To ask whether the Bible fails to give consistent answers or be of one voice with itself presumes that it was built to do so. That's a false presumption, rooted no doubt in thinking of it as the book that God wrote. Biblical literature is constantly interpreting, interrogating and disagreeing with itself. Virtually nothing is asserted someplace that is not called into question or undermined elsewhere.
Nor can we presume that such contradictions are stupid mistakes, editorial oversights or divine typos. We'll never know all the details about the history of the development of the literature now in our Bibles. What we do know is that it was thousands of years in the making and involved countless people writing, editing, copying, canonizing, publishing and so on. Can we honestly believe that, if agreement and consistency were the goal, such discrepancies would not have been fixed and such rough seams mended long ago? That creation stories would have been made to conform or be removed? Could all those many, many people involved in the development of biblical literature and the canon of Scriptures have been so blind, so stupid? It's modern arrogance to imagine so.
The Bible canonizes contradiction. It holds together a tense diversity of perspectives and voices, difference and argument -- even and especially when it comes to the profoundest questions of faith, questions that inevitably outlive all their answers.
The Bible is not a book of answers but a library of questions. As such it opens up space for us to explore different voices and perspectives, to discuss, to disagree and, above all, to think. Too often, however, that's not what happens.
Nor can we presume that such contradictions are stupid mistakes, editorial oversights or divine typos. We'll never know all the details about the history of the development of the literature now in our Bibles. What we do know is that it was thousands of years in the making and involved countless people writing, editing, copying, canonizing, publishing and so on. Can we honestly believe that, if agreement and consistency were the goal, such discrepancies would not have been fixed and such rough seams mended long ago? That creation stories would have been made to conform or be removed? Could all those many, many people involved in the development of biblical literature and the canon of Scriptures have been so blind, so stupid? It's modern arrogance to imagine so.
The Bible canonizes contradiction. It holds together a tense diversity of perspectives and voices, difference and argument -- even and especially when it comes to the profoundest questions of faith, questions that inevitably outlive all their answers.
The Bible is not a book of answers but a library of questions. As such it opens up space for us to explore different voices and perspectives, to discuss, to disagree and, above all, to think. Too often, however, that's not what happens.
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