What If We’ve Been Reading the Bible the Wrong Way?

Why Its Humanity Matters Just as Much as Its Divinity

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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I’ve recently had a series of conversations with friends that, oddly enough, led us to discuss the Bible. I find this strange because these friends aren’t particularly religious, yet we kept returning to the topic.

For some of my friends, there is an awareness that this collection of books has profoundly shaped Western civilisation in countless ways. However, they have only vague knowledge of its contents and are mostly familiar with stories like David and Goliath (although, side note: in 2 Samuel, it mentions that a man named Elhanan killed Goliath) or dire warnings about the end of the world.

Others encountered the Bible solely through secondhand quotes, which can be shocking or baffling. They hear someone read a passage and think, “There’s no way it actually says that,” but they lack the deeper understanding necessary to question it.

Then there are those who have had a completely different experience: the Bible caught them off guard. A moment of loss, wonder, or anger led them to discover that the Bible expressed their feelings more accurately than anything else could. Maybe they had been wronged and, in a moment of honesty, admitted a desire for revenge. Ultimately, they stumbled upon the Psalms, where they found that dark, brutal impulse articulated in ancient poetry.

How could something written thousands of years ago, in a different culture and language, resonate so clearly with their current experiences? How can a text that many dismiss as irrelevant sometimes feel shockingly relevant?

The answer lies in the fact that someone chose to write these stories down. This may sound obvious, but it is vitally important. The Bible did not simply drop from the sky; it wasn’t dictated word-for-word in a divine session. It was authored by people.

Many stories in the Bible began as oral traditions, passed down through generations before someone decided to write them down. This means that for years, people sat around campfires, walked along dusty roads, and gathered in homes, sharing and discussing these stories.

By the time someone put pen to parchment, there were crucial choices to be made about what to include and what to leave out. For example, in 1 Kings 11, the writer mentions, “As for the other events of Solomon’s reign, all he did and the wisdom he displayed, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of Solomon?” They probably are, but we no longer have that book, nor do we know its contents. The author assumed readers would be familiar with it, but that knowledge has been lost.

Another example comes from John’s Gospel, where it states, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”Essentially, the writer acknowledges, “I left a lot out.” Therefore, the Bible is not a complete record of all that happened; it is a curated collection. The writers were not just scribes; they were editors, shaping their material with purpose, agendas, and points to make. They were telling a story shaped by their times, culture, politics, and worldview.

Take Abraham, for instance. When he is told to sacrifice his son, he doesn’t argue; he simply complies, as if it’s perfectly normal for a god to ask such a thing. This story reveals more about the world he lived in. Or, consider the story of David and Goliath, which begins with a technological issue: the Philistines had advanced metalworking, while the Israelites did not. This was not merely about courage; it was also about the fear of an enemy with superior weaponry. It reflects the same narrative humanity has shared for centuries, whether regarding spears, tanks, or, at present, nuclear arms.

For some, the Bible is merely an ancient text akin to Homer’s Iliad or the Egyptian Book of the Dead. For others, the Bible transcends being just words on a page and embodies something beyond its human authorship. I agree with that perspective.

However, many people have been taught to view the Bible solely as divine, using phrases like God’s Word or the Inerrant Truth without recognising its humanity. When we treat the Bible as a flawless instruction manual, dictated by God, we actually diminish its power. We strip away the very quality that makes it remarkable: the intertwining of the human and the divine.

If you begin by letting go of the Bible’s divinity and first immerse yourself in its humanity, contradictions, and messiness, you may find the divine in unexpected places.

For me, this is where I find God.