A common apologetic I hear is that the Bible is the way it is, because it was written for a different culture. This is almost always invoked to get around something uncomfortable the Bible says. Maybe it's a part that condones something terrible like slavery or genocide. Maybe it's something that's provably wrong, like pi equaling three, or the world being flat. The argument goes that the Bible was written in a way that the people of that time would have understood. So, rather than explaining the germ theory of disease or parasites, the Bible says "don't crap in your camp" and "don't eat pork".
Three problems:
1) What about side effects?
Take the germ and parasite examples above: Unsanitary living conditions can spread germs, and those can make you sick. Pork can have parasites. If you don't cook it correctly, you can get sick. Surely, it's easier to just tell people to avoid those things all together, right? Wrong.
I mean, yeah, there's no way people back then knew anything about germs. It would have been a leap of faith to accept that... just like about any other thing in the Bible. The whole thing hinges on people just blindly accepting unsubstantiated claims. Why not rely on people to just blindly accepting the truth!?
Also, this type of prohibition is problematic both in that it leaves people open to other vectors of infection, and it denies them bacon for no good reason!
2) What about moral issues?
When it comes to killing all the Hittites or having slaves, this approach doesn't really deal with that. The Christian is left just having to look uncomfortably at their feet and mumble something about it being "different times" or something.
3) What about later?
So, even if we ignore the last two things I said and just accepted that this is a good way to convey complex ideas, what about later? What about now? Why did we stop getting updates for 2,000 years, when the Bible has been becoming increasingly irrelevant at a faster and faster rate? Shouldn't the additions and redaction been huge? Why did Galileo have to go up against the church for something that was provably wrong? Why didn't he get to add a book to the Bible? Why did YHWH leave the Americans to themselves to argue over slavery (both using the same Bible!) and to fight a civil war over it?
Just assuming that an uncomfortable part was meant for some bronze-age goat herders doesn't make any sense, once you dig beneath the surface.
Of course, the real reason for all of this was the Bible was written by a bunch of bronze and iron aged zealots, not that it was written for them.
My point is, this is a really crappy apologetic.
Three problems:
1) What about side effects?
Take the germ and parasite examples above: Unsanitary living conditions can spread germs, and those can make you sick. Pork can have parasites. If you don't cook it correctly, you can get sick. Surely, it's easier to just tell people to avoid those things all together, right? Wrong.
I mean, yeah, there's no way people back then knew anything about germs. It would have been a leap of faith to accept that... just like about any other thing in the Bible. The whole thing hinges on people just blindly accepting unsubstantiated claims. Why not rely on people to just blindly accepting the truth!?
Also, this type of prohibition is problematic both in that it leaves people open to other vectors of infection, and it denies them bacon for no good reason!
2) What about moral issues?
When it comes to killing all the Hittites or having slaves, this approach doesn't really deal with that. The Christian is left just having to look uncomfortably at their feet and mumble something about it being "different times" or something.
3) What about later?
So, even if we ignore the last two things I said and just accepted that this is a good way to convey complex ideas, what about later? What about now? Why did we stop getting updates for 2,000 years, when the Bible has been becoming increasingly irrelevant at a faster and faster rate? Shouldn't the additions and redaction been huge? Why did Galileo have to go up against the church for something that was provably wrong? Why didn't he get to add a book to the Bible? Why did YHWH leave the Americans to themselves to argue over slavery (both using the same Bible!) and to fight a civil war over it?
Just assuming that an uncomfortable part was meant for some bronze-age goat herders doesn't make any sense, once you dig beneath the surface.
Of course, the real reason for all of this was the Bible was written by a bunch of bronze and iron aged zealots, not that it was written for them.
My point is, this is a really crappy apologetic.
