Mistakes in the Bible – or in Its Interpreters?

Under the headline “Your Faith Doesn’t Have to Collapse If the Bible Contains Contradictions”, Nederlands Dagblad recently wrote about a podcast with two theologians. Theology students discover during their studies that, according to their professors, the Bible contains contradictions and mistakes. That need not result in a crisis of faith. “The Bible is not intended as a kind of information source that tells us exactly how everything happened in history,” says New Testament scholar Arco den Heijer. And when Matthew, according to Old Testament scholar Carin Slotboom, mixes up the prophets Zechariah and Jeremiah, that is no problem either: “That is simply a mistake and does not detract from the message.”

That sounds reassuring. But before theology students learn to live with the mistakes of the biblical writers, it might be wise first to rule out the mistakes of their interpreters.

where is the contradiction?

Take King Manasseh. According to the article, in Kings he is “the ultimate villain,” while in Chronicles he comes to repentance. But where is the contradiction? Chronicles also gives an extensive account of his wickedness and adds that Manasseh later humbled himself. Kings does not mention that later repentance. Yet failing to mention something is not the same as denying it.

Then there is the cleansing of the temple. John places a cleansing at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry; Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe one at the end. That raises a serious historical question. It is entirely possible that Jesus cleansed the temple twice. Anyone who assumes in advance that it must be one and the same event creates the contradiction he then ‘discovers’ in the Bible.

a mistake by Matthew?

The most striking example is Matthew 27:9. Matthew is said to quote Zechariah while accidentally naming Jeremiah. “That is simply a mistake,” we read. But Matthew does not say that these words were written by Jeremiah. He says they were declared through Jeremiah. The fact that we find corresponding words written in Zechariah does not prove that Jeremiah did not declare them. The alleged mistake by Matthew thus turns out to rest mainly on an assumption made by his interpreters.

who corrects whom?

A believing approach to the Bible begins with the text as it presents itself. Scripture presents itself as God-given and inspired (John 10:35; 2 Tim. 3:16). This does not mean that every difficulty must be resolved immediately. There are questions whose answers we simply do not know. But our ignorance is not yet a biblical writer’s error, a difference is not yet a contradiction, and a historical reconstruction is not yet an established fact.

This is precisely where the paths diverge. In the ND article, alleged errors and contradictions are taken as given, after which it is explained that the Bible can still be inspired and reliable despite those errors. That reverses the order. First the text is judged from a particular reconstruction of how it came into being, and then ‘inspiration’ and ‘reliability’ are redefined according to what those conditions still allow them to mean.

That is a peculiar way to deal with a text that presents itself as given by God. It would therefore do no harm if theology students, before their ‘naivety’ is taken away, first learned to distinguish between what the text actually says and what their interpreters think they must read into it – and, in doing so, not simply take those interpreters at their word either.

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