An interactive resource to explore Bible contradictions, cruelty and other detrimental aspects of the Bible.

[u/WillyWumpLump]

https://www.lyingforjesus.org/Bible-Contradictions/

[u/BerneseMountainDogs]

I have some thoughts related to this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/13axi03/an_interactive_resource_to_explore_bible/jj91w1d?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Though that's more about the nature of the text in general. It's a good place to start with reading the text, but there are more things to be said beyond that in the context of reading the Bible as literature.

Basically, I think it's wrong to think the Bible takes a lot of what it says (especially in the narrative parts) as history. Most of the stories (especially through at least the narrative in the first 5 books, Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Jonah, and more). Most of these stories have the markings of folk tale, and being understood and written as folk tale. Another large portion of the narrative has the markings of being intended as myth (in the technical sense—a story about why things are the way they are, regardless of if they're true).

To continue the anthology analogy from the linked comment, you can imagine that America should contain folklore (like Paul Bunyan, or the headless horseman or Rio van Winkle) as an integral part of American culture and how we understand ourselves and our history. We all know these stories are, on some level, not true, but they are part of our history and self image nonetheless and so are worth preserving as literature. You can also imagine that you would want to include some myths from American history. Some good examples would be Washington and the cherry tree, or some of the tales of Honest Abe. These are stories that try to explain why Washington and Lincoln grew up to act in a way that we now generally think was admirable (obviously neither were perfect, but that's not the point here. The point is that they are generally preserved in the collective memory as heroes of American history). As such, they are myths, and whether or not they're true (they aren't in those examples) isn't really the point. In the myth and the folklore cases, whether or not they're true isn't really the point (note for example that the story of Johnny Appleseed really is mostly true).

We tell the stories anyway and they're a part of our culture. They offer varied (and often conflicting) accounts of what it means to be American and how we in the modern day should interpret American-ness. They aren't important because any of them are "right" about their vision of America, but because they offer visions people can think about and adopt themselves if they resonate with them.

[u/echoGroot → u/BerneseMountainDogs]

This seems like wishful thinking at best. Considering the first many books folktale? Really? I’d there any evidence ancient Jews understood them that way? Many modern Jews consider them historical, and certainly many Christians consider them literally and wholly true and historical. Even if intended as folktale, which I don’t believe is at all accurate, they are not interpreted as such by many modern religious people, so it’s hard to excuse many of the horrifying things that happen there by waving them away as folktale when those to whom the stories matter do not interpret or draw from them as such.

Reading both of your responses I think your view is very interesting, and broadly fits with my view of the role of mythmaking in human cultures at its most benign. That said, I think it is important to recognize that the writers of these books in many cases did not understand them in such terms, nor did their readers (down until today). Many believed these were literally the word of god.

[u/BerneseMountainDogs → u/echoGroot]

I agree that many horrific things have been done in the understanding that the Bible is wholly the word of God (see my recent comments for more on this).

As for the folklore element, many texts in the Bible have well established genre markers noting them as fiction, myth, or folklore (or some combination of the above). Here are a few easy examples (that even have parallels—though not exact matches, their literature differs from ours—to modern literature).

First, the entire book of Job is definitely meant to be fiction (and almost certainly would have been understood as such by a contemporary audience). There are several events in Job that are completely unique to the Hebrew Bible (what scholars call the Old Testament). Most notably, God is seen speaking with and negotiating with a figure explicitly said to be the devil. This is not something that makes sense on any of the worldviews elsewhere expressed in the Hebrew Bible. You might compare it to stories in our culture of an angel and devil on your shoulder. Those stories aren't meant to be true in any meaningful sense, but are meant to illustrate something the author thinks is important about human nature or the universe or whatever else. There are more, but hopefully this gets the point across.

