is the most important moral good to achieve and how to structure our behavior nor or in the future as well as individually or communally to achieve that good. Revelation may "contradict" itself and change as we fulfill those moral goods and then have other moral goods that we must meet.
Readers should keep this scripture in mind when evaluating "contradictions" in the commandments and covenants God has given his people throughout time.
Doctrine & Covenants 19:6–7, 10–12 states:
Prior to this time, Joseph Smith's revelations seem to indicate that "endless punishment" might refer to something like eternal torment in a burning hell. This revelation shows us that what we know about the afterlife though is likely contingent upon what will motivate us to repent and to turn to God.
Readers should keep this in mind when evaluating what sort of "contradictions" exist about the afterlife in the scriptural record.
Latter-day Saints believe in the concept of dispensations: periods of time in which God reveals his will through a prophet. A dispensation is inaugurated when God calls a prophet to receive revelation on behalf of the human family. A dispensation is ended when the general populace apostatizes or rebels against God. After the period of apostasy, God has called prophets anew.
With apostasies, knowledge about God can be lost from others. In ancient times, scriptural records were preserved on rolls of papyrus, clay tablets, and "writing-boards—flat boards of wood or ivory cut out in such a way that an inlay of wax could be written upon. The boards were hinged together to become a folding book."[23] These might not have been accessible to the next person that God deemed worthy to be called as prophet. Knowledge to that prophet would then have to be restored "line upon line" just as it was before.
The narratives of ancient scripture (especially the Old Testament, Book of Mormon, Book of Moses, and Book of Abraham) are often composed to tell one overriding message. The revelation to tell that message may have been short. "Hey, prophet, I need you to write about the importance of charity." The prophet/author(s) of the different books of scripture may then be composing their narratives around that message and historical consistency may not be their focus when writing. This may explain why some books in the Pentateuch say Horeb and others, Sinai as mentioned above. Indeed, authors of the Old Testament, New Testament, and Book of Mormon are often writing from the third person: talking about revelations received in the past by prophets and recounting them historically rather than receiving a dictated revelation in the style of Doctrine & Covenants. Scripture writers are often doing something closer to the work of historians and recounting what prophets have revealed in the past rather than doing the work of prophets and dictating revelation word for word as they receive it from God. They may be recounting this history based off of oral tradition (like people passing stories or rumors from one person to another) or written tradition (like typical documents that historians work from today to reconstruct the past). Any number of potential discrepancies can arise in a text then since the text is subject to the fallible human processes of historical reconstruction. In cases like these where contradictions arise because of the pitfalls of uncovering accurate history, we can elect to rely on the earliest account and the one with the least amount of bias. Knowing which account of an event is earlier and has the least amount of bias is the main work of scriptural source critics. Their work can be found in commentaries and other scholarly publications on the scriptures. We, as Latter-day Saints, can pay attention to this work in our efforts to learn everything we can from and about scripture.
This may be one of the reasons that the Book of Mormon so strongly emphasizes the importance of preserving records to accurately record how God has dealt with his children.
As an example of this, consider the words of Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf regarding a scripture from Solomon:
The ancient King Solomon was one of the most outwardly successful human beings in history.[24] He seemed to have everything—money, power, adoration, honor. But after decades of self-indulgence and luxury, how did King Solomon sum up his life?
"All is vanity," he said.[25]This man, who had it all, ended up disillusioned, pessimistic, and unhappy, despite everything he had going for him.[26]
[. . .]
Solomon was wrong, my dear brothers and sisters—life is not "vanity." To the contrary, it can be full of purpose, meaning, and peace.
The healing hands of Jesus Christ reach out to all who seek Him. I have come to know without a doubt that believing and loving God and striving to follow Christ can change our hearts,[27] soften our pain, and fill our souls with "exceedingly great joy."[28][29]
One will notice that Elder Uchtdorf 1) declares Solomon wrong; and 2) uses scriptures to establish what he believed was the correct view. Indeed, Elder Uchtdorf uses many scriptures that contradict Solomon's view. But another important element of this is that Elder Uchtdorf didn't state that Solomon was wrong for expressing the view or that the scripture wasn't inspired for having a "wrong" view. Rather, he used Solomon's downtrodden state to illustrate an important principle of life.
