Bible 100 - You want to dive deeper into the Bible? Start here.

richieeparsons
Oct 4, 2023
5 min read

Spoiler alert – this article is going to be a bit more technical than the others up to this point. Frankly, I’ve written and re-written it a few times without being completely satisfied with the delivery. While I’d like to work in some fancy wordsmithing and movie quotes, the reality is that oftentimes the path to understanding the Bible better feels more like work than leisure. It’s a lot of interconnected ideas that are often hard to parse cleanly for easy comprehension.

Frankly, this is one of the reasons you don’t see a lot of this information in the mainstream – it’s extremely difficult to present it in a way that will entice the casual observer to read it. But I am committed to pushing this scholarly material into the mainstream and will do my best to balance simplicity with depth.

To begin this journey, you need to understand the difference between Bible reading and Bible study. Many Christians think they’re studying the Bible when they’re actually just reading it, albeit sometimes with more intentionality. This is good, but it really doesn’t meet the definition of Bible study. As Mike Heiser points out –

“Bible reading has as its aim private delight or personal application for our lives and relationship with God. Bible reading is inherently devotional and low maintenance. Bible study, on the other hand, involves concentration and exertion. We have an intuitive sense that study requires some sort of method or technique, and probably certain types of tools or aids. When we study the Bible we’re asking questions, thinking about context, forming judgments, and looking for more information.”1

For today, I want to make sure we begin on some common ground. I will begin by clarifying three very important underlying assumptions that may be challenged, but should not change as a result of this type of research:

1. The Bible was written by humans under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, i.e. God-breathed. Mike Heiser calls the Bible a Divine human book. God chose people from a specific time, place, and culture that have almost no resemblance to ours.2 You can click here to dig deeper into Heiser’s views on inspiration, which I find to be extremely thorough, well-researched, and doctrinally sound.

“Just as no one would argue God whispered which books were “in” to those people debating such a thing, we do not need God to whisper each word into the ear or mind of the Scripture authors. There is no need for dictation or automatic writing, any more than there was a need to dictate the canon list or seize the minds of those making such decisions. It was providence.”3

2. The Bible in its original form contains no errors. Thanks to the Dead Sea Scrolls we know that every mainstream version of the Bible we have today (KJV, NKJV, NIV, NLT, NASB, etc) aligns nearly perfectly in intent with the original texts and most differences are limited to semantics and communication style rather than substance.

3. “Inerrant” and “Literal” are two different concepts. The Bible is always inerrant but is not always literal. (Honestly, this one seems to be a tough one for many Christians to parse). There is A LOT of figurative speech and symbolism in the Bible and it is not just limited to Daniel and Revelation. The key is knowing when the Bible is telling you something literal and when it is not. Matthew chapter 1 is literal. Genesis chapter 1 is probably not literal (big statement that I won’t take time to defend here but will address in a later post).

For a deeper dive into inerrancy, you should check out this series from Heiser: Beginning a Serious Discussion about Inerrancy, Definitions of Inerrancy and Looking at the Inerrancy Definitions, Part 1

You have probably noticed that a significant amount of the information in this post is sourced from scholar Mike Heiser. This is generally because Heiser is one of the few scholars who has attempted to bring this academic material down to a level that you and I can understand without needing to attend seminary. He is also one of the few protestants addressing many of these topics in a thoughtful way. If you want to get regurgitated church tradition from the Middle Ages, there are lots of protestant writers out there churning out that sort of content. Heiser is willing to tackle the tough and complex in view of the mainstream where others leave it for classroom settings.

This isn’t to say there aren’t other writers worth following. I have provided a list of those below for anyone interested in expanding their library a little. I have stumbled across several fantastic books in the course of doing research and strongly recommend each of the ones listed here.

DISCLAIMER: While I highly recommend these books, I cannot endorse any of them fully. If I recommend a book, it is because I generally agree with its concepts and arguments and/or appreciate the way it presents certain ideas. I do not agree with any scholar/writer/researcher 100% and this includes Mike Heiser and Brian Godawa, both of whom I esteem very highly. Also, several of these authors disagree with each other on some big ideas. That's ok, and shouldn't prevent you from gleaning what you can from the material.

The whole point of this is that true Bible study is messy because the Bible itself is messy. If all of these issues were clear-cut, there wouldn’t be such debate on them. In fact, you may read some of these books and draw different conclusions from the authors that are just as valid as those in the book.

The key is to allow yourself to think critically about these issues. For so long in traditional church environments, it has been taboo to question some of these traditions that are considered to be foundational. What you might find after researching for yourself is that some of the foundational issues for your church may not necessarily be foundational for the Bible. This can be a scary realization, which is why I am only recommending authors and books that remain doctrinally sound while effectively challenging some of the deeply rooted traditions many of us grew up with.

Here is the list of books I would initially recommend starting with. I will add on as we go.

· Unseen Realm – Michael S. Heiser

· Demons – Michael S. Heiser

· Psalm 82, The Divine Council of the Gods – Brian Godawa

· When Watchers Ruled the Nations. Biblical Study of the Unseen Realm

· Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament – John Currid

· Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament – John Walton

· The Christ Key: Unlocking the Centrality of Chris in the Old Testament - Chad Bird

· Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better

Understand the Bible - Randolph Richards and Brandon O’Brien

The next few articles will focus on foundational concepts you must become familiar with if you want to dive deeper into the Bible. Stay tuned…

1Revisiting Heiser’s Laws for Bible Study | Oct 11, 2014