WHY THE BIBLE WAS WRITTEN
Scribes/editors of each Bible were guided in their decisions by personal theological beliefs — not by God’s voice. They were compelled to choose filler words that agreed with and supported their personal religious, theological beliefs. For them it was an intellectual exercise — not a matter of listening to God’s voice. The stronghold of wrong thinking that shaped their religious beliefs also shaped the Bibles they wrote. And it all happened because they didn’t know how to listen to God’s spoken voice.

Although Bible scribes/authors are guilty of lying as reported in Jeremiah 8:8, God has always had a plan for overcoming their influence and the influence of their religious co-conspirators (i.e. False Prophets, Pharaohs, Judas, Balaam, Kings, Queens and Princes, Pharisees, Serpent, Devil, Satan, Adversary, Demons, Evil Spirits, Anti-Christs).  Scribes are just one small part of a world of false prophets with whom God has always contended.

God’s response to their lies and deceptions has always been to send true prophets to speak for him. True prophets are also called angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, and warriors. These all have God’s anointing which equips them to speak for God to people who have hard hearts and who always interpret the Bible literally — not symbolically.

Scribes and other false prophets speak lies and visions out of the imaginations of their evil, impure hearts. True prophets, however, speak out of the overflow of good, pure hearts.

The competition between false prophets and true prophets is symbolically called “war” in the Bible. Warfare is discussed in these pages: Religion is the Enemy, Gods at War and Sibling Conflict. The competition is also described as good versus evil and as two kinds of food: clean and unclean. Competition between false prophets and true prophets is introduced in the book of Genesis as two trees that compete for Eve’s attention. Both trees looked attractive and appeared to be good for food. But, eating of one tree led to spiritual life, and eating of the other tree led to spiritual death.

The parable of the two trees previews the basic theme of the Bible: From which tree do we eat? Do we eat good spiritual food from the mouth of God (i.e. fruit from the Tree of Life), or do we eat evil, soulish food from the mouths (and pens) of false prophets (i.e. fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil)? The choice is a life and death matter.

True prophets are symbolically called Trees of Life. They are also called angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, and warriors. New Covenant disciples are anointed by God and sent by God to speak for God to people who do not know how to hear God’s spoken voice.

False Prophets, (including scribes) are symbolically called Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They are also called Pharaohs, Judas, Balaam, Kings, Queens and Princes, Pharisees and Scribes, Serpent, Devil, Satan, Adversary, Demons, Evil Spirits, Anti-Christs, foolish, worthless, stupid shepherds. These Bible characters are all symbolical representations of religious leaders (e.g. pastors, rabbis, evangelists, missionaries, prophets, etc.). These are all Old/First Covenant religionists who eat from Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil because they, like Eve, do not know how to discern good food from evil food.

The distinction between the two kinds of trees is important because God wants/expects that his people will only listen to his voice. In fact, the Bible says that he becomes very jealous when people listen to false prophets instead of listening to him.

STUDY TIP: See this link for discussion of God’s jealousy.

God uses several terms to help people understand the difference between the two trees: Clean and Unclean; Holy and Profane; Spirit and Soul; Good and Evil. He has also given us clues to help us identify True Prophets and identify False Prophets, and he has given us clues to understand the differences between pure religion and defiled religion.

This brief review about the two kinds of trees is necessary in the context of the accuracy of the Bible because, symbolically speaking, wood and trees represent people.

Scribes that write Bibles are Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil because they are products of religion. This fact is a warning that we should be very careful when reading the Bible. Indeed, all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, but some scripture is created by scribes (i.e. religious people who write) and some is created by God. Knowing which is which is a matter of critical discernment. People who don’t know the difference between the God-inspired parts and the human-inspired parts of scripture will make the mistake of creating religion out of what they read. People who do know that God’s written word and spoken word are not the same will be trained in righteousness.

STUDY TIP: See DISCERNING BETWEEN CLEAN AND UNCLEAN, HOLY AND PROFANE, SOUL AND SPIRIT, and GOOD AND EVIL. Also see LISTEN FOR GOD’S VOICE WHILE READING. 

