Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
10 things you think are in the Bible that are nowhere to
be found.
Let’s start this article with a pop quiz. One of these
words doesn’t belong on the list below. Can you guess which one?
- Morality
- Quality
- Rapture
- Trinity
- Fryingpan
- Immaculate
- Logic
- Responsibility
- History
- Christianity
If you said, “Fryingpan,” then congratulations! You are
right! Fryingpan is the ONLY ONE of these words that you WILL
FIND in the Bible. In fact, the word fryingpan appears twice —
in Leviticus 2:7 and Leviticus 7:9. As for the rest of this list: Not in
the Bible — not even once.
I often chuckle at Christians who leave comments on my
articles saying things like, “The Bible says this or that,” or “The
Bible is clear about this or that.” That’s because many people
who profess a deep love of the Bible have never actually read the book. Their
knowledge of the Bible has come from what others have told them.
You see, there are a whole lot of events, words, and
sayings that people commonly attribute to the Bible, that are actually nowhere
to be found between the leather-bound covers of God’s holy word. Don’t believe
me? Here are a few examples:
1. No room in the inn, or no inn in the room?
You’re a good Christian, so you know the Christmas story
inside and out, right? You know that when Mary and Joseph rocked up in
Bethlehem with Mary bursting at the seams in late-term pregnancy, that they
knocked on the door of some local inn and begged the innkeeper for a room.
Alas, there was no room in the inn for poor Mary and Joseph, but the kind
innkeeper allowed them to use his stable out the back.
Except, there is no inn. And there is no innkeeper. Come
to mention it, there is no stable, either. That’s right. The Bible doesn't
mention an inn in the Christmas narrative. And there is certainly no innkeeper
telling Mary and Joseph that they could use his stable. If you don’t believe me
(and some of you don’t), by all means, check for yourself!
In fact, Bethlehem was such a small town that it’s
possible it didn’t even have an inn. What is more likely is that Mary and
Joseph gave birth to Jesus at the residence of a relative of Joseph’s — not
inside the dwelling, but in the space where the animals were kept.
Where did you get your Bible knowledge? The front of a
Christmas card? From singing, “Away in a Manger?”
2. Three wise men? Nope.
While we are on the Christmas story, I hate to shatter
your long-held view of the nativity scene, but there were not three wise men
present at the birth of Jesus — or even immediately after the birth of Jesus.
They arrived much later, when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had
already moved to a house in Bethlehem. And while we might sing “We
Three Kings of Orient Are” at Christmas, the Bible only tells us that there
were three giftsand more than one magi (Matthew 2:1–12).
There might have been two wise men or ten wise men. We
really do not know.
3. A whale of a tale
Hey, I’m not one of those guys who necessarily believe
that a whale literally swallowed Jonah. However, even if I did, I could be
wrong.
That’s because despite what they taught you in Sunday
School, the Bible never says that it was a whale that swallowed the runaway
prophet. In fact, the Bible records in Jonah 1:17 that God allegedly sent a “huge fish” to
swallow Jonah.
The whole story sounds a bit fishy to me.
4. Disney meets the Bible
I’m pretty sure it was Snow White who was tempted by an
apple and succumbed. As for Satan tempting Eve with an apple, well... the Bible
doesn’t mention an apple at all. Genesis 3:6 merely describes Eve eating some of the
“fruit” and sharing it with Adam.
Maybe it was a banana? Perhaps it was a lemon? That would
have been a non-so-pleasant surprise!
Oh, and while we are talking about the “Adam and Eve”
narrative, the Bible doesn’t say that Satan was the one who tempted Eve. In
fact, the Bible never mentions Satan being present for the whole sorry saga.
It was a serpent.
“Genesis mentions nothing but a serpent,” says Kevin Dunn, chair of the Department of Religion at Tufts
University in Massachusetts. “Not only does the text not mention Satan, but
the very idea of Satan as a devilish tempter also postdates the composition of
the Garden of Eden story by at least 500 years,” Dunn says.
5. God doesn’t help those who help themselves.
According to Barna research, 82% of the general population believes that
the phrase “God helps those who help themselves” is in the
Bible. Fortunately, Christians know better than to believe this. That is
why only 81% of Christians surveyed believe that this
is in the Bible… a whole percentage point better than your average Joe Heathen
walking down the street.
Sorry to ruin your day, but the Bible doesn’t actually
say, “God helps those who help themselves.” Your Mum
says this when she wants you to stop whining about life, get up off the couch
and go and get a job because you’re a grown-up, for goodness sake — now act
like one. God helps those who help themselves is a statement that really means,
“Get your act together.”
