Center for Informed Faith

We all know that Eve ate the apple in the Garden of Eden, so that the Fall is all her fault. Except that Genesis nowhere states that the forbidden fruit was an apple. In fact, unless climatic conditions were much different then in that region, apples would likely not have grown in the area. And Adam was with Eve in the Garden, and ate the fruit as well. What else do we know that we don't?

Can God make a rock so big he can't move it? Can he make two mountains without making a valley in between? Computer programmers have a shorthand statement for such questions: GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). God is not obligated to do that which is logically contradictory, like making a square circle or a red number seven. Such "category mistakes" are not his fault but ours.

Mark Twain is supposed to have said, "It's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand which bother me—it's the parts I do understand." We understand what he meant, even if he never said it. The Bible tells us all we need to know, but seldom all we want to know.

A woman once told me, "If you can prove God loves me, I'll trust him." I asked her if she could prove that her husband loved her, that his words were true and his actions sincere. She admitted she could not.

I will never forget my visit to the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. Each moment of those hours has haunted me for years. The pile of shoes which is all that remains of thousands of cremation victims; images of living skeletons and sunken eyes; Nazi tattoos on arms and souls.

The week after my first son was born, I was scheduled to preach on Genesis 22 and the story of Abraham's offering of Isaac. I had to change the sermon. As I told the congregation, I thought I didn't understand this story before. Now I knew I didn't.

The book of Joshua presents most readers with a troubling question: how can a God of love command his followers to destroy an entire nation of people?