Let me begin by saying that I appreciate all the comments I have gotten thus far about my approach to Scripture. You have been insightful and challenging which is the exact reason I put it out there. I was not exactly trying to “get your goat” as Shannon said, but at the same time I was interested in seeing how a controversial view like that would be handled. I am searching for an approach that can answer the contradictions found in the Bible in a reasonable way (I am sorry, but many of those books out there like Hard Questions from the Bible or whatever just don’t do it for me). I am still working on an approach to the Bible that accepts it as God’s Word, but allows for human influence. Regan posed the question that really is the chink in the armor of such a view: “How do you determine what is from God?” Once you start relegating certain parts of Scripture to human invention, what keeps you from dismissing the Bible as a whole? My anonymous contributor talked about undermining the text leading to “walking on shifting sand”, or as I always have been taught, “heading down a slippery slope.” And all of those things are considerations that must be handled. So let me see what I can do.

I hold that there are tensions in the Bible that fall into one of two categories. First, is the obvious—contradictions. If at one point the Bible says the sky is Blue, and at another point it says that the same time and place it was lavender, we have a contradiction. We see them in various places—differing Gospel accounts, differing numbers in the OT (sizes of armies, shekels, etc.), differing accounts of who actually killed Goliath. For the most part, we can reconcile them by citing sources, points of view, etc. In other words, we blame the human element in Scripture for that. The other category we call paradoxes—two things that are seemingly at odds, but that are true. God’s grace and judgment, forgiveness and holiness, the Fear of Yahweh and fellowship with Him. These are harder to explain (being that they are paradoxes), but we see that they can exist together.

Here is where the problem arises for me—when contradictions and paradoxes overlap. We know that God is love, but he is also holy and cannot stand to be around the profane. Thus, we see the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Flood, etc. We say, yes they got what they deserve for living a life of evil. But what about the Canaanites? What did they do to deserve being ousted from their homeland? Why were they to be completely wiped out? Just so the Israelites could have a home? I have to say, that bothers me a little. I see this sort of mentality grating against both God’s love and His holiness. In other words, the narrative seems to be contradicting what the rest of Scripture reveals about God. One might say, well this Scripture says something different about God and must be accepted too. I will concede such a point, but ask, “What are we to learn about God from this? Is He arbitrary, biased, cruel?”

I suppose a lack of sufficient answer up to this point led me to considering my view of the Bible that perhaps God did not order the annihilation of the people of Canaan. And if that is the case, I wondered what else had the writers atributed to Yahwe that might not have been. Maybe that was the wrong way to go, but I thought I would go somewhere and see what I found. I found that I could accept it there, but that I did have that nagging voice saying, “Who makes you the arbiter of Scripture?” So I throw the question back to you all: “How do you determine which parts of Scripture are human and which are divine, or do you not accept the human influence at all?” And for those that are wondering, the answer to such a question will determine whether I accept the Bible as the revelation of God for salvation, faith, etc. But it would be nice to know! :)

Looking forward to hearing from you.