Thus, there may be errors of perspective on doctrine and not doctrine itself in the scriptures.
This may be one option to consider when evaluating the contradictions of scripture.
There’s a difference between a contradiction and a paradox.
A contradiction is making a claim and then denying it: stating X and then denying X. If I say it’s raining outside and then say it’s not raining outside I am contradicting myself.
A paradox is making a seemingly contradictory statement but it’s actually just affirming two propositions that can both be true simultaneously: affirming X and then affirming Y. I can affirm that there is an unstoppable force and an immovable object and I won’t necessarily be contradicting myself. If I say there is an unstoppable force and then deny that there is an unstoppable force, then I am contradicting myself.
Scripture may contain paradox that is useful for our instruction.
One of the glorious messages of the Restored Gospel is that the heavens are still open and God still speaks to his children through living prophets. We know that prophets can receive revelation that can then be canonized by the sustaining vote of the Church's membership. We may look forward to future revelation to resolve any uncertainties or seeming contradictions in scripture.
One example of this principle in action may be how the Doctrine & Covenants resolves a contradiction in the Bible. In Exodus 33:11 it is affirmed that "the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." Just nine verses later, Exodus 33:20 affirms that: "Thou [referring to Moses] canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." As an even starker contrast from 33:11, John 1:18 affirms that "[n]o one has seen God at any time." 1 Timothy 6:16 (NIV) gives praise to the God who "alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen."[30]
Doctrine & Covenants 84:21–22 reads "And without the ordinances thereof, and the authority of the priesthood, the power of godliness is not manifest unto men in the flesh; For without this no man can see the face of God, even the Father, and live." These verses seem to suggest that without the power of godliness intervening and helping man to take in God's glory, no man can see God the Father. This passage makes sense of much of the others from the Bible and may be seen as revelation clarifying previous revelation and resolving an apparent contradiction.
There may be certain ideological purposes behind certain contradictions. For instance, some have proposed that David's slaying of Goliath may have actually been done by a man named Elhanan. The contradictions exist, some scholars propose, because writers either wanted to undermine or shore up David's credibility and legitimacy as king of Israel.
Assuming that this is true and that Elhanan was the one that actually killed David (just for the sake of argument), we can extract a several principles that may help us to understand how to deal with these types of contradictions/tensions:
This is especially true when dealing with mere historical contradictions rather than moral and theological ones, but scripture can still be instructive and valuable as scripture even when it contains contradictions.
Scholars have argued, and not without merit (and also not without some informed pushback), that the story of Joseph being sold into Egypt in Genesis 37:18–36 can actually be divided into two separate, unified narratives about how Joseph was sold. There seem to be narrative hiccups as one reads the story as currently contained in the Bible and this can be resolved by disentangling the two accounts. Verses 19, 20, 23, 26, 27, 31–35 can function on their own as one account and the rest of the verses—18, 21, 22, 24–25, 28, 29–30, and 36—can function as another narrative. It resolves the contradictions and clunky narrative seams that seem to be present in the current account as contained in our Bibles today.
The two accounts, however, when separated out, can still be instructive and valuable on their own as scripture and teach us true doctrine. We shouldn’t need to demand a pristine text in order to consider the text true and instructive.
Further insights about how to understand contradictions/tensions will come as one understands how the biblical authors constructed narratives and thought about history. Two of the best books on this subject are Philips Long’s The Art of Biblical History and Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative. Suggested reading for any interested.
Using the principles and procedures laid out above, it is the author's belief that virtually all contradictions/tensions are reconciable and lead to a clear picture about God that we can use to become like him and adopt his nature.
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