by Daniel McClellan
St. Martin's, 2025. 320 pages. Nonfiction.
The Bible is the world’s most influential book, but do we really know what it says? Every day across social media and in homes, businesses, and public spaces, people try to cut debate short by claiming that "the Bible says so!" However, they commonly disagree about what it actually does and doesn't say, particularly when it comes to socially significant issues. McClellan leverages his popular "data over dogma" approach, and his years of experience in the academy and on social media, to lay out in clear and accessible ways what the data indicate the Bible does and doesn't say about issues ranging from homosexuality, abortion, and slavery to monotheism, inspiration, and even God's wife.
I've long been a fan of McClellan's videos and his respectful yet direct approach to debunking (or rarely, confirming) claims made by other Bible devotees. What I find fascinating about both his videos and this work is his singular ability to remove himself and his opinions from his discussion of Biblical content. He provides evidence and discusses ideas regarding what is actually in the Bible, not his personal religious beliefs nor how Biblical teachings should be applied. McClellan has helped me develop my relationship towards the Bible and see it as an anthology of religious stories from various authors who lived in various times and places, writing to various audiences for various reasons. It isn't univocal and it's okay if it disagrees with itself, and this is a better way for me to take the Bible seriously, rather than to force it to fit what I may want it to say to support dogmas and traditions.
Just because it's in the Bible doesn't mean I believe it. Just because I believe it doesn't mean it's in the Bible.
Chapter summaries
1. What is the Bible? The Bible is a collection of texts, and texts do not have inherent meaning. They were written, edited, and translated by many people in many contexts with many purposes. The characters that make up the text of the Bible only have meaning when a reader interacts with them, and it's harmful to limit what the Bible is "allowed" to say or not say to support a dogma. A prevalent dogma that may impede our understanding of the Bible is the idea that the Bible never contradicts itself, which is objectively false.
2. The Bible says the Bible is inspired. Not really. 2 Timothy 3:16 is often used as the basis for this, but a better transition is "life-giving". And it probably didn't refer to the entire Bible as we understand it today.
3. The Bible says God created the universe out of nothing. Not really. We can better understand Genesis account to begin: "When God began to create the heavens and the earth." There are many other remnants of creation mythology through the Bible and other southwest Asian texts, and they are understood to reference creation from primordial matter.
4. The Bible says God lies. Despite parts of the Bible that say he cannot, it generally seems to be the case that God lies in the Bible.
5. The Bible says slavery is wrong. Not true; in fact it endorses slavery.
6. The Bible says God has a wife. Maybe. There isn't enough data to say for sure. But a mother goddess Asherah was worshipped alongside Yahweh in early Israelite history.
7. The Bible says abortion is murder. Generally no. It's debatable as to what would have been considered a person, and what rights that person would have had, whether that's a fetus, a woman, an enslaved person, etc. A fetus was generally not considered a person until birth, and abortion was not murder, but rather a loss of property in some cases.
8. The Bible says rape victims must marry their rapists. Kinda, but not really. It isn't concerned with the consent or even personhood of the victim, but rather with the compensation of her "owner", in this case her father.
9. The Bible says Satan is God's enemy. Not really. Identifying an antagonist to God as Satan is unique to the New Testament, which arose from consolidating the Hebrew word satan (opponent or adversary) with other figures into one malevolent angel figure, likely in the first century CE.
10. The Bible says God has a body. True. God was understood to be corporeal, even when described as a "spirit". Greek philosophy later led to the belief that God couldn't be holy if confined to a material from.
11. The Bible says to sacrifice your firstborn child. There was likely a period in ancient Israel when child sacrifice was not viewed negatively. Yet it's unclear if the related commandments were ever enforced, or if this legislation was really just propaganda. The concept of child sacrifice does play a formative role in the development of Jewish and Christian traditions, as both God and Abraham were willing to sacrifice a child.
12. The Bible says you should beat your kids. Yes, this is clearly evident in Proverbs. And that's problematic.
13. The Bible says there is only one God. False. It consistently refers to and acknowledges other gods, but many passages exalt Yahweh over all others.
14. The Bible says homosexuality is an abomination. The Bible doesn't really say anything about homosexuality, given that its authors wouldn't have had a concept of sexual orientations. The Hebrew Bible does condemn same-sex intercourse because its sexual ethic views sex as an action that a man performs on an object, and that a male should not debase himself by being conquered sexually by another man. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is about hospitality, not sexuality. And Paul argues that all sexual behavior is sinful and debasing.
It is actively harmful to vulnerable populations to reinforce the "Biblical" anti-gay identity markers, and it is as indefensible as a "Biblical" position on slavery, polygamy, and other things that are no longer widely believed.
It is actively harmful to vulnerable populations to reinforce the "Biblical" anti-gay identity markers, and it is as indefensible as a "Biblical" position on slavery, polygamy, and other things that are no longer widely believed.
15. The Bible says women need to cover up. False. The hyper-sexualization of the female body today isn't found in the Bible. Nudity was associated with shame, not lust. Any argument regarding women's appearance as distracting is plainly misogynistic.
16. The Bible says the Messiah would be born of a virgin. False. It mentions a young woman bearing a child. The passage in Isaiah doesn't refer to Jesus, but rather to the downfall of Israel. The sexless conception of Jesus is convenient rhetoric to separate him from the baser impulse of lust, which is not Biblical.
17. The Bible says Jesus is God. Yes and no. The New testament description has enough gaps to fit all kinds of interpretations, but not in a trinitarian sense.
18. The Bible says to beware the Mark of the Beast. Yes, but they were referring to Nero, not Satan.
19. The Bible says sinners will be punished forever in hell. Generally not. There is by and large no concept of a postmortem realm of punishment.
Final thoughts: We make meaning with the Bible, not pull meaning from its pages. It has no meaning until a reader interacts with it. It's healthy to acknowledge and criticize its harmful ideologies.