I want to offer a few responses to Sara Vinson’s thoughtful piece on why the Bible is a poor source of religious authority. Let me say, at the outset, that I fully concur with her that the Bible contains factual errors, internal inconsistencies and some deeply problematic, ethically disturbing content. I am not trying to change Ms. Vinson’s mind in that regard.
I assume, however, that as an atheist Ms. Vinson has a high regard for reason and evidence, and I want to correct several inaccuracies in her piece. First of all: While there is always some uncertainty involved in translating dead languages, it is not the free-for-all that she imagines. Apart from a few words or phrases here and there, we can generally arrive at reliable understandings of what ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek authors intended to say, and we can situate their statements in their own historical contexts.
Second, it is not true that the Bible, as we now have it, has passed through multiple translations. Most modern English versions are based on the best Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek manuscripts available, meaning that they are reliable representations of the text’s content. We may (and should!) take issue with what these ancient authors say, but the text itself has not become “warped” over time—quite the contrary.
If Ms. Vinson (or anybody else!) is curious about how biblical texts were written or what they meant to their original audiences, I would encourage her to take a biblical studies course at UW. They are taught using secular, critical methodologies by some of the world’s finest scholars of the ancient world (and also, sometimes, by me).
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