Each religion knows what it believes and has all the Biblical arguments that it needs to justify its beliefs. Because doctrines are quite well fixed within each religion, there is no need or desire to acknowledge disputes about the Bible that circulate on the global religious stage. Those discussions are more the domain of academics and heretics.
Despite this general disinclination to avoid discussion of doctrinal controversies, there is good reason to understand why such doctrinal differences exist. In fact, it is hard to avoid being affected by differences in doctrines. All we need to do is look at media reports about inter-church disputes about LGBTQ issues and intra-religion political differences where we see that we are surrounded by religious conflict. In some religions, intra-religious conflict has elevated to the point of creating splits and declines in membership.
While there are many theories about the causes of religious conflict and decline in religious attendance, none of them offer comfort to people who are affected. The answer to the question of “why?” there are divisions within the great congregation of religious people (i.e. Jews, Christians and Muslims) who all claim to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, remains a troubling mystery. Any reasonable person, religious or not, would expect that the all-powerful God of the universe could get his people into alignment on their beliefs and worship practices. But there has always been disagreement and conflict between and within religions. Either God is not as powerful as we give him credit for being, or there is something else at work in the world of religion that we don’t understand.
There are several things we must recognize if we are to come to understanding of why things are the way they are within and between religions.
The first thing we need to accept is that God only works in the spiritual realm. That means he does not openly assert his power in the physical realm — not even in the physical world of religion. The only miracle that God does is to change hearts. With this knowledge we can be sure that he is actively, but silently, at work doing spiritual miracles in hearts — even though we cannot see the day-to-day effects of his efforts in the conduct of religions that claim to believe in him.
The next thing we need to understand is that the basic cause of religious conflict is that few people listen to God’s spoken voice. They listen to pastors, rabbis, teachers, missionaries and evangelists, but they do not listen to God’s voice. If everyone who claims to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob listened to God’s voice, they would all hear the same message because God would write his spiritual laws on their hearts. That would be a very different situation than what exists now where each religion follows its own religious laws made by men. But that alone does not explain why conflict exists. To understand that, we must consider where those religious laws came from: The Bible.
All Bibles are not the same. Different men/women served as scribes/editors of different Bible versions. Each scribe/editor interpreted the original Hebrew and Greek texts with a bias toward his/her own religious beliefs. Their biases also colored their choices of filler words from their own native language to make the Bible they were editing/writing readable and understandable. As a result, all Bibles have biases toward, or away from, religious doctrines that vary from one religion to another. Thus it can be said that all Bibles are not the same. And if they do not all say the same thing, it is no mystery why differences exist within and between religions.
Bible readers have been told by religious leaders that the Bible is God’s word and that it can be trusted. They also say, or imply, that people need them (i.e. the religious leaders) to understand/interpret what God is saying through the written, literal words of the Bible. Some religious leaders are more eloquent and persuasive than other leaders. The eloquent and persuasive leaders will build larger kingdoms (i.e. followers). Each kingdom is a reflection of the teaching of its leader. Thus, each little, or large kingdom, becomes a religion unto itself.
Because the literal Bible is confusing, sometimes inconsistent, and often impossible to obey, and because people have not been taught how to listen to God’s voice, they assume that only people with special callings (i.e. religious leaders) have the ability to interpret it. When they find a leader they like and trust, they join that leader’s little kingdom.
What people believe and the religion to which they attach themselves always depends on relationships. They join the religions of their parents and friends. If they should ever decide to leave a religion, the new religion they join, if the join one at all, will be one where they find love and acceptance in the members of that religion. They would not join a religion where the relationships did not feel right.
All of these problems/issues will be overcome when all people quit being religious and start individually to listen to God’s spoken voice. Until that happens, religious people will struggle to understand the Bible. Here are a few of the problems with the Bible that have been identified: