The first part concerns the ancient belief in the inerrancy of the Bible as a whole. The second part discusses the different kinds of mistakes in the Bible. Some examples include scientific errors and incorrect historical records. The third section presents lessons related to the study of the Bible. Some examples include a study of God's revelation in the Old Testament and the classification of groups of words in the Bible. Some distinctive findings are as follows: Based on the classification of different groups of words in the Bible, each group of words is found to have its own authority, which differs from that of others. The permanent value of the Bible rests on the teachings of Jesus and other writings that align with the words of God.
Mr. L. Seikholen is a member of the Kuki Christian Church in India and belongs to the Kuki community of Northeast India. He earned a Bachelor of Theology (B.Th.) and a Bachelor of Divinity (BD) from Serampore College, West Bengal. He later completed his Master of Theology (M.Th.) at Gurukul Lutheran Theological College & Research Institute, Madras (Chennai), between 1992 and 1994.
With a teaching career in theology since 1989, he has been actively involved in Christian theological education, serving at Trulock Theological Seminary, Manipur, since 1994.
In the beginning of writing this work, I entitled the work, ""The Dark Side of the Bible."" After some years I named it ""The Other Side of the Bible."" Then, probably from 2018, I changed the title of the work into A Critical-Theological Study of the Bible. The last choice is between this title and another title called ""A Post-Modern Study of the Bible."" This does not mean that these three or four different titles of the work were published at different times. Changes made in the titles happened before the publication of the work.
Most Christians continued to support the view that the Bible is inerrant Word of God. They used to claim that there cannot be mistake in the Bible as it is written under the dictation of God, and is, thus, the inspired Word of God. Some even claim that to argue against some texts in the Bible is to argue against God. For many such Christians even to do any critical study on the Bible or on a text in the Bible, is the work of unspiritual Christians. Some seemed to claim that it is the work of those Christians who are not born again. Some even want to reject such people who do critical works on the Bible, to be members in denominations. This situation made uneasy to do such a work in some such areas.
However, since the work now appeared to be very important and urgent, especially for use in our areas, I take up the task of doing a critical study of the Bible. Whether I have a right or wrong motive, the main reason for taking up the task is my feeling of the urgent need of it. Although there are a number of books available at libraries of theological institutions on this issue, we do not have any local books dealing with the same issue. Therefore, I take up this task as one of the many works on this issue. I am aware of possible oppositions and criticisms which may arise out of this book. However, I also hope that the book must bring good results too in the long run. Therefore, I am writing this book with or without hesitation. I do hope that more people will appreciate it after the problems would be clarified.
I suppose that this work will totally change Christians' attitude to the Bible. Christians are now supposed to change their view of the Bible as in-errant Word of God to accept the view that the Bible as a whole is human words about God and his relation to his creation. I personally thank the publisher(s) for the work of printing and publishing this work of mine. I hope that the ideas stated in the book may influence Christians in the whole world for betterment.
The Bible contains many warnings about false prophets and false teachers. Mistakes in the Bible may have the same causes. Therefore, it is very important to have the same kind of carefulness or watchfulness against such wrongs or mistakes. Writers of the books of the Bible really supported inerrancy of the Bible. Early theologians too somehow supported such claims, for belief in the inerrancy of the Bible for most writers of the books, the Bible claimed to write down something from the direct revelations of God. Therefore, most readers of the Bible too claimed the Bible to be the Words of God. However, a very careful study shows that there are many mistakes in the Bible. Certain kinds of mistakes in the Bible are shown in the chapters of PART - 11.
The first group of mistakes in the Bible indicated in this book are scientific mistakes. Since writers of the books of the Old Testament lived in the world when there were no such strong knowledge of Science, they made many scientific mistakes. For example, there are claims for the creation of the Earth on the third day, and the creation of the Sun on the fourth day. This suggested that there must be no days in the creation story till the third day of the creation. Because, at present we are able to see the fact that there cannot be any day without the Sun and the Earth. Thus, claim for the creation of the Earth on the third day and that of the Sun on the fourth day, shows ignorance of writers of the myth of the creation, or writers of the creation account in Genesis 1. They seemed to be ignorant of the fact that there cannot be day and night on the Earth without the Earth and the Sun. Claim for the presence of water above and water below the firmament also shows a kind of problem. According to this belief, when God used to open the windows of the heavens, the storage of water above the firmament used to come down as rain. This is believed be a wrong understanding of sources of rain in the Old Testament. This is included as one among many mistakes in the Bible.
There are also many wrong records in the Bible. The writer of the book of Exodus is believed to make a wrong record of the population of Israelites who came out of Egypt. It is recorded that the population of the Israelites who came out of Egypt were 600000, excluding women and children. If women and children were included it would at least be 3600000 including women and children. Such a big number of people would even be more than the people of Egypt. Therefore, it is believed to be a wrong record of the population of Israel. A chapter is used to point out contradictions in the Bible. A number of contradictions both in the Old Testament and the New Testament are to be found. There were two different accounts on same events which contradicted to each other, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. An example is on the change of the name of a place called Luz to Bethel. Jesus' attitude to the Bible is also worthy to be studied. Jesus used to quote some words from the Old Testament. However, he never used them as they were in the Old Testament. He used to replace them with better and stronger words.
An ethical study of the Bible shows that the ethical standard of the Old Testament appeared to be lower than that of the New Testament. For example, while polygamy was practiced very much in the Old Testament, monogamy was strongly emphasized in the New Testament. This is indicated here to emphasize that some ethical situations in the Old Testament are not worthy to be read as the Words of God. Writers of the New Testament are also seen to make some improper quotations from the Old Testament. However, they made some wrong quotations or that they mostly quoted only partly, but not fully. There too are wrong concepts both in the testaments. For example, the idea of God as fixing the days for the death of everyone is detected in the Old Testament. Writers in both the testaments are seen to make some theological mistakes too. For example, the view that sin passed on from Adam to his offspring is believed by few writers of both testaments. This is taken to be a wrong theology in this work.
Another contradiction is to be found in presence of two differing views on human suffering. Some writers claimed that suffering is always related to the sin of the sufferer. This means that suffering is always caused by sin. On the other hand, another group of writers claimed that even righteous people used to suffer. Job and Jesus were examples of righteous sufferers. In a sense, suffering in the world is natural. Both sinners and righteous people used to suffer. Another discussion is done on selfish prayers in the book of Psalms. The book of Psalms contains some prayers in which the worshippers prayed for the death or misfortune of the enemies. This kind of prayers are classed as wrong prayers.
Some books from the Bible are chosen to have a study of their weaknesses. For example, the books of Genesis, Joshua, I Kings, II Kings, Job and Chronicles, Song of Solomon, Jonah, Hebrews, etc. A special study is also made on the canonicity of the Bible. The canonization of the books of the Bible was not able to correct mistakes from the Bible. The councils which canonized the books of the Bible were not able to realize the fact that the Bible contains mistakes.
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