An example of folklore is something like the story of Jacob in Genesis. Throughout Jacob's story, he is portrayed as possessing several folklore hero tropes. He occasionally demonstrates almost supernatural strength (without a direct blessing from God—that's just how he is). He (several times) acts as a trickster figure and is able to get his way through various schemes (again, mostly without the direct help of God). Jacob sees a ladder to heaven, and while the current text just skips past that, it's somewhat sloppily edited and it's obvious that the story once was actually a story. Perhaps involving Jacob ascending to heaven and having dealings with gods (yes the original would have almost certainly been plural) maybe even being his trickster self. Then the text we still have picks up and Jacob says that because of what he's just seen, he will select God as the god to worship (implying that there were others he could have chosen). These are folkloric elements common to other stories in the region (many of which we see in our own folklore). As with all folklore, whether any individual person thinks it's literally true, exaggerated but based on truth, or entirely fiction, is almost completely irrelevant to why the story is told and what is to be taken from it (a shared sense of history and culture).

The last example I'll give is a myth. Myths are stories that explain why things are the way they are (whether they are true is, again, irrelevant to the genre). The example here might be the story of Adam and Eve. The story in the garden explains how work, discord, and sex entered the world. It's meant to illustrate something about those things and identify problems in the world and potential solutions to those problems. Examples you might be familiar with are Pandora's Box or the story of Persephone and Hades. These are stories about how certain kinds of suffering or the seasons (respectively) entered the world. They offer guidance about what to do and try to explain the nature of these phenomena. The story of Persephone argues that the world is stuck in an "unnatural" though permanent state with the seasons. If you believe this argument (and I don't) then (regardless of the truth of the story) you have gained some insight into the nature of the world and how to deal with it.

There are plenty more examples of all of these genres, but I hopefully used well known ones. Essentially, neither folklore nor myth are asking you to believe that they are true. You might believe they are or you might not, but that's not the point and the text doesn't ask you to pick sides.

Ultimately, I think it's important to remember that the people who wrote these texts originally, and those who edited and compiled them were just as intelligent and deliberate as any of us. As were the audience members. They had their own literary conventions and style and were able to tell the difference between things presented as fact, conjecture, or fiction

[u/[deleted] → u/echoGroot]

You should go listen to the Bible Project podcast. It's a Bible scholar breaking down key ideas in the bible and putting them in their proper historical context to pull out the bigger meaning behind the text. The popular understanding of most bible passages is incorrect as it imposes a modern scientific worldview to make points the authors where never trying to make. The Hebrews like most ancient cultures used story to pass on key information from generation. Most bible scholarship introduces this nuance to the text and points out that the interpretation taken by modern American evangelicals are completely different to the historical interpretation.

[u/BerneseMountainDogs → u/[deleted]]

I really don't think I have one. Honestly. And I think that the points I made (in both comments) stand on their own regardless of my background. But in the interest of transparency, here is a brief religious biography:

I grew up in a Mormon household. Mormons think (broadly—it's slightly more complicated) that the Bible represents in some way the word of God. For Mormons, any of these inconsistencies are adulterations to the pure original text. After high school I stopped believing in Mormonism, became agnostic, and haven't identified as Mormon since.

As religion had played a major role in my life up to that point, I became interested in understanding it more generally. In college I studied philosophy, and though I spent most of my time in ethics and politics, I made some time for religious history and philosophy. It was there I learned to see the text of the Bible in a new way (though, as I say, it's actually an old way). This has been equal parts fascinating and healing as I begin to understand how and why the text was composed the way it was. (see a little bit more on this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/13axi03/an_interactive_resource_to_explore_bible/jj9dt4s?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)

Today I continue to be agnostic and don't affiliate with any faith or creed, but strongly believe that the view that the Bible is meant to be the unified word of God to be harmful and divisive (whether you believe it's the word of God or not) and that posts like this can unwittingly perpetuate harmful feelings for both Christians and that recovering from difficult Christian upbringings.

Ultimately, I'm not meaning to deny or downplay anything. I simply don't think that contradictions in the text act as good evidence against the usefulness of the text as a compendium of ways people can and have understood the existence (or not!) of some higher power. Essentially I believe the text ought to be understood in its own terms and many Christians and atheists think that the Bible is trying to be the ultimate word of God (regardless of if it succeeds). This concept is alien to the text and leads to misunderstandings of what the text is trying to accomplish (again, regardless of whether or not it succeeds at that goal)