Questions and Misconceptions about the Bible

Why this Book? Several decades ago, as a teenager, I walked into a church one Sunday. The reading for the day was from the Gospel of John. The following passage immediately caught my attention: “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true. You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth.” (John 5:31–33) This is Jesus speaking. To the Jewish authorities who refused to recognize him as the expected Messiah, Jesus gave the testimony of John the Baptist about himself as proof of his identity as God’s messenger. And it was precisely this testimony that caught my attention. For a teenager, skeptical by nature and, moreover, passionate about science as I was (the French magazine Science et Vie was my bedtime reading), such “proof” was far from convincing. A doubt immediately arose in my mind: Wasn’t John the Baptist Jesus’s cousin? How could we accept his testimony as proof of Jesus’ messianic identity? And what if the two were in collusion? I don’t know if this incident influenced my decision to study theology many years later. What is certain, however, is that it remained buried deep in my memory. It only came back to me a few months ago when I heard the same gospel passage again. Equally certain is that my scientific training as an engineer and my professional career as a computer scientist have only strengthened my Cartesian mindset. For a long time, I tried to find logic in beliefs that seemed rather impenetrable to reason. The inconsistencies I found in the gospels only raised more questions, which I attempted to resolve through extra-biblical sources, with little success, I must admit, until the opportunity to study theology presented itself in 2002. So, I went back to the university to get a bachelor’s degree, then a master’s degree, then a doctorate in biblical theology, then post-doctoral research, in parallel with university teaching. Today, I’m quite satisfied with the logical answers I’ve found to my past biblical questions, and I believe I’m well equipped to seek answers to the questions that will surely arise in the future. Throughout this biblical journey, I have arrived at interpretations that occasionally challenge preconceived notions, whether my own or those of my students. I have collected some of these interpretations in this work. The starting point for each article will therefore be an idea that I believe to be widely accepted (though this may not be the case for every reader). I’ll present it in the form of a question to avoid undue provocation. It’s worth noting, however, that the content of the article will not always amount to a refutation of that idea. I’ll try to use the opportunity to provide additional information relevant to the main topic.