Why isn’t the Bible more clear?

[honey badger]

i see the narrative pictured in the bible unfolding all around me ...

 

[bling]

Why is the Bible written so that it has to be interpreted? And why are there so many different denominations that believe different things and interpret the Bible different ways? Even Bible scholars have different views on what the Bible says.
Only one denomination (or maybe no denomination) will have interpreted the Bible correctly, right?
Why didn’t God make the Bible more clear so that Christians wouldn’t be divided over it and they could all know exactly what the Bible says?

I will address this question first: “And why are there so many different denominations that believe different things and interpret the Bible different ways?”

If you want to be a big time high paid glorified powerful religious leader of lots of people, you have to show how you are different and how others are wrong and you are right. If you are in a country where being a well-known Christian will get you imprisoned or killed, you might want to be less conspicuous. In China, Iran, North Korea, parts of India, parts of Africa and Cuba, there are no high paying religious jobs and in fact the highest paying job might be unpaid home church leader. If you are going to die for your believes, you need to know what believes are worthy of your life.

If there was severe persecution of Christians in the West there would not be much division.

 

[Taodeching]

Why is the Bible written so that it has to be interpreted?

The Bible not being written in English is one reason, but in the original languages the Bible is fine.

And why are there so many different denominations that believe different things and interpret the Bible different ways? Even Bible scholars have different views on what the Bible says.

There are so many denominations because in the late 1500's one man decided that everyone can figure out what the Bible meant and so now you have everyone with their own idea. When someone has a new idea or they don't like someone else's idea a denomination is born.

Only one denomination (or maybe no denomination) will have interpreted the Bible correctly, right?
Why didn’t God make the Bible more clear so that Christians wouldn’t be divided over it and they could all know exactly what the Bible says?

It's is not that unclear, mankind just wants their own way all the time.

 

[HTacianas]

Except when it's not. Eg. Try having a group conversation about what foods are biblical to eat (or not). Or what's acceptable to do on the Sabbath. Or are we living in the end times.

When and how did any of those become an issue within Christianity?

 

[GodLovesCats]

What do you mean by that? Sorry if I’m asking dumb questions.

Your questions are definitely not dumb. I have wondered the same thing for decades.

Men created confusion by changing God's Word when they translated it to their native languages.

 

[pescador]

Your questions are definitely not dumb. I have wondered the same thing for decades.

Men created confusion by changing God's Word when they translated it to their native languages.

How else does one translate anything into another language? Especially when the source languages are thousands of years old, written by many different authors in different cultures on different subjects at different times? And the original sources haven't been found!

That isn't creating confusion, that is creating understanding.

 

[GodLovesCats]

How else does one translate anything into another language? Especially when the source languages are thousands of years old, written by many different authors in different cultures on different subjects at different times? And the original sources haven't been found!

That isn't creating confusion, that is creating understanding.

The original sources are totally gone.

By changing God's Word, I mean making the text mean something completely different. They did not just transliterate Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek to their native languages. Verses and parts of verses have been added to and subtracted from it.

 

[pescador]

The original sources are totally gone.

By changing God's Word, I mean making the text mean something completely different. They did not just transliterate Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek to their native languages. Verses and parts of verses have been added to and subtracted from it.

That is a very general statement.

1) Of course they didn't transliterate Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. There are too many differences between the source and destination languages: word meaning, verb tenses, idioms, etc. to make that possible.

2) Making a blanket statement such as "verses and parts of verses have been added to and subtracted from it" is meaningless. Where is the evidence for this? How do you know which verses have been altered if the originals don't exist?

It sounds as though your intent is to discredit the excellent translations that we have. Do you have a perfect understanding of the original source documents?

 

[BBAS 64]

Good Day,

The issue is not the Bible, like any written work it is to be interrupted that is the realty.

Now how one goes about doing that is an other question, but varied interpretation of written Scripture in noting new it has been going on for thousands of years if you count the OT Hebrew Scripture (The oracles of God)

