How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture

by Dan Kimball

Looking at these Bible verses today, we understand that God was not speaking or communicating with scientific accuracy in these verses. God was not saying the earth stayed physically motionless and the sun orbited around it. This is an assumption that is being read into the interpretation of this verse, something added beyond what was implied in the original communication. God was simply using common, everyday language to communicate truth about the world—but not making a scientific statement about the orbital patterns of planets. Though they had good intentions, the church imported additional meaning into these verses, going beyond God’s intentions. They were seeking to defend the Bible, assuming that the common language God had used necessarily implied a specific way of understanding the relationship between the sun and the earth. They held that not believing that the sun moved around a stationary earth meant not believing the Bible. Over time it became clear scientifically how the earth and the sun related in orbit. We realized that this scientific way of speaking and thinking about the relationship of the sun and earth was different and distinct from how the Bible was speaking of the relationship. This is just one example of why we need to carefully study a verse to understand what it is saying in context and not importing scientific meaning or drawing scientific conclusions from the Bible when it isn’t meant to be read that way. As Galileo said, “The Bible teaches us ...