"We believe the Bible to be inspired and infallible, and as such, the supreme authority in faith and life."
If you want to understand the behavior of many Evangelicals and the politicians and celebrity ministers they support, I believe a lot of it stems from maintaining an "error-less" view of the Bible.
The Bible is littered with scriptures such as -
"If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she disgraces her father; she must be burned in the fire."
You can find scriptures about how to beat your slaves, when killing children is acceptable, legal rape, etc. The Bible condones and encourages some pretty horrific behavior.
Of course, bring up any of those scriptures and the dutiful Evangelical will do an apologetic box-step. Defenses will fly like a fighter jet throwing counter-measures. Once the Evangelical has been convinced of "infallibility", there is little that could ever persuade them otherwise... even when evil behavior is right there on the page.
As a former Evangelical, I understand this.
The practice of declaring something innocent that is clearly not can be transferred to other circumstances.
When it comes to English translations of the bible, I take everything with a grain of salt. None of it was originally written in English and much of it written nearly 2000 years, meaning that 2000 years of language evolution has occurred. In my lifetime, there are words that mean different things than it did to my parents 40 years ago. Heck my children are using words in ways I don't fully understand. Imagine how much of this has occurred over 2000 years even discounting the fact that it has likely been translated two or three times before it made it to English!
ReplyDeleteI googled your quoted verse, and most scholars agree that using modern language forensics of the original texts, it is a condemnation of same sex rape, something most of us would probably agree with.
I try not to use the term, but I guess I would be considered an evangelical -- based on where I go to church. But I absolutely will not get into a discussion about inerrancy, whatever that is supposed to mean. I know what I know, and I know I don't know everything. I know I'm supposed to love God and love people, and that is what I try to do.
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