No, “God helps those who help themselves” is
not in the Bible anywhere, so where did it come from? I’m glad you asked. Well,
it’s in the Koran,
for one. This is what it says: “Indeed, Allah will not change the
condition of a person until they change what is in themselves.” But
before the Koran was written, it appears in a first century A.D. Greek fable,
where a wagon falls into a ravine, but when its driver appeals to Hercules for
help, he is told to get to work himself. What a lousy God Hercules turned out
to be.
6. Love the sinner. Hate the sin. Hate this saying
Hate the sin; love the sinner.
It’s a Christian cliché that has been used with increased
frequency in recent years, often by Christians who believe that it somehow
makes their outright rejection of the LGBTIQ+ community more palatable.
You can imagine a well-meaning Christian saying, “Sure!
I love the gays! But I can’t condone their lifestyle. Hate the sin, love the
sinner,” and then smiling warmly as if they have done a great deed for
the world.
I’ve written a whole article about why this saying is not a loving
thing at all. What is more, this saying is not from the
Bible. Gandhi said it. Now, go and tell your fundamentalist
Christian friends that their favorite saying comes from a Hindu and see how
they like that!
7. Spare the rod, spoil the biblical reason to hit kids
Oh man… now you’re taking away my Biblical justification
for hitting my kids as well!?
Sorry to say that this “Biblical” saying isn’t from the
Bible. Actually, this phrase was coined by a 17th-century poet and satirist by
the name of Samuel
Butler in his poem “Hudibras.”
However, to be fair, it is closely associated with Proverbs 13:24, which says, “Whoever spares the rod
hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to
discipline them.”
This Proverb, like much of the Bible, is not meant to be
taken literally. It is not advocating for physical punishment, as much as it is
for a certain principle: Namely, that parents ought to discipline their
children appropriately.
8. Cleanliness is next to Biblical inaccuracy
Cleanliness is next to Godliness. My grandmother used to
say this so much that I just presumed it was Biblical.
It’s not.
This phrase was actually coined by John Wesley,
the 18th-century evangelist who founded Methodism, says Thomas
Kidd, a history professor at Baylor University in Texas.
“No matter if John Wesley or someone else
came up with a wise saying — if it sounds ‘proverbish,’ people figure it must
come from the Bible,” Kidd says.
If it helps you get your kids to go and take a shower,
then go ahead and use it; just don’t say it’s from the Bible.
9. God will not give you more than you can handle.
This phrase was probably the result of some well-meaning
person trying to sum up 1 Corinthians 10:13 and use it as a way of comforting
a person going through some kind of struggle, which is all well and good.
However, it’s not in the Bible, and, to be honest, it
really belies the reality of life. The truth is that people are confronted by
things that they can’t really handle all the time. And the problem with using
this made-up verse as a way of comforting people is that when someone feels
like they aren’t coping, they can begin to wonder what the heck God is up to
and whether he even exists at all.
10. The Bible, according to a Politician
When you think of great Biblical scholars, you probably
don’t think of US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi. However, it
turns out she is quite fond of pulling out the odd Bible verse here and there.
One of her favorites is this one:
“To minister to the needs of God’s creation
is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made
us,”
That’s beautiful, isn’t it?
Pelosi certainly seems to think so. In fact, Slate magazine reported that Pelosi has quoted this
“verse” about 11 times in US Congress since 2002.
Of course, Pelosi’s favorite Bible verse isn’t in the
Bible, and she admitted as much when she was questioned about it, admitting she
has been unable to locate exactly where it’s from.
“I can’t find it in the Bible, but I quote it
all the time,” Pelosi admitted. “I keep
reading and reading the Bible — I know it’s there someplace. It’s supposed to
be in Isaiah somewhere….”
No Nancy!
It’s not.
But “fryingpan” certainly is.
The Bible says so…
“The Bible says so.”
It is a phrase often used by lazy Christians, usually at
the end of some argument over ethics or theology, most often when the argument
is already lost. In one final desperate play, they bring out their “Bible-says-so” trump
card as if the phrase itself settles the matter.
The problem is, the Bible often doesn’t say so, and the
person making the statement usually came to believe that the Bible does say so,
not from their own study and painstaking research, but from what they were told
by someone else — someone who may or may not have done their own study and
painstaking research.
The moral of the story?
Get that old book off your shelf and actually read it for
yourself. You never know what you might unlearn.
Source: Dan Foster
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