Misconceptions, Misapprehensions
This chapter highlights and discusses common misperceptions and adds depth to superficial assumptions about popular biblical texts. Among the most common missteps modern people make is to oversimplify, taking the Bible at its word on matters of history, for example, or claiming to distill what the Bible says about sex, salvation, or Hell to match present beliefs or purposes. For example, there is a tendency to speak as if there is a single biblical list of Ten Commandments. The chapter explores why that is misleading and reminds readers that the Bible developed over a long period of time and in different places, all of the Bible is ancient, and comes to us in languages few modern people can read without translation. With these things in mind, this chapter urges readers to allow that any given text may be more complicated than one might think. While the chapter does not cover all modern misconceptions about the Bible, it does offer helpful lessons on guarding oneself against reducing the Bible to a pithy pocket guide.