The Bible and its Purpose

Factual Questions
1

Hi SD,

The Bible, or the Pentateuch, or whatever you want to call those five books, is used throughout the world. My question is: what was it originally intended to be?

Whether you believe that its words came from a divine source or from humanity, I want to know instead why it is what it is.

Was the intent to inform, to create a historical record of some sort, or to encourage interpretation and discussion, or rote memorization? How did the author(s) of the Bible envision it to be used?

If it was meant to foster debate about certain ethical or other questions, it didn’t do a very good job, in my humble opinion. The Bible offers plenty of narrative, but the questions it raises are not inherent in the text. We have to figure out what lessons there are to be learned. We have to form questions and answer them on our own. Of course, the questions and answers we arrive at are sometimes different. Did the author(s) of the Bible intend on different interpretations? Obviously, they could not have foreseen the problems that we have today. Lots of people do or believe wildly different things, all pointing to the same book as their justification. I can’t imagine any author being proud of a book that is used to rationalize possibly awful acts.

If it was meant to tell a long, entertaining story, why? To teach future generations about a people from long ago? Were children who were among the first to read the Bible supposed to memorize it? Interpret it by themselves? Internalize it as their own history?

If it was meant to teach humanity how to live, it could have been written more efficiently. It contains the story of the creation of the world, and the trials of Moses and the Israelites, as well as plenty of other information. But what bothers me is that while there are sections that delineate exactly how a person should act (e.g. Ten Commandments), there are many other sections that just tell a story–be it the story of Joseph, or Abraham, or one of the matriarchs, etc. What was the purpose of these sections, as envisioned by whoever or whatever created it?

Plenty of other writings offer much more concise advice on behavior. Parables from the Christian tradition are relatively clear on lessons about how to live a decent life.

If it was intended to keep control over the masses, it seems rather unappealing. After reading the parts about family trees, (x begat y who begat z) and then about leprosy and menstruation, I would not want to fight and die for that book.

It’s like the Bible tries to be everything at once. What was its original purpose?

I don’t claim to be a biblical scholar. Far from it, actually. I am certainly willing to learn whatever you guys are willing to teach me. And forgive my ignorance, please. I’m only trying to learn! Thanks for correcting any of my misconceptions.

Dave

2

First, I think you are talking only about the first five books and not the entire bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The entire bible has 66 books, 39 in the O.T. (of which I just listed the first five) and 27 in the N.T., of which the first four are the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Right?

3

Protestant heretic! There are 46 books in the OT! :wink:

4

You’ve asked some big questions, that could easily take us out of General Questions territory (into either GD, CS, or IMHO). But you might want to start by reading the Staff Report(s) on “Who Wrote the Bible?”

5

It was originally, and still thought by many, to be the history of the first few thousand years of the earth.

6

Those five books were passed down verbally from generation to generation over thousands of years before they were written down. Anyone who’s played the telephone game knows what can happen to the original story when passed from person to person to person.

7

:smiley:

I was baptized, raised and confirmed Catholic, does that count for anything?

8

Uh oh. Don’t want this thread to explode. But the history of the earth theory makes sense. I guess the Bible could be thought of as a history textbook of some kind?

And I guess the claim of more than one author of the Bible would explain why it contains such disparate elements. Maybe the question of the purpose of the Bible can best be answered by saying "It was meant for anything and everything, as determined by the vision of each of its individual contributors (theorizing that it was compiled by more than one author).

Dave

9

Assuming we’re talking about the Torah or Pentateuch… history? Not really. General context as a rough starting point might be better.

10

Well, I’m supposed to be Lutheran these days, but they’ll only take Bel and the Dragon out of my cold, dead hands.

11

Oh, don’t mind me. I was raised to throw around heresy accusations willy-nilly.

12

It’s certainly not history (let alone a history textbook) in the modern sense of the term. But it does contain a lot of history if by history you mean “a record of what (supposedly) happened in the past.” You could say that it’s the Hebrew/Jewish people’s story of how they got to be who they are (including their relationship with God). Along with a lot of the civil, criminal, ceremonial, religious, and moral laws they were supposed to have lived by. And some genealogical and demographic and architectural information that’s of very limited interest to most readers today.

13

66 is a lightweight! One extant branch of Christianity has 81 books for the entire Bible. Here is a run read about the Biblical Canon.

14

It’s called the Torah, Hebrew for the Law. I think the primary purpose was exactly that, to give the law. The history was to explain how it became the law. The stories were to reinforce the community and to establish a basis for the law.