The problem with religious scribes and teachers is that they have all been trained by religious people. All scribes and most teachers must have religious credentials before they are hired to engage in the labors of writing a Bible or preaching. They must have religious training (e.g. Bible school, seminary, graduate studies in Hebrew and/or Greek, etc.) Thus they are full of religious wisdom and religious knowledge because they have trusted other humans and the books they write for knowledge of God. And what they do not receive from religious teachers they create out of the imaginations of their mind.

Scribes are Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil because they do not listen to God’s spoken voice. And if they are Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil, their fruit (i.e. their writings) is the fruit of trees of Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

That means that the literal Bible written by scribes contains the fruit of trees of Trees of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

What they listen to is religious leaders who shaped the religious beliefs that influenced their decisions about words they used to write the Bible. They did not listen to God’s spoken voice. If they were able to hear God’s voice, they would not have undertaken the impossible task of using human language to report spiritual language with definitive, absolute, “thus saith the Lord” certainty. No human can do this.

Not even true prophets, angels, messiahs, high priests, witnesses, or warriors will try to report or interpret spiritual language with definitive, absolute, “thus saith the Lord” certainty. What true prophets always say, however, is this: Stop listening to false prophets! Start listening to God’s spoken voice. Even though they know that they speak for God, they will never presume to be a substitute for God. Even Jesus did not consider equality with God to be something to be grasped. Speaking for God is not the same thing as being God.

The reason for studying these differences is to point out that many of the words in the Bible are not in the original texts (i.e. Hebrew or Greek) which was inspired by God spoken to his chosen prophets and apostles. Perhaps as much as half of the words in the Bible are filler words chosen by scribes. The inspiration for these filler words comes from the imaginations of human scribes. Moreover, translation of Hebrew and Greek words to English and other languages is always done with words that agree with and support the religious biases of the scribe/author. The consequence of these editorial choices is many Bibles that are all man’s creations.

The truth that most of the words found in the Bible are there because of man put them there will not be accepted easily by Jews or Christians who hold on to the belief that every word in the Bible came from God. People who believe that have been deceived by religious leaders who have told them that. Believing what religious leaders say that can be credited more to humans than to God.

Knowing that man (i.e. scribes) has had such an influence on the Bible is extremely important to recognize because God said that we should trust no man. But, when we interpret the Bible literally, we are trusting that men (i.e. scribes) on two accounts:

When we pause to think about all the Hebrew and Greek words that scribes must translate to write the Bible, we conclude that tremendous trust is put in their translating abilities. And when we pause to think about all of the English filler words that scribes insert between the Hebrew and Greek words, we conclude again that much trust is invested in their abilities to know the mind of God well enough to make all those decisions correctly.

When we look at the process of writing the Bible this way, to say that written Bible is God’s inerrant word is a wrong statement. Indeed, some of it is God’s word, but, for the most part, the Bible is the word of men (i.e. scribes). How much is God’s word and how much is man’s word is debatable. No one can say for sure which is which.

But knowing which words are God’s words and which are man’s words is not the issue. God never expected that scribes would write the Bible so that it would be in complete agreement with his intent. Because he understands full well that no man can know his mind or his thoughts, it would be unfair and unreasonable for God to expect that scribes would accurately translate the original Hebrew and Greek texts or add the right filler words to make his intent  understandable in any language.

The reality is that God does not need the Bible to be a completely accurate recitation of his words. He knows that it is impossible for scribes to get it right and he is OK with that because he will  overcome their errors when he speaks his words to Bible readers who listen for his voice while reading. Thus he does not interfere with their writings or the teachings of false prophets who add their own wrong interpretations of the literal Bible to the scribes’ wrong interpretations. Instead of intervening to ensure that scribes and religious teachers get it right, God lets them run with the deceptive visions and imaginations of their minds. He dares to take this “hands off” attitude because he has a plan for revealing the truth that will offset and nullify the lies of the scribes and religious teachers.