Let’s start with some fun facts… ¹

#1 There is no physical description of Jesus in the Bible.

It’s difficult to believe, but we don’t really know what Jesus looked like, there’s no actual description of Him in the Bible.

#2 David had blood on his hands.

Before David was 18 years old, he killed 200 Philistines as a dowry for marriage to King Saul’s daughter. In the middle of his life, David slew the men of seven hundred chariots of the Syrians, and forty thousand horsemen (2 Samuel 10:18) or seven thousand men which fought in chariots, and forty thousand footmen (as recorded in 1 Chronicles 19:18). David killed every male in Edom (1 Kings 11:15.) Then in 2 Samuel 11, towards the end of his life, David sleeps with Bathsheba, and has her Husband killed. Some attest that David killed under God, or that God was ok with it but 1 Chronicles 22:8 seems to say otherwise, it tells us that God did not to allow David to build the temple: “You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight.” Furthermore, according to 1 Chronicles 21: 1, 5-14 God killed 70,000 men because of David’s continued sins. In one of his final acts as King of Israel, David gives his son and heir Solomon a hit list — “a last will and testament worthy of a dying Mafia capo,” says Bible scholar and translator Robert Alter — and the biblical scene may have been the inspiration for the final scene of The Godfather.

#3 The shortest verse in the Bible Is two words (three in the original Greek).

John 11:35 says that after his friend Lazarus died, “Jesus wept.” In Greek, it’s actually three words, Edakrysen ho Iēsous, but it’s still the shortest.

#4 The complete Christian Bible has been translated into 756 languages.

This is approximately 10% of all existing languages.

#5 The number of books in the Bible varies.

All Christian Bibles contain at least 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament for a total of 66. However, numbers vary between different Christian denominations. The Catholic Bible contains 73 books, while Orthodox Bibles contain between 79-86 books since there is no universally sanctioned canon in the Orthodox churches.

#6 The Bible is the best-selling book in the world.

The Guinness Book of World Records says the Bible is both the best-selling and the most widely disseminated book in the world. (It is also the number one shoplifted item in the world.)

#7 God is never specifically alluded to in the Book of Esther.

In this book, Esther is a Jewish heroine who ultimately saves her people from a murderous plot. However, one interesting fact about the book of Esther is that God is never mentioned at all in the story, causing some, such as Protestant Reformer Martin Luther, to argue that it shouldn’t be included in the Bible at all. 

#8 Genesis contains two different stories of the creation of humans.

Genesis 1 says God created humans who merely appear at his insistence. But in Genesis 2, God forms a man (Hebrew: Adam) out of dust and breathes life into him. Later, he takes a rib from Adam to create Eve. Some say the story is recursive, some say it is a continuation of the first story.

#9 Many common phrases in the modern world originated with the Bible.

“Apple of my eye” — Deuteronomy 2:10
“Wolf in sheep’s clothing” — Matthew 7:15
“By the skin of our teeth” — Job 19:20
“Drop in the bucket” — Isaiah 40:15

Some have attested that there are more than 300 of these.²

#10 It wasn’t until the 13th century CE that chapters and verses were added.

The Masoretes were groups of Jewish scribe-scholars who worked from around the end of the 5th through 10th centuries CE. Each group compiled a system of pronunciation and grammatical guides in the form of diacritical notes (niqqud niqqud or nikud “dottin), on the external form of the biblical text in an attempt to standardize the pronunciation, paragraph and verse divisions, and cantillation of the Hebrew Bible. However, there are approximately 875 differences in opinion on the interpretation of the punctuation throughout the Hebrew Bible. ³ The Masoretes devised the vowel notation system for Hebrew that is still widely used, as well as the trope symbols used for cantillation.⁴ The original writings of the Bible had no divisions between verses (or even letters). Stephen Langton, an Archbishop of Canterbury, created the modern chapter divisions in 1227 CE.

#11 We have no original writings of any Biblical book.

One shocking fact about the Bible is that the manuscripts we have of every book of the Bible are copies of copies of copies of copies, etc.

#12 Paul probably didn’t say that women should be silent in church.