I mean, the Creation story clearly is used to illustrate why the Sabbath exists. Adam and Eve show why the world isn’t perfect. Noah and Babel show what happens without a Law to follow.

Then we have Abraham and Isaac–ancestors to show that Israel has a historical relationship with God, the law giver. We see what happens to good people who do follow the Law. You have Jacob and his children, who illustrate the tribes and why there is so much fighting–hence why they needed to come together under the Law. Then Moses, who finally gets the law and why he deserves to the one who talks to God, the law-giver.

After Moses, you get a few more stories, but mostly laws.

(I will admit there that the secondary purpose of explaining why things are the way they are does seem to become primary in some places. But I think that makes sense for a religious law book. You need the common culture to establish the religion which establishes the value of the laws.)

15

Perhaps a bit out of GQ here, but it seems like you answered one of your questions, if it is of divine origin, it is designed for one to ask questions about what it is and why (and why it’s format doesn’t appear to make sense for any purpose), the Bible does have instructions of how to find those answers, ‘seek and you shall find’.

The Bible itself does state it’s purpose summerized in *2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. *

16

I think that when the Torah was written, people didn’t divide the world’s knowledge into as many categories as we do now. So yes, it includes history as well as law. I think the I purpose was to write down the important information known to the Hebrews. That includes both their history and their law, as well as how God gave the law to them, and why they know it is true (all the miracles around exodus, for example.)

17

To be clear, I am referring to the first Five Books of Moses in this question.

So it’s a law book. And the stories provide a cultural background.

Why wouldn’t they have made the laws separate for easier reference? All these stories surrounding them, to me, become entertainment. Interesting, certainly, but not relevant to the guy who needs to know how to deal with his neighbor who has wronged him, or what decisions he himself should make in certain situations. If you say the stories support the meaning behind the law, I’ll buy that. But would the Bible have been so successful as a law book without all the narrative? Would the people have embraced the law without the backstory? Was the original audience already clamoring for laws, or were they skeptics that needed the stories to convince them of the laws’ relevance to them? I think I am overthinking this!

Were the stories themselves ORIGINALLY intended to invite interpretation as to their meaning? Or are they simply “historical record”, meant for general knowledge? If meant for general knowledge, when did the practice of interpreting every section of these stories begin, and why? Why would we start interpreting stories once we as a civilization realized that animal sacrifice, stoning, and other laws no longer were relevant to us? Wouldn’t that have soured our perspective on the whole book?

18

Have you ever played the telephone game with people raised in a strong oral tradition who were strongly motivated and educated over years to remember things accurately - and tested on their ability to do so - or only with people who don’t have that much motivation to remember exactly what was said to them?

19

Yes, well put. IOW, more historical than history. Not really a history of past events in the modern sense of the word history, as you say, but a story of past events, some (many?) of which may have happened as described.

Was Abraham called by God? Yes I believe so. Was he from in or near Ur of Chaldea/Chaldee? Yes I believe he was.

Were the universe and earth and skies and light created in six 24-hr consecutive days? No, I don’t believe they were. Might I be wrong about that? Yes it’s possible.

Should the two creation accounts at the beginning of Genesis be interpreted literally? No I don’t think they should.

Was there a flood that covered the entire earth? No I don’t think so, but at the same time when a person back then says my entire world was flooded, it could have been a local flood covering maybe 2,000 miles square, or so. Was there such a flood? Yes I believe so.

So in the end can I read, pray on, study and interpret, and select what elements of the Pentateuch that I will accept literally as written in my NIV translation? Yep, I can and will. Might what I accept now as history in those Five Books of Moses change for me as I listen to and learn from others? It’s certainly possible.

20

Well if there were two such teams playing the game over thousands of years I would expect team Strong Oral Tradition’s result to be much closer to the source material than that of team People w/out Motivation. It’d be an interesting exercise, wouldn’t it? Maybe I’ll add that to my list of questions for when I get to the Pearly Gates, along with Who killed JFK, Where is DB Cooper, and Why couldn’t McCovey’s bottom of 9th liner have been 2 feet higher in Game 7 of the '62 World Series? I can’t even ask about Game 6 of the 2002 Series, that’s still too painful. Besides, Angels won that one.

I would not, however, expect team SOT’s result to be a 100% exact match to the source material, without having either added or subtracted any substantive facts. We are human, everybody has an agenda and no matter how well you are trained there will almost certainly be some deviation. We are talking about Thousands of years.

ETA: However, God may have had His hand on team SOT and their accuracy!