The TRUE Purpose of Scripture

When interacting with Christians, one will find that many believe that scripture is the perfect word of God and is set in stone. It is understandable of course. This book plays a huge role in how they run their day-to-day lives, so it would be very difficult to believe that something you base your life on has been changed, altered, tampered with, corrupted, manipulated, or even completely fabricated. Unfortunately for them, however, facts are facts whether you believe them or not. It is very clear that there have been modifications to the Bible, whether intentional or unintentional, that have had drastic effects on the world.

Through this essay it will become evident that not only has scripture been altered, but it will be clear that these changes were intentional for purposes of necessity, preservation, politics, and/or the struggle for power throughout history.

            In order to understand how these changes have occurred and why, we must first understand what scripture is. As simple as it may seem to just explain scriptures as “divine books that belong in the Bible,” it is rather more complex than that.

The Bible does not say which books should be included, which ones are literal versus metaphorical, which ones are false (if any), and so on. These books are stories that describe Jesus and First-Century Christianity. They are written in a way that sounds like they witnessed everything that they wrote down. That is not the case however. The Bible was written over the course of 1500 years by over 40 different people; none of whom ever met Jesus.

According to a study conducted by University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert S. Feldman, 60 percent of people lie at least once during an average ten-minute conversation (Feldman, 2006). It is an even higher percentage among people you know, too – 86 percent of people lie to their parents regularly, 75 percent lie to their friends, 73 percent lie to their siblings, and 69 percent lie to their spouses (Patterson, 1991). If lying is that prevalent in humans, it is nearly impossible to assume that none of the over 40 authors heard a story that was embellished, made up, or intentionally manipulated from the beginning, let alone the evidence of it having been changed since then.

            Starting back at the beginning of the Abrahamic religions, you can see that there are parts placed in there to help keep social order, cleanliness, or health. For example, you can look at Leviticus from the Old Testament. There are various rules that any historian can identify as being in there for the reasons stated above. Leviticus 5:2-5:6:  

If anyone becomes aware that they are guilty—if they unwittingly touch anything ceremonially unclean (whether the carcass of an unclean animal, wild or domestic, or of any unclean creature that moves along the ground) and they are unaware that they have become unclean, but then they come to realize their guilt; or if they touch human uncleanness (anything that would make them unclean) even though they are unaware of it, but then they learn of it and realize their guilt;  or if anyone thoughtlessly takes an oath to do anything, whether good or evil (in any matter one might carelessly swear about) even though they are unaware of it, but then they learn of it and realize their guilt—  when anyone becomes aware that they are guilty in any of these matters, they must confess in what way they have sinned.  As a penalty for the sin they have committed, they must bring to the Lord a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for them for their sin.

 It talks about not touching unclean animals and humans. Leviticus  6:2-6:5:

The LORD said to Moses: “If anyone sins and is unfaithful to the LORD by deceiving his neighbor about something entrusted to him or left in his care or stolen, or if he cheats him,  or if he finds lost property and lies about it, or if he swears falsely, or if he commits any such sin that people may do--  then he thus sins and becomes guilty, he must return what he has stolen or taken by extortion, or what was entrusted to him, or the lost property he found,  or whatever it was he swore falsely about. He must make restitution in full, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the owner on the day he presents his guilt offering.”

This section discuss how it is sinful to be deceitful through things like breaking promises, not returning lost property, and lying to your neighbors. All of these can be placed as very basic ways to keep society together in a time when growing the populations was difficult.

            Leviticus is the third of the five books of the Torah or Pentateuch in Christianity. It is tough to date when these books were written, but the dates range from 1450 BC to 1160 BC. To best understand the purpose of these laws one must understand the time in which they were written. In a time before refrigeration, meat curing, antibiotics, trials, investigators, etc., it was common for people to transmit disease from each other and from animals very easily. It was also difficult for people to maintain honesty and social justice between people they did not have a pre-built relationship with. By establishing that these rules are the rules of God, it is easier to get people to follow them and create a more social order. Laws have existed since Mesopotamia, but when you convince people that it is a matter of heaven or hell, it makes a huge difference in getting people to abide by them.

            Jumping ahead to the New Testament, there are over 1,000 new commandments that Christians must follow. To go along with the typical rules that protect health, there are additions that are there to protect from heresy. Timothy 6:20 is one: “Guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge.” These types of rules are there to prevent people from listening to dissenters or dissenting themselves.

            In Titus 3:9 it says, “But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.” This one seems to prevent people from not only dissenting against the church, but dissenting against the government as well.

            James 3:1 states, “Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” In order to become a teacher, you must become very educated on the subject that you teach. In order to maintain control over people, you must keep them unaware that you are controlling them. People who are educated tend to ask questions and people who ask too many questions cannot be controlled.

            All of these sections have morphed from the Old Testament rules which were mostly to protect human lives in order to allow them to live longer, breed, and pass on the religion; to the New Testament rules which are about the protection of the church. There has been some advancement from 1400 BC to the 1^st century and the focus is no longer simply about keeping the people alive, but has switched to growing the church by preventing dissent.

            With the New Testament also came the establishment of a Pope. In Matthew 16:18-19 it says, “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.  I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” This gave Peter the power to be the spokesman for Jesus here on Earth.  Peter later became the first Bishop of Rome. As Bishop of Rome, he exercised authority over all other Bishops and church leaders. The teaching that the Bishop of Rome is above all other bishops in authority is referred to as the “primacy” of the Roman Bishop. Peter passed on his apostolic authority to the next Bishop of Rome, along with the other apostles who passed on their apostolic authority to the bishops that they ordained. These new bishops, in turn, passed on that apostolic authority to those bishops that they later ordained, and so on. This “passing on of apostolic authority” is referred to as “apostolic succession.” Based upon the claim of an unbroken chain of Roman bishops, Roman Catholics teach that the Roman Catholic Church is the true church, and that all churches that do not accept the primacy of the Pope have broken away from them, the original and one true church.