In 1 Corinthians 14, Paul is instructing the church at Corinth on how to worship in an orderly manner. Suddenly, though, in verses 34-35, he writes several sentences about how women should not speak in church. Scholars have long recognized that a later scribe probably added this to Paul’s letter. If you take out those sentences, the book makes more sense.

#13 The book of Genesis was written by three different authors.

Most people think Moses write all 5 books of the Torah, but scholars would strongly disagree. Genesis alone was written by at least three authors. As we don’t know specifically who the authors were, we call these authors J, E, and P. The J source called God “Yahweh” (J is the first letter in the German spelling of Yahweh). The E source called God “Elohim” and the P source stands for “priestly” since that author was mostly concerned with ceremonial rules and requirements for priests. The author of Deuteronomy is also then referred to as “D” as he seems to be another author.

#14 The oldest complete Bible dates to the 4th century.

It’s called Codex Sinaiticus and contains the entire Old and New Testaments, plus some books that were later excluded.

#15 The authors of the New Testament read the Greek version of the Old Testament — called the Septuagint —rather than the Hebrew.

This led to some interesting mistranslations. One of the most interesting was made in Isaiah 7:14 which says “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel.” The Greek translation, however, changed the word “almah,” meaning “young woman,” to “virgin.” This would later be used by the author of Matthew as proof of Jesus’ virgin birth.

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The Bible is God’s Word, and the Word was flesh, but the Bible isn’t God or Jesus Himself. Does that actually make sense?

Have you allowed the Bible to Replace Jesus? Can the Bible become an Idol?

A good friend of mine has put it like this, “Biblicism assumes every verse carries the same weight, that Leviticus 20 and Luke 15 should be read exactly the same way—regardless of covenant, context, or Christ. That sounds faithful. But it’s not.⁵

Because when every word carries the same weight, you can make the Bible say anything you want.

And today, that’s exactly what’s happening.
Verses are ripped out of context to extort personal motives
To silence grief.
To justify violence.
To control others.

The Bible was never intended to be a theological text.

The Bible is primarily a narrative love story of covenant faithfulness, one encounter after another telling stories of transparent interactions with the Lord.

The Bible is told in times of ancient cultures and characters that may or may not have application to us today. It was not written to us but for us.⁶ There isn’t anything systematic about it. We attempt to codify, analyze, and organize and to some degree then lose touch with the central theme, the growing disconnection between humanity and the God that created them with intention of exactly the opposite, growing infinitely together, rather than apart. We want to read the story through our own western eyes, but the genre falls far short of those expectations. The Bible is a book about failures and triumphs, despair and hope and the river of human emotions of living in this broken world. The text speaks to us, not in creeds and doctrines and religious acronyms but in very plain verbiage that appeals to all.

Brian Zahnd, puts it this way,⁷ I’m an ancient Egyptian. I’m a comfortable Babylonian. I’m a Roman in his villa. That’s my problem. See, I’m trying to read the Bible for all it’s worth, but I’m not a Hebrew slave suffering in Egypt. I’m not a conquered Judean deported to Babylon. I’m not a first century Jew living under Roman occupation. I’m a citizen of a superpower. I was born among the conquerors. I live in the empire. But I want to read the Bible and think it’s talking to me. This is a problem.

The Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, and other first century groups didn’t necessarily share the same “canon” (the word didn’t even exist at that time) but they did have sacred writings, writings that facilitated their practice of living according to God’s will.  When you really think about the relationship between our chosen Bible and the religious practice of groups today, it’s pretty much the same thing.  Perhaps we need to keep this in mind when we engage in debate about the meaning of any particular text.⁸

That said, the Holy Spirit does not provide an unambiguous interpretation of every given text. Every time we read the Bible we have to interpret what we read. Interpreting just means making sense of a text—it is not a special skill reserved for difficult passages. The ways we go about making sense of the Bible will be influenced by our frames of reference and cultural expectations. Sometimes these can interfere with our ability to hear the intended meaning of the biblical authors.

