I was reading the daily Scripture verses today for the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, and the second one brought to my mind one error that I think we (modern Christians) make when interpreting Biblical passages. Here are the verses that caught my attention from Acts 13:22-26:
In those days Paul said: “God raised up David as king; of him God testified, I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will carry out my every wish.”
Now, we all know that David lusted after Bathsheba, committed adultery with her, and sent her husband to die on the front lines of his army! So, is God a liar when He says that David is a man after his own heart and that carried out God’s “every wish”?
The short answer of course is No, God is not a liar but always tells the truth, as Christ said, and so it is an error of interpretation if we take these words in their “scientific” sense, where the word “every” has no exception and must mean that David never sinned and always did what God willed. Clearly, God condemned David’s sin and he (or his children) were punished for them. David repented and was forgiven. So just as David’s evil deeds were certainly not conforming him to God’s own heart, all the same David was a man after the heart of God.
Similarly, we read that Jesus died and “three days later” rose from the dead. What always comes to my mind is 3 days = 72 hours, but in fact Jesus did not stay in the tomb for 72 hours, since they were accounting days in a less “scientific” manner–an atheist trying to disprove Christianity would have (and many have had) a field day with such “contradictions” as the two just described, yet we understand that they are not contradictions but rather errors of interpretation that we modern men easily make.
Mary, Mother of God
Another, more controversial example is Matthew 1:24,25: “When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home. He had no relations with her until she bore a son, and he named him Jesus.”
Well, it seems obvious to our ears, due to the word “until”, that Joseph had sexual relations with his wife, Mary, after Jesus was born. Coupled with other Gospel passages mentioning Jesus’ “brothers and sisters”, it confirms the (seemingly) clear fact that Joseph and Mary actually had quite a few children after Jesus.
But in fact this is not the case. The word “until” in the Greek does not have the exact same meaning as in English. Examples abound in the Bible, but I read one just today in the Gospel reading (Luke 1:80 about St. John the Baptist): “…and he was in the desert until the day of his manifestation to Israel.”
If we interpreted this in the normal English way, it would mean St. John was in the desert until the day he was revealed to Israel, at which point he left the desert and perhaps entered the cities. But we know that this is not the case; John was in the desert baptizing for repentance and rebuking Herod for his immorality and eating locusts and wild honey up until the time he was captured, imprisoned, and ultimately murdered.
With regard to Mary and Joseph, sacred Tradition tells us that they never had sexual relations; they both remained celibate (hence a “Josephite” marriage). The “brethren of the Lord” has a clear explanation. You can read about it and Mary’s perpetual virginity here and here.
The witness of the Apostolic Tradition is so universal that Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Zwingli all affirmed as true Mary’s perpetual virginity! (Incidentally, they also affirmed her as “Mother of God” as decreed in the Council of Ephesus in 430 AD.) But many Protestants today are oblivious (often through no fault of their own) to sacred Tradition and even the beliefs of the Reformers, and so when they read the Bible, its “plain” meaning in these passages leads them astray. I can understand how this is so because I thought the same thing as a Protestant.
When you hear someone make this error, ask them if they know that Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli all believed in this teaching. If you see a Protestant apologist make this error (James White is a good example of someone who persists in it), examine the arguments made and decide whether you will believe him or the universal witness of Christ’s Church through the centuries (and including all of the most important Reformers).
