Isn’t This a Mistake In the Holy Scriptures?

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain to the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.                            I Thessalonians 4: 15

I believe that the Bible is a book inspired by God: the very Word of God.

Traditional thinking from the early Christian forefathers says that this means that the contents of the Bible are free of theological errors.

But is every single sentence of its contents free of errors, especially theological errors?

Since the Enlightenment, people moved to break any ideas that represented a control of people’s right to think and reason; the challenge to the validity of the infallibility of the Bible began in high scale.

The response from many circles have been primarily to cite what top level leaders of the Christian traditions have said and to cite the Bible itself. According to the rules of logic, none of these approaches are valid. the first one is called an appeal to authority, and the second one is a classic case of circular reasoning as one uses as an allege proof the words of the very book which one is attempting to demonstrate its infallibility. These cases are logical fallacies. For no other book or person, we would accept such approaches in a simple debate. In court they would be readily dismissed by any attorney.

Of course, those unwilling to open their minds to modern critical research and what it implies can always resort to their fallacious response: “it’s a mystery” or “we do not understand God fully yet” or “just trust in God’s word” and keep themselves from examining their own views.

People of faith seem to not care for formal methods of evaluation of ideas when it comes to the attacks against the faith. They do embrace them when they have to do with arguments allegedly proving the veracity of the Christian message; an obvious double standard.

Can an irrefutable error be found in the Bible?

I propose that one does exit and in the very writings of none other than Paul.

In the above verse Paul expresses his belief that Jesus will either return during his lifetime or during the time of his contemporaries. Either one is a mistake.

The event did not occur then nor has it yet happened.

Consequently, from earliest time interpreters have maintained that Paul was not speaking of himself nor of his contemporaries. Meyer’s Commentary of the New Testament examining the construction of the Greek presents a powerful argument demonstrating quite the contrary. Even from the translation the least one gets from the statement is that Paul believed that Jesus’ return was very near and if he is not alive by the time it happens at least some of his contemporaries will be.

Since in present times many more scholars recognize that Paul included himself, advocates of the infallibility of scripture resort to the lame argument that Paul was just expressing his opinion. That may be true. But there is one serious problem with that very explanation.

It forgets that Paul’s affirmation is not just his own views about the return of Jesus. The statement became part of written Holy Scripture as such it represents God’s own words. Paul’s affirmation stopped being his own personal belief and became God’s very own Word as soon as it was canonized. As such it should partake of the very infallibility that presumably characterizes the entire Bible.

What would that imply? yes, it would imply that Paul’s statement should be free of theological error.

However, the reality is that history demonstrated that the statement represents nothing but the simple erroneous view of Paul concerning the timing of Christ’s Second Coming. If one wishes to be more severe we can say that the affirmation is false. This does not mean that it is a lie. Paul obviously believed the event would take place in his lifetime. He was mistaken though. And after him, thousands of Christian leaders took up the baton of proclaiming the return of Jesus during their lifetimes and each one of them, so far, have been mistaken. Their ideas were false. They were not true. They were not lies, but they were not true.

In we follow this line of thought we must conclude that God did not commanded Paul to make such a false statement. Paul does not say that he is speaking for God when he expresses his idea of the soon to be realized Second Coming. Paul was not being presumptuous, a very serious sin, pretending to speak God’s word. He seems to have just been filled of inspiration and hope.

No matter that: he was plain wrong.

This error in his perception of the timing of the Second Coming cannot be considered as the Word of God itself, though it may be in the Bible.

As Christians we do not have the grace of escaping the laws of logic and one must accept the truth: the Bible contains an error. If you wish to call it a ‘mystery’ and still grant infallibility to the Bible, be aware that you are doing  that against the laws of logic. After that, an attempt to present arguments for Christianity through the use of logic that may favor certain theological views make ones apologetic appear highly inconsistent.

If we become open to the reality of what we face in the Bible we may be a step closer to a deeper understanding of its purpose and its contents.