            This power gives the holder infallibility as well, and complete control to command their followers to do their will, or as they would claim, “the will of God.” One of the most notable commands by a Pope was in 1095. Pope Urban II commanded Europe to go to war against Muslims in order to reclaim the Holy Land of Jerusalem by saying, “Deus Valt!” or “God wills it!” At this time, Muslims were killing Christians in Turkey; but more important than those individual events, Islam was spreading as a religion. This was the time period that students of Eurocentric school systems would refer to as the Dark Ages. From a different viewpoint, however, this was the Golden Age. Under the Abbassid Dynasty, Islamic culture became a blending of Arab, Persian, Egyptian, and European traditions. The result was an era of amazing achievements, both culturally and intellectually. Just like any other time in history, people follow the religion that is easiest. In that area, the Abbassid had the power and Islam was the accepted norm, so as the Dynasty spread, Islam spread. This could not be allowed if the Christians were going to maintain their “number one spot.” Islam was doing too well and had the appearance of becoming the “winning religion’ to Muslims and Christians, so war became their only option in the eyes of the Christian church. Ending Islam was not the reality that they had hoped for. They ended up wiping out millions of their own people during the wars. Of course, the Catholic church itself did not suffer. During this time, broken soldiers traveled there for asylum—leaving behind material good; people sold goods and land to the church at extremely cheap prices and often exchanged them for prayers or simply as outright gifts. The church gained huge amounts of wealth and power which lasted for centuries (Michaud, 1853).

            Jumping ahead once again, we can look at the arrival of the Europeans in the Americas. Between their initial arrive in the 15^th century and the 19^th century, between 18 million and 90 million people (90% of their total population at the time) were wiped out (Stannard, 1993). It is commonly expressed that these explorers came for God, Gold, and Glory and they got it all. The God part is the most interesting because we went from the religious people surviving, to the religion itself surviving, to the religion gaining power, and now to the religion conquering. Samuel 15:3 comes to mind when I think of this conquering. It says, “Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” This is exactly what the Europeans did. They wiped out almost every child, mother, father, and pet of the Natives and through this scripture, they could feel justified as they did it.

            The trend continues; what can be interpreted as people always trying to do what God wants them to do, always seems to have someone working behind the scenes with ulterior motives: power, money, and protection.

            If we move yet again to a more recent time, you can see countless actions by politicians, civilians, terrorists, soldiers, etc. in the name of God. Of course, there will always be people who take just the good from religion and nothing else. But as Steven Weinberg said, “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” As we have seen through history, it is very true.

            In the 20^th century, there was a very powerful man named Adolf Hitler. From 1933 when Hitler gained the title of Chancellor, up until 1945, when Germany surrendered in World War II, Hitler was able to spread the power of Germany while simultaneously committing genocide by killing 6 million Jews. An act like this could not ever happen without the consent of the people. This is where religion came in to play. Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini were given veto power over who the Pope could appoint to bishop in their countries. In exchange, the Vatican was given a large amount of money from the taxes collected from the Catholics. In 1933, Hitler wrote “The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church.  This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism is hostile to religion is a lie” (Cornwell, 2008). In fact, the church knew about the killings very early on, because they had religions representation throughout the occupied countries. While some religious individuals stood up against Hitler’s actions, the church itself did nothing. Many even thought that it was justified as essentially payback for the death of Jesus.

This continues to be the theme today. The powerful make a statement with religious justification and the regular people just follow blindly. We can look at events of today; in America, a supposed secular nation, we can still see the policies based on religion. According to Business Insider, we give $3.1 billion each year to Israel for support and will continue to do so. We have been giving to Israel since the 1950s in amounts totaling over $100 billion. This is not a poor country in need of all this help. They spend $23.2 billion dollars per year on their military (7.6% of their GDP) which puts them at 13^th in military spending throughout the entire world (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2015). So why are we helping them? The answer is obvious—we are still protecting the Holy Land of Jerusalem.

From the start of the Christian religion all the way to the present, people have used scripture to serve their purposes. What may have started as a way to control people in a positive way has been twisted every-which-way in order to gain followers in the search for power and wealth. You can look at every major power grab in history and see it work this same way. At the beginning, it was easy to get people to believe you because science did not exist, so God was the easy explanation for the unexplainable. Back then, people lacked the ability to challenge what was being told to them. As time went on, the leaders of the church just created rules to prevent the common folks from dissenting. Whether it was only allowing the priests to learn the language the Bible was written in, or to create a society where people are too dumbed down by flashy lights on their screen and news entertainment to sit down and actually research what is being told to them, the results are the same. The powerful can make the Bible say whatever they want and the common believer will follow, because they do not know any better.

References

Cornwell, John (2008). Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII. Penguin Books.

Patterson, James (1991). The Day America Told the Truth: What People Really Believe

About Everything That Really Matters. Prentice Hall Trade.

Feldman, R.; Weiss, B. (2006). Looking Good and Lying to Do It: Deception as an

Impression Management Strategy in Job Interviews. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Vol 36, Issue 4.  Pages 1070-1086. April 2006.

International Institute for Strategic Studies (11 February 2015). The Military Balance

2015. London: Routledge

Stannard, David E. (1993). American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World.

Oxford University Press, USA.