I wrote about this recently here… but a newer, simpler “argument” hit me today and I wanted to catalog it here.
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Think of biblical revelation like this:
Scientists study dinosaurs…
- We have some physically verifiable, historical proof-based facts
- We have current scientific biological info to glean other facts
- We have other logical reasons to fill in other gaps.
The net effect is that of “understanding” dinosaurs. Right?
But, the reality is that with each “revelation” of a new fact, artifact, piece of data… that knowledge grows and evolves. It is considered true in its time, and gets more clear as time goes on.
Said another way… what we know now is better than 100 years ago, and will be better in a hundred more.
- Will there be mistaken judgments in each era of original revelations? Sure.
- Does that mean ALL previous revelation is now rendered obsolete and irrelevant? No.
- Does it mean that the process of gaining knowledge of something without tangible presence is just that, a process? Without a doubt.
Now, imagine that God has been in the process of being revealed for 6+ thousand years… (throwing a bone to my Young Earth friends, there.)
It stands to reason then… not every detail has always been right… but it was consistent with the understanding of the day. It was understandable and useful at the time it was being revealed, under the circumstances that time allowed… and, of course, beyond that… has had to be updated as contextual understanding and cultural/scientific/logical understandings were achieved.
So…
Is the Bible tainted simply because men wrote it?
Or becuase those men wrote things that didn’t align with future explanations of similar things?
An emphatic NO to both.
In fact, I’d argue that it’s exactly this unveiling of “truth” by men, at different parts of time, slowly opening up and gaining clarity is even more proof still that this truth being identified is THE truth.