Saturday, December 23, 2023

The Immense Number Of Cultural Assumptions About The Bible

Almost the entirety of what is commonly believed about Biblical teachings inside or outside of the church has nothing to do with its real doctrines.  From core metaphysics to sexuality to Yahweh's justice to the Biblical afterlife before the resurrection and far more, literally almost nothing of what is associated with Christianity is actually taught by the Bible.  Yes, the Bible states that there is a deity, and yes, it teaches that Jesus came to save sinners by his death and resurrection; these are among the only things popularly believed that the Bible teaches which it actually does.  In fact, concerning the creation story, there are many assumptions and errors that are so common many people might not even recognize them.  With this issue alone, and I will not go into all of the sub-issues here, there is an immense number of cultural assumptions.

The Bible never says God created Adam and Eve as the only humans in Eden, but it does say that he created Adam and Eve there.  Whether they were the sole first humans is completely unaddressed in the Genesis creation story.  Similarly, it never says that there was or was not thousands or billions of years that elapsed between the events of Genesis 1:1, 1:2, and 1:3.  These things of no core significance in a sense, as logical axioms, absolute certainty (where it can be found), the existence of God as the uncaused cause, and the nature of morality are by necessity unaffected.  Still, the actual words of Genesis never touch upon them at all.

For a Christological example of such assumptions, the virgin birth of Isaiah 7:14 is not immediately referencing Jesus in context.  The child in question is the son of Isaiah's wife, who was a virgin before having sex with him and producing a son.  Though this is a virgin giving birth to a child, it is not the same thing as the virgin birth of Matthew 1, even if there are certain parallels that make the latter quote the former.  Jesus is a parallel in some ways to the child of Isaiah 7:14-16, but he is not at all the same person.  This is another example of a very popular but blatantly wrong assumption about the text; even if it was taught by the Bible in Isaiah 7 itself, it would still be irrational for anyone to assume it is mentioned this way.

Another miscellaneous example is the details about Satan's history.  In Ezekiel 28, the guardian cherub who turned away from God to arrogance and unjust violence is never said to be Satan, also called the devil in the New Testament.  Perhaps this fallen cherub that walked in Eden is Satan, and perhaps not.  Nowhere does the Bible affirm one way or the other.  Certainly, it is likely that Ezekiel 28's demon is the same as the devil of the New Testament because there is no mention of another specific, prominent demon alongside Satan.  The New Testament still never details Satan's backstory and the Old Testament never confirms the fallen cherub of Ezekiel 28 as Satan.

There are far greater errors--both in that they are more philosophically foundational and and that they impact how we live far more than something like Adam and Eve being the first people--believed about the Bible in spite of what it plainly does or does not say.  Theistic irrationalism, the inherently false concept that God could be outside of or able to alter the necessary truths of logic, is the worst Biblical/theological error of all, as it not only misrepresents the Bible, but it also pretends like logical axioms and other necessary truths could ever be anything other than intrinsically true.  Eternal torment in hell, gender complementarianism, and anti-theonomy are much more irrational and deep errors than thinking the Bible excludes the creation of other people around Adam and Eve, but all of them are false or merely assumed.

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