Is the Bible a myth?
It has been said that if the Bible is just another manmade legend or myth meant to communicate wisdom and spiritual truth, then it is of little importance. If it is helpful for you, then read it and live it, but if it is unhelpful, then find some other path that is personally rewarding for you. It has also been said, if what the Bible says is actually historically true, then it is of inestimable importance. It communicates to us who our creator actually is, and what He desires for us, preparing us for the day, after death, that we stand before Him. So then, how do we decide, thoughtfully, the answer to this question of massive importance?
As I write this article, I am in the middle of packing my bags to go to Israel, often called the Holy Land, for this first time. By the time you are reading the article, I will be standing in the land, east of the Mediterranean Sea, that was promised to Abraham more than 4000 years ago. It is considered sacred to all three of the world’s great monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And tourism to the Holy Land continues to grow each decade. Why would people want to travel great distances to visit a place that is in perpetual political conflict, risking themselves to see a land that looks a lot like, if you live in Southern California, the hills down the road? Are people looking for a special feeling by visiting the land where Elijah, David and Jesus supposedly lived?
The power of visiting Israel lies in layers of dirt, that in the last two centuries, have been excavated with renewed interest. Why is there so much archeology going on in Israel? Because they keep finding things of great historic, and biblical, importance.
Today, the pilgrim that visits Jericho, is shown the stones from 1300 BC, of the fortified wall that strangely fell outwards during the destruction of the city. When a city was under siege by a foreign power the wall always fell inwards as the surrounding army pushed inward, but some strange event, like an earthquake must have caused this anomaly, which corresponds to the account we have in the ancient book of Joshua.
Today, pilgrims are invited to duck their heads into the desert caves of Qumran, dry and dusty. Why would people want to visit such a barren, desolate place?
Again, to see the Bible live. A couple of decades ago, Bible classes at secular universities taught that the ancient texts were passed down as living documents that each generation would translate and adapt to their own time. The texts would undergo huge changes and redactions over the course of hundreds and thousands of years. But the caves of Qumran have made those teachings obsolete. In the middle of the twentieth century preserved scrolls were found in these caves that date to the time of Jesus. A complete scroll of Isaiah was compared to the previous oldest scroll of Isaiah dating to the year 1000 AD. Rather than the text having undergone massive changes, it was 99.9% identical to the scroll from a millennium before. A word or letter here and there were different, but the substance, content and message of the book was not changed at all. It showed the care and commitment that Jewish scholars had used to copy the text over the centuries. They didn’t think they were adding to their spiritual tradition, they believed they were preserving the words of God, and they were touching a text that shouldn’t be changed.
Israel also invites guests to walk through the ruins of David’s palace from 1000 BC. It allows you to visit dwellings and inscriptions that confirm Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate, the three that crucified Christ, were all alive and lived in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion. You can visit the cave, that has been revered for over 1700 years, as the location of Jesus’ resurrection.
If we say the Bible is a myth or legend, filled with spiritual truth, but not actually reliable historically, on par with Homer’s epics, the Babylonian Gilgamesh, and the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, we have an archeology problem. We keep digging things up that correspond perfectly with the Bible’s record of the events. If God really has given us an accurate, preserved account of who He is, and how He has worked in history, and then helped confirm it to our skeptical 21st century minds through preserved artifacts and inscriptions, ought we to pay fresh attention to what he has said? Maybe this book isn’t a myth to be avoided, but a gift to be treasured.
Off to the Journey, Father Cam Lemons
(Father Cam Lemons serves at St. Timothy’s Anglican Church. Service is at 9 a.m. on Sunday at 700 Hobson St. in Bishop. He also serves at Trinity Memorial Anglican Church in Lone Pine. The service there is at noon at 220 N. Lakeview Road. For more information, go to StTimothysBishop.com.)