Basil of Caesarea (Ad 329-379): Liberated from the error of
pagan tradition through the benevolence and loving kindness
of the good God, with the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
by the operation of the Holy Spirit, I was reared from the very
beginning by Christian parents. From them I learned even in
babyhood the Holy Scriptures which led me to a knowledge of
the truth. When I grew to manhood, I traveled about frequently
and, in the natural course of things, I engaged in a great many
worldly affairs. Here I observed that the most harmonious
relations existed among those trained in the pursuit of each of
the arts and sciences; while in the Church of God alone, for
which Christ died and upon which He poured out in
abundance the Holy Spirit, I noticed that many disagree
violently with one another and also in their understanding of
the Holy Scriptures. Most alarming of all is the fact that I found
the very leaders of the Church themselves at such variance
with one another in thought and opinion, showing so much
opposition to the commands of our Lord Jesus Christ, and so
mercilessly rendering asunder the Church of God and cruelly
confounding His flock that, in our day, with the rise of the
Anomoeans, there is fulfilled in them as never before the
prophecy, ‘Of your own selves shall men arise speaking
perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.’
Witnessing such disorders as these and perplexed as to what
the cause and source of such evil might be, I at first was in a
state, as it were, of thick darkness and, as if on a balance, I
veered now this way, now that—attracted now to one man,
now to another, under the influence of protracted association
with these persons, and then thrust in the other direction, as I
bethought myself of the validity of the Holy Scriptures. After a
long time spent in this state of indecision and while I was still
busily searching for the cause I have mentioned, there came to
my mind the Book of Judges which tells how each man did
what was right in his own eyes and gives the reason for this in
the words” ‘In those days there was no king in Israel.’ With
these words in my mind, then, I applied also to the present
circumstances that explanation which, incredible and
frightening as it may be, is quite truly pertinent when it is
understood; for never before has there arisen such discord
and quarreling as now among the the members of the Church
in consequence of their turning away from the one, great, and
true God, only King of the universe. Each man, indeed,
abandons the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and arrogates
to himself authority in dealing with certain questions, making
his own private rules, and preferring to exercise leadership in
opposition to the Lord to being led by the Lord. Reflecting
upon this and aghast at the magnitude of the impiety, I
pursued my investigation further and became convinced that
the aforesaid cause was no less the true source also of secular
difficulties. I noticed that as long as the common obedience of
the others to some one leader was maintained, all was
discipline and harmony in the whole group; but that division
and discord and a rivalry of leaders besides proceeded from a
lack of leadership. Moreover, I once had observed how even a
swarm of bees, in accordance with a law of nature, lives under
military discipline and obeys its own king with orderly
precision. Many such instances have I witnessed and many
others I have heard of, and persons who make profession of
such matters know many more still, so that they can vouch for
the truth of what I have said. Now, if good order with its
attendant harmony is characteristic of those who look to one
source of authority and are subject to one king, then universal
disorder and disharmony are a sign that leadership is wanting.
By the same token, if we discover in our midst such a lack of
accord as I have mentioned, both with regard to one another
and with respect to the Lord’s commands, it would be an
indictment either of our rejection of the true king, according
to the Scriptural saying: ‘only that he who now holdeth, do
hold, until he be taken out of the way,’ or of denial of Him
according to the Psalmist: ‘The fool hath said in his heart:
There is no God.’ And as a kind of token or proof of this, there
follow the words: ‘They are corrupt and are become
abominable in their ways.’ Fathers of the Church, Vol. 9,
Preface on the Judgment of God (New York: Fathers of the
Church, Inc., 1950), pp. 37-39.

Nothing new.... really

In Him,

Bill

 

[BBAS 64]

The original sources are totally gone.

By changing God's Word, I mean making the text mean something completely different. They did not just transliterate Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek to their native languages. Verses and parts of verses have been added to and subtracted from it.

Good Day,

Wow now there is one assertion that really needs to be taken up...

So lets see some Primary source objective historical proof, or else one would have to find that your assertion is nothing more baseless fallacy.

Some thing tells me you have done little study on science and methodology of translating written works of days long past.

IN Him,

Bill

 

[Carl Emerson]

The original sources are totally gone
.

The discovery of the scroll of Isaiah in 1948 at Qumran yielded a text more than 1000 Years older than any known manuscripts.

When this older text was compared with what scholars already had the differences were insignificant and the meaning of the text had been faithfully copied by scribes over a thousand year period.

 

[pescador]

The OP asks "why isn't the Bible more clear?" I'm not sure what that means. Does it mean that the meanings of the words aren't clear? Does it mean that, even though the words themselves are clear the concepts being communicated aren't understood?

The former is dependent on the translation being used. That is the primary reason that the King James Bible is misunderstood. It was written more than 400 years ago in what is now a dead language. Because it is written in an archaic Englyshe, it is very often re-interpreted into modern English, resulting in whatever the "translator" wants it to mean in 21st Century English. It is not difficult to understand the meaning if one uses a translation in her/his native language. I trust professional translators, many of whom have devoted much of their lives accurately communicating God's word.

If the concepts being communicated are difficult to understand then one should seek help and guidance, primarily from the Holy Spirit but also from those whom one respects regarding their understanding. Much of the Bible is spiritually discerned.

 

[chad kincham]

Why is the Bible written so that it has to be interpreted? And why are there so many different denominations that believe different things and interpret the Bible different ways? Even Bible scholars have different views on what the Bible says.
Only one denomination (or maybe no denomination) will have interpreted the Bible correctly, right?
Why didn’t God make the Bible more clear so that Christians wouldn’t be divided over it and they could all know exactly what the Bible says?

