"The Bible is True"... but which version?

As a part-time hobby I like to discuss ideas with the Jehovah's Witnesses [J-Dubs] which blight the streets of my home town every week. I only do it every now and then because some of them have banned me from visiting their stall after being unable to properly answer my questions. I'll explain why this week I even got one of them to ask me "What's the purpose of your coming here today telling us this? What difference does it make to you what our beliefs are?" Let the fact that this comment came from a Jehovah's Witness, famed for going door-to-door peddling their crap, who at the time was sitting behind a desk in a pagoda full of Witness literature and with signs outside proclaiming God to be this and that wonderful thing, sink in for a moment... yes.. indeed!

The reason I annoyed them this week was because I approached them with the topic of "Versions of the Bible"; my pitch being that for every line in the Bible which can be interpreted two or more ways there forms a pathway which leads to a new version of the doctrine. It's not as sketchy as it sounds.

For instance, if you believe that the account of The Creation [A] is true, as they do, then that's one version. If you don't then that's another. If you then consider the comment made by God prior to the Flood in which mankind is limited to 120 years [B] and think that this is a countdown to destruction, as the J-Dubs do, then that's another factor to consider, as is the idea that the 120 years is a literal age-limit set on each of us.

Putting them together we get four different versions of the story:

God created the Heavens and the Earth in six literal days and gave Mankind 120 years to shape up = AaBa
God created the Heavens and the Earth in six literal days and limited Mankind to lifespans of 120 years = AaBb
The story that God created the Heavens and the Earth in six literal days is an allegory but he did give Mankind 120 years to shape up = AbBa
The story that God created the Heavens and the Earth in six literal days is an allegory but he did limit Mankind to 120 year lifespans = AbBb

So we have the four versions... Of course there are other versions of each of these but I'm trying to keep this simple for now.

Out of two lines of text we can derive FOUR different versions of the Bible. I told this to the male J-Dub but got the standard "They're not versions, they are just different opinions." Well, I'd love to know what a version is if not a different opinion on the text. Clearly whether one has the opinion that God did create the Earth etc. in six days, or not, informs your practice of your faith. It informs your reading of other texts too. So how you interpret that one line does make a big difference.

As it is with other lines, and events.

Take for instance the event in the Bible when God supposedly appeared to Moses on a hill top [C]. The story says he appeared to Moses in a pillar of smoke. Now then, some interpret that as Moses having an actual visit from God manifesting as a pillar of smoke [a]. Others say that the fire and smoke was to cover God's face from Moses and so God appeared more as a man than the smoke itself [b]. Does this not fundamentally change your view on what your God is, or can be?

I personally think it was a charlatan's trick and Moses was making the whole thing up, making use of rudimentary pyrotechnic skills he'd learnt from other charlatans descended from Abraham. who you'll remember pulled a similar trick earlier on. However, we're talking about other people's interpretations here so mine do not matter.

So... should we add this event to the narrative? With the Creation [A], the 120 years comment [B] and the new Moses smoke trick [C] what combinations are now available?

AaBaCa
AaBaCb
AaBbCa
AaBbCb
AbBaCa
AbBaCb
AbBbCa
AbBbCb

That's eight versions from three events, using only two possible versions of each story.

The Bible is beginning to look like those old Steve Jackson books I used to read as a kid, where I got to pick my own story through the book. only this time instead of only my character dying the Bible wipes out over 2 million!

How about we add the parable of the "Water into Wine" [D]? Either Jesus really did make wine out of water [a], or it is a narrative explanation of the Jewish rite of passage [b].

I won't bore you with the details but that makes 16 possible versions.

Then what if we add the Raising of Lazarus [E], the 100 Zombie Saints [F] and on and on back and forth throughout the texts of the Old and New Testaments... how many versions of one book can there be, each with a unique narrative through the text?

At no point have I touched on how many printed versions there are, but if you even take one fundamental narrative, that of the idea that sin leads to an eternity in Hell, and you realize that the original Old Testament didn't feature Hell at all, and that even some versions of the New Testament lack that idea, you now see how utterly incompatible these books are from one simple change in dynamic.

So when I ask you which version of the Bible you trust to be the whole truth I'm not talking about the KJV, or the NIV or the YLT or KJV2000, I'm talking about all these little ideas and events and how you the reader, the believer, chose to form your ideas about what you believe. If as a conservative estimate we suggest that there are 100 lines in the Bible which can be taken two ways each, the total number of possible pathways through the Bible is 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376.

Of course this is a rather facetious way of looking at it, but I think that if Christians are going to go down the line of saying that "The Bible is true" as so many insist on doing, I think we do get to ask "which version"... because I do not see that it is such a stupid question after all.

Fundamentalists Are Confusing

Have you ever wondered why Fundamentalists go around making other people believe the way they do, often at the point of a sword, or the barrel of a gun?

Why is this?

If you believe that your god is the four-Os then this has to be what you think:

1. Your god is omniscient therefore it/he/she knows everything there is to know about everything... including ALL of your thoughts, aspirations, dreams, ideas and beliefs - good and bad.

2. Your god is omnibenevolent so everything that happens will eventually, even if you can't see it from your limited perspective as a human being, turn out for the best, according to your god's grand plan.*

3. Your god is omnipresent, so that along with his omniscience he is everywhere, at all times in the present, future and past. Your god is in everything, everywhere all at once.

4. Your god is omnipotent so nothing at all can ever happen without it's knowing about it, and it can create anything at any time, move whatever needs moving effortlessly, and bend the laws of science to its will.

If you don't believe these things with all your heart then you're not a Fundamentalist and in essence you are some watered down version of the ideal follower of your god.

So, let's break this down a bit more. The Fundamentalist believes that her god is omnipresent and omniscient, yet she still prays to it. Why? If the god is truly all-knowing and ever-present there'd be no need whatsoever to utter a word of praise (if you cherished it truly), or utter a wish, or voice a thought, desire, need or idea. A god who literally knows everything you think, at all times and in all possible timelines, knows everything you could possibly think or say... so a prayer is, or can be interpreted as, a demonstration that you do not trust your god implicitly.

Further to that, if you think your god is perfect and all-powerful (omnipotent), then you must believe that everything is exactly the way your god wants it to be. Your god wants the Earth to be 4.54 billion years old. He wants it to be full of evolving organisms. He wants us to be sentient of our sentience. He wants a quarter of our population to be homosexuals, and he wants other people to have their own beliefs and ideas. So if you, for one second, think that any of these things are not true or not correct (sinful) then you are essentially telling your god that you, yes you, know better than him!

Given that Fundamentalists do still go around telling people that this and that is blasphemous and that their god dictates such and such, with absolutely no idea of what a god would even look like, never mind what it wants, then these people are not true believers at all! In fact, I'd go so far as to say that they believe the dogma, but reject the idea of their god entirely in favour of their own system of beliefs.

So the next time you see the work of one extremist group or another on the TV and someone says that they don't represent the particular religion they claim to represent, they might just have a point. If they were true Fundamentalists, then they'd be sitting at home with their children without a care in the world, minding their own business and looking after their friends and families. They'd be safe in the knowledge that everything was precisely the way their god wanted it to be and everything would turn out just fine as long as they were true to themselves and good to others.

That is a true Fundamentalist.


*I will cede that not everyone agrees that a god needs to be benevolent.