Perhaps the most fundamental, consentaneous, clear truth of the Bible is that there are few, if any, fundamental, consentaneous or clear truths within the sacred text at all. Many people spend their entire lives with their noses deep inside the dusty pages, attempting and failing to make sense of riddles and myths and figures-of-speech that — after centuries of mistranslation and lost history — ought to be embraced as holy mysteries. We cannot possibly know the exact contours and nuances of ancient society, fully understand their rumors and jokes, or perfectly interpret their complicated, messy, colorful agendas. And yet there […]