Question:
Dear Greg,
Post
this in your magazine if you have the courage, because these verses have been
quoted from the Bible you believe. A
religious belief is as authentic as the authenticity of the Scripture it
follows. That means if your
Scripture is nonsense, your belief is nonsense—put it in the trashcan.
How
authentic is the Bible? It talks about:
1.
Incest between father and daughters (Genesis 19:33-35).
2.
Incest between mother and son (Genesis 35:22).
3.
Incest between father-in-law and daughter-in-law (Genesis 38:15-18).
4.
Incest and rape between brother and sister (2 Samuel 13:5-14).
5.
Wholesale rape and incest between son and his mothers (2 Samuel 16:22).
Thank
you,
Mohammed
Answer: Dear Mohammed,
You
seem to confuse “authenticity” with historical accuracy.
The fact that my newspaper or newsmagazine tells me about sins,
corruption and evil does not prove that they are not authentic.
Perhaps you have misunderstood—or perhaps someone misled you about the
nature and purpose of the Bible. The
Bible is inspired by God as:
1.
An accurate history of the world, particularly from the framework of the
2.
An accurate source of his revelation and will for humanity.
The passages
The
Bible does not ignore sin or the folly of sin.
The Bible is honest, sometimes brutally so, about the sinful human nature
that all humans have regardless of their religious tradition and affiliation.
We are al sinners in his sight. Heroes
of the Bible, patriarchs, prophets and kings of the Old Testament, and apostles
of the New, are not presented as beyond human failings. God presents the honest truth, not some cosmetic airbrushed
fairy tale about humans who were perfect. We,
after all, know that no human is perfect.
The
claim of the Bible is that God, in the person of Jesus, loved us all so much
that he came to be one of us and die for our sins so that our sins could be
forgiven. He did not die on the
cross because we earned his love and because we were or are good, but because he
is good. The message of the Bible
is about the love of God that can overcome and conquer the sinful, corrupt state
of humanity.
May
God bless you.
In
Christ,
Greg
Albrecht