Keeping in mind the origin of the Bible and overall purpose of Scripture can help orient our expectations as we read. When reading a particular text, we should consider the author’s intentions, literary forms and conventions, language, and cultural background of the original audience.⁹

Vernon K. Robbins in his book, Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation says that words themselves work in complicated ways to communicate meanings that we only partially understand” and in “that meanings themselves have their meanings by their relation to other meanings”. Given these presuppositions, any serious reader will benefit by exploring the multiple layers or the many textures of texts.¹⁰

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Isaiah 40:8 NASB

The Bible is not a Western scientific book.  Its categories of reality are not the categories of our scientific perspective.  Its view of life is not the compartmentalized packaging of research.  It does not seek to predict and control. “The categories of the Bible are not principles to be comprehended but events to be continued.  The life of him who joins the covenant of Abraham continues the life of Abraham.  Abraham endures forever.  We are Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.”¹¹

Heschel’s insight should cause us to reconsider how we regard the Bible.  In the West we are likely to view the Bible as a sourcebook for spiritual insights or a jumbled systematic theology or a God-inspired Boy Scout handbook of answers to life’s perplexing questions.  What we usually do not think about the Bible is that it is simply a record of God’s encounters with Israel.  We don’t see the Bible as a story, a recollection of the emotional involvement of God and men.  We think of the Bible as a book of spiritual information rather than a history of divine encounters.  Heschel is right.  If we think of the Bible from a Western point of view, we will look for the “21 irrefutable principles” rather than recognizing the emotional reaction of awe.  We will read the Bible as if it were Fodor’s guidebook to life on earth rather than reading it as the expressions of men and women who discovered God’s presence along the way.

When Isaiah says that the “word of our God” stands forever, does he mean that all those theological categories, divine attributes, creedal answers, and holy platitudes are eternal?  Or does he mean that the experience of God found in prophetic revelation is always life transforming?  Is Isaiah writing about Messianic prophecies or is he describing what it means to be overwhelmed by God’s holiness?  If “word” debar is the speaking of God (not the written words in our biblical texts), then the record we have is not the same as hearing God’s word.  The record is second-hand information; the voice is the direct encounter with majesty.  Perhaps the Bible is what’s left over after God reveals Himself.¹²

FOR FURTHER STUDY:

If this is a new conversation to you I would recommend starting with Simply Christian and then trying The Day the Revolution Began both by NT Wright. The first book will give you a scent of Wright’s Big Story, and the second wades into the details. Wright’s genius in my opinion is challenging the questions that Luther and Calvin tried to answer when reforming the Roman Catholic Church in the 16^th century. He is an evangelical writing to evangelicals. But he thinks that evangelicals should basically start over when interpreting the Bible’s bigger story. While I do not end up subscribing to everything he maintains, listening to him challenge long-held views within the Western Christian tradition is refreshing and will lead us to think for ourselves, especially when trying to rethink our original questions.

1. https://www.bartehrman.com/facts-about-the-bible/ ↩︎
2. https://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/sayings.htm ↩︎
3. Louis Ginzberg, Caspar Levias. “Ben Naphtali”. Jewish Encyclopedia. ↩︎
4. Sommer, Benjamin D. (1999). “Revelation at Sinai in the Hebrew Bible and in Jewish Theology”. The Chicago Journal of Religion. 79 (3): 422–451. doi:10.1086/490456. ISSN 0022-4189 – via University of Chicago Press. ↩︎
5. https://pauldazet.substack.com/p/the-bible-isnt-the-fourth-member ↩︎
6. https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2021/scripture-is-for-us-but-not-to-us ↩︎
7. https://brianzahnd.com/2014/02/problem-bible/ ↩︎
8. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus (Schocken Books, New York: 2001), p. 2. ↩︎
9. https://biologos.org/common-questions/how-should-we-interpret-the-bible ↩︎
10. Vernon K. Robbins. Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical
    Interpretation. Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1996. x + 148
    pp. $15.00, paper, ISBN 978-1-56338-183-6. ↩︎
11.  Abraham Heschel, Man’s Quest for God, p. 88 ↩︎
12. https://skipmoen.com/2023/07/the-bible-at-large-rewind/ ↩︎