Of all the errors in the Bible, my personal favorites are those errors that can be shown by simply using what is written in the Bible itself. Errors that rely on extrabiblical evidence (for instance when the Bible makes a claim that is refuted by science, archaeology, astronomy, etc.) are valid of course. I just derive more pleasure from pointing out errors to biblicists that are confirmed in the words of their own Bible because the inerrantists cannot so easily squirm away from them. Most often, the only "argument" the inerrantist can make for these errors is to claim that what is clearly written isn't what was meant.
In the very first issue of TSR, for example, Mr. Till described an obvious contradiction between Exodus 12:40 and Exodus 6:16-20. The first passage states that the Israelites had spent 430 years in Egypt. However, Exodus 6:16-20 provides a genealogy that allows for the Israelites to have been there no more than 352 years, and probably considerably less. The fun began when Jerry Moffit, much like a dog with a bow tied to the base of its tail, twisted and turned every way he could to show that the genealogy in Exodus 6 didn't mean what it clearly said.
This article concerns an error that Paul made in Galatians: "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (3:13). What Paul was referring to here is Deuteronomy 21:23, but let's begin at verse 22 to see the context: "And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance."
There are (at least) two things wrong with Galatians 3:13 in light of Deuteronomy 21:22-23. The first, which Mr. Till pointed out recently on his Errancy mailing list, is that Paul mistakenly understood Deuteronomy 21:23 to mean that the act of hanging someone up in a tree would cause him or her to be accursed of god. Though the wording of the passage could be argued to mean just that, a much more logical reading is that a person is hanged because he committed a sin worthy of death. This sin is why the person is "accursed of God," not the hanging itself. Otherwise, you would have the ridiculous situation where someone could cause an enemy of his, said enemy being an otherwise "righteous" person, to be "accursed of God" simply by hanging him in a tree.
Skeptics, of course, rarely accuse the Bible of having fair rules. Therefore, I will concede that, despite Mr. Till's interpretation being more logical, it is possible that the author of Deuteronomy 21:23 actually intended readers to understand that the act of being hanged in a tree was sufficient to make one "accursed of God." This doesn't get the Bible off the hook in terms of an error, though. To see why this is the case, we must look to Strong's Hebrew and Greek Lexicons to determine what words were used in each passage and what they meant.
In Deuteronomy 21:22 and 23, the Hebrew word translated as "hang" and "hanged" is talah, which occurs in the Old Testament a total of 28 times. In 25 of those cases, the meaning is "to hang" as in "to be put to death by hanging." In Galatians 3:13, the Greek word translated as "hangeth" is kremannumi, which means "to suspend." Strong's lexicon even points out that it is specifically used in the sense of "one hanging on a cross." In other words, kremannumi is similar to what we would mean if we say we will "hang" a picture. No one would think we mean that we will execute the picture by hanging it from a tree.
Speaking of tree, let's look at the difference in the words used for "tree" in Deuteronomy 21:22 and Galatians 3:13. The Hebrew word ets is used for "tree" in Deuteronomy 21:22, which primarily means a literal tree or raw wood (like a branch or twig, or firewood), not a structure that has been made of wood. In Galatians 3:13, the Greek word translated as "tree" is xulon, which has a primary meaning of a wooden structure, like a cross or stocks, basically something that is man-made from wood.
The word tree occurs 40 times in the King James Version of the New Testament, and there are only four cases where the word xulon is used to refer to a literal tree: John 22:31 (though some may say even this instance is debatable) and 3 times in Revelation. Otherwise, when xulon is used, the tree referred to is a structure (primarily a cross in the New Testament). When a literal tree is intended, the word dendron is used to refer to a generic tree, and suke, sycamine and sycamoraia, and agrielaios are used to refer to specific trees (fig, sycamore, and olive trees, respectively).
In contrast, tree occurs 128 times in the KJV of the Old Testament. When the Hebrew word ets was used, it meant a literal tree every time except once in Exodus 15:25, where it meant "staff." Ets was also used in the expression "tree of life" that described someone or something that was good or necessary, but it still referred to a literal tree in a figurative sense. In other words, even if being "hanged" from a literal tree can be successfully argued by inerrantists to be sufficient to cause someone to be "accursed of God," being "hung up" (or suspended) from a wooden structure like a cross is a completely different concept. The difference in meaning between the Hebrew word used in Deuteronomy 21:22-23 and the Greek words used in Galatians 3:13 make this clear.
Paul obviously knew that Jesus was not hanged on a tree, but was instead hung up on a cross. His statement in Galatians 3:13 amounts to either an incorrect understanding of the Hebrew passage or a deliberate attempt to make Deuteronomy 21:22-23 say something it didn't mean in order to justify his theory that Jesus became a "curse" in order to redeem us. In either case, an error clearly exists in Galatians 3:13.
(Robert Miles, 723 Crystal Drive, Salem, VA 24153; e-mail,
wantobe@hotmail.com )
