As we saw in previous articles, there are missing prophetic books from the Hebrew Bible. There are also many prophetic details which are missing. For instance, no one could rebuild Solomon’s Temple today; we’re told that David, who is called a prophet, gave Solomon the design,[1] but we don’t have those details today, just the rough dimensions and a few other details—nothing even close to what a construction superintendent would want today if you asked them to build a structure. This is probably all well and good to believers today whom YHVH has not asked to build a Temple, although modern Zionists may need to assume that God will provide those details when their Temple is rebuilt. But similar holes in the New Testament’s prophetic language, at least for most Christians, might be a little more problematic.
This article is taken from my book, When Humans Wrote Scripture.
In Acts 7:4, Stephen says that Abraham left Haran for Canaan after his father died. The Hebrew Bible doesn’t say this at all. Was there another source that stated this? What available sources we have may surprise you. When you compare the chronology in the Hebrew Bible, you’ll see that Abraham left Haran when he was 75 (Genesis 11) and he was 70 years younger than his father, who we’re told lived to 205. Do the math, and you come up with Abraham leaving a full 60 years before his father died. So where did Stephen get this contradictory information? We do actually have an ancient version of the Torah called the Samaritan Pentateuch, and it agrees with Stephen! For more on textual variants and other textual traditions, see below. Textual variants create their own holes in the web of prophecies.
And that’s not the only difference between Stephen’s sermon and the Masoretic text.[2] In verse 14 he says that Jacob had 75 descendants rather than the total of 70 in the Masoretic text and most modern translations;[3] where did he get the number? Of course it’s possible that he counted them differently somehow, but it seems most likely that he was doing what most of the New Testament writers did most of the time: quoting from the Greek Septuagint. It is also possible that he had a Hebrew manuscript that contained the number 75, because this variant has been found at Qumran.[4]
Paul is notorious for not being explicit, or at least for speaking on “spiritual discerned” matters that are hard for “natural” people to grasp.[5] Even 2 Peter 3:16, which confirms Paul’s inspiration, noticed that Paul’s writings are often difficult. Again, this is not a theology book, so we will not attempt to probe Paul’s weightier matters (or those of books attributed to him) to see if the prophetic tapestry of teachings he weaves has holes. However, we will examine some of the perhaps simpler things attributed to him. Interestingly enough, several are about women.
Firstly, there’s that odd passage in 1 Corinthians 11 where he speaks of God being the head of Christ,[6] Christ the head of man, and man the head of his wife. Passing over that last one that seems contentious in recent times, consider the reasoning he gives: he starts talking about head coverings, and hair, and how men oughtn’t pray with a head covering, but women must. No such command is found anywhere in the Bible; and Paul may even be saying that it’s not a command, just a symbolic cultural norm (v. 16). If that’s the case, I think we should move on to other examples of more likely prophetic holes, but this one does still seem vague and difficult to grasp, even if there is no command there, especially considering the comment “a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” Because of the angels, Paul? Is this yet another reference to the accounts of angels who forgot their station and were cast down, accounts found only the extra-biblical books, as we examined above?
Secondly, 1 Timothy 2 speaks of how men and women should behave, but mostly the women. After the author says that she should remain quiet (in the context of public learning/teaching, it would appear), one of the reasons the author gives for this is the detail that Eve was deceived when she sinned, but not Adam. Then the author says something very curious: “yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.” What does “saved through childbearing” mean?! Some have suggested that this is a figure of speech where “childbearing” is a part put for the whole role of a woman,[7] and that Paul means that as long as she fits into her “womanly role”, that she will be saved. We’ll just leave that there.
And finally, also in 1 Timothy, chapter 5 makes an intriguing comment after giving the qualifications that a widow must have before the ekklesia (the assembly or congregation, typically rendered “church”) can support her financially. Interestingly, she must have performed a lot of good works to receive support, even if she’s over 60 and needy; if that doesn’t strike you as odd, then imagine a modern-day homeless outreach program funded by a church, but in order to help a homeless woman, she must be at least 60, have brought up children, and cared for the afflicted, and served Christians. Most modern Christians would recoil at such background check. But I want to focus on one comment the author makes about younger widows (whom of course the author commands to marry and bear children): he says that if they were to be enrolled, they might then desire to marry (like he said they should do instead of being enrolled), and so “incur condemnation for having abandoned their former faith.” What? Does this mean that all who enroll must take vows of celibacy? Again, we have no mention of such a practice in all of the New Testament. This seems like a hole in revelation.
Speaking of holes in revelation, the book of Revelation itself seems particularly hard to understand, with all of its symbolic language. I do believe that more Bible students would find much of the language less confusing if they learned apocalyptic Hebrew prophets like Ezekiel and Daniel (*and the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha…*), from which Revelation borrows heavily. However, even after doing that, Revelation is still quite cryptic, surely even intentionally so.
So we’ve seen ample evidence that the Bible does not contain everything that its authors thought was from God. Most of these probably are not an issue for fundamentalists. We don’t have to have everything God ever said, just “all things pertaining to life and godliness,” right? But what if the Biblical authors gave us evidence of additional content, stuff in the Bible that was not inspired? My guess is any such addition would be an issue for many (but not all) who would identify as fundamentalists. To read about that, make sure to check out my book here: When Humans Wrote Scripture.
[1] 1 Chronicle 28:11
[2] See below for an explanation of this text.
[3] Genesis 46:27
[4] 4QExb
[5] 1 Corinthians 2:14
[6] A view that would later be condemned by Trinitarian counsels as heresy, the same Trinity that is accepted by Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants of today!
[7] This figure of speech is called synecdoche, which we use all the time. The expression “headcount”, for instance, refers to counting bodies, people, not just their heads. A part is put for the whole.