Are you kidding?

The 12 apostles didn’t even agree on anything, when Jesus Himself was there teaching them.

God wants us to study the scriptures, and made it each individuals responsibility to study the scriptures and rightly divide the truth.

Proverbs 25:2

(KJV) It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

 

[The Liturgist]

Why is the Bible written so that it has to be interpreted? And why are there so many different denominations that believe different things and interpret the Bible different ways? Even Bible scholars have different views on what the Bible says.
Only one denomination (or maybe no denomination) will have interpreted the Bible correctly, right?
Why didn’t God make the Bible more clear so that Christians wouldn’t be divided over it and they could all know exactly what the Bible says?

Historically there was only one denomination, and I am convinced that there is a centrality of denominations that are collectively interpreting the Bible correctly. You’ve met members of some of them in Traditional Theology I believe. I can walk you through the Patristic history and the history of schisms.

 

[The Liturgist]

It is, however, intended to convey all the information from God to Man that we need in order to serve him properly in this life and to be saved in the life to come.

If interpreted as the early church interpreted, yes (the primary error of Cranmer was to forget to emphasis this, even though he did say it; Archbishop Laud could probably have corrected this problem had King Charles I not distracted him on an ultimately self-defeating mission to de-Presbyterianize the Church of Scotland, which did produce the Scottish Episcopal Church, whose Eucharistic theology with the non jurors in the 18th century was unsurpassed, but which also the majority of Scots, who preferred Calvinism or Catholicism, resented, which in turn coupled with King Charles improper handling of Parliament enabled the Puritanical tyrant Oliver Cromwell to stage a coup and commit regicide, which was most unfortunate, so the moral of that to rulers is, don’t interfere with your archbishops.

 

[Strong in Him]

Why is the Bible written so that it has to be interpreted? And why are there so many different denominations that believe different things and interpret the Bible different ways? Even Bible scholars have different views on what the Bible says.
Only one denomination (or maybe no denomination) will have interpreted the Bible correctly, right?
Why didn’t God make the Bible more clear

More clear about what?
He was very clear in his command to Adam - yet Adam still disobeyed.
He gave his word to the Hebrews at Sinai, told them to tie his laws around their heads, write them on the doorposts of their houses and teach them to their children. He sent judges, kings and prophets to urge Israel to keep God's law and covenant - which they all knew. They still disobeyed.
The Gospel, the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus are clear; the wages of sin are clear, and still the same.

 

[Thera]

Why is the Bible written so that it has to be interpreted? And why are there so many different denominations that believe different things and interpret the Bible different ways? Even Bible scholars have different views on what the Bible says.
Only one denomination (or maybe no denomination) will have interpreted the Bible correctly, right?
Why didn’t God make the Bible more clear so that Christians wouldn’t be divided over it and they could all know exactly what the Bible says?

Most of the bible is pretty clear if you study it. Some bits aren't (typically prophecy), but (I think) these bits are deliberately unclear so we don't know exactly what is meant until after it happens.

I think mostly, most (good) denominations interpret most of the bible correctly, most of the time.

 

[The Liturgist]

Most of the bible is pretty clear if you study it. Some bits aren't (typically prophecy), but (I think) these bits are deliberately unclear so we don't know exactly what is meant until after it happens.

I think mostly, most (good) denominations interpret most of the bible correctly, most of the time.

Indeed. I myself think a particularly good job is done by the three Eastern communions, the Eastern Orthodox (Russians, Greeks, Romanians, Serbians, Antiochians, Bulgarians, Cypriots and various other Eastern European and Levantine ethnicities, as well as the Aleuts and other Native Americans in Alaska proselytized by St. Herman of Alaska and St. Innocent, and including the martyr St. Peter the Aleut, who was a trader who was captured by the Spanish and taken to a mission, where he refused to convert; all this happened in the 150 years or so before James Seward negotiated our purchase of what is now the largest US state, in 1865), the Oriental Orthodox (Armenians, Copts (Egyptian Christians), Ethioians, Eritreans, Syriac Orthodox (Aramaic speakers living principally in Syria, Iraq, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and historically Turkey before the genocide of 1915, when they, the Armenians, and the local Greek Orthodox were the victims of actual murder and mayhem, in an event the Syriacs call the Sayfo, meaning “Sword”, because this was the weapon the Turks used on them), and many of the Mar Thoma Christians in India, evangelized by St. Thomas the Apostle before his martyrdom in 53 AD.

The final communion is the Church of the East, which consists of the Assyrians, the largest surviving population of Aramaic speakers, chiefly in Iraq, with smaller populations in East Syria and Iran. They were wiped out in Turkey in the Sayfo. Some Mar Thoma Christians, and historically all of them, were members of this church, which was once the largest in the world, in every respect, until in the 12th century the Islamic hordes of the Uzbek warlord Tamerlane killed all of them in China, Tibet, Mongolia, Central Asia, pretty much everywhere except the Malabar Coast of India and Mesoporamia. The Assyrians and Syriac Orthodox, who I believe were also victims of Tamerlane’s genocide, and along with Antiochian Orthodox, were cannibalized by Crusaders en route to Jerusalem, also in the 12th century, are probably the most genocided Christians, when you add in the 1915 Sayfo and the 2013-18 ISIS attempted genocide, which caused many Christians to flee Syria and Iraq, who have not returned.

These three churches have the most historically consistent scriptural exegesis and the fact they agree with each other despite being in technical schism since the 5th century, and agree with most theologians of the Early Church, provides a certain resounding certitude. Indeed the Moravian Church is descended from the failed attempt of St. Jan Hus to restore Orthodoxy to the Czech lands, and in the Czech and Slovakian Orthodox Church he and his colleague St. Jerome of Prague are venerated as martyrs.

So, because that incident emboldened Martin Luther, and he and the two other leading reformers, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer of the Church of England, and John Calvin, were influenced by the Eastern churches (especially Cranmer and Luther, although their knowledge of them was limited), and of course John Wesley, two centuries later, had direct knowledge of the Eastern churches and basically repackaged Eastern salvation theology for the West (entire sanctification makes a nice synonym for theosis), and because the Reformation caused the Counter Reformation under Pope St. Pius V, under which the Roman Catholic Church immediately stopped selling indulgences, began preserving the traditions of Eastern Catholics (former Orthodox in countries which came under Catholic rule, including some large numbers of Ukrainians and Central Europeans, and communities of related circumstances, such as the Assyrians of Baghdad, who became the Chaldean Catholics, and the Maronites of Lebanon, who broke away from the Syriac Orthodox Church in the 800s and became a powerful military force, well defended in their mountain forts, which is probably why Lebanon has the highest ratio of Christians to Muslims in the Middle East).

these reforms culminated in the papacy of St. Pius X, and most recently, Benedict XVI, but I fear are at risk of being partially compromised as my Roman Catholic friends @chevyontheriver @Michie and @Fenwick might agree, but even then I believe we can thank the persecuted Christians of the East, who have suffered at the hands of Romans, Visigoths, Magyars, Mongolians, countless Islamic invasions and attrocities, and lest we forget, communism, which by the 1970s ruled most Eastern Orthodox countries and Armenia and Ethiopia (who account for a majority of the Oriental Orthodox population with 6 million Armenians and 30 million Ethiopians and Eritreans, vs. 10 million Copts, a million Syriac Orthodox, and 3 million Indian Orthodox), for having saved Western Christianity from the likes of predatory ecclesiastical dynasties such as the Borgias (Pope Alexander VI) and incompetent bureaucrats (Leo X) and revitalizing it, despite having been largely estranged from the Roman Catholic Church since the Papal legate to Constantinople excommunicated the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1054.

Other highly reliable churches include the Roman Catholics, obviously, conservative Lutheran churches such as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, of which my friend @MarkRohfrietsch is a member of the Canadian equivalent, the Lutheran Church of Canada (Mark, what do you guys call WELS up there? Perhaps The Synod of Americans Just Across the Border? ), and also the more traditional Anglican churches, and liturgical Protestant churches in general. I love Park Street Church, a traditional Congregational church in Boston, being a former UCC minister who resigned because I believe we should never put a comma where God intended a period, and have two Congregational missions in the desolate reaches of the Mojave Desert.

 

[renniks]

Why is the Bible written so that it has to be interpreted? And why are there so many different denominations that believe different things and interpret the Bible different ways? Even Bible scholars have different views on what the Bible says.
Only one denomination (or maybe no denomination) will have interpreted the Bible correctly, right?
Why didn’t God make the Bible more clear so that Christians wouldn’t be divided over it and they could all know exactly what the Bible says?

It is clear. It's not simple however. If you really think about it you interpret anything you read.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

<SNIP>
Other highly reliable churches include the Roman Catholics, obviously, conservative Lutheran churches such as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, of which my friend @MarkRohfrietsch is a member of the Canadian equivalent, the Lutheran Church of Canada (Mark, what do you guys call WELS up there? <SNIP>.

Simply "WELS" LOL.

We still have some LCMS Congregations up here; they are all "English District"; and have always done their own thing... more or less. We have one about 12 miles from me; their Pastor is LCC, and he attends the Circuit meetings with the rest of our LCC pastors in our Circuit.