Four Things the Bible is NOT

Aric Clark offered this helpful list of four things the Bible is not, and I thought it worth sharing.

The Bible is not a text book. It does not concern itself with biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, engineering, psychology, sociology, or even really, history. Mostly it is narrative, poetry, letters, and advice/commands. We should not be using the Bible as any kind of authoritative guide to natural history.

The Bible is not an oracle or any other kind of “magic” book. It does not attempt any kind of testable prediction of the future from our perspective. It is not sentient. It is not aware of your questions about your personal life and cannot answer them. Nothing mystical is happening when you flip to random pages to pick a verse, and you are not deciphering some kind of hidden code about the end of days which no one noticed before.

The Bible is not a self-help book. While it contains a lot of advice about life it isn’t primarily a book designed to help people live well or be healthy. Plenty of the advice is terrible, like when it’s acceptable to sell your daughter into slavery. Some of the advice only works in certain contexts and the vast majority of it is not aimed at individuals, but at communities.

The Bible is not written to you. The authors had no idea you would ever exist, couldn’t have imagined your culture or your particular life experience, and did not put that one verse in there 2000+ years ago just so you would find it now. This doesn’t mean you can’t get meaning from the Bible but just recognize it isn’t your personal devotional.

J. Turri offered a few more points for the list. What would you add?